The Consequences of Flight

It was raining. Standing atop her neatly made bed with chin propped on thin arms, she watched through the second-story window of her bedroom as the day bled gray tears. She pressed the side of her face against the cold glass, screwing up her eyes to focus on the square patch of concrete that was their driveway far to the left and below. Nodding with satisfaction, she wiped her damp face on the sleeve of her polka-dotted shirt. She wondered if the rain would damage the thing she had placed, secretly, only moments before in the center of the driveway. She decided it didn't matter. She stood outlined against the dull early twilight that crept through her bedroom window. One of her small fingers sometimes followed the path of a raindrop down the lightly fogged pane, but mostly she just watched the street below. The sound of her mother's bustle in the kitchen below offered a soothing cadence that she tried to press into the cold void that held her. She wanted to gather that ordinariness from the air and pull it over her head like a heated blanket. It was a futile attempt, creating warmth in a place cold with foreboding. She let it go. Breathing heavily on the glass, she penned the masterpiece of her name: Belinda. It snaked a trail to the edge of the window, and the "a" was painted on white wood with a wet finger. * * * * * She believed in love. She romped and played and felt the wild peace of sitting in the lumpy warmth of the green couch with her almost-twin, Elizabeth. She leaped and skipped and drew pictures of two brown mountains with an orange sun rising between. She studied the small life between parted blades of grass, she dozed in the sunlight that streamed through afternoon windows and she stepped in puddles of mud. Her mother put a bandage and a kiss on every imagined bump and scrape. The sighing of the heater on cold nights murmured stories of elves and fairies into her dreams. It was a child's life. * * * * * The first time she felt it she stopped and clutched her chest. "What's wrong, Lindy?" her mother asked, mashing the night's potatoes with the roaring of the hand mixer filling the kitchen. "It's empty. And it hurts." Belinda turned and looked into the family room where her father sat in the swiveling lounge chair reading the newspaper, her sister Elizabeth at his feet. His eyes rose for a moment and passed over her like a summer storm, fleeting and unintentional in its direction. Love comes, unbidden, to the heart of innocence. "I know you're hungry, dinner is almost ready. Wash your hands." "It isn't that." Her eyes fastened on the two sitting, oblivious, in the family room. She stepped into the bathroom, careful to avoid the reflection of her eyes in the mirror. She washed her hands. * * * * * There was a time of day when she became a hollow shell anxious to be filled. It hurt to be empty, and the animal instinct in her sought to fill the void by much tail wagging and leaping and rolling on the floor in submission. He came home from work at precisely 4:30 every day, with the newspaper under one arm, his cold metal lunch box under the other. He'd set the lunch box on the counter and retire to the plaid Laz-y-Boy chair in the family room, newspaper in hand. He'd take off his shoes and toss them across the room toward the open closet door. Please, she thought every afternoon, let him see me. Let him see me, let him see me, let him see me. Her eagerness to be seen was often displayed in fits of uproarious, egregious laughter. Sometimes she'd toss some small toy into her father's lap again and again. She'd try anything to get him to lower the hated newspaper and look at her, really look at her. Eventually he would roar and Belinda's mother would scurry into the room, admonishing the girls to leave their father alone since he was tired from working hard all day. Belinda would retreat in shame to the time-out place behind the couch, while Elizabeth sat contentedly near his chair. Afterwards, Belinda was always sure he had seen her. He had seen her for that briefest of moments. She pretended it was enough. She tried to talk to her sister about it, being seen. She had confidence in her older sister's perfection and besides, there was no one else to talk to. The words were distant representations of the original concept, and in the end they played the invisible monster game and she pretended that that's what she meant. She mulled over the conversation, and tucked it away until she could figure out how to say in words what nicked in the heart. In time she recognized that though everyone could see her, she was, in fact, invisible. It became her favorite game, one she played alone in the deep darkness of the shoe-littered family room closet near the