Home No More

by Leddy Harper

  The last time I saw him was when he was dragged to the police station for questioning the night I had been pulled over. At first, he was worried and concerned. But by the time it was all said and done, he wouldn’t even look at me. It was like he was blaming me for all of it happening.

  “Damn it, Billy, fucking talk to me please,” I begged him. The look on his face broke my heart. I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly, but I knew it was a broken look. He wasn’t looking at me and shifted every time I tried to get close.

  “Go back to your family, they’ve waited long enough.”

  His deep brown eyes were so cold. I had never seen them so emotionless and distant.

  “Billy, please. Don’t do this. Don’t leave me here.” Tears stung the backs of my eyes.

  I could see his resolve as he moved closer to me. In a soft and low voice, he told me, “I don’t even know what to call you. Kendall? Danielle? I don’t know what it is that you want me to do. They won’t let you come home with me; I’m not going to kidnap you. I’m not supposed to communicate with you.” He looked back at the officer standing only a few feet from us. “What is it you want me to do?” he asked with such a deep desperation in his voice that it broke the floodgates of my tears.

  They ran down my cheeks in waves of salty rivers. The rough and intimidating Billy Carrington sounded so broken—slaughtered. He watched as my tears fell from my chin, and I knew he wanted to dry them like he always had. But he refrained. I’m sure the officers standing around, watching our conversation, wouldn’t have allowed it.

  “I don’t know what this means for us, baby, but one day it’ll make sense. Whichever path we end up going down. I hope you find the truth in the answers you get. I hope it ends well for you.”

  “For us, Billy. It’s gonna end well for us.” My words came out in a hoarse whisper, barely heard above the commotion of the police station. But I knew he heard me. Just like I knew as I watched him leave the station, that it wouldn’t be the last I’d see of him.

  “I will see you again on Tuesday. Please think about what I’ve told you between now and then.” Dr. Montage stood up and broke me from my memory. I had no idea what she told me, nor would I have given it any thought if I had.

  She walked me to the door and held it open for me. A small, empathetic smile rose to her face and it made me want to smack it off. I couldn’t stand her, and once I was no longer forced to sit with her for an hour twice a week, I would never think of her again.

  I sat in the car with the woman that claimed to be my grandmother. I knew it was more than a claim. I knew she was, biologically speaking, my grandmother, but that didn’t mean it felt like she was. It was incredibly stupid sounding, since I had never had a grandmother to know what one felt like. It had always been just me, John, and Billy. I never knew what it was like to have a mother, I still didn’t because mine was gone, and John was the only father I’d ever know.

  But here was this woman with white hair, the typical grandmother type, talking to me as if I had spent summers with her my whole life. We’d pass by an ice cream shop and she’d reminisce about times she had taken me there after church. She talked about the fond memories she had with me while I licked the cone so slowly there would be more on the table than in my stomach.

  I blocked it out. I didn’t want to hear that shit. She didn’t know me. And I bet she didn’t even know what my favorite flavor of ice cream was anymore. I was so tired of listening to these people talk to me like they knew me. It was everyone. Not just the old woman sitting beside me.

  “What’s my favorite flavor of ice cream?” I didn’t ask her like anyone would ask that kind of question. I asked her in an accusatory tone, almost daring her to answer.

  “When you were little it was—”

  I didn’t give her a chance to finish. “I didn’t ask about when I was little. I’m asking about now. And you don’t know, do you? Just like you don’t know my favorite color, or food, or weather. You don’t know what I like to watch on TV, or listen to on the radio, or even which sports I like. You don’t know these things because you don’t know me. Stop acting like I’m the same little girl you remembered. I’m not. I haven’t been her in a very long time.

  “She’s gone. She died in that car on the side of the road at the same time her parents died. She’s dead to you and she’s dead to me. Just do us all a favor and leave her in the ground and in the past where she belongs.”

  The car began to slow in the middle of the road. I looked around, trying to find out why we were stopping. My first thought was a cop had pulled us over, but there were no lights flashing behind us. There was nothing in front of us to make us stop; no kids playing in the road, no construction detours—there was no other car on the road except for ours.

  It wasn’t until I turned to look at the woman that I figured out what was happening.

  She held a small, frail, and shaking hand to her lips. Tears rolled down her porcelain cheeks from her pale blue eyes. Even though she showed every sign of being torn up, she never made a sound. Not one sob or hiccup came from her. I suddenly realized something. It was the first time since “meeting” her that I found a similarity. It came in the way we cried.

  I was never good at keeping my mouth closed when I was angry. John always told me I needed to stop and think before saying something after getting really pissed off. Billy even did his best to control it when I had lived with him. He knew that there was a line in the sand so to speak, and if I crossed it, there would be no holding me back. I raged like a meathead on steroids. I threw things, or hit or kicked anything within range of me when I was frustrated. Irritation turned to anger very quickly for me.

  But when it came to being hurt or sad, I held that shit in. I cried, don’t misunderstand me. But it was all done silently. I could go to my room or a bathroom—hell, sometimes I could stand right in front of you—but no one would ever know I was crying if they weren’t looking at me.

