RE: Trailer Trash 36 + 37 A very trashy Thanksgiving. (Patreon)

   “Sweetie, you’re growin’ up to bein’ just the prettiest li’l thang!” Aunt Lisa praised again, reaching over with a visibly sweaty hand to pinch at Tabitha’s cheek. “C’mon, now. Yer at ‘bout that age—you tell yer Aunt Lissie ‘bout all them boys yer seein’!”

   “No time to talk about boys,” Tabitha leaned back from her Aunt’s grasp, struggling to keep her composure. “We’d fail the Bechdel test.”

   It was the same joke she’d managed back when first meeting Mrs. Williams, delivered with even less feeling this time. It honestly rankled that the immediate first question some women had for her was whether she was in a relationship, or chasing after a boy, or had herself set on one. That was a joke, because it simply wasn’t how Tabitha defined herself or her life. Maybe that kind of relationship—with a man or with a woman—would never even be part of her life.

   “Hah! Beshul test, that’s tha Kentucky public school system for ya, ahyup, nothin’ but test test test,” Lisa guffawed, turning her look of skepticism from Tabitha towards Mrs. Moore. “So, no boys been comin’ round at all? Not a single one?!”

   “She’s... a little young for that still, don’t you think?” Mrs. Moore frowned. “She just started high school this year, and between what happened with—”

   “Hell, I got mah cherry popped my first year o’ high school,” Lisa boasted. “Was datin’ one of the Seniors, mah Freshman year! Kenny Michaels. He got married an’ lives over by Elk Creek, now. Back then, we—”

   “I-I believe that’s my cue to retire for the night,” Tabitha rose from her spot on the living room sofa, still clutching the Flounder pillow against her chest. “Goodnight Mother. Goodnight Father. Goodnight… Aunt Lisa.”

   “Ahyup, beddy-by time for Tabby, you go on and get!” Aunt Lisa cackled at Tabitha’s manner of speech. “Retoir for the noight, hah! Listen to her. What a hoot! Nightie-night, girly-girl!”

   Another cold chill crept up Tabitha’s back as she slowly stepped back down the hallway to her bedroom, being extra careful not to stomp. She wanted to stomp, she wanted to throw a fit—she was so livid about this whole unexpected junkie mess that was dumping itself in their lap that her blood was racing adrenaline throughout her body in a fight or flight response. Lisa’s careless laughter and exaggerated Kentucky drawl continued on behind her, and every poorly enunciated syllable just kept getting under her skin in a terrible way.

   Closing her bedroom door behind her only slightly muffled the woman’s voice, because of course, the wall paneling of their mobile home was paper-thin fiberboard. Trying hard to tune out the somewhat-audible sound of Lisa speaking until it was just loathsome trashy noise, Tabitha nudged aside the crumpled flannel of her turned-back bedcovers so that she could sit upon the edge and regard herself in the mirror.

   Okay. Okay. Deep breath, calm way down, Tabitha locked eyes with her reflection and tried to focus on nothing else. Okay. Okay. OKAY.

   Calm didn’t come quickly, but it did eventually come to her, and she hugged Flounder and plucked absently at the edge of her cast while she considered what to do with the situation. Tabitha had never had a good impression of Uncle Danny or Aunt Lisa. Was that fair, though? Memories of her own mother from her first lifetime were uneasy at best, and rife with an entire heap of complicated, conflicting feelings otherwise. Initial perception of Elena had been so rotten that a middle-school phantom of the girl had shown up in her subconscious to bully her during one of those surreal fever dreams. The four cousins had once upon a time been annoying hooligans she didn’t care for at all.

   Okay, so yes—some of the anger at Lisa IS warranted, Tabitha blew out a slow breath. Some of this is... overreaction. My knowledge and experience, my ‘software’ is arguably a little more advanced, but the hardware it’s installed on right now is vintage thirteen year old girl, and emotions are dialed up to eleven.

   Even more than that, I’m feeling so helpless because I’m intentionally sinking deeper and deeper into the ROLE of a thirteen year old girl. Somewhat. Right? Classic Stanford prison experiment—I’ve been psychologically conforming to my expected social role here in nineteen ninety-eight. I haven’t really been fighting that regression, because... being a simple teenage girl makes me happy, while depressing future knowledge mostly just attempts to poison that happiness or monkey’s paw me at every turn.

   So, my anger right now, how FURIOUS I am at Lisa showing up also feels so INFANTILE—and that just makes me angrier. It’s the worst of both worlds—the teen outrage and frustration, and the adult knowledge and sense of responsibility that comes with that. They play off of each other in the worst way, make me feel like I’m slipping down into a tantrum spiral. As a teenager, I’m angry and sullen because I don’t have the agency to just DO anything about her. I’m supposed to abide, to treat her like family, when she’s actually this white trash junkie, and yeah, I just don’t even WANT to ever treat her like family!

   As this once-upon-a-time grown up old lady from the future, I’m mostly upset because... now I HAVE to do something about this. I’m going to HAVE to get involved, I’m going to HAVE to be in some ugly confrontation, I’m going to HAVE to raise a fuss, and I hate it. I’m thirteen years old, but by necessity I’m going to now need a voice, a real say in the family stuff going on, at the level of what adults decide. Just when this fragile, happy little illusion of a simple, NORMAL childhood was finally starting to stabilize into something I could enjoy. I hate it I hate it I hate it, I wish Lisa would just go away. I wish she’d just go back off to whatever truckstop men’s room she was probably whoring herself out from, and stay out of my life. Out of all of our lives. Is that so much to fucking ask?!

   “Can’t do anything about it!” Tabitha grumbled under her breath to herself. “Have to anyways. Fuck.”

   Staring at the bedraggled and distraught teen reflecting back at her in the mirror, Tabitha let out an aggravated huff and threw Flounder against the far wall. Her actions looked just as silly and immature as they felt, but she needed to start venting some things out at times, or she really was going to explode. It was so frustrating—she needed someone to talk to, and it already felt like never having anything but identity problems and family drama to dump on Alicia and Elena was going to sour their relationship.

   With a dramatic sigh, Tabitha reached up, managed to catch the lightswitch with the bit of finger her cast exposed, and turned off the lights. The darkness gave her senses nothing to focus in on but the sound of Aunt Lisa still gabbing away out in the living room, and it was hard not to get upset all over again.

   So, what do I DO about this? I’m not a teenager, exactly, Tabitha eased herself back down onto her pillow and began resituating her covers over top of her. And, I’m not an old lady anymore, either. Right now I’m just—I don’t know what I am. Something I’ll have to figure out as I go, right? I’m still changing. Elena’s changed a ton. Mom’s completely different to who she was, or how she was supposed to be, or whatever.

   I’ll give Aunt Lisa a chance to change. I’ll try. Try to cut her just enough slack for her to either pull herself up—or hang herself with it. That’s the MATURE thing to do, here, right?

*     *     *

   “So, I was all, Debra!” Lisa laughed. “S’like I been done told you—you can’t never let someone disrespect you like that. Definitely not’n front of yer kids!”

   To Tabitha’s annoyance and disbelief, she blinked open bleary eyes the next morning to the continued grating sound of Aunt Lisa’s voice. Their trailer’s furnace was blowing hot air in through all the vents at full blast, and her normally cozy morning blankets now felt absolutely stifling. It was hard not to grimace at the sheer waste of running the temperature so high—in late November, wearing a sweatshirt and thermal pajamas around the house was still comfy, and it kept their bill way down.

   Surely… surely they weren’t up discussing things all night? Tabitha furrowed her brows, squeezed her eyes shut again, and pressed her face back into her pillow for a moment. Do drug addicts sleep more than normal, or less than normal? Google won’t be here to tell me for years and years, yet.

   Tabitha had never expected Lisa to be an early riser, but the acrid smell of instant coffee and cigarette smoke became apparent as she finally kicked back her too-warm covers. The wrist inside her cast was likewise balmy with sweat already, and despite her midnight resolution to give the woman a chance to redeem herself, Tabitha could feel that determination eroding a little more each time she heard her Aunt open that mouth of hers to say something.

   “Don’t matter if it was jus’ bullshittin’ over beer or jus’ makin’ fun or nothin’! So I says, somebody treats you like that, Debra? You get them right by the balls an’ make sure they ain’t fixin’ to ever jus’ run their mouth off on ya ever again. S’way you gotta do it—I ain’t playin’ no games.”

   Letting out her most dramatic teenage sigh, Tabitha rolled out of bed and wrenched open the door to her room so that she could pad down the hallway in her now too-warm wool socks.

   “Why is the thermostat so high?” Tabitha asked, immediately twisting the dial from where it read eighty degrees all the way down to sixty. Eighty degrees? Are you fucking kidding me?

   “S’colder’n a witch’s titty out there, that’s why!” Lisa guffawed. “It’s the dead o’ November, little girl.”

   The peroxide-blonde delinquent mother of four was already sitting across the table from her father, while Mrs. Moore was nowhere to be found, probably still sound asleep back on the other side of the trailer where the larger bedroom was. Though Lisa wasn’t smoking right at this moment, the stifling smell of it was present, and a glance up towards the kitchen ceiling confirmed that the smoke detector’s cover was hanging open and the nine volt battery had been removed. Lisa had slopped instant coffee into one of those nice teacups Tabitha had set aside for ice cream in the cabinet, and Tabitha decided she wasn’t going to let it get to her—after all, Lisa couldn’t have known any better.

   No, you know what? Tabitha all but huffed. It DOES still bother me! I’m honestly going to be heartbroken if her nasty coffee stains my lovely porcelain tea set forever. I don’t have many nice things, and the few nice things I DO have need to be cherished.

   “Mornin’, Sweetheart,” Mr. Moore said.

   “Good morning,” Tabitha sighed.

   “Y’all know I prayed for this, right, Alan?” Aunt Lisa gushed. “I prayed an’ prayed—an’ I just knew HE would answer mah prayers. Yer Tabby baby is a miracle, you know that?”

   “Yep,” Mr. Moore agreed, frowning over his newspaper. “She is a blessing.”

   “She’s an honest to God miracle, and the money—the money from those settlements? Alan, she’s saved this family. She’s like—she’s like our own li’l red-headed guardian angel. Idden that right, Honey? Hah!”

   ISN’T that right, Tabitha mentally corrected. I’m not sure which is worse— that her southern redneck dialect is so thick that I can barely understand her, or the fact that I CAN still understand her. I wish I couldn’t.

   A certain kind of morbid curiosity kept Tabitha fixated on the woman as her Aunt Lisa applied mascara and ‘made herself up’ for the day. The woman didn’t bring the applicator up to her own eyes, instead carefully turning over each plastic false eyelash in her hands and plucking at it with the black bristles of a little mascara wand. Was she going to apply the falsies afterward? That seemed backward to Tabitha, and the strange preening motions were grotesque, because Lisa’s fingers and thumbs now sported the curved hot pink of two-inch long acrylic fingernails which made her digits seem sinister, spidery, and menacing.

   Beneath all the beauty product she plasters all over herself and these feminine odds and ends she glues on—would any of us even recognize her? Tabitha wondered in a bleary daze as she pulled out one of the chairs so that she could sit with them at the dining room table. Does anyone even know what Lisa actually looks like? Who IS Lisa, really?

   “You like mah look?” Aunt Lisa crooned with a self-indulgent giggle. “Now, I weren’t no movie star like yer momma was, but oh you know yer Aunt Lisa still knows how ta turn heads and drop jaws!”

   “Yeah, it’s… sure something,” Tabitha was trying not to stare, but it was difficult to look away. Maybe there ISN’T anyone beneath it all.

   The bleached and frazzled bottle-blonde, the plastered-on foundation, the garish red lipstick. It was difficult to imagine what the woman was going to such exaggerated lengths to hide, because each treatment seemed so much worse than whatever flaws they must have concealed. The longer Tabitha spent observing Aunt Lisa, in fact, the less she seemed like a real person. It was as though the woman simply strived to express a stereotype, or a caricature. If she was acting, Tabitha felt sure Mrs. Moore would call it bad acting. But—she didn’t seem to be acting.

   The writer in me wants to say that everyone possesses SOME nuance, some… hidden depth of character. The realist in me, on the other hand, suggests that she’s exactly what she presents herself to be. I already know I’m biased against her. Every word out of her mouth makes me want to condemn her more and more. What am I even looking for? How would I even GO ABOUT giving her a chance to change? Convince her we can send her through rehab?

   “Aunt Lisa,” Tabitha blurted out before she even really knew what she was asking. “Why… why did you come back?”

   “Why’d I come back?” Aunt Lisa snorted, cocking an eyebrow. “Well ‘cause I don’t gotta work at the Wild Wings in Shelbyville no more, ain’t that right?”

   “You mean isn’t that, and—is that right?” Tabitha asked. “Why is that? Why is it that you don’t have to work at the Wild Wings anymore?”

   “‘Cause now we got all that money, Sugar,” Lisa explained slowly to Tabitha, as though she were speaking to a much younger child. “Our money problems are over, ain’t a one of us gotta work no more. Isn’t that right, Al?”

   “Oh?” Tabitha’s eyebrows went up in mock surprise. “Dad—you’re quitting your job?”

   “Hah, o’course he is,” Lisa snorted. “Why would he—”

   “No, no, I’m not quitting my job,” Mr. Moore assured his daughter, seemingly startled to have been pulled back into the conversation. “No way in heck, not no way, no how. Not with a little one on the—”

   “Yer NOT?” Aunt Lisa was the very picture of incredulity. “I mean—wow. I would. I did! Hah! You sure must love yer job, Al. Workin’ when ya don’t have to? Not me, no siree. That’s crazy talk.”

   “I don’t... think I understand,” Tabitha hinted, attempting to convey a clear it’s YOU that doesn’t understand. “Why wouldn’t you have to work, Aunt Lisa? The lawsuit and the settlement money, that doesn’t have anything to do with you. Even if it did, it wouldn’t be enou—”

   “Of course it has to do with me, I’m yer Aunt Lissie!” Lisa chortled, giving Tabitha a dismissive smirk. “Listen to you! Tryin’ to be a selfish li’l shyster, wantin’ to keep that big ol’ settlement monies all fer yerself! You do know that bein’ too greedy an’ money-grubbin’ is one o’ the deadly mortal sins, don’thca? That’s in the Bible. Written ‘n black ‘n white, an’ that’s tha God’s honest truth. Tabby, honey... yer still a li’l girl, you don’t have no place havin’ that much money fer yerself—an’ what would ya even do with it? Buy dollies and dollhouses? Hah! Tabby sweetie, that money’s all goin’ to the family, so we can best decide how to raise you all up right. You think raisin’ up a kid is cheap?! Yer Aunt Lissie’s got four of ‘em!”

