Kick, Push

by Jay McLean

  She pulls back, her hands on my cheeks but I can’t see her clearly. I can’t see anything through my tears and through the anger and the regret and the fucking pain. The fucking pain. It hurts so much.

  “Please, ma’am. Just tell me where she is so I can make it right. I can’t—”

  “Shhhh,” she coos, taking me in her arms again and leading me to the steps. She helps me to sit and I try to settle every single part of me. “She’s okay. She needs to do this—for herself.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s not your fault, Josh. I need you to understand that. Becca—she’s had a rough start to life. She’s experienced a lot of things that nobody should have to and it’s time for her to put herself first. To take care of her. She has the opportunity to do that now… and you—you have to let her do that.”

  I inhale deeply, and let it out forcefully. “The nightmares?” I ask, turning to her. “Is that—I mean, I knew there was something going on but—”

  She nods, cutting me off. Then she takes one of my hands in hers, the other pointing a finger in the air, asking me to wait. She takes a few breaths, trying to stay calm while tears build in her eyes. Her throat bobs with her swallow and I know that whatever she’s about to tell me will change everything.

  So I sit.

  And I wait.

  “When I was sixteen, I fell in love,” she says. “Twice. Once with a boy, my boyfriend at the time, and again with our son. A baby I held only once before handing him to the nurses so he could meet his adoptive parents.”

  “Chazarae…”

  She keeps her hand up, telling me she’s not done.

  “Things didn’t work out for the baby’s father and I. I guess the pregnancy and the child I’d given up had always plagued my mind. I thought about that little boy, more often than I should and while my boyfriend was out being a teenager and living his life completely carefree, I struggled to move on. Eventually I did, but I did it alone, without the boy I once loved so much. And that’s why, Josh. That’s why when I saw you at the store doing everything you could to be the best father you could be—I knew, deep in my heart, I had to help you. I had to do something to make up for my choices in life. I need you to know that I don’t want or expect anything from you. You’ve given me a family, and God has given me grace. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “I didn’t mean what I said, Chazarae. I owe you a thousand apologies, along with everyone else. I just lost it and I can’t take it back. I can’t take anything back.”

  “Hush now.” She squeezes my hand. “That’s not why I’m telling you this. I’m telling you because that boy—my son—he found me a few years ago and he contacted me. I felt like you did, like I needed him to forgive me, but he assured me there was nothing to forgive. You know better than anyone the sacrifices we make for those we love.” She pauses a beat, a shuddered breath escaping her. “He didn’t know about Becca. Not until it was too late.”

  “Too late? What does that mean?”

  “He told me he met Becca’s mother at a bar and they had a one-night stand. He works on an offshore oil rig, so it’s normal—this behavior… she tried to contact him so many times, but it wasn’t until Becca was born that he got back in contact with her. He says he thought she was crazy—the way she talked to him and the things she’d threaten to do if he didn’t marry her and take care of her. And he was positive he used protection so…” she trails off.

  “So?”

  “So he didn’t believe her, I guess, and I don’t blame him. After finding out what Becca’s mom was like—”

  “The car accident?”

  She nods. “I wasn’t sure if you knew about it,” she says, the surprise in her tone unmistakable.

  “All I know is she was in one and it damaged her throat.”

  She nods again, her eyes somewhere far away. “Becca was seventeen at the time and she didn’t have any other family. Child Protective Services contacted my son from Becca’s birth certificate but he couldn’t do much. He was offshore and he still wasn’t convinced she was his. Becca—she was at the tail end of her senior year and there was no one there to help her. Luckily, there was Olivia, who was able to work out a sort of temporary agreement with CPS once Becca was finally released from the hospital. Olivia took Becca into her home but it couldn’t be forever. She’d been accepted to college in St. Louis and it was important for everyone who knew her, who was involved in her life, that she attend. But with her mother’s death there were financial issues and thank God that Olivia was able to contact the school and defer her attendance for a year. In the meantime, my son Martin corresponded back and forth as much as he could from where he was stationed. The department sent him Becca’s file along with her pictures and one day, out of the blue, he calls me crying, telling me all about her… about this beautiful girl—his daughter—whose eyes held the truth.”

  I choked on a breath.

  “He didn’t ask for a DNA test; he didn’t need to. What he needed was help. And he asked for it—he asked that I take her until his contract was done and he could come home. He’d set up a life for them in St. Louis so she could actually start living one. He needed to right his wrongs. And I would help, because I needed to right mine. He warned that it might be difficult, that Becca was… special, so he sent me her file and the day after I got it, I picked her up from the bus station.”

  I blew out a long breath, and with a heavy heart, I ask, “What was in her file?”

  30

  -Becca-

  sinister

  ˈsɪnɪstə/

  adjective

  giving the impression that something harmful or evil is happening or will happen.

  The first time my mother called me a cunt, I was in third grade. She smiled as she said it, her eyelids heavy, right before she downed what I thought back then was classy water.

  The next day, I said it in the school playground. This girl, Teagan, let me play with the ball. “You’re such a little cunt, Teagan,” I said, smiling at her like my mother had done with me.

