The Stars Never Rise

“Nina’s not going to do a thing,” my mom spat, glaring at me. Then she turned back to Melanie. “And you are going to do exactly what I tell you. Change your clothes. Now. Put on something dark.”


When my sister didn’t move, my mom lunged forward and hauled her up by one arm, though Mellie had to outweigh her by fifteen pounds. She pulled Melanie down the short hall and threw her into our bedroom, where my sister stumbled, then half collapsed on the bed.

“Don’t worry. I’ll talk her down,” I whispered to my terrified sister as Mom stomped past me into the living room, headed for the kitchen. “Just…change out of your school clothes. Put on anything.”

Our mother had never been warm and fuzzy. I had no childhood memory of hugs and kisses, or birthday presents, or being pushed in a park swing. In fact, I didn’t understand that those things were the norm until the night of my third-grade Church creed recital, when all the other parents had rushed the stage afterward to pull their children into praise-laden embraces.

My mom hadn’t even shown up.

But she used to be functional, at least. She did what needed to be done when we were too young to do it ourselves. I was around nine when I realized she thought of us as a second job, but I never did figure out why she’d bothered with parenting licenses and her two allotted pregnancies in the first place if she really knew someone who could have taken care of the infestations in her womb.

I followed my mom into the kitchen, where I stood in the doorway watching her, trying to understand what she was mumbling. She seemed to be having two different conversations with herself—or maybe half of one—and I didn’t understand any of it.

“Twenty years…” She pulled the teakettle from a lower cabinet, then let the door slam shut. “Planning. Searching. Negotiating. Waiting. All for nothing.”

The next part was lost to the clang of the teakettle in the sink and the shhhh of running water as she filled it.

“…and they ruin it all! One gets herself sterilized, and the other can’t keep her pants buttoned!” She slammed the kettle down on one of the front burners, then lit the gas beneath it and turned the flames up so high they licked the side of the kettle, baking the peeling paint.

“Worthless!” My mother threw open the cabinet over the toaster, then cursed and slammed it shut. “Where’s the tea?” she demanded, whirling on me. I didn’t think she’d even noticed me there.

“We’re out.” We’d been out of tea for eight months, since she’d stopped drinking it, at least at home. Since she’d stopped eating, talking, and coming out of her room even to yell at us. Over the past year, her angry, resentful tirades had faded into listless neglect as my mother retreated into her own head, into her room, and into nights spent out and days spent sleeping. Or unconscious. Or both.

“Do you have any idea what youth is worth?” she demanded, as if she’d already forgotten the tea.

I shook my head and backed into the living room when she stomped closer, her eyes wild, wisps of pale hair floating around her face as if they were so thin gravity couldn’t touch them.

“Gold, Nina. Youth is the gold setting, and innocence is the glittering diamond in the center. Throwing your own away wasn’t enough, was it? You had to let her do it too. This is your fault.” She wagged one bony finger at me. “All she had to do was keep her skirt down for a few…more…years.” My mother turned back to the kitchen and threw open another cabinet. “She would have been enough to keep me going. To keep us going. But now she’s worth half the listing price. Worth nothing, if we can’t get that thing out of her.”

“What? Mom, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I understood the individual words, but they made no sense together. No sense I wanted to see, anyway. Yet with each word she spoke—each mention of worth, and listing price—the goose bumps on my arms grew taller. Fatter.

“Of course you don’t. Because she’s the smart one. You’re the fighter and she’s the thinker, but none of that matters now. It never mattered, but you never figured that out. Because you’re not the thinker. But that’s okay, because I don’t need you to think.”

She spun again, so fast she should have lost her balance, but she didn’t fall. Somehow, though her thin frame lacked both grace and stability, her balance was flawless and her strength was…terrifying.

What the hell was she on?

“Keys…” She opened drawer after drawer, only to slam them shut again when she couldn’t find what she wanted. “Where the hell are my keys?”

“Mom, you can’t drive. You’re…not well.”