Anchorhold

She heads toward the detached garage. She keys in the garage-door combination. The door rolls up. She walks to the back of the garage and opens the gun safe. She selects a Smith and Wesson .32 stainless-steel revolver and a small box of frangible ammunition, designed to disintegrate on impact with drywall. She doesn’t want a bullet going through the wall into her dad’s bedroom, then exiting through the outside wall and ending up inside the neighbor, who might be sitting on their balcony across the street. She drops the gun and ammo into her backpack.

She leaves the garage, pressing the button for the door to roll back down. To maximize her exposure to fresh air, she walks around the front of the house to the mailbox to pick up the mail, then strolls back around to the back door to let herself in. She leaves the mail in a neat stack on the dining-room table. She opens the refrigerator and snarfs down three slices of smoked gouda and four home-made peanut-butter energy balls, leaving the refrigerator door open as she does. She drinks milk straight out of the carton.

Next, she turns off her cellphone and hides it in the back of the tallest kitchen cupboard, where her dad will never find it. If he can’t find it, she won’t, in a moment of weakness, be tempted to ask him for it. She can’t quite bring herself to destroy it. What if it turns out she can’t live without it? This way, she can tell her dad where it is, if necessary.

She is determined to cut social media for good if she possibly, possibly can. Quit cold turkey. It’s the only way.

Grabbing an apple out of the fruit bowl, she goes upstairs to her room and shuts herself in. She is 16 years old.

At the back of the room is an ensuite bathroom. It’s so small, there’s a postage-stamp-size walk-in shower in lieu of a tub. She pees and washes her hands and face. Moving from there into the bedroom, she sets the heavy, antique oak school chair she uses for a desk chair in position, facing the door.

She removes the pistol and ammo from her backpack and sits on the chair, loading the weapon. Six rounds, all six chambers full. She wants to make certain the revolver fires when she initially pulls the trigger, that there’s no anticlimactic click over to the next chamber. She cocks the gun, eats the apple and waits.

Her dad arrives home from work. He sorts the mail, deals with it and prepares dinner. It’s his night; his daughter and he trade off responsibility for cooking on an every-other-day basis, with exceptions for special events or, for example, the need for a late-night cram session before a test. When his daughter doesn’t come down by 6:00, he goes upstairs. Maybe she fell asleep.

He knocks on her bedroom door.

“Dinner’s ready,” he says.

“Come in,” she says.

He opens the door, and there she is, pistol cocked and aimed. Her hours of practice at the gun range with her dad pay off. She squeezes the trigger and fires a round just to the left of his left ear. As it hits the wall, the bullet breaks into fragments of tiny shrapnel, some of which embed themselves in the back of her dad’s neck and burn him.

“Ow!” He yelps, reflexively stepping further back into the hallway and grabbing where it hurts. “What did you do that for?”

“This is my room, my anchorhold, my refuge. I’m figuratively supergluing the door shut.”

“For how long?”

“For until I decide to come out. You can feed me or not, your choice.”

“Why?”

She shuts the door firmly and rubs her ringing ears.

After an extended pause, her dad tiptoes the length of the hallway and down the stairs, minimizing the sound of his footsteps, feeling unaccountable guilt. He shrugs. Where’s the definitive manual for parenting?

She should have worn earplugs, like at the target range. She consigns the gun to the far corner of her closet, goes into the ensuite and washes her hands again, scrubbing to remove the gunshot residue. She applies lotion. After it soaks in, she puts her desk chair in its place, boots up her computer and begins her homework.

A couple of hours later, a letter and a protein bar slide across the hardwood floor under her bedroom door. She takes a moment to relish the house’s silence, then she opens his letter and reads it:

***

Dear Darling Daughter,

Please forgive me. I thought of climbing a ladder and passing food to you through one of your bedroom windows, but alas, they are dormers and as such, way too awkward.

Besides, I am afraid of heights.

In short, I am severely limited as to choice of comestibles by the undignified expedient of being forced to scooch said tidbits under the door. I seriously hope this is just a phase.

