by Naomi West
Maybe life moves in cycles. Maybe it’s happening all over again.
Chapter Fifteen
Marilee
“You live in a fucking fantasy!” Greg snarls, bringing the car to a screeching halt outside my childhood home. Looking through the rain-clouded window, a memory hits me. Dad, walking toward the car, a beach inflatable under one arm and a swimming cap clutched in his hand, winking at me as I pawed at the window. The image dissipates when Greg wrenches the door open. Rain patters my face. “A lighter, girl? A fucking lighter? What sort of dream world do you live in? Do you think some knight in shining armor is going to—You’re insane! Now get the fuck out of the car!”
“No.” I lean back, trying to get into the driver’s seat. “I’m not going with you, you sick pervert!”
“Little cunt!” He leaps across the seat and clamps his hand down on my lower leg, gripping so hard that my calf muscles ache like I’ve pulled a muscle. He tugs on me and I have no choice but to go with him. Either that or lose my leg. “That’s right.”
Mom stands at the bottom front window and Travis stands at the top, looking down on us with his pensive expression, difficult to read from here. Greg drags me into the house and thrusts me at the stairs.
“You won’t believe where I found your sweet daughter,” he says, turning to Mom.
Mom makes a tiny move toward me, but then decides against it. She stands with her back straight and a phony look of attention on her face. The only sign that she is not at peace is the way she twists and wrings the kitchen towel. “Where?” she asks, voice breaking the word in half.
“She was at one of those seedy coffee booths!” he snaps. He fills her in, waving his arms and stomping his feet, ranting and raving and swearing. When he’s done, he throws himself at me, fists clenched.
Mom rushes forward, touching his shoulder. “Let me get you some food.”
“I’m putting this whore in her room.” He grabs me by the wrist and drags me up the stairs. I want to fight him, but he’s far stronger than me. That’s the most absurd part about all this. He’s fat and he wheezes when he moves, but still he’s stronger than me. He tosses me into the bedroom and slams the door, and then opens it a second later. “If you lock this door, you’re dead.”
He leaves me then. Travis steps out from behind the door. He has no bruises anywhere on him that I can see right away, but still I pull him to me and lift up his shirt, checking.
“Get off!” He squirms away from me. “He hasn’t hit me. He doesn’t hate me like he hates you.”
“Good.” I fall back on the bed, hardly able to believe that I’m back here again. I flew free for almost a month and now here I am, right back where I started. “How’s school?”
“How’s school,” he echoes, nudging me playfully.
“Quit it.”
“Quit it,” he repeats.
I smile wanly. “My name’s Travis, and I’m a loser.”
“My name’s . . . ha, ha, ha. School is school. School is always school. Is it true, what Greg said? Were you really standing by the side of the road in your underwear?”
“Sort of,” I mutter. “It’s complicated.”
“I don’t like that.” He drops onto the floor, feet splayed before him. “I don’t like that at all. What if some weird guy came by and saw you like that and did something bad? You know how teachers say you shouldn’t talk to strangers? Any stranger could just come by and get you and do what he wanted.”
“I guess so. You’re right. I don’t really feel like being lectured right now.”
He looks up at me with eyes which are so like mine. “I’m not lecturing you. I’m talking to you. There’s a difference, you know.”
“I know—Oh, fuck.”
Travis rushes into the closet at the sound of Greg’s stamping footsteps and growling voice. He stomps right up to my bedroom door and then kicks it open, just as Travis closes the closet after him. Greg kicks the door closed behind me and flips the lock, marches across to me, and stands with his arms behind his back. His eyes are waterier than I’ve ever seen them, making him look like a man far older than his years. He weaves from side to side. I wonder how many shots of whisky he drank down there. I’m guessing at least five. He points at my face and then to his crotch.
“You know what to do,” he says. “You must know what to do, standing there like that, standing there like a real little whore. Is that what you are, huh? Is that what you live for? I can’t believe it. All this time you were trying to pretend you were some good little girl, and that’s what you’re really doing! What’s wrong with you? Fine, fine, I won’t judge you anymore. At least I can get some use out of you. Come on, then. Time to get sucking.”
“You’re fucking disgusting.” I crawl across the bed, bringing my knees to my chest, trying to get as far away from his as possible. I want to grab a weapon, but there’s nothing at hand. He fills the room, blocking everything. Travis’s eyes watch from the darkness of the closet, sometimes catching the light, or maybe that’s just a trick of vision. “You’re sick in the head, Greg.”
“Sick in the head . . .” He whistles. Then he shrugs. “Maybe so. You might be right. But what’s a man supposed to do when he has a whore like you, just waiting, come on . . . just begging to be used? What am I supposed to do, let you go out and be whore for everybody except for me?”
“You leave her alone!” Travis steps from the closet, arms at his side, hands bunched into fists. “You sick! You sick—sick!”
