A zombie sat besides me in my mother’s frame, with eyes fixed on the air. The room was dark the only light came from the TV which danced on its face, exacerbating its wrinkles and sunken eyes. I watch as the zombies bottom lip begins to sweat as it reaches further back into its mind. The zombie grew a skeleton, bones jolted out of its paper skin as if they were trying to break free. It was 6p.m. and it wore a robe, the very same one that it had on at 6a.m. The left hand it wrapped its defined fingers around an empty glass. While the right hand, dry as the desert, lied limply on the chair’s arm, with its brittle and chipped nails it began to scratch against the corduroy chair making a prickling sound. I am lying on the couch with my phone out however I only stare at my home screen. I do remain continuously aware of the monsters jittery movements. Just down the hall my younger sister, Lacey, sleeps she is only a year old. I start to hear Lacey fussing, and quickly becomes a roar. I wait for the zombie to awaken from its grave, but it doesn’t even flinch.
“Your baby’s crying,” I say
In an instant the zombie begins to breathe. Her eyes rasp as they grazed in my direction and I see the moon in them, when yet another cry escapes. Her eyes grow even wider, and the small amount of color that pigments her face washes away. She recoils then springs up all at once, she does it so quickly that the cup in her hand crashes to the ground. It causes her to grab a hold of her breathe, and she looks down at the spill pouring her energy into staring at the broken glass.
Without taking my eye’s of my phone I remind her that “mom always said not to cry over spilt milk.”
She recollects herself as well as she can and shuffles away towards Lacey’s room. Once I hear the crying cease I slide off the couch and gather up the larger pieces of glass. I then get up to walk into the kitchen which reeks of vodka with a hint of fast food. The moon radiates through the window hovering the sink. I do not bother to turn on any lights. Instead I place my right hand on the wall trace the rough texture until a smooth surface runs under my fingertips. I grab the chilled doorknob and turn it unlatching the door from the wall and reach in for a paper bag along with a broom. I then leave the kitchen, and I am met by a dark hallway. Coming from the other end is a blue flickering light that lures me in. As I walk back into the living room I feel the air is thin, I sense that the room had been moist but then froze overnight. The room is large enough to accommodate for a living and dining space. We only have a seating area there used to be a dining table and other furniture, but there used to be more of us too. Sometimes I just come downstairs to discover something missing. I proceed to the glass and throw the big pieces in the bag. I bend down onto my aching belly, and blindly search under the couch with my hand. No glass catches my skin but I touch something cold. Without knowing what it is I jerk my hand back, and lift the couch skirt to search with my eyes, but it was too dark. So with curiosity filling me I extend my arm back into the gleaming darkness. I do so steadily as if I may awaken a monster which rests beneath the couch. I am able to reach the cold item again this time picking it up I am able to detect a rugged rim. Once I get my hand in sight I make out what the treasure is that I possess, it is my daddy’s lucky coin. He gave it to mom when he left us. Funny thing is before daddy left he wouldn’t even play a gig without it, but now he is willing to live without it. Perhaps he stopped believing in luck, or maybe he thought we would need the luck more than him. I remember that when daddy first left mom would weave the coin in-between her fingers. She must have dropped it one time when she fell asleep on the chair or something. I am positive she beat herself up for losing it, but I doubt she ever looked for it. It might have been that by then mom was getting used to losing the things she loved, but do you ever really get used to that? I slid it in my pocket, I knew mom would be emotional if she saw it again, and she was emotional enough. I cleaned up the rest of the mess. I did not want to be thanked so to avoid any confrontation from my mother I went straight to bed.
We never were a perfect family, but we used to be more perfect than we are now; we’re not even a family now. Dad was a starving artist, mom too, but mom starved her artist to death and became a bank teller. That sucks because mom was talented but she had to make money to raise my older brother and me. She couldn’t have us living in a van like we had been. Daddy never stopped, he didn’t make much money but he loved what he did. This had caused many arguments between him and mom, I remember. Daddy was still stuck in the clouds, when mom wanted him down on the ground she needed his help. He refused to get too close to the ground though, as if he was worried he would burn his feet. Slowly but surely mom started to become less herself. She was not in love with life anymore. There were two things wrong with that, one, being daddy fell in love with a woman who danced and sang along carelessly to the hymn of the wind, but she was no longer that woman. The second thing was mom had a perverted mind, and she was able to free herself of it through art, therefore without art she turned back to her old ways. The whole house became sad.
