The Madonna, The Virgin, and The Whore

Chapter Two

ERIN

Just one more mile and then I'd stop, I promised myself, extending my legs further, and ignoring the stitch in my side. I'd been telling myself that for the last two miles and I knew at some point my body was going to give. But I'd continue to push it until it did.

That's what I did. When things got too heavy and my brain started to scatter, I grabbed my sneakers and took off. The first time I did it I had just gotten home from school and was wearing these hand-me-down pink plastic sandals that used to belong to Mary. They were a piece of crap and usually I hated hand-me-downs, but for some reason I loved these sparkly things.

As soon as I walked through the door I knew something was wrong. Lexi was on the floor in the living room crying, and Mary was on her knees trying to console her. I'll never forget her expression when she looked up and saw me standing there at the door. I felt her hesitation and my eyes swept around the room looking for my mom. Usually she was there waiting for us when we got home, but that she wasn't anywhere.

That's when Mary told me our mother had left. One day she was dropping me off at Girl Scouts, the next day it was like she'd never even existed. She didn't even leave a note.

I didn't cry like Lexi did. I wouldn't allow myself to cry for the women who abandoned us without a second thought. Instead I peeled off my sandals and hurled them across the room. I shoved my feet into my sneakers, threw open the front door, and took off.

I ran for hours that first afternoon, and with each step I managed to force down my tears, my emotions, and the hurt that I felt. I was able to lock my mother away, deep inside me, and I rarely thought of her again.

Until today. 

Dad was dead.

Mary called late in the afternoon with the news. She cried when she told me, but that was expected of Mary; she was always the one who tried to keep the family together. This was bound to devastate her, not to say that I wasn't upset too, but I always knew my dad would either work or drink himself to death.

For as long as I could remember he punched in for the night shift at the factory in town. Even when he was well past the age of retirement, he still clocked in every day. And when he was around, he was a man of few words. In fact, I don't even remember him mentioning the fact that Mom took off. I was like him in that way, I guess. We both put up our walls.

I still couldn't believe that he was really gone, that the three of us were on our own now. As it was I only saw Mary once a year. She'd fly in with Matt when the Eagles played The Patriots and be gone 24 hours later. But Lexi? I couldn't remember the last time I saw her. The three of us had been drifting apart for a while, and now with Dad's death it felt like it was going to become a permanent thing.

The sun beat down on my back as I forced myself around the bend, commanding myself to keep going, and pushing through the wall. I had told Mary that I'd take a flight out as soon as I fished my exam tomorrow morning, and I promised her that I'd start getting things together for the funeral as soon as I got there. I'd already been in touch with dad's church and made arrangements to have him buried at the cemetery there. When I asked Mary when we had to meet with the lawyers, she didn't know, so I told her I'd contact them as well.

And then she dropped a bombshell on me.

She told me that Lexi would be taking the train in from Maine and asked if I'd make sure to get her on the flight with me. I groaned with annoyance at the fact that Lexi still needed a babysitter after all these years, and because of location the job fell on me.

"She's nineteen for Christ sake! She can't get on a plane without me holding her hand?" I complained to Mary over the phone.

My sister paused for a moment and then let out a patient sigh. She was always defending Lexi; she'd been doing it ever seen nice she was a little girl and the whole thing was growing tiresome. Both Mary and my dad always looked the other way when it came to Lexi's rebellious nature and now we were stuck with a mess!

"You know how she gets Erin. I'd do it myself but it doesn't make sense for me to go from Philly to Boston and then down to South Carolina."

"But I've got an exam tomorrow! I can't babysit her all night; I've got to study!"

"You don't have to babysit her. Just stick her in your dorm room with some pizza and then make sure you get her on the plane. That's all you've got to do." Mary was starting to sound exasperated and she rarely ever lost her cool. Something was up and I was smart enough to know when to back down.

"Do I have to tuck her in too?" I quipped.

"Erin, please."

And that's all it took. I always gave into Mary. How could I not? My sister practically raised me. I may not have showed it all the time, but I was aware of how much she gave up for both Lexi and me. I could never say no to her. I owed Mary way too much.

"Fine," I huffed. "I'll get her on the plane."

I could practically hear her smiling over the phone. "I know you will Air Bear," she said, using my childhood nickname.

Mary was the only one who called me that anymore. Lexi came up with it when she was six. She was in a Care Bear phase and said that if I was a Care Bear I'd be Air Bear because I ran so fast. I wish I could runaway from this now.

In another three hours hurricane Lexi would come crashing back into my life and I had no idea what to expect. I never did when it came to my sister. Last I heard Lexi was either waitressing or bartending at some dive bar in Maine and living in some commune or something. My face tugged into a frown. Lexi had always been a bright, self-sufficient child; she had to be after mom left. But unlike Mary and me, she rebelled every chance she got. If there was trouble, Lexi found it.

We couldn't have been more different. I was involved in everything in high school, from Student Council to the track team; I was even valedictorian of my class. By the time Lexi got to high school, she rarely showed up for classes, and her extracurricular activities leaned more towards getting wasted or disappearing for hours.

My phone vibrated and without breaking my stride, I dug it out of the hidden pocket in the elastic of my leggings. It was a text from the devil incarnate herself. Lexi. She was outside my dorm waiting for me.

Wonderful.

That wasn't the plan. I had three hours and then I was supposed to pick her up at the train station. That was the arrangement we made when I texted her earlier, yet here she was already screwing things up.

I slowed down and put my hands on my waist, breathing heavily and looking up at the sky for divine intervention. I didn't know if I'd be able to survive a weekend with my sisters. I didn't think I was fast enough to out run everything again.