The kitchen was small but well appointed, with granite countertops and new appliances. On the refrigerator was a photo of Gail, Katie, and me. We must have been twelve or thirteen. We were on the pool deck at my parents’ motel. We were sitting on lounge chairs like ladies, a soccer ball nestled into the space between us, our skin reddish-brown from the sun. Our pubescent bodies were angular and taut, with our bikinis and flat chests, our feathered hair and smirks for smiles. I left the photo and went in search of a water glass. Gail entered the kitchen and found me one.
Filling the cup, I asked, “What took you so long?”
With an impish grin, she said, “When?”
“Before, in the bathroom?”
Katie was standing by the kitchen pass-through. She ran her hand through her hair, her facial expression and body language strongly conveying she didn’t want to hear the answer to that question.
“It’s my condition,” Gail said.
“What condition?”
“Dry tip.”
I stared at her in disbelief.
“I’m serious,” Gail said. “Milk makes the tips of my shit dry.”
Katie and I exchanged looks, simultaneously abandoned all attempts at holding back, and laughed until we cried. When the laughter subsided, I became concerned with being held hostage to Gail’s bodily preoccupations all week and demanded, “I want a key!” Katie, in sympathy with me, laughed harder. This was us at fourteen all over again—finding the harshest things about each other the most hilarious. Then the laughter subsided, as if we all suddenly remembered why I was there, and the room filled with an awkward silence that drew us to attention.
Katie helped herself to a Diet Coke from Gail’s fridge and tried to get us to focus. “What do we do now? I feel like we should do something.”
We moved to the living room, a rectangular space decorated in shades of mauve and gray with a sloped ceiling. The room was furnished with a matching leather couch and chair, a chrome-and-glass coffee table, and a big-screen television with a bookshelf built around it. One wall was sliding glass doors that led out to a patio.
I looked first at Katie and then at Gail. “If you guys are really worried about Khila, I should go see Del’s family.”
Gail had taken a seat at the dining room table. She nodded agreeably, and then, as if suddenly realizing I’d said something different than what she thought I’d said, stared blankly at me. “Their house? Are you kid…?” She paused, thought about it. Plainly, she said, “You can’t go to their house.”
I met her eyes challengingly, lifted my hands, palms up, to say there weren’t a lot of options.
Gail insisted, “Jenna, you can’t just go talk to them. You can’t go to that house.”
“Why not?” Without giving her a chance to answer, I said, “What were you expecting would happen when you called me about Khila? I need to talk to Del’s family.” I said this emphatically, while privately recalling the shotgun Pascale had greeted me with in our last encounter. I pushed the image from my mind. “If you want me to go to the police or Child Protective Services and make some kind of case for them to investigate whether Talon’s a suitable parent, then I need more information.”
“You can’t go to Pascale’s house,” Gail said, she and Katie exchanging a look I didn’t understand. “You’re not welcome there.” Gail was sitting in a straight-back chair, leaning her broad shoulders and large breasts forward. “I’m serious, Jenna. They’ll hurt you.” Her hands pushed down on the air for emphasis.
“I’ve never understood why,” Katie said more calmly, “but Pascale always blamed you for Del’s problems.”
My head jolted in her direction. “What?” I was nodding slowly and trying not to spiral into a fury. “So was I the problem before or after Pascale’s daily binges and beatings?”
*
The first time I was present for one of these binge-and-beat episodes, the fight had started over then nine-year-old Nicole not liking her dinner. It was enough—aided by several beers—to tilt the already-leaning Pascale over some invisible edge and send her into an injured rage. Ida and Nicole disappeared into their room, while Del, only fourteen years old, placed herself between her mother and the fleeing girls and tried to tell Pascale there wasn’t anything to get so angry about. When reason failed, Del resorted to provocation to ignite Pascale to get whatever this was over with. Stepping in this way was not exactly a conscious thing on Del’s part—no more so than the use of one’s blinker while driving, or the placement of one’s fingers on the piano keys while playing a well-practiced piece.
