Page 2 of Fragile Wicked Things

My last statement frightened Mrs. Reed for she took in a quickened breath. "From the mirror?"

"Nonsense," Reverend Reed said. "Don't let my wife's superstitions get the better of you. Go to your room and rest awhile. Mrs. Reed will help you gather your belongings."

"My belong...," but I didn't finish before Mrs. Reed helped me off the floor and guided me through the kitchen towards my bedroom.

Father sat at the table, bent over a steaming cup of coffee.

He knew I was in the room with him. I could feel it, but not once did he look up at me.

What arrangements could he be making? It appeared to me he made none.

Once in my room, I turned back to look at him before Mrs. Reed closed the door behind us.

"I'm not tired," I told her.

"Let me help you gather a few things. After the funeral, it's best you stay elsewhere for a while where someone can care for you."

"My father can."

Mrs. Reed opened the door to my wardrobe, took out an overnight bag that belonged to my mother and placed items in, commenting more to herself, "Oh, such a pretty dress. No pink? The clothes are plain and dreary, plain like you. Poor, plain Jane."

I hated her at that moment. Mrs. Reed didn't say anything I hadn't heard before. But with my mother gone and my father having abandoned me, I unleashed a fury on her.

"Put my things back!"

Mrs. Reed's shoulders fell slightly, and her voice grew softer when she spoke. "This is a difficult time for you, child, but you must not stay here after the funeral."

"I won't go!" I reached for my plain Jane dress, made in a dusty rose fabric by my mother, and pulled at it, but Mrs. Reed would not let go. "Give it!"

"Calm down, child."

Again, I pulled until I heard a rip. The sound made us both stop.

I examined the tear at the seam, and a wave of anger grew inside me so much so that when I reached out again, I dug my nails into Mrs. Reed's skin.

She let out a terrible scream that brought the men.

My father's hands grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me to my bed.

Reverend Reed stood by his wife, inspecting her wounds.

"Look at my arm. She scratched me, the mad cat. This is why she must go."

"She just lost her mother, and I lost my wife." My father had spoken so little since his return, and I jumped on the opportunity to plead my case and threw my arms around his waist.

"Please don't send me away, Daddy. I'm sorry I scratched Mrs. Reed. Please let me stay. I can take care of you."

My father looked to the Reverend and then to Mrs. Reed as if my statement made sense.

Yes, I can take care of him. I know how to sew a little, boil potatoes, launder and make his coffee strong and black, just as he likes it.

I'll keep smelling salts about the house for when he comes home and succumbs to the drink.

But I knew that I had lost when he shook himself free from me and left the room without looking into my eyes.

* * *

After the burial, a few women from church descended on my mother's tiny kitchen and chatted away as they prepared food and drinks.

I sat rooted to a spot near the hearth, silent, then trembled, helpless against the looks they gave me.

Their whispering surrounded me and grew louder by the moment.

They touched things that didn't belong to them, wiped counters and swept the dirt from the floor.

They were erasing her. I stood, clenched my fist, then loosened it and wandered into the living room.

How strange to call it a living room with my father in it.

He sat in my mother's chair, drink in hand, and when Mrs. Stephenson passed by, she took the glass from him and replaced it with lemonade in one swoop. I'm certain Father hadn't noticed.

I drifted to some men gathered in a corner of the room and caught snippets of their conversation. Their presence annoyed me. I wanted them all out: the women from my mother's kitchen, the men from my living room, and my father from my mother's chair.

"...no, no, no Eisenhower is the right man for the job," said one man in a striped bow tie.

"He'll clean house and take care of the Soviet spies in the Truman administration, that's for sure," offered another man.

I stepped into their circle unnoticed. "Why not a woman?" I cleared my dry throat. "They run households."

The group fell silent. Then they laughed with one another at the thought of a woman understanding difficult matters like balancing budgets and defending itself against an ideology meant to destroy American liberties.

Talk of communism enthralled the group, and they all agreed it to be the greatest evil to affect America since Hitler.

I moved away from them and retired to my room, shut my door, and waited.

Time wasted away as I lay on my bed looking out the window to my neighbor's magnolia tree. My mother loved that tree. I wished to plant one over her gravesite, but when I suggested it earlier that day, I received harsh 'shushes.'

A bird flew to the nest perched on the tree.

Through the open window, I could hear tiny chirps and squawks of her young and watched as they pecked at remnants of what may have been a worm.

