Free Deathwatch - Final by Lisa Mannetti

bounced toward us from the garden. I heard the thin scratch of gravel: the wheel chair on the paths, her footsteps. We could hear the girls moving toward us.
    Ruth leaned forward now, quickening her speech, lowering her soft voice even more. I had to strain to hear her. "Did you know that when Regina was pregnant with the girls, she had bad trouble with her heart--the beats, too fast."
    "Palpitations," I said.
    "Just so.  Andrew gave her some kind of drug--not once, but every day to slow it—”
    "Barbiturates," I guessed.
    "When the girls were born like they were, they blamed each other. This house was hell a long, long time."
    "Of course it's ready," Abby's voice came to us from the side yard. She stopped pushing her sister's chair briefly, and we could hear her take a long deep breath. "Phew, hard work, I think you've gotten fatter, Ellie," she laughed.
    "You want to watch out Stuart," Ruth whispered. "Your guilt helps conjure Regina. Needing her to take the sting out of being with a child."
    "No more, Ruth," I warned. They were maybe forty feet away--the length of the porch. I could see the white shapes of their dresses just beyond the shrubbery.
    "She loves you, too." Ruth ignored me, bearing down on the too .
    "Regina?" my voice was a strangled caw.
    "Ellie," she answered. "Don't let the same lesson get by you again."  She tugged my sleeve, forcing me to look at the matte of veiling. "Some people--the ones that are weak and too wounded--they aren't strong enough to live with love that's not returned."
    Abby bounded up the steps. "Let's just eat it right here." She waved a set of spoons she'd snatched from the table. "Right out of the freezer, Stuart."
    I went to get Ellie, heard Ruth telling Abby to hold on and wait for her sister. "Go call your father, Ab," Ruth said.
    Andrew staggered drunkenly onto the porch, moving haphazardly through the long shadows; he was collarless, in his shirt sleeves.
    There was a metallic thump.
    We all jumped at the noise.
    "Shitspells," he cried. The ice cream freezer clunked and rattled, rolling onto its side under his feet. He skidded unsteadily in a puddle of water.
    I heard Abby's sharp intake of breath.
    "It's just ice cream," he announced soddenly. "For Christ's sake, shut up."
    I thought he might kick at the freezer, but he turned and went back inside, weaving away from us, the wooden screen door banging shut.
    I moved quickly in the silence, righting the can, moving it out of the wet, rapidly turning the crank handle a few times, saying nonsense things like, "It's okay, we'll have it now, it's done for sure."
    Then, we were in a small cluster--me and the girls--Ellie leaning over the edge of the chair. "Readysetgo," Abby said, the enthusiasm gone from her voice.
    Three long handled spoons dove into the round tin, salty water sloshed at the edge.
    "The pail leaked, the pail leaked when he kicked it," Abby wailed.
    Ellie's spoon fell from her hand at the taste, a red stain bloomed, ran from her dress front to her lap. She began to cry. "Aren't we ever going to have good times like other girls?"
    Salt bitter; I spat over the side of the porch, trying to clear the taste from my own mouth, thinking it was no worse than the taste of Ruth's words.
    "Ruined," Abby mourned, "every time I plan something, it ends up ruined." She hurled the spoon, it clattered across the porch.
    "Plans are like that sometimes, honey," Ruth said.
    Abby ran to me, her head burrowing against my chest. I knew she wanted no more than a moment's comfort. I held her close.
     I watched Ruth reach out to dab Ellie's soiled dress gently with a handkerchief. She folded the cloth in a pad and touched the clean part to Ellie's cheeks, blotting tears.
    Ellie's sad eyes followed me. I read in them the thought that she loved me but it didn't matter, saw the knowledge she was not chosen, never would be.
    I couldn't look at her. I soothed Abby, shushed her, knowing Ellie was aware the tears silvering my own eyes, stinging