"Rowan, Emma's trying to show me something—please!"
If I was trying to get into the kitchen, I'd intentionally bump Emma and laugh when she messed up her performance.
"You're just like your father," Mom would say, shaking her head.
"What do you mean?"
"You're a bully!" she'd laugh. "You're picking on a poor eight-year-old girl."
"I'm not picking on her—she's in my way."
"Please, Rowan," Mom would say, holding her hand up to stop my bullshit.
"Yeah, Rowan," Emma would whine, "please," exaggerating Mom's tone.
I didn't know I hated Emma until her high school graduation, five months after Nanny died.
* * *
When I came home from Pennsylvania at the age of twenty, things had changed. Mom had given up caring for other people's children, and was instead caring for her mother, whom we called Nanny.
Nanny had been showing signs of dementia, but they were dismissed as old-age forgetfulness. It was only when she started handing out twenty-dollar bills for Halloween that Mom and her siblings realized there might be a problem.
Following Pop-Pop's death, Mom's youngest brother, Danny, moved in to keep an eye on her. After two falls, one of them severe, Danny called a meeting and told his nine siblings their mother was in need of full-time care while he went to work.
Despite promising their father they would never put their mother into a home, eight of the siblings voted to banish Nanny to an elderly-care facility with a 2.8-star rating on Yelp. After a few hours of screaming, several door slams, and a drive around the block, Mom agreed to watch Nana on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Maggie would take Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Maggie lasted three weeks before calling Mom to tell her she "can't take seeing Mommy like this." Then it was just Mom and Danny.
* * *
Mom left the house at seven thirty a.m. and returned by six thirty most nights. She spent her days wiping Nanny's shit, feeding her baby food, and answering the same questions on a loop, which only ended when Danny came home. Some days were good, but most weren't.
Dad found it difficult to plan vacations. As executor of Nanny's will, Mom needed to be close in case anything happened. Cruises, or anything more than a few hours away, weren't an option. More than that, Mom found it impossible to look more than a day into the future.
It didn't matter what I asked her to do—go to the movies, grab lunch, get mani-pedis—I always got the same answer, "I'm sorry, Rowan—I can't plan anything."
In the beginning, I understood. But hate began to burn through me like a fever as I saw Emma's name scribbled across the calendar hanging in our kitchen:
Emma's recital—5:00 p.m.
Emma's play—7:30 p.m.
Emma's soccer game—11:30 a.m.
Mom was my mother.
"You can't go to lunch with me on Saturday but you can go to Emma's fucking soccer game in two weeks?"
"First of all," Mom would start, pointing a finger at me, "watch your mouth. Second of all, she asked me to go so I'm going."
"So?" I'd scream. "I'm asking you the same thing right now! Why can't we just go to lunch?"
"You know why, Rowan!" she'd yell back. "I have to be there for my mother. If something happens to Nanny, I need to be there, okay?"
"So you can't spend time with me, but you have time for Emma's stupid dance recital? She's not even your kid!"
"Oh Rowan," she'd laugh, "are you jealous?"
"Yes!" I admitted. "I'm your own daughter and you'd rather spend time with Emma."
Mom would continue to laugh and shake her head at me. "Rowan, you need to grow up. It's stupid to be jealous of a twelve-year-old girl."
* * *
Nanny died on a bitterly cold morning in January. I was driving to get gas when Mom called and told me the news. By then, Mom and Danny had been Nanny's sole caretakers for three years. Toward the end, Mom would come home, slam the door, and cry. She'd cry and scream and ask God why her brothers and sisters had left her and Danny to do it alone.
Before going to meet Mom at Nanny's house, where they were waiting for the mortician, I stopped at Starbucks to get her usual vanilla chai and a black coffee for Danny. When I got to the house, I had to park down the block, since most of the spaces had been taken by the cars belonging to the aunts and uncles who'd abandoned Mom and Danny.
I think Dad, Aidan, and I believed Mom would return to us after Nanny was in the ground—that we wouldn't be bound by the threat of needing to be on call. But she didn't.
