[Already Gone—Kelly Clarkson: 022. Exodus]
The sky is an overenthusiastic shade of Pepto Bismol, as if Mother Nature thinks she can smother my woes with a large dose of bubblegum pink. I force my eyes off of the road and glance at the huddled figure in the backseat, the anger building up inside of me until I pound my fists against the steering wheel. The horn shrieks in protest, and I am glad to know that I’m not the only one who needs to scream.
Just drive, I remind myself. There’s no such thing as too far away.
From the back, I hear Rose murmur something in her sleep as she falls sideways out of her seat buckle. I hadn’t had time to grab her car-seat, and it’s in Leslie’s minivan anyway—who knew where the keys were? I had buckled her slight figure down as best as I could, wrapping my jacket around her to try and dry her off.
“Emmy?” Her voice is small, but not weak. Not traumatized. Not at all like she’s just endured a near-death experience. For a moment I have room for only one emotion—relief. She’s awake. She’s okay. I’m okay. We’re headed the only direction that matters right now.
Away.
“Emmy, it hurts. I'm hot,” she says sleepily, taking a little fist and running it across her wet face. Wispy blond locks, immaculately curled by our mother every morning; now they’re plastered against her freckled forehead. I won’t lie—it hurts me, even now, to see those curls. Leslie never bothered with my hair when I was little. She never bothered with anything.
Rosie’s yawn is so careless and innocent; it reverberates around the car until all I can hear is its blissful, naive tone. “Don't wanna go home."
I bite my lip, clenching the wheel. "Don't worry. We're not going back."
She considers this for a moment, and decides it's acceptable. "Sing me a song, Emmy. I want one with the froggy,” she declares.
“Rosie, let me think for a minute. Alright? I’ll sing later.”
I hear shuffling and throat-clearing in the back, and it’s the beginning of tears. She’s working up to them, I know. Preparing for denial, so that, if the need arises, she can just whimper a bit and have it done with. “Sing it now, Emmy,” she insists.
“No, sweetie. Not now.” So tired. Can she tell? Is it possible that the complete and total exhaustion I’m fighting through is coming over in my voice?
“I'm gonna tell Mommy you won't sing!” She sits up and defiantly rubs her eyes.
So blue. Just like mine. Just like our mother’s.
There is really no way to respond to this. There’s no chance she’s ever going to tell Mommy anything again, not if I have any say in the matter—she’s going to be as far away from that woman as I can get her.
My hands shake, and I blink away terror.
I hear the chirping of birds through the open window, and their shrillness reminds me vaguely of our mother’s laugh.
*
The woman stands over the bathtub, grabbing the little girl with the beautiful curls and holding her under until she stops thrashing. There are bottles and glass in the bathroom—some of it shattered, most of it deposited randomly behind the sink or on top of the bath mat. The room is dark, except for the flicker of light from the hallway coming through from under the crack of the door.
Steam floats up from behind the half-drawn shower curtain in wisps like cigarette smoke, and the tendrils wrap around the mother and daughter possessively. Pulling them closer, pulling them farther under. The child’s feet, which are now the only thing above the water, are covered in cuts where the glass has embedded deep into her skin. Just as the after-taste of alcohol has saturated the oxygen she breathes.
The older sister bangs on the locked door, cautiously. There is something wrong in the atmosphere. It seeps through the closed door and into the hallway, it envelops the house until she’s suffocating in it. She hears the laughter and the water.
And the silence. The silence does it. The silence that means an absence of Rose.
“Leslie? Do you have Rose?” The sister’s voice is always like that: tired, suspicious, calm. Her words are stretched tight like a balloon in a room of spikes , trying to keep afloat, trying to keep everything safe and balanced. Trying not to pop.
She repeats, louder: “Leslie?” And then, hesitantly-- the forbidden word. The one that hasn't applied since the drinking began. “Mom?”
Giggling. Water. Silence.
“Oh my God, Leslie, what the hell are you doing?” The words are disjointed through the faucet’s song—they sound submerged, distant. The mother looks up briefly at the sound of her name, but all that matters is washing her baby.
Her sweet, darling baby.
“I’m giving Rose a bath.”
There are giggles, and they rise like champagne bubbles, popping gently as they reach the surface of her volatility.
There is a moment of frantic banging. “Rose! Rosie, can you hear me? Leslie, let her go! Turn off the water!”
Screaming and banging. The door—locked, of course. Another key somewhere. There are keys to everything in the godforsaken world, thinks the woman. Keys to someone’s heart, keys to the future, keys to the bathroom door—what’s the difference?
“Rose, my baby,” whispers the mother. The water is hot and steamy. Didn’t she read somewhere that steam is good for the skin? She wants her lovely baby’s skin to be perfect.
And then—
The door.
For a moment it looks as if it has splintered, fracturing into a million pieces and giving into the force on the other side—the sister. She falls through and crawls over the bathtub, gasping as the steam tightens.
The woman has let go of the girl; she sits in the water, awake, crying.
And then—
Gone.
The sister swoops up the wet angel, rubbing her and shrieking softly. Stumbles to the door, falls out into the hallway. She must have accidentally hit the light switch for the hallway, because they flicker for a moment until it’s dark again.
The mother sits next to the tub, motionless. She screams. “No, no! My baby! Bring her back! Come back here with my Rose!”
But the only response is the purr of an engine, and even that fades into the distance until all that keeps the woman company is the water.
It rises.
*
“No, Rosie, sweetie. You’re not going to tell Mommy. Mommy will be on vacation for a long time, okay?”
I’m still shaking, still barely breathing. My hands are wet and hot from the water. They slip on the steering wheel, and I can only imagine the irony if I saved my little sister from being drowned by our mother only to drive us into a telephone pole.
I pull over after a moment and reach, shaking, for my cell phone.
From the backseat, Rose yawns again. “You sing later, okay, Emmy? Promise?”
“I promise.”
By the time the lady at the police station answers the phone after the sixth ring, Rose is asleep again.
I try to breathe.
[Thanks for reading! ^^ I'd love opinions of the dialogue, especially Rose's (I was having difficulty trying to make her sound young but not infantile) and whether the flashback flowed well enough with the regular narration. Any and all critiques are greatly appreciated!]
But you are an epic writer and I just love reading your stawries.
I thought Rosie was put out very well really young. And the MC was very good too. I just feel, in that middle part, that Leslie could seem a bit more crazy like I imagine her too. She was drunk, but she didn't seem drunk enough. There wasn't enough description or emotion there, I guess. If there was more, it would definitely strengthen that middle part. 
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