   That Aunt Lisa had the sheer gall to assert herself as a parenting figure—after walking out on her own four children for months on end without a word to anyone—had Tabitha seeing red despite every attempt to maintain her cool. She inhaled deeply as the rage gripped her, and was forced to clench her teeth simply to prevent herself from lashing out thoughtlessly.

   Have you even visited them, or did you just beeline straight here for us, where the settlement money would be? You couldn’t have been there, Grandma Laurie would have called us right away. Do they even know? Your own kids. Your own goddamn kids don’t even know that you’re back, do they? Now? Now I DON’T WANT THEM TO. I really wanted to try to give you a chance—but fuck it, I can’t. I just can’t. I just, I just want you gone. Gone and out of our fucking lives.

   “Pfffftt—don’t get all huffy with me, girl,” Aunt Lisa rolled her eyes at Tabitha’s smoldering glare as the teenager fought to keep it all in. “Lookin’ like someone pissed in yer Cheerios. Jesus H. Christ Alan, look at this attitude on her! Y’all need to get a handle on that big ol’ swollen head o’ hers an’ raise her up proper. Yah right, like some suit ‘n tie lawyer was gonna hand all that money to a li’l girl barely inta her pushup bra. O’course it’s goin’ to us parents. Hah!”

   “Forgive me, I’ve indeed lost my composure,” Tabitha rose from her seat and gave her father a meaningful look. He should understand by now just how she was feeling when she chose her words so carefully. “Please, excuse me.”

   “We’ll... talk about it when—” Mr. Moore began to promise, but he was cut off by Aunt Lisa’s boisterous mocking laughter in response to Tabitha’s apparent prim and proper dialect.

   Now not wanting to talk to anyone at all, Tabitha stalked on down the hallway towards the bathroom so that she could brush her teeth and wash her face.

   Okay. Calm down again, calm down again. Why is it so hard for me to calm down?! Tabitha took special care not to slam the bathroom door, despite the urgent motion of it trembling within her arm, desperate to explode out. She’s just this shitty fucking—she’s just, just getting under your skin. Keeping you off-balance. I still have all the advantages, here, right? I have all kinds of future knowledge, I have—I just need to… to calm down, to go through and remember anything I can that might be useful with this.

   It was easier said than done.

   She swiped her toothbrush out of the holder, glared at the dab of toothpaste she applied atop the bristles, and then bared her teeth in a snarl towards the mirror so that she could angrily brush her teeth. With each passing month it became more difficult for her to detach herself from situations and manage that numb robotic act, where with her eloquent manner of speech she could pretend she was more of an observer than a participant in this second life. She was involved now, she was mired in this trailer trash shitpile life, and now she was going to have to get both hands into the muck if she wanted to somehow climb out of it someday.

   Furious, Tabitha spat into the sink before she meant to, wasting some of her toothpaste.

   Damn. Do I have, what, latent anger management issues I never discovered? Tabitha paused for a moment to regard her foaming-at-the-mouth reflection and then spat again. Just never even found out if I had a temper or not last time, because I always kept my head down and shied away from those situations? Maybe?

   Her psychological issues were complicated and increasingly hard to self-diagnose, and she wasn’t sure she trusted herself to sort out relevant factors from misleading ones. She knew why Aunt Lisa got her so riled up; the woman was one hundred percent pure, undiluted trailer trash. Soon-to-be or already a heroin junkie, and a shameless parasite uncomfortably close to worming her way back into the small group of people she cared a lot about.

   At least, I care a lot about them THIS time, Tabitha glowered as she viciously resumed scrubbing her teeth. Yeah. That’s probably it. Probably why I never got angry at much of anything in my last life—I wasn’t real close to anyone. Or anything. Not here at this age, at least. To me, me and my immediate family were trailer trash, and then that whole side of the family over there with Uncle Danny and Aunt Lisa were worse, just... garbage, petty criminals. Convicts and drug addicts, and their drug addict and dropout kids.

   Not relatives she wanted to associate with, but ones that certainly lingered on in her mind all throughout her life. Because, while she always personally felt like trailer trash, at least she had these other people in her life to prop up as examples of worse trailer trash.

   That’s what they were to me, I think, Tabitha spat again into the sink. Uncle Danny, Aunt Lisa, all of the cousins. They weren’t FAMILY, they were just... examples, some idea for me to cling to. Because, I could look at their lives and then console myself with ‘well I may always be trailer trash, but at least I’m not THAT bad.’

   It was another tough pill to swallow, but since she’d begun to make progress in bettering herself in this life, it was getting easier to recognize her own shortcomings. As for what she was going to do about it—Tabitha just had to start drawing lines. Her four cousins were still young, and swerving their paths onto a better future was entirely possible. Uncle Danny was already in jail, that ship had apparently sailed and there was nothing she could do about it. As for Aunt Lisa…

   If I’m completely honest with myself, I just don’t even WANT to help her, Tabitha made a face as she rinsed her mouth. I can’t stand her, and that’s just a fact. Maybe with some kind of brilliant 4D CHESS, JUST AS KEIKAKU plan, I COULD get her to clean up her act and be a proper mother, and maybe that WOULD be the ideal best outcome for the boys. MY mother seemed just as rotten just a few months ago—and look how far she’s come.

   I just… Tabitha grimaced at her reflection as the weight of difficult choices seemed to press down and smother her once again. I’m a planner, but I’m not some kind of super schemer. I don’t know if I can put in that kind of effort for Lisa. I mean, I know I could try—but more and more, I don’t think I will. I’m a good person, or I try to be, but maybe I’m not THAT good of a person. It’s easy for me to be flippant about it, I guess, until I stop and really think about how much NOT helping Lisa change into a different person might cost the boys. But, then on the other hand… some people can’t be helped. Right?

*     *     *

   Shortly after Aunt Lisa finished applying her falsies and seemed all fancied up to go out somewhere—the woman crashed, settling in on their couch with her newly-made-up face smooshed in against the armrest to sleep. Tabitha could see the cosmetics smearing into their worn upholstery, and she regarded the unwelcome guest in their living room with confusion and bewilderment, finally turning towards her father with an are you seeing this expression. All she got in return was a slow sigh and him asking her to try to keep her volume down today while her Aunt was sleeping. Then, Mr. Moore left for work.

   She still stinks, too! Tabitha scowled as she quietly crept as close as she could. So—she didn’t shower last night.

   Lisa had passed out with her purse squashed protectively beneath her one armpit, and despite hovering over the woman for a long, tense moment, Tabitha didn’t see any way she could tug it out from under her Aunt without waking her.

   Worst thing is, she maybe DOESN’T have heroin in her purse right now, Tabitha fretted, crossing her arms. Maybe she’s not actually into heroin yet. Maybe she is, but she’s already used whatever she had. That seems likely. Heroin probably isn’t cheap—or is it? I honestly don’t know, and again—no Google here. Maybe she only came to us because she was out of options and couldn’t afford to pay her dealer, or whatever.

   There’s no way of knowing for sure, and if I cry wolf now and her purse turns out to be empty, it damages my credibility towards further attempts to remove her. And, I NEED to remove her sooner rather than later if I’m going to. Or this is all going to become unbelievably messy the further she entangles herself back into the family. Make a choice, Tabitha, make a choice. Help her, or get rid of her. Help her, or get rid of her, c’mon, think, think, think. I don’t know how to help her. I also don’t know how to get rid of her. Either way, I need to come up with something smart real soon.

   Torn with indecision, Tabitha was still drawing a complete blank as to how she even could hypothetically help Aunt Lisa. There didn’t seem to be any way to. The woman was crass and stubborn, and she would laugh off any attempts to get her to change. In fact, the more she thought about it… if Aunt Lissie were to reintegrate into their lives, she would negatively influence everyone in Tabitha’s close family—starting with the boys. Under Aunt Lisa’s ‘parenting,’ the four cousins’ relatively thoughtful and considerate behavior Tabitha had grown proud of would begin to unravel, and they would revert back to being the absolute shitheads from Tabitha’s previous life.

   Aunt Lisa’s reappearance would once again drive a wedge between Mrs. Moore and that entire side of the family, cutting off that fledgling avenue of growth. As an anxious agoraphobic shut-in only now in recovery, Tabitha’s mother wasn’t psychologically equipped to handle a loud and outspoken personality like Lisa. Grandma Laurie and Mr. Moore would both suffer in silence, bending to Aunt Lisa’s whims if they were able to rationalize that it was for the sake of the four boys or whatever excuses Lisa cooked up. After all, those two were used to it, to an extent—just a few months ago, Mrs. Moore had been just about as toxic and intractable.

   It’s oh so very humbling, Tabitha’s stare turned more and more grave the more she considered the implications. That almost all the changes wrought in the people around me could be undone so easily. All the blood, sweat, and tears, all the STRUGGLE that went into changing things for the better, healing people, mending relationships—and almost all of it can collapse and go back to the way it was with the reappearance of just one Aunt Lisa. Putting aside whether or not it’s even POSSIBLE to help her—can I let her presence destroy all of this? I think… I think I need to make Aunt Lisa disappear.

   The realization—no, the decision hit Tabitha like a pang to her stomach, and for a moment she felt sick. Hugging her arms tight across herself, Tabitha hurried away from her Aunt and retreated back down the hallway to her room. It was one thing to be affected by her teenage emotions and feel anger and outrage that made her think some dark thoughts. It was something else entirely to coldly deliberate removing someone like that.

   I’m not going to kill her! Tabitha wanted to swear at herself, angry all over again at that all-too-familiar wash of nauseating guilt. It’s not like the thing with Jeremy Redford.

   I didn’t even kill him! He just, well, he just died and I was technically at fault for it. I was at fault for it because I made it happen, but not like, like, I’m not PERSONALLY to blame. It did happen because of me, but I didn’t kill him. He almost murdered a cop anyways, so what if he even DID just happen to get his, his comeuppance this time through? Right? I didn’t kill him. Karma came along. I didn’t kill him. I’m not going to kill Aunt Lisa, either—I just need to, to, I don’t know. Make her disappear off somewhere, out of our lives. To prison or somewhere. I don’t know. Anywhere but here.

   Fuck me, this isn’t fair, Tabitha discovered her good hand wouldn’t stop shaking, so she crossed her arms tighter about herself and tried to squeeze her arms into stillness. Why is this so hard?

*     *     *

   The morning hours passed by in a whirl of indecision and abortive attempts at rationalizing various courses of action and inaction. Tabitha was upset, and she knew why she was upset. All of her hypothetical solutions were unrealistic and oblique to the point that her common sense rejected them. The route for helping Lisa change predicated upon being able to sit down with Lisa for a serious conversation and convince Lisa herself that she was a problem. Which, based on what she knew of Lisa’s personality, and the lack of confidence Tabitha possessed for her own persuasive ability and finesse in debating the woman in a heated argument... convincing her Aunt Lisa was somewhere between improbable and impossible.

   Getting rid of Lisa seemed to require the opposite—convincing her parents that Lisa was a problem, but not their problem. Tabitha would have to convey the severity of a problem that Lisa had become, and then illustrate to them how their attempts to help or support Lisa would in fact enable Lisa to become more and more of a problem. Paring down her thoughts and feelings on the issue and sorting everything out, however, did remarkably little towards solving anything. To Tabitha’s endless frustration, she honestly didn’t believe she could convince Lisa or her parents of either narrative. She knew she’d made major strides in this lifetime towards better expressing herself and communicating meaningfully with others, and having a sense of that progress made it just as clear to her how much she fell short here.

   Certainly doesn’t help that I’m so AFFECTED by all of this, Tabitha thought, lifting her elbows up and attempting to roll the stiffness out of her shoulders. Spent most of my morning here just pacing back and forth in my room, going in circles in my head. Yes, I’m smart and I can think things through—eventually—but in the heat of the moment actually out there with Lisa, my temper flares up right away and it’s like I just get locked out of rational thought. Start to act and speak out on impulse, or get myself caught up in this psychological loop of angry thoughts that doesn’t actually go anywhere else. So, in short—I’m stuck.

   It was just as easy to feel trapped in her bedroom with Aunt Lisa snoozing out there in the living room, because Tabitha wasn’t well enough yet to do the kind of morning run she needed to help bleed off some of these feelings, and likewise wasn’t able to power walk around the neighborhood or busy herself over the garden plot like she wanted to. Going outside at all while she was still recovering from surgery wasn’t feasible until it was mid-afternoon and sunny out—late November was cold, but mornings were bitter cold, with dreary overcast skies and a steady biting wind that would sap her strength.

   A completely teenage Tabitha would go out anyways and damn the consequences, Tabitha quirked her lip in a bitter smile. A completely grown-up Tabitha wouldn’t feel so damned ANGSTY cooped up in here waiting for Mom to get up.

   As such, naturally time appeared to slow to a crawl and Tabitha stewed in her simmering thoughts for what felt like several eternities before she heard the door to her parent’s bedroom finally open and her mother’s heavy footsteps treading slowly down the hall. Unable to help herself, Tabitha cracked open her door and leaned out around it as her mother passed by her room.

   “She’s sleeping,” Tabitha whispered. “Out on the couch. Good morning.”

   It took Mrs. Moore a moment to register what was saying, and when she did, the hint of an aggravated scowl was visible across her face for a moment before she was able to hide it. That tiny change in expression was a merciful balm to Tabitha, and she swung her door open the rest of the way and stepped out to hug her mother.

   “Alright—and good morning,” Mrs. Moore whispered back, giving Tabitha a small squeeze. “Do you know why it’s so warm in here?”

   “Sometime overnight she went and turned the thermostat to eighty!” Tabitha tattled in a hushed voice. “I already turned it back down to where it should be.”

   “Hmph,” Mrs. Moore grunted, shaking her head. “Well. First thing’s first—I’m giving your Grandma Laurie a call.”

   “Grandma Laurie?” Tabitha repeated, crashing through a dozen different emotions in quick succession, too fast to individually process. “Do we have to, um—”

   “If we’re tryin’ to have dinner with the Macintires on Thanksgiving day, we’ll have to do whatever little family Thanksgiving we do early, either today or tomorrow,” Mrs. Moore explained in a low voice, pausing for a moment. “And… well, I’ll need to let her know to set the table for your Aunt Lisa too, now.”

