The Misbegotten

I picked her up. This wasn’t difficult, seeing she was only four-foot-nine, weighing no more than eighty-five pounds. I took her to my bed with both Ramona and Katie following. I gazed down at her upturned face. I could sense whatever had happened to her had been harrowing.

Everywhere muck covered her, dirt smears and bits and pieces of leaves and twigs tangled in her hair. She had scrapes and cuts about her cheeks and neck, as if she had run through some sort of thorny bush. Her shirt had torn, snagged in many places. The thin sweater she wore over it was just about shredded. It was no longer a functioning garment. Her jeans were full of brambles and smeared with stains of grime.

It appeared, she’d run through a jungle in the middle of our city just to make it to my house. I wasn’t sure if her surviving the journey alive might’ve been a miracle or not. It might well have been, she was in such a sorry state.

Katie whisked past us and ran into the bathroom, while I adjusted her into a more comfortable position upon the bed. I was grateful and proud when Ramona placed a pillow under the tiny girls’ head. I gave her a small smile. I was too worried to express more than that.

My cousin came from the other room with a hand towel in hand. It looked damp with water. She immediately began to clean away some of the crud caked onto Tirza’s face. A smidge at a time, my cousin's efforts reveal her true state.

We were all heartened. Other than a deep gash across her forehead, all the other wounds she suffered proved superficial.

Katie went about cleaning her forehead with exhaustive care. Without looking up, she asked if I had any antiseptic or like substance she could use to purify the wound.

I grunted when it came to mind, running for the bathroom. I pulled forth cotton balls, the Hydrogen Peroxide and the Rite-Aid¹ brand of Iodine Tincture my mother stored underneath the sink. I made my way back to the girls.

Both were hovering over the tiny form of Tirza. They had removed her ragged sweater and were wiping down her arms.

It stopped me for a moment to see them care for someone who they didn’t like all that much. The fact she was in need had pushed those ill-feelings aside. They might be possessive at times, but it didn’t mean they were monsters. They were good people.

I shook myself, coming up to them already twisting off the cap of the Peroxide, pouring some on one of the cotton balls. I came around the girls, by Tirza’s head. I began daubing the disinfecting medicine along the entire length of the gash on her forehead. The wound began to bubble at once, then foam as the dirt and filth were burnt away. I repeated the process time and time again until the bubbling stopped altogether. Then, stoppering the Peroxide, I began to open the Tincture.

Katie took off Tirza’s shoes – a light pair of Nike² trainers – and walked back toward the windows. She began to pound off some of the mud stuck to the soles outside my bedroom window, not wanting to dirty the carpeting.

I felt bad as I caught a glimpse of my ex-girlfriend’s socks. They were dirty as well. It saddened me terribly, because I had known Tirza a long time and seeing that pair of soiled socks was a bad sign. It had always been one of her pet peeves to keep her socks as white as possible. She despised the sight of discolored ones. It made her gag.

Now, her socks were filthy.

What had happened to you?

I couldn’t imagine what would’ve driven her to ruin her socks. It would have to something horrific.

Again, I shoved aside my thoughts and went back to work on the cut on her forehead. I made sure the capturing fork at the end of applicator was full with the dark ocher-colored liquid. As light as I could, I applied it.

Below me, Tirza gasped in pain, her eyes shooting open like twin fire-crackers, dancing with light. Her balled fist flew from her side, aimed right for my exposed jaw.

If it hadn’t been for Ramona, I think she would’ve cleaned my clock.

I hadn’t moved a muscle. I hadn’t even seen the blow coming. I just stayed put in wide-eyed shock as my girlfriend brushed Tirza’s punch aside with her forearm.

“Hey, we’re trying to help you!” she yelled.

From the window, Katie called, “Get back from her, give her space!”

We both backed away.

Tirza scrambled to her knees, her fists before her, ready to fight, warning us to stay back. Her eyes glazed with pain and fear. The horror that had driven her to my house made her look like a mad-woman. She knelt there huffing and puffing, her small breasts heaving under her ruined shirt. Her soiled, white bra flashed periodically beneath.

“Tirza is us!” I implored the girl, trying to get her to realize where she was, that she was no longer in… danger?

Why had I thought that?

“Tirza! Tirza, it’s me, Estefan. You’re safe now. You can relax, we are not going to hurt you,” I continued, hoping to get through to her. “You ran here, remember? You’re safe now. It’s me, Estefan.”

Her gaze focused on me, her brow knitting in the middle. Her head tilted to one side with two or three sharp, jerking movements that appeared more bird-like than human. Was she in shock?

“Tirza, it is me Estefan. I am not your enemy. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The other girls remained motionless. They both stared at the diminutive teenager upon my bed, awaiting her next move.

“Tirza, do you remember now? You came here… to be safe. You’re here now. You’re safe. Do you remember?”

Her hands unclenched and returned to her sides. Her eyes began to clear and well up, her chest beginning to heave with evermore violence. “They’re all dead,” she began, pathetic, with utter despair. “They killed them all, right before my eyes. Oh god, Estefan, my whole family is DEAD!!!” She crumbled back on the bed like a leaf before a vicious wind, heedless of where she’d fall.

I stood there, rooted in shock, the Iodine almost tumbling from my grasp. I had to grab it tight so it wouldn’t spill, staining the floor.

