CHAPTER 2

Mom

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NOTHING MAKES ME LOSE my footing like my husband’s anger. It’s rabid and irrational. I never know what will set him off.

“Steve,” I beg, eying the girls in the hallway. “Just calm down, okay?” I lick my lips as I watch him pace.

He doesn’t listen, but continues to rant in a drunken mumble as he looks for the keys to his truck. Thankfully, I’ve already hidden them.

“I’m gonna kill him! I’m gonna go over to his house and kill him! Put my family out on the streets? No way!” I’m not sure what he’ll do next so I shoo the girls back into their rooms with a sweep of my hand and a pleading gaze. For now, they obey.

“We’ll figure something out,” I say, although I’m just as upset by our new circumstances.

We’d been living in his brother’s house. It was left vacant after he decided to move in with his girlfriend, and it seemed like a nice upgrade. A much larger version of our modular atop a small rise in the property with a great view and a hot tub on the expansive deck.

“Maybe you can buy me out,” his brother offered, and we jumped at the chance, quickly renting our place to a local family.

Tonight the call came.

“I need to move back in, Bro. Sorry, but I need the house back.”

We had taken the news calmly at first, discussing our options, but when the whisky came out, the anger built until it reached a fever pitch.

“We had a deal!” As he cocks the rifle my heart goes still. “I’m gonna kill him.”

I clench my fists, trying to draw strength from somewhere. The sharp tips of my nails dig into my palms. “Can you just put the gun down? You’re making me nervous.”

If the younger me had known what kind of a man he’d become I would have never married him. His tall, lean body had bloated in the middle from alcoholism. The long blond locks I’d once twisted my fingers through had grayed and fallen out at the top. Tobacco-stained teeth contrasted his stormy blue eyes, which once captivated me. As I watch him rattle on about honor and ass-kicking all I see is a crazed lunatic.

“Where the fuck are my keys? Did you hide them from me, woman?”

I shake my head violently. “No,” I lie.

“I’m calling him,” he says, ripping the phone from the receiver. “He can come out here and MAKE me move.”

My heart catches as I get a glimpse of the girls back in the hallway. I shake my head at them, but this time they stay.

“Please don’t call him, Steve. Can’t you wait ‘til tomorrow?”

Without warning, he grits his teeth and hurls the phone in my direction. I scream as it sails across the room, barely missing my head, and hear it shatter behind me against the stone fireplace.

“You’re against me too!” he shouts. I respond with a shower of tears, which only makes it worse. “Oh for Christ’s sake. Don’t overreact.” He storms out onto the porch and I follow him, already apologizing. He stumbles a drunken waltz as he rambles, and I position myself toward the edge of the 3-foot high deck to keep him from falling.

“And stop trying to control me,” he says, wheeling around to point his index finger in my face. “I’m the man in this family. I make the decisions.”

“I’m not trying to control you. I’m just trying to get you to calm down. You’re drunk.”

Anger flashes across his face like a lit match. His out-stretched hands connect with my chest as he shoves me off the deck. I fall, and the full impact of my overweight body against the ground sends a sharp, radiating pain into my hip, but I’m fine. Shaken up, but fine. Nothing feels broken.

I breathe for a moment, shocked by what happened. He’s never pushed me before. I look up, expecting him to be just as appalled at what he’s done, but he doesn’t even stutter in his rant. As I rise from the dirt, I realize he’s crossed a line. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not staying here.

When he finally passes out on the couch I make my decision to pack up. I’ve always promised myself, if it ever got violent, I would leave.

“We can’t stay here, so go grab what you want, and do it fast,” I tell my girls. They follow me to my room and watch as I pack frantically.

My older daughter wipes her freckled cheeks and jumps into action, whipping her long dark curls up in a ponytail and grabbing socks and underwear from my dresser. Her tears are a reflection of my own. She’s wanted to leave for a while now, but she’s scared. We both are.

Lucy sits on my bed and stares at me, unmoving. “We can’t leave Dad. Where are we going anyway?” she manages between sobs.

Good question. Where are we going? I have maybe a hundred bucks in the bank.

“To Grandma and Grandpa’s,” I decide. The kids just started summer break, so we were planning a visit in a few weeks anyway.

Besides, we’ll be safe there. My parents’ house is a very old, singlewide trailer in a terrible neighborhood in San Jose, but it’s weirdly peaceful. I can breathe and relax into the constant servitude of my mother, the unconditional support of their love. There is no need for money when I’m home, and I can take time to figure things out.

