Sharing Nightmares

Tammy Oja || Darla

Darla by tamoja

Sarah’s eyes widened first, her already white skin paled and took on a waxen sheen. From
across the table Meridith could see the blue green veins spidering in motion across her daughter's forehead. Her slate grey eyes darkened and changed to slits as her surprised look took form into one of anger. The girls small fingers trembled turning pink with force as she clenched the fork tighter letting its mound of perched corn rain haphazardly back down onto the plate. She lifted her gaze to peer directly into her mother's and stabbed the fork full force into the aged oak table, the loud hollow thump filling the heavy silence.  She sat back and crossed her arms conveying a defiance Meridith was now becoming accustomed to whenever Darla was mentioned.

“No!  I'm not doing it mama. I'm not. I'll wash the dishes, I'll clear the table, anything else. Spank me of you want to, I'm not doing it.”

Meredith kept her eyes glued to the face of her daughter wondering where the anger came from. She had been raised with sisters, being second from the top she often had to bathe and care for the younger ones but had never bubbled anger like molten lava at the tasks. She waited, keeping her gaze focused intently on the girls, waiting.

Finally Sarah looked down, her focus on her hands, a whisper of a word “sorry” escaping from her pale pursed lips.  It hung in the air for a moment, and settled between them making the universe lighter again.

Meridith rose from the table, her chair screeching in protest on the wooden slat flooring, her shoes clicking their way towards the sulking girl trapped between being a child and bordering adulthood. She bent over the gangly pre-teen, smelling the sweat and earth of a days ending with a small hint of sour fear.

“Thank you. Just put Darla to bed. That's all. I'll go in and read her a story when I'm done in here. It's not so bad is it? Being a big sister, helping your old mom out?”

Meredith’s lips lingered on the damp salty forehead of her oldest daughter. The ringlet like curls framing her small face swayed to the puffs of air escaping her nose as she prolonged the moment for just an extra tick of the clock.

Sarah pulled her fork from the table and lay it in her plate.  Her eyes drifting to the darkened bedroom, her shoulders lifting and becoming rigid. “She smells Momma, and she scares me.”  The words were soft and desperate and Meridith cocked her head to catch them, like trying to catch a whisper from far away.

“You smell too, when it gets close to bath time. And don't you be scared of your sister for goodness sake. She's small but she loves big. She just has her own way is all. Just put her to bed Sarah, I'm not asking you for anything I wouldn't do myself.”

The small lamp in the bedroom clicked and Meridith turned and began to clear the dishes from the table. Scraping bits of uneaten food into the bin, running the hot water until her hands screamed in protest. She too dreaded the night although she'd never admit it. Like shadows, her fears stretched and grew with the hours. Noises and worries piling up like the bits of food making a pile so big it threatened to run over and crush her.

When the dragging and thumping stopped coming from the bedroom she wiped the dishes dry and put them in neat stacks inside the cupboard where wind rushed out of the cracks, cool against her skin that had been heated by the waters steam. She inhaled the smell of pine and sap and decaying leaves and closed her eyes, letting her fingers wander over the smooth cool ceramic of the blue patterned China.