doedeer
Member
light poured in through the attic bedroom mars had been living in for the past four years now. in momentary confusion and annoyance, the blonde haired girl pulled the sheets up over her head. there were rarely days of sunshine in the gloomy city of seattle. especially not this early during the months of may. for a second, she opened her eyes up and stared blankly at the dark brown hue that shadowed her beneath the covers. it was the weekend, she quickly confirmed by the absence of her blaring alarm clock.
her only conscious thoughts in that juncture were of memories she hadn’t retained in years. flashes of her father carefully fashioning a pin on the chest pocket of her shirt, then her small self running through a door to…a play room of sorts. now looking back, she watched her father disappear into another room with a white-coated man. his tight smile contradicted the draining expression his eyes easily gave away and suddenly there was no father to look at. only toys and other kids were to distract her now.
then black. another memory. little margo kaplan wrapped in blankets and tears streaming down her face. her mother screaming, her father stoic, but shaking in repentance. pain was felt now, on her head. on the skins of her elbows and knees. she struggled to make eye-contact with either parent, but more so the real fight was to speak up even a word to try and stop all of this fighting.
by now, a 16-year-old mars was back to a slumber. luckily enough in fact since those memories were always the most painful to recall.
in truth, the night she had recalled was the day her parents were set to be working late. her father was in charge of watching her that day even though he already had too much on his plate. at this point, mars had accompanied him at his second job fixing the innards of boats at the seaport. it was nearing evening time and the orange sunset made the ships coming in look nearly black and mars was sitting on the dock watching their shadowy bodies creep in towards the docks. she had learned to ignore the loud noises of her fathers tools and instead her focus was on taking in the views of the ocean and tiny sealife. her father was working on a boat adjacent to her and, without a moments notice, was hollering at the five-year-old to step into the lower entrance of the boat across from him to retrieve some sort of tool he had forgotten to grab and was now in immediate need of. she stood up a bit too fast, her head spinning a bit and she was reminded of how hungry and tired she’d gotten being out on the docks all day. the sound of the tools coupled with her father’s suppressed vocals didn’t help. however, she was adamant about aiding her father in his fraught. she rushed over the algae-ridden planks over to the opening of the room she was supposed to get tools from. the muffled sound of a last minute reminder by her father about the ladder down led to her tripping over, her leg catching onto one of the rungs. unfortunately, she had miscalculated her father’s commands and fallen head first onto the cold, wet steel floor. this prompted a boost of anxiety and freneticness in her, but instead of letting out a wail she curled up and cringed for a bit until she heard her father’s voice again. “you okay, margo?”
“yes! i’m okay daddy!” she quickly yelled back, smacking the palms of her hands together to undirty them before using the little light from the entrance to find her father’s tools. she recovered the tool she thought he described and made her way back up the ladder. as she hauled the metal object up, she felt a warm wetness dribble from her elbows. she checked them with a glance, but was too distracted by the task at hand to fully comprehend the scrapes now bleeding. she approached the planks again with the tool nudged between her arm and her hip, but then a dark green blur with black specks appeared in her vision. suddenly, she felt really dizzy. her eyes darted to the side in an attempt to see clearer, but a drop of blood falling onto her eyelash had obstructed her attempt entirely. her left hand reached to rub her eyes and as her fingers touched the wetness, she had already wobbled into a fall off the dock. the last thing she remembered was the drowned out sound of her father yelling something in a frantic tone and the sound of tools clanging on the ground where he was standing. a splash into the water. and then nothing.
hours later she was waking up on the peeling burgundy couch of her small living room and her father was standing before her. he was in happy tears at the sight of her wakening, but the over-joyousness of a reunion was thwarted by her mother getting home and immediately slamming the front door open--proceeding to shout an array of curse words, some mars hadn’t even known existed.
for an hour, they bickered back in forth. mostly her mother had more to say and by the end of the fight, her father was reduced to a fixed position–his head down in shame and his still-greased fists balled up so tight margo thought it probably hurt. the contents of her mothers anger were directed towards the question of why he didn’t immediately bring their daughter to the hospital and these were followed by continual insults. mars hated it when they fought because her mother always resorted to picking away at his traits and past. her father would defend himself until he couldn’t bare looking at his wife anymore. mars wished she could tell them about her disdain, but she couldn’t. she didn’t know why it never even blurted from her mouth. usually by then little margo was lost in thought and the sounds hushed into a muffled buzz in her ears anyway. she had snapped out of it when she looked up to see her mother slamming the front door and rushing bitterly to their bedroom. her father was no where to be found, but margo knew. she’d seen her father get kicked out before.
the fact of the matter was…they couldn’t have taken her to the hospital anyway. with what money? there was no money for that. margo’s mother knew that. her mother didn’t take her anywhere after the fight. she didn’t even speak to her at all that night. mars laid on the couch in dark silence. staring at the ceiling and crying in soft whimpers, she found her way into sleep.
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