I swallowed the last of the whiskey, pressed the empty glass against my forehead. Young Molly came to me one more time.
She knelt on her parents’ kitchen floor, looking up at me. A red bandanna held her hair back from her pale face. Rage danced in her eyes. Muscles bulged at the corners of her jaw, as if she were chewing on curses and swallowing them as they rose from her throat. Bloody paper towels littered the floor around her. Blood smeared the plastic bag of ice in her hand. She pushed my sweaty hair from my eyes and said something about my riding the train in my condition. She asked if anyone had even offered to help me. I shook my head.
She reached up and pressed the bag to my mouth, inching closer to me. Her other hand palmed my cheek, holding my head steady when I flinched at the ice. My eyes flitted from her face to my hands, curled in my lap. I was afraid to touch her and too exhausted to move. She said something about stitches. She said something about her brother’s latest hockey game. A joke. I tried to talk and she moved the bag away. Nothing came out. Droplets of blood, from the bag, from my mouth, peppered the floor between my feet. It seemed they’d never stop falling.
I turned out the lights and curled up on the couch. That day in the kitchen wasn’t the only time Molly took care of me after one of my father’s rages. I often found my way to her after a beating. Sometimes, like that day, I just appeared at her parents’ door. Who knows what they thought? Other times, I’d call from a pay phone and we’d meet somewhere. I bloodied more than a few of her bandannas. She never seemed to mind, and I knew I could always steal new ones for her.
Her anger sometimes rivaled mine, it seemed, the way her eyes and hands trembled. She went electric with fury. I could hear it crackling in her voice no matter how soothing she tried to sound. More than once, I half-expected to find her at my parents’ front door, calling my father out into the driveway. Sometimes, after she’d helped patch me up and calm me down, I wondered if she was angry at me, for letting it continue and for not finding a way out. More often, I was just ashamed of myself and my family. These things didn’t happen in Molly’s house.
For a long time she asked about the beatings, asked about my father. Sometimes she asked when the wounds were still fresh. Sometimes she asked after the cuts and bruises had healed. She asked why. She wanted reasons, wanted answers. Then one day, she stopped asking.
Maybe she accepted the only explanation I had, the one I spat out over and over. My father was a violent, raging man and he hated me. Maybe she finally believed me. She’d certainly seen plenty of evidence. Maybe she just got sick of hearing it. Whatever the reason, I was glad when she stopped asking for answers. I wanted them, too, but by then more for her than for myself. Not having them for her only made everything more humiliating.
We hadn’t said a word about him this time around until Purvis had shown up at the door. There was no talk of my father, no talk of Eddie. What was the point? She and I aren’t like we were then, wrapped up in each other’s lives, needy for each other’s teenage drama. We weren’t in love anymore. We’d grown up and streamlined. Like good adults, we kept our scars to ourselves. It was just as well. All these years down the road I didn’t have any better answers, about either my father or her brother.
Five years ago, after she first moved to Boston for grad school, Julia used to call me with her psychobabble bullshit. Usually, it was right after she’d been to see her therapist, when she was just brimming with insight and hundred-dollar-an-hour wisdom. My father was afraid of his family, she said. And the fear he didn’t even know possessed him tore its way out of him masked as anger. This is what my sister told me, that my father kicked the shit out of my mother and me because he was afraid of
She knelt on her parents’ kitchen floor, looking up at me. A red bandanna held her hair back from her pale face. Rage danced in her eyes. Muscles bulged at the corners of her jaw, as if she were chewing on curses and swallowing them as they rose from her throat. Bloody paper towels littered the floor around her. Blood smeared the plastic bag of ice in her hand. She pushed my sweaty hair from my eyes and said something about my riding the train in my condition. She asked if anyone had even offered to help me. I shook my head.
She reached up and pressed the bag to my mouth, inching closer to me. Her other hand palmed my cheek, holding my head steady when I flinched at the ice. My eyes flitted from her face to my hands, curled in my lap. I was afraid to touch her and too exhausted to move. She said something about stitches. She said something about her brother’s latest hockey game. A joke. I tried to talk and she moved the bag away. Nothing came out. Droplets of blood, from the bag, from my mouth, peppered the floor between my feet. It seemed they’d never stop falling.
I turned out the lights and curled up on the couch. That day in the kitchen wasn’t the only time Molly took care of me after one of my father’s rages. I often found my way to her after a beating. Sometimes, like that day, I just appeared at her parents’ door. Who knows what they thought? Other times, I’d call from a pay phone and we’d meet somewhere. I bloodied more than a few of her bandannas. She never seemed to mind, and I knew I could always steal new ones for her.
Her anger sometimes rivaled mine, it seemed, the way her eyes and hands trembled. She went electric with fury. I could hear it crackling in her voice no matter how soothing she tried to sound. More than once, I half-expected to find her at my parents’ front door, calling my father out into the driveway. Sometimes, after she’d helped patch me up and calm me down, I wondered if she was angry at me, for letting it continue and for not finding a way out. More often, I was just ashamed of myself and my family. These things didn’t happen in Molly’s house.
For a long time she asked about the beatings, asked about my father. Sometimes she asked when the wounds were still fresh. Sometimes she asked after the cuts and bruises had healed. She asked why. She wanted reasons, wanted answers. Then one day, she stopped asking.
Maybe she accepted the only explanation I had, the one I spat out over and over. My father was a violent, raging man and he hated me. Maybe she finally believed me. She’d certainly seen plenty of evidence. Maybe she just got sick of hearing it. Whatever the reason, I was glad when she stopped asking for answers. I wanted them, too, but by then more for her than for myself. Not having them for her only made everything more humiliating.
We hadn’t said a word about him this time around until Purvis had shown up at the door. There was no talk of my father, no talk of Eddie. What was the point? She and I aren’t like we were then, wrapped up in each other’s lives, needy for each other’s teenage drama. We weren’t in love anymore. We’d grown up and streamlined. Like good adults, we kept our scars to ourselves. It was just as well. All these years down the road I didn’t have any better answers, about either my father or her brother.
Five years ago, after she first moved to Boston for grad school, Julia used to call me with her psychobabble bullshit. Usually, it was right after she’d been to see her therapist, when she was just brimming with insight and hundred-dollar-an-hour wisdom. My father was afraid of his family, she said. And the fear he didn’t even know possessed him tore its way out of him masked as anger. This is what my sister told me, that my father kicked the shit out of my mother and me because he was afraid of
Similar Books
It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age
Phil Callaway, Martha O. Bolton
