Wednesday's Child
by Carol Johnson

The piercing scream that woke Lizzie came again, and brought her straight up in bed. She clutched the dingy sheet in both nail-bitten hands, and looked at Becca, lying next to her.
Becca looked back with frightened blue eyes, and she, too sat up. "Uh-oh," she said, as she crept onto Lizzie's lap. "Daddy hit?" She put her thumb in her mouth.
Lizzie nodded, stroked the child's hair and rocked back and forth, barely moving. The movement calmed her a little, but she stared fixedly at the doorway, where only a curtain and a short hallway separated them from the rest of the apartment. She jumped at the sound of shattering glass, then sat motionless and held her breath, hearing on silence broken only by the hiss of the small gas heater in the far corner of the bedroom.
She felt a warm wetness on her lap. "Uh-oh," Becca said, as the warmth spread. "I pee."
Lizzie didn't answer, but scooted backwards on her behind, one arm around Becca, until her back touched the cold iron bedstead. She felt goosebumps along her bony spine, and the fine hair on the nape of her neck stood on end. She rocked a little, heard Daddy's voice, scary in its reasonableness, and Lizzie began to rhythmically pinch and release her outer thigh, already dotted with small, ugly bruises of identical size in varying shades of green, blue, and yellow. She heard the sounds of the TV in the background. It sounded like "Gunsmoke." It must not be very late.
She jumped and ceased her pinching at the sound of another crash of glass and a thud. The TV went silent, and her mother began crying. Over the sobbing, she heard her father's heavy footsteps, heard him cross the living room, muttering. She felt as if she couldn't breathe, like when she fell off the slipper slide when she was a little kid like Becca. She didn't fall off slides anymore, now that she was eleven, but she never forgot the feeling. Spots swam before her eyes by the time she could draw breath, and for a moment she pinched her thigh frantically.
Mama's voice came softly, tearfully, then raised to a wail. "Coy! Don't-please. Plea--." The words were cut off by a smacking sound, and Becca buried her face in Lizzie's bony chest. Lizzie threw back the sheet.
"It'll be okay," she whispered. "Okay. It will." She slid off the bed, and, with Becca on one bony hip, went to the closet. She reached into it with her free hand, never taking her eyes off the door of her room. She pulled out two dresses, felt around the closet floor with a bare foot, then scooted out two pairs of shoes, one pair worn canvas and the other cheap, plastic sandals. She dug in the wooden basket that held most of the rest of their clothes, but couldn't find any clean panties.
She crossed to the bed, and eased Becca onto it. Lizzie quickly dressed her, pulled the child's arms through the dress's holes, and removed the wet panties. At the closet again, she picked up both pairs of shoes and took them back to the bed. She handed Becca the small plastic pair. Becca took her thumb out of her mouth and began to put the shoes on.
While her little sister struggled with the sandals, Lizzie pulled a faded pink nylon dress over her own head and stuck her feet into the canvas shoes. As usual, Becca had hers on the wrong feet. Lizzie didn't take time to switch them, but picked up the child and crossed to the room's only window, and struggled to raise it. She pushed the screen off and held her breath as it landed on the ground three feet below without a sound.
She stood and listened for a moment, as scared by the silence as she had been by the fighting.
"No un'erwear," Becca whispered.
"Sh-h." She hurriedly put Becca on the window sill and grabbed her little sister's hands in both hers. Lowering the smaller child as far as she was able, she let go, then threw her own legs over the window sill and jumped. A soft grunt marked her landing, and she once again lifted Becca onto her hip. She picked her way through the junk-filled yard to the alley, then ran down the alley to the corner, where she stopped for a last look back.
The large two-story house once belonged to a rich man, and Mama said it had been a show place. Now, with its peeling white paint, rusty screens and the fifteen rooms cut up into four apartments, it was just a place. Lizzie could see that Mrs. Rumgartner's light was on in the back apartment. It wouldn't be long before the old woman called the police. A normal person would have already called them, but Lizzie thought that their landlady secretly enjoyed the excitement of the police being there so much that she put it off, saving it, like Lizzie did when she got a stack of books from the library. She always read the best book last, never forgetting it was there, waiting to be read, enjoying the wait nearly as much as the reading.