  Apparently that wasn’t proper behavior. Not for a third grader, and not even for grown-ups.

  My mother got called in to the school and we were both spoken to by the headmaster.

  I still remember crying as I walked into our house, knowing what my fate was. And I remember even clearer the sounds I made as I gasped for breath after each consecutive punch to my back.

  “You’re just like your father,” she yelled, grabbing a handful of my hair as she dragged me to the bathroom. She sat me on the edge of the bathtub and rummaged through the drawers. “No more!” she shouted, and then spun to me, the blade of the scissors she held reflecting the light above me. She stepped closer, a sinister smile on her face. My eyes drifted shut as the cold steel lightly ran across my neck and up to my ear. She leaned forward, her mouth cold against my ear. “You have hair just like your father’s,” she whispered.

  She cut off all my hair that night, laughing the entire time.

  It took me a while to realize there were two versions of mom’s laughter. The first was the one she saved for me; sinister and evil. And the other was one she kept for the boys. Boys, she liked to call them, even though they were all men. At least to me and my ten-year-old eyes. Some of the men I feared more than I did her. The ones who watched me, touched me, even when she was in the same room. I stopped being in the same room after one touched my leg and tried to get me to touch his—only higher. Hiding out in my room wasn’t my choice, though. It was hers. She didn’t like it. Not the fact that they were assholes trying to take advantage of her daughter, but because she didn’t like that they paid more attention to me than they did her.

  She put a lock on my bedroom door.

  She had the only key.

  Some days she forgot I existed.

  Those days were the best days of my life.

  How fucked up is that?

  Probably as messed up as the fact that nobody noticed, or maybe nobody bothe
red to care. See, my mom had mastered the art of faking it. Faking everything. She lived two lives; the hardworking, single, loving mother who’d brag to anyone who listened about how proud she was of me. And when the people she spoke to told her that she should be—that I was a sweet child or any other form of compliment—she smiled and agreed to their faces. It wasn’t until we got home that I’d see her—who she really was: jealous, bitter, hateful and violent. I’d say she was a drunk—but she wasn’t. She controlled her drinking to only the times when I set her off. I just set her off a lot… by breathing.

  She hated me so much.

  Almost as much as she hated my dad.

  A man I’ve never even met.

  She rambled sometimes—would tell me that I ruined her life. That she’d been raped and that’s how I came to be. But she lied, because sometimes when she got really drunk—when her knee was pressed against my chest and her hands were around my neck while I lay on the floor, gasping for breath, she cried. She’d tell me that she should’ve been enough for him. That he should’ve stayed for her. That she loved him and why the fuck didn’t he love her back—whoever the hell he was.

  She apologized after each “episode,” as she liked to call them. She was always sorry. She’d say she didn’t mean it. That she just got angry and it set her off, but she loved me. She loved me so much. I meant everything to her and she couldn’t lose me.

  She was my mom.

  The only thing I had in my life.

  So of course I believed her.

  Of course I loved her.

  She was the reason I was born into this shitty life, right? Without her, I’d be nothing.

  And she reminded me of it. Over and over again, she’d tell me this.

  Her greatest apology came when I was fourteen, right before high school started. She stroked my hair, wiping tears from my cheeks with one hand, the other covering my mouth to block my screams. She kissed my temple and told me it was okay, that everything would be fine, all while one of her “boys” took my virginity. It wasn’t him who took my innocence, though. It was her. And when it was all over I lay in my bed, naked from the waist down, blood between my legs, and stared up at the ceiling—my tears mixed with my vomit soaked into my pillowcase. “Best two hundred bucks I’ve ever spent,” said her boy. “I’ll leave the money on the counter.”

  My mother nodded and stayed in the room until he was gone, then she stood over me—her smile sad, genuine almost. “It’s better this way,” she said. “You start high school soon and the boys will want to take it from you. They’ll break your heart, Becca. Just like your father did with me. We don’t want that, do we? This way, it’s done. And you’ll have no regrets.”

  “I hate you,” I whispered, because I needed her to know it. I immediately closed my eyes, knowing what would come next.

  I attended my first day of high school with a black eye and a broken wrist. Surfing accident, apparently—so my mother said.

  Up until high school, I spent my days staring at the walls of my room, dreaming of a better life, smiling and dodging questions from the CPS officers who came in to check on me. I never found out who called them. I suspected it was the old lady next door. She’d be the only one who could hear my cries. But the officers would come, they’d ask if I was okay, and I’d smile and nod and they’d leave. Because, really? Who would suspect a mother of beating their daughter? Especially a mother like mine: a hardworking, single, loving mother whose only concern was my clumsiness. Like I said, she was so fucking good at faking it.

  But high school changed everything.

  Ms. Crawford, who I later came to know as Olivia, was the guidance counselor. She called me into her office two weeks in. I sat opposite her, my gaze lowered and my heart pounding against my chest. “Rebecca?”

  “Becca,” I whispered.

  “Becca,” she repeated. And after a long pause she said, “Look at me.”

