08/09/2026
Entry No. 7: Alloeh Versus
"Life is Bitter and True"
There have been a handful of women who were in my childhood for only a terribly short time. The length of their stay never reflected the significance they would have in my life.
This is about one of them.
The momster was at work. My father told my little sister and me it was time to play the "500 Game." That meant we had to go outside the back door of the trailer, count to 500, and then go do...anything but bother him.
We knew it wasn't a game.
He wasn't going to come find us or bring us in for a surprise treat.
We weren't really sure why. We just knew we had better go.
It was so hot, and anytime we had to go play the "500 Game," we knew it was going to be torture.
Locked doors.
Not allowed to bang on the trailer and attract attention.
No water.
No screaming or crying out loudly.
Again, no unwarranted attention.
No sunscreen.
My sister and I have always basically been translucent, with no gift of tanning. We were either damn near see-through or burnt. We were always walking water blisters after this game.
And then punished for crying.
I hate summer.
There was no shade around this particular trailer.
And we had no real games to speak of.
Our bikes had been sold for beer again.
I knew because the day before, my sister got a whipping for running into the house screaming after Daddy told her to get off her bike, having successfully haggled some young teenage boy into buying it for his sister.
I stood there as I watched the boy walk up to me and take my bike too. He couldn't even look at me as he grabbed the handlebars and rolled my bike down the street with his little sister riding on my sister's bike.
Maybe we won't be forced to come out here anymore, I remembered thinking.
But then I felt bad for my sister because she really loved riding her bike.
Oh well.
I wished we had our bikes that day, though.
We could make our own breeze, even if we were being fried alive.
I wished I could cut my hair.
It was sticking to my neck and face. Every time I swiped it away, it tangled in my sweaty palms.
I hate the sun.
My sister wanted to dig.
I hated digging.
But it was cooler the deeper she dug.
So she dug, and I made clay patties.
The soil felt lumpy and cool.
My sister started putting it on her face.
Saying she was Rambo now.
I scolded her.
"You're so stupid.
You're going to get another whooping when Daddy lets us in."
"I don't care!" she hollered at me while applying her Mississippi clay in warrior fashion.
I rolled my eyes at her, making my pretend patties that I desperately wished were real...
Hungry.
My sister told me she was going to get some water from the water hose.
I reminded her we couldn't.
Last time we used the hose, we ended up playing in it, and when Daddy came out, he was so angry that he duct-taped the spigot.
I tried getting the tape off the last time we were locked out, and he caught me from the kitchen window.
I still can't sleep on my back.
I swore my sister made it hotter out there.
Always whining.
Announcing how hot it was as if I wasn't miserable too.
Why couldn't he just throw me outside and let her stay inside?
At least it would be quiet.
Maybe someone would come sn**ch her up, I thought.
Then I would get another belt to my backside for not watching her.
Please, God, don't let anyone steal my sister, I prayed.
I absently started applying the clay to my skin.
She looked at me.
I was ready to go to bat with her.
Just say something smart...
But she started helping me quietly.
I wanted to cry, but Daddy said we couldn't weaponize tears.
I didn't know what that meant then.
I sat and listened to my sister's incessant rambling.
My head hurt.
I knew I would be throwing up later.
My head always hurt so bad, especially after days like today.
My sister asked me to stop the "sun punches," as we called them, that were attacking her leg.
I started massaging her calf, feeling my own legs and arms starting to take hits too.
I hate it here.
An older couple walking down the street looked over at us with pity.
I remembered hearing the old lady say,
"I will call Bet when we get back."
Mrs. Bet was our neighbor.
She was a very kind old woman with the most beautiful short, snow-white hair.
She lived alone.
Daddy and the momster called her a busybody and told us never to tell her anything that went on in our house.
Because...
"What happens in this house stays in this house!"
That command had been bellowed enough.
I remembered feeling it being etched into my brain during one of the many "lessons."
My sister went quiet.
Too quiet.
I wished she'd talk to me.
Say something.
Anything.
Even tell me how stinking hot it was for the gazillionth time.
I was scared.
I knew she needed to get inside.
Or at least get some water.