  I didn’t know what to say to her. I couldn’t apologize because what I said was the truth. She didn’t know me, and that little girl that she longed for was gone. I didn’t know how to comfort her; if she were exactly like me, there would be no comforting I could do.

  “It’s Neapolitan.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  She turned her icy blue eyes to me. I could tell she didn’t know what to say.

  “That’s my favorite. We can talk about the others another time.”

  She nodded her head and continued to drive back to her house.

  I sat in my room, well the room I had been given at the house I was being forced to stay in. I wanted to call Billy so bad, but I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t have a cell phone, and the house phone was surely being monitored. I needed to see him, or hear his voice—anything to calm down. He was the only one that could calm me down.

  I put my head in one pillow and covered my face with the other. I cried until I fell asleep.

  “Why do you always have to do this shit, Billy?” I screamed.

  “Calm down, Kendall,” he said from the couch, never taking his eyes off the TV.

  I picked up a glass cup and threw it at him. It smashed against the wall behind him, inches from his face. If I hadn’t been so angry, I would have felt bad. He looked at me and I could see the anger in his eyes. His face was already turning red from holding his breath. He only did that when he had to restrain himself from physically lashing out.

  “You promised me, Billy. You said, ‘I will take you out for dinner on Friday, Kendall,’ yet here we are, it’s Friday, and now you’ve changed your mind. I’m so over this bullshit! John never let me out of the house, and now you’re doing the same thing. It makes me feel like a fucking child.” I turned to walk away, but he was out of his seat and in my face before I could take two steps.

  “Don’t do that, Kendall. Don’t compare me to John. I let you out of the house; I don’t tell you that you have to stay here.” He was still angry, I could tell in his voice.
/>   “Then why can’t we go to dinner?”

  He sucked in a lungful of air, pressed his forehead to mine, and exhaled. I knew whatever he was going to say was going to hurt. That was his way of trying to soften the blow.

  “Maybe I just wanted you all to myself tonight.” I wasn’t expecting that. He put his hands on my hips and pulled me closer to him. I wasn’t expecting that either. He was really mad, and I had never seen him calm down so fast before in all of my life.

  “I had a really bad day, and I just wanted to come home and relax. Have a quiet dinner with my girl, maybe a shower, and then let you further relax me.” He was speaking to me in his deep, gruff, manly voice that I loved so much. I loved it because it was what he used to turn me on. He knew what he was doing.

  “You didn’t tell me, so I didn’t get anything ready for dinner.” I tried to ignore my body’s reaction to him; tried ignoring the sudden wetness in my panties.

  He pulled me so close to his body I could feel his erection on my lower abdomen. His lips found my neck and the sensitive skin just below my ear. I felt his warm tongue make its way to my jawline and I knew I was done for.

  I let out a small moan at his ministrations while pulling his shirt into my fists.

  “I think you already have something ready for me to eat.” He moved his hand to the front of my jeans and roughly rubbed my sex. “Hmmm? I think I’ll have this to go.” He picked me up and carried me to our bedroom.

  It was Tuesday, and I was back at Dr. Montage’s office. She had been rambling for almost half an hour, but I didn’t listen to any of it. I just blocked her out after she insisted on calling me Danielle, again. I waited until I couldn’t hear her annoying voice before I spoke up.

  “Imagine if you just found out that you were named something else when you were born and everyone insisted on calling you by that name. But for as long as you can remember, you’ve always been Joanne. Now you’re not. Now you’re Betty. How would you feel?” My words were soft and calm and I spoke them slowly so she would know I was seriously asking her an honest question.

  She thought for a minute before answering. “I can see where you are coming from on this; use that logic to see where your family is coming from. They’ve only ever known you as Danielle. Wouldn’t the same logic apply to them?”

  “No,” I simply stated. “It’s not the same. Girls get married all the time and change their last names. You don’t hear their families complaining and refusing to call them by their married name.”

  “That’s not comparing apples to apples.”

  “Oh, it’s not? How come? Her parents give her one name and then she changes it to something else. It’s not their choosing what name she goes by anymore. That’s like how it is for me. I was named Danielle Tucker, and it was changed to Kendall Carrington without their choosing. I’m not saying that they need to like it, but at least accept it. They want me to open up. They want me to not be so bitter all the time. I hear their conversations when they think I’m not listening. I know what they’re saying about me. But they’re not listening to me. I don’t want to be called Danielle. I am Kendall. I want to be able to talk to Billy. I don’t want to be treated like the long lost child anymore.”

  “How do you want to be treated?” she genuinely asked.

  “Like a person. It feels like I’m a puppy that they just found. I’m tired of the way they look at me like they’re trying to figure out what happened to me. They see me as damaged, even though I have never been damaged. They treat me like I’m broken and only holding on by a thin layer of glue, when in reality, I’m not broken—they’re breaking me.

