by Rosa Sophia
I’m in the kitchen when I hear the loud noises, the motor of the boat rumbling, the music blaring as the neighbors return from their excursion. It’s around nine or ten, so maybe they’re picking something up from the condo downstairs—more alcohol perhaps. I don’t have anyone to party with, or maybe I’d be somewhere drinking a beer or a shot.
I’m making a sandwich when I hear my mother shrieking, and I turn to see her shadowy form briefly illuminated by lights from the outdoors, fireworks blasting beyond her like exploding stars.
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” She’s screeching down to the boaters as she leans over the railing.
I cringe. She’s done this before. She hates them, and how they have no respect for their neighbors, coming home at all hours and playing the radio so loud it shakes the windows. But what she does is just as bad, and I feel more humiliated than ever, my heart pounding as I grow small, recalling similar incidents from my childhood when I tried to protect her from herself.
I drop what I’m doing and walk across the living room.
“Don’t you hear me? Shut the fuck up!”
On the balcony, I grab her arm, gentle, trying to coax her back in. “Mom—”
“Get the hell off me!”
“Mom, stop screaming at them, they can’t even hear you!” I yell over the music.
“These assholes won’t shut up!” She shouts in my face, her breath heavy with liquor.
“You’re only making it worse, Mom.” I put my arm around her to get her back inside, but she shoves me away.
“Stop it! What do I look like to you, a child?” She nearly trips on the chair beside her, and I reach out to steady her, which only makes her angrier. She shoves me, I stumble against the glass door, and it shudders with my weight.
My whole body heats up, and tears well in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. For many years we’ve played this game, as I try to keep her from humiliating herself—to keep her from embarrassing me—but nothing does any good, and nothing ever changes. I clench my hands into fists, remembering how I broke through my flesh at the race, blood trickling along my palms. I want to bleed now, to let go of this pain, and it’s moments like this I envision myself sinking into the water below, finding the peacefulness of death, residing forever at the silted bottom where all is quiet.
This isn’t like me. I’m a good, happy person—or I used to be. But living with her, I can’t reach my full potential, and I know it.
North Carolina. I have to get out of here.
She’s yelling again, but this time the music is off, and they’re unloading the boat.
“Don’t you have any goddamn respect for anyone? What’s wrong with you?” She brandishes a finger at them, pointing over the railing, and they stare up at her—three men and two women—with bemused expressions on their faces. Every time they try to defend themselves, she shouts over them. “Just shut the fuck up, get your shit out of here, I don’t want to hear this...”
“Mom! Stop!”
“Oh my God, I can’t take this anymore!” She throws her fists in the air, then drags her broken fingernails through her hair and stomps off the balcony, through the living room, and to her bedroom.
I lean over the railing and see three people looking up at me, raising their shoulders, waiting for an explanation. The other two have wandered off. I make a motion like someone drinking from a bottle, then twirl my index finger around my ear.
“I’m sorry,” I call down to them.
The blonde in Daisy Dukes waves a small hand. “It’s okay. I know what it’s like. My dad’s that way.”
The guys say goodnight, and one of them even says good luck. When they’ve gone inside, I trudge off the balcony and shut the sliding glass doors. I wonder what they think of me, then I remind myself of Wes’s advice.
But you have to remember it’s not your fault, and no one is going to blame you for her behavior.
I walk through the darkened hallway. It’s getting late, nearly ten-thirty now.
I wonder if it’s fate that my mother drinks, or if it’s fate that she’ll never quit. Will she die of alcohol poisoning? Will I have to bury my mother knowing she was never able to heal, never able to let go of her childhood abuse? The thought makes me shudder. I know how the rape affected me, but I try to work through it, and I never find solace at the bottom of a bottle, just a sour stomach and a hangover.
Not worth it. Even if it makes the pain go away just a little bit. Nothing is worth this.
As I near my bedroom door, she opens her own door and leans against the frame, one foot in the room and the other in the hallway. She glares at me.
“What, Mom?” The exhaustion causes me to slump my shoulders.
“You were talking to them.” Her hair is messy, the wrinkles on her face seem deeper somehow, and the thin strap of her sundress is hanging off her shoulder, exposing half her breast. I move to correct it, but she slaps my hand away. “Were you talking about me? What do you think I am, some useless drunk, is that what you think? I just like to enjoy myself, Nina, and I don’t need you talking about me behind my back, treating me like shit.”
“Mom, I didn’t, I wouldn’t do that—”
“Shut up and listen to me.” She steps out of her room and into the hall. I back against the wall behind me. Pointing toward the balcony, she snaps, “Those people think what they think of me because of you. You manipulate them, make them think you’re something special, make them think there’s something wrong with me. I know. You don’t fool me.”
“That’s not true, Mom, and even if it was, what about you?”
“What are you saying?”
I think of the rape. I always think of it when Mom and I fight. I want to know why. Even though my body is trembling, my chest is tightening, and a cold sweat is crawling across my body, I have to know.
“You remember when I was fifteen, and I had that date, and you let him into the house, and he raped me?” I bite at my lip, dig my fingernails into my palms, my entire body shaking. “I want to know one thing. Why didn’t you stop him? You were drunk in the next room, Mom. Why didn’t you do something? Why’d you let him into our house?”
