Poison -4- by Melanie Brown

By

Melanie Brown
Copyright © 2024

Part 4

The kids… stop. Backup.

My brothers had settled down in front of the TV with their pizzas. I sat in the kitchen with Mom. I tried not to be sour about it, but I didn’t care for the show they were watching.

Not because I’m now a girl. Mental changes like that don’t happen overnight, or so I was told. I was actually trying to keep a grip on who I was inside this female shell. And frankly, I never had liked the show they were watching in the first place.

Mom and I just ate in silence, brooding over my change. The change is huge for me, of course. And for Sandra, it’s a big change, too. She lost a husband and gained another kid to take care of. The boys? Their lives don’t really change, except now they have a sister to harass. Namely me.

I sighed and turned more away from the scene in the living room.

Mom looked up from her device. She handed it to me and said, “Looks like you made the news.”

I gave her a curious look as I took the device from her. “How so?”

“Just look.”

I looked at the screen. Call me a curmudgeon, but I admit I miss the days of newspapers. On the screen was a local news story.

The headline read, “Local Man dies in explosion.”

It went on: “While touring the campus of Mulberry University with his sons, David Williams was fatally injured when a failed science project caused a massive explosion at the science lab. Mr. Williams was struck by a powerful electric bolt that disintegrated him. He was a chemical engineer at Janus Industries.

“His two sons, Zachery Williams and Corey Williams were unharmed in the explosion.

“In an interview from his university hospital bed, Professor Grundy, Dean of Sciences exclaimed, ‘It was a real blast, chickie!’”

I stopped reading and handed the device back to my wi… to Mom. “No mention of a teen girl that was left in my place,” I said glumly.

Mom chuckled without humor. “You didn’t think they’d admit to that, did you?”

I shook my head. “Not really.” I looked down at my pizza, which I seemed to have lost my appetite for. As I pushed my paper plate away, I asked, “So. What’s the agenda for tonight and tomorrow?”

Mom forced a smile. “Well, tonight is your welcome home. You’ll be glad to know nothing in the house has been changed… yet. I started to re-arrange furniture, and then I heard you weren’t dead yet. I didn’t want you to be more confused than you already are. So tonight, we just relax and talk about whatever you want. And you start your new bedtime.”

I blinked a few times. “My what?”

“You’re going to have the same bedtime as Corey. You’re both the same age. Zach gets to stay up a little later.”

Scowling, I exclaimed, “That’s ridiculous! Corey is a child!”

Mom frowned back at me. “And so are you, Diane. A tribunal has ruled…”

I waved my hand dismissively. “Oh fuck them! This is their damned fault anyway!”

Mom’s eyes widened. “Diane! Watch your language!” There’s always been a rule against vulgarity in the household and I used to enforce it too.

But my eyes flashed as I shook my head. “Are you fuckin’ serious? Sandra, in real-time, I’m older than you. You’re being ridiculous!”

Mom stood up and slammed the countertop with the palm of her hand. “You listen, little girl. All this only works if you follow the rules.” Her voice shook with anger. “You can’t accept the rules, I call the university, and they pick you up and discombobulate you and hand you over to another family. Your choice.” Sandra had always had more steel in her than you would think.

But I was pissed off, too. “You wouldn’t dare!” I hissed as I stood up.

Frowning and holding up her cell phone, she said, “Try me. I know being a girl wasn’t your fault, but this only works if you become my child with my rules.”

I stood there for several moments, my muscles tight, just aching to say something stupid. Sandra… Mom stood several inches taller than me now. Kind of more intimidated than I expected, I relaxed and nodded. “You’re right, Mom. I’ll be a good girl.”

Mom forced a smile and I matched it with a shaky one. “This is hard for all of us,” she admitted. Then her eyes brightened. “Hey, let’s have some girl fun before bedtime.”

I looked at her cautiously. “Like what?”

Grinning, she said, “Let’s go to my bedroom.” I still remembered not long before when it used to be our bedroom. 

I nodded and followed her. She pointed at the bed when I entered our… her room. I climbed up onto the bed as she turned around and dumped several bottles of nail polish on the bed next to me.

“Pick a color you like,” she said as she got up on the bed with me.

I picked up a bottle. “What’s this about?”

Mom grinned at me. “I’m going to do your nails, silly.”

I dropped the bottle and pulled my hand back. “No.”

Mom frowned at me. “It’s not like it’s permanent. This is just some mother/daughter bonding.”

“It just seems so… so girly,” I said.

Mom cut loose a belly laugh. “What do you think you are?”

I sighed, trying not to tense up. “You have a point, but I always considered ‘doing nails’ as a colossal waste of time.”

Mom scowled at me, and moved to slide off the bed. “You don’t want to, fine. You can go watch TV or something until bedtime.”

I stared at the bottles of polish piled on the bed. I wanted to make a good effort at making things work so I picked one up and said, “This pink is pretty.”

Mom looked at me with a wry smile. “It is, isn’t it?”

I smiled at Mom. “Let’s do some bonding.”

Grinning, Mom scooted across the bed to be next to me. She picked up one of my hands and felt my fingers. “Such a delicate hand and so feminine. Let’s get started.”

It felt weird as she started smoothing the polish onto my nails. When she finished with one hand, she held it up and smiled at me. “See how pretty that is?” I giggled, mostly because of the absurdity. Not because, yes, it looked cute.

When Mom finished my hands and used a last coat of some kind of quick-dry, she picked up a really bright red. She handed me the bottle and said, “Now do me.”

“I don’t know how to do this!” I protested.

Mom looked at me sideways and asked, “Can you paint a wall?” I nodded, and she continued, “Well, there you go.” She extended the nails of one of her hands towards me.

As I started on her second nail, Corey stuck his head in the door.”Hey Mom! Do you know where my laptop is?”

Looking over her shoulder, Mom responded, “I’ll help you look for it in a minute. We’re kinda busy here.”

He looked in at us and scowled. “Busy. Yeah, right.” Then he left the room.

I started painting another nail and shook my head. “Boys!” I said, trying for that feminine tone of dismissive superiority. Mom just giggled.

                    *

Later, Mom found Corey’s laptop on his bed with a pillow on top of it. Another disaster averted, Mom got him ready for bed and returned to what was our bedroom.

My new bed was supposed to arrive the next day, so this was most likely the last time I’d get to sleep in the big comfy bed. I lay with the covers pulled up to my chest, feeling wistful and a little sad. I’d lost so much.

Mom came into the room holding a brush. “Is it okay if I brush your hair first?”

 “Sure, Mom.” I grinned at her and nodded with mostly faked enthusiasm. Anything to keep from having to go to sleep at such an early hour, I thought.

I sat up with the covers now in my lap, and Mom sat on the bed next to me then began gently brushing my hair with long, slow strokes starting at the top of my head. “Your hair is so silky and beautiful. Tomorrow, I’ll teach you how to braid it.”

I turned a little sideways so she could make each stroke long and continuous. My long brown hair reached almost to my waist in this position.

What I first used as an excuse not to go to bed became an activity I fully enjoyed. It turned out that I loved having Mom brush my hair out. I would never have thought that, but it was so comforting and relaxing. I felt a lot of tension and stress just flow out of me as she stroked my longer hair.

She finally set the brush aside and kissed my forehead. “Now you go to sleep.” She pulled the covers up again, and I snuggled into them. This little girl shtick ain’t too bad after all. I must have fallen asleep almost immediately.

End of Part 4