Trinity (48)

There’s a part of each church service where we’re supposed to hold hands with the people next to us while we all recite a prayer. As a kid, I never liked this part because Rory, my brother, would always squeeze my hand as hard as he could. If I tried to whisper to him to stop, or pull my hand away, or squeeze back, he’d just make a face at me. And anytime I cried out or made a fuss, Mom would shoot both of us a withering look, and then lecture us after the service about how we’re supposed to stay quiet and reverent.

Rory was never quiet or reverent, but as I grew older, I’d learned to stay silent, even when he squeezed my hand. Sometimes when I ignored him, he’d stop. Other times, he’d squeeze harder, until I’d get angry and glare at him.

Rory’s hand is in mine now, solid and formal. He stares straight ahead, silently wishing he hadn’t agreed to come home, probably.

It’s Easter, but it doesn’t exactly feel like a celebration.

My dad is on my other side, his tie crooked from where he’d been fiddling with it, and my mom’s on Rory’s other side. She’s wearing her Easter best, of course. Well, we all are--or are supposed to be. Rory grudgingly put on the scrappiest looking tie he could find. Mom’s wearing her pearl necklace and earring set, and a wide-brimmed hat that she reserves only for special occasions (taken off during the service, of course). And I would have re-worn my Spring Fling dress, but Mom said I should wear the blue and white dress in the back of my closet. It reminds me of Cinderella’s dress. Pretty, but I’d be more comfortable when it changes back to my regular clothes at midnight.

My dad and Rory let go of my hands as the prayer ends, and we sit.

I’ve noticed a lot of things, today. For one, I can’t focus at all on the service. I usually zone out, but today’s even worse, I keep scanning the crowd and feeling self-conscious for some reason. I think it would be better if Pearl were here, but of course she’s at her own church across town.

It makes me feel marginally better that Henry is here, sitting with his family as usual. He’s all dressed up in a suit and tie, though his hair is still loose, and he runs his fingers through it every once in a while, a habit.

A lot of my classmates are here, which is completely normal, but I wish they weren’t. Everywhere I turn it feels like I keep accidentally meeting the eye of someone I know. Rachel, then John from science, then Dylan from history, even Mary Kate, and every other time I’d looked over at her, she had looked asleep.

After a long, long time, the service ends. My parents chat and give ’How are you’s and ’Happy Easter’s to the other parents, and I stand next to them obediently while Rory pushes by us and goes out into the parking lot.

After twenty minutes, we find him outside, leaning against the car, and he tosses his cigarette onto the ground and steps on it. My dad mutters something about his ‘disgusting habit’, and the car ride home is a mixture of tense silence and Mom rambling about the pastor’s sermon. It hadn’t been much better when we had picked up Rory from his apartment the other day, either.

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We have an early dinner, as is tradition in the Reeding family on Easter day. It used to be because there was an egg hunt in our neighborhood in the afternoon, and we would go straight from that to a restaurant. But now we’ve grown out of that, of course.

My mother insists that I leave my blue dress on, despite the fact that Rory has already changed into ripped jeans and a vintage windbreaker, and has no intention of changing back into anything even remotely ‘Sunday best’. Mom just fits her hat on her head and gets in the car without saying anything to him.

We dine in at a Chinese restaurant, and I sit quietly while my parents tentatively ask Rory questions about his job and about Desirae. He’s started substitute teaching, apparently, which I didn’t even know.

We weren’t close as children, but now he feels like a stranger.

Suddenly, he looks at me. “And you, Trinity? How’s school?” I glance around the table, surprised he’s asking, but no one says anything. I guess he got tired of being the center of attention for once.

I knot my fingers together under the table. “Good,” I say. A pause, and he’s still looking at me. “I got an ‘A’ on one of my English essays, Mrs. Vena said is was really good.” I hope he doesn’t ask about other subjects, because I haven’t done particularly well in anything else.

“She’s presenting it at the talent assembly tomorrow,” adds Mom.

Oh, crap. Darn. I almost forgot.

