Metal Plates

I can’t remember the specific conversation that occurred that night. If I could guess it was about how her family wouldn’t send money to help us. We were eating dinner off of the metal plates that came with the RV we were living in. I can see those thin, silver camping plates and those ugly utensils clearly in my mind. I can visualize them flying through the air like frisbees... When did the conversation become unbearable for her, I wonder. One moment she was speaking, the next moment she’s screaming and then anything within her proximity is flung, tossed and hurled. The space was too small for that kind of an explosion. Celia immediately grabbed her plate and ran straight through the front door without shoes. The rest of us found that so comedic when we spoke about it later... Comedy always helped to separate us from the seriousness and pain. While Celia went through the front the rest of us went into the bedroom. We closed the thin, plastic accordion style door and gathered on the bed. I covered Jared’s ears with my hands and we sang. From the living room she shrieked like a woman who had gone mad. The sounds were not unknown to us but they had a discernible edge this time. This next part.... Did she say it calmly? Sometimes she would develop the eerie tone of a person who had accepted their madness... Like the tune of a witch coaxing children from their hiding places to be devoured. Or did she shriek it like a person possessed and fully in the grips of her pain and rage. I can’t remember the tone but I can’t forget what she said. She said that she would kill herself and kill all of us. Then the “stepfather”, Caleb, is calling my name... Why? I climbed off of the bed and entered the living room where she was lying pinned on her back, still screaming. Caleb had his knees atop her thighs and his arms pinned hers flat above her head as she struggled violently against him. He wanted my help restraining her. Why did he have to ask me?