   Please don’t, Tabitha just barely managed to not blurt it out, but from her mother’s knowing sigh and pat on the shoulder she knew it was written all across her face. It seemed inevitable that Aunt Lisa would be reunited with the boys, but at the same time the prospect of it filled Tabitha with alarm and had her mind racing in every direction all over again.

   After all—isn’t it suspect that Aunt Lisa, a mother of four, returns from wherever she was in Shelbyville not to her own children, but instead to the home of a brother-in-law whose daughter happens to be on the receiving end of a large settlement of money? Is everyone just ignoring the apparent motive that could be driving Aunt Lisa’s priorities, here? Am I in the wrong for not just giving her the benefit of the doubt because she’s family?

*     *     *

   “Your Grandma Laurie says it’s fine with her if we move family Thanksgiving up a bit and have it today,” Mrs. Moore said, returning the cordless phone back to it’s dock. “She already got her shoppin’ done for it, so...”

   “Did you tell them about our unexpected guest?” Tabitha asked in a low voice, glancing past the kitchen counter and dining room table over to where Aunt Lisa was still sprawled out on their couch, but questionably awake and watching daytime soap operas.

   “I did,” Mrs. Moore paused. “She said she isn’t gonna tell the boys just yet. So they can maybe have a... nice surprise.”

   “Or, so that they won’t have a nasty surprise if she decides not to show,” Tabitha pointed out with a sour look. “If she doesn’t want to see her children again… are we okay with her being here in our home while we’re not? Unsupervised?”

   “I’m sure she’ll go with us,” Mrs. Moore frowned. “Just—well, we’ll see.”

   “Where’s she going to be staying? Sleeping? Our couch? I don’t think we should provide her a place to stay if she isn’t going to be a mother and look after her kids,” Tabitha’s voice dropped to a lower whisper. “Mom. She either is family, or she isn’t.”

   “Well, I don’t think we should even get into it,” Mrs. Moore sighed, resting her hands on the counter. “Bless his heart, your father was... very patient with me when I was going through things. For years. And, he’s liable to try to do the same for your Aunt Lisa now that she’s goin’ through her problems. I… Tabitha, I don’t have any place to say anything.”

   Tabitha bit her lip. She didn’t like it, but Mrs. Moore’s position on this was difficult to refute. Pushing her mother to force things with Lisa towards an ultimatum wasn’t going to work, and her father was going to be even harder to convince. As the teenage daughter, she once again didn’t have enough traction on swaying complicated family matters. The only clear way to make her case was the drug angle, and for that she needed some measure of proof. All of the evidence to substantiate that kind of claim, if such evidence existed at all, was likely in the purse that Aunt Lisa was currently half-sitting on. The handbag was still protectively tucked beneath one armpit as the woman reclined on the sofa, as though it were another pillow.

   “I was thinking we should bring something over with us for Thanksgiving,” Mrs. Moore sighed, tugging open the fridge door and surveying what they had to work with. “But, we don’t really have much of anything here. We do still have half of that bag of potatoes in the cupboard, but just bringin’ mashed potatoes doesn’t seem like enough.”

   “How about... scalloped potatoes?” Tabitha suggested, stepping over to take a glance inside the refrigerator as well. “Hmm. Maybe not.”

   “You think we should go out and buy stuffing or something?” Mrs. Moore fretted. “Normally you’re supposed to at least bring a casserole or something to Thanksgiving. I just, it’s… it’s been a while since I had a Thanksgiving that was more than just bein’ here with you and your father.”

   “If you can give me two or three dollars, I’ll walk up to the gas station and buy a quart of milk,” Tabitha said, stooping down to pull a glass dish out from where it was stored in the bottom cabinet. “Preheat the oven at three hundred and fifty, and if you start peeling now, I should be able to help make scalloped potatoes when I get back.”

   “Okay. Okay, scalloped potatoes are perfect,” Mrs. Moore agreed, hefting the bag of potatoes down from their little pantry. “Are these still good? Will we have enough? How many should I—”

   “They’re fine,” Tabitha promised. “I’ll help you peel them all.”

   “Not with that cast on, you’re not,” Mrs. Moore protested, but it was clear her resolve was weakening. “Let me get you some cash from my purse, and you can—do you want me to go on up with you? I don’t want you goin’ out by yourself.”

   “It’s just at the top of the hill, Mom,” Tabitha said. “I’ll be fine. You start peeling, I’ll help you finish once I’m back. I’m okay to take a five from your purse?”

   “Of course, sure.”

   Leaving her mother to her own devices with the peeler would be cruel—Mrs. Moore had no culinary talent and even less experience. Watching the woman attempt to whittle away potato skin in tiny thin slivers at a time was always so painful that Tabitha’s patience whittled away faster than the spud. Actually holding onto a potato herself was obnoxious with her cast encompassing as much of her thumb as it did, but even with the awkward grip Tabitha could peel a potato in a matter of moments using a knife. She’d already began resuming her previous role in preparing meals for the family over this past week.

   “Aunt Lisa?” Tabitha rounded the kitchen counter and carefully tread out into the living room. “Do you... need anything from the—”

   “Sssh!” Aunt Lisa all but snarled at her. “I can’t even keep up with what all’s goin’ on here with all yer fussin’!”

   Tabitha paused, slowly evaluating the blonde occupying their couch as the gangly heroin addict once again grew absorbed by the ongoing drama of One Life to Live. A step forward and a snatching movement could maybe wrench the purse Aunt Lisa was safeguarding out from under her—but would she even be able to get away with it, or get it open before Lisa was all over her? The body odor of the woman was still noticeable, and Tabitha could just imagine what those two-inch acrylics would feel like clawing at her.

   I can… bide my time, Tabitha told herself, shoving her sudden emotion back down to an angry simmer. There’ll be an opportunity at some point. She’ll drop her guard, or… or I’ll think of something.

   The whole mess with Aunt Lisa was easier to put out of mind as Tabitha turned and hurried down the hallway to fish a five from her mother’s purse where Mrs. Moore kept it in the back bedroom. She of course knew that was the point—her mother could tell the Lisa situation was upsetting her, and so she was play-acting, subtly creating tasks that Tabitha could set her mind to so that she would feel productive and useful. It did help. She didn’t begrudge her mother for it at all, and she thought that both of them were aware that Mrs. Moore was doing it on purpose. In the past few months, each of them had discovered the other was a lot more intelligent than they’d ever let on before this year.

   She’s reading my Goblin Princess outline, Tabitha told herself. Not just skimming through it like I was afraid of—she’s really reading it, studying it, and that means the world to me. Everything I know and feel gets put into the project, so if she’s reading it, she’ll know me. She’ll understand. She has to. Because, I don’t know what I’m gonna do if she doesn’t.

*     *     *

   “Ah, damn,” Bobby exclaimed, frowning as he saw some redhead chick was tugging open the door of the Minit Mart and the bell jangled. Where’d she come from?

   Checking again through the broad glass windows of the gas station, he confirmed that no cars had pulled up. Bobby was supposed to be keeping an eye out for customers while his older brother Joe—the actual employee on shift right now—abused access to the store phone line here to chat with his girlfriend Kimmie, who’d been forced to travel to Minnesota with her parents over Thanksgiving break. Charges would show up on the store’s bill, but in theory, so long as she initiated the call, Joe could just tell his boss that some customer called with a bunch of questions and that he’d had no idea they were calling from long distance.

   The girl who’d just entered the convenience store was cute, if a little frazzled-looking, with her uncombed tangle of hair and how her pale skin seemed to emphasize the dark circles under her eyes. More to the point, however—she was cute, and he recognized her. This was the infamous Tabitha Moore, the freshman dropout of Springton High, mysterious and inaccessible enough to have grown into her own urban legend throughout the school. When she noticed him and did a double-take, he found himself already sheepishly throwing her a small wave.

   Oh shit, she kinda recognizes me, Bobby was a little thrilled.

   “Hey—uh, Bobby, right?” Tabitha guessed.

   Oh shit, she actually remembers me! Bobby’s flash of nervous excitement took him by surprise.

   “Yeah, yeah,” Bobby chuckled. “You remember me?”

   “Yeah,” Tabitha blinked at him. “You were in a couple of my classes. You walked me up to the office the day I withdrew from school—when I was that blubbering mess.”

   “Naw, you weren’t blubberin’ or nothin’,” Bobby tried to assure her. “Maybe just a li’l sniffly? Teary-eyed? Ha hah. It’s cool.”

   The girl normally seemed quiet and a little mousy and always kept to herself, but something about her just really ruffled the feathers of all those flocks of two-faced harpies that called themselves Springton High girls. In fact—the more all of those buzzard bitches ragged on her, the more Bobby started to like Tabitha. Whatever ran contrary to what the bitch brigade were saying was probably closest to the truth, right? The rumor mill at school spun up into full swing whenever Tabitha got brought up, and although he’d asked around with the few buddies he considered pretty reliable, nobody seemed to know what was really going on.

   Current popular theory on Tabitha Moore was that she’d dropped out because she was pregnant, and that the whole bullying thing was just some flimsy excuse to bail out on school before she started showing. Tabitha stealing a boyfriend and getting knocked up was the only reason anyone could imagine Erica Taylor would go so far as to try to murder her—but, it was also a point of contention as to whether Erica had even actually been dating anyone. The sophomore girl hadn’t been official with anyone, or ever really hinted that she might be seeing someone. Assumed availability and showing that extra inch or two of cleavage was part of the leverage Erica Taylor had over the tenth grade guys, so who would she give that up for? Matthew Williams? Some persisted in thinking that, because of his appearance in some of the other rumors, but none of the sophomores Bobby had talked to bought into it.

   Nah, no way, Bobby’s friend Liam had outright refused to believe it. Can’t tell you who... but Matthew’s definitely already seeing this girl, and it’s absolutely, one hundred percent not Erica Taylor. Matthew and Erica knew each other, yeah, but there was nothing between them, no spark or anything. No way.

   Bobby wasn’t really sure what to think—from everything he’d personally witnessed about the girl in the classes they shared, Tabitha wasn’t traditionally social. She hung out with that skinny black girl during lunches, and she was briefly seen interacting with Elena Seelbaugh, before Elena suddenly turned wiccan or lesbo or whatever. That was weird, and the introduction of occult nonsense to the gossip surrounding Tabitha had made all the stories floating around pretty wild for a while. Fueling things even more was that whenever a rumor went a little bit too far, or whenever someone had actually tried to mess with Tabitha, like Chris, Kaylee, and Clarissa—they were suspended or expelled. That meant she was actually a somebody, that she had important parents or came from a bigshot family or something, which totally torpedoed all those tall tales saying she lived in the trailer park back behind this Minit Mart.

   “Everyone’s really, uh, missed you at school,” Bobby couldn’t hold back any longer. “You ever wanna hang out or do somethin’ sometime? You seein’ anyone?”

   “Um, what?” Tabitha’s weary expression showed nothing but surprise and bewilderment. “Hah, no I’m not seeing anyone. You do realize I’m only thirteen years old, right?”

   “What?” Bobby scoffed, eyeing her again. “Thirteen? No way, I call bullshit. You’ve gotta be at least fifteen, right? Don’tcha gotta be fourteen to even be in high school?”

   “Don’t turn fourteen until next month,” Tabitha shrugged, stepping past Bobby and walking towards the row of cooler doors that took up the far wall.

   Thirteen? No way. She’s gotta be messin’ with me… right? Bobby couldn’t help but stare.

   The redhead girl was on the smaller side and had a pretty slight figure, sure, but thirteen? That didn’t fit with his perception of her at all, the way she carried herself, how collected she seemed to be and how mature she acted with things. She had to be at least fifteen, she definitely seemed like a fifteen-year-old. Maybe even older. Sixteen? Maybe not sixteen. Bobby watched as Tabitha didn’t pause to browse the drink selection, instead immediately grabbing a carton of milk to bring up to the register.

   “Uhh,” Tabitha looked around. “Where’s whoever works here?”

   “‘EY, JOE-BRO!” Bobby cupped his hands and shouted back behind the counter. “YOU GOTTA CUSTOMER, HERE!”

   His brother Joseph ducked out from the back room with a look of consternation, holding a cordless phone’s handset against his chest.

   “Sorry ‘bout that, I’m on the phone with a… customer,” Joe lied, quickly bringing the phone up to his ear. “Hey babe, gotta put you on hold. Yeah, just a sec.”

   Bobby and Tabitha exchanged a glance at Joe’s half-hearted charade.

   “Ahem. Will this be everything for you today?” Joe asked in his mild-mannered customer service voice. He tilted the quart-sized milk carton up so that the scanner could read it with an electronic beep.

   Tabitha silently nodded.

   “Uhh hey, sorry if askin’ that was weird,” Bobby apologized. “Just, everyone at school’s always talkin’ about you, it’s all crazy out there stories and you don’t know to believe, right? I’d much rather just, like, get to know you for real and hear what’s up straight from the source, you know? No pressure or anything.”

   Joe shot his brother a subtle yo, who’s this chick glance over the counter as he accepted the five dollar bill from Tabitha and punched the sale into the register.

   “They can’t…” Tabitha cleared her throat and then let out an uneasy laugh. “They can’t still be talking about me, right?”

   “Oh, yeah—all the time,” Bobby nodded. “I mean, from what I heard, Erica just ‘bout knocked your head off, y’know? But, nobody really knows why, an’ that’s like, a step or two up from the usual petty bitch stuff, you know?”

   “It... um. It had to do with Erica and Brittney’s little sister, Ashlee,” Tabitha explained. “Ashlee Taylor and I used to be friends. I stopped going over there to play when one of the sisters pushed me off their trampoline and gave me a concussion, this past summer. Ashlee started hiding her older sister’s things—to get back at them for them being, uh, mean to her—and then blaming me for it, as though I were still going over there and just stealing things. When the bullying at school with me escalated, something I said about their situation to one of the school board women apparently prompted them to step in and separate Ashlee from her sisters. Which in turn seemed to further provoke Erica, and... she lashed out at me.”

   “Oh, wow,” Bobby blinked, not having expected her to actually tell him a whole story. “Does—”

   “That’s the general synopsis of what happened, from my point of view, but I’d love to compare it to all the rumors and examine the differences,” Tabitha continued, staring at Bobby with a somewhat blank expression. “I want to call it a comedy of errors, because that’s one of my favorite expressions, but I’m not sure that it actually fits. I think just implying there’s a certain dark humor to everything going wrong makes it easier to accept—and life often just feels like this long, continuous crashing chain of things going wrong. Doesn’t it?”

