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the door she’d come in and out of for as long as she could remember, but she’d
moved on, even though she had no more control of her life now than she had then.
Skye knew her father wasn’t home from work yet, but she hadn’t come to
see him. Instead, she’d come to claim something of her mother’s, if there was
anything of hers remaining, so she unlocked the door, walked in, and tossed
her purse onto the chair against the wall as she shut the door. It was a way of
establishing her presence, a need she’d always had to say she belonged among the
perfection between the walls.
She slipped off her shoes and left them at the porcelain tile entryway as she
walked into the front room. Light slipped through the curtains and bounced off
the crystals of the chandelier, creating an array of changing color that washed
across the room. But nothing ever changed inside the house. Everything had its
place, and anything that didn’t belong was disposed of.
Bonnie used to do readings in the front room when her father was at work.
Skye wondered if her father ever knew that. She never remembered them talking
to each other much; instead, they spent their time together pushing and
pulling at each other, trying to remold what was already formed, demanding
attention while Skye clung to her toys and silently hoped not be noticed.
She walked into the sitting room and up the stairs. She took a left down
the long carpeted hallway to the master bedroom. She always felt uncomfortable
crossing the threshold into the room. It had always felt cold and uninviting,
except when her mother was home. Skye remembered sitting on their bed and
watching Bonnie dance across the room, the radio on the dresser blaring out
some song, maybe jazz. Bonnie usually wore a skirt, and the material floated on
the air as she twirled around.
The room was the same as it had been for as long as Skye could remember,
the same dresser against the left wall that her mother used to stand in front of
when she brushed her long red hair, the same king-size poster bed, and the same
picture of a soaring plane within the clouds above the headboard.
But her mother’s drawings that used to hang crooked on the closet door had
been put away or, more likely, thrown away long ago as well as the small marble
statue of some god that Skye remembered used to stand on the dresser before
Bonnie went away. And even though her baby picture in the gold-and-ivory frame
was still on the dresser as it always had been, it was now veiled in dust.
Skye picked up the picture and stared at herself and wondered if she would’ve
been a different person if she was born to a different family, in a different town,
or if Bonnie had stayed.
She was crying in the picture as she sat lopsided on a green carpeted platform.
The background simulated the sky with a smear of blue and white. Her
hands were reaching out as though she wanted to grab onto something tangible,
a security blanket maybe, that didn’t exist. Skye placed the picture of the falling
child back on the dresser and walked over to the closet.
Clothes hung along the right side, pressed and creased like little soldiers
waiting to be chosen. Boxes lined the left side, neatly stacked, but some were
not labeled, which seemed out of character for her father. Skye lifted one of the
unlabeled boxes off the stack and sat down beside it.
As she rummaged through the contents, she found an old ticket stub to a
movie she’d never heard of, a red glass rose wrapped in tissue with a couple of
broken petals, and a small crinkled picture of her mother as a child, with ribbons
in her hair.
In another box, she found her mother’s old jewelry box. When she opened
it, she saw the tiger’s eye ring her mother used to wear. She remembered her
mother rubbing the polished surface with the forefinger on her other hand when
she was nervous. She then picked up a moonstone necklace. She was sure it
must’ve been the same one her mother draped across her neck the day Bonnie
left. Skye had pulled the necklace off after wearing it for weeks, when she’d
finally grown angry, after the tears dried up, after she realized Bonnie was not
coming back. She didn’t remember where she’d left the necklace. He father
must’ve placed it in Bonnie’s jewelry box before he stored it away.
When Skye heard the front door slam, she jumped up, the jewelry box still
in her lap. She felt ashamed she’d gone behind her father’s back to search through
his things. She reached down to gather the jewelry that lay scattered at her feet.
She stepped out of the closet with the box still in her hands.
“What are you doing?” her father asked as he stood at the bedroom doorway.
“I came to find something of Bonnie’s,” she replied.
“You could’ve asked,” he replied.
“I didn’t want us to have the same conversation about my mother we had at
my apartment.”
Isaac turned and straightened the brown overstuffed chair against the wall,
twisting and turning it until he seemed satisfied with the angle between the chair
and the small lace-covered table, while unsettled emotions rose between them
and pushed her out the door.
The Tarot predicts the journey as Ray Long comes to the town of Pettington hoping to leave his rage behind and begin a new life. And when he meets Skye Roosevelt, he begins to believe he can recreate himself and find his future in Pettington. But Pettington is no ordinary town with a metaphysical store that tells its future, a whore house that keeps it financially secure, and secrets long buried just beneath its surface. And soon Ray Long begins to spiral down into the pit of violence he has always known. He begins to hear the Devil whisper in his ear, and he soon discovers his old self is more soothing to him than the new life he’s created. And when he tries to murder two of Pettington’s own, Skye Roosevelt must search deep within herself for her own self identity in order to protect her son as Ray Long battles the past in order to separate the passion from the pain.
Broken Wing is a story about an abuser who was a victim of abuse as a child. This is a story about his family relations, the need for love, the devastation of rejection, and the merry-go-round that keeps turning. And this story is about self-identity, a self-identity the character believes defines him, dark and rigid, until he is pushed to the extreme, only then can he step out and stand naked with this identity at his feet as he lays claim to the past that molded him and the passion that fills his heart.
Genre - Literary
Rating – PG-13
More details about the author
Website http://www.annaklaybooks.com/
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