[Annie]: 415.Books in Progress.Untitled Novel.Chapter 1

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The wind tugged at Adriana’s hair as she stood in the middle of the road outside the house. The tears on her cheeks made her feel like a child. She clenched the handle of her suitcase and stared at a car that was disappearing over a distant hill. Adriana’s mother was in that car. She wanted to watch it as long as she could. She soaked in the tall, rolling grass with its golden-green hue, the puff of dust that billowed up behind the car and never seemed to resettle, and the dark blue mountains in the background.

She turned and looked at the house behind her. The paint was chipping off, the porch steps were falling apart, and the windows were covered in grime. She set her suitcase down and carefully made her way into the house. The inside wasn’t as bad as the outside. There was an entry, a very small kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The kitchen had a few dirty dishes in the sink. The bedroom had a bed and a bureau. The bathroom was entirely covered in tile.

Adriana brought in her two boxes and suitcase and laid them on the floor in the entry. Then she began to clean. She found a broom in the kitchen closet and used it to dust as well as sweep. She tried the faucet in the kitchen and was surprised to find that it had running water. She washed the dishes, the counter, and the windows using an old shirt. Finally she took the sheets off the bed and washed them in the kitchen sink, then hung them over the front porch rail to dry. She stood on the porch after hanging the last sheet and stared into the distance for awhile. There really wasn’t anything to look at; she was just thinking. This abandoned old house was her new home.

Her mother had not explained her actions. One day she just told Adriana, “You’re leaving” and that was the end of the conversation. Her mother had never really liked her. She could remember many times when her mother had told her plainly that she wished she had never had a child. A child, the child; these were the terms her mother used when referring to her. In fact, Adriana wasn’t really her name. It was a name she had made up for herself because her mother never called her by any name. She thought it sounded like a fairy princess’s name when she was little. Her name had always been Adriana in make believe games and in the end it just stuck. Adriana remembered a moment of tenderness between the two of them when her mother had called her “honey,” but it didn’t last very long. Adriana was 17 now. Not old enough to be on her own and not young enough to please her mother.

The sun was setting in the valley, so Adriana hurried to unpack her things. There wasn’t much to unpack other than clothes. She laid them neatly in the bureau, then put her other belongings away. As the darkness of night came she began to feel the weight of what was happening. She crawled onto the naked bed and curled up in a ball with a coat as her blanket. As she was contemplating her own pitiful situation though, she was interrupted by the sound of her mother’s voice.

“You selfish brat.” Her mother said.
Adriana sat up in bed and looked around. She was alone.
“You selfish brat, just sitting there whining like a baby.” Her mother’s voice came back.
“You don’t know anything!” Adriana yelled.
“That’s just like you – useless. Selfish.”
“Get out! Get out!” Adriana screamed.
Adriana could hear her mother’s chuckle fading away. She looked at the room around her. She was alone and always had been. Just like her entire childhood. She had been alone in her room, alone in the garden, alone on the school playground, or alone at the kitchen table. Yet, her mother was right; she was selfish. Her mother always had a sickening tone of truth to the things she said. There were millions of other people in the world that were worse off than her. Adriana’s unhappiness was but a tiny ripple in the tidal wave of misery drowning the world. She was selfish to be thinking about her own problems.

She shivered for a long time after that, but she must have become accustomed to the cold because the next thing she knew she was waking up from a dream.