Your loving, slightly singed father

P.S. Truth be told, you scared me shitless and you hurt my feelings. Nice shooting, Tex. I’d say you were grounded but you already did that to yourself.

***

She smiles with a pang of contrition. She knows she got off easy. He didn’t call the police, as he may well have. The law would take his side.

She unwraps the protein bar and takes a huge bite. Finishing the bar makes her thirsty. She bends her head awkwardly to drink from the bathroom faucet. Before getting ready for bed, she squinches her finished homework under the door.

***

In the morning, she sees her dad took her homework and replaced it with food and presents. Presumably, he’s delivering her finished assignments to school for her. She wonders what excuse he’ll use for her absence.

Breakfast is fruit leather and three packets of mixed nuts. Lunch, coaxed under the door on a shallow tray along with breakfast, since it’s a weekday and her dad works full-time as a dental-lab tech, is celery and carrot sticks with blue-cheese dressing, her favorite. Rounding out the meal are two take-and-bake chocolate-chip cookies.

There’s an ice pack and a squishy, insulated lunch box. There’s even a collapsible travel bottle with a filter.

She doesn’t recognize the lunch box, teak tray or the water bottle, each of which appears expensive. She feels her dad purchased these items to honor her seclusion. He must have bought online with overnight delivery. The gesture makes her tear up a little.

The tray slides back under the door. She gets up, stretches, grabs the cookies and breakfast and sets them on her desk. She packs the veggies, dressing and ice pack into her new lunch bag. She pads off on her sock-feet to the ensuite to fill her water bottle. Good, no more twisting her neck to get a drink.

It’s her first day, she thinks. First day of sanctuary. She savors the sensation of freedom. She grins, opens a packet of nuts and goes online. As she checks her social media for the last time and reads the news, she reaffirms that, by ditching her cellphone and immuring herself in her room, she made the right decision.

Always an excellent student, she logs into her school account. Throughout the day, she’ll keep an eye out for a breakdown of lessons and the ever-present, attendant homework. For now, she turns on her sound system and queues up music. She removes her hula hoop from where it lives, wedged between her bed and the wall. Time for a workout.

***

Her dad gives it a week. “All in good time,” he thinks. “Maybe she’ll snap out of it.” When she doesn’t, he slips another letter and a packet of papers under the door.

***

Dear Highly Intelligent Daughter,

Well, I had to take a PTO day to do it, but I arranged online schooling for you. Why didn’t you tell me about the cyberbullying?

I had to learn about it from a student who came up to me and shared.

Was firing a weapon to get my attention that much easier than confiding in me?

All that aside, no wonder you want to stay away from school. Just know you don’t have to live in your room to escape the haters. Your choice, of course.

Anyway, the big envelope contains the information you need to log in, plus a bunch of other stuff.

You’re welcome.

‘Love you bunches,

Dad

P.S. You’re not only intelligent, but you are also beautiful. And no, I’m not biased.

***

Dinner is spinach, tomato, mushroom and lamb salad with microgreens and a refreshing vinaigrette.

***

She and her father write to each other often. There’s something soothing about a handwritten letter. Sometimes, she requests items.

A small alarm clock. A flashlight in case the power goes off. Printer ink and printer paper. Pens and notebooks. A new filter for the water bottle. Toothpaste and dental floss. A set of steel dental picks she receives only after promising she’ll limit their use to once every three months (or so) and that she’ll be mindful of her gums. Packets of tissue meant for a messenger bag or purse; tissues double as toilet paper. A menstrual cup. Slender bars of soap from the travel section of the store. The trial size of the rosemary-oil infused, conditioning shampoo bar she likes. Safety razors so she can shave her legs and armpits. Decent haircutting scissors and a hand mirror. A new nail file because hers is wearing out. Vitamins, especially Vitamin D. Specific brands of bras and underwear. T-shirts and leggings. Stretchy resistance bands for strength training. A microfiber duster. Bleach wipes. Floor wipes. Soap-infused scrubby sponges for cleaning the shower. Toilet-bowl-cleaner tabs. Laundry-detergent pods she can dissolve in the sink for laundry day.