“Mom, you’re drunk.” Del moved her body sideways to prevent Pascale from entering the hallway in the direction of Ida and Nicole’s room. Twenty-two-month-old Sid was screaming from his high chair. Del glanced in my direction and said, “Can you get him?”
As I lifted Sid from his chair, I heard Pascale, her tone one of thinning restraint, her accent accentuated from rage. “Move. Get out of my way, Del. Get out of my fucking way.” Pascale’s thin, muscular figure angled to get past, her focus set on Nicole’s bedroom door. “No matter what I do for you kids, it’s not enough.”
I held Sid and rocked him, and he quieted some.
Del nodded her head and steadied her eyes. Her expression impassive, she said, “Why do you have to drink? This is why my father left you—and us.” I backed up from where I was standing, tripping over one of Sid’s toys as I butted up against the television set. Sid was watching Del and his mother, his black eyes still and frightened.
Silence, as if Pascale was translating for herself what Del had just said to her, then an explosion: “That son of a bitch didn’t leave me. I threw him out.” Pascale lunged, seized hold of a fistful of Del’s hair, and yanked. Del’s head seemed momentarily detached and flying through space, arching up and over, the rest of her body dangling like the string from an accidentally let-loose helium balloon. I was stunned and then repulsed by the sickeningly comical nature of the image. Sid started screaming again.
Pascale slammed Del into the wall, yelling threats in Spanish, French, and English—whichever language came quickest to her. She punched and slapped at Del’s head and face repeatedly. Del yelled for her to stop and tried pushing Pascale away, resorting finally to crouching down to the floor and folding over in order to protect her face and body from the salvo of flying fists and clawing nails. Pascale came to an abrupt halt, as if she’d forgotten what she was doing. She had a disoriented look and she was breathing hard; she was trying to catch her breath.
Del was curled up against the wall with her arms covering her head. The sudden stillness drew Del out; she peeked up to see if it was over. Pascale said something in French under her breath. Del covered her face again as Pascal cranked back her leg, the image of the cranking leg mimicked—caricatured—by its shadow, cast against the near wall. I could see coming what Del could not, yelled, “No,” as Pascale uncoiled, ramming the pointed toe of her shoe into Del’s side. Del folded in on herself and howled. Sid screamed.
Pascale looked around, as if to see where the noise was coming from. When she saw my face and Sid’s her own sobered momentarily, as if she’d forgotten we were there. I couldn’t tell if it was regret or maybe shame at having behaved this way in front of a guest or at all, or just exhaustion, but Pascale suddenly turned and said, “Fuck it. I don’t need any of you.” She stumbled about for her keys, her departure underscored by the sound of a slamming door. The cold December air rushed in and then evaporated.
I was standing there, stunned as much by the rapidity of the scene as the violence. Del lay doubled over on the floor, back to the wall, hair in tangles, nose running, face soaked with tears and snot and spit—and blood. She was sobbing, holding her side and making these small noises that struck me as similar to the noises she made when I fondled her. As I told myself this was one of those times when you’re supposed to comfort someone, I was struck by the disgust I felt toward Del in that moment. Holding Sid tighter, I inched closer
to where she lay. Del stood up, ignored us, threw her frazzled hair back, and disappeared into the hallway. Sid reached after her, still crying. The bathroom door closed emphatically behind her, the light emanating from the bathroom shrinking to black behind the sound as it shut.
Some moments later, Del’s silhouette reemerged with her composure restored. She opened the door to the younger kids’ room and, without looking in, announced lightly, “She’s gone.”
Del came out to the living room. I could tell by her uneasy expression and downcast eyes she was dreading having to face me. But when she saw me she recognized me, and I sensed she regained hope and felt relieved to have me there with her.
Rather than comfort or reassure Del, I yelled. “Why did you provoke her like that?”
Del’s face fell. She backed away into the hallway and said, “Just go home.” She disappeared into her room and closed the door.
I tried to go in behind her, but the door was locked. I put Sid down and knocked. “Del,” I said, “open it. Open the door.” I knocked more.
Sid had his hand on my leg and was peeking at Del’s door from behind me. Ida and Nicole came out of their room. Nicole disappeared toward the kitchen and reappeared with a paper clip she had untwisted into a piece of straight metal. She pushed me out of the way and slipped the metal into a little hole at the center of the doorknob. A quick click sounded and the door opened. Del lay on her back on her bed, a tissue inside her nose red from new blood. Sid ran to the bed to see her. Ida ran behind him, scooped him up and took him out.
Del sat up, wincing at the pain in her side. “Get out.” I stared at her. “Get out of here.” She began pounding her feet on her bed and crying harder, the blood gushing more. She looked at me and screamed, “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
The gouges in her face, the blood running onto her lips, the swelling already noticeable under her eye, all I could think to do was what she asked me to do. I backed up and closed her door.
The plan had been for me to sleep over as I usually did on weekends. We spent our nights at Del’s house, because her father was gone more and more and Pascale was either working at a night job or so plastered by midnight that the house could’ve burned down and she wouldn’t know it. Del was reluctant to sleep out; she didn’t want to leave her sisters and brother alone. Having no intention of leaving Del alone, I joined Ida, Nicole, and Sid in the living room. The girls and I played cards for a long time. Sid played with his trucks, moving them around and making rrr, rrr sounds. At some point, the four of us fell asleep on the living room floor watching an Elvis movie that was mostly static and snow because the reception was poor. Sometime around one or two, I woke up and went to Del’s room. She was in bed reading. She didn’t say anything to me, but she did move closer to the wall to make room for me beside her.
I was lying on my side staring at her pinup of Robert Plant when Del finally started talking to me.
“It wasn’t always like this,” she said softly. “My mother has a kind of amazing history. Did you know that Pascale is part Canadian Indian? Her tribe was Cree. Crazy Horse is her great-grandfather.”
“What?” I turned over and looked at her. “Was she drinking when she told you that?”
Del laughed. “She didn’t tell me. Abuela did.” She was referring to her grandmother on her father’s side. Del seemed relieved to be looking at me, as if she’d missed me. Her tone was soft and intimate and comfortable. “My dad said it’s true. Crazy Horse went into Canada for a while, and he met up with the Cree tribe. My aunt told my dad their great-grandmother had this affair with him when she was sixteen years old and got pregnant with their grandmother. So my mother and her siblings are his great-grandchildren.” Del paused, reconsidered the generational math, laughed a little at how confusing it was. “Things changed for them when my grandmother married this man who turned out to be really brutal with her and with his kids. He broke my grandmother’s spirit and, you know, then she couldn’t protect her kids.”
Del was talking about Pascale’s history of having been beaten when she was a girl, several of her bones broken, some of which had never healed properly. Del thought Pascale couldn’t help herself when she got so out of control, she needed the release. Getting moral about it, Del said, didn’t help. In her mind, they were all doing the best they could to stay together as a family.
The anger was gone. Del’s attention was adoringly honed on me. Her gold eyes shimmied, then fixed on my face. She swallowed as if working toward a courageous next step and admitted, “I didn’t really want you to leave before. I never want to be away from you. I need you, Jen.” She had never been so candid or so clear in expressing feelings for me before. Del raised her finger to her lip and felt the place where I could see a wide crack that was crusting with dried blood. The skin under her eye was bluish and swelling. Some skin on her nose and her forehead had been scraped, leaving deep gouges that were pink and raw. She went on. “I didn’t know what it meant to be close to someone until now.” Del watched for my reaction, her words now flowing easily and confidently. “Please don’t be mad at me, Jenna. I can’t handle the feeling that I let you down.” Del smiled sadly, leaned her forehead against mine. She touched my hair, wrapped her finger in a ringlet, kissed me, forgetting and then sharply remembering her cut lip. I tasted blood.