   “Uhhh—” Bobby began.

   “Maybe I should start dating?” Tabitha seemed to be looking through him off into the distance and talking to herself, now. “I’m, I’m really losing my grip on reality, and I need someone to talk to. But, I live in constant fear of actually speaking out, of overwhelming those few I’m close to and pushing them away. Maybe what I really need is someone who will listen to me, but doesn’t particularly care what I have to say. Is that what having a boyfriend is like? Or, would assuming that be the real comedy of errors?”

   This time Bobby opened his mouth but had no idea how to reply to that.

   “Sorry,” Tabitha seemed to snap back to the present, and she gave him a sad smile. “That was a strange thing to ask?”

   “Hell, uhh, I don’t mind at all,” Bobby mentally set aside her unexpected long discourse to reexamine later and gave her a reassuring smile. “It really is just like that. Dunno ‘xactly what all you just said, but I do like the way you say it.”

   “Right,” Tabitha gave him a bitter smile as she accepted her change from Joe. “It was nice seeing you again, Bobby.”

   “Would you like a bag for that, Ma’am?” Joe offered in his obsequious customer service voice.

   “Nah, I’m just down the hill there,” Tabitha said, pausing for a moment to give the handset phone Joe was still clutching against his chest a look. “I wouldn’t dare to trouble you further—do instead extend your every courtesy to the other customer you’re servicing.”

   Wait, what? Bobby froze, shooting his brother an incredulous look.

   Their overly posh customer service voice had become an in-joke between the two brothers—Bobby himself worked part time at the Springton McDonald’s. Ma’am, could I tempt you into adding a side dish of Springton’s finest french fries to the main course of your meal? No? Are you certain?! I assure you, these french fries are a Parisian delicacy direct from France! To this day, the closest any of the other teens in town came to appreciating the Anderson brother’s rather nuanced sense of humor was an occasional sarcastic why thank you, good sir, from Kimmie and her friend Caitlyn. Where had this Tabitha girl pulled a genuinely good line like that from?

   Did Tabitha have a sense of humor? In class she hadn’t, but then again she’d been pretty careful during school hours—and with good reason, glares from the freshman and sophomore girls alike made it clear everyone was eager for her to slip up and say something, anything, that could be twisted around and used against her. Did she have some similar in-jokes with her friends, and was that there just some brilliant coincidence where two private jokes from different parties met in a great way? He intended to catch up with Tabitha and get a few more words in, but by the time he realized it she was already headed out the door.

   The electronic door chime finally sounded, and Bobby watched the attractive redhead walk on past the Minit Mart’s glass windows and disappear from sight. Girls at fourteen and fifteen around Springton with an actual decent sense of humor were rare. Although many of them laughed all the time, it usually wasn’t at anything funny. It was just self-aggrandizing noise, social lubricant, as his Grand Nan put it. Keeping up the appearance of their little clique being so great and having so much fun, despising and alienating anyone who didn’t laugh along. It was currently one of the reasons he propped up as to why he hadn’t had a real girlfriend yet—the thing with Tracy didn’t count, that was way back in seventh grade, and they didn’t even kiss.

   In any case, Bobby had seen quiet, guarded Tabitha keeping to herself at school, he’d seen her being hurt and vulnerable, sobbing quietly into her good hand, and now he’d seen her tired, rambling, and cracking jokes. At first, back then he’d spoken up to defend her because— well, she was cute. He kept doing it because he liked stirring up trouble and ruffling everyone’s feathers. He’d been there the day after some Sophomore jock pushed her and got her wrist broken, he’d snuck some glances over when the beauty had set her head down at her desk and fallen asleep. Bobby hadn’t actually seen whichever stuffy bitch knicked Tabitha’s folder or whatever, but he’d been able to tell from all the hushed whispers and self-satisfied smug looks that they’d done something.

   When Mr. Stern asked Bobby to walk her up to the office—as class clown of sorts Bobby was often one of the first students teachers remembered by name and subsequently one of the most frequently called upon—of course he’d jumped at the chance. Tabitha had managed to hold back her tears just about until she got out the door. He’d been thrilled, but also a little mortified—watching a girl cry, up close? It did things to him, it stirred up natural protective instincts, had him feeling confused and contemplative and brooding about it the whole rest of the day.

   Did he actually like Tabitha? Before it was something he’d wondered about, but now it was something he knew.

   “Hey, was that that Tabitha chick?” Joe asked, pausing for a moment in the door to the back. “Freshman dropout chick everyone’s always in a tizzy about? One that got pregnant or whatever? Drama queen chick?”

   “Naw,” Bobby decided, throwing a thoughtful glance back out the storefront. “Forget all that bull hickey you heard. That’s my future wife, right there.”

   “Uh-huh,” Joe gave him an evaluating look and then a solemn nod of understanding and acceptance passed from brother to brother. “Yeah—in your dreams, dick muncher. Don’t let any more damn customers in, I’m on the phone.”

*     *     *

   I talked to a boy? Tabitha trudged down the hill with a small smile. Sorta?

   It was a very strange feeling. She didn’t like Bobby—he was just that redneck kid from class. She didn’t like anyone, really. There were a few freshman boys she’d noticed who were cute or handsome in their own way, but she didn’t have a crush on any of them. In her first life, she’d harbored a small hopeless crush on one of her classmates towards the end of high school.

   To her embarrassment, after forty some years she didn’t even remember his name, now. Maybe it would come to her, if she ever recognized him again. In any case, since being reintroduced to the wilderness of horrors that was 1998 she’d been reeling from her various traumas and identity problems disassociating from things too much to form something like a crush on anyone.

   Still, though, Tabitha felt torn between giddiness and weary resignation. It was cool. Fun. I’m—I don’t know. It’s a teenage girl thing. Not my fault! Maybe I just get some automatic rush of endorphins or something by talking with a boy. It’s so strangely ENGAGING just talking with a boy, getting into conversation, even if it’s… well, it was really just me babbling like an idiot, wasn’t it? Shit. I don’t even remember what I said.

   Boys, and the almost forgotten prospect of dating. She hated that she didn’t hate it, and despite purposefully schooling her expression back into neutrality, the smile crept back in. Being asked about boys by Mrs. Williams or Aunt Lisa was endlessly vexating, so it was with great consternation that Tabitha found herself forced to concede to herself that yes, talking to boys was pretty interesting. Part of the high school fantasy she’d clung to over the summer while working herself to the bone was that she’d be loved and accepted by everyone if only she was thin and pretty. The boys would be polite and aim to court her, the girls would all want to be her friend.

   Ugh, the sheer fucking naivete, Tabitha’s grimace stifled her giddy smile by a notch or two. The inexperience and sad, deluded wishful thinking that things were as simple and easy as that. The fat unpopular girl just assuming life was easy and convenient if only you were thin and pretty. I don’t know that it’s WORSE, but it’s definitely an entire new spectrum of bad to adjust yourself to, and I wasn’t ready.

   The reality of the situation turned out to be more complicated, with other high school girls at best polite and distant, and at their worst openly hostile to her without reason. As for the boys, Tabitha had fended off a few atrocious come-ons, and then been ignored by most of them. At this age most seemed to be watching and waiting, still—not many throughout the ninth grade were dating or ready to date yet, and the few pairings that did happen were well known and often discussed.

   According to Elena, dating was more common throughout the Sophomore year, and then if you weren’t in or between relationships by your Junior or Senior year there was something wrong with you. That thought rankled, the thought that peer pressure had an affect on her stung, and she realized that now the idea of being completely unfettered by social mores was—

   Fuck! No no no, stop stop stop, Tabitha grimaced. Rein it in, c’mon Tabitha. This isn’t the time to get distracted by BOYS, or DATING, of all things. It’s not gonna happen anyways—probably never will. There’s a whole Aunt Lisa situation to deal with, and these damned hormones just have my thoughts careening out of control in every direction but where they should be. Focus, FOCUS.

   “Bobby’s not even that good-looking!” Tabitha rationalized to herself. “Just okayish-looking. Maybe kinda charming when he smiles. Charming, but not TOO charming. Right? He’s… okay, at best he’s like a scrawnier Heath Ledger. A super young Heath Ledger, but with his hair cut real short.”

   Her attention remained in deficit for the rest of the walk back down the hill. Before she really remembered that his name was Bobby, he was just that redneck kid from class—why wasn’t THAT bothering her? Everything trashy and redneck about Aunt Lisa got under her skin in a big way, but with Bobby it didn’t seem to trouble her. Was some sort of distorted electra complex providing attraction based on the superficial similarities between Bobby and her father? While that same perceived ‘redneck’ social standing made her more and more hostile to Aunt Lisa? Did that even make sense?

   ...Maybe? Tabitha felt surprisingly glum about it. I was completely at odds with Mom back when she was trying to be the trailer trash queen despot of our mobile home. Wasn’t until she tried reconnecting with her roots as a would-be-actress that she actually started reaching me. Shit. Fuck. Definitely maybe something like an electra complex. Do I need to start reading up on Carl Jung, so that I don’t wind up letting this grow into some sort of neurosis down the line? I’ve got enough of those already as it is. Would a therapist help?

   It was a troubling distraction, and when she got back home and stepped inside it felt like her thoughts were still pinballing back and forth throughout her head.

   “Oven’s still preheating,” Mrs. Moore fretted. “How much milk did you get?”

   “Just a quart,” Tabitha placed it on the counter with the arrangement they’d prepared for scalloped potatoes. “Here, your change.”

   “Don’t mind that. You just hang on to it for if you ever need some spendin’ money.”

   “‘Kay,” Tabitha sighed.

   “Are you alright?” Mrs. Moore paused.

   “I’m… I’m tryin’,” Tabitha promised, giving her mother a weak smile. “C’mon, let’s do this.”

    She instructed her mother in how to whisk the milk in with butter and flour to make a cream sauce, trading occasional quiet banter back and forth with Mrs. Moore, who was always uncomfortable following a recipe that didn’t provide exact measurements. They peeled potatoes together in silence as One Life to Live out in the living room gave way to General Hospital, and then the spuds were washed and sliced and carefully arranged in their glass dish beneath a healthy layer of cheese. The dish went into the oven, where it would remain until shortly before they left to have Thanksgiving with Grandma Laurie and the boys.

   Hmm. With this much cheese, these might be more potatoes au gratin than scalloped potatoes, but—so sue me. They’re gonna be delicious, that’s all that matters.

   Aunt Lisa remained quiet the entire afternoon, likely lapsing in and out of consciousness as the TV played away in front of her. Some small respite from dealing with the woman’s grating voice suited Tabitha just fine, and after very carefully scrubbing the instant coffee dregs out of her nice tea set with her mother’s help, she carried them one by one into her room to hide the pieces away. When the last teacup was turned upside-down and placed on a small towel on her dresser, Tabitha’s eyes continued to wander.

   A pair of the golden-foil wrapped Reese’s peanut butter cups were paperweights upon her school withdrawal papers and the homeschooling information printouts Mrs. Cribb had sent them. The rest of that small mountain of Reese’s from the Halloween haul was hidden in the freezer, where the chocolate wouldn’t tempt them with its seductive wiles. She’d kept a few get-well cards and had them propped up, but the Ariel costume had been folded and put away.

   Otherwise, her tiny bedroom was still as sparsely decorated as it had been back during Halloween, when the girls had had that sleep over. Tabitha’s spartan bedroom seemed to reflect the limbo of her state of being, because it wasn’t the place of a budding young girl, cluttered with her hopes and dreams for the future, and it also wasn’t the living space of an old woman, full of fond memories and knick-knacks from days gone by. It was some empty in-between, without any indication of what direction her life was going in.

   I’m happiest when I can just be a normal boring teenage daughter, Tabitha thought, glancing around her room with a listless expression. When things can just be simple and I can just have the loving family I always wanted. When I can just be the person I always wished I could have been. SHOULD have been. Or work my way towards that, at least.

   Tabitha’s identity problems were beginning to reach a sense of actual crisis.

   Thirteen was supposed to be a time of metamorphosis, but everything for her was completely backwards, a baffling psychological reversal of concepts. Her future adulthood was in the past, now, and the childhood she revisited was nothing like she remembered—it was almost all treading entirely new ground. Even despite her mind weathering through all of this reasonably well enough, Tabitha felt she was sometimes emotionally regressing in a serious way. All the intelligence in the world wouldn’t help her if the way she felt about things completely overwhelmed every rational decision she might make.

   That, and also… I’m upset because Lisa showed up out of nowhere. Blindsided me. Despite how I’m supposed to know basically what events happen, and generally when. Or, at least know things in a vague way. Unwelcome BUTTERFLY EFFECT surprises that aren’t part of my future knowledge at this point start to make me feel real... extremely vulnerable.  On edge. Especially after—yeah, after all the nice ‘surprises’ so far. I’m less and less okay with these kind of surprises each time, BECAUSE IT ALWAYS SUCKS, and, naturally, it’s going to happen more and more often because of the little changes spreading outward and changing everything.

   Pretty soon, there won’t be ANY comfort to be had from future knowledge, and… who even am I at THAT point? I’m not from the future anymore, then. I’m just a crazy person, with completely irrelevant knowledge from some... hypothetical divergent timeline that no longer has any bearing on the one we’re in here and now. I’m just an actual fucking thirteen-year-old again, but with added crazy. Basically—bottom line—I’m crazy. I’m crazy. GREAT.

   Physically, she wasn’t faring much better than she was mentally. Her body had still been undergoing puberty when it was suddenly subjected to the extreme flux of weight loss and the repeated shocks to her system—head trauma from being pushed off a trampoline in the first place, the wrist fracture from being shoved off the curb at school, then renewed head trauma from being attacked at the Halloween party more recently. Not for the first time, she wondered if all of her future knowledge maybe really WAS some sort of hyperactive hallucination brought on by some tissue or nerve damage to her brain.

   Tabitha turned her head in the mirror so that she could see her stitches. They looked fine, they hadn’t been inflamed or irritated or swollen or anything, and the shaved patch there on the side was beginning to grow back in as a downy soft fuzz of red hair. She was still very, very pale.

   What a grand delusion this would all be… but once you start doubting, it never really stops, does it?

*     *     *

A lifetime ago

   “Happy Thanksgiving, Honey,” Grandma Laurie welcomed Tabitha into the apartment with a weary smile.

   “Happy Thanksgiving,” Mr. Moore greeted, giving his chubby daughter a nudge to prompt her to do the same. “Say Happy Thanksgiving, Tabitha.”

   “Happy Thanksgiving,” Tabitha croaked, fidgeting in the doorway.