chair he routinely sat in. The indifferent shoes he threw her way seemed to be an offering. She'd sneak out of her closet to pick them up, arrange them reverently near her, and read a book to them. His shoes didn't seem to mind. * * * * * Downstairs the sound of her mother's industry had begun to take on a frenetic tone. Her sister stepped into the bedroom with a proclamation. "Mom says get downstairs right now and pick up those crayons before Dad gets home or you're gonna to get it good." Belinda didn't turn, instead touched her pug nose to the cool window, leaving a button impression in the condensation. "D'you hear me? Mom says..." she jumped up onto the bed next to Belinda, popping her with a sharp hip to gain dominion of the windowsill. "Watcha looking at, anyway?" "The world." "You can't see the world from here, it's much farther away than that." Elizabeth pulled two fingers through Belinda's name, obliterating all traces of the masterpiece with heartless fingertip erasers. "You forgot the "a," Pina Poo. You're still a baby, Pina Poo. When will you learn, Pina Poo? It was puppy love, Pina Poo." The mantra went on. The bastardized version of her name rang in the gloom-filled bedroom and the shadows danced to the song. Belinda turned her face back to the window. From the tight corner of pane Elizabeth had granted her she could see the edge of the road leading out to the world. She wondered if it would hurt to fall on it. "Girls! Wash your hands and faces and get down here and pick up these crayons!" Leaden heels trod the short distance between the bottom of the stairs and the kitchen. "Better go, Pina Poo. Moms calling, Pina Poo. Time to fly, Pina Poo. Get the lead out, Pina Poo." Elizabeth danced out of the room, her singsong words jumping in time to her rump thump-thumping down the shag-carpeted stairs. "Will you ever learn, Pina Poo? See you later, Pina Poo. Dads coming home, Pina Poo." Taking up the relinquished position at the window, Belinda fogged the window with her breath and rewrote her name, careful to leave room for the "a." It won't be long, she thought. She stole a quick look at the driveway and the thing she had carefully positioned in the center of it. Her hand crept to the front of her shirt, directly over her heart, and gripped the fabric, twisting it so that the hem lifted and she felt the room's cool air on her stomach. Not long now. It happened so suddenly that she almost missed it, concentrating as she was on the lines of the road that led out to the world. The car glided into view and turned sharply up the driveway before she could fill her lungs with anxious air. She pressed her ear hard to the window, waiting for the sound that had haunted her dreams. It would be today. Then it would be over. Fear and ecstasy seized her. She sobbed. The whimper drowned out the noise she had waited for and her hands fumbled for the latch on the window. She unlocked it and slid the window open. She pushed hard at the wet screen, hands coming away once, twice, with a criss-cross pattern on her palms. Raindrops rushed to join the tears on her face. It was raining. The door from the garage was flung inwards with a bang and the house shook with terror. Her father's bellow filled the small house and then overflowed into the yard. Belinda heard her father's shout doubled--from the room below her as well as through the window she stood near. She continued punching at the screen. Her father's anger filled the house, it wafted up the stairs and slithered into her room, it fastened itself around Belinda's throat. She gagged. Then shivered. Soon. It was an old house, and the screens homemade. One more punch and the screen fell, silent, into the bushes below. Pulling herself onto the slick sill of the window, Belinda kneeled, then stood, on the ledge. For a moment the sound of her mother's pleading, questioning voice pierced the fog that had settled around Belinda and she paused to consider what she was doing, what she had done. Then the guttural curses of her father settled around her like a shroud, and she heard her mother's voice no more. "She left her sonofabitchin bike in the driveway again, goddammit. I told her I'd run the fuckin thing over and I did. Where the hell is she? Belinda! Get your ass down here!" Her father's heavy work shoes made the walls tremble, but Belinda had gone beyond that. A bird flew overhead, beckoning her to follow, and she dreamily raised her arms above her head. She envied the freedom the bird carried, oblivious, on its wings.  She looked down at the road that went out to the world. She wondered if it would hurt to fall on it. Let him see me, let him see me, let him see me, she whispered. The world waited as she considered the consequences of flight.