I squeezed my eyes real tight, but I couldn�t get what I had just seen out of my mind. My stepfather�s face in between my twin sister�s legs. Even with my eyes closed I could still see them. And I could smell them too. A funny smell. Kind of like sweat and something else. And I could hear them whispering and scrambling around like they were trying to grab up their clothes. I kept my eyes shut and squatted down in the corner of the bathroom, covering my ears and clenching my teeth so hard they hurt.
I wanted to run downstairs and hide under the blanket in my bed, but if I did I would have to run past the bedroom door where I had just seen them doing the nasty.
�Faith? What are you doing up here?� I heard Papa call to me real quiet like.
I bit my lip and cursed to myself. I was kind of hoping that we could just keep on playing the game that we�d been playing for about a year. Me knowing him and Hope were doing bad things when Mommy wasn�t around, but pretending I didn�t. Well, I didn�t know exactly what they were doing, but I knew they were doing something. That�s why Hope had become Papa�s favorite all of a sudden. Not that I cared about that all that much about him having a favorite. I never did like Papa, not from the very first time Mommy brought him to meet us when me and Hope were 7-years-old. My big brother Allen liked him all right, because he taught Allen how to talk to girls. And my little brother Johnny liked Papa too, because Papa took him to baseball games. But me, naw, I never did like him. There was something about him.
Hope took to him right from the very beginning, though, hugging and kissing him good night all the time. Then last year, just after me and Hope turned 11, I noticed that they were hugging and kissing a whole lot more and a lot longer. Something wasn�t right about it. They started spending a whole bunch of time together, and they whispered to each a whole lot when they didn�t think anyone was looking. I was always looking, though, because I was the big twin, and all my life everyone always told me it was my job to look after Hope. I hated it when I saw him rubbing her shoulders and touching her face and stuff, and I hated the way she giggled when he did. I wanted to tell, but I didn�t really have anything to tell. I mean, I knew something was going on, but I didn�t know exactly what. I thought about asking Hope, we always used to share secrets, but I was afraid of what she might tell me if I asked. So I just kept my mouth shut. I guess I really didn�t really want to know.
So if Hope and Papa were in the room together and I needed to get in for some reason I would always stomp real hard on the floor when I was walking so they could stop whatever it was they were doing before I came in. Because I knew they were doing something. I know they knew why I was doing all that stomping, I know they did. And so it was like we had some kind of a deal. I didn�t do anything to try and catch them, and they didn�t do anything too bad right in front of me.
But dang, dang, dang, how come all of a sudden they didn�t close the dang door before they started doing the nasty? And especially since Mommy was right in the house. Right downstairs. But no, not even when I came stomping up the stairs to get to the second-floor bathroom. When I saw the Mommy�s bedroom door open I thought everything was cool, else I would never have turned my head when I passed to get to the bathroom. Papa looked up from in between Hope�s legs just as I turned my head and we looked straight dead in each other�s eyes before I could run past.
�Faith?� Papa�s voice seemed more uncertain this time, and for a minute I thought about not answering him. Maybe he would think it was just his imagination, my walking past. But then I heard him whisper to Hope to go in the bathroom to see if anyone was in there. I wouldn�t have been able to stand that, looking into my twin�s face, and having her see in my eyes that I knew what she had been doing.
�Yeah, it�s me, Papa,� I called out quickly. I stood up and walked to the bedroom doorway as if nothing happened. I was thinking maybe we could go back to the game. Maybe I could pretend I really didn�t see anything.
�What are you doing upstairs?� Papa�s shirt was off, but his pants were pulled up and his belt was even buckled. Hope was standing next to bed looking down at the ugly green shag carpet, not saying anything. I got really mad when I saw she was wearing a yellow dress. Mommy always bought us the same style dress, but in different colors. Hope�s dresses were blue, and mine were yellow. Hope was wearing my dress while doing nasty with Papa.
��Mommy said for me to get her pocketbook so I could go get some brown sugar from the store because she�s going to surprise you with a pineapple upside-down cake for your birthday and we didn�t have any brown sugar so I�m supposed to go the store to get some, but I had to get Mommy her pocketbook so she could give me the money so I could go to the store but she said she left her pocketbook in the upstairs bathroom, so she sent me upstairs to get it for her so she could send me to the store to get the brown sugar.� I peeked up from the floor at Papa when I finished talking but then I looked down again real quick. His zipper was open, and part of his thing was hanging out. Eeww. I don�t� think he realized it, though. He was staring at me real hard, like he was trying to figure out something to say.
�Okay, I�m going to get Mommy�s pocketbook so I can go to the store. Bye!� I ran to out the bathroom and snatched up Mommy�s black patent-leather pocketbook off the dirty clothes hamper, and I was ready to run past the bedroom and down the stairs, but Papa stood in the bathroom door.
�Look, Faith, you don�t have to tell your mother everything you know, okay?� Papa was talking real slow, like he was picking his words real careful like. �And get yourself whatever you want while you�re at the store. I�ll tell your mother it�s okay.�
I could feel tears come all the way down from my brain to my eyes, and I tried real hard not to blink because I didn�t want to be crying. But why couldn�t he just have pretended that he didn�t know I had seen them? Now he went and said that, and that meant I would have to tell Mommy because if I didn�t we would all be playing another game � one called �Let�s All Hurt Mommy.� And I didn�t want to play that game. And even if I did, he might go ahead and decide that since I was playing he could do nasty with me, too. I didn�t put him past him, because he was such a nasty old man. And Hope was nasty too, because she was doing the nasty with him. But if I did tell Mommy I would be telling on Hope, and I never told on Hope and she never told on me. Not ever. But then again, if I did tell, Mommy would put Papa out, and that wouldn�t be such a bad thing. But then Mommy would be all sad, because even though she was real pretty and real smart and went to college and everything, she weighed almost 400 pounds, and she probably wouldn�t be able to get another man to like her. And then Mommy would be back trying to support me and Hope and Allen and Johnny on the pay she got as a bookkeeper in the real estate office on 116th Street. And she would cry at night like she used to before Papa started coming around. And it would be all my fault for telling.
�Okay, Papa.� I said real quite like as I walked around him. �I�m going to the store now.�
�Okay. And be a good girl.�
I could feel his eyes watching me as I walked down the hall. I heard the door close when I was half way down the stairs. Back to finish what they were doing, I guess. But even through the closed door I could hear my twin ask, �Do you think she�s going to tell?� |
