#14: Harmony

I walked home every day after school in the sixth grade. I named the houses that I passed just to keep myself from being too bored.

Blue Beard was a two-story house with blue trim; an old lady lived there who gardened every sunny day. Bald Mountain was the house that tilled up its entire lawn in the fall; a couple lived there in the small house. And Harmony was the ironic name that I chose for the rackety house on the corner, paint peeling, family yelling.

Harmony was where the girl lived. After a while, I started calling her Harmony.

Harmony was home-schooled. She wore long white dressed in the warmer months and I never saw her in the colder ones. She would look out the window and watch me pass by without a smile. Her hair was long, blond, and usually dirty. She was beautiful, even if she wasn't happy.

Her parents would yell most of the time. It seemed uncanny how many times I passed by to see one of them storming out, screaming at the top of their lungs, peeling away in the boat of a car.

I only saw Harmony being hit once. It was with a belt and it was on the front porch. It was the only time I saw her outside, and the first time I learned that her legs were in braces. She saw that I saw, screamed and cried more loudly.

Cutting across Cliff Street was a longer way home. But I used it more often than not after that.


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