She turns on me, jabbing her finger, anger etched into her features. “I trusted you,” she growls.
“Stop it!” I shout, on the verge of tears. I can’t hold it back anymore. I can’t handle this. I feel like I can’t breathe, and my throat is tightening up, my skin clammy.
“You’re a liar!” She grabs at my wrists, shoving me roughly against the wall, and even though she’s small and skinny, this hurts me—not physically, but it hurts my heart and soul; it cuts me to my core.
I don’t know what’s happening to me now, my body quakes, I’m heaving, and I shove her back and shriek, “Don’t do that, don’t touch me like that!” and I’m wrapping my arms around my body as I shudder, pushing against the wall. I wish it would give, I wish the building would suck me down, down into the earth.
Panic.
I run for the kitchen. I’m wearing my pajamas—light green and white with a matching long-sleeved top—and I grab my keys, jacket, and cell phone, and suddenly I’m putting on my flip-flops, but part of me doesn’t really know what I’m doing.
“Where are you going?” my mother snaps, and I pick up a hint of worry in her voice, as if she’s afraid I’m going to leave and never come back.
My voice trembles. “I...I can’t handle this right now, I can’t do this right now, I have to leave.”
“You’re a goddamn coward, always running away!” She turns and stomps back to her room, where she slams the door behind her, and I rush out the front, letting it shut loudly behind me. I race to my car, not even thinking, not even knowing where I’m going.
Slam. The door shuts and I’m inside, and I’m breathing heavily, and suddenly I know I’m having a panic attack.
Calm, calm, I tell myself, but it doesn’t work.
It takes a long time. I sit there in the dark, just trying to breathe,
and after a while, once I finish crying, I am quiet, and everything around me is perfectly still.
Silence.
I put the key in the ignition, place the car in gear, and drive.
Chapter 9
My favorite place, Juno Beach. That’s where I’m headed now, my headlights piercing the darkness as I weep. My eyes blurry, I shift into the next lane, and a car horn blares behind me before the vehicle speeds around me, and I curse myself for narrowly missing him because my tears are blinding me.
This isn’t like me.
I chose to move to North Carolina because I knew I had to get away from my mother. Her sickness is poisoning me, and it’s only a matter of time before I crack, before I lose it. I hit bottom tonight, and I’m slowing as I reach the intersection of Donald Ross and U.S. 1. I make a right, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. The ocean is ahead. I need mother ocean to cleanse me, to take away this darkness.
Holiday lights glimmer from the condos, and I wish I could have set up a tree at home, but my mother wouldn’t let me make a mess in the living room. The living room I help pay for.
I tighten my hands on the steering wheel, feeling the hurt turn to anger, and I want to scream. I think of Jenny. I could stay at her house tonight, but she still lives with her parents, and I’m too ashamed to let them see me this way. This isn’t the first time I’ve driven off with no destination, exhausted with nowhere to sleep.
I pull over somewhere along the road near Juno Beach Ocean Park and kill the engine. New Year’s Eve. There are a lot of cars here, and I see some shadows moving in the dark. I know they can’t light fireworks on the beach, so I picture them making love in the sand, groaning under the dark sky, legs lifted in the air. It’s a new moon, and when the headlights are off, I can’t see a thing.
I consider getting out of my car and wandering down to the surf, but I’m too tired, and my body aches. Instead I pick up the phone and access my contacts, taking a chance, calling the first person I think of, and remembering how Jenny warned me to be careful because you don’t know him that well.
It rings five times, and I consider hanging up, because he’s probably at a party. Just as I start to think I should leave him be, because he hardly knows me and it’s not fair to call him at a time like this, he answers.
“Nina, what’s up?” He seems happy, his voice edged with laughter, and it sounds as if he’s driving.
“Um...I...”
“Nina, are you okay?”
“I don’t mean to bother you. You’re probably headed to a party or something.”
“Yeah, but that’s okay. What’s up?”
“I left my house, I just couldn’t handle it anymore.”
“Your mom?”
“Yeah.” I tug at the fabric around my steering wheel, watch two shadows emerge from the beach entrance nearest my car.
“Are you okay, though?”
“Yeah, I just needed someone to talk to.”
“That’s all right. You can talk to me anytime. I hope you have somewhere to stay. Your friend Jenny’s house?”
I think of Jenny’s father, the ex-Mayor of North Palm Beach, and Jenny’s mother, who always reminds me of June from Leave it to Beaver. I couldn’t go there late at night, looking like this. Glancing at my watch, I notice it’s after eleven.
“I, uh…no. I don’t really have anywhere to go. I’ll just stay where I am a while.” As I’m talking, I’m stretching toward the back seat, tugging my pillow and blanket to the front of the car. It’s not the first time I’ve slept in my car, and it won’t be the last.
“Where are you?” Wes asks.
“Just along the ocean in Juno Beach.”
“You parked on the side of the road? You’re not going to sleep there, are you?”
I recline my seat and lean back against the pillow, tugging the blanket over me. “I’m exhausted. I need to sleep. I’ve slept here before, it’s no big deal.” I thought he would understand, and I realize I’m annoyed he sounds shocked.
