Hunger

Austin: Rose Rock

Pixie was miraculously born clean. My mom left Ray and sobered up to try her hand at parenting again, a doomed to fail experiment that she should have learned from the first time. But that's Nikki for you; she just keeps repeating the same tired mistakes year after year, blow after blow.

Nikki terminated her parental rights to me when Nancy and Riley started talking about adoption, but when I decided to stay she didn't make one single attempt to get me back. That was fine with me. I didn't want to go back with her. I knew Ray would reappear. Especially when he heard about Pixie.

Wanna hear a dumb story? Nikki named her new daughter Emmie because she had been watching the Emmy Awards when she went into labor. Emmie was never Emmie to me though. At first she was only Ray's spawn and I detested her, the same way you detest a cockroach just for existing. I hated Ray, and that meant I had to hate her too.

I'm sure there were lots of little moments over time that wore me down and made me care about the kid. After awhile I started to feel this need to protect Pixie even though I was trying so hard to hate her. It was an impulse I couldn't ignore. Because of that I saw her every chance I could to make sure Nikki was feeding her and stuff.

Pixie was a fat little toddler with a face like those naked cherubs painted in churches. She was, in a word, adorable. She looked nothing like Ray at all and had inherited Nikki's stunning beauty. Yes, Nikki was beautiful before Ray. Coulda been a model. But meth doesn't do a body good.

There was this one day I came over to see Pixie, and she'd really started to like me by then. I'd had a shit day at school and was not in a good mood, but it's hard not to smile when you see this fat little marshmallow on legs grinning and running at you shouting, "Oz, Oz!" That's how she pronounced my name back then. She was holding this rose rock in one hand and she held it up for me to see. Rose rocks get their color from the red clay in Oklahoma, and they form into the shape of a rose. People say they are the blood and tears of the Native people when they walked the Trail of Tears to get here.

I said, "Wow look at that rock! It's like a rose!"

Back then Pixie always had a gift to give everyone, like flowers and pine cones and stuff, which is partly why I call her Pixie.

She giggled and said, "It's you."

"It's for me?" I said, reaching for it. But this time, unexpectedly, she pulled it close and shook her head.

"It's YOU!" she shouted.

"What do you mean?"

"It's Oz," she said, pointing at me.

That was when I got it. She had made me into a pet rock companion so she could have me there when I wasn't there. You'd have to have a heart of pure stone not to melt at that.

Pixie kept that rock for years, and now I keep it in my wallet. She slept with it at night. She kissed it. She brushed its pretend hair. And all of that love was for me. Until you're loved like that by a little kid, you just don't know how good it feels. Or how it changes you, whether you wanna change or not.