“Will we come back?” My youngest daughter’s large lips blush red. She presses them to her knees as she draws her long legs into her chest, and a sheet of dark blonde hair falls forward over her shins. She has my husband’s hair, not mine.

“I don't know, Lucy. Just pack some stuff you’ll want, okay? We need to get on the road.”

“But it’s the middle of the night,” she argues.

Sometimes I feel like she’s less mine, and more her father’s child. Just like him, she fights me on everything.

“Please don’t do this right now,” I whine, desperate for life to get out of my way. “You can sleep in the car.”

“I’m not going,” she yells, crossing her arms in defiance. Her lower jaw juts out in frustration, and I think I might evaporate into tiny particles of despair. I lean back against the floral wallpapered closet and slump to the floor, too overcome by my moaning sobs to respond. It feels like I’ll die in this chasm I’ve built for myself.

“You’re such a brat, Lucy,” Ruth counters, coming to my defense. She’s my other half. My balance. The one to step in when my weaknesses take me over, and I can’t be the mother I should. The one to defend me when I’m down, to worry when I’m reckless, to nurture her sister when I’m too drunk or gone gambling.

Lucy jumps to her feet, the tougher of the two, and pushes her older sister in the chest. “Shut up.”

“Don’t fight! Please,” I cry, desperate to keep the peace. It sends me into another fit of tears I can’t control. “You’ll wake him up. Please.”

The mention of their drunken father shakes Lucy from her stubbornness, and after a moment of quiet I feel her next to me.

“It’s all right, Mama. Don't cry.” Lucy pets my frizzy brown hair like I’m a sulking puppy. “I'll go.”

Ruth leans against my arm and lays her head on my shoulder.

“Okay, come on now,” I say, breathing deep and fighting the cigarette tar in my lungs. “I'll stop crying. No more fighting. We’ve got to go.”

As I stand, Lucy eyes the bedroom door and bites her lip. “Maybe I could stay with Dad.”

“He almost killed Mom tonight, you idiot.” Ruth’s face contorts at the thought, her tall wafer-thin frame tightening up with anxiety. “We can’t stay here.”

“He did not! The phone hit the wall!”

“That’s not the point! He threw it. It just missed her!”

“Whatever,” she says, rolling her eyes and throwing a half-packed duffle at her sister’s stomach. “It’s just because he’s drunk. He’s not like that all the time. He’s never hurt any of us.”

I’m determined not to break down again. “Pack up and stop fighting,” I seethe through clenched teeth. “He pushed me off the deck,” I hear myself repeat over and over. “He pushed me.” Thank God I didn’t land on a limb or my head, but that wasn’t the point. He pushed me. “I’m done.”

* * *

It’s been a long night. I can hear the soft snoring of my teenage daughters finally asleep in the backseat, their faces flushed red under the sheen of dried tears. Even so, the silence is deafening, everything muffled through the mountains of clothes, blankets, and food that are tightly packed into my small silver Toyota. We’ve been in the car an hour. I’ve driven away and come back. Parked in front of our house, I haven’t been able to do much more than sit.

I start up the engine, turn it off again, and stare out at the shadowed branches of sagebrush illuminated by my headlights. Over and over I weigh the cost of leaving. My fat cheeks sting and crack under tracks of tears. They just come now, endless rivers snaking past my lips, and I know they’re not because of what happened, but because of my inability to act.

As I think my way through the night, each minute feels heavier than the last. I’m a coward, sitting here in my packed up car, afraid to drive away.

He was just drunk, I think. He didn’t mean it.

I pull the visor down and two tiny lights brighten my puffy eyes. A night of tears has worsened the state of my already drooping skin. I was beautiful once, but that woman is gone. My cheeks are large, folding into a double chin on the bottom. The freckles across my nose are no longer cute, but aging. Stress has managed to frazzle my once silky curls into frizzy waves that can’t be tamed. I’m so lost to myself I don’t even recognize the brown eyes staring back at me.

He told me I was lucky he stayed with me. No one would want me, too fat.

“You’re lucky I feel sorry for you. A divorce is too expensive so you’re lucky.”

And I believe him. I am fat and ugly and will probably be lonely for the rest of my life, but this? He’d gotten violent. He pushed me.

I glance back at my sleeping girls for strength and close the mirrored visor. My hand turns the key for me. The car starts, and I take a breath through my nose. I glare at the dirt road in front of me, dust dancing through my headlights.

I’m never coming back.