Excerpt: Me, Myself, and I

I took the picture out of my pants pocket and stared at it. It was old winkled now from the nine years it had been transplanted from pants pocket to pants pocket. I took it everywhere. If I was wearing a pocketless dress I tucked in under the folds of fabric or, since I started wearing them at the age of 12, my bra. Stephanie, Sasha, and me (I'm Shanna) sat on Santa's lap grinning wildly at daddy who was holding the camera. The picture was taken around mid-December the Christmas we were all six.

I loved this picture, even though I couldn't recall it no matter how much I tried and I had, more times than I cared to remember. What I could recall perfectly over a decade later, much to my horror, was the day six weeks later when my life altered.

I remembered, without wanting to, how I'd pouted that Friday morning watching Stephie and Sasha pack the clothes that mama had lined up on their beds into our matching Cinderella suitcases. My own identical suitcase was sitting beside my own pink canopy bed. I wouldn't join my sisters until that evening because I had to go to a stupid doctor's appointment. When Nana had invited us all to her cabin in the mountains to spend the long weekend skating, skiing, and fishing. I hadn't had the appointment so mom said we could all go. But then Doctor Silverman had a cancellation and could squeeze me in. Mom had been trying to get me in to see him since Halloween when she saw a news profile on him. He's supposed to be some kind of genius. But going to the appointment meant that I wouldn't be able to join my sisters and Nana until later that evening. I'd miss a whole day of fun. Stupid diabetes!

I tried to argue with mom, but that went about as well as it always does. She had even reverted to her old retort of last resort. “I'm the mommy, that's why.” So I went, pouting all the while. There were three other kids in the waiting room. One was a girl about my age. “Wanna play Barbie?” she asked me.

“Sure,” I said , even though I wasn't much of a Barbie girl. Among us, Stephie was the one who liked Barbie. She had about sixty dolls. They were supposed to be for all of us to share. But she claimed most of them. As neither Sasha nor I minded, Sasha liked to play with army men and I liked to draw. Even though our room was divided into identical thirds, we'd all managed to decorate our parts to reflect our differences. But still today I was bored and playing Barbie with a stranger, seemed like a good way to un-bored myself. I just got on the floor and began picking out my doll to play with. I decided I wanted the doll to be an astronaut. I couldn't find any good astronaut clothes so I put her in a sailor suit instead.

I heard the phone ring, but didn't think about it until I heard my mother gasp and begin crying. I ran over, “What's wrong?”

“Never mind, we're leaving.”

“We haven't even seen the doctor yet. I thought that he was so important. That's why I'm going to Nana's late. If we can just leave without seeing him, why couldn't I have gone this morning when Daddy took Sasha and Stephie.” I was getting angry. This wasn't fair at all. For the rest of my life I will never forget what happened next. My mother, without saying a word, slapped me across the face in the doctor's office. Up until that point, my mother had only hit me three times and certainly not when everyone could see. The people in the waiting room gasped. My mother didn't even acknowledge them. She just pulled me out of the office by one hand. I had no idea what was going on and I wasn't sure I wanted to know.
We sat in the car for about fifteen minutes. Mom didn't start the car. She just sat there and cried. “What happened?” I dared ask again.

Finally, she looked at me, “There was an accident,” she said.

“What kind of accident? Are dad, Stephie and Sasha alright?”

My mother looked away from me again and down. “No Shanna, they're not. They're dead.”

In that moment, my life would never be the same. I went from being one of three to a singleton. I would never hear my sisters laugh again. We would never smuggle another bag of tootsie pops into our room and stay up all night, secret sucking on them.

A few weeks later, there was a funeral. Pastor Tom said that I shouldn't be too sad and that Daddy, Sasha, Stephie were in heaven. Heaven, he said, was a wonderful place. He said they would keep an eye on me and that I should be extra careful to behave they were watching me. I asked him why I couldn't go to heaven and be with my sisters and Daddy. He said that mom needs someone to look out for her too and it wouldn't be fair for me to leave her all alone. Then he suddenly had to go to say hello to Mrs. Whitcomb. Personally, I think that he was just tired of me and all my questions.

But I did what he said. For the past nine years I have taken care of mom. Now, however, she's got Tony in her life. I like him fine. He'll look after her when I'm gone. Now I can be with my sisters and father without feeling guilty. That's how I ended up here.