Perspective

Sanheshke Wakinyan

She sat in the shower, water cascading down her hunched shoulders. The pregnancy test sat like a tiny tombstone on the edge of the sink basin, cross and all.

This was the only way she could calm herself, letting the water turn her skin a scalded pink, like the color of the little plus sign. It was easier this way – to cry and let her tears mix with the shower heads, or avoid reality and its consequences, either option worked. As the heat escalated, the condensation of the room cloaked her in a haze that matched her train of thought. Disoriented and dehydrated she turned the knobs of the shower only to find herself staring at her lower abdomen, it was fleshy and tender, rippling with slivered stretch marks. She poked softly as if knocking on the door of a stranger’s house.

She wrapped herself in a robe and stood gazing at her frosted reflection, succumbing to the urge to wipe the mirror of its misted veil. She stood there in a staring contest with herself, examining the tiny features of her face. Her creased brow, crow’s feet, and withered smile lines. Ten-year high school reunion, unwed and now with child, wouldn’t Mama have been proud of her homecoming queen?

Her toes dug into the fluorescent speckled shag carpet as she crept down the narrow hallway plastered with black and white framed photos. Her own childhood glamour shots seemingly judging her as she passed. 

With a sigh, she swung the door closed behind her, and with a gentle thud she threw herself onto the floral clad bed. The doily curtains shuttered softly in the late summer breeze. Even with the windows open the room felt suffocating, its glaringly pink walls collapsing in on her.

The room’s state hadn’t changed since she left it, what felt like an eternity ago. A decade had passed, and the cracks in the fuchsia paint were an indicator. The room vaguely smelled of mothballs and musk, preserved like a time capsule, they would open and the painful memories that would be unburied. This is what her childhood was reduced to, dust laden teddy bears and Polaroids of years gone by- of ballet recitals and headgear, pet rocks and nail polish stains on a white wicker vanity and chair set, beaten sneakers and a plastic tiara.

She placed the tiara on her soaked head and looked listlessly into her vanity mirror, how much simpler times were. The wicker chair squeaked as she sank into it, resting her feet on the adjacent ottoman and producing a bottle of hidden whiskey from the lower drawer of the vanity, another fossil. She uncapped the bottle and placed it to her lips before she caught her own reflection; her hair clung limply at her shoulders, framing her still tear streaked face and puffy eyes. She set down the bottle before taking a swig. The pregnancy test … she had left it on the counter. She bolted from the room only to encounter her younger sister standing in the bathroom adjusting her part; Lisa reached around and swiped the thin white stick from the other trinkets of combs, pins, and cans of hair products that littered the washbasin.  She slipped the strip into her pocket, nervously thumbing it while avoiding her sister’s inquisition about what she would be wearing tonight and how she would style her hair. She hadn’t given much thought to the matter, she had packed a single pantsuit for the occasion, but her sister made it sound like life and death. She listened as her sister offered to dress her, her sister never breaking eye contact with herself as she applied mascara in the mirror. Sharon looked just like their mother, tall with a slender frame, a square face and perfectly carved cheekbones. Lisa had received all the features of her father, pinched face and petite proportions that mimicked her father’s stocky build.

Lisa left as Sharon began fumigating her hair with a cloud of Aqua Net.

Behind the sliding mirrors hung all the clothes abandoned from Lisa’s wardrobe, stiff and preserved like museum outfits of Henry Tudor, overly embellished and embroidered puffed sleeves rigid with self-righteousness. They appeared stiff as if her touch would cause them to crumble, just like everything else in her life. She sank to the floor and retrieved the test from her pocket, as if re-examining her life would cause the results to change. The infamous pink ‘x’ still marked the dollar fifty test.

From the nightstand, the bedazzled framed picture of her mother seemed to be equally concerned about her daughter’s current situation.

Mom had died eight years ago, and Harold had done his best, but no amount of cutting crust from sandwiches or enrolling Sharon in gymnastics to cover as babysitter while he worked weekend hours made him a decent father. Mom didn’t have any siblings, she always told Lisa that growing up was lonely- that she was so blessed when she became pregnant with Sharon ten years after Lisa. Sharon was only ten when their mom passed away, not yet old enough to hold dear the knowledge she imparted to Lisa; always bring a jacket, love unconditionally, and never pay full price for dented cans of soup.

Lisa remembered getting the call from Sharon, it was in the summertime, the end of Lisa’s junior collegiate year, “Mom is gone.”  Sharon had raised herself since then, and in the process inevitably became caregiver to Harold.

The shag carpet had begun to itch and tickle the sides of Lisa’s leg; impressions had already made their mark on the other. She vigorously rubbed her legs as she rose. Her legs had gone numb, just like the rest of her. She fell back into a stupor on the bed, a cheap tiara stuck in her nearly dried hair, until Charlie, the scrappy Jack Russell terrier Harold had got for Sharon, barged into the room. He seemed to be the only one truly alive in this house.

