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T h i n g s I n h e r i t e d , C a r r e r e P a g e | 1Taylor Carrere

101 Stadium Dr.

Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Things Inherited

Mama isn’t speaking to me. Not that I mind. I am a bit burned out on the shrieks of

“you’ve ruined your life” and “I raised you better than this.” She didn’t, and she knows it.

That’s the problem. So now, instead of reiterating the lie, she clicks her chipped nails against the

gray of the steering wheel and squints at the asphalt between the smattering of dead flies on the

windshield.

“I knew I should have gone to the car wash yesterday.”

She mutters this as if she is talking to herself, but I know it to really be an excuse to me

for leaving the Volvo in this bad of shape. She has said this countless times before—yet the flies

remain. She thinks knowing something is wrong is equal to doing something to fix it. That is

where mama and I differ. I’ll admit something is wrong and won’t kid myself about fixing it.

It’s not like the car hasn’t seen better days. The red upholstery hangs down from the

ceiling like the rebel flag after Sherman got through with Atlanta. The floor boards are rotting

away enough that I expect to lose one of my dollar-bin flip flops soon, and my seat belt is broken

so if we slam on the brakes, I’ll join the flies on the windshield. I’ve taken worse beatings—but

that’s the subject we’re not talking about anymore.

So while mama studiously ignores me and sings along to George Strait in the high-pitch

squeal she calls her “church-going voice,” I roll down the window and try to escape the heat that

T h i n g s I n h e r i t e d , C a r r e r e P a g e | 2

has engulfed the car. We pass by waves of tobacco fields, and it’s hard to imagine anyone would

come out here voluntarily. Everything seems at a stand-still. Even the pickers in the fields move

languidly—as if the sweltering heat has swallowed up their energy like these deserted back roads

probably did their dreams. I guess it is a good thing I gave up on dreaming. Riley made sure of

that.

I am unaware that my thin sweater—the one I refuse to take off even in this heat—has

crept up my arm until I realize George is finally singing by himself again. My mother stares at

my arm with a pained expression that makes me wince. I tug the sleeve back into place and

manage not to look at faded purples, sickly yellows, and washed-out greens dotting my bare skin.

Mama goes back to staring out the windshield, but the duet does not resume. She’ll stay quiet

for the rest of the trip, and even though I tell myself I don’t care, the burning in my stomach

doesn’t end. I shouldn’t care or feel ashamed. It’s not like I haven’t been in her place too many

times to count.

My mother has a fatal flaw. She knows her type of men and finds them almost anywhere

we go. It never fails that when we move to a new town, which we do often since mama is not big

with the landlords, the first place she goes to isn’t the unemployment office but to the shittiest

bar in town to find even shittier men. I’m not naïve. I’ve never expected one of these men to be

the fathering type or to try to be my dad, but it took a few empty fridges and living rooms strewn

with beer to realize that the only thing these guys would provide was something to make the

scum at the bottom of the microwave look decent.

Mama has her routine etched in her brain so that she never deviates from the plan. As

soon as she brings home one of these guys, she wakes me up to ask me to move from the bed to

the couch. She only wants me as a bed partner when she doesn’t have one of her own. I comply


because I know that it means by tomorrow afternoon, she’ll have found some temporary job

working as a waitress or door-to-door sales person to put beer in her new beau’s hand if not food

on the table. The “beau” never appears to leave, but takes root to the couch like a slimy type of

carnivorous plant and sits there watching TV. He stays until mama can no longer pay the cable

bill and runs out when the television does. We don’t usually stay long after. With the man goes

my mother’s initiative to work, so we end up sneaking out at night without our headlights on to

avoid paying the landlords with money we don’t have.

If the cable was all these men used up, we wouldn’t be driving down this road now—at

least that is what I like to think when I am trying to be nice to myself. If my mother had just

stood up to one of them the moment after the hand came down, then maybe I would have known

how to do things different. If she had just kicked one of them out after a night of yelling and

pushing, maybe I wouldn’t be wearing a sweater now when it is ninety degrees outside. Maybe

then I would have known that a man who only shows his affection through the welt marks on my

cheeks is no man at all. Only a boy. A stupid boy. And a stupider girl. Yet she never did.

Yes, my mother has a fatal flaw. Unfortunately, it is one of things I inherited.