Laundry poses a particular challenge. Hand washing and hanging clothes to dry is no problem but sheets and towels are too much. Towels take forever to air dry, and sheets don’t drape well over her short shower rod.

Sheets and towels are placed in thin laundry bags and dropped out a dormer window for her dad to pick up. Clean linens are placed back in the bags, flattened as much as possible and squeezed under the door, back into her room, her dad pushing from one side of the door as she pulls from the other. Garbage, secreted in grocery bags she knots at the top, is also periodically tossed out a window.

“At least she’s well-groomed, and she’s keeping her space clean,” he thinks. “She isn’t suicidal.”

***

Dear Dad,

I see all you sacrifice for me. I insist on contributing to my upkeep. I found a paid internship I can do from home. It’s a pittance, but it’s also a start. It’s mostly data entry but I’m learning data analysis along the way. Will $125 a week suit you? It’s only a beginning; I plan to pay you more as time goes on.

'Love you to pieces,

Your favorite girl

***

She craves and receives library books. It’s a shame their thickness is constrained by the height of the gap under the door. She digs on the work of Aneli Rufus, Thom Jones, Joyce Carol Oates and Malcolm Gladwell. She worships Emily Dickinson and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She writes poetry. She draws in a sketchbook. She exercises compulsively with her hula hoop, stretchy bands and the kinds of foldable weights you fill with water.

“She has interests outside of school,” her dad muses. “That’s good, isn’t it? I wonder, though, does she have any friends?” He worries about her, frets. Chronic insomnia is his new reality.

They murmur to each other, fingertips touching under the door.

“How was your day, dad?

“Have you been on any dates lately?

“What was she like?”

She contracts a UTI and needs a telehealth visit for antibiotics. Otherwise, she’s healthy.

She researches online colleges. She applies to 18 and is accepted by three. She goes with her top choice, University of South Florida. Unsure of her exact major, she excels at math. Accounting is a possibility, as it’s something she can do remotely. She likes it that accounting is seasonal because she plans to take six weeks off every year. Her dad hopes it’s so she can travel.

He keeps that thought to himself.

When she graduates high school with honors, he skims a gift-wrapped, state-of-the-art laptop across the divide. The old laptop is bulkier than the new. It’s almost too thick to make the return trip beneath the door and into the hallway for her dad to donate to a battered women’s shelter.

She attains her college degree early, establishes an LLC and embarks on a career as a CPA. It’s tough going, getting a foothold into a freelance business. To build a portfolio, she does taxes for free, paying her room, board and business expenses with a bank loan co-signed by her dad. Eventually, with few exceptions, she charges market rates, pays off her loan and increases the amount she transfers to her father.

***

Early on a Saturday morning, three days before her 23rd birthday, she emerges, pale and ascetically lean from overtraining. So as not to wake her dad, she treads lightly down the stairs. She still remembers the creaky places to avoid.

She goes to the kitchen and pours herself a bowl of cereal. God, she hasn’t had cereal and milk in the longest time! It’s important to achieve the perfect cereal-to-milk ratio. As she munches, she hears a slight, hesitant noise. Her dad is standing in the doorway.

“Morning, dad,” she says.

“Morning,” he replies.

He walks into the kitchen, reaches into the tallest cupboard and roots around. Retrieving her ancient cellphone, he hands it to her.

BIO: E.D. Taylor initiates interdisciplinary art, including poetry and literary fiction. Her installations, sculpture, drawings and paintings exhibit in diverse venues, for example, Eastern State Penitentiary, The Galleries at Cleveland State University and the Flat Files at PIEROGI. Selected works of fiction can be found at literarygarage.com. E.D. also holds a master’s degree in printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design.

Her alter ego, Try Swonger, escaped from a polygamist compound. Try’s hard-crime short story “Tansie” is featured on Creepy Pod Podcast’s Patreon page.