Broken Mirrors

Chapter 6

Crystal had decided that going to the store without the company of her new little bundle of sour sarcasm would probably be a good idea and cause her less of a headache. She left work a few minutes early since no one was in there at the time. She closed up and drove to the store quickly filling her cart with anything she thought a teenager might eat. The more high fructose corn syrup it had in it, the more likely Sophia was bound to enjoy it.

She also chose the makings of a few well measured dinners. She’d loved to cook, once up on a time. She’d begun to hate it, though, when she was married to Mike. He could find a number of reasons to lose his temper over meals. If he didn’t like what was served, what time it got served, the temperature of the food…they were all reasons for him to lash out. Sometimes she would even try to win by cooking his favorite food and calculating everything else carefully, but he’d still find something to complain about. Emotionally she’d begun to associate cooking with the anticipation of a possible fight.

Since Mike was gone she did very little cooking. She’d stuck to most anything that she could microwave. Outwardly she’d excused he activity by saying that cooking for one was difficult. It was too much of a hassle. After all, she had tons of other things to do with her time besides slave over the stove making a meal that only she would enjoy, and then she’d be stuck with leftovers that she could either eat on repeat for days or end up throwing out…which triggered its own set of memories. Cooking for one was just more trouble than it was worth.

Inwardly, though, she knew the truth. Cooking was only one of the many things that kept Mike there, just in front of her mind’s eyes. Still, she was hoping that with Sophia there, and another person to feed, she might be able to retrain herself to think about it differently…and the girl deserved to eat something besides frozen dinner from time to time.

Crystal also passed down one of the aisles of the so called superstore in town and picked up a few notebooks and some pens and pencils for the girl. She didn’t know what they needed in high school and she couldn’t remember clearly what her classes were really like. She remembered other things about high school, but the actual academic details seemed to be the least important in her memory’s opinion. She picked her up a plain backpack, though, assuming it would be good enough for the back and forth to the bus.

When she got home with her purchases, she unloaded most of what she could. She’d always hated to make more than one trip, so she could get almost everything in one load by now. There’d never been anyone that would volunteer to help her with things like that, and she didn’t assume Sophia would be the first.

Crystal unlocked the door, her arms straining against the weight of the bags, and shoved it open. She stumbled inside and deposited the bags on the floor so she could unpack them at her leisure. She glanced at the clock on the oven. Sophia should be back by now, unless the bus was running late.

“Sophia?” Crystal called. There was no response. Crystal glanced around the kitchen and saw the legal pad on the table that Sophia had taken to school with her.

Crystal scratched her head and left everything where it was to go and check on the girl a moment. She started up the stairs. The door to the bedroom was closed and she knocked at it, timidly.

“Sophia?” Crystal called. There was still no response. Crystal knocked again, louder, and finally turned the knob, pushing the door open. The room was empty. She walked around it, panic beginning to rise a little in her when she realized that the suitcase was missing out the floor. She yanked the dresser drawers open and flung open the closet door, hoping that she’d find the suitcase tucked somewhere. It wasn’t in there though. She checked under the bed in a final effort before coming.

In less than one day she’d failed entirely at this parenting gig. She’d lost Sophia. No wonder the foster homes hadn’t called her. They’d been right if they’d predicted that she wasn’t made to do this. Mike had been right that night. She wasn’t fit to be a mother. She wasn’t good for anything. He’d said that night that if she had she would probably leave the damn kid somewhere or it would drown in the bathtub. He’d been right.

Now what was she supposed to do? Did she call the police and tell them Sophia was missing? Where would she even begin to look for a fifteen year old girl? Did she call the social services people and tell them that she’d had the child at her house for less than twenty four hours and already she was a missing person?

Crystal realized that her breathing was picking up out of her control and she took a moment, leaning against the wall, to try to get it back to normal.

In an almost surreal fog she eased down the hall and down the stairs. Sophia had run away. Mike had been right about other things too. He’d told her that no one would ever want her…that he only tolerated her because she was useless and worthless…and he’d been right. The teenager had seen that from the beginning. Even to a teenager with no one and nothing…she was better off without Crystal .

