The Siren by KATHERINE JOHN (general ebook reader .txt) 📕

It was all downhill for her after she and Cole killed my mom. It seems like every time I open a tabloid, there’s another juicy story about her losing her mind, and I relish every minute of her implosion. It’s what she deserves after what she did to my mother, and it keeps me entertained here in Boring-sylvania.

I have to admit, though, Ruthanne and Fred aren’t as bad as I’d thought they’d be. If I didn’t know they’d kicked my pregnant mom out and then lied to me about it, I wouldn’t mind them so much. They did take me in when no one else would.

My dad was a nonstarter. He now runs his family’s chicken farm operation from Dallas, where he lives with his second wife. The social worker didn’t know I could hear his end of the conversation when she called him up to tell him about me. He was very clear he’d given my mom the money for an abortion, so as far as he was concerned, I didn’t exist. Despite evidence to the contrary.

But Ruthanne and Fred were happy to take me. They claimed they’d been looking for my mom for years, and the fact she hadn’t aborted me led them to believe that she was in heaven. I didn’t tell them about the stripping or the hooking.

They live in a blue two-bedroom shoebox on a flat two acres with two mutts, a goat, and a coop full of chickens. Fred’s a big man with a love of Penn State football and deer hunting. He drives an eighteen-wheeler, and I think he’s less about Jesus than Ruthanne, who’s a Jesus freak by anyone’s standards, but he goes along with it for her sake. Ruthanne works at the hardware store and has a big garden that provides all kinds of vegetables when the ground isn’t frozen solid.

The first year was hard for all of us; I had residual hate for them because they kicked Iris out, and they didn’t know how to handle a feisty ten-year-old who’d never had any rules and had just lost her mother. I got a lot of spankings and time-outs, like a toddler. The change came the following spring, when it was time to plant Ruthanne’s garden. Bored, I asked if I could help one day and found I loved turning the soil, trimming the leaves, watching the new plants shoot up. Ruthanne was so pleased that the next morning when we were at Walmart, she took me to the juniors section and let me pick out a new church dress and a pair of heels, my first. It was then that I remembered something Iris had told me once when I asked how she became such a good dancer. “I’m a fine dancer, but what I’m really doing is selling a fantasy,” she’d said. “If you listen, people will tell you what they want. Then all you have to do is give it to them, and you’ll have them eating out of your hand.”

That evening I helped Ruthanne in the kitchen too, and learned I liked cooking as much as I liked gardening. But what I liked even more was the fact that later that evening, when she caught me reading a copy of Lolita I’d found in a used bookstore in town, she simply shut my bedroom door.

I discovered that as long as I kept my opinions to myself, didn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, did my chores, got good grades, and went to church, Ruthanne and Fred were pretty okay. Besides the garden and cooking, I still have nothing in common with them except for my mother, and talking about her is hard for all of us, after everything. I’ve always maintained my account of what happened the night she died, but I can tell that even they don’t believe me.

For years I’ve told my story to the police, to reporters, to anyone who would listen, but no one’s been convinced. Every psychologist agreed: I was a scared kid in a bad situation making up fantasies to dispel the bleakness of her unhappy life. It happens all the time, they said.

Only, I wasn’t unhappy. They assume that with the lifestyle Iris and I led, I must have been miserable. But I knew no other way to live. And to a ten-year-old, being able to walk to the store on your own and watch whatever show and say whatever bad words you want while eating frozen pizza curled up in the bed you share with your mom is a pretty awesome existence.

It’s a lot better than huddling under a thin blanket in my cold bedroom with earbuds, watching movies I downloaded via torrent on the contraband iPhone I bought with my secret pile of money, because Ruthanne and Fred don’t allow any entertainment that isn’t church approved. I know all Cole’s and Stella’s movies by heart.

The secret pile of money and the thought of what I’m going to do with it when I turn eighteen is all that keeps me going most of the time.

A few days after the accident, Carol-the-social-worker had escorted me back to our apartment to collect my things, with the instruction that I should place whatever I wanted in two black garbage bags; everything else would be disposed of. The cops had already been through the place, and it was a wreck. Drawers were open, clothes strewn everywhere, pillows upturned. And yet somehow the entire apartment still smelled of jasmine. Overwhelmed, I sat on the end of the bed and started to cry. Carol patted my back and offered me a tissue. That woman always had a tissue. Part of the job, I guessed. “Can I help you pick which things you want?” she asked.

I blew my nose on the tissue and shook my head. “I’d like a minute alone, if that’s okay.”

“I’ll be in the living room if you need me.” She