Mom gives me a proud smile, and I try not to sink into my seat. I’m going to somehow have to tell Katherine that I can’t read that story, that I am reading my essay, that the story isn’t mine, that I’m sick and can’t come at all, that I lost my voice, that--

“Wow. That’s great, but does anyone actually want to hear an essay?”

“Rory,” scolds Dad.

My brother holds up his hands. “I’m just saying I’d rather see her juggle or something.”

I look down at my hands in my lap, and no one says anything for a while.

“Nothing new with you then? You got a boyfriend yet?”

I don’t look up, but I can feel my face grow hot. “No,” I mutter. I’m well aware that he’s going to look down on me for this, because when he was high-school aged, he was constantly leaving the house to meet up with girls, no matter how hard my parents tried to stop him.

He laughs and lightly knocks a fist to my shoulder. “Aw, one day, Trinity. Don’t give up hope.”

Hope. One day. What if there never is a day? What if I’m not hoping there is a day? What if finding another ‘half’ isn’t my purpose, no matter how much the church tells me that I will marry and have children who will marry and have children, and the cycle will keep on going forever?

“Oh, well I don’t think she will have to wait too long,” Mom pipes up. “She has a friend, Nicholas, that she studies with, and he is a very nice boy.” She says it proudly, like it's all decided.

“Friend, Mom,” I grind out, still unable to lift my eyes. I’m staring at my hands, which are fisted in my blue skirt.

Rory lets out a sharp laugh, and I hear him lean back in his chair. “Aw, that’s adorable. It’s nice to hear you have a crush, I was beginning to think there was something wrong with you.”

I think the floor drops out from under me, my brain feels fuzzy and suddenly every noise is too loud, amplified a million times over.

“There’s nothing wrong with Trinity. Can’t you be nice to your sister?” Dad says, but his voice sounds like it’s traveling through water. Maybe I am under water.

Something wrong with you.

And maybe there is.

I lurch to my feet, bumping the table and making the dishes clatter. The noise of plates and forks and arguing and scolding and consoling all mix together, and it doesn’t matter because I feel sick. I leave the table, and walk calmly into the bathroom.

It’s an individual bathroom, and it’s empty, thank goodness. I step inside, and my first thought is why does everything always happen in a bathroom?

The conversation I had with Pearl, the time I spent with Henry during his panic attack, they were all in bathrooms. Maybe it’s just the safest place to be, away from others. Private.

I’m glad for it now, because I didn’t really think about it until I look in the mirror, but I’m crying. As I realize that I am, I stop, staring at myself in the circular mirror above the sink. I’d like to be somewhere else. And as much as I like my parents, I wish they weren’t here and I wish Rory wasn’t here, and I wish I wasn’t so wrong and broken.

I was beginning to think there was something wrong with you.

It shouldn’t mean anything, because Rory has existed only to provoke me, but I still press the heels of my hands into my eyes and choke on my unshed tears.

I had thought, maybe, that the hard part was over. That I’d cried already, talking to Pearl, and that I wouldn’t have to cry anymore. I despise crying. I feel out of control. I feel weak.

And at this point, I’m not sure what it is I’m bothering to cry about, because Rory didn’t accuse me of anything. It was just words.

There’s a knock at the door, and it’s my dad, which makes it easy to lie and tell him everything is fine, because I know that’s what he wants to believe anyway. I wipe my eyes with paper towels, and they’re rough and scrape my skin, and I wonder if my face will be pink and scratched and obviously miserable. But when I look in the mirror, I look the same as usual. My eyes are just slightly redder than is normal, but no one will even notice in the dim lighting.

I wonder, then, if I have any emotions at all. Maybe I’m just a shell of a human, just playing along with life. Maybe I’m just a Cinderella, pretending to be the princess when I’m really a peasant.

Either way, I suppose I need to get back to my family before they actually think something is the matter, so I go back to the table, and the conversation has moved on, and I’m glad. Mom and Dad are talking about some kind of Chinese street food they saw on a TV show once, and Rory is pretending to listen.

When I sit down, Rory glances at me over his glass of water, but he doesn’t say anything at all.

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(first part: https://theprose.com/post/432343/trinity)

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