Crystal made it down the stairs and tried to figure out what to do. She could try to look for Sophia herself, but really what was the point? The girl had run away. She’d left because she didn’t want to be stuck with Crystal . She didn’t want to stay there. What good would it be to drag her back there and make her try to stick it out? Sophia was better off without Crystal .

The best thing for her to do would be to call the child services, she decided. She could go ahead and tell them that she’d lost the child she’d been entrusted with. At least then they’d know what to do to find the girl and make sure she was safe somewhere with someone who was actually suitable to have her in their home. They could go ahead and throw Crystal’s information away too, while they were at it. She didn’t think they’d ever ask her for anything again, but even if they did she was pretty sure she didn’t want to try this ever again.

Crystal fumbled around, looking for the number in the folder of things, cursing at herself for not having taken the afternoon off work to pick the girl up or for not having come straight home to take her shopping with her. Mostly, though, she cursed herself for being a big enough waste that not even this kid, who had been through countless foster homes according to her records, could bear to be in her presence for more than a day.

Crystal turned, caught off guard by the noise of the door, and ceased her searching through the folder for the proper number to dial.

——————————————-

Andrew stepped over to the table where all the sprayers were lined up. He dumped paint thinner into the empty can that he’d just used and swished it around. He washed his hands quickly with a splash of the thinner and dried them with a paper towel. It was more to get off whatever wasn’t dried on than it was for any real deep cleanse anyway. Andrew wore, most of the time, a variety of colors of paint and a good deal of primer. He was used to it and he didn’t much give a damn anyway. It wasn’t like anyone in the shop was going around and admiring each other’s hands.

Andrew glanced around the shop, trying to find the girl. She’d disappeared and for a moment he worried that she’d decided to strike out without her prized bag of s**t that he’d left in the paint booth. He passed back in there and took up the bag in his hands. Coming back into the shop he crossed over to one of the corners where Richard and Derek were sitting, shooting the s**t and smoking cigarettes.

“Where the hell’s the girl?” Andrew asked.

“Ya mean ya girlfriend?” Derek asked. “Ya pickin’ ‘em kinda young these days, ain’t’cha Andy?” Derek drawled.

Andrew shook his head. He hated when his brother was at work. It was fine so long as he kept his ass under a car or with his head shoved under a hood doing the mechanical bullshit that he could at least do half assed when his hangovers weren’t ridiculous, but any damn time he crawled out from under one of those f*****g hoods he was just flapping his jaws like anyone wanted to hear what he had to say.

Richard took a drag off his cigarette, one arm crossed across his chest and put his foot up on the lower level of the step stool that he was sitting on.

“Went out back,” Richard said.

“Thought ya was gonna keep an eye on her,” Andrew said.

Richard snickered and shook his head.

“Ain’t told me to keep no damn eye on her and last I checked this was a shop, not a daycare,” Richard said.

Andrew turned around, rolling his eyes to himself about the assholes he left behind. He walked forward, coming out the open door to the back stall. He crossed around the building, heading toward the back, and hoping the damn kid was back there.

He supposed, though, that if the little b***h had decided to run off when he’d told her to wait that it really wasn’t his problem. He’d done what the hell he could do and he wasn’t no nanny. It wasn’t his job to keep people’s wayward damn kids from running away. And if she was running away from a worthy damn cause, then part of his gut wished her the best of luck out there on the road. It wasn’t going to be an easy life, but sometimes the s**t life you don’t have looks a hell of a lot better than the s**t life you do have.

As Andrew circled around, though, he saw the girl almost instantly. She had the door open to the Coupe he had parked out there and she was standing just inside it, leaning over so that just her ass poked out the open door.

“Get the f**k outta there,” Andrew snapped.

Sophia jumped, obviously scared to death and not expecting Andrew to approach her. She calmed a second later though and poked her whole body out of the car. Her hands grasping the frame in various places so that she could lean back from the body of the car, her feet still inside.

“Whose car is this?” She asked.

“It’s mine,” Andrew said. “Get’cha ass down.”

Sophia hopped backwards landing on her feet. She slammed the door shut and stood staring at Andrew.

