Fine Motor Skills
A piece of short fiction. Yes, fiction.
Earlier this fall after I was protesting too much about the impossibility of writing fiction, my dear friend Anne suggested in her gentle way that perhaps I should try to write some. 2023 is my “transform” year (my word of the year) so when an image came to me that I couldn’t let go, I decided to give it a try. It has certainly been well before high school since I wrote a story. So thank you in advance, for this indulgence.
A content warning: this short (~1100 words) piece contains domestic violence.
Lauren stands at the sink, toothbrush in hand, waiting. Dishes are done but her day is limping to the finish line. Annie, as usual, is dilly-dallying. She twirls and laughs. Her slight frame collapsing into a loose curtsy. With a regal wave, Annie drops her toothbrush into the sink. She giggles hysterically.
“Come on, Annie,” Lauren says. “When you ask someone to wait, you don’t make them wait, right? They’re doing you the favor.”
“Alright, alright,” Annie chants. She fishes her toothbrush out of the sink and squirts out a fat smear of Kid’s Crest.
“Pea-size, remember?” Lauren sighs. “Only the size of a pea. No more than that.”
“Yes, mama!” Annie sing-songs back, confirming to Lauren that this lesson won't stick.
The moment is pierced by a straight razor of sound.
“What’s GOING on up there,”
Not a question really, Lauren knows. A statement to warn and confirm authority. The verbal equivalent of a pinch. “Nothing,” she calls back, voice lake calm. Lauren mentally wills Annie to settle.
Silence.
Annie, caught up in the black ice, looks down at the gloppy toothpaste now oozing in the sink. Eyes wide, she watches her mother. Lauren forces her words low and slow, “Come on, Annie." She tamps down an insane urge to run out the front door, hands empty except for a fifty pound first grader. “Let’s brush.”
The purr of her electric toothbrush momentarily lulls Lauren. Eight years ago, Thomas' scoldings seemed like the growl of an adult dog toward an eager puppy. More time with him than with friends. A household cash allowance given weekly. GPS location services activated. Cuffs of gruff love to help Lauren grow up. Lauren came to understand, quicksand too late, that these changes were not, in fact, metrics of adulting. How could she have been so stupid? Lauren asks herself for the millionth time. Annie spits and clicks her toothbrush back into its plastic casket.
.
A loud bang jolts her loose from a heavy sleep. She creeps from her warm bed, Petsy in tow, into the black, frigid hallway. Plump hands thick on narrow baluster slats, she sits criss cross applesauce. It's her dad she hears first, anger rising like smoke. Her tummy feels tingly, like it does after too much ice cream. She knows snooping is bad but she can’t peel her hands away.
“Please Tom, you’re going to wake her,” Mama's voice wet with pain, pleading.
“Who the fuck are you to tell me anything?”
Not words, more like a roar. Like the lion in the Andy and The Lion book Mrs. Patrick read in school today. Lauren swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears fall anyway, wetting Petsy’s patchy fur. The bear her dad said he'd throw in the woodstove if she didn’t stop acting like such a baby. She was six, for crissake, old enough to eat ice cream without making such a goddamn mess. Lauren tried, she really did. But chocolate was her favorite and why lick the cone when biting off pieces was so much better?
A shaky sniff and a deep breathe. Quiet bounced off the walls and deepened her fear. Lauren’s mind went to sharks. She’d seen them swimming in their tight tank on a class field trip. They were quiet but with their teeth grinning, they looked horrible. A chokey sob escaped her trembling mouth.
“Look what you did, you bitch.”
Her dad's voice was closer now. Lauren squinted one eye open. Where was he?
“Who woke her up, huh? Who? Who was it?”
Lauren felt his fury, an asphalt wave, closing in. Her hands tightened and the chipped wood sliced into damp palms.
“Goddamn it Janie, ANSWER ME!”
This time the bellow is a torpedo in her ear. How is he behind her?
OhNoOhNoOhNo.
Her dad is not behind her. He is directly below her. The horror of his location is the push she needs. Lauren wrenches aching hands from the balusters and races back into her bedroom. She hears “Tom, no!” as her dad’s long legs swallow the stairs two at a time.
.
Teeth brushing finished, Lauren waits for Annie to pee. If she falls asleep in the next fifteen minutes, Lauren could be in bed by the end of the game. Hopeful for the reprieve that could come with a Cowboy win.
Could.