Lisa hadn’t seen Harold since she arrived this afternoon, he worked the night shift and occasionally graveyard, and it was easier this way according to Sharon. She reminded him too much of mom, and he reminded her too much of her lost childhood. They barely spoke. He’d leave a note tacked on the fridge at the beginning of every week with some money attached for groceries; she’d make his sack meals and draw a smiley face on the crumpled brown paper bags. Lisa would occasionally receive mail, holiday cards and such, written by Sharon and left out for Harold to sign and send. This was life now, this was Lisa’s expectation of family, not that she was doing any better.

Charlie had fallen asleep at the foot of the bed as Lisa began sinking deeper into her contemplative state. She had options, none of them particularly great. Her left-hand lay resting on her lower abdomen. Abortion, adoption, raising a child out of wedlock. Wouldn’t that be splendid as a headline in her life, “Up and coming journalist sleeps with married editor, becomes pregnant with bastard child”?

She had an hour before she needed to leave, and her sister’s gesture of help was a welcomed one.

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Lisa seemed different to Sharon since she arrived today, off. She was on-guard, overly vigilant, and skulking around. They exchanged pleasantries, but nothing more. It was another warm bodied ghost inhabiting the house. Lisa usually stayed in a hotel when she came to visit, they would sneak Charlie in, and Sharon would stay with her. They would play in the pools and watch cable, order pizza, and enjoy one another’s company, but not this time.

Perhaps it was work. Lisa always found time to write to Sharon about work, Lisa had told Sharon she was up for a potential promotion at work, a column of her own.

Sharon had saved clippings of all of her sister’s work, paid two dollars for the yearly subscription and carefully cut each article out. They weren’t much, mostly puff pieces, but they were her sister’s and she was proud. Whenever she missed her, she would open the scrapbook of her sister’s scattered career and imagine Lisa thinking out her writing. Lisa always wrote beautifully, captivating her readers with wild imagery, even if it was just about how to prepare a roast hen.

She figured out what was wrong with Lisa when she entered the bathroom soon after Lisa vacated— a positive pregnancy test. She had eyeballed it early on, but it was Lisa’s own life and she would tell her in her own time…and now wasn’t that time. She examined her face in the streaked mirror, nothing new to see but her squared face and arched eyebrows. She leaned against the counter to apply mascara as Lisa slinked back in, palming the test strip like a stealthy pickpocket adorned with the stolen royal jewels. Sharon offered her assistance with styling and make-up, she had already read the latest issue of Vogue and had purchased a dress she knew her sister would look great in, minus the plastic crown her sister was currently sporting. 

That is how Sharon got her information these days, women’s magazines. Lisa had left before imparting any great womanly wisdom to her. Their Dad wasn’t much help; he knew nothing about eyeshadow or how to tease hair. With no other family, Vogue had become Sharon’s bible. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Lisa scampered back to her old bedroom. Sharon didn’t have many friends of her own and was widely regarded as a shut in by her classmates, in reality she would stay up as late as she could to see her Dad when he got home, she inevitably would fall asleep on the couch and always wake up in her bed. Other than the weekly grocery notes he left, and added towels to the hamper, this was the only sign that her Dad even existed in the house. Charlie left more impact, his scattered toys and pips were the only life left in the house. She knew she grew up too fast, but unlike Lisa she didn’t resent their dad for that. He was never really the coddling type, but she knew he had always done his best.

He had gotten Charlie for Sharon when she was eleven, to protect her and keep her company when he was gone, and he always did that. Charlie was her tiny sentinel and sentry throughout the years. He would run with her during her cross-country practice and in that respect had gained her a few friends who mostly stuck around for Charlie’s bubbly personality.

Sharon finished teasing her hair into a perfect bouffant. She needed the practice for when Lisa would inevitably come to her for help.

Ten-year high school reunion. She pondered over where she would be in ten years, would she be working a nine to five like Lisa, or running professionally. Running was her only prospect in life, it made her happy and she was decent at it. Low time and high endurance, but it was too much of a leap to believe that she could potentially make an Olympic team one day. Lisa left this town using her literary skills and a writing competition, Sharon was going to leave this town running with Charlie at her heels.

Posters acted as wallpaper in Sharon’s room, combating the near neon orange she had loved as a child. It seemed to mock her since Mom died, the room they had painted together no longer held the happiness and promise it once did. She had Lisa’s dress laid out on her bed and thumbed through the latest issue of Cosmo while listening to her sister’s soft footsteps grow closer. A knock came from the door, and her sister peeked through. “Got room for two more?”