   “No Shannon this year, either?” Grandma Laurie asked, beckoning them inside.

   “She’s not feelin’ too great about leavin’ the house right now,” Mr. Moore explained with an awkward expression as he shuffled Tabitha inside. “She does wish she could be here with us.”

   “Well, I hope she feels better,” Grandma Laurie gave him a knowing look and patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll put together a big dish of leftovers for you to take over, how’s that sound?”

   “Sounds great,” Mr. Moore said. “Love you, Mom.”

   “Tabby Honey—your cousins are all in the bedroom playing their video game,” Grandma Laurie said. “I’m sure you remember all the boys.”

   “Uh-huh,” Tabitha said with reluctance.

   Her grandmother’s apartment reeked of the unfamiliar—it was too nice. The furnishings were simple but tasteful with curio cabinets, an overstuffed sofa, a modest television set, and old lamps that lit the room with warm light. In contrast to the decor there was a pile of grubby-looking boys’ backpacks in a small heap by the door, worn plastic action figures were strewn about the periphery—Ninja Turtles, a Megazord missing an arm, a Batman sans his cape, a half dozen small Happy Meal Transformers toys that seemed to turn into fries and ice cream cones and sandwiches.

   Both extremes made Tabitha uncomfortable. The toys were violent boys things with swords and guns and whatnot. The tastefully-appointed Grandma aspects of the room were an enormous leap from what home was like and that put her on edge even worse.

   Do I havta take off my shoes? Can I just sit on the couch and watch TV by myself? Tabitha couldn’t help but hunch her shoulders a bit as she glanced around. I don’t want to play with my cousins. Why can’t I just stay at home like Momma does? It’s not fair that she doesn’t havta come for stupid Thanksgiving.

   “They’re right on in there, playing their games,” Grandma gestured in amusement, apparently of the mind that Tabby would just love to hang out with other kids. “Go on and say hi.”

   “Okay,” Tabitha said with a blank face, mechanically stumbling down the indicated hall.

   The hallway was lined with framed photos, mostly of Dad and his brother Uncle Danny when they were younger. There were several pictures of the cousins when they were toddlers, there was an embarrassing blown-up yearbook photo of a pudgy Tabitha attempting a dour smile from last year at Laurel Middle school—and as if to taunt her gross inadequacy, for some reason there was an astounding beautiful red-haired young woman with a gorgeous smile in the picture frame just above her.

   She gave that one a lingering look, wondering just like when she had visited last year who that one was and which side of the family she was on. Maybe one of her mother’s relatives? She looked familiar in a weird, difficult to place way. Momma didn’t talk about her family. It was a bad subject to bring up, and this was probably why—her Momma probably felt just as rotten seeing this girl as Tabby did.

   Her four cousins were all gathered around the bed in Grandma’s room playing a Nintendo 64, and none of them looked up when she came in. The TV screen was split into four different views, each one displaying a hand with a gun in it and dizzying blurs of walls and corridors and stairways and doors as each boy apparently controlled a different character to race around some weird-looking complex in search of something. A blocky polygon person appeared on one of the screens— no, the figures of two different sprinting people with guns appeared, one on each of the diagonal divisions of TV screen, and suddenly the multiplayer game erupted into a cacophony of wild gunfire that made made Tabitha want to flinch back.

   “Hah! Gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha!”

   “No you—damn, stop, stop—”

   “He’s cheating, Aiden’s screenwatching—”

   “Gotcha! Hah-hah, you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re—”

   “I’m not even looking at your stupid—”

   “Well now I’m gonna kill you though.”

   “Nuh-uh you’re not.”

   “I know where you are and your health’s like, all gone.”

   “Ohhh crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap—”

   “Hi,” Tabitha interrupted with a half-hearted wave.

   “It’s Tabby,” One of the boys—she knew all their names but didn’t know who was who— gave her a brief glance before turning back to the game.

   “We’re playing Goldeneye,” the youngest one proclaimed. “Do you wanna play?”

   “She can’t play. There’s only four controllers.”

   “Yeah, stupid. Are you gonna quit so she can play?”

   “No, you are.”

   “Pfft, yeah right. You are.”

   “Nuh-uh. I have first controller, so I’m first. Nick has fourth controller, so he’s last—he should quit.”

   “I’m not gonna quit.”

   “Whoever dies next has to quit.”

   “Oh crap oh crap wait oh crap oh crap—”

   “It’s alright,” Tabitha frowned. “I don’t play... Golden Eye.”

   “Good, ‘cause we’re already playing.”

   “Yeah, we’re already playing and there’s only four controllers anyways.”

   “We should play Facility next.”

   “No way, Facility’s dumb. We should do Bunker again next, but with proximity mines.”

   “Bunker’s dumb.”

   “How can you say Bunker’s dumb? You’re dumb.”

   “Proximity mines are dumb. They’re basically cheating.”

   “Yeah, you only want proximity mines because you suck at playing!”

   “Well, you’re just mad because you suck at proximity mines.”

   “You can’t suck at proximity mines. All they do is just blow up.”

   “Yeah, when you play proximity mines it’s like the proximity mines do all the work.”

   Having been immediately forgotten about, Tabitha was more than content to fade into the background and be invisible to them. She remained quiet and found an uneasy perch on the far edge of the bed so she could watch. This Goldeneye seemed to consist entirely of them just murdering each other over and over again with guns. The screens were tiny, they lit up with olive wreaths of red and blue squares for some reason whenever they were about to die, and trying to keep up with what was going on when everyone was running around so fast felt like it was just going to give her a headache.

   Video games, in her mind, were for rich kids—she was interested and curious, but the whole experience was also intimidating and complex and she didn’t imagine her parents would ever buy her anything like that. Glancing at the oversized controllers perplexed her even more, because each of the smooth plastic contraptions in her cousins’ hands had three handles, a joystick, and an incomprehensible array of different colored buttons in strange groupings. Tabitha did want to try playing a Nintendo 64 sometime, but not here, and not like this. She wanted to play something that looked actually fun, like from the Banjo Kazooie commercials that played on TV, or to get into that Pokemon thing that she overheard everyone else at school always talking about.

   Tabitha watched on with a bored expression as the younger boys continue to violently murder each other in the game for the better part of an hour. She didn’t have to speak up or try to get to know them, so that was nice at least. She was free to sit back by herself with no one paying attention to her and daydream of someday having her own friends to play cool-looking Nintendo 64 games with. After all, someday—someday she’d have a bunch of her own friends to have fun with, and it’d be amazing.

   Somewhere in her bitter thirteen-year-old heart, she already knew it was never ever going to happen.

   “Booooys!” Grandma Laurie yelled over from the kitchen. It sounded as though she was very used to having to holler. “Tabby, boys—turn that thing off and c’mon out, Thanksgiving supper’s ready.”

   Mismatched chairs had been requisitioned and set up for the additional two guests and everyone took places at the table, with Tabitha sitting next to her Dad while the boys all clambered haphazardly into their seats. They didn’t have much in the way of manners, with two of the cousins rising up to sit on their knees so they could put their hands on the table and peer across the ‘lavish’ spread of food.

   Thanksgiving dinner was baked beans with hot dogs mixed in, as well as instant mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and stuffing. Tabby remembered the year before there had been a big turkey they baked in the oven, but it apparently wasn’t worth the effort with Uncle Danny and Aunt Lisa gone to… well, wherever they were. The boys were picky eaters and wouldn’t eat turkey, it came right from a roasted dead bird and that was weird. Much like Tabitha, they were raised on processed meats like bologna slices and ninety-nine cent hot dog packs—actual turkey was too bizarre. Grandma Laurie had done her best to make an occasion of it, but still nothing looked all that appetizing to Tabby.

   “I was gonna buy a big ham and carve it up, but…” Grandma Laurie sighed and gave her son an apologetic look. “I figured the boys might not eat it, and I might as well save the extra money for their Christmas instead.”

   “Everything looks great, Mom,” Mr. Moore promised her. “There’s more here than we can eat anyways, we’ve gotta be thankful. Tabby, boys—doesn’t everything look great?”

   “What’s that?” One of the boys stabbed a finger at one of the dishes. “It smells gross.”

   “That’s coleslaw, we had it here last year,” Grandma Laurie reminded the boy. “You won’t eat it—we have beans and hot dogs for you boys.”

   “Beans, beans, the magical fruit,” one of the other boys sang, “the more you eat, the more you toot!”

   “Samuel, enough,” Grandma Laurie warned. “Sit properly at the table. Do you wanna say grace?”

   “No way,” the boy made a face. “Nick can say grace.”

   “I’m not saying grace!”

   “Yub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub!” The singing boy chimed in again.

   “Hey now, we have company,” Grandma Laurie sighed. “Behave yourselves.”

   “Boys, sit,” Mr. Moore commanded in a stern voice. “Mom, I’ll say grace.”

   Tabitha obediently bowed her head and clasped her doughy hands together over the swell of her protruding stomach. It was a constant reminder of how fat she felt, especially when they were about to tuck into a big meal like this. Other girls seemed to simply be skinny and it was natural and effortless for them, and the frustration of that made Tabitha just want to shrink back into herself and disappear like always.

   “Dear heavenly Father, we thank you for this meal you’ve given us. We thank you for looking over us—for watching over these boys, for looking after my daughter. We thank you for all of your blessings, and we’re thankful that we’re able to sit and eat together as a family. Amen.”

*     *     *

Now

   Tabitha sat sandwiched between her mother and father on the bench seat of his truck, staring down at the cast she held on her lap. She was nothing like that Tabitha of old—she was slender enough now that she appeared frail, but she carried herself with confidence and poise. Mrs. Moore was joining them this time, not only having likewise lost weight, but having overcome the crippling agoraphobia that kept her from ever leaving the mobile home last lifetime.

   Aunt Lisa was riding along with them, lounging back there behind in the open air bed of the truck with one bony elbow propped up on the side. The sheer amount of differences between this Thanksgiving and what she remembered from her previous life completely overwhelmed whatever scant few similarities remained. So much had changed that there was little point in ruminating over it anymore—there was no meaning to be gleaned from examining subtle changes. There were no subtle changes. Everything had changed, in drastic ways, from the cast of actors present to their relationships to the present narrative. It wasn’t even November twenty-fifth today. They were having their Moore family Thanksgiving a day early, so that the Moores could join the Macintires on actual Thanksgiving.

   “Boys’re sure in for a surprise,” Mr. Moore remarked. “Seein’ their Momma again for Thanksgiving.”

   “Uh-huh,” Tabitha stared forward out the windshield, doing her best not to show any emotions.

   To her father’s apparent dismay, silence once again pervaded the cab of the truck. Whenever Lisa got brought up, Mrs. Moore sealed her lips and held her peace, either because she had nothing to say about the matter, or perhaps in show of solidarity with Tabitha’s obvious and ever-growing animosity for the woman. Shannon Moore had never had much of a rapport with any of Alan’s side of the family, and it was only in recent months that she’d even started to be on better terms with Grandma Laurie.

   Tabitha hadn’t known any of them well in her first life. Though circumstances here in this one had at first pushed Tabitha towards her Grandma—only for help squeezing out from beneath her mother’s obstinate thumb—by this point, Tabitha had bridged strong familial connections between both of them. Her mother and father, her Grandma, the four cousins— these were all her family now. Uncle Danny and her Aunt Lisa were not family. As far as she was concerned, the lines had been drawn, and they just grew more and more solid every time Aunt Lisa opened her mouth and something ignorant popped out.

   “Heeeey booooys!” Aunt Lisa yelled out the moment Mr. Moore made the final turn through the development and Grandma Laurie’s was in sight. The boys were out playing in the yard as usual, and each one of the cousins appeared stunned as Aunt Lisa rose up into a half-standing position in the bed of the moving vehicle so that she could let out a loud wolf whistle.

   “MOM!” Aiden squealed, breaking into a teary-eyed sprint across Grandma Laurie’s front yard towards the truck.

   Mr. Moore slowed as the boy ran in front of the truck, and the chassis rocked as Aunt Lisa hopped out of the back, waving proudly with both arms like this was the parade for a returning hero. Aiden ran into his mother with such force that he nearly bowled the woman off her feet, while Tabitha watched on in mounting frustration. I should have—I don’t know what I should have done. Prevented them from meeting again, somehow. Some way.

   “Awww, Aidey Baby!” Lisa crooned, splaying her long false nails and patting the boy’s back with her palms so as not to break her acrylics. “Aidey Baby—did you miss yer Momma?!”

   Of course he missed his fucking mother you stupid TWAT, Tabitha seethed as she followed her mother out of the truck and stepped to the curb. ‘Mother’ is the name for God in the hearts of little children. You’re their Mom—at that age, you’re, you’re EVERYTHING to them! And you fucking left!

   How could she prove to her parents that Aunt Lisa was getting into heroin, and that she had only returned for the money? She felt sure that Aunt Lisa had drugs in her purse, and that that was why she was guarding it so closely. Who would believe her if Tabitha claimed to know there was heroin in that purse, though? She still hadn’t been into Aunt Lisa’s purse—there’d been no opportunity. Aunt Lisa didn’t let it out of her sight for a moment. There might not even be drugs in the purse, for all she knew Aunt Lisa could just be paranoid about letting anyone near the last of her stash of saved money or something.

   Even if I pull a bunch of needles out of her purse and wave them around—how can I prove it’s heroin, and not insulin or something? Tabitha grit her teeth and shifted her weight from foot to foot and then turned and took several steps back and forth to bleed off her restless annoyance. It’d be my word against hers.

   Me, the emotional teen. Accusing her of being a drug addict out of nowhere, for no discernable reason to them. When they already feel I’m at odds with her. Lisa’s slippery, and probably already has alibis and excuses and whatever reasoning thought up for being called out.

   Watching Aiden bury his face against that awful woman, and seeing her carefully sink her talons back into him made Tabitha furious. Was that a cold, calculative glint in Lisa’s wretched eyes, or was it just her imagination getting the best of her? Tabitha had half a mind to stomp over there and separate them, to make some dramatic display of pointed accusation, to confront this terrible truth that everyone else must be willingly blinding themselves to.

   There were too many gut-wrenching feelings to deal with right now, and more than anything Tabitha just wanted out, wanted to immediately leave and go back home. She knew it wasn’t fair of her to feel betrayed by how her cousins gathered around Aunt Lisa with wet eyes, but Tabitha felt betrayed anyways. She refused to believe she was jealous, she was not jealous, but anger at Lisa and sympathy for the boy’s terribly misplaced love for their mother wrestled with one another within her, and she didn’t stand to benefit from either of them winning out.

