the parade of boyfriends she had left brokenhearted in Kansas City. She smoked and made no effort to hide it and could match coffee drinking and gossip with her mother cup for cup and tidbit for tidbit. Rita confused the boundaries Trissa placed between adult and child, and Trissa did not know how to treat her. As it turned out, it was a confusion others in her family struggled with as well.
After Rita came, Trissa no longer scrambled out of bed early while her parents slept on Saturday morning to spend a cozy few hours nestled against Lonny while he read to her from his comic books. On the first Saturday after Rita, Trissa awoke to find that she had stolen her place. Rita and Lonny lay sprawled in their pajamas and robes on the living room floor taking turns reading the dialog in the characters' voices. Trissa stayed for a while to listen, but it just wasn't the same.
But it was Rita's effect on her father that shattered Trissa the most. As if it meant nothing at all, Rita waltzed down the aisle on Sunday next to him and sat her tight-skirted bottom in Trissa's special place on the pew.
It was Rita who plopped herself on the front seat on her daddy's regular weekend outings to the hardware store. Trissa was relegated to the back. Forgotten were Trissa's lessons on the names of all the hammers and saws, and Trissa would just whisper them to herself as she tagged along behind. "Ballpeen, claw, tack, framing, sledge. Keyhole, jig, coping, crosscut, hack." Someday her father might care again that she remembered them.
He never did. As the summer of Rita wore on, Trissa quit going with them at all and found what comfort could be had in her dolls and roller skates. It was the latter's betrayal that snapped the last thread of trust she had in her daddy.
On a summer evening when her mother had gone to Ladies Guild, Trissa and her skates had a tangle with the curb and her knees and elbows paid the price. Whimpering softly, she ran to find her father. Maybe he would have a kiss to spare to make them better. She heard his muffled laughter in the old sewing room that Rita had been given as her bedroom. Behind the closed door, she heard Rita's voice as well. Later Trissa would learn of the green-eyed monster but she would always picture jealousy as red. It was in a red haze of anger she heard Rita pleading, "Please, oh please. Yes, that feels so good," and her father's warm, rumbly "Rita, my baby, my baby."
The sidewalk burns on her knees and elbows became as nothing to the hate that had scorched through Trissa's heart at that moment. Trissa was her daddy's baby, not Rita. Not Rita! Prepared to scream that challenge, she pushed the door open. She didn't understand what she saw there. She couldn't. She was so confused that it hurt. Her daddy didn't see her at all, but Rita turned her head and smiled at her, a smile that said "He's mine. He's mine now. And you can't have him back. Never." Trissa shut the door and ran.
After all these years and all the times her father had disappointed her, she was surprised how much she still hated Rita. But Rita was only fourteen then. For all her adult ways, she was no older than Trissa had been when she regained her father's attention in a way she never wanted. Rita was a child, just a child, and maybe not to blame at all...
"Silas and Eppie. Silas and Eppie," she scolded herself and bent her head over her book once more.
Alone in the house after the dance, her parents out seeking further entertainment, Trissa was determined to put aside her memories. What good did they do her? The only thing she could control was the future. By just the light over the sink, she sliced some cold roast beef and made a sandwich, tossed a handful of potato chips on the plate beside it and poured a glass of milk. Meal enough for the few moments she could spare away from her book. She had to get good grades on this test. If the future was to be hers to control, she couldn't chance failing her freshman year.
Anxiety from just considering the possibility tied a knot in her throat that made her look at the sandwich in horror, its whiteness swimming like