That is when out of nowhere mother announced she was pregnant with a baby girl. They installed so much hope into this new baby as if she would cure our family of our bitterness. And it almost seemed to work, mom was happy, and the whole house seemed to be happy. However this only lasted for a little longer than the 9 months she was pregnant. Because once she had the kid she got the baby blues, she was feared she could not raise the kid properly. Not after my older brother left us, three weeks after Lacey was born. Mom thought it was her fault because she hadn’t been paying all that much attention to him. I did not blame mother, she had been only paying attention to the baby though. But daddy gave the impression that he blamed her too
“It’s genetic ya’ know.” He ragged on during one of his drunken episodes.
I sat atop the stairs that night and watched daddy walk out the door, and that was the last I saw of him. He did come back one night but I had been asleep, and that’s when he gave mother the coin. He didn’t care to say goodbye to me, neither time, mom said he didn’t want to wake me but I didn’t see why not.

             Now I was grown, I was only a year older which makes me 13, but I have aged much more. Nothing really happened now-a-days things just were the way they were. It was day in day out, the routine smothered me. I didn’t really have friends, just acquaintances, I got myself into drugs but never anything too bad, I didn’t dare do meth or anything of that sort. I also a boyfriend who every day would tell me he loved me like it was a ticket, or a task on a checklist. I was in 8th grade, and the first semester just ended. When I got home from school I found in the mail my report card, and it reaped of D’s and F’s there was not even a C. I search around for my report card from last year. When I find it I compare the two, last years has all A’s and B’s along with comments from teachers reading ‘pleasure to have in class,’ those had been omitted on this years. I look and recover that every other year before were just like last years. Except for one C I got in 5th grade, and I remember coming home crying because it had been my first C ever. Mommy cradled me and reminded me that she still loved me, I was still upset but it had helped. When daddy had come home he told me the same thing and he included the fact that he actually dropped out of high school. At that point in my life I looked up to my daddy so I wanted to drop out of high school too. Once sixth grade came around I ditched that idea and went back to my old ways, I liked school then. I sometimes think to myself about dropping out now, but I don’t want to be like daddy. I rip up my report card and take it to my room. There is no need to worry mother anymore than she already is. I spend the rest of the day in my room, only leaving to go to the bathroom steering clear of any human contact. Though later that same night, like every weekend I get ready to go out. I slide on my gold and silver sequin tank top with some worn out shorts that just barely cover my butt. I stick big hooped earrings into my ears and step back to check out my completed look. When I look in the mirror I am disturbed to find how horrible I look, my black hair, once so long and silky is now short and dry, really bringing out the dark bags underneath my eyes. To compensate I circle my eyes with black eyeliner I also gob glitter on my eyelids and on my cheekbones. I don’t bother to ask permission, seeing I take care of myself I figure I get to make my own decisions. Mom doesn’t agree with that one though, so to avoid being heard I grab my spiked combat boots and carry them with me. I slither past mothers room easily, and I creek down the stairs praying I’m not too loud. At the bottom of the staircase I hear a heinous sobbing coming from the kitchen, I peek around the wall to investigate. On the kitchen floor my lies my mother, with her back towards me she reverts to the fetal position choking on air. I stand still for a few seconds, I take a step towards her, but then my phone buzzes, and I see my boyfriend has texted me, it reads ‘here.’ I decide to leave, so I turn and walk out being careful to not make a sound. I walk outside it is dark and musty. My boyfriend waits for me in his blue sedan and I can hear the pulse of the bass. I get into his car, he is only fifteen but he takes his dad’s car all the time. He grabs me by the waist and I pull away, he’s smirks and turns his head away from me.
“You lucky I’m givin’ you a ride to this thing kid, common.”
I know he is right “I’m sorry I just had a bad day.”
“Well we finna make it a good day then”
I look at him, then at my feet. Out of his pocket he pulls out a pill
“take this babe it’ll clear your mind.”
I hold my hand out and look at take hold of it. He starts to drive and I something starts to pull at my chest, I try to get rid of the feeling but I just feel wrong. And I think to myself ‘there is really nothing I could have done for her anyways, truly it’s not fair mother can’t be a mess I’m the kid she’s supposed to care for me, not vice versa.’ But that doesn’t help any, so I take the pill and he was right I am left without a single thought.