Lizzie turned, shifted Becca to her other hip, and ran across the street. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she covered the next four blocks, running a few yards, then walking a few. "It'll be okay. It will," she gasped over and over, finally only repeating, "Okay. Okay. Okay," until they reached Grandma's duplex. It was dark, but the old Rambler was in the driveway, and yellow bulb burned on the porch as if waiting just for them. She banged on the door, and heard Grandma's little dog, Pookie, yipping inside the house.
Becca giggled around her thumb and removed it from her mouth to point at the door. "Uh oh. Pookie." She giggled again and replaced her thumb in her mouth, and sucked harder.
Lizzie cringed as the frenzied barking from inside increased. Through the little diamond shaped windows on the door she saw a light come on in the house, and marked Grandma's progress. First the lights came on in the back, in the bedroom, then in the hall, then the living room. Finally, she heard the snick of the lock, and Grandma stood in the doorway.
Lizzie opened the screen door and pushed her hip slightly toward her grandmother, who took Becca, and looked at Lizzie, sagging with relief in the doorway.
"He at it again?"
Lizzie nodded.
"Mizz Rumgartner up?"
Lizzie nodded again. Grandma sighed, and ruffled Lizzie's unruly hair with her free hand. "Well, get on in here. Aren't you cold in that thin dress? I don't guess you got much choice. Come on, come on," she fussed. She carried Becca and herded Lizzie into the kitchen and turned on the overhead light. She seated Becca at the gray Formica table. "Now," she said. "Who wants hot chocolate?"
"Me do," Becca squealed, waving her shriveled thumb at her grandmother.
"What about you, Lizzie?" Grandma asked.
Lizzie stared at the tabletop. "I don't feel very good." She looked up at her grandmother. "Can I just go lay in your bed for a little while?"
"Sure you can, Honey. Becca and me will just have us some hot chocolate and then we'll be in too. Go on. You'll feel better after bit, when you calm down."
Lizzie slipped off the chair and went down the hall to Grandma's bedroom. When she kicked off her shoes and climbed into the bed, sleep was not on her mind. But as she lay staring at the ceiling, twisting a strand of straight dark hair, she felt herself drift off to the comforting sounds of Becca and Grandma's soft conversation in the kitchen.
. . .
She woke to sunlight and the distant sound of a lawn mower, and stretched, then remembered where she was and why, and burrowed deeper under the covers. Becca lay next to her, breathing through her mouth. For an instant, Lizzie wished she was two again, cute and chubby and able to forget by day the terrors of night. But then who would take care of her, and Becca? She sighed and threw back the covers, then swung her thin legs over the edge of the bed and sat for a moment looking out the window.
Across the street, she saw a little girl on the front porch of a big white house. With her ruffled blue dress, white gloves, black patent leather shoes, and small white purse, she looked just like Betsy McCall. She laughed up at a man and a woman, one on either side of her, then skipped ahead of them down the walk and got into a big blue car at the curb. As they drove away, Lizzie sighed again. She wished she had a dress like that, and some patent leather shoes and a purse, and maybe some tights. But Grandma always said, "If wishes were fishes, we'd all have some fried, and if beggars had horses, we'd all take a ride." Grandma also said God would do anything you asked Him, though, and Lizzie knew He didn't, not really. She guessed Grandmas couldn't be right all the time.
She went into the kitchen. Grandma sat at the table, drinking coffee and staring at the wall. She started as Lizzie entered the room. "Oh, Lizzie. You sneaked up on me. You feelin' better?"
Lizzie nodded, and sat down at the table. "Did Mama come over yet?" She looked at the sun-burst clock on the wall above the table. It was later than she had thought-9:30.
Grandma's face bunched up like a fist. "No, but don't you worry. She's fine. She'll come draggin' in here about noon, you watch." She stood and crossed the room. Pouring herself more coffee, and she looked over her shoulder at Lizzie. "You hungry?"
Lizzie pursed her lips and wrinkled her forehead, as if the question required a lot of thought. "M-m-m, I don't know, Grandma. My stomach feels a little sick still."
"When was the last time you ate?"
"Last night."
"When last night?"
"When news was on."
"What did you have?"
Lizzie looked at her hands in her lap. "Ketchup sandwiches," she whispered.
