MOVING DAY

by

Phaedra Weldon

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Caldwell Press on Smashwords

Moving Day

Copyright © 2010 by Phaedra Weldon

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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MOVING DAY

by

Phaedra Weldon

"Mommy's crying again."

Her little sister's voice was soft, gentle against Sasha's ear. In less than six hours there would be no more mornings with her baby sister snuggled in the bed with her. No more late nights under the sheets with a flashlight. No more trips to the kitchen to sneak cookies from the ceramic cat.

In less than six hours, everything would change.

"I don't want to go with daddy. I want mommy to stop crying."

Olivia was five, Sasha ten. Sasha had been there, that first hour, when her sister came into the world. Her mother had told her she would be able to hold her little sister right after she was born.

But that never happened. Sasha had been in the waiting room with her grandmother when they rushed the strangely silent newborn into the NICU (NeoNatal Intensive Care Unit). Born too early with an underdeveloped lung.

Sasha remembered the fear hovering over her mother, and her father, a dark brooding cloud of despair. Both of them had clung to her, never letting Sasha go as their newest child fought to stay alive. It was in those moments Sasha learned a new feeling as it crept over her shoulders and pressed against her heart.

Helplessness.

Her parents were her anchors in life, the sentinels that protected her from the harsh realties of the outside world. She had never been confronted with a problem she couldn't solve—or one her parents couldn't help her with. But seeing tears fall like tiny raindrops from her mother's eyes matured her that day, stolen a little of her childhood. After that, Sasha had never complained when it came to helping out with Olivia. She watched her, made sure she was dressed, her teeth brushed, and her socks matched. Sasha and their mother were there to help Olivia make pine-cone turkeys, glittery Christmas ornaments and red and white hearts for Valentines Day.

Olivia had become her world.

She, her mother, her father and her sister. One happy family.

In six hours, when the truck pulled up out front, that world would change forever.

Olivia cried softly beside her. Sasha once again met with helplessness. Olivia wanted her to stop their mommy from crying. The future looked bleak and lonely, and Sasha didn't know how to change it.

Turning in her small bed she watched the sun rise slowly from the left corner of the window. The telephone pole which she'd never noticed until now, seemed menacing as it greeted the dawn and chased the shadows of night away.

And with it was gone that twilight time, when the edge of yesterday met the beginning of today.

If only there was a way to stop the moving truck from coming.

###

The house was a bustle as her mother finished packing up Olivia's things. Six brown boxes stacked neatly by the front door. Sealed with brown tape and white strings. The last of the boxes sat in the living-room and Olivia's favorite teddy-bear peered out through the half-folded lid.

Her mother stood in the center of the room, chewing anxiously at her thumbnail, biting it into the quick. Sasha stood just outside the door, partially in the dining room. She watched the tall, gaunt woman for a while, aware of her slower movements. She was looking at the pictures on the entertainment center, a behemoth Sasha's dad had insisted they buy.

Sasha remembered the argument, two years ago. One parent insisting it wasn't needed, while the other one declared it was. That Christmas their dad had won the argument, and she and Olivia got a Wii, and a Playstation that year. Sasha knew her father had used Christmas as an excuse to get the Playstation. He loved the racing games. Grand Prix and Grand Turismo were his favorites, and her mother always complained his driving got worse after he played them.

You drive too fast.

You're not paying attention.

Slow down—you're going to get us all killed.

She and Olivia spent hours making Miis on the Wii. One for each of the family members, then one for the bratty kid next door, the tall skinny man that sang while mowing grass across the street, and even the little old dog lady whose property backed up to their own.

The Wii still sat in its place of honor beside the flat-screen television, aged with a layer of dust. The game sensor a nearly invisible flat bar along the front base, sticky-taped to the press-board shelf. But the Playstation and the games had long been torn out, removed and boxed up. Her mother had pretty much removed everything that reminded her about her dad from the house. His pictures, his clothes, even his half started projects littering the back deck. The dead and dried Bonzai trees, the tubs of water plants he'd wanted to grow in a pond that was never started.

