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A Novel

Tamar Ossowski

Franny

The second time Matilda asked where we were going, my mother turned the radio up louder. It had been an hour or maybe two or maybe more—I didn’t know because, at that moment, all I could hear was the tapping noise she was making against the steering wheel. We were stopped in traffic, which made her drum faster and harder, and then I felt it coming like a volcano about to erupt, the letters, mostly A’s and R’s sitting inside the rounds of my cheeks, readying themselves to pop out. Big and unwieldy, making my lips ache, but then just as they were about to slip past, Matilda reached over to hold my hand. I closed my eyes and thought about electrical storms. Matilda told me that I was born during one and that the first time she saw me, the lights flickered, and in that moment of darkness, my sister leaned over and whispered, “I missed you”.

Like I had just returned from a trip.

I squeezed her hand tighter and she turned toward the window. I tried not to think about leaving our grandmother’s house or how our mother stuffed our things into garbage bags that got so big and misshapen, she could barely drag them out of the room. I had watched as she packed the blanket my grandmother made for my ninth birthday. It was pink and soft and had a big F embroidered in the center. Now those garbage bags were crammed inside the trunk and I imagined my things swirled together tightly with no room to breathe.

The car stopped in traffic and the sound of engines rumbled through me. Matilda was still staring out the window and I could feel the ­letters slowly creeping back. They were steady and strong and constant and I wanted them to come and make everything happening fade away like the tiny dot on a television screen that disappears when you turn it off. Effortlessly, they slid across my tongue, this time smooth and silky and not bulky at all. I closed my eyes until they were all I could see, floating randomly, innocently in the darkness. Matilda took a long, exaggerated breath and, suddenly, the car came to an abrupt stop.

My mother pulled over to the side of the road and, as gently as if she was powdering her nose, folded into herself and began to sob. Matilda got out of the car and seconds later was in the passenger seat. Matilda and my mother had an alliance to which I was never invited.