Grandma snorted. "Garbage! No wonder you're always sick to your stomach. Your mama oughta be--well, never mind that. Grandma's gonna fix you and Becca a decent breakfast. You go get her up, and get the two of you washed, okay?" She came back to the table, leaned over and kissed the top of Lizzie's head.

As they ate, Pookie began to bark. "God damn it, you little rat," Lizzie heard Mama say. "Get out from under my feet."
"Uh oh," Becca said, dropped her spoon, and slid from her chair.
Grandma put a restraining hand on her arm. "Oh, no, you don't, young lady. You stay right here and finish your breakfast. Your mama can find her way in here by herself." Becca climbed back into her chair and stuck her thumb in her mouth. She picked up her spoon, and poked scrambled eggs into her mouth around her thumb as she cast sidelong glances at her grandmother.
Lizzie pulled Becca's thumb out of her mouth but did not look at her mother when she came into the room.
"Lord God, Elaine!" Grandma cried. "Will you look at yourself?! Lord God!" Becca looked up at her mother's bruised and swollen face and began to cry. Mama picked her up and patted her on the back.
"Shut up, Ma. You're always makin' mountains outta molehills and scarin' the kids half to death." Mama walked around the table and sat down at an empty place. "Lizzie, get Mama a cuppa coffee, will you, Baby?"
Lizzie slid from her chair and poured the coffee, listening to the grownups.
"Is this enough? Does he have to kill you?" Grandma asked, but Mama's voice was to low for Lizzie to hear her reply.
As she set the coffee in front of her mother, she studied the latest crop of lumps and bumps on Mama's still-pretty face. Mama glanced up and caught Lizzie's gaze. She looked as if she might speak, but in the end only hugged her. "Thanks, Baby." She shifted Becca and reached into the pocket of her shapeless sweater. Pulling out a crumpled package of Luckies, she extracted a slightly bent cigarette, lit it and squinted through the smoke at Lizzie. "You shouldn'ta run off like that. Me'n your dad was worried about you. This is the third time you've done it since we come back here. You didn't pull stunts like this in Amarillo," she said.
Lizzie remained silent. No place to run in Amarillo, she thought.
"Well, my Lord, Elaine, what do you expect from her?" her grandmother asked. "If I was Lizzie, I'da run farther and faster, I'll tell you that. You 'n Coy Pruitt are worse than a couple of junkyard dogs the way you carry on." The older woman crossed the room and refilled her coffee cup. "It's a thousand wonders you two ever quit fightin' long enough to have kids. I guess it'd be too much to ask of you to lay off each other and raise 'em like you oughta. If your daddy was here-"
"And that's some more of your business, Ma," she snapped. "We ain't laid a finger on either one of these girls, and they're clean and fed." She looked from Becca to Lizzie. "Usually clean, anyway."
"You better just watch your p's and q's, or you're liable not to have these two for much longer."
"What makes you think so?"
Grandma snorted. "All it takes is one call to Imogene Pitts at the courthouse, and that's the last you'll see of your kids."
Mama glared at Grandma. "You think so, do you? That meddlin' old maid . . . and anyway, I ain't never heard of kids being taken from their own folks just because their Mama and Daddy has a fight now and then." The glare slowly left her eyes and she looked away from Grandma, biting her lip. "And-and anyway, I ain't goin' back." She kissed the top of Becca's head, and when she looked up, Lizzie saw tears standing in her eyes.
Grandma didn't look like she believed a word of it. Lizzie watched Mama closely. She looked like she meant it, but she always looked like she meant things when she said them. She looked like she meant it just as much when she took them back, changed her mind and did the opposite.
Mama stood Becca on her feet and patted her on the bottom. "Why don't you two go on in the other room and watch TV or somethin'? I wanna talk to your grandma." She gave a Becca a little push. "Go on. Lizzie, take her in there and read to her or somethin'. You two are always underfoot! I swear," Mama laughed, then winced and touched her cheek with the tips of her fingers. "If I'd known motherhood was such a grind I mighta thought twice!"
Once in the other room, Lizzie stopped, undecided. She looked at Becca, who leaned against the couch sucking her thumb and scratching her bottom. "Becca?"
Becca turned expressionless eyes on her sister.