“For fuck’s sake, kid.” Greg looks at me as though we are a couple and our child has just interrupted something consensual. There’s so much delusion in that look it makes me physically queasy. He turns back to Travis. “You need to get out of here, all right? You’re not going to like what happens next.”
“I’m not leaving.” Travis’s lower lips trembles and tears drip down his cheeks, but he doesn’t budge. He just stands there, staring up at what must seem like a giant to him. Hell, what seems like a giant to me. “You can’t make me, okay? I want you to leave my big sister alone. She never does anything to hurt you and all you ever want to do is hurt her. It isn’t fair. I want you to stop it right now! It isn’t fair!”
“I gotta say, Travis, I really do appreciate this new tough thing you’ve got going on, but if you think I’m about to step aside just because you showed a little energy, you’ve got another thing coming. Now get outta here, before you make me angry.”
“No.”
“No?” Greg steps forward, looming over him.
I creep across the bed, moving as quietly as I can, meeting eyes with Travis and telling him silently to be brave and stretch this out. I stand up and reach across to the dresser for my hair straightener, the only thing close enough. I’ll smack him across the back of the head and just keep on hitting and hitting until he stops with his poisonous words.
“No?” Greg repeats, bringing his fist back and aiming it at Travis’s face. “You really are a brave little bastard.”
Just as he’s about to hit Travis for the first time, I bring the straightener down on the back of his head with all my strength, which isn’t that much, despite the volleyball. He coughs and falls forward, giving me enough time to take Travis by the hand and yank him to the door, dragging him down the stairs and toward the front door. I mean to push out into the rain and take Travis far away. But when I open the front door and try to drag him outside, he won’t move. He just stands there, arms folded, pouting up at me.
“Mom!” he shouts. “Mom, come here!” He lowers his voice. “I’m not leaving without Mom!”
Mom emerges from the kitchen with that look on her face that makes me want to slap her. It’s the look of somebody who knows perfectly well what’s been happening upstairs, but wants to pretend like they have no idea. She lifts her hands in apparent bemusement and says, “What’s going on here?”
“We’re leaving,” I tell her. “Right now. Right this second. He won’t go without you, okay? So you have to get
moving—”
“Whore!” Greg roars, barreling down the stairs like an enraged bull. “Fucking bitch!”
He launches himself at me, fists flying through the air. I dodge back, trip, stumble onto the porch. I wave my arms for balance but the porch is slick and I was never any good at gymnastics. I slip down the stairs, into the yard. If it wasn’t for Dusty maybe I’d be dead, my head cracked on the pathway, my blood pooling with the rain. Instead, this powerful presence catches me and holds me up. I look up at him, not believing my eyes for a moment. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his eyes dark and full of emotion. He lifts me to my feet and makes to hug me, but then looks past me and sees Greg standing at the doorway with a knife in his hand. He moves me so that I’m standing behind him. Suddenly the world seems less dangerous with Dusty’s giant back between Greg and me.
“What’re you gonna do with that there knife, big man?” he says, his voice calmer than any of ours could be talking to Greg.
“Are you the sick rapist who put her in that booth?” Greg growls. “That’s my stepdaughter, you freak!” He waves the knife in front of him.
Dusty walks up the porch steps, seemingly oblivious of the knife. He stops less than a foot away from Greg, well within striking distance. Greg lifts the knife threateningly but Dusty just stands there, arms at his sides, watching. “I should warn you, if you come at me with that knife, you’re not going to like the result.”
“Oh, yeah?” Greg shakes his head. “You really think you’re something special, don’t you, with your leather jacket and your big motorbike and your black hair, really something special, huh?” His voice breaks. Maybe it’s the alcohol; maybe it’s fear. “I was special once! I was going to be an engineer! Everyone said it! But then my cunt mother decided to take my college fund and run off to California with a fucking yoga instructor! What sort of clichéd shit is that?”
“Sure,” Dusty says. “I bet you’ve had a tough time of it. But if you think I’m gonna give sympathy to a man who gets his kicks from threatening women and children, you’re living in a goddamn fantasy land. I’ll do you a favor, fat man. I’ll give you five seconds to drop that knife and get out of my face.”
“You’re crazy,” Greg says. “You’re mad!”
“Maybe, but that don’t change my offer. Five . . .”
“This is my house—”
“Four . . .”
“You’re—”
“Three . . .”
“Wait a second—”
“Two . . .”
“Fuck you!”
Greg lashes his hand out, aiming for Dusty’s neck with the tip of the knife. I jump forward instinctively, but there’s no need. Dusty weaves aside with the speed and skill of an MMA fighter, right-hooking Greg across the face so hard that he collapses to his knees. But despite Greg’s size, he knows how to move violently; that’s one of the only things he knows how to do. He leaps back up almost at once, waving the knife in a vicious arc. Dusty dodges back, never once looking worried, never once letting out a sound of anger like Greg does continuously. He catches Greg at the wrist and twists, causing him to drop the knife, and then head-butts him twice. His nose explodes and blood gushes everywhere. Dusty head-butts him again and then grabs him by the neck and the legs, lifting him up almost over his head and throwing him to the floor. Greg lands with a heavy thump, letting out a growl which is half wheeze, half cough, and then rolls over and begins to moan quietly.
