Creek. I held my breath. Creek. I waited. Creek. I hate our stairs. Pat, pat, pat. I pulled the covers over my head and pretended to be asleep. Creeeeeeek. I hate my door too. Momma peeked into my room to make sure I was in bed. Pat, pat, pat. She came over to my bed and kissed me on the head. Pat, pat, pat. Out of my room. Creeeeeeek. My door shut. Pat, pat, pat. Into her room. Creeeeeeek. Pause. Creeeeeeek. Her door opened and closed.
I waited 20 more minutes before getting up, ensuring Momma was asleep. My legs felt like jelly and I had to lean against the bed to keep from falling over. I stretched. I had been lying in bed for hours, waiting for Momma to come upstairs.
I padded quietly over to my window and pulled away the drapes. The window opened with a groan, and the hot July air hit me in a wave of sticky heat. I climbed out onto the roof below and stepped carefully over to the large oak tree growing next to the house. Trying not to get tangled in the long branches, I gripped onto the trunk and leaped across the gap to a branch a few feet below.
Finally, I was free. I could think, away from that house with all its sadness. I scurried down it and dangled, my feet not yet touching the ground. I dropped. My heart pounded and it took my breath away.  I inhaled sharply. Now what?
I ran. I started running before I knew what I was doing. My long brown hair whipped in the wind, and I laughed through the night air. Slap, slap, slap. My feet hit the ground in rapid succession and I concentrated on the rhythmic pitter-patter. For the first time I could think clearly. Momma was sick. Momma was very sick. She was going to die. Tears threatened to show themselves, and my eyes stung in the wind. ‘It’s okay’, I told myself. ‘Momma will die, I will live.’ I kept running.
I pushed the gate open in a burst of energy that nothing could suppress. My ears whistled but I could still make out the chirping of frogs and crickets. For the first time, that I could remember, I felt…joy…the pure bliss of running across that grass, damp with due. I was unstoppable.
‘If, no, when Momma dies’, I had to think realistically. ‘When Momma dies they’ll find our father and we’ll live with him.’ My stomach turned to lead and my running slowed. My father. My father. Oh, God, my father. The man who walked out on us when I was very young. My father, who left my mother with a girl about to start school and two babies just born. ‘I will raise them’, my subconscious said, ‘I will not allow my brother and sister to be raised by my-their-our-him.’
I looked up at the stars and slowed my running to a jog, and went and sat under a large maple tree. I took a deep breath, trying to stop my panting as realization hit me. I started with what I knew.
‘Momma has terminal cancer. She is going to die.’ That was all I knew about that, so I moved on.
‘When Momma dies, we will live with our father, or some distant relative we don’t know. I will raise the twins-he may be a father, but he may never be a dad, he is not capable, nor will I allow him. I hate my father. He ruined Momma’s life. He ruined our lives. He left. He does not love us, or he would’ve come back. He is unable to love. He is a sick, sick, person and can love nobody but himself, and he left us out of spite and hatred and disgust and loathing because he is a despicable person who deserves to rot in Hell!’ I opened my eyes and unclenched my fists. Breathe. Calm down. ‘I don’t know why he left us or if he can love. He could be living happily with another woman and a child somewhere, loving them the way he never loved us’. That image made me hate him even more, so I moved on.
‘Running lets me think’, I surprised myself by thinking.
I sighed and stood up, not wanting to face the future.  A hot tear slid down my cheek, followed by two more, and soon I was full-out sobbing. My head pounding and my feet aching, I started the long walk home.