“In your car?”
“Yeah.”
“Can’t you go home?”
“I know what’ll happen if I go home. My mom will start on me again, unless she’s passed out. But usually it takes her a while, especially if she’s fired up. I’d rather wait until morning to deal with her, when she’s sober. By then she’ll forget everything anyway.” For a moment, the line’s quiet, and I start to think he hung up or my phone died. “Wes? Wes, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Oh, I thought I lost signal or something.”
“Do me a favor.”
“Yeah?”
“Lock your doors.”
“Of course. I always do when I spend the night here.”
“I’ll see you, Nina. Take care, okay?”
“I will. Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime.”
The line goes dead, and I’m a little upset he hadn’t been able to talk longer, but I know he’s on his way somewhere and he’s busy. In a moment, it doesn’t matter anymore, and I’m leaning back, my eyes shut as I drift into dreaming.
There’s nowhere I’d rather be than at the beach.
***
I’m in a dark place, and I see myself wandering through hallways, unable to find a way out. It’s an old house, decrepit, falling apart. I remember a psychic telling me once that dreaming of a house is like dreaming of your soul. The house is your spirit. If this place was a part of me, it was dismal and broken, and I needed to fix it.
I hear someone knock at the door. I’m stepping down the stairs and they’re creaking beneath my weight, and my hand is on the dusty railing. Suddenly I think there’s a rapist there, at the front door, and he’s going to come in and take what he wants, destroy me from the inside out, the same way I was taken when I was fifteen, naïve and unprepared. Terrified, I don’t want to know who’s there, I don’t want to answer the door. But the knocking becomes louder, more insistent, and I blink, the room blurring and—
I open my eyes. I see darkness, the yellowish glare of a distant, weak street lamp shining down on my car. With a little effort, I remember where I am. Then I hear the knocking again, and I look over and gasp, almost scream, then clap my hand over my heart. Rubbing my eyes, I sit up, then roll down the window.
“Wes, you scared the shit out of me.” I pause, looking up at him. “What are you doing here? What time is it?”
He leans on the door, peering in at me. “It’s about two-thirty in the morning. Did you really think I was going to let you spend the entire night on a street somewhere?”
“It’s Juno Beach, Wes, it’s safe. And you drove all the way here from—”
“Never mind that.” He nods ahead to a car in front of mine, its lights on. I realize it is his. “Get ready to drive and follow me, okay?”
“Where are we going?”
“A hotel, where you can get some good rest.”
“A hotel at this hour? They aren’t open.” My voice is weak, groggy.
“I know the night manager at the Seabreeze down the street in Jupiter. I called him right after I talked to you earlier, and I booked a room and paid over the phone. It’s waiting for you.”
“What? Wes, you hardly—”
“Don’t.” He reaches in the window and takes my hand, gently caressing my fingers. “I might’ve just met you, but I feel like I’ve known you a long time, Nina. You’re special to me. And I’m not going to let you sleep in your car. I have plenty of money, remember? Now, come on. I’m going to get in my car, and you follow me.”
“Okay, Wes,” I agree, feeling a little silly, a little childish. I want to yell, to snap at him, to say don’t tell me what to do, but at the same time I keep picturing a soft bed, with comfortable blankets, and pillows that smell fresh and airy.
I watch him walk back to his car and climb in, and when he pulls out into the empty street, I hurriedly start my car and follow, pillow and blanket shoved onto the passenger seat.
I ke
ep thinking, What am I doing? I’m going to a hotel with a man I’ve only known for two weeks. As I drive along the winding road, past Carlin Park, I feel as though I’m floating in the night sky, and every one of my senses is heightened, giving me the distinct impression I’ve done all this before.
I remembered my dream. I had done all this before.
The hotel. I’d been in a hotel in my dream. And here I was, repeating the past. I think of the dream where Wes was driving, and we crashed, and I think of him telling me, It’s fate, Nina, but I still don’t want to believe it.
The narrow road that leads to the hotel is lit with white lights and Christmas decorations, and I follow Wes’s car into the lot across from the main entrance, parking beside him. When I climb out and lock my doors, tucking my keys and wallet into my pocket, he comes to me and wraps his arms around me, holding me close. He has something in his hand in a paper bag, and I feel it against my back.
“I’m sorry for everything you’ve gone through,” he says.
“It’s okay. I know life will get better soon,” I assure him. “It’s just not easy living with her.”
He releases me, looking into my eyes under the bright lights in the parking lot. “I know. My parents are just distant. They don’t understand me. They drink, but they never get crazy. I can’t imagine what it’s like living with someone who’s abusive.”
We start walking toward the front entrance to the hotel. I shake my head. “Mom’s not abusive.”
“I thought you said she screams at you when she’s drunk and insults you?”
“Yeah, but she’s not abusive.”
“Babe, you’re in denial.”
I shiver, but it’s not because I’m cold. He just called me babe, and I realize I like it. Something about this man drives me crazy.
Then I think about my mother shoving me against the wall, and the sliding glass doors, and the way she grabs me in anger and yells in my face.