Sapphic Voices General Fiction

Behind Lace Curtains

Kyla let herself in with the plain brass key on the plain aluminum ring that her father had given her. Her grandmother’s house, hers now; how strange that seemed. She closed the door behind her and looked around. It wasn’t dark, though all the drapes were drawn. The rooms were filled with the filtered sunlight coming through the delicate lace curtains that hung over every window, the air speckled with motes of dust.


She took a deep breath, and found that the house still smelled like Grandma. Old lady smell—medicine and peppermint, the musty-brown smell of old paper. There was the distinct fragrance of tea.

Walking through the small, tidy rooms, Kyla shook her head and smiled at Grandma’s flower-patterned sofa (davenport she’d called it) and loveseat, both encased in the ugly plastic covers she had insisted were better than stains on the couch. She’d ever allowed anyone to eat in the living room anyway—where had she thought stains were going to come from?

Continuing through the house, it seemed every horizontal surface had a doily on it. Kyla hated doilies—hated anything lacy and frilly, really—but she did find herself marveling at grandma’s amazing ability to find them in the precise size and shape of every stick of furniture she owned.

Kyla couldn’t imagine herself living this way; hidden behind curtains that let in the sun but obscured the view, surrounded by crocheted doilies and safety-coated furniture. It seemed everything present had been chosen for its protective value. Entering the kitchen, she saw what looked like a small television mounted under the cabinet by the sink. Not an unusual thing, a TV in the kitchen, but Kyla knew what it really was. Grandma had insisted that Kyla’s dad install a camera and monitor system for both front and back doors as soon as she’d learned such technology existed. Overall, she hadn’t been so accepting of newfangled inventions, but she’d harbored a fear that someone may be able to tell when she was looking through a peephole and would shoot her in the eye.

Each room, each possession, and each feature of the house revealed more and more fears and insecurities—some general, some quite specific. Again, Kyla found herself thinking I could never live like this. She realized, though, that Natalie could. Wanted to, in fact. Sure, if Nat were to build her own protective hiding-place it would be very different than this one, but the differences would be largely of style and décor; Nat would be comfortable here.

Returning to the living room, Kyla sat down on the sofa, hearing the unnatural crunch and squeak of the plastic sheath beneath her. She looked across the room to the fireplace, the flue of which had been blocked off long ago, written off as an unnecessary hazard. They’d tried to convince Grandma at least to replace it with an electric fire, but she’d had no more faith in light bulbs than flame, and had instead placed an elaborate floral arrangement in the open hearth. Something about the fireplace being rendered useless had always made the room seem chillier than it really was.

She turned from the hearth to find her grandmother’s “radio” on the side table. It wasn’t just a radio—it was a paranoia machine. It ran on batteries, of course, so it would still work during a power failure. There was also a compartment for an extra set of batteries, just in case. One end was a huge flashlight with a two-way switch—position one would turn the light on a steady beam, position two made it flash on and off accompanied by a distress siren that would shriek at a punishing volume. Instructions as to what to do in case of various natural disasters (thunderstorm, tornado, earthquake) were printed on the bottom. The entire contraption was molded in bright yellow plastic with a big carry handle.

Kyla found the radio ridiculous, but knew that Nat would appreciate it. Over the last year, Natalie had grown more and more frightened of the world, had retreated deeper and deeper into herself. Sitting here in her grandmother’s living room Kyla thought, not for the first time, that she wasn’t going to be able to take it for much longer.

She’d been trying to hang on out of guilt, knowing that it was her own fault that Nat had changed in this way. No, not her fault, as Mason kept reminding her, but still, she was at the center of the problem. When she’d first met Natalie two years ago, it had been Kyla who’d been afraid—much more so even than Nat was now. Natalie had been the first person who’d managed to reach Kyla inside her cocoon and bring her out into the world. With Nat’s support and encouragement, she’d begun to overcome her fears, begun to feel some sense of power over her life.

Shortly after she’d begun to discover this sense of dominion over her own circumstances, her strength had been tested; she’d been attacked in the stairwell outside of the apartment she and Natalie shared. She’d fought back against her assailant and won. This victory had affirmed her own newfound confidence, but Natalie had witnessed the confrontation, and been traumatized by it. The same event that had afforded Kyla a level of self-sovereignty enjoyed by few had left Natalie broken. Kyla had made every effort over the past year to be the loving, supportive protector to Nat that she’d been to her, but she’d found herself lacking in the role. She was losing patience with Natalie, and knew it wasn’t fair.

Kyla looked at her reflection in a framed mirror over the fireplace. Beside the mirror hung portraits of four generations of Kyla’s relatives. She scanned the faces for a trace of her straight blonde locks, her pale, smooth skin and high cheekbones, but found herself alone. The photograph of Grandma herself, taken when she was around the same age Kyla was now, actually looked more like Natalie than Kyla. The full soft curls and round dimpled face smiled out through the glass of the frame, taunting. Kyla knew that had the photo been in color, Grandma’s hair would have been red rather than Nat’s soft brown, but still the likeness was unnerving. It served as a further reminder of how much Nat shared of Grandma’s least endearing qualities, but also brought home just how integral a part of who Kyla was Nat had become; she actually looked like a member of her own family. Her thought had been to move into this house with Natalie—out of the city, where she’d feel less threatened. But being here, seeing the detritus of a lifetime of fear, made her realize that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hide away from the world behind her grandmother’s lace curtains.

Maybe it made her a bad person—most likely did, in fact, she figured—but she couldn’t live with Natalie any longer. Which was the greatest unkindness to do to someone, she asked herself—abandon them, or stay with them when you didn’t want to? Kyla knew she’d choose loneliness over pity any day. Neither was fair, of course, but as Kyla couldn’t force her feelings to change, they were the only options left.

She needed to talk to Mason, to say out loud these things that she’d been trying to deny to herself for months now. He’d help her decide what to do and, more importantly, how best to do it. She cast a last, sad glance at Grandma’s curtains, and then headed outside where she knew she belonged—on the other side of them.

If you have enjoyed Inanna Gabriel's "Behind Lace Curtains", then please be certain to e-mail her at  inanna[at]inannagabriel.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of Inanna Gabriel's Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.