“You gonna give me my s**t back?” She asked, eying the suitcase in Andrew’s hand.

“yeah I am,” Andrew said. “Don’t wanta be holdin’ on to your ’ dolls no longer than I gotta. Soon as ya get out the damn truck at’cha house and I see ya shimmy your ass right on through the door, I’m gonna pull off and it’s the last time time ya gotta see my pretty face.”

Sophia narrowed her eyes at him.

“You said you were taking me back,” she said. “Going inside weren’t part of the deal.”

“Rules change and I’ve had a little time ta think on it,” Andrew said. “Now I don’t know why the hell ya runnin’ away, but the offer still stands. If it’s so damn bad ya don’t want me ta haul ya ass back there then we’ll go in an’ you can call the cops. If that ain’t what’cha want then ya goin’ home an’ ya goin’ inside.”

Sophia crossed her arms across her chest.

“I told you that I don’t got a home. That house ain’t my home. Don’t you think if it was I wouldn’t have the address written down in my pocket? If it was my home, I’d know where the hell it was,” Sophia said.

Andrew thought about it. It seemed reasonable for her to say that, but regardless he just wanted to be done with this. It was almost closing time and that Coupe was waiting on him. If he had any hope of getting half of what he wanted to get done on it finished for the night, he had to get the skinny little young’un somewhere where she wasn’t up under his ass.

“Come on,” Andrewsaid. “I ain’t got time for ya horse shit.”

He turned, still clutching the bag and walked toward the tin can palace to get his truck. As he crossed the expanse of orange sand and bits of gravel that stretched between the shop and the dumpsters, his little piece of paradise lying just beyond, he heard Sophia behind him. He glanced over his shoulder once to make sure she was coming, and satisfied that she was, he dug in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, not bothering to look behind him again.

“Hey!” Sophia called. “Can I have one of those?”

Andrew stopped and scoffed at her, lighting the cigarette.

“No you can’t have a damn cigarette,” he growled. She caught up with him. She rolled her eyes.

“Figures you would say that,” she said. “You took my bag, though, and my pack’s in there.”

“Looks like today’s a tough ass day for ya then,” Andrew said. He wasn’t going to pretend that he didn’t smoke when he was probably her age, but he wasn’t giving her a cigarette. It was a habit he wished, sometimes, that he’d never picked up so he wasn’t contributing to someone else doing it.

He turned then and finished his trek toward the truck. It was a nice truck, at least in Andrew’s opinion. He’d done the body work on it himself, and Derek had done the mechanical work necessary to get the thing running.

It was a red 1955 Ford truck, and Andrew kept her shined up. So far she was the only one of the beauties he’d finished that he’d kept for more than a month or two. She was his pride and joy, though, even though she looked almost out of place parked in the driveway of the trashy old aluminum trailer.

“This your truck?” Sophia asked, pulling open the passenger’s side door as Andrew slid under the driver’s seat having fished the keys out his pocket.

“Sure is,” he said.

“Why do you have that rusty old car then when you’ve got a truck like this?” Sophia asked, crinkling her nose at him and sitting back against the back of her seat, her arms crossed across her chest. She turned around and glanced for a second in the back of the truck where Andrew had tossed her suitcase.

“It’s back there, quit your worryin’,” Andrew said. He pulled the paper out his pocket, looked at the address once more, and handed her the paper, cranking the truck and bringing it to life. “This here truck used to look like that old car,” Andrew said. “An’ you can bet’cha teeth that when I’m done ya ain’t gon’ mash ya face up at that car neither.”

Sophia raised an eyebrow at him and huffed as he pulled onto the road.

“So you’re a grease monkey?” She asked.

Andrew chewed at his cuticle and spit the piece of skin out that he nibbled off.

“Ain’t no damn grease monkey,” he said. “Derek’s a fuckin’ grease monkey but I don’t f**k with the mechanical bullshit too much. I’m a body man.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sophia asked.

“Means what I do is damn near art,” Andrew said.