Unless Thomas wanted to celebrate. Lauren grimaces and crosses arms over her chest.
“Bedtime, Annie,” Lauren softly chides.
“My throat is so quiet! I need a drink!” Annie declares, hopping off the toilet.
“No, Annie! You just peed!” Lauren gutted, feels a damn buckle inside her.
“I neeeed one, Mama. You told me to listen to my body! Well, my throat is saying it needs water.”
Lauren wavers. Her smart, beautiful child is doing what she, Lauren, taught her. That's something to be proud of, isn't it?
“What the FUCK are you two DOING?"
Thomas hates delays, changes, illness, noise. I don’t like that. Shut her up. Don’t ever criticize me. A bedtime drink is an interruption. A trick, he maintains. But kids are always doing something Lauren thinks, frustrated. They’re kids! She may not have finished college (Let me do the thinking, Laur) but Lauren knows that at least.
“Sorry, honey,” Lauren calls back. She shoot a hard look at Annie. But Annie's hours of good behavior are over. She stamps one tiny foot, then the other.
“Don’t make me come up there, Laur.”
Lauren feels her bladder weaken slightly. Thomas’ voice is quieter but pitch is the omen by which she orients. Talk less, hurry up, be quiet. Lauren yanks Annie toward her into a forced silence. Then, from below, a slight click. The sound of a single bulb pendant turned on, installed the day before. A soft glow flushes the walls creamy pink. As Lauren looks toward the warm beam, the light behind the balusters shifts.
Instantly, Lauren knows what she is seeing. She takes a step back from Annie's shaking body. Lauren opens her hands and an old ache pulses through the palms. She is twenty seven years old, ancient. She closes and then opens them again slowly, feeling her muscles contract. The complex integrity of the human hand is one of the factors that sets us apart from other animals, Lauren remembers from high school anatomy. She takes a breathe and turns away from Annie. There are two main muscle groups in the hand: the thenar at the thumb and the hypothenar, near the pinky. Together, they enable the small movements - fine motor skills - that most people don’t have to think about. She opens her hands and closes them again. Then, Lauren walks the slow gangplank from the bathroom and stands at the top of the stairs.
What I’m Reading:
People Person by Candice Carty-Williams. I struggle with finding fiction that is both well-written, lacking in gratuitous violence AND feels cleverly original*. So…damn! This second book by Carty-Williams hits those metrics and delivers this compelling, dysfunctional family story with equal measures humor and sorrow. I really liked Carty-Williams’ first book, Queenie, but I loved this one. Go have fun with this one. And bonus: here’s Roxane Gay talking to CCW. *Got one to recommend? Leave a comment!
Notes From No Man’s Land by Eula Biss. If you enjoy reading about people’s personal history but a total focus on their story (often what memoir looks like) can be a lot for you, braided essay (usually some combo of memoir, cultural criticsm social commentary and reporting) might be more up your alley. In this collection, Biss’ essays on race in American include examinations of who she is —her family, ethnic and racial background, relationships, etc - juxtaposed with place (locations she has lived, is from, traveled through) and the work (however that looks) that she has done there. Borrowed from the library but will now buy it which, as you know, indicates my definition of a gem.
What’s On My Mind:
We’re adrift until we find our right people. I know, broken record, right? An October article in The New Yorker (here and - warning- it contains pretty heavy themes including the neglect and abuse of children) reminded me once again how powerful and transformative being seen and feeling heard can be. Relationships - the right ones - are the thing that can save us. And we don’t need a passel either. Studies show that even one person who we can be real with, who believes in us and is reliably in our corner makes all the difference.
Last spring, I stopped taking the expensive “whole food” vitamins that I religiously gulped down every day for seven years. I was fed up with one too many self-care messages from some wellness page, ad or article. I’m exhausted by constantly being told to buying more self-care is the antidote to….everything that ails me or the world. This piece at The Guardian discusses and nails the consumerism of self-care.
More on what I’m reading (usually 2-3x a week) and what I’m thinking (everyday, haha) can be found over in my Instagram Stories. Follow me there if you’re looking for more or just so we can get to know each other. Thanks for being here.
Holy buckets - a powerful, chilling, and beautifully written piece. It turns out fiction is indeed in your wheelhouse! Hope you write lots more…🥰
A big bravo to taking Anne's (wise) advice and giving fiction a go. Despite the subject matter, I loved reading this--a lot of depth, a lot of detail. I hope you enjoyed experimenting with this form!