“Garrett, he’s her father. He has a right to see her if he wants to.”
Just then Corbin came downstairs. “Hello, Mr. Thompson,” he said to Joel. I yanked my arm free of my mother’s grasp and stormed back toward the living room. Joel stood up and shook hands with my stepfather.
“Wait a minute. Even Corbin knew about this?”
“Baby, just calm down. We’re trying to figure out what’s best for our family.”
“What’s best for our family is if he stays the hell away from it,” I yelled as I pointed to the evil monstrosity that had just reentered our lives. Both Corbin and Joel looked at me. Corbin with concern, Joel with disdain. Then Joel smiled again while taking a cigarette out of his pocket.
When he reached for his lighter, Corbin said, “There’s no smoking in here, Mr. Thompson.” Joel ignored him and stared directly at me as he flicked on his lighter.
Corbin ran his fingers through his recently highlighted hair as his faced flushed with embarrassment that he had been so directly defied, but there was nothing he could do. Even if Joel didn’t have three inches and 50 pounds on him, Corbin was just not the fighting type. Corbin looked more appropriate picking out a wine for dinner or helping my mother decide which necklace brought out her eyes. That’s not to say I didn’t respect Corbin. He treated my mother well and he provided for us in a way that no other man had. But he wasn’t a protector. That, once again, was my job.
“You heard him, Joel. No smoking,” I said as I stepped out of the kitchen into the living area and folded my arms with intimidation. Only the couch separated us. And with one quick move, I could grab him. Uncertainty flashed in Joel’s eyes. I could tell he didn’t want to push me too far, but he also didn’t want to back down. We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity.
Finally, Joel flicked off the lighter and said, “Look, I don’t want any problems. I just think I should be allowed to see my daughter.” Joel returned the lighter to his pocket, but kept the cigarette between his fingers.
“That’s what we’re gonna try to figure out, Joel,” my mother said as she stood next to me and rubbed my back trying to calm me. “We’re going to come up with something that’s fair.”
“What’s fair is if I get half the money. She has half my genes. I think I deserve half her money.”
“What money?” Corbin and Holly said almost in unison.
“All that money she’s making posing in them pictures. I seen her just the other day in some magazine.”
So all he wanted was money. He didn’t care about Eden in the least. Of course I knew that. Joel wasn’t physically capable of caring about anyone. I had no idea what my mother ever saw in him.
I glared at Corbin. I knew no good would come from Eden becoming a model. Having her picture plastered in magazines only brought her cretin of a father back into her life.
The shock of Joel’s callousness and greed left my mother and Corbin momentarily speechless as he added, “I got me a lawyer and he says I’m entitled to the money.”
"Mr. Thompson, there is no money. She just did a favor for me and posed for a couple of layouts,” Corbin said still standing in the exact same place he had when he entered the living room. He had a hard time hiding his obvious fear of Joel.
“Well, then I’ll take her someplace where she can make some real money. My lawyer says I’m entitled to that too.”
“You’re not getting anything, Joel, so just get the hell out!” I yelled.
“Goddamn it, Garrett, calm down and let me handle things for once. I’m the parent and you’re the child. I can take care of it,” my mother said obviously frustrated. It was a tense situation. I could feel everyone’s anxiety rising. I knew I should have walked away, but if I did, I knew nothing would happen. Or worse, Eden would end up with Joel. Even a little time alone with that man was too much for me to imagine. My mind flashed to all the things Joel could possible do to exploit my sister and try to make money off of her. I wouldn’t let that happen.
I turned to my mother and ignoring my better judgment, I said, “Oh, so you suddenly want to be a parent, Holly? Why don’t you take a look at what happened the last time you ‘handled things’?” I ripped open my shirt and exposed my scars. I don’t know what made me do it then. Maybe I wanted to show just what sort of a monster Joel was. There was no way my mother would let Eden go with him if she knew what he had done to me.
Or maybe I was just hurting so bad inside that I wanted someone else to share my despair. My poor mother was an easy target.
“Oh dear God,” my mother gasped as she hid her face in her hands.
“Don’t hide from it, Holly. Look at what he did to me. Look at what you let happen!”
Corbin came over and embraced my mother as she started crying. “Who did this to you?” he asked.
“Why don’t you ask him?” I responded, indicating Joel.
“What?” Joel said feigning innocence. “You can’t prove that. Your psycho kid is just trying to distract you from the fact that I have rights. My lawyer says I have a shot at getting full custody once I show what a head case her brother is and what a slut her mother is.”
I couldn’t hold back any longer. My mother and I had problems, but no one called her a slut. And as for him getting custody of Eden, well, he would die right now at my hands before I’d let that happen. With that I leaped over the couch and tackled him getting into my third fight in one day. Joel howled in pain as he fell backwards over the coffee table and his head slammed into the edge of it. He rebounded by grabbing my collar then slamming his fist into the side of my face.
