Mom glanced up from the steaming strainer of noodles and smiled. “Hey, baby. Coming in for good, or just taking a break?”
“Break.” The forced incarceration at night drove me to spend as much time as possible outside during daylight hours, whether I burned to lobster-red or not.
“Well, your timing’s great. The spaghetti’s almost done.”
“Yeah, okay, good.” During the summer months, we ate dinner at five sharp. Winter, we switched it up to four. That way, no matter the season, we could be in our rooms and safe before sunset.
The walls were reinforced with some kind of steel, and the doors and locks were impenetrable. And yes, those things made our futuristic dungeon known as “the basement” overkill, but you try reasoning with a crazy person.
Just do it. Just say it. “So, um, yeah.” I shifted from one foot to the other. “Today’s my birthday.”
Her jaw dropped, her cheeks bleaching of color. “Oh…baby. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean… I should have remembered…I even made myself notes. Happy birthday,” she finished lamely. She looked around, as if hoping a present would somehow appear via the force of her will. “I feel terrible.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll do something to make this up to you, I swear.”
And so the negotiations have begun. I squared my shoulders. “Do you really mean that?”
“Of course.”
“Good, because Em has a recital tonight and I want to go.”
Though my mom radiated sadness, she was shaking her head even before I finished. “You know your dad will never agree.”
“So talk to him. Convince him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” A croak.
I loved this woman, I truly did, but, oh, she could frustrate me like no one else. “Because why?” I insisted. Even if she cried, I wasn’t dropping this. Better her tears than Em’s.
Mom pivoted, as graceful as Emma as she carried the strainer to the pot and dumped the contents inside. Steam rose and wafted around her, and for a moment, she looked as if she were part of a dream. “Emma knows the rules. She’ll understand.”
The way I’d had to understand, time and time again before I’d just given up? Anger sparked. “Why do you do this? Why do you always agree with him when you know he’s off-the-charts insane?”
“He’s not—”
“He is!” Like Em, I stomped my foot.
“Quiet,” she said, her tone admonishing. “He’s upstairs.”
Yeah, and I’d bet he was already drunk.
She added, “We’ve talked about this, honey. I believe your dad sees something the rest of us can’t. But before you cast stones at him or me, take a look at the Bible. Once upon a time our Lord and Savior was persecuted. Tons of people doubted Jesus.”
“Dad isn’t Jesus!” He rarely even went to church with us.
“I know, and that’s not what I’m saying. I believe there are forces at work all around us. Forces for good and forces for evil.”
I couldn’t get involved in another good/evil debate with her. I just couldn’t. I believed in God, and I believed there were angels and demons out there, but we never had to deal with the evil stuff, did we? “I wish you would divorce him,” I muttered, then bit my tongue in regret—but even still, I refused to apologize.
She worked from home seven days a week as a medical transcriptionist, and was always type, type, typing away at her computer. On weekends, like this fine Saturday evening, she acted like my dad’s nursemaid, too, cleaning him up, fetching and carrying for him. She deserved so much more. She was young, for a mom, and so dang pretty. She was softhearted and funny and deserved some pampering of her own.
“Most kids want their parents to stay together,” she said, a sharp edge to her voice.
“I’m not like most kids. You guys made sure of that.” There was an even sharper edge to my voice.
I just…I wanted what other kids had. A normal life.
In a snap, the anger drained from her and she sighed. “Alice, honey, I know this is hard. I know you want more for yourself, and one day you’ll have it. You’ll graduate, get a job, move out, go to college, fall in love, travel, do whatever your heart desires. As for now, this is your father’s house and he makes the rules. You will follow those rules and respect his authority.”
Straight out of the Parent’s Official Handbook, right under the heading: What to say when you don’t have a real answer for your kid.
“And maybe,” she added, “when you’re in charge of your own household, you’ll realize your dad did the things he did to protect us. He loves us, and our safety is the most important thing to him. Don’t hate him for that.”
I should have known. The good and evil speech always circled around to love and hate. “Have you ever seen one of his monsters?” I asked.
A pause. A nervous laugh. “I have refused to answer that question the other thousand times you asked, so what makes you think I’ll answer it today?”