I didn't know how I knew.
I just did.
I decided to chance knocking on the door.
Nothing.
Maybe he was asleep.
One time I got really lucky, and he left the door unlocked.
I was able to sneak to the kitchen and grab a Pop-Tart for us.
Locked.
I'd wait a little longer.
My sister quietly said "Maybe the momster will be home soon."
She wouldn't.
She was never home before dark.
I didn't say anything.
I went to the door again and lightly knocked.
Daddy got headaches from his beer, so we couldn't be loud.
Nothing.
I went to the back door.
I was so scared to try this one because it was the closest to their room.
Wet.
And hot.
Between my legs.
I'd p*ed myself.
I'd get a whipping for sure now.
But I tried the door.
Locked.
I braved knocking on the door.
Nothing.
No.
Not nothing.
I could hear them.
Daddy and his secret friend who kept us locked outside.
I hated him.
And his friend.
I stormed back around front.
My sister informed me that I stank.
I snapped at her.
"So!
At least I know how to tie my shoes.
Baby!"
Then the tears came.
My sister quietly told me it was okay.
"I p*ed myself too."
Shame.
So we were going to get our butts handed to us no matter what.
We might as well be able to have some water.
I jumped up and started banging on the trailer.
My little lanky sister hurried toward me, telling me I was going to get in trouble.
But she was just as thirsty, so she followed behind me without saying anything as I worked my way around the trailer, crying and banging on the tin.
"Please!
Let us in!
We will be good!
Can we have some water?
Daddy!
We will be quiet!
We swear!
DADDY!"
Then a cool hand touched my scorched shoulder.
It hurt.
And snapped my attention around.
And then upward.
Mrs. Bet.
She put her finger to her lips, grabbed my hand, and nodded for me to follow her.
I dug my heels in.
Clawing at her hand.
The need for thirst escaped me momentarily.
And a new fear set in.
I had been too loud.
Now the neighbors would know "our business."
I couldn't take that punishment again.
Not so soon.
I screamed.
She let my hand go and grabbed my sister's.
I reached out for her.
Begging her not to go.
"You will be in so much trouble! And you will get me in trouble more!"
My sister looked at the ground and told me she was too dirty and couldn't take it anymore.
I told her she loved getting dirty.
She said she was dirty inside her pants.
Mrs. Bet looked at me with her other arm outstretched.
Resigned.
I took it.
Mrs. Bet didn't say a word.
She walked us next door.
As soon as we made it under her canopy, the instant relief was almost too much.
She hurried us quickly and quietly up the stairs to her trailer.
Ushering us inside her cool home, she told us to sit down and make ourselves comfortable. She would be back with some water.
My sister and I still huddled at the door, holding hands.
Embarrassed.
"Ma'am, we aren't allowed on furniture, and we are nasty," I said.
"Nonsense. You two girls are the furthest from nasty."
My sister looked up at me, pleading with me not to say anything.
"Can we please have some water?" I asked instead of elaborating.
She has to smell us.
We didn't budge.
She pulled out two of her kitchen chairs and patted them.
"How about you sit here until I can find something for you both to wear? My grandkids stay here from time to time. I am sure I have something."
Sparkles.
Her eyes.
She could have been tricking us, though.
But I'd never seen anyone with sparkles trick us.
Thirst, deciding to remind me how badly we needed water, I slowly dragged my sister to the kitchen chairs.
Hesitantly, we sat.
Awkward and embarrassing sounds came from both of us.
I just wanted us to disappear.
She handed us water in small cups.
We greedily drank it, begging for more.
She obliged but told us to drink slowly.
We didn't.
She wouldn't give us any more water.
She said it needed to settle a bit.
She doled out some saltines with peanut butter and slices of banana.
Again telling us to chew slowly.
Swallow carefully.
All while placing the softest cloths against our faces and necks.
Damp.
Cool.
She said she would have to go get some medicine from Vera.
Alarm bells dinged.
No.
We weren't taking any medicine from a stranger.
The police officer at school had taught us that.
Never take any medicine that isn't prescribed to you or given to you by your parents.
We didn't even like taking the medicine from them every night.
It made us too sleepy.