The next morning I wake up in a bed. How I got there, God knows. Well actually I know too, it was my closest peer who I would be almost willing to call a friend. I know this mainly because it was her bed I woke up in, also because this was not the first time this has happened. She lived right across the street from me so it’s not really too much of a burden to get home from here, thank goodness too because there was a pounding in my head. She cares for me because she had been a friend of my brother’s and I think she feels responsible for me kind of. I feel bad that she always takes care of me, she doesn’t have to but I like that she does at the same time. She always tells me my boyfriend is trouble, they’re in the same grade, so she’s always telling me that I should stay away from him. I know if my brother was still here he’d kill my boyfriend, she does her best to keep me from him in my brother’s name and mine. She has been sober since my brother left, but her boyfriend is not so she is always around the party scene. I groan as I roll out of her bed, when I pass a mirror I see that I look even worse than before. It comes as no surprise but I didn’t think I could look worse than yesterday. I clean up a bit, by clearing off the black make-up running down my face. Then I cross the street to my own house. When I get home I see mom has picked herself up from the floor. I climb the stairs and collapse in my bed. It’s just about an hour later when mom comes into my room.
“Go to church with me” what the heck mom doesn’t go to church, does she know of my sins?
“No” I mumble into my pillow.
“You can talk to me...if you ever need someone to talk to” she has to know that I left last night, but I’m too tired to care.
So I just ignore her. She bows to my cold words and leaves. A bit of guilt overtakes me but I purge myself of it. I hear the front door slam shut, when all of a sudden Lacey begins to cry. Though I want to leave her because she’s not my responsibility I know I won’t be able to sleep with her ratchet howling. I get my butt out of bed and take the hike to her room. The instant her door squeaks her crying hushes. The room is painted light pink, and there are angels painted hovering her crib. I near towards the crib and I see Lacey lying there smiling at me, for the first time I see that she has bright blue eyes. I think about it for a second, I haven’t really seen Lacey since daddy left us, not truly. I feel bad I mean considering the fact that this is the first time she is seeing me in a while now, and I look like a clown, but maybe that’s why she’s smiling. I definitely have not held her since she was born. She has grown so much, and I tear up because I don’t understand how I could possibly miss my baby sister growing up, what have I been doing? And she glows, her skin, her eyes, she is just happy to see she will be cared for. How unfair to her, it isn’t her fault, but she deals with the consequences of a broken family. I slide my hands underneath her, and I feel her soft hair, blonde, like mine naturally. I’ve dyed my hair too many times to count, but Lacey’s is fresh and I want to tell her to never dye her hair because it is beautiful. Her skin is so soft and smooth, no bumps or scratches and I want to tell her to never do anything to destroy her perfect skin. She is so fragile in a beautiful way not in a beaten down way. I grab her close to my heart and I do check her diaper, but it is clean. I also walk with her to the kitchen and grab a bottle to see if that’s what she wanted, but she refuses. So I go back to her room and sit in the rocking chair which mom used with all three kids, ‘third time’s a charm’ I think to myself and giggle which causes Lacey to also. I see my reflection in her eyes and all of a sudden all I care about is for Lacey to not grow up to be what is reflecting in her eye. If she were to grow up like me I would not be disappointed so much, but scared, and I begin to understand how mommy must feel. Two people she already loves have left her, and she has to watch me slowly slip threw her hands. I squeeze Lacey in my arms, and I start to sing to her despite the fact that I don’t have a good voice, but she still smiles at me. How lovely her smile is, how great it is that she is seeing me and that makes her smile. I love her, I know I do, I love her and she loves me, simple.
I stay there for a while Lacey falls asleep in my arms, when I hear the front door open and close shut causing me to grow anxious because I do not need mom seeing me like this, so exposed. Lacey starts to wake up, she must be alarmed by how tense I got. Her blue eyes reassure me, and I decide I will let my mom see me for who I really am. Because I am not a slut like all the kids say, I do care about my grades, I love my mom, and I love my baby sister. And I am scared, I am only 13 years old and I am scared of what I have become. Mom walks into the room and she is enlightened to see me. She looks at me in her eyes there is a sense of security and safety. I know that mom is willing to fight off any unwanted company for me. That’s when an overwhelming warmth comes over me I know mom is supposed to care for me because I am only a kid. I also can recognize I have to care for her because she is my mom, and together we will care for Lacey. We really only have each other, that’s just the situation we are in, so we ought to care for one another. All the weight on my shoulders lifts up and tears roll down my face, causing mom to start crying. I am sure we will get through this because what more could we really need when we have all this love circulating within us all. My brother might have left, and my dad might have left, but I won’t be leaving, I know mom won’t be, I hope Lacey won’t either. All I know is that I will stick around for a long while for mom, Lacey, and for me.