Mom was a slave to Nanny's estate—putting the house on the market, coping with the mounting pressure from the siblings to get as much money as possible from potential buyers, and clearing out the house.
The house on Harvard Street was still on the market when June rolled around. When she wasn't on the phone with the estate lawyer, Mom was at Nanny's—cleaning and packing and crying.
On Saturdays, after walking to seven o'clock Mass, Mom would then head to the house on Harvard. I'd offered to help multiple times, but Mom insisted it was something she needed to do herself. Except for this Saturday.
* * *
"Can you believe it?" Mom sighed. "I remember when Emma was just a peanut, and now she's about to graduate from high school. Where does the time go?"
"When did she ask you to go?"
"I don't know—maybe a few weeks ago?"
"Let me get this straight—Emma asked you to come to her graduation a few weeks ago, you said yes and put it on the calendar, and YET we can't go get our nails done this weekend?"
"Rowan, you're twenty-three years old. You need to grow up and stop being so jealous of a seventeen-year-old girl."
"Yeah? A seventeen-year-old girl my own mother would rather spend time with than me?"
"Rowan, that is not true."
"Yes it is!" I half laughed, half screamed, pointing at Emma's name. "She's on this calendar, isn't she? You're going to be there, aren't you?"
"What is the problem, Rowan?"
I paced back and forth in front of our kitchen table, glaring at Mom as she dunked her Lipton tea bag in and out of her mug.
"My problem? My problem is she's seventeen fucking years old and she still comes here all the time! She doesn't need you anymore!"
"Why does it bother you so much?"
"Because I need you!"
"You?" Mom laughed. "You've made it clear you don't need me for anything, Rowan."
I wanted to tell her I was sorry. Sorry for running away, sorry for telling friends to keep my whereabouts from her, sorry for not wanting the love she had given so freely in those early days. I wanted to tell her where I'd been and what I'd done. I wanted to tell her I was scared. I wanted to tell her where it hurt because everything always seemed to feel better once she touched it. But I didn't.
Instead, I climbed two flights of stairs to the attic, opened my computer, and began searching through the Casual Encounters for reprieve.
* * *
In the armpit of Valley Stream—before Long Island becomes Queens—The Stoner shared an illegal basement apartment with three men I never saw. He was slim, unemployed, and had a set of angel wings tattooed across his back. I'd cling to them while we fucked, hoping to take them for my own.
On nights The Stoner was unavailable, I slept with a separated lawyer from Wantagh, although his wife still had makeup and jewelry and clothes at their ranch off NY 135. When leaving, I'd have to cover my nose as the stench of seaweed wafted up from South Oyster Bay at low tide.
There was a grad student from Hofstra who once sprung for a motel when Dave was busy with clients, but usually insisted we do it in his car between classes. The last time we fucked, he offered me $300 to write his constitutional law paper and laughed when I asked why he had money for his paper but not a motel. "Honestly," he said, "no pussy is worth $300."
The farthest east I ever drove was to Huntington Station. He was an army vet with yellow teeth and American flag tatto
os. I let him fuck me in the ass, and didn't tell him to stop when he turned me over and finished inside me. Two days later, Dr. Sherwin wrote me a prescription for Terazol 3.
Mom didn't question the tube of vaginal cream in my bathroom when she was looking for nail polish remover. She didn't wonder about why I came home smelling of weed and Domino's on days I spent with The Stoner.
And it was for this reason I blamed her. I blamed her for not holding me down, shining a light in my eyes, and demanding to know the truth about where I was going and what I was doing.
I blamed them all.
I blamed Cole for leaving me. I blamed the men from Casual Encounters for answering my messages. I blamed Valentina for not shaking me and saying, "Rowan, you don't have to do this!"
But mostly I blamed Mom. In my youth, I thought Mom had a network of spies reporting my movements back to her. How else could she discover I'd deceived her? But by twenty-four, I knew what all daughters eventually come to know: mothers know everything.