***

I can see it coming into view now. Even from here, I can tell the porch swing hangs

lopsided from the rusty chains my grandpa never got around to replacing. The white paint of the

house’s porch peels off like face paint from a child who has sweated too much in his play. Neat

rows of turnips, cabbages, and beets line the plotted dirt beds to the right of the house. My

grandma probably has every vegetable under the sun in it to be canned, and it’s my luck to be

here in time to pick them all.


She appears in the doorway when the Volvo backfires as we reach the end of the dirt road

that consists of the driveway. The house has been here since the turn of the century, and

grandma didn’t think of introducing it to pavement. That would be “taking on airs” because

there’s no need for fancy cement when honest dirt will do the trick. Just seeing her tiny shadow

leaning against the door’s strong oak sends my stomach into strange contortions, and I’m not the

only one. Chipped nails cling to the steering wheel.

I don’t wait for her but reach for my worn backpack in the rear seat. I have learned to

pack light. I am used to running and can get everything I value into one bag. I was proud of that

until I realized it meant that there was little I cared about in my life.

“I had to do this, you know. It’s for your own good, Haley. I didn’t have a choice.”

My hand lies limp on the hot metal of the door handle. I look back to see my mama’s

dark eyes—the ones I inherited— pleading with me to understand. Her blond hair has frizzed up

with humidity that reminds me of a cornered poodle begging not be put back into its kennel for

its most recent accident. I want to be angry. I want to lash out and let my tears spill out like an

overflowing rain gage. But I can’t.

Maybe she didn’t have a choice. Maybe I didn’t either. I look ahead to my grandma

waiting for me on the porch. Maybe none of us had a choice. Maybe we are just wired that way.

Maybe there are some people who are born with choices and some who aren’t. So instead of

saying what I want, I give into what I can. “I know. Goodbye, Mama.”

I watch the junk car drive away, afraid to look at my grandma. I keep hoping that my

mother might look back and wave at me before she goes out of sight, but she doesn’t. She never

looks back.


My grandma has gone inside by the time I make it to the porch steps. I hear the incessant

buzz of the fly zapper as I open the screen door, and the smell of the kitchen overwhelms me. I

feel my mouth begin to flood as I remember—or try to—the last time I had eaten home-cooking.

“Well goodness, gracious child, don’t let all the flies in. Shut that door, or one will fly

into that wide-open mouth of yours.”

She stands in front of an old cast-iron stove that she insists is better than any “modern

contraption,” but I think that is just an excuse because my tight grandpa wouldn’t spend money

on one. I guess that doesn’t really explain, though, why she hasn’t bought a new one since his

death.

I look at her now with her tight gray bun and neatly tied apron and can only think of one

word, the only one that has ever come to mind with my grandma: prim. She did everything the

right way, the “good, old, Baptist way” she would say. Married at sixteen to a farmer her daddy

chose. Six kids by the time she was thirty-five, mama being the baby of the family. She went to

every church meeting and baked desserts for every revival service. She sewed with her bridge

club and led Bible study. In short, she was a southern man’s dream wife. But that didn’t mean

grandpa couldn’t use her as a backboard for his temper when he wanted to.

I guess that’s where mama and I get it from.

“You hungry, baby girl?” Her voice reminds me of the afternoon adventures with her and

the clear water lapping over the creek bed that always soothed me as a child. The days with her

would be hard, but nothing compared to those warm summer evenings with our toes pushed

against the smooth surface of the stones and the breeze colliding with the other sounds of nature

to make the only symphony I’ve ever cared to listen to.

That was a long time ago.


“No, ma’am. I think I’ll just go upstairs and unpack.”

In reality, the bacon she was flipping had my tongue in a seizure, but I didn’t want to

chance being alone at the dinner table with her just yet. I don’t know what my mother told her in

order to unload me on her doorstep, but I highly doubt it was the full story. My grandmother

didn’t want to know the full story. In her mind, women were virtuous creatures that submitted to

their husbands at all times and were loved and protected by them—even if it meant getting an

occasional beating from time to time. I hated to interrupt that fantasy.

“Alright, honey. I’ll keep your plate warm, but be sure to come back down here and eat

your supper when you’re done packing. I already got your room ready upstairs.”

