DRAWING THE RIGHT CONCLUSION
by Sarah Crysl Akhtar
"Mommy's not gonna leave him, is she?"
"No," I said.
Lina frowned, shifting the perfect geometry of her face.
Mark wasn't even our stepfather. One word described what he was. He was acrid.
Lina's sharp.
You don't notice at first; she seems so cozy and quicksilvery, like a lovely little pet you want to squeeze.
I hated whenever Lina wasn't happy. Mom never seemed to notice.
Mom used to smell like honey, but Mark's nastiness seeped into her bit by bit. Like if the neighbor's dog keeps pooping on your little patch of lawn. It's ruined for you now.
Lina and I both knew Mom would never get us away from here.
***
Everyone starts with a real dad somewhere.
"He's not in the picture," Mom said, if anybody asked; "Mark treats my girls like his own."
We lived in Mark's house. It was really his parents' house but they were dead. He sat in the den most of the day, fooling around on his laptop. He called himself a writer.
Mom thought he was brilliant.
He was, in a way. He used to be a teacher, but now he stayed home and did nothing and the government sent him money.
Mom acted like she'd done great for us. It was a big house with a nice yard, and we didn't have to be on our own after school because Mark was there.
In the beginning he didn't bother us much. We never had to go on family outings, or sit together for long, or tell him about our day.
Then Lina's teacher called Mom in, to talk about Lina's attitude.
Lina really didn't care for the times table.
"They've got calculators for that," said Lina.
"What if you don't have one handy?" asked her teacher.
Lina said, "You think I'll have arithmetic emergencies?"
The grownups decided kind generous Mark would give some of his valuable creative time to help Lina with her math.
You could see he'd been waiting for a moment like this, to make us miserable and Mom grateful for it.
Maybe he'd never need anything else after that private little enjoyment of keeping Lina stuck in her chair until he said she could go. But guys like that will always want more.
