He started to hum. He did this a lot. Maybe it was something he always did, maybe it was because he usually didn’t have a lot to say. Maybe it was the sound of his voice, or the warm water on my hands, or the smell of his cologne, but something fluttered in the pit of my stomach when his hand brushed mine.

​I had only meant to pass him a fist full of forks but I was nearly electrified and the current shot straight up my arm to my spine and the hair stood up on my neck. Did he feel that?

“So, I was thinking…” he finally spoke up.

“Mhmm.” I only grunted. This I learned from Mama. It was called a short leash or something like that.

“I was thinking tonight you might let me kiss you.” This wasn’t the way they did it in the movies. Usually, when a boy decides to kiss a girl, he just does it. It’s romantic. There is music playing and they both somehow “know” and they lean in.  Part of me wanted to laugh at the strangeness of the question but I had noticed a catch in his voice. He was nervous and I was too nice to make it worse.

“I thought we already did that on Halloween. You spun that bottle and it landed right on me.” I said as I rinsed another plate and passed it to him.

“That wasn’t a kiss.” He dried the plate and placed it on the rack and reached for another.
“Really? Seemed like a kiss to me.” I was starting to flirt. Me. I was flirting over a sink of dirty dishwater.

“No, no. That one doesn’t count.” By the strengthening sound of his voice, he was starting to flirt back.

“Oh. Well.” I tried to pretend like I didn’t care but my stomach had just hollowed out through my feet.

He was quiet for a little while and I looked over my shoulder to make sure Mama hadn’t snuck up behind. Matt and Pam were arguing over something in the next room so that was a good sign that Mama wasn’t within ear shot.

“It’s my birthday.” He finally said.

“Nice try. I know for a fact your birthday was last week.”

“Close enough.”

We were quiet again as I pulled the plug on the sink and we both watched the water gulp down the pipe. He was calculating his next move and I was trying to calm the nerves in my stomach. I wasn’t quite sure I even really liked this boy but he certainly had stirred something up in me. I didn’t expect this.

Sure, I had wished for it to happen at some point with someone; but, honestly, this boy wasn’t my type. I didn’t like his long hair and I wasn’t a fan of how tight he wore his pants. He walked with too much confidence and he smoked.

But… but there was something in the way he looked at me. He respected me. He valued me. He had seen me and chosen me. He wasn’t perfect but the longer he looked at me like that, with those eyes, one a little smaller than the other, the more I realized that perfection wasn’t what I wanted.

He was a lifeline. He was a sign that one day, maybe soon, my life would be different. It would be outside these walls and, maybe, with a family of my own where my own aspirations and dreams would have a place. Maybe a place to be always loved, never abused, never worried about what I would wake up to the next morning; maybe a place to be normal just like everyone else.

We dried our hands.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” He said with a smirk growing across his face. He knew, but he needed confirmation.

“Yes, you can kiss me. But make it quick and none of that tongue business.”

He laughed a little and I saw his cheeks flush too.

“You got it. I promise.”

“Ok.” I braced myself and turned towards him. He was smiling and as he returned the favor and faced me. So there we were, staring at each other. Mark put his hands on each of my elbows and leaned in. I didn’t move. I didn’t know how; I was stiff with fear.

We kissed. It was quick and soft as if he had barely even been there. I’m not entirely sure I even kissed back. But, just like he promised, there was none of that tongue business.

Outside, the ground was tough, compact, and deep red – Carolina clay they call it. While our neighbors’ yards boasted beautiful hydrangeas and manicured grass, ours was glaring with mud and weeds - much like an angry pimple on an otherwise porcelain face.

On this April month, however, as I screamed and wailed from the bedroom at my own jarring entrance into the world, a vine of sweet honeysuckle from the neighbor’s yard had gently wound its way through the chain link fence that separated our world from the rest, and wafted its sweet fragrance through the open window.

At 17, Ann became my Mama in hopes that my presence would secure her world and tidy up the loose, fraying ends between herself and her young husband.

It wouldn’t.

While the pregnancy had been just what she had hoped, with gifts and attention and praise, the baby wasn’t what she expected. I wasn’t what she expected. And while I lay there screaming on the soft loose skin that had been my home for 9 months, my Mama looked down at me with regret:
A girl.

As a girl I would, undoubtedly, demand attention, turn heads, and steal the affections that belonged elsewhere. To my Mama I should have been a boy.

I wasn’t.

On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot. On April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. And on April 14, 1960 I was born Mary Lynn Toney to Ann and Ben, both just babies themselves. 

My name, Mary Lynn, was my Aunt’s name. I never met this Aunt, my Mama’s baby sister, since she died when she was two years old. I suppose that’s fitting. I already share my birthday with national and international tragedies, why not a personal one as well.

She had desperately wanted to wear jewelry for the pictures, “the real stuff,” she had said. So, I slipped a ring off of my own finger and placed it on hers. It was the engagement ring her father gave me when we were first married. I had received another ring only a couple of years later so it was no big deal to let her wear the old one. Oh, but to her, it was something. She kept staring at it and when the camera flashed she made sure that the ring was clearly visible.

I took a long look at my own face. It was only a week ago but it felt like decades. I looked so young, but now, at only 28 I felt so old. I felt so warn, so dry, so brittle. I felt at every moment I was just catching my breath only to have it knocked out of me again - buoyed up only by my wavering faith. Those eyes, what they were about to see. My cheeks, the tears that would soon cover them. The smile, that would so quickly be slapped away. I would never be the same.

They would never be the same.

None of us would ever be the same.

Then, I stood, without even fully comprehending what I was about to do. I walked from wall to wall, removing every last picture of Dawn, every portrait, every snapshot. They stacked higher and higher in my arms until I could hold no more and my walls were obscenely naked. I found a box on the back porch next to the washing machine and just dropped them inside. Next I laid the new pictures, now back in their envelope, on top of the pile. I kicked the box to a far corner and tossed an old blanket on top.

Done. We weren’t the same and I no longer wanted to be reminded of what Dawn used to look like. What our smiles used to mean. I was starting over as best I knew how and it started here, on the back porch, next to a cardboard box, an old blanket and a rusty washing machine.
​
It would be a long time before those pictures would ever come back out of that box. They would never be hung. 

 - Lynn

Coming Soon! Stay tuned for more sneak peeks.