I nod and pass through the living room on my way to the stairs. I look at the mantle

where my grandpa’s rifle hangs over the fireplace and try to ignore the cold walking up my back.

I know my grandma still cleans it even though my grandpa is gone. I guess she does it to honor

his memory, but I am a bit surprised that she kept it after it went off and killed him while he

doing the same thing in this very room.

The scents of lilac and honey assault me when I open the door to the bedroom. Unlike

my grandma, I don’t consider it mine. The last time I was here, I was eight, and mama and

grandma were still on speaking terms. That was before my mother’s “sinful living” had caught

up with her. Still, I remembered the pale yellow of the walls and the stories I would make up in

my “dandelion kingdom.” I imagined myself riding bare-backed on a Palomino with cowboy

boots and my hair tangled in knots. I saw myself owning a mess of wild horses that would have

no master just like I planned to have none. Nothing but land and free creatures. But I guess

dreams are like choices: meant for the few who can make them happen. To the rest of us, they

are only ashes in the mouth of a fire never lit.


Some faded stuff animals lay on top of the quilt grandma made out of my old baby

clothes. I didn’t take the quilt with me when mama and I left all those summers ago. Somehow, I

knew my grandma might not be the only thing I had to leave behind. I couldn’t bear the thought

of leaving it someday for one of the landlords to sell for $6.50 in some stupid yard sale after it

failed to meet my one-bag lifestyle.

I shove off the bed the animals that I suppose my grandma placed here in order to prove

her point about this being “my room.” I dump the items of my bag onto the bed and see the real

things that belonged to me- three worn t-shirts, a faded pair of jeans, an ear-marked copy a

Fahrenheit 451, a track phone that I still have a small amount of data left on, and an old pack of

cigarettes. It is the only thing he gave me…well, the only thing that didn’t fade over time. I

guess it’s only ironic that they too were an addiction likely to kill me.

Like my mother, my inability to walk away led me here. But unlike her, I was under no

delusion. No, I knew: from the moment Riley Hutchins walked into my life, I knew he was no

good.

***

“You gotta smoke?”

Riley’s slow drawl made me jump, and the way he lengthened all his syllables sent my

nerves scattering like splintered china. I liked it, though I wasn’t sure why. I turned around to see

a tall silhouette leaning against the back of the gym building. I squinted from the sunlight and

made out a pair of eyes green enough to make any farmer sure of a good harvest.

“Umm, just ran out. Sorry.”

I never smoked a day in my life, but if this boy had asked me for Moses’ manna, I would

have sworn that I had just ate the last bite.


“What’s your name?” His lips eased into a grin that I knew must have worked on a many

of girls. That didn’t stop it from working on me.

I didn’t know how to answer him. The words felt like gumbo as they stuck to the roof of

my mouth. Mama and I had just moved to Faison after losing microwave scum number eight

back in Ashville. At all my many schools, I just kept to myself and let people assume I was a

military brat or foster kid or whatever else they liked just as long as it kept them at arms-length

with their mouths shut. I moved throughout the various hallways that always ended up looking

the same like a shadow: always within reach but never touchable…until him.

“What? Your tongue been washed too much with lye too?”

“No…umm…I mean…umm…my name is Haley.”

“Well Haley, What’s a pretty face like yours doing out here all by your lonesome?” The

grin widened while my neat pit of distance continued to narrow. “Wanna ditch this place and go

down to the Piggly Wiggly with me for some smokes?”

And that was all it took. One compliment. One time of being asked to come along rather

than being kicked out. I knew he wasn’t any good. I won’t lie. He had that pretty-boy smile

aurora that told me that he was on one speed: way too fast for me.

But it didn’t matter. I went with him. I bought the cigarettes. Tried to smoke them too

until I became sick behind the Piggly Wiggly dumpster. He just laughed and said he knew I was

no smoker but that was okay because I would be soon enough.

For a while, things felt good. When my mother’s scum number nine started to come over

regularly, I no longer slept on the couch. I went over to Riley’s and hung out with him and his

friends while the room filled up with the hazy fog of their smoke and I cleaned up their beer

cans. Ironic, I know.


And because I was over there all the time, I could hardly take everything without giving

him something back in return. My mother didn’t mind sharing a man’s bed, so why should I?