“What did you say?” inquired my cousin, placing Tirza’s shoes near the wall by the window. She stepped closer to her than the rest of us. “What did she say?” she asked again, dismay beginning to take root upon her face.

On the bed, Tirza was crying in anguish, her whole body writhing and contorting as if she were in physical pain.

“She said…,” began my girlfriend,”…that someone killed her family…” Her voice became measured. She was still trying to digest the impact of Tirza’s words, stomach if they were real or the ravings of an overwrought teenager.

“What the fuck?!” exhaled Katie, unbelieving. Her gaze snapped from Ramona to Tirza to me and back again.

“She said -,” started Ramona, but couldn’t go on. Her eyes filled with moisture, then to me, “Go to her, Estefan, and make her feel better…”

My mouth gaped. “Me? But, I don’t know how -.”

“Yes, you do,” was all she said. An odd sort of acceptance seemed to pass through my girlfriends’ entire body. She was less strained than before. She had somehow become less burdened, under less duress. Something had been mercifully lifted from her shoulders.

I was dumbstruck.

Did my girlfriend want me to go to Tirza, to hold her in my arms? After everything that had happened between the three of us? After all the arguing, the veiled threats, the silent abuse and neglect, did Ramona mean that, honest?

“Effy, go… she needs you.” She urged me again.

Katie stayed where she was, watching the entire episode unfold, swallowing deep every now and again.

I stared back at Ramona, frowning with uncertainty.

She nodded yet again and motioned for me to go to Tirza with her hand.

“Ramona?” I asked as if her name were enough to explain what I was thinking.

It was.

“I can sense it, my love. There is nothing I or anyone else could do about it,” she explained.

I told myself I had no clue what the fuck she was talking about, but I remembered our conversation from before.

“It is stupid to try and fight inevitability; I just hope there won’t be too many. I don’t know if I could manage it.”

“What are you talking about, Mona?” I was still playing dumb. I couldn’t agree with her conclusions, not just yet.

“You’ll figure it out,” was all she said and made her way to Katie, intent on something else.

Upon my bed, Tirza continued to wail in agony. I felt like a complete shit for waiting as long as I had before approaching her. I stoppered the Iodine bottle and placed it on my desk. I walked back to Tirza’s side, kneeling upon the floor where her head was nearest me.

“Tirza?” I probed as sensitive as I could.

She just went on weeping. To her, I could have been a piece of dried shit sunbaked upon the highway.

This shit isn’t going to work! I told myself, trying but failing to understand why Ramona had done this.

My ex-girlfriend kept crying for her lost family.

I reached out for her the wrist as light as I had spoken. I touched her with only the tip of my index finger, unable to think of anything else of value to do.

Beneath my touch, Tirza seemed to stiffen. Her tears and breathing arrested for a second or two, before she seemed to accept my feeble attempt to sooth her. She went on grieving; only now, she wasn’t quite as loud. She didn’t sound as distraught as she had before either.

Unsuspecting, as I listened to her with growing scrutiny, her smell began to fill my nose. It was a sweaty, meaty sort of scent, doused with an earthy loam. There came also the barest hint of blood, which left an after-smell of metal – iron. There was no sense of soap or perfume or anything artificial about the girl. Her exertions had overcome it all. They left behind only what she would’ve smelled like after a long, hard day’s work in the fields, like a farmer of bygone years. Yet, it wasn’t a manly scent; it was not harsh or sharp in any way. It was girlish, sweeter, less acrid, the sort of thing some men prefer to revel within. They could lose themselves in the raw nature of its’ womanhood.

That was when I noticed her crying had lost much of its’ vigor, its’ volume lowered as well. She seemed calmer, more subdued, though she still wept.

Was I doing this? Was this what Ramona was talking about? Was this my “power” at work?

If so, then I had better trod with care. I didn’t want Tirza to go ape-shit with lust. So, I pulled back my olfactory sense, that way I could only smell the over-arching scents emanating from her. I would chance nothing more specific than that.

I tried speaking to her once again. “You ok?”

I know it was a stupid fucking question, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She moved her wrist, the one I had been touching and slipped her hand into mine.

I chanced a glance over at Ramona and Katie, who were both watching.

Katie leaned toward my girlfriend and muttered something below my ability to hear.

My girlfriend nodded in grim affirmation, her head dipping.

They both turned to stare at Tirza and me once more.

“I-I… huhk… have n-n-no r-real recourse, b-b-b-ut could yu-you hold m-mi-me…?” asked Tirza out of nowhere.

I knew in that moment my girlfriend had been right. I knew she understood a whole hell of a lot more about me and what was happening than she was letting on. It was her “power” - whether inborn or Muto. She could always divine human emotion like a scythe through wheat. She was always indomitable in that sense, cut out the bullshit and get down to brass tacks.

I didn’t answer the girl, but stood.

Her hand was still in mine.

I scooted onto the bed.

Before I could say or do anything of merit, she crawled onto my lap and cried like I have never seen her cry before, or since.

It was a long time before she stopped.

{ ¹Rite Aid: a drugstore chain in the United States and a Fortune 500 company, once headquartered in East Pennsboro Township, Pennsylvania, nearCamp Hill. }

{ ²Nike: an American multinational corporation that is engaged in the design, development and worldwide marketing and selling of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services. The company was headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon. }