CHAPTER 15

Mom

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“MOMMY?” LUCY COMES STRIDING through the back door, her voice desperate.

“Mommy?”

“What? What is it?” I rush out of the bathroom. I’ve known the sound of pain in her cry since she was a baby. A mother knows.

She crashes into me, burying her face into my shoulder. My heart is tortured by her choking sobs. “What happened?” I beg, pulling her into the quiet sanctuary of the bathroom.

She can’t talk, and that scares me more. Tears streak her red, swollen face and the look in her eyes is childlike. We rock back and forth in slow motion until she settles down.

A quiet tapping at the door interrupts us, and Lucy stiffens. Her eyes go wide and she shakes her head, silently pleading with me to keep her secret.

“Everything okay?” my mother asks. The chipped gold knob ticks back and forth, but it’s locked.

“Fine. We’re okay,” I yell. “Be out in a sec.”

I lead Lucy to the toilet and she sits, her hands still trembling. As she wipes her cheeks, I notice the side of her face looks swollen. It’s slightly yellow, almost bruised, but she’s been crying and her hair is in the way, so it’s hard to tell.

“Are you hurt, baby?” I whisper, kneeling down in front of her in my nightly getup. I’ve been working shifts at Mi Casa Tu as a cocktail waitress and they refuse to let me wear anything but this skimpy pink flamenco dress that doesn’t fit my large body. Fat bulges from around my armpits and back. I stretch its seams as I settle on to the floor. “Tell me what happened.”

“We just need to go home, Mom. Okay?”

I sigh, digging through shame and guilt to find my strength. “We can’t, sweetie. Your Dad and I, we—”

“Yeah, you’re getting a divorce,” she snaps. “Whatever. I don’t even care about that. Can’t we just move into a different house or something? I have to get out of here. I can’t stay here.”

The more she talks, the deeper she sinks back into her pool of distress. Her words are rushed, bordering on hysterical.

“Shhh. Shhh,” I calm her. “Why? I thought you were enjoying it here. You’re gone with your friends all day.”

“Yeah well one of them beat the shit out of me, so I’m ready to leave.”

I close my eyes and let the truth wash over me in a wave of disbelief. “Oh sweetie. Are you okay?”

I lean in to hold her and feel the wetness of her cheek, her soft hair brushing my neck, the tight grip of her embrace. This is my fault. I’d felt bad about ripping her from her life and tried to win her love by giving her too much freedom.

“My head hurts,” she answers, and then her pleading eyes glisten with the need to be heard. “I’m scared, Mom.” Her shaky whisper speaks louder to me than her wailing cry. “I’m scared to stay here. I’ll go anywhere else. We can start a new life. Just please don’t make me stay here.”

I want to give her the peace she’s looking for. A light in me shines bright with the dream of a new life with my children, but the road ahead is a dark and dreary thicket of thorns. I think about it too long and she’s off again, babbling in quick fearful bursts.

“We can sleep in the car until we get on our feet, or find one of those free hotel things. What are they called? Hostels? Don’t you have any friends out of town or—”

I clasp her jittery hands in mine. “Okay. Okay,” I hush her. I’m not ready to leave, but I can see, and feel, how desperate she is. It’s more than manipulation. I can’t say no. “Can you handle a week while I get things worked out?” Her worried eyes give me my answer. “A few days?” I try again.

She bites the corner of her lip and gives me a subtle nod. “I think so.”

The promise makes me smile, and I hope in some small way it’s making up for everything. “So what was the fight about? Where’d she hurt you?”

The question seems to put her into a daze. She stares past me at nothing. I reach out to examine the gash above her ear, and she jumps so violently I flinch in return. With a quick swat she bats my hand away and recoils, cowering against the back of the toilet.

Both of us are still for a moment, but I can feel the crease in my brow deepen. I don’t know what to say.

“Sorry,” she says, her body softening toward me.

My imagination toys with me, inventing a thousand ways she could have been wronged. “You’re scaring me, Lucy.”

She sits up straighter, forcing a smile. “I’m fine. Really. I’m sorry. I must still be in defense mode. I just need to lay down and rest.”

I take hold of her hand as she stands, but she pulls it away casually and opens the bathroom door.

“Are you going to be—”

“I’m fine,” she insists. “Love you, Mom. Have a good night at work.”

When the door shuts I sit in the silence second-guessing all of my choices. I could take it all back. I could call Steve and apologize, flee back to the predictably monotonous and empty life I’d broken free of. It was stable. Sort of. It would make Lucy happy.

Then the whispering champion of my freedom convinces me to stare unflinchingly into the future. There is a little voice in me that refuses to be smothered.

He pushed me. I tell myself. It’s over.

I pick myself off the floor and glare at my disgusting figure in the mirror, trying to stuff my breasts away from the plunging neckline of my uniform. It’s useless, they spill out the top.

As I head toward the car I hide my shame behind an even stare. We have no money. No place to go. Worry and dread follow me to work, but I’m always my strongest self when life forces me to be.

We’ll make it. We have to.