My mother begged us to stop as we began rolling around the floor, but this fight had been five years overdue and I knew it wouldn’t stop until one of us was dead.
I grabbed Joel’s ear and banged his head into the floor repeatedly. When my hand lost its grip on his blood soaked ear, he took the opportunity to kick me in the stomach and send me reeling backwards. He scrambled to his feet, jumped on top of me and continued his assault on my face.
He was beating me unconscious. I felt myself slipping away. I looked over and saw my mother crying and heard her yelling at the top of her lungs. My eyes then searched for Corbin, but he was nowhere to be found. If I died, who would protect her?
My mother found a broom and started hitting Joel in the back with it, but he ignored her like she was some sort of inconsequential fly and continued to beat me.
I gathered the last bit of strength I had, reached through Joel’s arms and gripped his neck. He tried to scratch my hands away, but my fingers were securely locked around his windpipe squeezing the life out of him. His eyes bulged as he gasped for air.
A sudden silence fell upon the room. A stark contrast to the sounds of screams and hitting that prevailed just seconds before. Now all I could hear was the sound of Joel choking.
My mother dropped the broom. “Garrett don’t,” she said with an eerie calmness. She knew what I wanted to do. She saw it in my eyes. “Don’t do this, baby. Let him go.” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him go. If I let him go, that would mean I forgave him for what he did to me. I still remember his eyes the day he took that cigarette and used me for a human ashtray. Anyone that would do that to a child deserved this.
I had just resolved in my mind to kill him right then and there when, with a final burst of energy, Joel reached into his pocket and pulled out some silver object. A flood of pain in my side caused my grip around his neck to loosen.
My mother let out a scream so filled with horror and pain that at first I thought something had happened to her. She knelt beside me and placed my head in her lap just as Joel lifted a knife drenched with blood into the air. I wondered whose blood was on that knife. My mother’s hysterics made me think it was hers, but that wasn’t possible. She had been standing behind him.
“Drop it, Joel,” Corbin said as he stood over him holding a gun. Joel dropped the knife and backed away.
When did Corbin get a gun? And why d
idn’t I know about it? I wondered what other things went on in this house that had escaped my attention. I had been so wrapped up in Maddie that I probably hadn’t noticed a lot of things.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him. It was self defense. He was gonna kill me. You saw it. He was gonna kill me. That kid is a psycho.” Joel stood up slowly while coughing and rubbing his neck. He didn’t take his eyes off of the gun pointed at his face.
Corbin’s hand shook as he told Joel to sit in the kitchen and not move until the police arrived.
I tried to stand, but my mother told me to lie down until the ambulance came. Ambulance? Why would I need an ambulance? Then I remembered the pain in my side. I looked down and saw the blood gushing out.
Chapter 19: Sisterly Love
“I feel like I’m ruining your life,” Eden said as she stood in the doorway of my bedroom. I blinked away the grogginess and pushed myself up into a sitting position ignoring the pain. Even with the multitude of pain killers, I still felt like my side was ripping open. The blade hadn’t hit any major organs so the doctors just stitched me up and sent me home. They were more concerned about the contusions on my face and head and the concussion I suffered than the stab wound itself. The first night home from the hospital, my mother stayed in my room waking me up every two hours to make sure I didn’t slip into a coma. I told her this wasn’t necessary. If the doctors sent me home I must be fine, but she refused to leave my side.
I’d been in bed ever since the incident with Joel and only ventured out for the Thanksgiving dinner my mother and Corbin had prepared. It was a somber occasion filled with guilt and long silences.
“What are you talking about?” I asked as Eden came over to the bed and checked my bandage.
“Do you want me to change it for you? Cause I can. Do you want some water or something? Are you hungry? I think there’s some leftover turkey.”
“That’s okay. I’m fine.”
Eden sat next to me on the bed. “I feel like this is my fault and I want to make it better.”
“Eden, it’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.” I pulled her to me and hugged her as she started crying.
“First, I chase away Maddie, the only girl you’ve ever loved. Then my father tries to kill you. You must hate me, right? You hate me, don’t you?”
“I could never hate you. I love you more than anything in the world. Do you believe that?” She nodded while still wetting my t-shirt with tears.
“But you still love Maddie, too?” she asked as she pushed away a little and looked into my eyes. I sighed and struggled to find the right words to say. It had been less than a week since I last spoke to Maddie, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Our worlds were so far apart nothing was capable of bridging them together.
At first I avoided any mention of her or her father’s name in the news, but lately, for lack of anything else to do, I had become obsessed with following the campaign trail. I knew every scheduled TV appearance and interview for Senator McPhee for the next two months. I didn’t have any pictures of Maddie, so I looked forward to every opportunity to possibly see her face. It was pathetic, I know. And I hated myself for being so in love with her. For as long as I could remember, I’d tried my best to control my life, to protect myself and my family from any kind of pain. But I couldn’t control this pain.
