Steaming Mirrors

When I was eleven years old my aunt took custody of me, and my older sister. At the time my sister, Maribelle, was thirteen. After a huge blowout argument between another aunt, and her husband my mother decided that it was best if she split up her four children, and it was my Aunt Danah who stepped in to save the day. Aunt Danah lived out in the country, and I remember when we first went to see her asking if all the roads in Tennessee were bright red like the one my Aunt lived on.

The road was called Tracy Lane, and Aunt Danah lived in a trailer at the very end of the road. A decent single wide mobile home with three bedrooms that sat against the woods at the edge of a hill. If you stood out on Aunt Danah's porch at night you could see the lake off in the distance. It sparkled, and shimmered like liquid silver beneath moonlight rays. It was a scene that calmed me so many times, and while I reflected on my biological mother's shortcomings I was able to hang out with my older cousin. Her name was Shanna, and she was two years older than Maribelle was. Aunt Danah also had two other children, Alex and Desirae.

This made up for five kids in total, and to be honest I now look back on it wondering how Aunt Danah made it. It was no question that when the neighbors saw Aunt Danah coming by they must've thought she was crazy for undertaking the care of all of those kids.

But that wasn't the most extraordinary thing about Aunt Danah, though I have to admit she had some serious shortcomings later on. It all centered on Shanna, and if I had known then what I know now I probably would have taken the time to realize the cousin I looked up to was fighting a horrible battle that none of us ever seen coming. I don't want to get too ahead of the story now, but Shanna had a history of being called a bad seed. Our grandparents, and most of our other aunts and uncles all thought the worst of Shanna.

So there had to be a reason why, right? There had to be some catalyst for making Shanna the biggest black sheep of the family. But there wasn't. Even now I can't see where there was, and I wish that I had paid more attention to the little things. The tics, and emotional signs that Shanna was showing should have clued in someone.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense why our family was so hard on Shanna. She wasn't really a bad student, and for being fifteen years old she certainly wasn't a promiscuous one. The only thing wrong with Shanna was that she had a streak of rebel in her at times, and loved punk rock, gothic, and grunge lifestyles with a passion. She was an introvert, and she always spent a great deal of time scribbling in a journal. Maribelle had that in common with her except in her situation it was art, and man my sister was such an artist. Everyone made such a big deal out of that, where as with me they often held me in disdain. Shanna seemed to see me as a kindred spirit, and noticed how I had a hard time when other family members fussed over Maribelle's talents, and I was just Raechelle.

"Nothing to great about being Raechelle." I would say to her, but Shanna always shook her head and told me one day I would see what she saw. I held onto that hope, and it was those precious pep talks with Shanna that helped me get through the times I thought about my mom. I had a hard time with it, I admit. I was really shy, and it was my worst trait, but in light of Maribelle's perfect ways I kind of had to be. There were few people who could outshine Maribelle, but Shanna, Shanna was the one person who could.

Shanna never did see herself quite like Maribelle, and I did. It was really sad too because Maribelle, and I always looked up to her. She was so smart, articulate, and had a huge vocabulary. Sometimes I swore that Shanna must've been born into the wrong family because she had this philosophical mind. A mind that always seemed to catch Maribelle, and I off guard.

The summer before Aunt Danah took custody of Maribelle, and I all of the grandchildren were brought up to my Aunt Allie's. Aunt Allie, and her husband Carl had went on a weekend trip, and Aunt Janie was going to be the one to keep her kids, but since it was the summer time and Aunt Danah was still taking night classes at the local community college our family decided it would be a great time for the kids to spend the summer up on the Hill.

Unlike her sister Danah, Janie was a little more stern in her convictions. She was a stout Southern Baptist, and her rules could be kind of stiff at times. But in retrospect I now understand why Aunt Janie was the way she was, but she was still more fun than Aunt Allie. Though Aunt Allie could be fun, when her rotten husband, Carl wasn't around.

Carl was a person that none of us liked. He was opinionated, and rude especially to the kids. He never considered anyone except for himself, and it was Carl who really started soiling my cousin Shanna's reputation.