Jude

An excerpt

I watched the sun slowly fall behind the buildings as I sat on the small balcony of my apartment. It overlooked Peachtree Street, which also happened to be the busiest street in the downtown area. It was a far cry from the dream my sister and I had of living in a house in the country with rocking chairs perched on the wraparound porch and a handful of cats playing in the vast green yard. There was a constant buzz of traffic outside; I didn’t want to get used to it. I wanted to move. I wanted the house with the yard and the cats; I wanted it for Jude. But I couldn’t afford it by myself, so a month after moving in, I decided to unpack the boxes and let the traffic outside lull me to sleep at night.

Jude Michelle was a dynamo, and before I go any further you should probably know that our parents were Beatles freaks. They loved everything about the Beatles, and if a brother had been added to our family, I’m sure he would have been named George or Ringo or Sergeant Pepper or something else equally as terrible.

Some people were born to be painters or computer programmers, fire fighters or teachers, but Jude was born to do none of those things. Jude was born simply to live. It might have been because the song was played for her so many times as a child, or it might have been because it’s just how she was made, but Jude encompassed the spirit of that infamous Beatles song better than anybody could ever hope to.

As a baby she had a light in her eyes that would only grow brighter as each day passed. They were big and brown just like our dad’s, and when you stared at them you could see your reflection in her pupils. Her cheeks were pink and chubby. I liked to pinch them when nobody was looking. When she smiled, her perfectly bright eyes squinted into a tight line, only her perfectly fanned eyelashes visible.

As a child, Jude always got what she wanted. When Dad ate cookies after dinner, she climbed up his legs and helped herself. Her favorite was oatmeal raisin. One time she kicked over an entire glass of milk, but she didn’t get in trouble. It’s because she was only two, and getting angry with a two-year-old is a waste of energy. Dad just put her on the floor so he could clean up. I still remember the sound of her tiny feet slapping against the hardwood as she charged toward me and latched onto my hair.

My hair was long and the color of sweet potatoes. Jude hated sweet potatoes. The first time she ate them not only did she spit out every bit of the first spoonful, but she also flung the bowl to the ground with more fervor than any infant should possess. The rusty orange mush splattered all over the floor and our stark white cat Snowy. I tried to help Mom give Snowy a bath, but my arms got all scratched up. Her fur was dyed orange for months.

Jude turned our cat orange, and even though she was only a baby, I think it was intentional. It made Snowy that much easier to find, and her tail that much easier to pull…