closet2

I was born on the sixth of March in 1976. Unlike my brothers and sister I was unexpected, and completely unwanted.

We were the lower of middle class living in the suburbs of a, mid sized city. We lived in a flat in the dead center end of a cul-de-sac. Our house was a blue gray and unlike most of the houses on the block we didn�t have a dog, or for that mater an over sized cat. We had a mouse, it lived under the sink, but mom spotted it and made my father, who I don�t even think is my real dad kill the �damn� thing.

The day I was born was a complete surprise to everyone in the family. My dad was at the bar having drinks with some friends. My 2 brothers, and sister all had friends over to our small bungalow, making the child count seven at the time. My mother totally unaware that she was almost eight months pregnant was bent over a deep fryer cleaning out the grease. This was when her water broke. I have no idea what she was thinking at that moment but it was another four hours till she made an attempt to get to the hospital, in which she almost had me in the ambulance.

My father was still at the bar. He was called and informed about the birth of his fourth child by the nurse at the front desk, who came back to my mother�s room in tears. I imagine that he had another couple beers before he left and cursed all the way to the hospital. Though I was only 4 weeks early, I was too small and had to spend my first week in a small plastic box, yet another thing my father was unhappy about because the hospital bill was going up and up and the checking account was going down and down. They didn�t come and see me once in that week, and on the day I was suppose to come home the doctors and nurses had to call the house five times before someone finally came to pick me up.

My mother tried to be a mother I guess for about the first year. The day after I was home she decided I needed something shinny to crisen my birth. My fist brother had a silver spoon with a rabbit on it, hit twin had a cup with the same rabbit on it. They were probably a set and my parents being as cheep as they were and are just split them up and each got a piece. My sister got silver rattle, and well for me my mother instead of making a trip to Myer-n-Frank, went down to the local corner store and got me a gold locket. It looked god for years, and for a long time I thought it was. There was a picture in it but I have a feeling that it was the one that came in it originally. She was beautiful, looked nothing like my family, and when I tried to ask about her my parents always changed the subject. One day when I was skipping down the street the locket opened though and she fell out and in to the drain where she quickly drifted to her fait in our overly polluted river.

In our house we had three rooms. My parents had a room. My grandmother had a room. And the kids had a room. My brothers had matching blue beds on one side, my sister a pink one on the other side. There wasn�t enough room in the room for me to have my own bed so I had a second hand feather mattress stuck in the back corner next to the closet door. When I got the mattress it had already lost half it�s stuffing and it lost more and more every year after that. Because of that bed I had to have a lot of chiropractic work done to correct the damage. The locket I originally kept in a small gray box under my pillow. Mostly every morning I would wake up and it would be the first thing I would put on. Every once awhile I would choose not to. It gave me the elution of power for the morning, because it was really the only thing I had control over, weather or not I put on that necklace in the morning or not.
One day when I was about eight I was siting at the dinning room table drawing in a book my aunt gave me. it was called something like � how to become a better person for little girls�. It was a birthday present, but I didn�t care for it much. The paper was good and I quickly covered the front with pictures out of one of my mom�s old �Glamour� magazines. I drew over the print in the inside with bright color crayons and pens. You could still see writing though the colorful pictures of not so happy things but it pleased me all the same. I had been drawing there for a wile and the necklace was starting to itch so I took it off, placed it on the table, and pushed it to the center so it was out of my way. Not too long after I went to use the restroom a task that would take all of four minutes. One minute to get there, two to go and wash, and one to get back. My mother had been in the kitchen at the time. Well I think she was.

When I got back the locket was on the ground and the top piece was broken in to two. The rest of the cover was loose on the little hinge and the chain was crimped. I just sat there starring blankly at it for a bit. My mom came in a chuckled a little and said � you should know better than to leave your things on the floor�.

I also knew better than to talk back so I didn�t say anything and she walked past, accidentally kicking me as she went. I think it was then as I was studding my �fine� piece of jewelry, when I realized it was not so fine after all. In between the two thin coats of gold was a thick layer of unknown dark gray metal, definitely not gold. I picked up the piece that had completely broken off and snapped it in two. I proceeded to brake the rest of the locket in to small pieces, and in the end was left with a small pile of gray material, with little gray flakes. I threw all of this in to the trash outside and whet to my room.
It was the next morning that my mother came in to my room early and told me that she had been thinking and decided that I was grounded for a month for braking my locket.

What I didn�t understand then was how it all happened. My mother and I had been the only ones in the house. My brothers and sister where all at summer camp and my dad was at work. Normally my getting grounded didn�t make a lot of sense, so I don�t really know why I thought this one would.