  “I am just a girl that grew up in a loving home. I’ve been through some scary situations, but what kid hasn’t? I was loved, I was taken care of, I was a normal kid. I was not hurt, or damaged, or broken.”

  She looked at her notepad and wrote something down quickly before speaking again. “You did not attend school. You have no education. I would say that’s pretty damaging.”

  I laughed at her. She didn’t know me. She had no clue what kind of education I had. And she had the gall to call me damaged? It pissed me off and no matter how hard I tried to hold in my anger, I couldn’t.

  “Really? You stupid fucking cunt. You know nothing about me! I may not have attended school like you or had some rich fucking education like you, but that does NOT make me dumb. I studied what Billy was learning, and he was five years older than me. I was taught more than what some fat bitch getting paid chump change could ever have taught me. So shut your fucking mouth.”

  I was ready to walk out when she asked me another question. “Have you thought about getting your GED and maybe attending college?” Her voice was calm and warm, almost nurturing. It wasn’t what I was expecting after my tongue lashing.

  I sat back down, feeling a little calmer myself. “When I was sixteen, Billy had me taking practice GED tests. I knew I could never take the real thing because he couldn’t find my birth certificate. That’s why I was never able to get my driver’s license.”

  “Before we move on to that matter… let’s stick with the GED. How did you do?”

  “I passed. He had me take them a few times, and I passed them all. I don’t remember how well I did; I just know I passed. Then he had me taking practice SAT tests. I didn’t understand what they were except that he had taken the real thing when he lived with me at John’s. He had me take them four times because he kept saying it had to have been wrong.”

  “Why did he think that?” She was no longer writing her notes. She was looking right at me, actually listening to what I was saying. It was like she was truly interested in me. It was the first time I felt she genuinely cared.

  “Because of the scores. I didn’t know what they meant; I still don’t know what they meant, but he kept saying they had to be wrong. I don’t remember what the first three scores were, but I remember the last one because he kept repeating it and kissing me.” I watched her face as I mentioned that part. I knew that was going to be something else we would be discussing, but I still had her on the test scores. “It was a 2340.”

  She nodded her head slowly, taking it all in. “Do you know what that means?”

  “I just told you I didn’t. I’m assuming something really good.”

  “The highest score you can get on the SATs is 2400 points. That’s a perfect score. Over a million students take the test each year, and only about twenty achieve a perfect score. There are eight hundred points in each category, three categories. You were sixty points away from not missing one question. Just to put this into perspective for you, the average score is around a sixteen hundred.”

  “Ain’t so dumb now, am I?” I couldn’t contain my attitude.

  “I never said you were dumb; I just underestimated your level of education. Now can we move on to the matter of Billy knowing that you didn’t have a birth certificate?”

  I shrugged my shoulders at her.

  “I know what he claims to have or have not known during your time with him and with John, but how exactly did he explain to you that you didn’t have any form of identification?”

  “I wanted my driver’s license and he told me I couldn’t get one. He said he tried to find my birth certificate when he was cleaning out John’s house, but he never found it. He explained that I couldn’t get a new one without a social security card, and he didn’t find that either. And we couldn’t get a new one of those since he didn’t know my number,” I answered nonchalantly and matter-of-factly.

  “And you didn’t find any of this strange?”

  “Dr. Montage, I lived in a house with no outside communication. I didn’t even know what those were until he told me about them. It’s not like we sat around at the dinner table growing up discussing personal documentation. I knew about birth certificates from watching soap operas, but I just thought they were papers with our hand and feet prints on it. I didn’t know it was a legal document. I certainly didn’t know what a social security card was. I kn
ew all about the social security system, everything you’d need to know about it, but I had no clue we all had cards with numbers. And essentially, we are all categorized by number in some system the government has. So to answer your question, no, I didn’t find it strange. Not to mention, if I had, why would I think anything about it from Billy. It would have been John I would’ve questioned.”

  She nodded her head and stood up. I was a little confused as to what was going on until she walked to the door. “I think this is a good stopping point for today. We will have a lot to talk about come Thursday.” She opened the door and I stepped out. “If you don’t mind, Kendall, I think I need to have a word with your grandmother.”

  I don’t know why, but it bothered me that she called her my grandmother, but I couldn’t complain because she did call me by my name. I resumed my seat in the lobby as Jeri, my “grandmother,” walked into her office. Joanne closed the door behind her.

  She was in there for almost ten minutes before coming back and walking me out to the car. She didn’t say anything to me, nor did I say anything to her. In fact, we didn’t speak the whole way home. I didn’t complain, but it did make me a little nervous. I wanted to know what Joanne had said to her, but I didn’t dare ask.

  I got out of my shower and just before I turned the knob to open the door, I heard voices coming from the living room. I stood still to listen to what they were saying.

  I recognized Jeri’s voice and a man I quickly figured out to be my “Uncle Jack.” He was properly named since I often referred to him as Jack Ass. He was an ass when he pulled me over that night, he was an ass at the police station, and he had continued to be one since I arrived in this hell hole nearly five weeks earlier.