   “Mom—Mom,” Joshua vied for his mother’s attention.

   “Mom—where did you go?!” The hurt in Samuel’s eyes seemed to devastate only Tabitha, because everyone else was smiling as if they were touched by the happy reunion.

   “Moooommy!” Aiden wailed, refusing to let go of the woman.

   It’s just me—of course it’s just me, Tabitha grit her teeth. I’m the only one poisoned by future knowledge. Knowing that she didn’t come back for THEM, that she’s just, just this filthy fucking parasite scurrying back at the scent of money. I wish I didn’t know. I wish I DIDN’T know. Fuck. I need to—I need to calm down. Calm down. Calm down.

   “Well,” Mr. Moore let out an uneasy chuckle, looking up past the tearful reunion in the front yard to where Grandma Laurie was stepping out onto the porch. “Surprise?”

   “Happy Thanksgiving,” Grandma Laurie gave the family a strained smile. “Shannon, it’s good to see you. Tabby Honey—I’m glad you could make it.”

   “Happy Thanksgiving, Grandma,” Tabitha forced out, trying—and failing—to put on a smile.

   “Happy Thanksgiving,” Shannon called, pointedly glancing past the scene Lisa was making from her mother-in-law to her daughter and back again as if to ignore some unspoken unpleasant truth.

   “Well o’course it is!” Lisa snorted. “Momma’s back, aren’t ch’all thankful?! We’re gon’ havta break out the beer an’ celebrate Thanksgiving proper this year, you hear me?”

   All at once, Tabitha felt like she was completely done with the entire do-over. She was sick and tired of having future knowledge—she just wanted the ignorance and naivety of a thirteen, almost fourteen-year-old girl again. That time in her first life having Thanksgiving with Grandma Laurie and the boys, hadn’t that been pretty okay? Had all this baggage from the future really made her any happier?

   The future sucks. It sucks! It’s completely shitty and awful and depressing and I’m, I’m sick of having it just hang over my head! Tabitha scowled, feeling that familiar swelling surge of emotion get the better of her once again.

   Sick of having it LOOM over me with inevitability. Everything I want to change for the better seems to just take HERCULEAN effort, shifting any stone of obstruction in the path of my past reveals some serpent sleeping beneath I never knew about. There’s so many frustrating things I CAN’T change—and I’m just hurting and exhausted, all of the fucking time. All of the fucking time!

*     *     *

   Lisa... you’re dressed like a street walker, for crying out loud! Laurie’s rigid smile felt more strained than ever. It’s Thanksgiving. Is that how you want your kids to see you?

   Laurie sighed, deciding to rest her old bones on the steps while her grandchildren swarmed their mother with tears. She couldn’t say she was thrilled to see Lisa. She’d honestly never been thrilled to see Lisa. Both her sons seemed to turn soft in the head when confronted with a pretty face, Alan completely enamored by their small town starlet-to-be Shannon, and Daniel falling head-over-heels for—well, Lisa was a harlot. To Laurie’s constant consternation, Lisa got pregnant with the first of the boys while still in her teens, and then the girl just kept on getting knocked up, over and over again. Neither Lisa nor Daniel seemed to have the slightest restraint. Neither ever felt inclined to stop and consider the consequences—that each of these children would need raised up and taken care of.

   The sour looks Tabitha and Shannon were wearing told her with certainty that Lisa sure wasn’t going to be staying with them, and that meant Laurie had yet another mouth to feed. As upsetting for the boys as it had been when Lisa took off without a word and disappeared on them... Laurie couldn’t deny that it had been for the best. The woman wasn’t a proper mother, and often it felt like every cross moment she had with the boys led right back to the same problem—their upbringing with Lisa.

   While the four boys had been with Lisa, the woman had made no efforts to keep them out of trouble or teach them right from wrong. She barely paid any attention to them at all, because at her core, Lisa seemed a self-centered woman and everything had to revolve around her. The only times Lisa scolded them at all were when the boys did something that would inconvenience her. Back when Aiden had scraped his knee bloody and was bawling his little heart out, Laurie remembered that Lisa had been annoyed rather than concerned.

   “What the fuck were y’all doin’?! Lisa had snapped. Sammie—why’s yer brother bleedin’? Huh? Why aren’t you watchin’ out for yer brother?!”

*     *    *

   “Everything looks nice,” Tabitha remarked upon surveying her grandmother’s apartment.

   “Aw, thank you dear,” Grandma Laurie gave her a wry smile and patted the girl’s shoulder as if Tabitha was simply being polite.

   It really did look nice to Tabitha, but with memories of her past life some forty years distant it was hard to put her finger on exactly what had changed. The atmosphere was very different—Grandma Laurie seemed less frazzled than Tabitha remembered, the four boys seemed a tiny bit better behaved. Or, maybe it was just personal bias influencing how she perceived them now that she knew them better?

   The apartment was small but cozy, and had been tidied up prior to their arrival for early Thanksgiving, with four children’s backpacks hung up next to each other on the pegs of the coat rack. Rather than toys being strewn about the floor everywhere, the carpet was clear and sported the telltale clean lines of having been vacuumed recently. The boys had obviously been put to task with picking up their things, because many of the toys appeared to now be on the bottom shelf of the entertainment center. A fold-out Bruce Wayne Manor playset was one one side, and all of their action figures were standing in close formation next to it—power rangers, ninja turtles, and the exaggerated plastic musculature of WWF wrestlers all arranged in display as if waiting for a presidential address from the balcony of the batcave.

   “I’m so glad everyone could make it,” Grandma Laurie stepped in to accept the glass dish of scalloped potatoes Mrs. Moore had brought. “Oh, this looks lovely, Shannon.”

   “Tabitha and I made them fresh this afternoon,” Mrs. Moore said. “Well, I mostly just followed her directions, she’s still got her arm in that awful cast. Might’ve baked too long, the cheese turned a little darker than—”

   “It looks lovely,” Grandma Laurie repeated, “and it smells delicious. Glad I bought that ham, now! Don’t think baked beans and hot dogs would’ve been enough for everyone.”

   “What, we ain’t havin’ turkey?” Aunt Lisa sounded miffed. “Are you for serious? The hell kinda Thanksgivin’ is it without turkey?”

   “Lisa, you know the boys won’t eat turkey,” Grandma Laurie reminded her in a soft voice.

   “Well who gives a flying fart what they wanna eat?” Aunt Lisa scoffed. “They’re six years old, they havta eat whatever’n it is we say they do. An’ if they don’t finish what’s on their plate they can sit there at the table ‘till they finish! I ain’t raisin’ up no picky eaters.”

   You haven’t been RAISING any of them, Tabitha was once again forced to grit her teeth so that she didn’t launch into a furious tirade. None of them are six years old. Sam’s almost ELEVEN years old, now. Lisa, you’re freeloading food, here. You haven’t provided anyone ANYTHING. You want turkey, why don’t you fucking—

   “Tabitha, boys—why don’t you all go on and play your video game in the other room,” Grandma Laurie proposed.

   From the dirty look the old woman shot Lisa, Tabitha could tell that Grandma Laurie didn’t approve of Lisa’s assertion or the foul language used in expressing it. Both Mr. and Mrs. Moore looked embarrassed to have brought Lisa here, but also— what else could they have done? This was supposed to be a touching reunion for her and the four boys, but Aunt Lisa was already hopping on the sofa and fishing for the remote control. Samuel, Nicholas, Aiden, and Joshua were milling about beside Tabitha, uncharacteristically quiet and subdued.

   “Sure,” Tabitha spoke up, fighting to put on a smile for her cousins. “C’mon, guys. Why don’t you show me your game?”

   The young boys seemed to grasp at someone finally giving them attention like it was their lifeline, and quickly clamored to tug Tabitha on down the hallway towards Grandma’s room where the other TV and their Nintendo 64 was set up. Despite visiting her cousins semi-frequently over the past half-year, Tabitha had yet to sit down and actually watch them play video games. Whenever she came over, she was bringing them to the playground to play. At best she’d gone in to check and make sure the game console was turned off before they ran outside with her.

   Besides enjoying a few random mobile games like Peggle back in her college years, Tabitha’s only real experience with video games were android ports of Pokemon games, and then later dabbling a bit in ‘classic’ titles re-released on the Nintendo Magi. Most of that was simply to see what all the fuss was about with the new holographics—once companies were investing upwards of a billion dollars into development, games and gaming supplanted cinema and television as the more common cultural touchstone.

   “The only racing game we have is Ten-Eighty Snowboarding, so if—”

   “All-star Basketball or Goldeneye. I bet Tabby’d be really good at—”

   “We don’t have any girl games, but—”

   “Tabby’s not like like a girly girl, though,” Samuel interjected. “She’d be good at snowboarding.”

   “No way, we should play wrestling!” Nicholas whined. “NWO-World Tour is—”

   “What do you want to play?” Joshua asked. “We have four controllers, so—oh, look!”

   “Yeah, look,” Aiden chimed in. “Gramma put up your picture.”

   “My picture?” Tabitha asked.

   Turning to see the photographs hanging along the hallway wall, Tabitha discovered that beneath the young glamour shot of her mother was a framed picture of herself clipped out from the newspaper—the somewhat fuzzy shot Alicia had somehow managed to take of her running towards Officer Macintire moments after the shooting. Likewise Tabitha found another picture beside it of a flushed but skinny looking Tabitha about to leap down from the playground equipment in the park while two of the boys were fleeing in the foreground with huge grins.

   That’s me—that’s from THIS timeline, for some reason Tabitha was shocked. That’s the current me. Well, from a few months ago or so maybe, there’s no cast. I look… like a pretty cool little brat. When did she even—does Grandma Laurie own a camera?

   No one in this world knew how important the new memories she was making in this life were to Tabitha, but the fact that some of these moments seemed just as important to Grandma Laurie was touching. In her last time through, Tabitha barely even knew this part of her family at all—Grandma Laurie and the cousins only existed at Thanksgiving and Christmas. She hadn’t valued them, they’d simply been there in the far periphery of her life.

   “C’mon, c’mon,” Joshua had his arm hooked through her elbow and was trying to pull her back towards the bedroom while his brothers were already turning the game system on back there.

   “Coming, sorry,” Tabitha murmured with a wistful smile. “Did I hear you say you had a game about snowboarding?”

   Unlike last lifetime, and even despite the improbable return of their own mother, Tabitha was the center of their attention. They weren’t willing to let her fade quietly into the background sitting on the other side of the bedspread—they sat her down on the edge right in front and pushed a Nintendo 64 controller into her hands as the CRT TV slowly fuzzed to life.

   “What the…?” Tabitha turned the plastic controller over in her hands, having a rare moment where she felt completely like an old lady again.

   Am I supposed to bop it or twist it? Tabitha joked to herself. There’s three handles here, and I’ve only got two hands. There’s a joystick here where I can’t reach it, and buttons and triggers spread all over the place, so how are you supposed to even—

   “You hold it like this,” Samuel instructed, correcting her hold on the gray controller. “Ignore this whole side. Except for this button, you need this one.”

   “Ah, I see,” Tabitha nodded in amusement, feeling like a pro gamer already. “When you put it like that— this must be so that left-handed people can use it the other way around?”

   “Left-handed people?” Aiden looked confused.

   “This way’s right, and this way’s left,” Joshua demonstrated proudly, turning in place to face the other way and pointing the wrong direction each time. “No wait, this way’s left, and this way’s right. Left is west and right is east. Right?”

   “Left-handed people are born using the wrong hand for everything,” Samuel explained to his youngest brother. “It’s like a disability, or being handicapped sorta. You can get a handicapped parking tag for it when you grow up, one of the kids in my class has it.”

   Their childish take on everything was refreshing—in the pre-internet era, conjecture and misinformation was situation normal, and the entire world around them was decorated with tall tales they’d heard from seemingly reliable older kids. Tabitha was still fish-out-of-water enough herself that the first association she made with left and right was democrats and republicans—which may as well not even exist to these elementary schoolers—and it helped the last of her anger at their mother drain away.

   Their mother, who’d rather sit out there watching Jerry Springer and Judge Judy than spend time with her own kids. Her own children, who she hasn’t seen in months and each of them must have a billion things to tell her and show her and go on about. They’re growing up fast, and she’s missing it—she doesn’t even care that she’s missing it. All four of them are just DESPERATE for a mother figure, and Grandma Laurie and I can only do so much.

   The boys were louder than ever as they talked over each other attempting to give Tabitha advice as she guided a blocky polygon snowboarder down a snowy half-pipe on the screen. It was fun despite the pixel antialiasing and janky graphics that seemed prehistoric to her, and mostly because of how enthusiastic the boys were to teach her how to play. Samuel was crouched on his knees on the bed behind her, looking over her shoulder and occasionally pointing out which button was which on the controller. Nicholas turned into a chatty backseat driver criticizing her every move, and Joshua and Aiden stood on either side of television gesturing wildly and trying to show her what cool moves she could do.

   I need to talk to Alicia about games, or maybe even Casey, Tabitha decided, the boys all jumping and cheering as she steered her snowboarder up one side of the curved slope and then mashed buttons until some kind of trick was performed. It’s—wow, that was kinda neat—um, Christmas is coming up, and I want to get the boys each something special.

   I think Casey said the Gameboy Color was coming out soon—there’s no way we can afford four of THEM, but surely that means the price of the original, regular Gameboy has gone down. Right? They could each have one of those, and… play Pokemon against each other, or, or… something. I KNOW that Pokemon gets to be really big. You can’t put a price tag on memories at this age, on this sheer childlike wonder they have for new things, this excitement. It won’t be like this for them forever.

*     *    *

   “Aiden. You put that on your plate, now you better eat it. No child o’ mine’s gonna be wastin’ food on Thanksgivin’—you better eat it, or so help me God,” Aunt Lisa threatened, pointing a finger across the table right in her son’s face. “That goes for all of you’ns. If them plates ain’t clean, none of y’all are gettin’ any dessert. You hear me?”

   He DIDN’T put the ham on his plate, you did, Tabitha seethed. My dad asked if they wanted to try any ham, and they each POLITELY refused and I was so proud of their table manners! So, what do you do? You yell at them, insist they’re insulting Grandma Laurie who made it for them, and slapped a cut of ham on each of their plates. With your filthy fucking unwashed FINGERS, when there’s a pair of tongs right there in the dish with the cuts of ham!

   “There’s dessert?” Aiden dared to raise his head.