Dust kneels down next to him, resting his elbows on his knees. He looks at ease, but also ready for action. “You never touch her again,” he says calmly.
A sudden outpouring of emotion grips me. This is the father of my child. This is my protector. He came back. I reach into my pocket and take out my motel key, and then go to Mom. She stands indecisively near the front door, her instincts telling her to go and comfort Greg, to tell him that everything is going to be okay and he’s still the big strong man. But Dusty is in her way. I touch her face, getting her attention, and then press the motel key into her hand.
“The name of the motel is on the key,” I say. “I want you to take Travis there. No, don’t look at Greg. Look at me. This is over, Mom. I won’t let you keep Travis here anymore. You take this key and you go upstairs and you pack two bags, one for you and one for Travis. And then you get the hell out of here. Okay?”
“But—”
“This ends now!” I scream, hating the way her eyes keep flitting to Greg, the way her hands twitch like she wants to tend to him. After all he’s done to her, the beatings and the other horrors, she stands there like that, pathetically reaching out to him.
“What about you?” she whispers.
“I’m going with Dusty.”
“Dusty.” Mom narrows her eyes. “But who is he? Just some man?”
“Some man! No, Mom, he happens to be the father of my baby!”
Everything pauses, even the rain. Dusty stands up, eyes fixed on me. Mom has her hand on her mouth. Travis crouches down near the door, looking up at us in confusion. Greg is the first to talk. He coughs blood onto the porch and then lets out a vicious laugh. “Ha! Of course, the bitch is pregnant. Who’d expect anything else from her?”
“If you say one more word,” Dusty mutters, “I’ll break every bone in your right hand. And then if you say another word, I’ll move onto your left.” He approaches me, his face torn. I can’t read his expression. “Is this true?”
“Yes, but maybe we should discuss it somewhere else.”
Dusty smooths down his rain-wet hair. “Hello, Mrs. Milford. My name’s Dusty Ripton. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Mom looks down at his hand for a second, and then up into his face. She shakes it quickly. “Call me Dana.”
“All right then, Dana. I reckon what Marilee’s saying is right. You two ought to take the motel room. I don’t think staying somewhere he can find you is such a good idea. As I understand it, Travis won’t go anywhere without you, so maybe you ought to think of him before thinking of that scumbag who wants to rape your daughter.”
She flinches, but it seems like hearing it from a man means more than hearing it from me. She turns to the house. The three of us—me and Dusty, and Greg, sitting on the floor—wait in awkward silence. It’s clear that Greg wants to say something from the way he breathes, but one look from Dusty and he falls silent. A few minutes later, Mom and Travis come downstairs with a bag each slung over their shoulders.
Mom makes for the car and then pauses. “Greg has the keys,” she murmurs, still struggling not to look at him with pity and love. Where was my pity, I want to ask her, when your sweet Greg was trying to rape me?
But now is the time for repair, so I remain silent.
Dusty kneels down by Greg and roots around in his pocket. He takes out the key and gives it to Mom, and then stands on the porch with his thumbs through his belt loops like he did the first time I met him. He watches until the car is down the street and then turns to Greg with a twisted look on his face, his lips peeled back and his eyes wide. He grabs him and lifts him to his feet, shoving him up against the wall.
“I ought to kill you,” he says. “I ought to take my gun and make you choke on it and only pull the trigger once you realize just how much of a fuckin’ coward you are. I ought to make you cry like a little girl. But I’m not goin’ to, ’cause I don’t want the hassle of the police for a rodent like you. But let me tell you somethin’, you fat fuckin’ pervert. This was just a preview. If you really want to see what I can do to a person, get in my way again.” He head-butts him so hard that Greg’s body sags. Then he drops him like a ragdoll and turns to me. “Let’s go. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
I reach out my hand for him, clutching onto him so he doesn’t turn to rain and disappear. “You’re really here,” I whisper, the weight of everything that just happened collapsing atop me. I want to be strong, but violent tears take me. I sob into his chest, gripping onto his leather.
Dusty comforts me, stroking
my hair and telling me that he isn’t going anywhere, he’s right here. “I’m never leaving you again.”
Chapter Sixteen
Dusty
I ride to the club with Marilee’s arms around me, her fingers interlocked on my belly, the presence of her is almost unbelievable after the weeks and weeks of loneliness. The funny thing is, I never knew I was lonely. I knew I was miserable, and I knew I couldn’t get out of my head, but I never would’ve said lonely. But now that she’s here, the weight is lifted and I feel like I can really ride. The roads feel slicker, lighter; the world moves for us, we don’t move for the world. Baby, father of her baby . . . I push the thought away and focus on the road. She’s wearing my leather and my helmet. The last thing I need right now is to be distracted.