Cassie

The bat circled the sky, making lazy loops. I watched it from my precarious perch on the roof. It was a small black speck against the larger darkness of the sky. I lay back, letting my legs dangle over the ledge of the rain gutters. The shingles were hard and a little scratchy against my back but the breeze was nice. I could breathe up here, where the air didn’t belong to them.

It was a small rebellion, sitting up here in the cool night air. I was grounded again. They didn’t know I was up here and in the long run, it didn’t matter, it just felt nice to be by myself for a few moments, to breathe air that wasn’t full of hostility.

Sandy fell down the stairs today.

She didn’t even get hurt badly, just bruised her arms and her legs a little. It’s not something anyone would’ve been too bothered about normally, not something that would’ve made waves in our family life. Except that yesterday I told my mother that Sandy was going to fall down the stairs.

My mom had been making pasta sauce. I remember that she had the big wooden stirring spoon in her hand. She waved it at me absent-mindedly, flicking specks of bright red sauce across the white kitchen counter as she told me to leave her alone. Go watch TV, she said, staring at the recipe, finger on the page sliding through the instructions. Your sister will be fine, she said, not even looking up.

And now, looking at Sandy’s bruises, they say I pushed her. It didn’t matter that I was in my room reading when she fell or that I had no reason to hurt her. My mother looks into Sandy’s teary blue eyes and then glares up into mine. And I know that arguing won’t do me any good, just as it won’t do Sandy any good.

It was two weeks this time. And since it’ll be two weeks of scrubbing floors, doing dishes and washing windows, I open my eyes to the deep, dark September sky and take a deep lungful of the only fresh air I’m going to get for a while.