   “No, there’s no dessert—it’s a figure of speech Aiden, don’t be a smartass,” Aunt Lisa growled. “Jesus H. Christ, y’all act like fuckin’ animals. And they wonder why I didn’t want y’all around, it’s been nothin’ but sass and backtalkin’ me since right the minute I got here.”

   There was a clatter of silverware against a dish as Tabitha rose up out of her seat in a blind, sickening rage, and only Grandma Laurie’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. Glaring pure venom at Aunt Lisa, Tabitha slowly—reluctantly—eased back down into her seat. Her temper seemed to be on a hair-trigger now, and although she didn’t know what she would actually do if she dived over and tackled Aunt Lisa, she knew it wouldn’t be good.

   “Lisa—please,” Grandma Laurie tried to mediate. “It’s Thanksgiving. Let’s just try to—”

   “No, nuh-uh,” Lisa forked another helping of scalloped potatoes into her mouth and then used the fork to gesture with. “I ain’t puttin’ up with any shit. You’ve been mollycoddlin’ these boys an’ been soft on ‘em, but all that shit ends right here, right now. You hear me, boys?”

   What a joke—they haven’t done anything at all worth scolding them for! Tabitha felt nauseous simply sitting at the same table as her Aunt. You’re going WAY out of your way in an attempt to assert dominance, trying to posture your way back into a family hierarchy you have NO fucking place in.

   Tabitha could only look around the table in disbelief, because it appeared to be working. Her father looked uncomfortable and wore a slight frown as he chewed his food, but didn’t seem like he was planning on speaking up. Mrs. Moore almost seemed to be glowering but rarely looked up from her plate and seemed to retreat back into the background once any conversation with Lisa started, because of the social anxieties she still seemed crippled with. Grandma Laurie seemed to think it wasn’t her place to intervene between the mother and her children and was simply putting up with it.

   But—I CAN’T put up with it, Tabitha felt sick, her appetite was gone, and she glared down at her dish and idly rearranged food she no longer intended to eat with her fork. Seeing each of the boys—MY boys— just taking the abuse, like beaten dogs—I can’t. I can’t. I’m going to speak up. I’m going to cause a fit. And, and, if no one else takes my side? Then—I, I don’t know. But, I can’t keep putting up with this. If she says ONE more thing to them—

   “Nicholas,” Aunt Lisa snapped. “Use yer goddamn napkin, you’re gettin’ food on your fuckin’—”

   “Aunt Lisa—stop,” Tabitha shot out of her seat. “What is wrong with you?”

   “You sit yer ass down and shut your mouth,” Lisa’s voice rose. “Don’t you fuckin’ tell me how to raise my goddamn kids—”

   “Lisa, please—” Mr. Moore put his fork down onto his plate with a clenk.

   “You’re not their mother!” Tabitha stammered, feeling her throat constrict and fighting back tears of panic—she was NOT adept at these kind of verbal confrontations. “You walked out on them. You walked out on them. You walked out and abandoned them, and th-that means you forfeit any say—”

   “I did what I hadta do, and now I’m back, right here where I belong, because I’m a great fucking momma! I’m the best goddamn momma in the world, you hear me, and what do you know about being a mother? Huh? You sit yer scrawny ass down! You don’t know shit ‘bout what I’ve had to do, or where I been, an’ it’s none o’ your business no matter where I been in the first place!”

   “Mom—” Joshua tried to speak up.

   “Where, doing what?!” Tabitha demanded. “You didn’t even—”

   “Alan—I swear to God, you better put her in her place, ‘fore I do it for you,” Aunt Lisa warned, slapping a hand down on the table loudly enough to make Joshua flinch. “I swear to God I will. Don’t think I won’t.”

   “Mom—” Joshua tugged at Aunt Lisa’s arm.

   “Get offa me, ya little turd!” Aunt Lisa backhanded him across the cheek with enough force to rock the young boy back in his chair.

   Tabitha was so stunned she didn’t realize she’d risen back up to her feet again until she heard her chair tip back and totter down to the ground behind her. Watching her hands grab out at the back of her mother’s chair, and then her father’s shoulder made her see that she was racing around the table. She was in motion, but she didn’t even know what she was doing—either making sure Joshua was okay, or tackling his mother to the fucking ground and beating her to a goddamn pulp. She didn’t know what she was doing. Rather than thinking or deliberating or planning, Tabitha felt like a puppet that had been yanked up and into jerky, violent motions by strings of white-hot rage, because her emotions had completely taken control.

   “Ya don’t go all hangin’ on people like yer some kinda fuckin’ animal—”

   Aunt Lisa was all but snarling into the face of her wet-eyed son when Tabitha stole him away, taking her small cousin awkwardly with her cast and her good hand and lifting him out of his seat into an awkward embrace. It hurt, Joshua was heavy—at eight years old he weighed maybe sixty pounds—but Tabitha’s muscles were screaming out in pain to completely deaf ears as she cradled the boy’s face against her and hauled him away. She was running away with him—she didn’t know where to, and in a blur of motion further distorted by her own tears, Tabitha discovered she’d wound up back in Grandma Laurie’s bedroom.

   “I’m, I’m okay,” Joshua protested, trying to struggle free and down to his feet. “I’m—”

   Fumbling with the doorknob quite a bit, as she was not willing to let Joshua out of her arms for even an instant, Tabitha finally managed to move the door and then shoulder it closed behind them. She locked it. Then, she carried Joshua over to the edge of the bed and sat.

   “I’m okay,” Joshua repeated. “It’s—don’t cry. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

   “It is NOT okay,” Tabitha managed out before she felt her throat closing up.

   “It—it didn’t hurt,” Joshua insisted. “I’m okay. It didn’t even hurt.”

   Tabitha couldn’t argue with him, because anything she would have said was choked out with sobs. She was in no shape to have attempted lifting him and she’d strained what felt like everything in her back, but the nauseating pit of anger and hatred in her stomach overwhelmed anything and everything else she might have felt. She pulled Joshua close and hugged him tight as she cried, and outside the room the voices of Aunt Lisa and her parents arguing back and forth out in the dining room continued to rise.

*     *     *

   Forty minutes passed before her father realized he was going to have to unlock the bedroom door from the other side with a screwdriver, and Tabitha watched the knob finally twist open with detached interest. She felt completely drained. She’d cried and cried and cried, and despite whatever tough little Joshua might tell his brothers later, she knew he’d cried, too. Most of the heated emotions that had strangled out all rational thought finally did drop away, but as they receded her mind felt cold, bitter, and hateful.

   Her eyes felt swollen and puffy, her throat felt raw and sore, her entire body ached, and Tabitha simply stared at Mr. Moore as he entered Grandma Laurie’s bedroom and sat down beside them.

   “You okay, Josh?” He asked, tousling the boy’s hair.

   “I’m okay,” Joshua nodded, glancing at Tabitha. “It’s—I’m okay.”

   “Why don’t you go on out there in the living room and watch the TV with your brothers,” Mr. Moore suggested.

   Joshua slid off the edge of the bed, but looked first to Tabitha for permission to leave. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, not knowing what to say and finally simply giving him a nod. When her cousin left, giving her one last lingering look, the room seemed to close in on Tabitha in a crushing way, and she had to hunch up her shoulders and retreat into herself just to fight it back. She was exhausted.

   “Tabby honey…” Mr. Moore cleared his throat. “I don’t know what got into your Aunt Lisa tonight. We’ve talked an’ talked with her, an’ she’s out on the porch coolin’ her head a bit. I… know you and your Aunt Lisa don’t quite really get along, but no matter what—sheis family.”

   “Oh, she is?” Tabitha stared ahead at the door, refusing to face him. ‘Cooling her head a bit?’ Please. She’s probably out there lounging on the porch swing, smoking a cigarette and feeling QUITE pleased with herself. If she feels anything at all.

   “She is, sweetie,” Mr. Moore said in a firm voice. “She’s your Aunt.”

   “Family—by marriage,” Tabitha pointed out. “So, if an awful or really untrustworthy person marries into the family, they’re still family? We just have to, to stiffen our chin and put up with them no matter what? Ignore their mistakes, no matter what? Forgive and forget? Give them money, support and enable them to continue being awful people who don’t ever have to face the consequences of their mistakes? Because they’re family?”

   “Now Sweetie, your Aunt Lisa isn’t awful or untrus—”

   “Dad, she abandoned her children,” Tabitha said. “She left them. No notice, no heads-up, no contact information—she was just gone. Gone. That’s not okay. That’s not okay. That’s not something family would do. She’s not family. I mean, the minute Uncle Danny gets locked up, she just disappears from their life? That’s—”

   “Tabitha, this whole thing has been hard on your Aunt Lisa,” Mr. Moore rebutted. “You know she was having trouble finding work where—”

   “She came back for the money,” Tabitha gave her father a helpless shrug. “Not for family. She’s not family, Dad, she just isn’t. I don’t care whatever fucking sob story she’s sold you, or what excuses you make for her. If you want to ask me if I’m okay with her borrowing money from the settlements—I’m not. Period. End of story.”

   “If this is about your—your I don’t know, this phase you’re going through—”

   “Dad.”

   “—that gives you a problem with the way she talks or her being a more down-to-earth kind of person—”

   “Dad, she struck her child, right in front of us. She’s not down-to-earth. She’s fucking trash. She’s a rat who abandoned ship at the first sign of stormy weather, here. She’s a parasite, a parasite who only slunk back here for the money. She’s a terrible fucking mother, and she’s a drug addict. A junkie. She’s doing drugs.”

   “Honey,” Mr. Moore let out another slow sigh as he paused to gather his thoughts. “Your Aunt Lisa... isn’t doing drugs, you can’t say things like that. Just because you think she—”

   “She’s got heroin in her purse,” Tabitha shrugged, satisfied at least that he didn’t dare to refute her other points. “She won’t let it out of her sight. There’s drug-use puncture marks at the vein on the inside of her arm. They teach us to watch out for these things in school—that’s what the whole D.A.R.E. program is all about, Dad.”

   “Your Aunt Lisa wouldn’t do heroin, Tabby,” Mr. Moore shook his head in exasperation. “Tabitha… you know she’s smarter than that.”

   “Check her purse,” Tabitha insisted, crossing her arms. “Leave some cash laying about, see if it disappears. Again—check her purse. Ask her if she’s been in our medicine cabinet—you know, I had three of those strong codeine tablets left over in that little orange prescription bottle. Where’d that little pill bottle go, Dad? Why did she come to us, instead of here, stopping by to check on the boys first? Her own children? She could have walked over here any time today, it’s just a few blocks away.”

   “Tabitha, stop,” Mr. Moore shook his head. “It’s more’n a few blocks, and you know she don’t have a vehicle to get around no more. The—”

   “Sorry, no,” Tabitha rejected his excuse. “Grandma Laurie and the boys aren’t that far away from Sunset Estates. If I can walk over here to visit them, so can she.”

   “Your Aunt Lisa isn’t you, Honey,” Mr. Moore argued. “She knew we could drive her over there, and, it’s not a problem for us to give her a hand. She’s family, Tabby. You don’t just—”

   “‘Family’ isn’t some magical free pass, Dad,” Tabitha held her ground. “I’m sorry, Dad, it’s just not. You’re not going to change my mind on this, and, apparently, I’m not going to get through to you. I’m done talking about it, because I’m done with Aunt Lisa. I’m sorry for all the swearing. I—I want to go home, now.”

*     *     *

   “I’m so sorry about all this,” Grandma Laurie fretted, hovering over Tabitha and helping straighten the hoodie Tabitha had donned. “I don’t know what’s gotten into your Aunt Lisa’s head, acting that way. I’ll make sure to keep a close eye on her.”

   “No, she’s not staying here with the boys,” Tabitha stated with finality. “She’s coming back to the trailer park with us. You need to tell her there’s not enough room, or, or suggest that she stay with us a few more nights because it’s crowded here with the boys. Tell her as if you’re going to have the boys move around furniture and make space for her here—but don’t actually do that. You won’t need to. I’m going to take care of everything.”

   “Tabby, honey…” Grandma Laurie paused.

   “I just,” Tabitha’s expression was one of resignation. “I hope you won’t think less of me for what I have to do.”

   “Well, of course I won’t,” Grandma Laurie gave Tabitha’s shoulder a squeeze. “But—well, what are you going to do?”

   “I love you, Grandma Laurie,” Tabitha stepped in to wrap her arms around the old woman. “I love you, and I love the boys—and I’m going to protect my family.”

   “I love you too, sweetheart,” Grandma Laurie sighed. “Please don’t make that sound so ominous, though. Promise me you won’t go an’ do anything dramatic, okay? Whatever all how you must think of her now, Lisa is still their mother, and with some time things’ll settle back down with everyone to how they used to be. You’ll see.”

   “No,” Tabitha shook her head. “No. No, she isn’t, and no—they won’t. Sorry.”

*     *     *

   “Matthew baby, could you get the gosh darn phone?” Karen Williams hollered. “It’d be so gosh darn nice if you would, please.”

   Her husband’s mother and sister were here in town with them visiting before Thanksgiving—Granny June and Auntie Carol, while here she herself retained the coveted title of Momma Karen—and that meant sipping wine and gossiping late in the warm light of her tastefully-appointed den late into the night. Mostly, discussion kept wandering back towards Matthew and this young girl he thought he could date in secret, with each of the ladies obviously having their own input and advice and anecdotes to share.

   “I just don’t like that he’d keep it secret,” Granny June shook her head in dismay. “Keepin’ it secret certainly means they were up to things they were too ashamed to talk about, and—”

   “Mum, it’s his first relationship—of course he’s not gonna talk to us about it,” Auntie Carol argued. “You think I kept you in the loop on all the boys I was seein’? Why, when I was that age—”

   “Well, of course you did,” Granny June tittered, knowing full well how untrue it was. “I raised you up good an’ proper, and you weren’t courting any boys until Roger. We—”

   “Oh, please,” Auntie Carol rolled her eyes. “Don’t even bring up gosh darn Roger. He had his head stuck so far up his ass that he—”

   “Carol,” Granny June chided her with a half-hearted smack on the forearm. “Watch your gosh darn language.”

   “Sorry, he had his head stuck so far up his you know what that he didn’t know which cheeks were which.”

   The constant gosh darns were a joke that never got old—they were drinking and as the night went on and lips loosened they knew each of the Williams ladies could and would swear like sailors. To poke fun at each other they’d correct one another with gosh darns and giggle at each other like much younger women. Mrs. Williams was only partway into her first glass of wine tonight, and determined to not slip and say her first dirty word in front of her hilarious in-laws. Not after last year, at least—that had gotten so out of hand it’d even made her husband blush.

