Blossom

There is a bead of sweat on the judge’s chin, dangling precariously close, from the bottom of his face, threatening to spill on his spotless black robe. All I can do is stare at the bead of sweat and for some reason it irks me, annoys me more than I can understand or logically explain. I stare at the drop of sweat battling internally about whether or not I want it to fall and stain him the way I am being stained sitting here listening to this.

Next to me my mother sits holding my hand, black and blue, squeezing it so tightly I can no longer feel my fingers. I decide suddenly that I want the bead of sweat on the stoic man’s chin to drop, just so that the judge doesn’t look quite so perfect. So that he looks almost human and I can get some semblance of hope from within him. Something, anything to prove his is not the monster my mother has been describing him as. The drop of sweat remains where it is on his chin, as if it is mocking me. I want nothing more in this moment than for it to drop, fall and stain him.

My mother continues to squeeze my hand until it feels purple almost like it might just fall off. She sighs every 3.5 seconds, I know because I am counting, anything to distract me even if it is my broken mothers bruised and battered heart. She smells the same way she did during my childhood, like lost fairies and wildflowers freshly picked from the ground.

It is the same scent rung around my heart 3.5 times over. Next to my mother is the glaringly open seat where my father should be sitting in his awkward tweed suit and overgrown beard but can’t because he is busy with his new family, the one that doesn’t remind him over every mistake he has made, mistakes in the form of children and an ex-wife.

If there is one thing I remember about my constantly absentee father from my childhood it is his broken cigarettes with the filter torn off to get to the good stuff first. My father is not a man of patience, he never has been and like his torn cigarettes so much else has been rushed to get to the good bit first. I wonder what he is thinking now, knowing that his first born son is sitting behind the defence table playing with his fingernails anxiously like he always does, a nervous habit that I have associated with him for as long as I can remember.

I have a million and one memories of my brother, in fact there is not a lot I don’t remember about him, like how he has naturally mousy brown hair he dies an awful dark black. And that when he gets drunk he gets way too friendly with girls who have long names I never can pronounce, and that even though he doesn’t deserve to be sitting behind the defence table he is and that can all be tracked back to me.

It is all my fault.

I can’t focus on that not now, not here, not in front of people who want nothing more than my brother to fry simply to set an example. Behind me the door to the courthouse room bounces open and shut, in curiosity I turn and stare. It is in that moment that I find myself stuck. Stuck on the only person I do not want to see, the one person who can and does render me terrified and speechless at the same time. I want to run away and take my brother with me, but my mother is still holding my hand so tightly that I am terrified that I will take her with us and all that will be left in our row is the man sitting next to us and he is nothing.

I feel the strangest surge of emotions, faintness mixed with nausea which is not all that strange, but around her I seem to feel more, anger mixed with confusion, terror and worry. I had thought for a moment… Well it doesn’t matter what I thought. Of course she would be here today for sentencing, but when I had arrived and she had not been here I had expected her not to come. But here she is with her family waiting and watching for the sentencing like the rest of us. I wish that wasn’t the case but it is. I wish I were bigger and braver more like a night in a fairy tale but I am not.

I am me.

Fawn Presley and that has never been enough.

I realise belatedly that I am staring at her, the girl in the fancy white dress, white for purity. I imagine my hands wrapped around her neck choking the air and life out of her body and for a millisecond I feel better. But only for that millisecond, after that my brief happiness is replaced by a sticky feeling in the pit of my stomach like something is trying to climb up and out of my throat and lips. I recognise it for what it is instantly, the truth. The truth about me and her and everything that happened afterwards.

I could cry but I don’t.

I can’t, not here in front of that judge and his bead of sweat, and most definitely in front of my mother who will mistake it like she always does for being about Jayce, my brother. But this time, like so much else, is not about my brother but rather it is about me. And I suddenly feel empty, like a chasm has opened deep within my chest and eaten my insides, I am not sure if I enjoy it or not.
When the verdict is handed down I don’t blink. I am not sure anyone reacts except my mother who squeezes my hand tighter, black and painful. And I wish like so many other times since my brother was arrested something more could be done. That we could go back to the night and I could prevent it all from happening.

I wonder briefly what my father is doing in this instance and if he feels it, when everything changes. I suppose he doesn’t, but I do. I feel the undercurrent of change come over us, everyone in the courthouse, including her Hazel.

And I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

I am breathing so heavily that it is coming out in little puffs of air, and she is staring at me, I swear she can hear my breathing and my discomfort. My mother is solely focused on herself and my brother. I run a shaking a hand through my hair and stare back wondering if she is happy, if this is what she wanted. I suppose it is, why else would she go to the police about my brother?

I glance at my brother wondering if he will look any different, like the time he crashed his bike in third grade and broke his arm. But he looks exactly the same with his piercing blue eyes, the one quality of my fathers I wish I had inherited but hadn’t, and his black hair dyed to show his angst. And that stupid tattoo he gave himself when he was sixteen of half a star on his left thumb. I only notice this because his hands are spread out on the table in front of him and then all of a sudden everything starts moving.

My brother is being hauled off by the bailiff to the city jail and my mother is standing there screaming like a banshee as if he is being escorted to his death, which in a way I suppose he is. A stint in jail is hardly a life at all. I want to silence my mother, settle and quiet her and make her feel better but all I can focus on is the relief I feel in my hand not being squished anymore. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person but I kind of don’t care.

Someone, some friend of my mother’s steps into our row from the one behind us and leads my mother away out the back door. I turn to follow her but she is standing there, Hazel, looking at me with concern like she still has the right after everything she has done to my family, which she doesn’t and I am stuck again. Stuck where I am standing and everything is still moving.

I glance back at the judge desperate for something to still be the same, I notice his harsh eyes as if somehow the verdict has affected him but mostly well mostly I notice the bead of sweat and how it is no longer sitting precariously on his chin. It has disappeared and I know it has fallen on him like I wish it would earlier but somehow right now that seems wrong. I feel sad and cold.

And just like that bead of sweat my brother is gone. My stability, my one light in this dark empty world is gone and I know nothing will ever be the same.

Not now and not ever.