"Do you wanna color, or watch TV?"
"M mot ooh reb meh," Becca said.
Lizzie reached over and pulled Becca's thumb out of her mouth. "What?"
"Want you to read to me," Becca said in a loud voice, as if her sister were hard of hearing, and jammed her thumb back in her mouth.
Lizzie smiled and made a grabbing motion in the direction of Becca's pug nose. "Don't talk to me like that or I'll take your nose and eat it up!" she said, then put her fingers in her mouth, slurping and snorting. She reached for Becca's nose again and the smaller girl turned toward the couch and buried her face, giggling. Lizzie began to tickle her sister, and both giggled hysterically. They were half off the couch when Pookie raced in from the kitchen, yipping as if excited by their game.
Both girls jumped as Mama's voice filled the room. "Damn it, Lizzie, can't you keep her quiet for five minutes? Get up off the floor and act your age, for Christ's sake!"
Lizzie rose in slow motion and pulled Becca up after her. They sat on the couch, Becca with her thumb once more in position. Lizzie looked at the floor and chewed the inside of her cheek. Mama strode to the bookcase where Grandma kept several children's books, coloring books, and crayons. She jerked out several of the books at random, and tossed them in the direction of the couch. One struck Lizzie on the foot.
"Sorry," Mama grunted, and picked the books up and laid them in Lizzie's lap. "Read to the baby for a while, all right?" Mama ruffled Lizzie's hair and tilted her chin up so their eyes met. "OK?" she asked.
Lizzie nodded, and watched her mother's back as Mama returned to the kitchen. Becca picked up a book from those on Lizzie's lap. She pulled her thumb out of her mouth, and said, "This, Lizzie, OK? Me like this one." She put her thumb back in her mouth and twisted one blonde curl around a chubby forefinger.
Lizzie looked at the book of children's rhymes. On the front was a piece of masking tape with ".10" printed on it. Grandma must have gotten it at one of the rummage sales she went to every Saturday. She opened it to the first page. "Solomon Grundy..." she began, and stopped when Becca giggled at the odd sounding name. Lizzie elbowed her. "Be quiet if you want me to read. We'll get in trouble again." Becca lapsed into silence, and Lizzie resumed reading. She had read almost to the end of the book when she came to a torn page. The top half was missing, and the bottom half had been marked on in several different colors of crayons, but it was still legible. Surrounding the verse were several illustrations of little girls; under each of the little girls was printed a different day of the week. The title and first few lines of the rhyme was missing, but Becca wouldn't know the difference.
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go..."
A knock sounded at the door and Lizzie broke off as her mother entered the room. Mama stuffed her crumpled cigarette package into her sweater pocket and waved her free hand at Grandma. "I'll get it. I know it's him. I can tell him myself."
"If you'd just let me-Elaine, for God's sake," Grandma protested.
Mama waved a shushing hand at Grandma. "Will you let me tend to my own affairs? Just once?" She pulled open the front door and stood silent for a moment before pushing open the screen. "Come on in."
Grandma folded her arms and stood in the middle of the living room floor, glaring at Daddy. Mama turned to look at her. "Ma. Do you mind?"
Lizzie was sure Grandma did, but she only turned her back and stomped into the kitchen. Daddy chucked Becca under the chin and nudged Lizzie's foot with the toe of his work boot. "How's my girls?"
"No un'rwear," shouted Becca, and flipped up her dress to show him.
He laughed, but kept looking at Mama like he was scared of something. Lizzie didn't understand grown-ups.
"Lizzie, you'n Becca go outside and play. I want to talk to Daddy."
Lizzie looked at the floor and pulled Becca with her out onto the porch. The door closed behind her with a click and she sat down on the concrete porch. It was cold on her rear, but she didn't care. She put her elbows on her knees and propped her chin on her fists.
"Read more," Becca said, and pushed the book she clutched at Lizzie.
Lizzie glanced at it. The rhyme book. "I already read it."
"Read 'gin." She held the book closer to Lizzie's face.
"Hi." The voice came from the sidewalk that ran in front of Grandma's, and Lizzie looked up to see the girl from across the street, the one who looked like Betsy McCall.
"Hi!" Becca shouted, waving the book.
"Hi," Lizzie said.