I blamed her for being able to expose my teenage lies, for being able to sense when I'd sneaked out of the house, for knowing my soul and my heart. I blamed her for not seeing my pain, not understanding she was simply trying to survive her own.
Chapter Twelve
* * *
Sylvia shuffles papers together and stacks them on the table before looking at me. "Rowan, are you sure you want to proceed with the evidence collection?"
"Yes," I say. I need to know what's living inside me.
"Okay," she says, squeezing my hand.
She opens the cabinet above the sink, and I see a wall of white boxes. On each of the boxes, in bold blue writing, are the words: SEXUAL ASSAULT EVIDENCE COLLECTION KIT.
First, I open my mouth, so the cotton swabs can go around the inside, over my gums, along my cheeks, under my tongue. Next, I stand on a paper towel the size of a bath mat, and undress. Sylvia is looking for debris, hair . . . answers.
* * *
Men who aren't getting laid love you in a different way than men who are. They have one goal—to make your pussy return their love—and they will do anything to achieve it. They send e-mails detailing how their love will be proven. They send texts and make calls to ensure you know your snatch is loved and missed. They think about it in meetings, at their dinner tables . . . walking their daughters down the aisle. They'll never leave you.
The man I met before I came to see Sylvia was old enough to be my father. The possibility of actually meeting my father on one of these encounters had plagued me many times, but that fear wasn't enough to stop me.
"Hey, what room are you in?" I asked, pulling into the Hostway's parking lot.
"I'm almost there."
"I'm already in the parking lot," I complained.
"Relax, baby—don't be nervous. I'm going to make you feel so good. I'll be there soon."
I considered my options: Dave had his daughter this weekend, the married guy from Merrick was in California, and I hadn't heard from The Stoner in two weeks.
This guy didn't sound sexy. In fact, he sounded like a fucking perv.
"Fine, just text me the room number when you're here," I said, hanging up before he could answer. I didn't get nervous anymore.
* * *
By the time I'd agreed to meet The Perv, I no longer needed the GPS to get to the Hostway. I knew to make a right before the blue awning with white type, and to park my car in the back. I knew to expect the receptionist to be a bitch.
"Honey, you either gotta pay for a room or get movin'. You can't be fishin' out here," she said, one leg in the office, one leg outside.
"Excuse me?" I replied.
"You can't be sellin' your cooch out here, so either pay for a room or get lost before I call the cops," she said, less friendly.
She looked too old to be using the word "cooch"—a Virginia Slim 100 permanently attached to the corner of her crooked mouth, her hair the kind of red women flock to when they're trying to maintain the illusion of younger years. If she'd been thin, it was grandkids, three robberies, and countless whores ago.
"I'm not selling my cooch," I snapped. "I'm waiting for someone."
"Well, you can wait in your car unless you pay for a room, then you can wait in here. Until then, get your ass out of my peripheral."
* * *
The Perv knocked on the window of my Camry twenty minutes later. He looked like the kind of guy who is into weird shit and sweats too much. I hated him.
"Well," he said, licking his teeth, "aren't you a slice?"
"Did you get the room?"
"Slow down, baby," he said, eyeing me up and down. "Daddy just got here."
"Look, do you want to do this or not? I don't have time for this shit if you don't."
"Oh, you're a naughty girl, aren't you? Yes, I'm going to give you a spanking you won't ever forget."
He licked his dirty teeth as he backed away, and almost tripped over the concrete bumper block before turning toward the reception booth. I was disgusted by the way his socks fully extended up his calves, leaving only a few inches between them and the ends of his coral khaki shorts. The back of his blue shirt read, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and was completely tucked in. I imagined he and his wife purchased matching T-shirts on their Hail Mary pass to stave off divorce.
I checked the rearview to see him walking back toward the car, and I got out.
"Can you believe this place doesn't take American Express?" he said, fiddling with the room key. "I tell you, I've traveled all over the country, and every hotel—"
"This isn't a hotel and I don't care where you've been. What room are we in?"
