St. Eubrie 314 Pecan : The Basement (534 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Saffron (View user info) at 2006-09-01 16:21:57 EDT
Pt 1 http://www.ubersite.com/m/91597
Pt 2 http://www.ubersite.com/m/91622
Pt 3 http://www.ubersite.com/m/91683
Pt 4 http://www.ubersite.com/m/91794
Pt 5 http://www.ubersite.com/m/92444
Jack and Carol had grown up with the secrets in the basement. Children who would never have a first step, a first tooth, would never learn to walk or drive, but who had birthday and holiday parties every year. Children who had names and pets and friends. Their family was far bigger than any Sears Christmas photo would ever show.
As children they really didn't know any better. The basement was where the toys were, where Mom kept the babies safe and where they spent most of their time. It was fun. Most of the time. Sometimes it was scary at the house when Mom was getting the babies ready, but mostly it was pretty good. They knew Mom had chosen them so they could grow up and help her take care of the rest of the family. It was very important work and they knew they were special.
They were in the same year at school. Mom had kept Jack at home until Carol was ready to go too so they could look out for each other. They were quiet, respectful children who did very well academically, if not socially. Mom said she knew Jack was strong from the first time she saw him but she was worried he would be lonely so she hurried to get Carol ready. People mistook them for twins all the time because they were only 13 months apart. They didn't like it when people called them twins. Twins were different. They were kept in fancy vases away from the rest of the family and Mom always got real quiet and sad when she was visiting them.
Ruth Francine was the first one to get a pet. She had a kitten next to her. A tabby kitten with a red ribbon around its neck. Mom had picked it up in the grocery store parking lot. The girl in the parking lot had 5 kittens and Carol had asked Mom if she could have one too but Mom had told her that sometimes kittens broke jars. Puppies did too. Carol used to sit for hours running her fingers or yarn along the glass but the kitten didn't seem interested in playing and as time passed Carol became more interested in Barbie.
Jack was a rather nervous child, something adults waved off as part of being a mortician's son. Children, however, keyed right into his insecurity and teased him until he developed a stutter. There had been recommendations of a speech therapist, but Mom had decided that it would be best to home school since the other parents were incapable of curbing their children's rude and harmful behaviors. She always got a bit nervous and lonely when Jack and Carol left the house and this was the ideal excuse to keep them close. Gil worried that they wouldn't socialize well later in life, and he made Addy agree that they would go back for High School.
Life went as it usually does in the suburbs, the children got taller, the years seemed shorter and the family grew. Gil joined the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Addy sat on the church auxiliary board and the children were seen and seldom heard. It was a serene façade that all of the families in their social circle envied.
Carol was about 12 when Gil was diagnosed with diabetes. Everyone has a moment when their mortality comes into sharp focus and it got him thinking about what would happen to his family if anything happened to him. Addy might be able to keep things together for a while but eventually she would be gone or too sick to live alone and the idea of strangers coming into the house and uprooting the family was just too much for him to bear. Carol and Jack weren't exactly children anymore and they were going to figure things out eventually.
He was certain that Carol and Jack would never survive the inquest should the basement come under scrutiny. People just wouldn't understand why the Weiss' kept trying for a bigger family anymore than they would understand why Addy needed to keep the children she lost close to her and out of the ground. The business with the others would implicate Carol and Jack and make it impossible for them to reclaim their adult lives.
He wanted to be the one to tell them the facts of life from the fiction. He needed them to be ready for a lifetime of secrets and the moment when the family would need them the most. He had taken care of the twins, but Addy wouldn't let him near the others. She needed to see her children and an urn of ash was no substitute for tiny fingers and floating faces. The arrangement gave her purpose and focus. Two children were simply not enough for the amount of love she had to give. Having the others to read and sing to kept her stable enough to maintain a fairly normal life. She took great pride in her home, held Tupperware parties, organized can food drives through the church and raised smart, polite children. It was the ideal family life wrapped around deep loss. He had always reasoned that all families had secrets. Theirs were just a bit harder to understand from an outside perspective.
He decided that the bare minimum up front was the best way to go. Talk about the birds and the bees. Work his way up to concepts like miscarriage and genetics. Small steps that they could digest and deal with now. Get them to understand how their family was different and special and what that would mean to them in the coming years. He would write the plan and get everything ready. There were safety precautions to consider as well as untraceable stealth.
He built the cabinet with the moon and two stars and grieved for his living children who would be left to shoulder the burden. He prayed for enough time to get them ready and he asked forgiveness when the wish to outlive Addy and be able to take the burden himself crossed his lips.
User Reviews
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-06-09 10:58:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Write more, please.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-11-02 17:42:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-09-03 03:45:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
OH MY GOD
This entire series deserves much more attention.
Submitted by Saffron (user info) at 2006-09-03 03:38:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by FuckTheArmy (user info) at 2006-09-03 02:55:55 (#)
Ranking: 2
This is most certainly worthy of deep respect.
Where did you come up with this idea?
__________
*swoon* thank you. I wish I could tell you what inspired it, but it just worked its way out of my head like a worm from a rotten apple.
Submitted by FuckTheArmy (user info) at 2006-09-03 02:55:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is most certainly worthy of deep respect.
Where did you come up with this idea?
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2006-09-01 20:15:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-09-01 19:45:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-09-01 18:51:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
rating the poster, not the post
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2006-09-01 16:30:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment