Carry Me Home
Page 1
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Also By Jessica Therrien
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PRAISE FOR
Carry Me Home
“CARRY ME HOME is a beautifully crafted story of one family’s journey into darkness, and ultimate redemption. It’s also a riveting page-turner; I devoured it one sitting. Jessica Therrien broke my heart into a million pieces—and then put it back together again. This book will haunt and uplift readers long after they turn the last page.”
—KAT ROSS,
BEST-SELLING AUTHOR of THE MIDNIGHT SEA
“CARRY ME HOME is far and away one of my favorite new novels. This beautifully written novel may reduce you to tears, and will absolutely leave you feeling uplifted and inspired.”
—HOLLY KAMMIER,
BEST-SELLING AUTHOR of KINGSTON COURT
“...a heart-filled story between three women and the challenges of being a family. Be prepared to tear up through their struggles and their hopes.”
—CHRISTA YELICH-KOTH,
BEST-SELLING AUTHOR of ILLUSION
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Carry Me Home
First Edition
Copyright © 2017 Jessica Therrien
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from the publisher.
Acorn Publishing
www.acornpublishingllc.com
"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in". Copyright 1952, (c) 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust, from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
This story is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Cover design by Damonza
ISBN-13: 978-1-947392-09-0
For Allie
“(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)”
- E.E. Cummings
PART I
SAN JOSE
CHAPTER 1
Ruth
FOR THE MOST PART, I remember my childhood as dry weeds and dirt roads, warm sun and birdsong. The silky coat of a mare and filth of pigs in mud. Eighty acres of ranch land is an endless playground for any kid. And in those naïve years it was easy to ignore the beer on my father’s breath as I skipped off to fetch him another. My mother’s weepy eyes were nothing to question, because I didn’t know any better. But time chisels away that purity until there’s nothing left but truth.
Neither one of my parents is happy.
At seventeen, I’m ready to leave. The ranch of my youth is a wasteland of empty, overgrown pastures and rusting barbed wire fences. Much like their marriage, it’s tired and used up. There’s nothing left to give.
Tonight, the air feels heavy. I can smell the tension in the ever-present cigarette smoke. At first the rising pitch of their voices doesn’t bother me. I’m used to them fighting. But my heart seizes when I hear him yell, and when Dad’s words become a throat-scratching, red-faced shout, my sister, Lucy, sneaks into my room.
My bedroom has always been a sanctuary for her on nights like these.
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. We just listen to the rage as it filters through the walls.
“I’m going out there,” she says.
“Lucy...”
If she were younger I’d stop her. I’d take her little-girl hand and lead her into the quiet closet like I used to, but she’s fifteen now, and there’s no stopping Lucy from doing anything.
My only choice is to follow her.
I find her frozen in the hallway, stiff-legged as a terra-cotta soldier. Mom is just as still, back pressed against the far wall of the kitchen. Dad’s bloodshot eyes are wide and crazed. Wispy pieces of thinning, grey hair have come loose from his short ponytail.
He’s pacing our living room, whisky glass in one hand, a rifle in the other.
CHAPTER 2
Mom
NOTHING MAKES ME LOSE my footing like my husband’s anger. It’s rabid and irrational. I never know what will set him off.
“Steve,” I beg, eying the girls in the hallway. “Just calm down, okay?” I lick my lips as I watch him pace.
He doesn’t listen, but continues to rant in a drunken mumble as he looks for the keys to his truck. Thankfully, I’ve already hidden them.
“I’m gonna kill him! I’m gonna go over to his house and kill him! Put my family out on the streets? No way!” I’m not sure what he’ll do next so I shoo the girls back into their rooms with a sweep of my hand and a pleading gaze. For now, they obey.
“We’ll figure something out,” I say, although I’m just as upset by our new circumstances.
We’d been living in his brother’s house. It was left vacant after he decided to move in with his girlfriend, and it seemed like a nice upgrade. A much larger version of our modular atop a small rise in the property with a great view and a hot tub on the expansive deck.
“Maybe you can buy me out,” his brother offered, and we jumped at the chance, quickly renting our place to a local family.
Tonight the call came.
“I need to move back in, Bro. Sorry, but I need the house back.”
We had taken the news calmly at first, discussing our options, but when the whisky came out, the anger built until it reached a fever pitch.
“We had a deal!” As he cocks the rifle my heart goes still. “I’m gonna kill him.”
I clench my fists, trying to draw strength from somewhere. The sharp tips of my nails dig into my palms. “Can you just put the gun down? Yo
u’re making me nervous.”
