After The Light
675 Words
When bedtime came, Ariana put on the long T-shirt she slept in and got under her blanket in the little room off the kitchen. The mattress dipped in the middle. Through the wall she heard the drip into the pot, pipes knocking, somebody arguing outside, words blurred by rain. A baby cried in the next apartment over and nobody picked it up right away.
Her father moved around the kitchen, slower now. Cupboard door. Faucet. A chair scraping. The lock checked once, then again.
She had a strawberry barrette in a dish on the windowsill. It was missing a green leaf. Her mother bought it two summers ago and told her not to lose it.
Ariana shut her eyes when she heard him in the doorway.
He stood there a moment. Maybe he knew she was awake. Maybe he didn’t. He smelled like clothes, dish soap, and peppermint rub.
His hand rested on her shin through the blanket for a second.
Then he left.
Ariana opened her eyes.
The room was mostly dark except for the line of candlelight under the kitchen door. She looked at the crack in the wall by the wardrobe. At the chair with a bad leg in the corner. At her schoolbooks on the floor. She had missed enough class lately. Sometimes when the teacher called on her, she was on the wrong page. Her mother used to braid her hair before school. Ariana remembered the pull of it better than her face.
Down in the street, something glass broke.
Ariana pulled the blanket to her chin and kept her eyes on the strip of light under the door until it went out.
She tried not to think about her mother, which only made it worse.
South.
The word sat big in her head. Bigger than a place should be. She tried to picture her mother on a bus. Then in a car. Then walking down some bright street where nobody knew her, wearing the brown boots she used to keep by the door. Ariana remembered those boots because one zipper always stuck and her mother used to curse at it, then laugh when she caught Ariana listening.
In the kitchen a floorboard creaked.
Ariana opened her eyes again and held still. Maybe her father was getting water. Maybe his back hurt. Maybe he couldn’t sleep either.
After a while she slipped out from under the blanket and put her feet on the cold floor. Then she padded to the doorway in her socks. The kitchen was dark now except for streetlight around the window.
Her father was sitting at the table.
He was bent forward with his forearms on the table and his hands against his mouth. The coins were still there in a loose pile. Beside them sat the chipped mug from the candle.
“Daddy?”
He looked up fast. “What are you doing up?”
“I had to pee.”
He nodded toward the bathroom. “Then go.”
She took two steps, then stopped. “You okay?”
He leaned back and winced. “Go on.”
She went to the bathroom. The linoleum was colder in there. The medicine cabinet mirror had a black spot in one corner. When she came out, he was still at the table.
“Bed,” he said.
“Okay.”
She went back to her room and got under the blanket, facing the door.
A minute later he came in.
“You should’ve called me if you was up,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
He tucked the blanket under her shoulder with a rough little pat. “Don’t walk around in the dark.”
“Okay.”
He started to leave, then stopped.
“You hear me?”
“Yes.”
He gave a nod and left again.
Ariana listened to him move through the kitchen one last time. Lock. Faucet. Chair. Then nothing.
Outside, rain started again.
By the time sleep came, the drip in the pot had found its old rhythm.
- Writer
