Burned

Mama didn’t love me. She left when I was tiny, but Gamma took me in.

Every year, Gamma baked me a birthday cake, served up in a battered aluminum pan. She smeared on canned frosting, the kind that reeked of fake vanilla and superfine sugar. As decoration, she coffin-spiked in the appropriate number of mismatched candles.

I waited, dread filling my heart.

As soon as she lit the candles, Gamma seized both of my scarred hands in her ropy, veined ones. Her nails were brownish yellow, her skin a map of liver-coloured spots. I twisted in her grasp but she never let go.

“Swear to me you won’t ever trust a man.” Although she was almost blind, her eyes drilled into mine. Her whitened irises were horrifying in extreme close-up.

“I swear, Gamma.” My voice shook.

“Say it with me: men bring nothing but pain.”

I said the words. I was wobbly but clear. I had to be or she’d make me repeat the sentence until she was satisfied I meant what I said.

Gamma raised our joined hands and held them so that my little ones were just above the sputtering flames. I tried to stay still, but the searing heat sizzled a fresh layer of birthday burns over my old scars. I cried and writhed in agony.

After a few seconds, Gamma let go. She smeared grease on my hands and wrapped them in gauze. She told me to hush up my whining and then she served the cake, forking it into my mouth with a relentless rhythm.

At fifteen, I ran away with the first young man who’d take me. I didn’t trust him right away. Gamma’d taught me well. But I enjoyed him. Thoroughly. He gave me pleasure, and plenty of it. And he never burned me or hit me. Life was much better away from Gamma although she was never far from my thoughts, being my only family and all.

Last year, something tragic happened. Gamma’s house caught on fire. It was late at night and the wind was whipping across the heath from the north. The conditions were perfect for a burning.

They say Gamma never woke up. What was left of her was mostly chalky ash. Her whitened eyes were entirely gone, her witchlike hands were harmless, broken twigs. In the end, the smoke got her—got her good, for all eternity.

I mourned Gamma’s death. She’d had a hard life. Men had been cruel and she’d been hurt. She always told me she was saving me from my mama’s fate and that I’d be grateful one day. She hadn’t meant to torture me, I’m sure.

Still, an alibi is sweet. It proves Gamma was wrong when she told me to never trust a man. My latest boyfriend has been a helpful alibi, standing by me and swearing he was with me that night. He didn’t leave my side, even for a minute.

Maybe, to say thank you, I’ll bake him a cake.