Too fast.
"NO MEDICINE!"
Panic.
I grabbed my sister quickly and too roughly, pulling her from her chair onto the ground.
Mrs. Bet rushed over to console my sister as I cowered against the cabinets, apologizing profusely.
"I am so sorry.
I didn't mean to.
We have to go home.
We don't need any medicine!
What if Daddy is looking for us?
I'm sorry!"
Mrs. Bet set my sister back on the chair and slowly knelt halfway before me.
She apologized to me.
ME!
She explained that Vera was the name of her aloe plant.
She needed to break some stalks off to help take the sting from our sunburns.
Mawmaw had an aloe plant.
She used it on my finger once after I touched the stove.
It was just called aloe.
Aloe was good.
"But...
Daddy could..."
"We would have heard him by now, dear."
That seemed true.
She told me she would be right back.
I stood there, my insides playing jump rope.
How come I couldn't jump rope outside my body?
She returned with the thick, long green stalks and placed them in the refrigerator.
She made us tiny glasses of more tap water and went to look for clothes.
"You two girls need a cool shower," she said.
Panic.
No.
No one could see the colors on our skin.
The momster and Daddy would add that to all my other punishments.
I was so dead.
"We will just wait for Daddy now," I said, trying to thank her for the snack and water.
She told me how brave I was.
How smart I was not to trust strangers.
How good of a big sister I was.
My sister cried that her bottom burned and she wanted to be clean.
As if I was enjoying being covered in my own p*e and sweat.
I huffed.
Mrs. Bet asked if I would like to help her.
My ears perked.
Help her?
"Yes, ma'am."
"You know what to do, and I need to make an early dinner since I skipped lunch. So, you take a shower with your sister and help bathe her. The clothes are on the counter."
She showed us to her bathroom.
I looked at the bathroom door.
She caught my eye movement and smiled at me again.
Sparkles.
She said there was a lock on the bathroom door.
She would close it, and I could lock it. But if I needed her, I had to unlock it immediately.
"Yes, ma'am."
And I did just that.
The cool water felt better than ice cream tasted, I thought out loud.
Then, "Being clean felt even better than pizza," my sister said.
I agreed.
I got us dried and dressed.
We wiped down Mrs. Bet's tub.
We unlocked the door and called for the nice lady.
I didn't know what to do with our filthy clothes, and I didn't want to leave them on her pretty vanity with all of her pretty things, so I held the stinking mess tightly against me.
Mrs. Bet knelt down and touched my arms.
She told me I had done such a good job.
"Let me take these..."
I tried to protest.
She told me she knew just the trick to get the clothes looking brand new.
Never once mentioning the horrible smell.
So embarrassed.
She told us she had made lemonade and cheese toasties with ham.
It was a grilled cheese with ham.
But I still thought the way she said it made it taste even better somehow.
She sat there, watching us stuff our faces and down lemonade.
Looking thoughtful, but not angry.
Never complaining about the dribble off our chins.
Only asking us to slow down so we wouldn't choke.
When we were finished, she wiped our hands and mouths, then grabbed the aloe stalks.
She gently applied the body popsicle to my face, shoulders, upper chest, and arms while letting me apply it to my sister in the same way.
Then she wrapped some smaller pieces in a paper towel and told me to put them in my pocket and apply it again later.
She sat us down to do a puzzle while talking about school.
Casually slipping in that when Daddy's friend showed up and we had to play the "500 Game," we should come pay her a visit.
"I get terribly lonely. And I have just been tickled having you two over to chat with."
I looked over at my sister, who was smiling like an idiot.
Only to realize I was too.
How were we not bothering her?
Just as I went to ask...
We heard the momster's car.
Mrs. Bet looked at her watch and sighed.
"Well, it looks like our fun is over, girls. But
remember...
..
Anytime."
She looked at me pointedly.
Her eyes still sparkled, but now because of her unshed tears.
I knew she knew things in that moment.
Things we weren't allowed to talk about.
I nodded and whispered,
"Yes, ma'am."
She slapped her legs and straightened them along the crease of her pants after standing.
So pretty.
"How about a treat for the walk?" she asked.
