Toward the Sound of Chaos Read Free Page B

and we stroll by the water, even
though everything tells me to hurry because those morons in the rowboat were
just the very beginning. The later it gets, the more anxious I become.
    Once
we make it back, I dish up an extra-large portion for Nuke’s dinner. I don’t
bother fixing myself something. Instead, I go around closing all the curtains
in the house and retreat to my bedroom. I start off on the bed, but within
seconds I huddle on the floor beside it, and I’m sweatin’ so bad the carpet
beneath me is damp.
    The
first pop sounds and the trembling begins. I squeeze my eyes tightly closed. I
cover my ears and the explosions get louder. My bedroom window lights up with
each bright starburst of fireworks painting the sky. My quiet tree-lined street
explodes with color.
    Outside,
the whole town celebrates. I imagine the kids are squealing as they chase one
another with sparklers and celebrate a freedom they know nothing about, but in
this room, my dog’s even breathing and the licks to my face are the only thing
keeping me from puttin’ a gun to my head.
    God
Bless America.
    Land
of the free and the home of the brave.

Chapter
Three
    Ellie
    H ell
and damnation . Could my luck get any worse?
    I
took Spence home and with a lot of struggling, an epic meltdown that I just
didn’t have the heart for, and half a tube of Neosporin plastered all over the
bathroom floor later, I’d cleaned up the scratches on his arm. We’d finally
made it to the market before they closed, though there’d been another meltdown
there about the way Tina Tisdale had stared at him a moment too long at the
checkout, which of course had led to every woman and her dog telling me how I
should raise my child with a firm hand and how tantrums shouldn’t be tolerated.
    I
don’t consider myself a violent woman, but I swear if I’d stayed to hear one
more word come out of those uneducated, judgmental former beauty queens’
mouths, I’d yank their lacquered hair from their vacant heads and strangle them
with it.
    My
son doesn’t have a behavioral problem, and he doesn’t throw tantrums; he’s just
wired different than we are. They don’t understand that tacos are absolutely
the most important thing about Taco Tuesday, and that we can’t just go without
the refried beans because Mamma forgot to pick them up from the market on
Sunday after church, or that on Tuesdays he wears his Taco-saurus Rex shirt and
he can’t now because it’s stained with blood. They don’t understand that you can
look him in the eye for two seconds, but not three, because three is a number
he doesn’t like. Three seconds makes him so uncomfortable he has no way of
expressing himself but through tensing every muscle in his body and screaming
at the top of his lungs or throwing himself face down on the ground at the
Piggly Wiggly because he don’t want anyone looking him in the eye for more than
two seconds.
    They
don’t understand that, but I do. It breaks my heart to see the repulsion on
their overly made-up faces, and today I had no choice but to pick up my
screaming child and carry him to my car with the groceries in tow. I pulled out
of that lot like a bat outta hell so Spence wouldn’t be faced with their
ugliness a moment longer.
    At
home, as I juggle the bags of groceries inside behind Spencer, the phone begins
to ring. Olivia’s number comes up on the caller ID. For a moment I think about
not answering it, but Spence hates it when I let it ring three times, and I
can’t afford another meltdown, so I pick it up and juggle the paper grocery bag
between my hand and hip.
    “Hey
Olivia. Now is really not a good time.”
    “Honey,
Lady died.”
    It’s
at this point where my heart breaks in two. If I thought everything that has happened
during the last two days was bad, this is so much worse. The sack of groceries
falls to the floor and I sob into the mouthpiece. “No.”
    “She
got out. I’d put her in with Pebbles last night after feeding so neither