For a moment, I felt happy at the wondrous sight of Mother Nature caring for their young, of the cycle of life, of how the worm's death meant the baby birds would live.

Then I wondered, if the mother bird dropped dead, what would happen to her babies?

Surely, no one would care for them, and day after day, I would find another baby bird that had fallen and died. No, they needed their mother.

As the day wore on, a relative calm consumed the house. Three or four people remained, and I heard them as they cleaned. Glasses clinked in the kitchen sink, and the harsh bristle of the broom swept the floor on the other side of my bedroom door.

Someone knocked at the front door. I heard a muffled 'welcome' followed by a harsh male voice. Maybe it was some lost uncle I knew nothing of? But it couldn't be since my only uncle had left his family destitute, and my mother's sister had no money to make the trek across the country from Vermont.

Mrs. Reed rapped lightly on my door and entered without waiting for a response. "Get your bag and come with me," she said, the incident from yesterday now forgiven.

I slid off my bed and grabbed my carrier bag, which Mrs. Reed took from me. She followed me out into the living room where I found my father as before, sitting in my mother's chair, still clutching a glass of lemonade.

The Reverend stood by a man I did not recognize. "This is Mr. Brocklehurst, Jane," he said.

I approached the giant man, staring up into his large nostrils.

I knew I was expected to say, "How do you do, Mr. Brocklehurst?

" but instead, I wanted to call him Mr. Brockleworst for being the worst-looking man I'd ever laid eyes on.

He had too much facial hair, wayward eyebrows and prominent teeth, sharp like a wolf.

His grim lips turned upwards with effort, forced into an unnatural state.

I sympathized with him, having given many false smiles myself.

Had he known very little happiness as well?

"She's smaller than a normal girl her age," Mr. Brocklehurst said, looking me over in obvious disappointment at my stature. He must be used to giants. "Plain looking. And are you a good girl?"

"Usually," Mrs. Reed answered, "when she's not tearing at someone's arm." Earlier, I had mistaken the gentleness in her voice as a note of forgiveness. Weariness is what it had been.

"I'm sure we can all understand given her situation, dear wife. Jane, Mr. Brocklehurst runs a home for young girls like yourself, and he will care for you until your father gets…better and sends for you. Academically, I know you'll find her brilliant."

"My father is better now," I said, looking at the shell of a man sitting motionless. "Daddy?" I turned my attention back to Mr. Brocklehurst.

"Let's get going. We have an hour's drive ahead of us," he said.

"Someone made a mistake, Mr. Brockle..." Worst. Worst. Worst. "...hurst. I'm staying here."

Mrs. Reed let out a limp sound of exasperation. Mr. Brocklehurst looked over to the Reverend, then to my father who stared at a knot in the oak floor, his hands trembling.

"Well?" Mr. Brocklehurst said.

Finally, my father looked at him. "Take her." His words tore into my heart, ripped it wide open, exposing the innards of a sad little girl.

"No! I won't go! Please don't make me go. I can make dinner for you when you come home. I have time after school to cook and clean. I'll do my homework after supper."

My father ignored my pleas. He then refused to look at me; his eyes darted elsewhere.

His hands grew white as they tightened around the arms of the chair until finally, he stood, gave one final look to Mr. Brocklehurst, and hobbled away, leaving by the back kitchen door.

The screen swung loudly behind him, and he disappeared into the night.

I had no one now.

"Get your belongings," said Mr. Brocklehurst.

I had no one except for this hairy beast of a man.

What followed could not have been me, but my anger behaving in a manner without my consent.

I kicked and screamed among shouts of "wicked child" and "naughty girls burn for eternity," the latter from Mrs. Reed.

This betrayal boiled up in me, and I resented having had kind thoughts about her, even though it was only once or twice.

"You are a witch who talks about others and gets into things you have no business in. Because you have no children of your own!"

Every word I spoke came out as an offense to her and Mr. Brockleworst .

I didn't know then what I now understand—my hurt was not caused by them or the man who walked out the back door but by my mother, whose death changed my life forever and set me on a path of such unkindness at Lowood Orphanage, where Mr. Brocklehurst would take me.

My madness exhausted me, and I fell to the floor, heaving. No one said a word. At last, the house grew silent, and even the rage that had been swallowing me now subsided into a calm.

"I will go with you, Mr. Brocklehurst," I said. "I have no home now."