"All business, I like that." He brought me into him, and pushed his tongue through my lips. It explored my mouth anxiously before emerging to lick the surrounding area.
The room smelled of Febreze. I undressed and began helping him do the same. He spun me around, bent me over, and thrust into me. Married men prefer it this way. Perhaps it's because their wives only let them do missionary, or because it's easier to imagine someone else.
Suddenly, he stopped. He closed the bathroom door behind him and ran the water. When he came out, he assured me he'd be ready to go in a few minutes. He fell to his knees and put his face between my legs.
"Do you like the way Daddy eats pussy?"
I noticed the clear plastic cups next to the ice bucket had just begun sweating. The TV screen was black, but I could tell it was on. His wedding band sat beside the remote on the coffee table.
I now became very aware that I'd found the man between my legs on Craigslist's Casual Encounters. I became aware he paid for this dirty motel room at an hourly rate so he could fuck a woman who was not his wife. I became aware that I couldn't remember all the men I'd been with and where I'd been with them. I became aware that there'd always be a new man, and never the same one.
I snatched my dress from the floor and pulled it over my head after I'd closed the door behind me. I hit the gas too hard, and my tires screeched as I peeled out of the parking lot.
I couldn't tell if my skin itched or if my left hand was simply looking for something to do. I scratched and scratched until the skin of my arm began to flake, and I was convinced there was something wrong with me. It wasn't the Febreze or the sheets or the man—I was sick. Some terrible disease was making its way through my bloodstream—growing stronger, killing me faster. I needed help.
So I went to the emergency room of North Shore–LIJ Hospital . . . for a cure.
* * *
I watch as Sylvia puts my shirt, my pants, my underwear into plastic bags and seals them. She uses a UV light to search my body, and gets more cotton swabs to harvest the secretions. She scrapes under my fingernails, combs my pubic hair, doesn't fight me when I decline an anal examination.
I place my feet in stirrups, scoot down on the table, and wince as she inserts a speculum. Sylvia apologizes as she scrapes inside me with more cotton swabs.
"You did great, Rowan," she says, ru
bbing my arm. She thinks I'm brave, but I'm not.
The phone rings and Sylvia answers. "The patient has an abrasion on the left vaginal wall at the anterior portion with a small amount of serosanguineous drainage. No, I don't think that's necessary. Yes, will do." After she hangs up, she turns to me and says, "This is the hard part, Rowan. I'm going to take some blood and I'm going to need you to give me a urine sample."
"That doesn't sound too hard."
Sylvia laughs a real laugh. "No, no—it's not that hard. The hard part is the waiting. Results can take up to two weeks sometimes. But don't worry. We're going to do a full work-up on you and then we're going to go over some things. Okay? You with me?"
"Yes," I say. I am with her.
"Now, I do have to tell you that we are going to have to do a tox screen on your blood. I don't want you to be scared, though. We're just checking to see if your assailant administered any drugs so that we can give you proper treatment."
"Okay."
Sylvia labels the vials of my blood for the lab, and waits for me to pee in a plastic cup. I know we're not going to find what we're looking for. When I come out and hand her the cup, she asks me to sit on the exam table again and rolls a tray toward me.
"Azithromycin to prevent chlamydia, ceftriaxone to prevent gonorrhea, metronidazole to prevent trichomoniasis. Next, Choice to prevent pregnancy—another pill in twelve hours. Combivir for HIV exposure, along with Viread, also for HIV exposure. Zofran for nausea."
I'm not listening, and she knows it. I take pill after pill, but some are so large and I find myself spitting up water and choking on chalky capsules. Sylvia tells me to fill my mouth with water, swoosh it around so the pill gets lost in it, and swallow. It's not working, and we take a break.
Sylvia places the plastic bags containing my swabs and secretions and clothing into the box, and places red tape on the bottom and the top. It reads, SECURITY SEAL—DO NOT TAMPER.
Inconvenient Daughter Page 17