I’d like to say that I matched Del in dignity and depth, that I met her where she deserved to be received in that moment. I wish I had apologized for abandoning her earlier that evening when she looked for me. I wish I had held her, stroked her hair, told her I needed her, too. I didn’t do any of those things. All I could think about as she spoke, her heart obviously broken, was the scant T-shirt and panties between her skin and mine. By that time in December, we’d made out, touched each other, mostly over our panties. I wanted more but felt too shy to do anything about it.
It was with Del in this wounded and vulnerable state that I rolled on top of her, stripped her T-shirt up and off, bit at her nipples until she winced and withdrew. I yanked her panties down, felt her insides for the first time, pushed my fingers into her without concern for her comfort, her privacy, or her pride. Del neither participated nor resisted but made of herself a line to be crossed. I began pushing her legs apart and bringing my mouth to her. I guess that was the line.
Del sat upright and yell-whispered, “I don’t want you to do that.”
I was staring at her clit, my tongue in reach. “Why not?”
“Just don’t! Get off me.” She closed her legs and slid out from under me. Her anger surprised me, and I sat up to find her eyes. She was out of bed and pulling her clothes on, still favoring her side where she had been kicked. “I think I’ve hit my exposure limit for one day.”
My hand smelled strong, and I noticed her shit under my fingernail. I felt momentarily confused, and then I realized how it had gotten there. I started to sob. I was deeply ashamed. “Del, I’m sorry,” was all I could say.
“You’re sorry?” Del was more perplexed by that, it seemed, than anything else that had just happened. “I just want to forget about it.” She left to take a shower.
I cried and at some point fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning, Del was spooning me. I heard her breathing in my ear, could feel her pressed against my back, her arm and leg wrapped around me, holding me protectively. I was relieved then, told myself I was good again, stole her forgiveness, and ran.
*
I said, “It was not my fault things went so wrong for her.”
Gail sighed loudly. “I can’t believe we’re still trying to understand why Adeline Soto did the things she did, or whose fault it was. Who cares why, anyway? It wasn’t easy for any of us, and we’re not taking our fucked-up childhoods out on the rest of the world.”
“In the same ways,” I said.
Gail responded sharply, “Yeah, well, that matters.”
Does it? I thought of Mr. Baxter and Ms. Flint and Angie and how my decision had turned their lives upside down
. For the better? I would never know.
Katie chimed in. “It’s not what you think, Jenna. You’ve been gone for a long time. You don’t know what all’s gone down with that family. They’re out of control.”
I laughed. “They’ve always been out of control.”
“No, not like this,” Katie said. “Not like they are now.”
I took a deep breath. “Look, you don’t have to protect me. I’m gonna need to know what Del was involved in if I’m gonna try to do something about Khila going off to Texas with her father. That’s gonna happen unless you can come up with a damn good reason why it shouldn’t.” I looked at Gail and said, “You called me.”
“Oh, right,” she scoffed. “As if you ever would have forgiven me if I hadn’t.”
I could hear the blood coursing through my ears and feel heat starting at my center and emanating to my limbs. So typical, I thought. She entreats me to leave on the next plane, offers her home, tells me that I’m Khila’s only hope, and then she experiences my being here as a burden and as evidence that I’m still stuck and miserable.
To Gail, “Why didn’t you tell me you were back in touch with Del?”
“You really want to know? Because she was unhappy. She was leaving her husband, and I didn’t want you anywhere near that.”
“But that I could have helped her with. I don’t know that we can do anything for Khila now, or even that Khila would want us to. For all we know, she’s a daddy’s girl, glad to have him all to herself.”
“Del asked us not to talk to you about her.”
“Do you have any idea why?”
“I assume because she didn’t want to be back in touch with you.”
“So why should I help, then?”
“Because no matter what, she would not have wanted Khila to go to Texas with this man.”
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