If the younger me had known what kind of a man he’d become I would have never married him. His tall, lean body had bloated in the middle from alcoholism. The long blond locks I’d once twisted my fingers through had grayed and fallen out at the top. Tobacco-stained teeth contrasted his stormy blue eyes, which once captivated me. As I watch him rattle on about honor and ass-kicking all I see is a crazed lunatic.
“Where the fuck are my keys? Did you hide them from me, woman?”
I shake my head violently. “No,” I lie.
“I’m calling him,” he says, ripping the phone from the receiver. “He can come out here and MAKE me move.”
My heart catches as I get a glimpse of the girls back in the hallway. I shake my head at them, but this time they stay.
“Please don’t call him, Steve. Can’t you wait ‘til tomorrow?”
Without warning, he grits his teeth and hurls the phone in my direction. I scream as it sails across the room, barely missing my head, and hear it shatter behind me against the stone fireplace.
“You’re against me too!” he shouts. I respond with a shower of tears, which only makes it worse. “Oh for Christ’s sake. Don’t overreact.” He storms out onto the porch and I follow him, already apologizing. He stumbles a drunken waltz as he rambles, and I position myself toward the edge of the 3-foot high deck to keep him from falling.
“And stop trying to control me,” he says, wheeling around to point his index finger in my face. “I’m the man in this family. I make the decisions.”
“I’m not trying to control you. I’m just trying to get you to calm down. You’re drunk.”
Anger flashes across his face like a lit match. His out-stretched hands connect with my chest as he shoves me off the deck. I fall, and the full impact of my overweight body against the ground sends a sharp, radiating pain into my hip, but I’m fine. Shaken up, but fine. Nothing feels broken.
I breathe for a moment, shocked by what happened. He’s never pushed me before. I look up, expecting him to be just as appalled at what he’s done, but he doesn’t even stutter in his rant. As I rise from the dirt, I realize he’s crossed a line. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not staying here.
When he finally passes out on the couch I make my decision to pack up. I’ve always promised myself, if it ever got violent, I would leave.
“We can’t stay here, so go grab what you want, and do it fast,” I tell my girls. They follow me to my room and watch as I pack frantically.
My older daughter wipes her freckled cheeks and jumps into action, whipping her long dark curls up in a ponytail and grabbing socks and underwear from my dresser. Her tears are a reflection of my own. She’s wanted to leave for a while now, but she’s scared. We both are.
Lucy sits on my bed and stares at me, unmoving. “We can’t leave Dad. Where are we going anyway?” she manages between sobs.
Good question. Where are we going? I have maybe a hundred bucks in the bank.
“To Grandma and Grandpa’s,” I decide. The kids just started summer break, so we were planning a visit in a few weeks anyway.
Besides, we’ll be safe there. My parents’ house is a very old, singlewide trailer in a terrible neighborhood in San Jose, but it’s weirdly peaceful. I can breathe and relax into the constant servitude of my mother, the unconditional support of their love. There is no need for money when I’m home, and I can take time to figure things out.
“Will we come back?” My youngest daughter’s large lips blush red. She presses them to her knees as she draws her long legs into her chest, and a sheet of dark blonde hair falls forward over her shins. She has my husband’s hair, not mine.
“I don't know, Lucy. Just pack some stuff you’ll want, okay? We need to get on the road.”
“But it’s the middle of the night,” she argues.
Sometimes I feel like she’s less mine, and more her father’s child. Just like him, she fights me on everything.
“Please don’t do this right now,” I whine, desperate for life to get out of my way. “You can sleep in the car.”
“I’m not going,” she yells, crossing her arms in defiance. Her lower jaw juts out in frustration, and I think I might evaporate into tiny particles of despair. I lean back against the floral wallpapered closet and slump to the floor, too overcome by my moaning sobs to respond. It feels like I’ll die in this chasm I’ve built for myself.
“You’re such a brat, Lucy,” Ruth counters, coming to my defense. She’s my other half. My balance. The one to step in when my weaknesses take me over, and I can’t be the mother I should. The one to defend me when I’m down, to worry when I’m reckless, to nurture her sister when I’m too drunk or gone gambling.
Lucy jumps to her feet, the tougher of the two, and pushes her older sister in the chest. “Shut up.”
“Don’t fight! Please,” I cry, desperate to keep the peace. It sends me into another fit of tears I can’t control. “You’ll wake him up. Please.”
The mention of their drunken father shakes Lucy from her stubbornness, and after a moment of quiet I feel her next to me.
“It’s all right, Mama. Don't cry.” Lucy pets my frizzy brown hair like I’m a sulking puppy. “I'll go.”
Ruth leans against my arm and lays her head on my shoulder.
“Okay, come on now,” I say, breathing deep and fighting the cigarette tar in my lungs. “I'll stop crying. No more fighting. We’ve got to go.”
As I stand, Lucy eyes the bedroom door and bites her lip. “Maybe I could stay with Dad.”
“He almost killed Mom tonight, you idiot.” Ruth’s face contorts at the thought, her tall wafer-thin frame tightening up with anxiety. “We can’t stay here.”
“He did not! The phone hit the wall!”
“That’s not the point! He threw it. It just missed her!”
“Whatever,” she says, rolling her eyes and throwing a half-packed duffle at her sister’s stomach. “It’s just because he’s drunk. He’s not like that all the time. He’s never hurt any of us.”
I’m determined not to break down again. “Pack up and stop fighting,” I seethe through clenched teeth. “He pushed me off the deck,” I hear myself repeat over and over. “He pushed me.” Thank God I didn’t land on a limb or my head, but that wasn’t the point. He pushed me. “I’m done.”
* * *
It’s been a long night. I can hear the soft snoring of my teenage daughters finally asleep in the backseat, their faces flushed red under the sheen of dried tears. Even so, the silence is deafening, everything muffled through the mountains of clothes, blankets, and food that are tightly packed into my small silver Toyota. We’ve been in the car an hour. I’ve driven away and come back. Parked in front of our house, I haven’t been able to do much more than sit.
I start up the engine, turn it off again, and stare out at the shadowed branches of sagebrush illuminated by my headlights. Over and over I weigh the cost of leaving. My fat cheeks sting and crack under tracks of tears. They just come now, endless rivers snaking past my lips, and I know they’re not because of what happened, but because of my inability to act.
As I think my way through the night, each minute feels heavier than the last. I’m a coward, sitting here in my packed up car, afraid to drive away.
He was just drunk, I think. He didn’t mean it.
I pull the visor down and two tiny lights brighten my puffy eyes. A night of tears has worsened the state of my already drooping skin. I was beautiful once, but that woman is gone. My cheeks are large, folding into a double chin on the bottom. The freckles across my nose are no longer cute, but aging. Stress has managed to frazzle my once silky curls into frizzy waves that can’t be tamed. I’m so lost to myself I don’t even recognize the brown eyes staring back at me.
He told me I was lucky he stayed with me. No one would want me, too fat.
“You’re lucky I feel sorry for you. A divorce is too expensive so you’re lucky.”
And I believe him. I am fat and ugly and will probably be lonely for the rest of my life, but this? He’d gotten violent. He pushed me.
I glance back at my sleeping girls for strength and close the mirrored visor. My hand turns the key for me. The car starts, and I take a breath through my nose. I glare at the dirt road in front of me, dust dancing through my headlights.
I’m never coming back.
CHAPTER 3
Lucy
SUMMER NIGHTS IN THE barrio are always hot. My grandparents live in the trailer park in San Jose. Their mobile home is tiny and reeks of vitamins and urine. It traps heat like a greenhouse. The filthy brown carpet dirties my bare feet on the bottoms, and the walls are brittle and hollow so no one ever truly gets privacy. I’ve been sleeping on the floor of the living room, on an air mattress with Ruth. It works for me, because tonight I’m sneaking out. If Mom can just pick up and leave, so can I. It’s only been two days, and I already need out of this tin box.
I normally spend summers here. I’ve grown up with the girls in this trailer park, playing hopscotch and riding bikes around the circular drive. Over the years, hopscotch turned into makeup parties and flirting with cute boys at the mall. I haven’t been here in months, though, so I’m anxious to see what my friends are up to.
The house has been quiet for half an hour, but my sister took forever to fall asleep. I’m fifteen minutes late to meet Rosa at the street light on Jackson Ave. so I have to be quick. I trade my pajamas for cut-off jean shorts and a white half-tank that shows my flat stomach. My dark blonde hair is staticky from the air mattress so I lick my palms and tie it into a tight ponytail, flattening all the strays with my spit. I find Mom’s makeup bag at the foot of my blow-up bed in her green duffle. The meager light shining through the cracked curtains helps me light up her compact mirror enough to draw on thick black eyeliner and apply a heavy layer of mascara. Then I’m out.