The first few times felt strange like I was viewing life upside down somehow and was waiting

for the universe to right itself. But it didn’t.

The bruises didn’t come till after the first month.

I don’t know what I thought at first. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t want to leave. Couldn’t

leave. Anything was better than the couch and microwave scum, so I stayed. His kisses left an

impression on me, so I didn’t care that his hands did the same. I told myself that I was different

from my mom because I loved him. It wasn’t about sex for me. It was about belonging to

someone else. Having someone want me.

No matter what I told myself, I was no better than mama and her car wash. At least she

thought she might do it someday. I never believed I could. I just figured it was the price I would

pay for being close to another human being this way. Just like mama and her mama. The cycle

would continue with me.

That’s what shocked me the most. My mother stopped it. Not for herself. Number nine

was still on the couch, but Riley Hutchinson was no longer part of my life.

I told myself what happened wasn’t Riley’s fault. I shouldn’t have allowed one of his

friends to sit that close to me on the couch that evening. I should have known the boy’s fingers

could wiggle more than earthworms put on a hook and avoided the situation. I probably should

have known what was coming afterwards from prior experience. But I did’t.

“Get me another beer.” His voice sounded tense. That should have been my first warning.

He had seen.


“Ok, Riley.” I moved across the linoleum of the kitchen floor. In the recesses of my

mind, I heard the washer from the pantry cut on. It was an old thing and really loud, so no one in

the living room could hear anything over it. That was my second warning. I didn’t get a third.

The knuckles met my cheek before I could shut the refrigerator door, and the beer bolted out of

my hand and crashed against the scarred shelves over the stove. I tasted the Budweiser mist that

sprayed into the air and mingled with the taste of iron in my mouth.

“You, slut! Think you can play whorish tricks on my couch, do you? Do you?”

All I can remember of what happened afterwards are those words “Do you?” taunting me

as they fell in rhythm with his kicking of my ribs. When he finished with me, he went back to

watching the football game with the boys and proceeded to make out with one of the other girls

present. Apparently, “two could play my game.” I knew from experience that I didn’t want to be

there tonight and getting a ride from one of the other boys would only make it worse, so I

grabbed an abandoned hoodie from the table and walked the three miles to bus stop.

I had already begun to figure on how to cover up the bruises for the teachers who would

ask too many questions when mama came out of the bedroom. I hadn’t expected her to notice I

was gone or to wait for me to come home. She lived in a world that I had always been a visitor

in, never a permanent fixture, so her rage over my appearance caught me off guard like summer

rainstorm hitting unsuspecting crops. There was nothing left to do but bend her way, so it was

arranged that I would stay with my grandma for an “unforeseeable amount of time” before I had

any chance to stop it or make amends with Riley. I am not for sure I would have stopped it if I

could. In a way, I was relieved. Like the other women in my family, I was content to let others

make my decisions for me. It was only when I had to make them for myself that I became a

paper doll: fragile and useless.


***

I haven’t noticed the light seeping out of the room until it is well after dark. It feels

strange sitting in the dark silence. No raucous laughter. No angry voices. Just silence. I glance at

the clock to see it is after nine. My stomach feels empty because I have eaten nothing since the

animal crackers for breakfast I got at the gas station. My grandma still keeps farmer’s hours

even though she no longer has to plant fields. She will be in bed now, and I can see to the plate

she left for me.

I get up from the bed and let the cigarette pack drop in a crumbled heap to floor. I realize

that there is a small beeping noise coming from the mound of my things on the bed. I shift them

around until I find my phone. The number I know all too well lights up on the screen like a

warning of caution before a movie letting you know that what is coming next is not for the faint-

of-heart.

Baby, where are you?

You know I didn’t mean it.

I’m sorry. I miss you.

I leave the messages unanswered. I don’t have an answer. I’m afraid of my answer. I

don’t want to think about it, so I think of my stomach instead and my grandma’s pancakes. A

small light radiates from the kitchen as I make my way through the living room.

“Haley, I was wondering when that stomach of yours would bring you down here.”

“I thought you would have already gone to bed. You didn’t have to wait up for me.”

“Oh, I didn’t, chickadee. I have become a regular night owl. Don’t go to bed ‘til at least

ten ‘clock. Why, last Sunday I stayed up till ten-thirty with the girls from bridge.”


