Things That Aren’t Theirs by Donna Talarico

Fall 1988

Sixty fingernails full of dirt. I didn’t have any brothers and sisters, but I had five boy cousins. We were wilderness explorers, super heroes, inventors together. For a little while, they lived nearby, in Grandmom’s unfinished basement; they peed in a bucket and slept side by side on cement. A giant indoor campsite. I was devastated when they moved all the way to Oklahoma, but Zack—the one who is my age—wrote me a letter, enclosed a pencil drawing of a cat. It looked so real that I wanted to show my art teacher. I was admiring it on the school bus when a bully snatched it, started to crumple it. He must have known what sadness and hurt looked and felt like because, suddenly, he gave it back.

Spring 1989

Two thin pickle chips—the smooth kind, not the ridged kind—sat, innocently, in one of my five yellow compartments. A hand reached over to claim the sour slices, leaving nothing but a small green teardrop on my tray.

“Only cool kids can have pickles,” said Vivian, who later appeared in our 6th grade yearbook in a candid with four other fluffy-banged girls. The caption: “Future rock stars.” None of them are or were.

Spring 1990

Jamesway. M.C. Hammer. New release. Just $9.99. Mom would have bought it for me, I just know it. But I was with Dad #2—Tony—for the weekend, and he told me he didn’t have the money. Then we had to go to dumb church, and can you believe this one? He put a crisp ten dollar bill in the offering basket. My dad says he loves me, a real girl, and I was right there with him—both days of the weekend, not just Sunday!—and, still, an invisible man and his helper, pastor Brannon, made me sacrifice my new tape for Jesus.

Winter 1990

Inside a magenta box lived sixty hunks, including Burt, Clayton, Rex. It was Heartthrob, a game where you guessed which guy on the black and white cards the other girls would choose. I played it at my old house, always brought it to my cousins’ and, now, I played it in the hallway of the lodging area above Bertil Roos Racing School, where my mom, her boyfriend Joe, and I lived now, in a single room; it was just temporary. A girl about my age and her little sister were here on a Pocono ski trip. I said I’d leave the game out on the steps for them, just in case they wanted to play while I was at school the next day. I got off the bus, hoping to deal dreamy dudes to my new friends, but they were gone. The girls. The boys!

Fall 1992

I was new in Tulsa and so were you. I had a crush on you, my sweet, cute neighbor, and you liked me too. A few days after you asked me out, on Friday the 13th, we were sitting on a stairwell at our apartment complex, about to have our first real kiss—but I almost chickened out. Liza, my aunt (just one grade ahead of me), was with us, so I said, “Kiss her first.” Then it was my turn. When I pulled away, I smacked my head on the railing; we laughed. I soon let you explore me up and down, but I wouldn’t go all the way. This time I didn’t say, “Liza first.” I didn’t have to.

Winter 1993

The woman, a new neighbor, knocked on our door as if she was running for her life. Her kids were hungry. Did we have some bread? Could she use our bathroom? We were the new ones in the sea of white, concrete squares; just moved into emergency housing—it was just temporary. Just Mom and baby Joey and me. My mother let her in, gave her a loaf of bread and pointed her toward the toilet. Later, after a pee break, my mom cried out, “She stole my Poison. She took my perfume!”

Summer 1993

At 15, I made more than my stepdad. Even then I knew he was jealous of me and my good after-school job selling Tulsa World newspaper subscriptions door to door. My mom, with her two jobs, definitely made more than he did. The rate for sitting on the couch was zero, so Joe invented a job: an independent utility man. Whenever I left a light on when leaving a room, I had to fork over $10. I gave it to him. Peace came at a price.

Winter 1994/1995

Tony called to wish me a happy New Year’s the year we moved back to PA. When I hung up, the party stopped. You—filled up on beer, champagne and probably drugs—lunged toward me. Your face was red, your arms were flailing, and you said that if I ever got married that it’d be you, not him, who’d walk me down the aisle because I was YOUR daughter now. The week or two between visits with my dad turned to 16 . . . years.

Summer 1996

“What car?” I asked the man on the other end of the line when he told me, “The car’s ready to be picked up.” I heard an, “Oh no,” and then a click. Was it true? Had my mom saved and sacrificed so I could have my own wheels? I couldn’t let on that I knew; it’d break her heart. I told her some guy called, didn’t leave a message and, later, did my best to act shocked so I could witness the joy in her eyes. But, as I was protecting my mom from disappointment, I realized I was experiencing my own: this man’s slip-up robbed me of my surprise, my raw reaction to an act of love. As I drove my 1989 Chevy Cavalier to college orientation, it hit me: she didn’t buy me a car, she gave me freedom.

Winter 2002

Oh, maroon Grand Am, I guess you really weren’t mine after all. But I promise you, I did wave goodbye from my bedroom window. I was too ashamed to open the door—not that the tow truck driver knocked anyway; he was there for you. He took you back to that place, home to the kind of people who prey on those who will respond to catchy radio ads that tout, “We finance your future!” In a way, they did because you were a wake-up call, dear Pontiac. I returned to college and haven’t stopped learning and doing since.

Fall 2011

You had so much power over her. On The Great American Smoke-Out Day, back when I was in fourth grade, our teacher handed each of us a certificate, told us to give it to a smoker we loved. I gave mine to Mom. This pledge form—and I—asked her not to light up. Just for one day. Please? But she wouldn’t sign it. Today, two decades later, I’m signing her death certificate. I always knew that, if Joe didn’t do it first, that one day, you, Tobacco, would take her last breath, take her from me.

Donna Talarico is an independent writer and marketing consultant from Lancaster, PA. Learn more at donnatalarico.com.