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Then, Brianna
The sun beat down on my head, the heat of the dry summer air stifling, choking. It didn’t bother me. I was too engrossed in my current sketch. I sat cross-legged with my butt in the dirt, my sketchpad open and resting on my knee, a pencil in my hand.
My mom was in the house, finishing up what little packing was left. We had to leave today, so while she was busy making sure she grabbed everything that was hers—and mine—I sat in the backyard, about fifteen feet away from the swing set, drawing my heart’s desire.
I was never as calm as I was when I was working. My mom ridiculed me any chance she got; no one wanted to be an artist these days. I was growing into a pretty girl, a mere twelve years old, so wouldn’t I rather be working on my makeup skills and growing my fan club online? Become an influencer. It’s easier when you’re younger.
But I didn’t care about followers or looking perfect. All I cared about was art. Dad said I had a one-track mind when it came to art and its many forms. He was right.
There was never a better day to have a one-track mind than today.
Mom and I had to leave the house. The divorce had finalized, but she’d gotten full custody of me. She’d fought tooth and nail for me, though I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like she loved me. She only loved me because she could use me. That’s what love was to Nicole Dent.
Hmm. Wonder if she’d change her last name back to her maiden name. Wonder if I’d have to change my last name, too.
My eyes flicked up off the sketchpad, the pencil in my hand pausing just for the quickest of moments. I looked at what I was drawing, my real-world reference. I might’ve sat in the sun, but my reference lay under the shade of a pine tree, its body mangled.
A raccoon. A small one. Bright red blood dotted the browned pine needles near it, a signal of what had happened to it.
Its death would not be in vain. I was drawing it. Well, my version of it, anyway. Lately, I’d taken up the habit of drawing a thick black line on my sketches. On one side of the line, I drew as lifelike as I could, and on the other…
Skeletal. Musculature. More in-depth.
Mom didn’t like my sketches, so I’d started to hide them from her. But, we were going to live in some tiny apartment in the city, so odds were I wouldn’t be able to hide it from her for much longer.
I took up sketching again, my wrist moving effortlessly over the page as I continued to shade in the raccoon’s fur on the left side of the line, but within five more seconds, I heard my mother shouting for me from the house: “Brianna! It’s time to go!”
As much as I didn’t want to go—if I’d had a choice, I’d have stayed here with my dad, because at least he acted like he was interested in me as a person and not someone he could mold into whatever shape he wanted—I had to get up and go, lest my mom come out here and see my drawing.
No, Mom wouldn’t understand as she gazed upon the raccoon’s body, at the blood on its fur and its caved-in skull. She’d shrink away from the small, gory scene and ask me:what the hell’s wrong with you, Brianna?
So, to stop that from happening, I got up, flipped my sketchbook closed, and tucked my pencil into the spiral. I turned away from the animal corpse, hurrying past the swing set to the house.
My mom waited for me just inside the back door, and when I reached her, she took me by the hand and pulled me along, through the hall that divided the first floor of the house, to the front door, where her car was waiting, packed with our last belongings, ready to go.
I’d already said goodbye to the house. It had started to change a year ago, when my parents’ marriage had begun to crumble. Now, there were no pictures of a happy family on the walls, nothing at all to signal the memories a house like this had. Once Mom and I left, it’d be like we had ceased to exist to Dad.
I spotted my dad in the living room, standing near the fireplace and talking to a younger woman—his girlfriend. He’d already started to date, to move on, like he didn’t care that his family of the last fifteen years imploded.
They’d gotten married young. At nineteen. Waited three years to have me. I guess I was filed under the mistakes tab, too.
Dad looked up when he saw me. He stopped talking to his girlfriend, causing her to turn her head in my direction. Mom had called her a wannabe trophy wife, but I think she was just jealous that she was younger and, dare I say, prettier than she was.
My mom took insult to anyone who dared to be prettier around her, and she loathed anyone who was younger than she was—thirty-four.
Mom didn’t let me stop and say goodbye. She dragged me out of the front door, letting me go only when we reached her car. “Get in,” she told me in a huff, her lips pursed into a thin line as she hurried around the car to the driver’s seat. She got in, slamming the door as she did so, and then she watched as I ducked my head and crawled in after her.
I met my mom’s eyes. If I said she didn’t look happy, it’d be a lie. She looked downright murderous, and I couldn’t tell if she wanted to murder my dad, his new girlfriend, or me for daring to exist as a permanent reminder of the last fifteen years of her life.
She said nothing more to me as she drove us away. I turned my head to watch the house become smaller and smaller the further away we drove, and I swore I saw my dad standing in the window in the living room, watching us leave.
He never called after that day. Never visited. Never had me over to spend the summer or any holidays with him. It was like, after that day, he forgot all about me.
Maybe it was me. Maybe I was forgettable.
Years went by. My mom struggled to make ends meet, though she never let the world see it. She always had to get her hair done every three weeks. Always had to have her nails done. She wore top of the line clothes and bought only the most expensive makeup. It wasn’t a wonder why we couldn’t afford to move out of the apartment and get a house of our own.
Mom worked at an up-and-coming art gallery in the city, and she worked her butt off to start hosting more events for more local, underrepresented artists. I always found it ironic, she since made no attempts at hiding how disgusting she found my stuff. But her hustling drove more traffic to the gallery, and of course, you had to pay to get in to see the art on the nights of the showcases, so even if you didn’t buy anything, the gallery won.
