Here's a bit of a story I wrote a few years ago. It's not anything really, but it was supposed to be about a teenager trying to cope with her mentally handicapped uncle (whom she's never known about) moving in with her family.
Cheek mashed against my pillow, I watched the lights under my bedroom door move back and forth. Someone was walking around, murmuring quietly. I could barely make out my father’s voice.
“She’s seventeen, Margaret. She can handle it. He’s her uncle, for God’s sake.”
Mom sounded tired when she replied. “I don’t know, Jim. He’s been living with your mother for his whole life. How is he supposed to cope with the real world? With a teenager?”
I was on the carpet now, crouched in front of my door in order to hear their conversation better. What uncle? Uncle Harold I knew. He was married and living in Utah.
Before I could ponder further, I felt something cold under my left foot. Turning around, I saw a penny, the light from under the door glinting off its red surface. Out of habit, I looked at the date etched into the copper. 1955. The year I was born. I slowly straightened up until I was level with my dresser. Groping sightlessly in the dark, I located the jar. I released the penny and heard the small cling as it settled on top of all the other pennies inside. All 1955’s. Lucky pennies.
There was another voice in the kitchen now, a loud, whiny voice begging for a glass of water. Then Mom. “Sshhh, Leo. It’s all right,” she crooned. “Here’s your water. Now you just make yourself comfortable and drift off to sleep. Okay? Goodnight.”
I heard my parents’ bedroom door snap shut.
Very slowly I opened my own door and stepped out into the hallway. Peering around the corner, I could barely make out the couch in the slatted moonlight. A blonde head was poking out from under Great Grandma Blanche’s afghan. As I stepped onto the cold tile of the kitchen, the head stirred, then turned to look at me.
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