Sasha particularly missed her dad's series of ply-wood cut outs. A few years ago he'd thought it was a good idea to actually cut out a Christmas decoration of Santa's sleigh and eight reindeer. Paint them and then post them with lights. He'd gotten as far as the cutting and he and Sasha had started painting them together. It was a father and daughter project she thought would last for a long time; a couple hours a week away from the fighting, the shouting, and the veiled threats.

Oh God she'd lived for those few hours when her parents didn't fight. When Olivia painted along side them, and the world was peaceful once again.

Why daddy…why did you do it?

It was a pointless question. There wasn't an easy answer. Not one for her, or for Olivia. Especially for Olivia who couldn't understand how all of their lives had changed in a single night of betrayal.

Her mother sniffed a few times as she surveyed the center and then reached out to the family picture there, the one remaining family picture in the house.

"No!" Sasha was across the room before she realized it, her hand out, snatching the small frame from the shelf before her mother could lay waste to it the way she'd destroyed everything else.

Her mother's eyes widened and it was clear she hadn't known her daughter was nearby. Sasha clutched the picture to her chest. "You will not destroy this one. Not this one."

"Sasha—" Pain burned around the edges of her mother's eyes. Red rimmed and bloodshot. She put her hands to her own chest. "Please. I can't keep that in the house."

"Why not?" she held it up for her mother to see. "Because we're all together? Because we're smiling? Because we're supposed to be a family?"

"Sasha—"

"I don't care what he did, mom!" Her throat, sore from the tears and sobs she'd kept hidden from Olivia, burned from the shout. "This isn't right. You can't just erase everything as if it never existed. And what about Olivia? Why are you punishing her too?"

"I am not punishing anyone!" her mother yelled back.

She'd never really yelled at Sasha before.

Sasha took a step back, still clutching the picture to her chest.

Her mother put her hands to her face, and then moved them away. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please…just give me the picture."

"No," she took a few more steps back toward the dining room door. "This picture is mine. You've taken everything else away from me. You can't have this." She pressed her lips into a hard line and blinked back tears. "I hate you."

###

It wasn't fair, to blame her mother. She hadn't taken anything at all away from Sasha.

Except her right to feel.

And she wanted to feel. She wanted to hurt. She wanted to cry, to scream.

Running out of the house she bolted to the back of the yard, to the tire swing her daddy had put up for her when she was five. Olivia was there, swinging slowly back and forth, her face red, her eyes swollen. Sasha stopped when she saw her. "I'm sorry."

"You and mommy were yelling."

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Don't yell at mommy, Sasha," Olivia said in her tiny voice. "Mommy is crying."

"I know."

"I don't want mommy to cry anymore. You're supposed to stop mommy from crying."

"I don't know how."

"You always make me stop crying."

Sasha sighed. "I know how to do that."

"Not if mommy doesn't stop crying."

"I know."

Olivia sniffed. "Please swing me."

Sasha set the picture at the base of the tree and pushed her little sister in the tire-swing for the last time.

###

"Taggart's Storage."

"Uhm…hi."

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, uh, you're supposed to come by our house today and pick up some boxes. I need to see if you would do that tomorrow."

"Who is this?"

"My name is Sasha Right. My mom is Lois Right." She gave out the address.

There was a pause. "Yeah, got a truck coming there in couple of hours."

"Can you wait till tomorrow?"

"Does your mother know you're calling us?"

"No."

"I'm sorry kid, but I can't reschedule. It'll cost your mom an extra forty-five if we reschedule this late."

Sasha thought about what she had in her piggy-bank. "I'll pay it."

"Put your mom on the phone."

"She's in the bathroom. Come tomorrow and I'll pay the money. Bye, bye."

###

Sasha didn't tell her sister what she'd done. Instead she'd convinced Olivia to come into her room for a game of "Chutes and Ladders." It was Olivia's favorite.

But Olivia didn't want to play. "Mommy isn't crying anymore."

"No," Sasha sat back. "She's taking a bath."

"She's crying on the inside. I can tell you know."

"Yes."

