Behind Closed Doors
by Annmarie Ferry
She trudged to school every day, struggling with her beat-up backpack filled with books and binders. She dared not loosen her grip on one of the straps to wipe the beads of sweat that formed on her brow—it took all of her strength to carry that heavy load.
Her habit was to cut through the historic district with old, unique homes. Homes that rich people renovated to their original charm and character. Homes that rich people meticulously maintained so people could walk or drive through their pristine section of downtown and gawk at the fruits of their labor.
The thing she loved most about the homes were the front doors. It seemed to her the home owners had a competition going to see who had the most extravagant, colorful, distinctive barrier to the outside world. Some were rich wood with intricate carvings, painted in bright hues of yellow, blue, red, and orange. Carefully crafted stained glass inserts adorned others. Some had frosted glass etched with dolphins, manatees, or tropical birds. She thought about her own front door—a scuffed white metal door dented by bullets. A far cry from the elaborate doors she passed.
She imagined what life was like behind those doors. Dinners in softly lit dining rooms with fat roasts, steamy, pillowy potatoes, colorful steamed vegetables, salad, bread, and dessert every night. Free falling into a lush mattress with cold, sateen sheets, a cushiony pillow that smelled like lavender. Waking up to sunlight streaming through clean windows—windows free of bars. Padding down to breakfast with eggs, bacon, buttered toast, and freshly squeezed orange juice with parents who didn’t have to leave at the crack of dawn to go to their menial labor jobs. Choosing the day’s outfit from a huge walk-in closet full of freshly laundered options. Jumping in a SUV with a new leather smell to be driven to school on time and sweat-free.One day, she told herself, I will have it all like these people. Her daydream was interrupted by a black SUV that came screeching out of a brick-paver driveway.
She gritted her teeth, hiked up the straps to adjust the weight of her burden, and turned the corner to finish the last leg of her trek.
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“Get your stupid ass of out bed NOW!” she shrieked from the bottom of the polished wood stairs. “I am so fucking sick of having to tell you every goddamn day to wake up.”
The sleepy 10-year-old upstairs rubbed her eyes, sending a searing pain through the right side of her head.
Crap. How will I explain it this time?
She tiptoed toward the bathroom, peed, then checked out her reflection in the mirror. Yep. This one was a doozy. Too young for make-up, she knew she had to make up a story for her teachers. One that would keep her mother—and therefore her—out of trouble. She looked out the bathroom window at the teak jungle gym/fort combo and concocted her tale. She hurriedly got cleaned up and dressed—more concerned with how she would make it out of the house without inciting the wrath of her mother than how she looked. She came downstairs to find her mother pouring the pungent clear liquid in her travel mug.
“Let’s go,” her mother snapped.
What about breakfast she thought, but she knew better than to say those words out loud.
She grabbed her Kate Spade backpack and dutifully followed her mother to the SUV. She climbed in the back and barely got buckled before her mother threw it into reverse, narrowly missing a classmate of hers—the poor girl from the other side of town who carried a ripped up brown backpack and always came to school smelling like old shoes. She slunk down in her seat. Why did her mom have to drive like such a maniac?
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As the students entered, the teacher brought their attention to the writing prompt on the Smartboard screen: Describe a typical day behind the closed doors at your home.
The students groaned, most because they simply hated writing. But, the girls loathed the task for entirely different reasons. One because of the embarrassment of poverty; the other ashamed of the abuse she felt was her fault.
Oddly enough, both girls began their responses in the same manner:A typical day behind closed doors at my home starts with a delicious breakfast with bacon, eggs, orange juice, and a kiss on the forehead from my parents…
Wow! This is so poignant and so truthful. You're descriptions of the doors made me feel as if I was that girl, walking down that street. And the "pillowy potatoes" had me drooling.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't sure where you were going with the first girl, but I felt for her and had high hopes for her. The second girl immediately pulled at my heartstrings.