Termination Dust

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

Later that night, Kimmie stared out the window in the bedroom she shared with Pip and listened to her brother’s gentle snoring. A full harvest moon rose through her window, providing enough light that she could still see the white tips of the mountains behind the trailer. As a child, Kimmie always loved that first sprinkling of snow on the mountain peaks — the termination dust that signaled the end of summer, the start of a new school year.

She’d been a good student. Even after her widowed mother moved them from Anchorage and into Chuck’s trailer when Kimmie was a teen, she had managed to keep up her grades. The Glennallen high school was small, just a little more than two dozen in her class, but Kimmie had been popular enough and respected. She learned how to pretend well enough that, as far as she knew, she never gave anyone reason to suspect what kind of hell she was living through at home.

In a way, those high-school years — riddled though they were with petty fights, catty gossips, acne breakouts, and nearly paralyzing self-consciousness — were easier than the life she was leading now. School gave her a place to escape, a sanctuary where for seven and a half hours out of every single weekday Kimmie was free from her stepfather’s incessant demands, yelling fits, and occasional beatings. That’s why seeing the termination dust on the mountains at the end of each August always left Kimmie feeling hopeful.

Free.

But all that was in the past now. Her friends from high school left Glennallen years ago, some to college, others to jobs in Anchorage or the Lower 48. In fact, Kimmie hadn’t even graduated with her class. Pip was born over Christmas break during her senior year, and since the delivery left Mom weak and anemic, Chuck decided Kimmie would stay home to help watch over the house and the baby. She earned her GED the same month her friends from high school started moving away from home, mostly for good. Kimmie didn’t blame them. How many times had she fantasized about leaving herself?

She and Mom had dreamed about it in scared, hushed whispers in the bedroom while Chuck dozed on his littered reclining chair.

“Meg will take us in,” Mom always declared. Kimmie’s older sister was seventeen when Chuck came into the picture, and she had successfully convinced Mom to let her live with her best friend so she could finish her senior year with her class in Anchorage.

Chuck was glad there was one fewer mouth to feed.

As Kimmie quickly learned what kind of man her stepfather was, she dreamed of a home with Meg. A life in Anchorage — and more importantly a life free from Chuck — would make putting up with her sister’s infuriating superiority complex worthwhile.

The unfortunate — maybe even pathetic — truth was that Mom was too scared to leave Chuck, and Kimmie was too loyal to leave Mom alone with a monster like him. And so they suffered together, drawing hope from their plans of escape whispered in dark bedrooms while the man who held them captive snored loudly from his easy chair.

And the years passed.

Mom grew gray, then got pregnant. Kimmie dropped out of school, and the baby brother she expected to despise snuggled up against her chest, with little dribbles of milk leaking from the corners of his mouth and gas bubbles that made him look like he was smiling directly at her.

Kimmie was so protective of her little brother, she swore she’d kill Chuck before letting him harm such a helpless, innocent creature. But as far as she knew, Pip’s father had never raised a hand to him, a mystery Kimmie didn’t know whether to attribute to their shared genetics or shared gender or maybe even the miraculous answer to all those prayers she’d prayed over Pip when he was a soft newborn who smelled like milk and baby powder.

It took almost a year for Mom to recover from the trauma of her home birth, where she’d been attended only by Kimmie and Chuck, who refused to let any member of the family set foot in a hospital or doctor’s office. Even once her body repaired itself, Mom never regained her energy, and the bulk of the parenting fell on Kimmie. Apparently, this was Chuck’s plan from the beginning. He wanted Mom free to wait on him, to dump his tin cans of beans and chili into the stove pot every few hours, to keep him in constant supply of sunflower seeds, cold coffee, and freshly opened beer. By the time the condensation no longer glistened on the can, the booze was declared too stale, and Mom was sent to the kitchen to fetch another.

Kimmie strained her ears to listen for Chuck’s snoring. Even before Mom’s death, he’d stopped sleeping regularly in their room. Apparently, it was much easier to remain in the reclining chair twenty-four hours a day. She was surprised he still made the effort to walk himself to the toilet, an act which comprised the entirety of Chuck’s physical activity if you disregarded the exercise he got hitting the members of his family.

All except Pip. God continued to answer Kimmie’s prayers for his safety. For her brother’s sake, she was grateful. But that also complicated any plans Kimmie might make about her future. Mom was no longer Chuck’s hostage. As tragic as her suicide was, Mom was now free. Which meant Kimmie could leave.

But what would happen to Pip?

She turned to look at him, sucking his thumb in his sleep. She should probably discourage the habit, but tonight she didn’t have the energy or the will. Pip was so young. Too young to lose a mom. Younger even than Kimmie had been when her father died. She didn’t have any memories of her dad. One of her biggest fears was that Pip would forget their mom entirely.

How do you keep someone’s memory alive? How do you keep a child from growing up and forgetting entirely? Kimmie had lost track of how many times as a kid she said or thought something like, my Dad died when I was four, but it’s not that big of a deal because I didn’t really know him.

How could she have been so wrong? About her father, about everything? If Mom were here, Kimmie might ask. Not about her father. That subject was clearly off-limits for as long as they lived under Chuck’s roof. But what was Kimmie supposed to do now, especially without Mom’s guidance?

She stared out the window. Wispy clouds had drifted in and found their way just below the full moon, which lent them an eerie glow. Kimmie didn’t believe in ghosts. The only afterlife she trusted in was the picture of heaven Mom had taught her from her earliest years. She was supposed to feel happy for Mom, now free from her suffering, free from her life held prisoner to Chuck.

A siren wailed from the Glenn Highway. Kimmie thought about Taylor, the kind trooper who’d shared Cokes with her in the kitchen just a few days earlier.

What was he doing now? Did he think of her? What would he say if he knew what Kimmie’s life was really like? What would he do?

Pip made a little whimper in his sleep. Kimmie pulled back his tattered blanket, crawled onto the mattress next to him, and stared at the wall where the harvest moon cast dancing shadows from the drifting clouds outside.