The little girl came up the sidewalk toward them, stopping short of the porch. She was wearing jeans and penny loafers, real ones, not the cheap vinyl kind, and a pink mohair sweater. Lizzie had always wanted a mohair sweater.
"Whatchall doin'?"
Lizzie looked at her ragged nails. "Sittin'."
The girl stood, her arms behind her back. "That your little sister?"
"Yeah. Becca."
Becca grinned at the visitor. "No un'rwear," she said, and flipped up her dress.
The girl laughed. "That's just like my sister." She looked off in the distance. "Can I sit down with you?"
Lizzie shrugged and pulled Becca further to one side, and the girl sat, knees together, and wiped a speck of dirt from her loafers. "They're new shoes," she explained. She looked curiously at Lizzie. "What's your name?"
"Liz-Elizabeth. What's yours?"
"Regina. That means 'queen.' It's not really my name, but that's what Bill and Shirley call me. I can't tell you my real name on account of Miss Pitts at the Welfare said my mom and dad might try to find me." She picked up a twig from beside the steps and started digging into a crack in the sidewalk.
"Who's Bill and Shirley?" Lizzie asked.
Regina pointed across the street. "They live over there. That's who I live with. They're my foster parents. I gotta foster sister, too."
Becca left the book on the concrete step and went down to the sidewalk, where she got a stick and began digging in a crack like Regina was doing. Her dress rode up on her back side, showing her bare rear, but Lizzie ignored it.
"What's a foster parent?" she asked.
Regina seemed to consider it, her face on her knees as she gouged the dirt with a stick. "It's just somebody that likes kids. They take care of kids whose mom and dad beat them up and stuff." She looked at Lizzie. "This is my second one, but I been here since I was four. And my sister and brother were, too, but now they're grown up, so they got jobs and stuff."
"Do you like it?" Lizzie squinted across the street at the large, tree-shaded house.
Regina nodded. "Yeah. I got my own room, and a cat. I get to go to the zoo sometimes, and Bill takes me to the movies on Saturday." She paused. "But I gotta keep my room clean all the time, and go to bed at 9:00 on school nights." She looked at Lizzie. "And I have to go to church. But they give you candy there."
Lizzie studied the shiny loafers, then her own tattered canvas shoes, and was embarrassed to see dirt on her ankles. She tried to cover them with the too-small nylon dress. "Do you miss your Mama and Daddy?"
Regina looked away, down the block to something Lizzie couldn't see. When she looked back, her eyes were moist. "Yeah. Sometimes. But they hit me a lot. And we didn't never have enough food and stuff." She flipped the stick into the yard. "I like it here better." She hugged herself and was silent a few moments. "Maybe you can come over sometime," she suggested, but she didn't look at Lizzie, and somehow, Lizzie didn't think she really meant it.
"Maybe." The door behind her opened and she stiffened.
"Elaine, please. Just stay for the night. Think about it." Grandma's voice was heavy, rough, like she was going to cry.
Daddy and Mama came down the porch, and Daddy swung Becca onto his hip. "C'mon, Lizzie-Beth," he said, face not scared now. His mouth made a straight line, but one corner twitched like he wanted to laugh.
Regina stood and backed down the steps into the yard. "I better go," she said, but she didn't, not yet.
Lizzie kept her head down and let herself be herded to Daddy's old Studebaker. Grandma's voice rose to a shout behind her. "Coy Pruitt, you lay another finger on my girl and I'll call the law on you. I swear I will."
"Meddlin' old bitch," Daddy muttered, jerked open the car door and put Becca in the back, then waved Lizzie in. "Come on, girl, get a move on." Lizzie did, and Mama got in the front and slid close to Daddy.
Lizzie leaned against the seat and watched the blocks roll by, feeling queasy and a little bit sad.
After supper, they all went to a park near the town square. Becca ran from jungle gym to teeter-totter to merry-go-round like a toy somebody wound up and turned loose. Lizzie tagged along behind her to make sure the smaller girl did not fall off, over, or under anything. Daddy and Mama sat on swings next to each other as they smoked and talked in low tones, and every once in a while one leaned over to kiss the other, and one of them would laugh softly.