Sophia scoffed at him, but didn’t really say anything else. Andrew steered the truck toward the address she’d indicated and slowed it once they were rolling on the right road so that he could read the mailboxes. The girl hadn’t gotten too far. They weren’t quite a half a mile from the shop when he pulled to stop at the right mailbox and where he’d found her on the highway would have put her about a mile from there before he’d caught up to her. She wasn’t much of a run away if she was less than a mile from where the hell she left and she was already visible on the side of the highway with her thumb stuck out. If she’d had any damn practice at this at all, then she’d know you stayed hid as long as you could and you sure as s**t didn’t start sticking your thumb out any damn where you might get recognized or picked up by somebody who knew you.

Andrew got out the truck and snatched her old suitcase out the back. He heard the passenger door slam and Sophia stood beside it, looking at the house like she wished it had burned in her brief absence. Andrew shook his head a little at the facial expression and offered her the bag.

“Go on now,” he commanded. “Get’cha ass in that house.”

Sophia curled her lip. She snatched the bag out of his hand, nearly taking his hand with it. Andrew crossed around the truck and got back in, cranking it up. He sat there and waited until she’d disappeared inside the door and then he drove on back to the shop to finish up everything that needed to get done before they could close up, especially since he was sure no one had done a damn bit of work in his short absence.

———————————————

Crystal’s search for the phone number ended with the sight of Sophia standing inside the door, her suitcase in her hand. There was some kind of gray dirt smudged on her face and on her arm, but other than that she looked unharmed.

“Where have you been?” Crystal asked, confused. She thought the girl had run away, but she didn’t think it was very likely that someone who had chosen to run away would appear again with their suitcase in their hand.

“Went for a walk,” Sophia said, shrugging.

Crystal raised her eyebrows at the girl and chuckled a little.

“You went for a walk? With your suitcase?” She asked.

Sophia shrugged again.

“You walk how you want, I do it how I want,” Sophia said. She started through the house toward the staircase and Crystal caught up with her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Don’t give me some line of bullshit!” Crystal snapped. “Where did you go?”

Sophia turned around quickly, each foot on a different step and her hand on the banister.

“I went for a walk. Now I’m back. Don’t worry about it,” she said.

Crystal wasn’t stupid and she didn’t particularly like being treated like she was by the fifteen year old in front of her. She felt like the girl had run away, but she didn’t exactly have proof of it. She knew that no normal person would simply take a whole suitcase with them everywhere they went. Still, no matter what had happened, the girl had chosen to come back.

“Why did you come back?” Crystal asked.

Sophia huffed and stomped up the stairs as though she wasn’t going to answer. Crystal huffed as well and started up behind her.

“I’m talking to you!” Crystal called.

Crystal reached the top of the stairs as Sophia marched down the hall, stomping toward the room. Crystal reached out and caught her by the top of the arm. Sophia spun around quickly, raring back a little as though she might take a swing at Crystal .

“Get your damn hands off me!” Sophia snapped at her. “I came back, what else do you want?”

Crystal was struck for a second by the anger radiating out of the girl. She regained herself fairly quickly, but it had given Sophia enough time to dart forward into the room and slam the door.

Crystal stood in the hallway a moment trying to think about the situation. She wasn’t sure if she should go ahead and call child services, assuming that the girl would run away again and next time she wouldn’t come back, or if she should try to find out what had really happened in her absence. She decided that she would give the girl time to cool off while she finished unpacking the car and got dinner started. That might give her some time to sort through what a responsible parent might do in such a situation…if she could consider herself a parent at all.

What she did know, though, was that if Sophia was going to stay, there were going to have to be some kind of rules in place, and they were going to be in place before the night was over or Carol wasn’t going to go any further with this whole endeavor that she’d begun.

Sophia might not want her, and if that was the case, Crystal would survive it. She’d learned how to be on her own. She wasn’t going to spend her time worrying, though, about whether or not the girl was going to be there or she was going to decide to just take off. Crystal had heard someone say at some point in one of her meetings after Mike left , and she’d learned to agree with it, that it was better to be alone than poorly accompanied. She’d gotten free from Mike, and she wasn’t about to let this fifteen year old girl be another round of torture.