Night owl, indeed. This is why my grandma and I would never see eye to eye. Like my

mother, she would never inhabit the same sphere as me. We would rotate in the same direction

but never connect because in her world girls didn’t the mistakes I did. Even if they did, they

lived with them. They didn’t run from them. My grandma submitted to her fate with a smile

while I ran from mine in tears.

She grabs my plate from on top of the stove and pours a glass of milk from the fridge

before sitting across from me.

Eat quickly and excuse yourself. Eat quickly and excuse yourself. I keep this mantra

going halfway through my eggs and hash browns. My grandmother refills my glass of milk

before sitting across the table from me.

“My old cow Leanne sure could produce a good glass. My boys used to drink it up so fast

that they’d have mustaches going off to school way before it was time for them to be shaving.

You’re grandpa wasn’t so fond of Leanne. Said she was stubborn because she wouldn’t produce

milk for him.” Her chuckle was a full one that filled the room to its corners. “Said she was the

most stupid animal on God’s green earth.”

I look at my grandma and see her faded blue irises smiling at me. Why was she rambling

about a milk cow? I hope dementia isn’t setting in. The last thing I need is for mama to be gone

permanently while I am stuck out here alone with a woman losing her wits. If she is lucid enough

to read any of my concern on my face, she doesn’t show it. She just keeps rambling on about that

cow.

“But Leanne wasn’t dumb, darling. She was smarter than me. She wouldn’t work for

someone who didn’t appreciate her. She knew there was value in what she had and didn’t give it

lightly.”


I feel my pulse begin to tap dance against my wrist. Maybe my grandmother still has her

wits after all.

“You know something, sugar? You could learn a lesson here from Leanne. Sometimes,

you have to be jealous of what you got. Protect it.”

Her knarled fingers begin to rub up my arm underneath my sweater. The soft padding of

her thumb brings tears to my eyes as I realize I am not sure when the last time someone has

touched me to give me comfort instead of take it.

“I don’t think I can do that. Even if it is valuable, I can’t care for it. I mean I just don’t

know how.” It is strange for me to feel I need to explain myself, but it’s also the first time I feel

like anyone is listening. “I know it sounds stupid but I just don’t think it’s in me. Like mother,

like daughter.”

I barely breathe the last words out, but the blue irises vibrate with something more radiant

than the color of youth.

“Look here, Haley.” Quick. Precise. Not at all like the grandma I know. “You don’t have

to make any decisions that you don’t want to. The next time a man put his hands on you, you

plant that petite foot where the sun don’t shine. I may have been slow on the uptake, but I

learned the lesson—

“You’ll do what you have to as I did.”

Her eyes are fixed over my head, but when I turn around, the only thing visible from the

kitchen’s gentle light is the mantle.

And the silver of grandpa’s rifle.

***


I can hear the wind traveling through the trees, and the water washes over the stones as I

push my toes against them. Even at this time of night, the warmth of the air can be felt in moist

dew landing against my skin. I used to never come out here at night when I was a child because

I believed the sounds in the trees were of lost spirits come back to the one place where they knew

rest. Maybe that is why I am here.

I reach into my pocket and remove the things from my jeans. Leftover nicotine litters the

outside cover of my phone, and I still see a few specks on the inside screen when I open it.

I’m sorry. I miss you.

I don’t know what it is about picturing my grandmother with no other options than a

double-barrel shotgun that terrifies me, but all I can see is me doing the same. If my saint of a

grandmother could feel justified in it, what chance had I? Or worse. What if I just stood there

and took it like mama? Were those my only two options, or could I pull this emergency lever

before the train went careening over the edge like an abused Christmas set falls in the dumpster?

I had been wrong. My choices had always been there. Even lying on the cold linoleum

while man who “loved me” beat me senseless was a choice.

One I was choosing no longer.

I look down at the black crystal of the water barely highlighted by the moon’s faint glow.

The wind picks up for one brief second, and I picture the spirits pulling me forward. I don’t take

a final look at them as I fling the cigarette pack and the phone as far downstream as I can

manage. I can’t see it, but I feel them sink to the bottom.

I imagine the faded blue irises smiling at me in approval.

Some things are inherited.

At least I hope so.

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