That meant people were going to watch the music. They would wait to go to the bathroom. I would be stuck.
“No, no, no,” I whispered as I turned my back to the door and slid down to sit.
I couldn’t be stuck. It was too small.
“Much too small.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to focus on the words, on anything else.
My lovely friend, Control, smiled at me and waved goodbye. He was skipping happily away, and I felt my breath hitch.
“I’m locked in.”
I tried the handle again.
“Keep calm, Aubrey.”
This time it was burning hot.
“Stuck. I’m stuck.”
I jerked back and stumbled over my heels.
The heat. It meant there was fire. Fire everywhere. I was going to burn. Die of smoke inhalation. There was no oxygen.
Low. I had to get low to the ground. I dropped to the floor quickly and crawled away from the door to the opposite corner.
“Please, please someone come for me.”
I heard her voice in the back of my head saying that he would come.
Don’t worry, he’ll come.
There wasn’t enough air to wait. I was suffocating.
Smoke swirled all around. Swirled into my lungs, started to drown me just like water would. I laid down and army-crawled toward the door. I needed help. She needed help. If I didn’t try to get out, we’d die in here. We’d burn.
I curled up at the door and tried to yell. With no air, only a whisper came. “Please, please help,” I tried to call out as I banged on the door.
The crackle of fire from outside took over. It roared to life like a lion moving in to kill. She whispered from the other side of the room, “He’ll come for us, I swear.”
I whimpered.
Would he save us if he was the one who’d wanted us to burn?
The question forced Control, my sweet friend, out.
Memory, my sworn enemy, stepped in.
“Sit up straight when you eat at my damn table.” My father spit the words at me after he’d caught me slouching.
Women in his household were to have manners. I knew this but hated it all the same. Every time I went over to the Stonewoods, the boys didn’t have to sit up straight. They didn’t have to keep their elbows off the table or only speak when spoken to. Mrs. Stonewood, or Nancy as she insisted I call her, just told me to relax and have some fun.
Fun in the Whitfield household was unknown.
Mother sat silent. She didn’t glance up when my father patronized me. She’d mastered the art of invisibility.
That night, I tried to mirror her, not wanting to aggravate my father’s anger. My mother blamed his outbursts on his hard upbringing. She still loved him, said he’d been a sweet man once, that things could always be worse.
I never knew the sweet man. So there was never any love between the two of us.