   “Ooh, I never heard about Roger,” Mrs. Williams leaned in with delight. “I thought your first guy was... gosh darn, what was his name? Jerry? Went on to manage that—”

   “My first boyfriend was Jerry,” Auntie Carol laughed. “I didn’t start seeing Roger until—”

   “Oh, shush,” Granny June waved dismissively before taking another sip from her wine glass. “Roger was the first one that counted. Dating before high school isn’t real courting, it’s—it’s children’s games. Like playing at being doctor, it’s not real.”

   “My son is in high school, though—he’s a sophomore already,” Mrs. Williams sighed. “They grow up so gosh darn fast. So, is this with this Casey girl a real thing I should worry about, or is it—”

   “Real doesn’t mean forever,” Auntie Carol snorted. “Now, I don’t mean to make light of him an’ his feelings, havin’ his first puppy love, but if you think about—”

   “Real should mean forever,” Granny June frowned. “I don’t like all this playing around at it I see on television. Why, it’s just terrible what they teach kids these days, the state they treat relationships these days.”

   “It is the nineties,” Mrs. Williams chuckled, taking another sip of her own glass. “The times, they are a’changin’.”

   “For the worse, if you ask me,” Granny June huffed. “Why, if this thickheaded dummy here had married that gosh darn Roger, she’d—”

   “Oh, please,” Auntie Carol rolled her eyes. “Married Roger?! Even if we had, we’d have never lasted. I know you never believed in divorce, but—”

   “I don’t believe in divorce,” Granny June agreed. “It goes against God. Marriage is a sacred institution, and the more people just—”

   “Uh, Mom?” Matthew approached to interrupt the older women with reluctance, presenting the cordless phone to his mother. “It’s—”

   “Who is it, dear?”

   “Tabitha Moore,” Matthew replied. “She asked for you, said it was an emergency.”

   “Now I’m not defending divorce, but—” Auntie Carol stopped as Mrs. Williams held up a hand.

   “Hello?” Mrs. Williams felt her hackles raise up as she imagined what the emergency might be. “Tabitha honey?”

   “I… I hate to impose, so close to the holidays,” A small voice said through the phone. “But, Mrs. Williams—there’s, um. I really need help.”

   “Honey, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Williams demanded, rising up out of her comfy seat in alarm. “Where are you? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

*     *     *

   “Tabby has it in her head to be all dead-set against Lisa,” Mr. Moore grumbled. “Can’t seem to even stand the sight of her.”

   He and his wife were settling into bed after that fiasco of a Thanksgiving dinner over his mother’s apartment. Against expectations, Lisa came back with them rather than staying over there with her kids, and that sure didn’t help the tense silence between everyone any. True, Lisa had gone a little overboard disciplining her son there right at the table, but he’d never thought seeing it would affect Tabby quite so much. She had to understand that things were different—she’d grown up ‘till now as a only child, and a girl, at that. He certainly wasn’t gonna raise his hand against her, but she’d mostly always been a good kid. Boys were different, rowdy, and there were four of them. Some loss of patience on Lisa’s part and occasional corporal punishment in spanking or smacking them here and there was understandable.

   “Hmm,” Mrs. Moore let out a thoughtful hum and buried her cheek deeper in the pillow. “Well, Lisa did wake us all up at twelve in the morning.”

   “Twelve at night,” Mr. Moore said.

   “That’s the same thing, and you know all of us are cross at her,” Mrs. Moore muttered. “So, what is it? What’s wrong now?”

   “I’m worried about Tabitha,” her husband admitted. “‘Bout her and… y’know, all that money. That’s a whole lotta money to go to a young girl’s head all at once.”

   “You’re worried it’s gonna go to her head?” Mrs. Moore blinked one eye open.

   “Hasn’t it already?” Mr. Moore sighed. “She’s got it in her head for a while that anything from—well, you know, humble origins is all low class, and she gets herself all set against it. Lisa just seems to really rub her the wrong way, and Tabby isn’t even willing to give her a chance.”

   “Alan—you know I’m not exactly thrilled with Lisa, either. Hitting her son like that—that was out of line.”

   “I know, I know,” Mr. Moore mumbled. “But, she is goin’ through a rough patch right now. With Danny bein’ where he is and all. And, she is family.”

   “Uh-huh,” Mrs. Moore responded with a noncommittal grunt. “So, what are we gonna do about her?”

   “Lisa asked for help, and she’s family, so... I think we’ve gotta do what we can to help her.”

   “She asked for help—she asked for help how, exactly?” Mrs. Moore asked, her sleepiness subsiding.

   “We’re just about to come into more money than we’ll know what to do with, and Lisa sure could use some of it to help gettin’ back on her feet. Tabitha’s hospital bills’re already just about all taken care of, and leavin’ all that money for a thirteen-year-old girl to do who knows what with—that’s irresponsible.”

   Leaving the money to TABITHA is irresponsible? Shannon Moore said nothing to that, but she was now fully awake and alert. Tabitha, who was talking me through home repair and all the specific expenses she had planned here? SHE’S irresponsible? According to who? LISA? Did Lisa just repeat TABITHA’S THIRTEEN AND IRRESPONSIBLE to Alan until he started getting suckered into believing it? TABITHA, IRRESPONSIBLE? Are you fucking kidding me?

   “I think we should take out some to help out Lisa an’ the boys, maybe a tiny bit of spending money for Tabby to do whatever she wants with. And the rest? Needs to go into a college fund or a trust fund or somethin’ ‘till she’s older and can right make up her mind on what’s best to do with it. When she’s older and we explain what we did—she’ll understand. Lisa’s family. She didn’t run off ‘cause she wanted to, an’ she sure as all heck isn’t a druggie or anything like that.”

   “Alan,” Mrs. Moore sat up in bed, shucking off the covers so that she could glare at her husband. “What part of our Tabitha is any less responsible than Lisa? Huh?”

   “Now you know that’s not what I meant,” Alan rose up onto one elbow. “Tabitha, she’s—she’s still a child. She’s thirteen years old, she doesn’t know what from what.”

   “Fourteen in a little over a week, and you know damned well she’s more mature than that,” Mrs. Moore growled. “She’ll always be our baby girl, okay—but, Tabitha is not a child anymore. She’s a young woman, an’ there’s no way you can say otherwise! Listen to yourself, Alan. In what freaking world is Lisa or your lousy brother Danny more mature and responsible than our daughter? Who’s to say Lisa isn’t a druggie? Huh? Who’s to say where she’s been or what she’s been up to these past months?”

   “Now, hold on—” Mr. Moore protested. “I’ve sat down an’ talked things through with Lisa. She’s been workin’ where she can, things haven’t been easy on her, alright? No matter what, she’s family and we’ve gotta do what we can to look out for her.”

   “Just a few months ago we gave her all that money for a car that don’t run!” Mrs. Moore pointed out, growing angry. “What all happened to that, huh? We’re the ones who look after her boys when your mother doesn’t. Where’s she been all this time? She kept sayin’ she was livin’ with a friend— she never made no mention of a name or that it was a woman. Who’s to say she isn’t living with some other man now that your brother’s locked up? Huh?”

   “Lisa definitely wouldn’t—”

   “Alan, I love you to pieces, but your heart’s so much bigger than your head that it’s not even funny,” Mrs. Moore let herself fall back against the pillow and then turned onto her side so that she was facing away from her husband. “If Tabitha doesn’t wanna support Lisa’s mistakes with that settlement money, then that’s that. It’s Tabitha’s money. Not ours. Not Lisa’s. Our Tabby doesn’t owe her one goddamn red cent. Tabby’s got no obligation to throw pearls before swine, and as far as I’m concerned, neither do we.”

   “Mistakes?” Mr. Moore frowned. “That’s not what I’d—”

   “Goodnight, Alan,” Mrs. Moore called over her shoulder.

*     *     *

   Nervous tension had filled Tabitha’s room until it became absolutely suffocating, and it wasn’t until after her parents had gone to bed that the sign she’d been waiting for finally came. Her Aunt Lisa started up the shower after having dickered around in the bathroom doing who-knows-what for almost a half hour. Having been pretending to be asleep already, Tabitha had simply been waiting in the darkness for the sound of the shower. Waiting, with the flathead screwdriver from the kitchen’s junk drawer in hand, waiting for the right moment to strike.

   With her heart in her throat, she quietly opened her bedroom door and tiptoed out into the hall. The only light here was coming from beneath the locked bathroom door, and it was dark enough that she couldn’t see the little line in the center of the doorknob—she had to feel it out with the head of the screwdriver. It made a small noise as metal met metal, but Tabitha didn’t freeze. The sound of the shower spray in there would drown that out. She was committed, now. The tab swiveled, the doorknob turned, it was unlocked. The screwdriver was dropped down to the floor where it would be out of the way, because she only had one good hand, and she was going to need it.

   Tabitha opened the door and burst into the bathroom.

   “Hey—what the hell?!” Aunt Lisa crowed from the other side of the shower curtain.

   There. The woman’s purse was up on the counter, yawing wide open and unattended. Beside it was a worn and faded Batman thermos, of all things, likely borrowed long ago from one of her son’s plastic lunch boxes. On the porcelain lip of the sink lay a disposable lighter, a blackened, filthy spoon, and yes, the real smoking gun itself—a syringe.

   “Tabitha?”  Aunt Lisa called. “Hey—Jesus, I’m in here a’showerin’, you know?”

   The woman pulled back the edge of the shower curtain, just in time to peek around and discover Tabitha hurrying to pluck the syringe up with careful fingers and toss it into the open purse.

   “Hey—HEY!” Aunt Lisa shrieked. “What the fuck do ya think yer doin?!”

   The spoon and the lighter followed the syringe into the purse with the quickest snatching motions she could manage, and then Tabitha grabbed up the Batman thermos and shoved it inside, as well. The thermos was one of those squat, cylindrical ones with a little plastic handle for the cap so that it could double as a tiny cup, and thankfully it had already been screwed shut. She could feel the contents of the thermos shift in the brief instant it was in her hands, but it didn’t feel like liquid inside—it was as if Aunt Lisa was keeping clumps of dirt in the thing. Heroin, obviously. Hopefully. If this was her Aunt’s stash of instant coffee grounds, then—then Tabitha didn’t have time to worry about that right now.

   “HEY! WHAT THE FUCK DO YA THINK YER—”  Aunt Lisa yanked the vinyl curtain back hard enough that the several curtain rings separated from the rod.

   Completely naked, with wild, frenzied eyes, Aunt Lisa jumped out of the shower and lunged for her.

   The plan had been to also gather up Aunt Lisa’s abandoned clothing there so as to forestall the woman’s pursuit, but there just wasn’t enough time. Tabitha bolted out of the small enclosure with the purse pinched closed with her good hand and held against her. She ran down the hallway in what felt like an instant, but she could hear Lisa’s heavy footfalls, chasing her anyways, and then the light coming from the open bathroom door was blocked and she knew the woman was right behind her.

   Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit—

   Terror and dread were freezing up her movements and locking them up in raw panic, but Tabitha managed to hold the purse against her and wrench open the front door of their trailer. In the periphery of her vision, she saw Aunt Lisa, naked and soaking wet, was just behind her, mere feet from catching up with her at the door.

   “HEY!” Aunt Lisa shrieked. “HEY!”

   To Tabitha’s immense relief, a car waiting outside flicked its high beams on as Tabitha raced outside. From the sound of her Aunt’s continuous hoarse screaming, the trailer trash had paused in the front doorway, unwilling to run out naked into the night air in the midst of November.

   I-I made it. It worked. It worked. I have the evidence, I think, and— I made it.

   “Get in, get in!” Mrs. Williams looked absolutely furious, and the police officer’s wife started slamming the horn on her Ford Taurus to drown out Aunt Lisa’s screaming and hollering. “Jesus Christ, we’re gonna—are you okay? Are you okay?”

   “I have it,” Tabitha confirmed as she hurried into the vehicle. “I’m okay, just—let’s get out of here.”

   “Close your door, let’s go,” Mrs. Williams slammed her foot on the gas pedal and they plunged forward and past the trailer down the street, putting Lisa out of sight. “Get your seatbelt, honey.”

   “I, I—thank you,” Tabitha choked up. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t, I didn’t know anyone to, to go to about this. All of this. I didn’t—”

   “Sh-sh-sh-sh, you’re fine, you’re fine, honey, let’s just get you out of here, okay? Are you okay?”

( 35, Moore and Moore problems. | RE: Trailer Trash | 38, Absconding with the evidence. )

///   Honestly still not happy with it, but my continuously picking away at the chapter in edit every day was starting to hurt more than help. 

   At twenty-two thousand words, it runs longer than the first five chapters of this story combined—but is more actually happening? Yes and no. We once again do many deep dives into Tabitha's head and there's definitely a lot going on. Readers will feel frustrated that she's agonizing over what seems like a clear-cut issue to act decisively on, but...

   RE:TT is a subversion of do-over story tropes. Rather than a first life struggle that sees the protagonist ace everything on their second chance, Tabitha basically flunked her first life and is now struggling through things for her chance at success. Identity crisis aside, cutting a confrontational person out of your life for the first time is an enormous challenge. It does get easier each time; that's part of growing up, and that's what this story is about.

   Lot of other things here to unpack, though. The same traits that readers loved about Mr. Moore in the previous chapter now open up a rift between him and Tabitha, because of his stubborn loyalty. The one or two readers here who've also checked out my other fiction may recognize this as something I explore with Rebecca. The phrase "loyal to a fault" seems complimentary until you actually run into the fault and realize how damning it can be.

   Also started introducing the first elements of the Tabitha dating subplots, rather than just hinting that it might happen down the line in an oblique way. I'm going to lean more on the social and personal aspects of relationships in RE:TT, as my other fiction delves more into attraction and intimacy. Will it still be awkward and horrifying? Yes. But, hopefully not because of the age gap—she's thirteen now, and before you see that as an excuse or cop-out, I'll say that age gap really implies a more experienced and mature Tabitha. Which, when it comes to relationships, just isn't really true. She is completely new to dating as a teen, and her very few experiences dating in her past life were brief and traumatizing.

   Might wind up cutting both the brief Grandma Laurie POV and the entire flashback Thanksgiving for Royal Road, more and more those bits seem out of place. In the meantime I'm delving back into AnimeCon for a while, I need a break from RE:TT feels.