  So I did. I looked at her—right into her eyes.

  “I see you, Becca.”

  I didn’t know what she meant—not at the time. But over the next few months, I began to understand. She saw me. And when she loaned me her camera on the first field trip of the year, I began to see everything—not through my tainted eyes, but through a lens. And I fell in love for the very first time in my life.

  I fell in love with photography.

  I fell in love with art.

  And I fell in love with a boy who loved both those things.

  His name was Charlie and he was three years older. He liked to touch me, and I liked his touch—for the first time ever, I didn’t shy away from someone else’s hands on me. His touch didn’t hurt. It was safe. And in his arms, I was safe.

  And just like I hid my camera from my mom, I also hid him.

  I kept him a secret.

  Something I shouldn’t do to my mother—keep secrets. Because when she found out I loved him more than I loved her—that I’d spent evenings after school not doing all the school activities I’d said I’d been doing but rather, seeing him—it ended… in a night with me in the hospital unable to breathe because she’d punched me so hard it punctured my lung. Another visit from CPS. Another smile and nod followed by another lie. My mother told them it was a cheerleading accident. I didn’t even do cheerleading. Something the CPS officers could have found out if they’d cared enough to check.

  My fear stopped me from telling the truth.

  My fear stopped me from doing a lot of things.

  She apologized to them for wasting their time, yet again. But to me, she really was sorry. She loved me. No one could love me more than she did. Not even Charlie. Besides, what would I do when Charlie went off to college? When he’d start loving college girls more than the pathetic fifteen-year-old high school girl back home whom he’d used for sex.

  Like she said, no one could love me more than her.

  At least she’d always be around.

  She was my mother, after all.

  I ended it with Charlie.

  He went off to college.

  I never heard from him again.

  She was right.

  But I missed him—his touch—the safety I felt from his love.

  So, I found other boys to love. My next Charlie became Alfie, Alfie became David, David became Kevin and Kevin became a bunch of faceless other boys. All secrets. But I’d wear the consequences of the secrets for an hour of feeling safe.

  I used them to take me away from the pain of my life.

  They used me for sex.

  And I loved them all because of it.

  Then one day junior year, Ms. Crawford asked me into her office, an office I’d spent a good two hours every week in, sitting in the chair while she spoke to me about my future. Sometimes, she’d ask about my past. I didn’t like those questions. “I see what you’re doing, Becca,” she said. “These boys won’t love you.”

  “You’re not my mother,” I snapped, not out of anger but because it was the first thing that came to mind.

  Her reaction wasn’t what I expected. I expected her to agree and to back down. Instead, she looked at me, dead in the eye, and said, “Is that what your mother tells you? That the boys won’t love you.”

  She’d said won’t.

  Not don’t.

  And it was then that I realized she’d known all along, and she’d kept all my secrets.

  “I see you, Becca.”

  I stopped with the boys during senior year. Instead, I took Ms. Crawford’s advice and focused on school. Focused on getting into college, and mostly, focused on getting away from her. Ms. Crawford guided me through it all and soon after, I was no longer staring at my walls dreaming of better days. I was formulating the dreams into a reality.

  But still, I kept it a secret.

  And stupid, stupid me should’ve known better than to keep secrets from the one person who loved me more than anyone else—who would always love me.

  I was pathetic.

  So pathetic.

  I act
ually smiled as I showed her the acceptance letter. At first, her eyes narrowed in confusion. She took the letter from my hand and skimmed the words, her eyes quickly darting from side to side. Then I saw it—the same look I’d seen so many times. The rage. “You’re trying to get away from me?” she yelled, her fist already raised. I flinched and cowered away but I wasn’t thinking and I went to the one place I knew not to go. I went to the corner of the kitchen—corners made it harder to escape.

  I hated corners.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are, you ungrateful bitch!”

  The first blow was to my face.

  “You think I’ve spent the past seventeen years taking care of you just so you can fuck off and leave me?”

  The second blow was to my stomach—so forceful I fell to the floor.

  “You can’t fucking leave me, Becca!” she cried. “You’re all I fucking have!”

  I don’t know if it was her foot or her fist that hit my left shoulder, over and over. But when I stayed silent, when I forced the tears back and denied her the pleasure of my pain, she got out the heaviest pot she owned and went right back to the same shoulder, dislocating it. Then she did it again, only this time, she missed, and it hit me square in the face, shattering my nose. Blood filled my mouth, from the inside and out. I licked my lips, my sobs heavy now, tasting the blood. So much blood. “Please,” I whispered, “Please stop.”

  She didn’t.

  Through my tear soaked eyes I saw her lift the pot over her head. I closed my eyes and for the first time ever I wanted to survive this “episode.”

  Just to fuck her.

  To prove to her that she was wrong—everything she’d ever said to me—every verbal beat down of my self-worth—she was fucking wrong. The pot missed my shoulder again, missed my nose, and went straight to my left eye. Liquid filled it, not tears, but blood—and the only thing I could think was that I was grateful it wasn’t my right eye—my shooting eye.