The Ladybugs

It’s hard to remember what was real after moving around so much as kids. The memories I have access to seem like they could, and likely would, belong to somebody else. I’d call one of my three sisters and ask them to corroborate, but they don’t have time to entertain me. They have babies of their own now, their childhood too distant to access offhanded. But I bet they remember playing Little House on the Prairie, when they made me curl up on the ground and beg for soup like some sick child. I bet they remember playing the storm is coming and we must tend to the wounded and various other high stakes care-taking games that are all part of a young girl’s training. 

They would churn their pretend butter, my sisters in their play labor, wiping real sweat off their brows. I stayed in my sick bed, waiting. The youngest is the runt, they reminded me. I didn’t have their strength of will or their healthy constitution, though in the mirror I thought we looked similar enough. I don’t know if it was true before they said it, but if you say something enough it becomes true. 

They say the truth is as harmless as a ladybug. Just as delicate too. 

That is among the things I doubt. When I picture myself, I’d say I was frail without being altogether thin, and already too tired to keep my head up in class. Maybe my sisters were siphoning my energy to give themselves strength, or maybe I was a lazy child. They said that too. I remember sleeping more than I remember playing. I remember laying completely still and thinking that if I stayed like this long enough, maybe I’d never move again. I’d be a corpse, soul above body wondering when the last time she moved was. But inevitably, I’d have to pee or eat or something. I was only a child after all, I didn’t have the conviction to decay. 

This could have been during the time we spent in Ohio, or Oklahoma, but it must’ve been Georgia. Sixth grade, yeah, that sounds right. That rural town where all the kids at school were Baptist. I told them I’d been baptized, but it wasn’t the same. They washed feet and dreamed of heaven, talked about their cloud houses like they wouldn’t be poor when they were dead. I remember that much. Nobody was poor in heaven, but whether or not our dogs and cats would be waiting for us in those cloud houses was a subject of near constant debate. 

Our dog was an outside dog, just like we were outside children. Mama opened the screen porch door to let us out and we were to stay out until the sun set. Then we’d be expected to make ourselves presentable for supper. Daddy ate with us most days, casserole with potato chips on top, but he always had to say how our Mama’s cooking was piss-poor compared to his Mama’s. Our Mama wasn’t as good as his Mama at many things, including ironing, but not limited to household tasks. I often thought there would be nothing worse than to be like Mama. Incompetent. Daddy said she was a silly little girl, just like us. 

This was around the time I’d pray that Mama wouldn’t ask how he liked dinner, because his answer never changed. It made me sad for her. And playing Little House on the Prairie, my oldest sister would eat the imaginary food and spat it out, pah pah pah, disgusting. We’d giggle and my sister, who was our pretend Mama, looked like she might cry. And they’d turn to me in my giggling and say aren’t you supposed to be almost dead? 

If I could call my sisters, I’d ask if they remember the Spring that boy came to stay with the family. He was older than my sisters, but not old, no five o’clock shadow. No relation that I knew of, some tenuous family connection. His face is hazy in my memory, maybe a mole near his eye, but I can see him drinking beer with Daddy. It may be that he was joining the service, seeing that Fort Benning was just a few miles away. 

That boy I don’t remember much about, that one, well he saw me hiding in the shed, surrounded by rusted tools. The shed was sad, neglected cause Daddy let our property grow wild. There were places where grass could reach the lip of my shirt, tickling my most tender flesh. It grew up and up and if you laid flat on your back, avoiding a cow patty or two, you could go unseen from the house for hours, but still I hid in the shed. Why are you hiding, he said. It’s part of the game, but he didn’t get it. He laughed, resting his long hand on my shoulder. I remember how much ground it covered. I hate to tell ya, but your sisters stopped lookin. I didn’t follow him inside, I didn’t invite him to play. I knew no one was coming for me, but I liked the feeling of being missing. 

It was the same Spring I became a woman. I was only eleven and no one talked about this kind of bleeding yet in school. Just the wars in history class, the blood of Christ, that sort of thing. When the blood came I thought I was dying. Finally, the end of my runt-life. I remember wishing that I’d started washing feet like my pious classmates so I wouldn’t be poor in the end. I remember the inside of my thighs, scraping, dark red under my nails like I could exorcize the pain any faster than it came for me. As if I could give myself that power. It was then – staring at the pool of dark red resting heavy in the toilet, dark red staining the yellowing tiles between my feet, dark heavy in my child body, small hands clutching small belly, hot tears, no cleansing – it was then my sisters intervened. They changed my pad like they used to change my diapers. 

If I could call my sisters I’d say, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that the Spring of the ladybugs? There was just one at first, in late April, that crawled up the wooden post at the foot of my bed. It was a harmless red dot on the faded white lace. Then there were two, then eight on the wall and three on the dresser. Then there were too many to count. 

When it was just one, I let it crawl over my palm and around my wrist like a promise. But then there were more, gathering like a storm, dark clouds by the window. The window – that must’ve been where they were creeping in from. I could have sworn they crawled over my face at night, nestled in my ears and nose. No part of my body felt safe. Though the infestation must not have been all that serious cause I don’t remember anything being done about it. 

They just slipped away when it was cold again, through the cracks in the floorboards and out the window. It couldn’t have been that serious, because it was just my room. They never spread through the house, not from what I know, just my room, hundreds of ladybugs staining the walls. They moved like wallpaper in dreams, like shadows. 

I didn’t sleep for weeks, or months, or maybe it was just days. I swear that’s why I can’t quite remember the details. Too tired. I can’t remember why my sisters kept me quarantined, in my lonely twin bed with the wide window. I don’t recall what part of the house that boy slept in. I remember the ladybugs. I remember dark red, eyes clenched, hot tears. Maybe I made my bed and kept my door shut. Maybe the ladybugs were my secret, and my sisters wouldn’t know what I was talking about. If I called them. 

Hannah Burns, originally from Charleston, SC, received her MFA in Fiction from The New School. Her writing can be found in The Crawfish, Public Seminar, and Atwood Magazine.