“Yeah, I still love her,” I admitted guiltily. “But she doesn’t love me. You had nothing to do with us breaking up.”
“Well, I’m gonna get you back together. I’m gonna fix it. I am.” Eden wiped the tears away from her eyes with new found determination. A sparkle returned to her eyes that I hadn’t seen for weeks. I didn’t feel like breaking her spirit and telling her it wasn’t possible.
Under the circumstances, my father allowed me to miss a visitation with him the next Saturday. He said we’d pick up our game of chess in a few weeks. I was fine with that. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t even want to leave the house. Both my mother and Eden were afraid that I was falling into a depression. They did whatever they could to cheer me up, but nothing worked. I stayed in bed staring at the television like a vegetable refusing to write poetry or study the dictionary like I used to.
I even refused to go to school. I didn’t want to have to explain where all the bruises on my face came from. Eden brought my work home to me every day and I was able to stay on task.
She also got in the habit of hanging out in my room for hours after school. I didn’t mind. I liked having her around, but I kind of felt I was a bad influence on her. I thought she should be out living her life instead of watching me wallow in self pity.
“Why don’t you go to the studio with Corbin? I’m sure he could use your help with something,” I suggested one afternoon. Eden shrugged and continued to stare at the TV.
“Richard doesn’t think it’s a good idea that I spend so much time with Corbin,” she said after a moment.
“What does Richard have to do with any of this?” I asked, sitting up in bed a little. He obviously hadn’t learned anything from the physical altercation we’d had.
Eden didn’t respond at first. She dipped her apple slice into the bowl of purple dyed Cool Whip that sat in her lap. When she was little, she always wanted me to dye food to her favorite color purple before she would eat it. She thought it made the food prettier, thus more edible. She hadn’t done it in years, but recently I’d noticed that many of the concoctions she brought me to eat or drink had a purple tinge to them.
Eden sucked the Cool Whip off the apple slice then said, “After you got stabbed, I was so depressed that I started seeing Richard more often. Just about every day. I needed someone to talk to.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me or mother?”
“You’re recovering. I didn’t want to bother you. And mom…well, she’s too concerned about you to care about what’s happening to me.”
“That’s not true.”
Eden shrugged. “Anyway, Richard thinks I need more friends my own age and that all the time I’ve been spending with models and stuff isn’t good for my self-image. He doesn’t want me to grow up too fast. He thinks that’s part of your problem. You never got to be a kid.”
“My problem? What does he know about my problems? He is my problem.” I lay down in the bed at stared up at the ceiling. Where did he get off telling my sister how to live her life? He had no clue what was best for her. I’m the one that knew what she needed and how to make her feel better. “Have you written any poems recently?” I asked.
“No,” she replied simply.
“Well, why don’t you go do that?”
“I’d rather just stay here with you,” she said. Then she looked at me with her big brown-green eyes. Her eyes were pleading. Pleading for what, I couldn’t tell.
I began to lose track of time. One day melded into the next with complete monotony. My bruises looked better, but were still noticeable. The stab wound only hurt to the touch. It wasn’t my physical ailments that kept me in bed. It was something else.
“Okay, get up,” Eden commanded one morning as she drew the blinds allowing the obnoxious sun to pour in. “Take a shower and put this on,” she said as she plopped some clothes on the bed.
“What? Why?” I asked. I sat up in bed and tried to avert my eyes from the sun.
“It’s your birthday and I have a big day planned.”
I sighed. “Eden, I appreciate the gesture, but I’m really not up to it.” I lay back down in the bed and said, “Besides, there’s an interview on C-SPAN that I really want to see today.”
Eden stared at me blankly for a moment visibly planning her next move, trying to think of something to say that would get me out of bed, something different than all the things she’d said in the past three weeks that didn’t work. Apparently, she couldn’t think of anything; instead, her lip began to quiver and a second later she burst into tears.
I jumped out of bed and held her in my arms. I hated seeing my sister cry.
“Nothing’s ri
ght. Everything’s wrong,” she said through the tears. “I just want to take my big brother out for his birthday. Please, Garrett. It would make me so happy. I’m so unhappy, Garrett. Don’t you want me to be happy?”
“Okay, Okay, Eden. We can go. I’m going to the shower right now.”
She calmed down a little and wiped away the tears with her fingertips.
“Can I brush your hair like I used to?” she said recovering from her outburst with little gasps for air.
“Sure,” I said. A small smile formed on her lips.
“You got him out,” my mother said excitedly to Eden as I entered the living room. I noticed a strange smell. I looked down and saw the brand new carpet. It went without saying why it had been installed. After two weeks of my mother scrubbing the carpet, the blood stains from the fight with Joel hadn’t completely come out. She must have just given up and had it replaced.
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