Later, as Becca snored lightly beside her, Lizzie lay unable to sleep. The phrase "full of woe" spun round and round in her head. She knew what the word "woe" meant. Sorrow or misery, the dictionary said. Full of woe. She thought of Regina. Regina was a Monday's child, or at least Tuesday's, she decided. She already knew Grandma's God was fickle. He might give and He might not. She wondered if he was mean, too. If He really loved everybody, like Grandma always said, then why did he let children be born on Wednesday? Why did he let me be born on Wednesday? Was she just bad? Or maybe it was just bad luck. Or maybe being born on Wednesday was just another way of explaining stuff that just happened.
She lay absorbed in thought until she had to pee so badly she had to get out of bed and go down the darkened hall to the bathroom. On her way back, she heard Daddy's voice, raised a little, and she stopped in the hall to listen, make sure they weren't fighting again. He was laughing. Lizzie let her breath out and started to move on when she heard the word "Amarillo."
"C'mon, Elaine," her father said. "I know I can get my old job back at the packin' plant. We can be in Amarillo by noon Saturday." He was silent for a moment, then she heard him sigh deeply. "Your Mama's gonna fool around and ruin our marriage if we don't put some distance between her and us."
She couldn't hear Mama's reply, but she was pretty sure what it was. She made her way back to bed and lay huddled under the blanket. She pinched herself and fought against the tears, and remembered Amarillo. It had been a nightmare, the stockyard smell and the teachers who couldn't understand why she couldn't get to school clean and on time, and the kids who laughed at her weird clothes. Most of all, it was too far from Grandma. She could not let them take her back there.
It was a long time before she fell asleep, and even then it was a light, restless sleep, punctuated by dreams of Amarillo and the misery she had endured there. When she woke in the morning, she was drenched with sweat, but she knew what she had to do. She washed her face and brushed her hair and woke Becca. She dressed them both in the clothes they had worn the day before, even though they smelled like pee, then put Becca on her hip, and walked on quiet feet to her mother's room.
"Mama?" Lizzie called softly to the lump under the covers. When her mother didn't answer, Lizzie backed out of the room and closed the door. She walked through the quiet house, then let herself out and switched Becca to her other hip. At the corner of Eighth and Main, she stopped a moment and looked at the park where her parents had taken them the night before. Becca pulled her thumb out of her mouth and pointed at the playground with it.
"Totter!" she shrieked. "Slide!" She struggled to get down, but Lizzie kept a firm grip on her. They cut diagonally across the park to a two-story gray stone building. Lizzie's heart pounded as she crossed the lobby to the information desk at its center. Becca hid her face in her sister's chest, as Lizzie spoke to the silver haired woman seated there, then crossed the lobby to a bank of elevators along the far wall. An elevator stood empty, and they were the only passengers.
As it rose, Lizzie studied the panel of buttons, then pushed the one marked "Stop." The car jerked to a halt, and Becca waved her thumb at Lizzie. "Uh-oh," she said, and beamed at her sister through merry blue eyes. Lizzie knelt on the floor, and stood Becca on her feet in front of her. The thought of what she was about to do made her sick, but she couldn't stop now. She pulled the smaller girl's thumb from her mouth.
"I know you won't understand this, but we ain't going back there. Not now, not ever," she whispered. She took a deep breath, and hit her little sister in the mouth with all the strength she had.
Becca's head snapped back and hit the wall behind her, and she stumbled to her knees. Her lip split over her sharp little teeth. Blood ran down her dimpled chin and her eyes filled with tears. "Uh oh," she said, eyes wide and chin trembling, and began to sob.
Lizzie blinked her own tears away and pushed the start button, and, with great effort, lifted the child and settled her once again on her bony hip. The doors opened, and Lizzie pushed Becca's head down on her shoulder. "It'll be okay," she whispered. "It'll be okay. Okay."
Louder, she spoke to the young woman seated at the receptionist's desk. "My name is Elizabeth Jean Pruitt, and I'm here to see Miss Imogene Pitts. My daddy and Mama have hurt me and my sister here somethin' awful and we can't take it no more." She lifted the drab pink dress with her free hand, and displayed her bruised thighs. Then she burst into tears of relief as a wiry, gray-haired woman emerged from the inner office and, looking from Lizzie to Becca and back again, gathered both girls into her arms and pulled them into her office.

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