The Speed of Mercy by Christy Conlin (good books for high schoolers txt) 📕

and Stella’s father blushes and tips his head to the side. The good feelings Stella has had about Cynthia drain away as quickly as her father is downing his champagne. Frank pours him another glass. Stella sips her champagne. To her the liquid tastes like rancid ginger ale. The dinner is served by two waiters who bring in food on silver trays, placing one in front of each of them. They set wine bottles on the table by Frank, who samples the wine and smiles his approval, licking his lips. Then they pour wine for everyone, for the girls as well. Stella looks around the table. Her head hurts at the base of her neck. She rubs it and then lifts the lid of the silver tray in front of her. She has no appetite, looking at the bright red lobster, looking back at her like any minute it might leap off the platter and take out her eyes.

After supper, Stella sits in the car waiting for her father to come out. She’s sleepy and her mouth tastes sour, probably from the half-glass of wine she managed to sip.

“Stella.” Close to her ear.

She jumps. It’s Frank in the window in the lavender dusk. The sky is bright behind him but his face is in shadow. Stella can smell wine and garlic on his breath. “Your father will be right out. The chef is putting together a care package for you to take home. I know it’s been hard for you two but we’ll help. That’s what Seaburys do. Your grandfather drank all his money away and it made it so hard on the Spragues. Did your father tell you it was my uncle who paid for him to go to university?”

Stella shakes her head.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. He’d help me out if I needed anything. It must be déjà vu for him being back here. Maybe on Labour Day weekend I can take you girls away for a few days and give him a break. I bet he’d love to go on a solo fishing trip. Let’s keep our chat to ourselves, Stella. The Seaburys are here for you, okay?” He leans into the window and Stella can smell the alcohol on his breath as he speaks in a low voice: “Put your seat belt on, Stella. We don’t want you to get hurt. No car accidents or anything of that sort.”

Stella’s body is rigid as her father drives down the mountain to Seabury, weaving back and forth over the centre line. He seemed sober enough when he came out to the car, calling out to her just as Frank was about to say something else.

Drunk as a lord, Stella hears her mother say in her mind. She doesn’t want to blubber and distract her father from driving. She remembers being in the car that night in the early spring. She wants to banish that memory but she can’t. Her mother went to the library every Tuesday night for a book club, her alone time. But that night Stella had begged to go. She had books to return, books to take out. She would entertain herself. She loved the local library and she was twelve years old going on thirteen. Her father, oddly, didn’t want her to go. He kept insisting she stay home with him. And this made her mother insist Stella go with her. Stella recollects sitting beside her mother, putting on her seat belt. Her mother had just permed her black hair — Stella recalls the chemical smell, then the sound of her mother twiddling with the radio knob. Music. It was dusk. Grey. It was raining. Stella’s fault for wanting to go to the library. She thinks her father said this sometime after the accident. Maybe Stella had said it to herself. She closes her eyes and doesn’t open them until they stop in their own driveway.

That night Stella brushes her teeth and looks in the mirror. She thinks about déjà vu. The doctor told her it can happen after a brain injury, that it isn’t magic. It doesn’t mean she’s crazy. He didn’t use that word. He said it doesn’t mean she’s losing her mind. But she hasn’t had déjà vu. Her father never seems to have been in complete possession of his mind. Rather, his mind seems to possess him. Stella’s face tenses. Her cheeks and jaws twitch. Grief attacking her, taking possession of her bones and flesh, squeezing her heart. Her mouth fills with spit and the room spins. Like father like daughter. Her shoulders ache from bracing herself in the car. Her father shouldn’t have driven home. He had too much to drink but so did everybody. Whenever he talked to Stella, he would look at her and then steer in that direction.

She leans on the sink and catches her breath. Stella looks at her thin face, her red eyes, her straggly short hair. She needs a trim to even it out. She needs a mother. She washes her face with cold water. Then she notices a few drops of dark brownish-red blood on the floor. Stella pulls up her nightie, but the bandage is still on. There is blood dripping down her leg. She spreads her legs and bends over, and pulls her panties to the side, trying to see, but then she is dizzy and grabs at the wall. She balls up some toilet paper and wipes gingerly between her legs. It’s coming from inside her. From her vagina. Stella has started her period.

Stella cleans herself with more toilet paper, so she can flush the evidence away. She has no idea how she can talk to her father about this. She’ll have to talk to Cynthia or Granny. Stella folds up a face cloth and puts it in a clean pair of underwear. It seems to be staying put. She puts her soiled panties at the back of the closet with her stained dress. She doesn’t know how