Olivia nodded. "Will you play this game when I'm gone?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Who am I going to play it with?"

Olivia tilted her head to the side. "You could ask one of your friends."

"It's a kid's game. They wouldn't play it."

Olivia frowned. "You play it with me."

"That's different." She smiled. "You're my sister."

"Will I always be your sister?"

Sasha felt the pressure behind her eyes and nodded. She would not cry, she would not cry. "Always, Olivia. Always."

###

"Where are they?" Her mother paced in the livingroom. She'd taken a long, hot bath, and her hair was still damp. She'd cut it short after that night, and Sasha liked it this way. It made her look younger. Though nothing seemed to help her sleep.

Sasha didn't say anything about the service not showing up. Instead she played in the floor with a deck of cards, engaged in a game of solitaire. Her dad had taught her how to play when she was a year older than Olivia.

As time ticked by her mother grew more agitated. The boxes remained stacked by the door. Sasha secretly hoped if the time came and went, that maybe her mother would change her mind. It was a nice dream.

Unfortunately her mother wasn't seeing things her way and started rummaging in the kitchen. "Sasha have you seen my phone?"

Sasha became aware of the pressure in her left hip pocket where the cell phone rested. "No."

"Where the hell is it?" her mother said as he continued looking over the house.

After finishing up her game, certain they weren't coming, Sasha went upstairs to her room, but stopped short as she heard a sobbing sound come from Olivia's cracked door. Was it Olivia crying again?

Intent on calming her little sister, Sasha barreled into the room.

She hadn't expected to see her mom there, sitting on the bare floor, Olivia's bear, the one Sasha had fished out of the open box, clutched in her arms. Her mother's eyes were so red and so full of hurt.

"Oh Sasha," she said in a quiet voice as she looked down at the game on the floor, neatly put together but never touched. And then at the tiny clothes set out to the side, complete with stockings and socks. Beside that was a headband of red, and a brush and comb.

Other than the few things on the floor, the room was completely empty.

"You said you would never come into this room again," Sasha said.

"Oh Sasha I'm so sorry…but you have to let her go. We both do."

"Mommy, you can't separate this family," Sasha stood over her mother. "You don't have to do this. You don't have to act like you and daddy were never married. Yes he did something stupid."

"I'm not acting like we were never married," her mother said as she stood and faced her oldest. "Don't you think this is as hard for me—maybe harder? She's my little girl, my baby girl. He took his love from me. And he took her. And by the Gods if I could change things I would."

"No you wouldn't," Sasha said. "You were mad at him. You're still mad at him. And if you hadn't been mad at him that night he might not have—" But she couldn't say it. For months she'd thought it, tried to forget it, but the thoughts always stayed close.

The blame.

The resentment.

"You do think this is all my fault."

Sasha didn't try and stop the tears this time. Instead she thrust her arms down and balled her fists. Truth, truth was always the best, isn't that what her daddy had always told her? "Yes."

"You do."

"Yes!" the word exploded from her. "You were always nagging him about the games, about his speeding. And you never stopped. You pushed him and pushed him and pushed him--"

"Until he killed himself, and Olivia."

And there it was. The one thing she wouldn't say. Couldn't say. Wouldn't believe. Her body was rigid. Tears fell like rain down her cheeks. She trembled at the memory of that night--six months ago.

The night her father and little sister died.

###

He'd gone to pick Olivia up from a play-date at a schoolmate's house. He and her mother had been fighting about the games for most of the afternoon. He drove too fast. He didn't watch the road. He was putting his life and everyone else's in danger.

And yet…

Sasha closed her eyes.

And yet her mother had told him to go and pick Olivia up. Yes, he promised he would drive carefully, even signing his promise on a discarded napkin in the kitchen, declaring he wouldn't speed with Olivia in the car.

She took a deep breath. "Why—if you knew he drove too fast—did you tell him to pick her up?"

