The Beast

Annie once said that babies grew on trees.  Told me I sprouted from a pink blossom in the apple orchard over yonder hill.  Told me she watched me grow fat and red before plucking me from the branch to bring me home.

Jonathan once told me that babies came from potatoes.  “Cut one into pieces and you got babies.  Just be sure an’ plant ‘em with their eyes looking towards the sky.  The life is in their eyes, Ellie.”

 Bitsy said that Annie and Jonathan were full of shit; said a girl oughta’ know her birds from her bees.   But I took their meaning:  Life surrounds me on the farm.

Besides, I’d known early enough where babies came from: Seems every day my mother told me babies came from mistakes. 

“Ellie, hurry up, we’re gonna’ be late.”

I opened the door, stepped into the kitchen and stopped: A man I didn’t recognize stood and extended his hand.  “You must be Ellie.”

“I am.”  I didn’t return the gesture: I’d shaken the hands of too many of Neala’s boyfriends.

“Ellie, be nice to Duane.”

 “Don’t need to be nice.  He’ll be gone within the week.”

Duane raised his eyebrows at my mother.  “Wild little beast you’ve got here, Neala.”  He poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter eyeing me.  “What grade you in?”

I lifted my chin.  “Twelfth.”

“You look older.”

I shrugged.

“Figure out your plans for after graduation?”

“Ellie’s staying right here with me after she finishes high school,” Neala said.

            “Bitsy thinks I could get a scholarship.”

            “Bitsy doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”  My mother smiled.  “Ellie’s going to stay here and take care of her old mother.”

            And I knew then that I would never get out of Medford, because my mother—the real monster of this story—would do everything in her power to prevent it, in the same way that I, by virtue of having been conceived, had prevented her from doing the same.

This post was written in response to this week's Trifecta Writing Challenge.  The word was beast.