Of course, we happily nodded our heads in excitement.
She went and grabbed us Reese's out of the refrigerator.
The refrigerator!
Eating the cold, delicious mixture of peanut butter and chocolate didn't make the short walk back any less foreboding.
But it did make it sweeter.
We rounded the corner just as the momster came out of the trailer, screaming for us to get our "asses back inside right now!"
Mrs. Bet cleared her throat.
And our momster became the...
outside-the-house lady.
She smiled at our neighbor.
Then looked at me, still smiling...
But not really.
No sparkles.
And said,
"Now y'all haven't been bothering Bet, have you?"
Have we?
I looked down.
My shoes were dirty.
I wondered if Mrs. Bet could help me clean them with her trick for clothes.
"Of course not! They never do. I just happened to be doing my after-dinner walk and saw them playing in the backyard. They were kind enough to walk me around."
I looked at Mrs. Bet.
Realizing...
Something.
As her sparkly eyes met mine and, with a wink, she turned, told the momster to have a wonderful evening, and began her walk with a wave goodbye.
Daddy wasn't even home.
The momster told us to go to bed without dinner for making her have to speak to that "mousey lady."
My sister and I rushed to our pallet while ever so slowly getting to the floor as our tight, tender skin pulled.
But our delight in not getting caught made us feel like the kites on Field Day.
We giggled because the momster thought we were hungry.
We weren't.
We were stuffed.
My sister said I was just like Rambo.
I instantly went to wipe my face, thinking of the clay patties and her idea of war paint.
"You beat the bad guys, and we won water and Reese's!" she whisper-yelled.
"I didn't do anything but almost get us killed."
"No. If you hadn't risked getting a good drubbing, we would've been fried eggs for the worms.
So you are Rambo.
I said so, so that makes it true."
She said it with finality.
We snickered for what felt like hours but could have only been minutes with how exhausted we were.
Before I drifted off, thoughts like...
"How did the momster not see that these weren't our clothes?
When did Daddy leave, and how did we not see him?
Did he leave with his friend?
We could still smell the momster's secret friend when we hurried past her.
Gross.
Worms don't eat eggs, do they?
I wish we could live with Mrs. Bet.
The most sparkly eyes..."
We moved after that.
And never saw Mrs. Bet again.
As things got worse through the years, I thought of Mrs. Bet often.
I had experienced what care and kindness were.
And I hated her for it.
I wasn't naive enough to think our lives were normal.
In fact, the constant reminders to keep our mouths shut or else...
As the "or else's" were happening anyway...
Let me know exactly how NOT normal our lives actually were.
I knew we were being cheated out of things that would not have cost our parents a single cent.
And it hurt.
And if Mrs. Bet existed, then so did other people just like her.
People that mostly lived in smiles instead of snarls.
I had tasted the other side for the tiniest moment, and it just wasn't enough.
Craving it desperately.
Scoring it sparingly.
I always did.
Still do.
I feel like she wondered what happened to the two girls next door just as often as I wonder about her.
It's comforting to think that anyway.
It was such a small fragment of time.
Yet these things have stayed with me even now...
Reese's are better out of the fridge.
I have never been able to drink lemonade since.
Cool showers on hot summer days are better than ice cream.
Being clean is far superior to pizza.
Vera is still the greatest name ever for an aloe plant.
Except...
Mrs. Bet.
I have an aloe named Vera.
And another named Mrs. Bet.
I tend to them...
And they tend to me...
..and my sister.
Anytime I make a grilled cheese, I think of her and smile at "cheese toasties with ham."
I should probably just call them that.
But the memory feels sacred.
It is a place I have traveled to many times, and sharing parts of it out loud with people I believed couldn't understand what it meant to me felt...
Wrong.
But thanks to a brave, beautiful old lady who lived next door...
Whom I still believe was Mrs. Claus in the witness protection program...
I became one of the people with sparkling eyes and cleverly named plants.
In spite of all the cruelty that continues to persist.
My sister said so.
So, that makes it true.
Can also read on Substack
https://open.substack.com/pub/aninvisiblewife/p/alloeh-versus?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8p3nl1