Her mother held the bear so tight Sasha feared the seams would burst. "Don't you think I ask myself that every minute? Why didn't I go myself? Why did I send him? Why couldn't he have just for once thought of someone besides himself. She was just a baby…"

Pain bruised Sasha's soul as she tried to comprehend the emotions that warred in her mother's soul and marched across her face. She knew she wasn't old enough, or mature enough to handle so much, so young, so fast. But this feeling, this knot in the pit of her stomach, this overwhelming feeling that engulfed her like a wool blanket--it was the knowledge that there were no explanations for random acts of violence, both human and environmental. This understanding was the agony of maturity at childhood's end.

Her mother fell to her knees, her shoulders shaking as she grasped at the bear. "I've lost everything…"

Sasha stared at her mother after she said that. The absurdness of the statement angered her, but brought sharp clarity to her world.

And pain.

That pain leapt to anger and Sasha was on her own knees, grabbing at her mother's face, forcing her to look at her. "Everything? You think you're by yourself in this? Why are you shutting me out?"

"Because I can't face your pain and mine too."

Olivia stood in the back of the room, her small mouth worked into a smile. She still wore the same clothes Sasha had dressed her the morning of the play date, as if her tiny body had never known the horrors of a fiery crash. Through these months the child's spectre had tried to comfort her, prolonging the inevitable grief.

I don't want mommy to cry anymore.

She looked away from Olivia and back to her mother. "Yes you can. Don't you remember when Olivia was born? We stood together, as a family."

"But your father—"

"He's not here, mom." She sniffed. "But you and I are. We have to work together in this. And I'm sorry," she swept her hand about to indicate the room. "Burying their pictures, their memories, boxing up what makes us sad, isn't what's going to help us go on. I need those memories." She clutched her hand to her chest. "Stop taking all of it away from me." She wiped at the tears. "From us."

Her mother stared at her with wide eyes. She let the bear fall to the floor and reached out to brush a stray tear from Sasha's face. "When did you grow up?"

"Little bit at a time," she sniffed. "Please, mommy. Don't store it all away. So yeah we break down and cry uncontrollably sometimes. And we can't say a word because of pain. Our lives will never be what they were, and we go on without them. But can't we keep them here?" She put her hand to her chest again. "And in the house? I don't mean build a shrine to daddy and Olivia, but keep their memories alive."

Her mother's eyes welled with tears again. "What did I do to deserve you?"

"You married my daddy."

###

Sasha's mom called two hours after the scheduled delivery, and even though her mother wasn't happy about what Sasha did, she cancelled the pick-up and rescheduled a delivery of the boxes she'd put in storage two months ago. They ordered pizza and spent the evening going through Olivia's boxes, picking what should remain in the house and what things should be stored.

Sasha suggested her mother turn Olivia's room into an office with matching desks. Her mother could use the computer and Sasha would keep her laptop in there was well. It would be a mutually shared room, where the two of them could talk, and remember, print out pictures and put together scrapbooks. And after a few weeks of working together they had the room painted, her daddy's old desk moved back in and created a wall of family pictures.

Standing in front of the pictures, Sasha smiled and turned to Olivia. "I like it."

Olivia nodded too. "Mommy's not crying anymore."

"No. I think she'll be fine." She tilted her head to the right. "You don't have to go live with daddy if you don't want to."

"I know," Olivia said. "But mommy's gonna be happy now. And that's all daddy and I ever wanted. And for you."

Sasha looked back at the wall and reached out to straighten the family picture she'd taken from her mother that day. "Take care of daddy sis. And don't let him—"

But Olivia was gone. And Sasha knew on some level she would never see the spectre of her sister again. Mommy wasn't crying anymore.

And neither was she.

About the Author…

Phaedra Weldon is the author of the Urban Fantasy series, Zoë Martinique Investigation, published by Berkley, available for Kindle. She most recently completed the soon-to-be released Eureka novel, Brain Box Blues. Look for it in stores Winter 2010 under the name Cris Ramsay.

© Copyright 2010, all rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

For more information about the author please her visit website at www.phaedraweldon.com

Read about the further investigations of Zoë and her friends in Wraith, Out of the Dark, Spectre, Phantasm and Revenant, available in bookstores now, as well as Kindle and ebook formats

Table of Contents

Moving Day