by Renee Miller
Hayley left the office. She’d studied all night. Math wasn’t her strongest subject and she had to memorize the information before the test or she couldn’t hope for more than a B. Now she’d have to do it all again.
By the Kindergarten class door, she heard Jacob wailing and some of her anger dissipated. She walked in to find Jacob seated by the cloakroom, wearing someone else’s pants and bawling so hard his face was nearly purple.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here.” Mrs. Camp rushed over, took her hand, and led her toward Jacob. “He’s had a little accident and now there is just no consoling him. Could you take him home and clean him up? You can bring him back.”
Hayley picked Jacob up off the chair and gave him a gentle hug. “He won’t come back if I take him home.”
Mrs. Camp pouted her bottom lip. She looked at the two of them, her face red. “Honey, you can’t be missing your own classes just for this. I’ll figure something out.”
She set Jacob down, triggering a new wave of screams. “No, it’s okay. I’ll take him. My mom said he should go home.”
Hayley grabbed Jacob’s Ghostbusters backpack and Ninja Turtle lunch pail from the closet and set them next to his chair. Then she searched through the tiny coats and snow pants until she found Jacob’s.
“I want Mommy!” he wailed.
Hayley slipped his arms into the coat and turned him around to zip it up. “Mommy will be home in a bit.”
Mrs. Camp handed her a plastic bag tied at the top. “His clothes are in here. The ones he has on belong to the classroom. I keep a few here just in case accidents like this happen. I’m so sorry; he tried to get there in time.”
“Well, he’s on medication. He has some trouble with his tummy and the doctor said he might have accidents. Mom only gives it to him at night, but I guess that doesn’t make a difference.”
Mrs. Camp shook her head. “Poor mite. You can tell your mom that he doesn’t have to attend Kindergarten; some children just aren’t ready. He can try again next year.”
Hayley tucked Jacob’s snow pants under her arm and the boy slung his backpack over his shoulder, his wailing reduced to hiccups and sniffles. “I’ll tell her. I have to go get my homework, so we better go.”
“Okay dear, thank you so much. I try not to call you, but sometimes he just won’t calm down.”
Hayley thought she didn’t try hard enough but didn’t say it. Gently, she pushed Jacob out of the classroom and dragged him to her class. When she opened the door, everyone looked up from their work. “I have to go home. My brother is sick and Mom can’t come get him.”
Mr. McDonald looked around his desk, startled, as though she’d woken him from a deep sleep. “Oh—well, you can write your test tomorrow at lunch. Don’t worry about homework. We aren’t covering anything new today. You’ll catch up anyway.”
Hayley nodded and left without sparing a glance at Mandy. She would be scowling. Mandy thought Hayley’s mom relied too much on her to look after Jacob. Hayley had him every night after school and sometimes when her mom and dad went out at weekends. Hayley didn’t mind, but hated having to miss out on things to do it.
Jacob ran to keep up with her when they left the school. Hayley tried not to be angry, but she had no one else to blame for her misery. Jacob would have to do.
“Wait up,” he said, panting.
“Why can’t you just stay there one day? This is stupid.”
“I went in my pants and they were looking.”
“Everyone has accidents.”
“It’s scary. I don’t like school.”
“Well you have to go. You don’t have a choice. A kid’s only job is to go to school.”
“I know.” Jacob’s voice cracked. “Mom told me.”
Hayley sighed. He better not start crying again.
“I’m sorry, Hay.”
She slowed a bit, feeling guilty for treating him so bad. After all, he was still a baby. “Yeah, fine. Let’s go home. Then we can have lunch and you can have a nap if you want.”
“I’m too big for a nap.”
“Really? Well big boys go to school and stay there.”
Jacob didn’t reply.
Hayley took his hand. She didn’t like being mean, but her temper sometimes made it impossible to stop. More and more she said things she shouldn’t.
Last week she even punched Amy, right in the face. Her mom had been really mad. It didn’t seem to matter that Amy deserved it; their mom demanded better from Hayley. Amy and Devon were expected to misbehave and never did what they were supposed to do. Then, instead of getting punished, they got attention. Mom would send Devon with their dad, and Devon said he got to go to the bar and hunting. Hayley never got to do that. Devon even had a drink of beer once at Dad’s hunting camp. He said it tasted like piss because it was warm. Hayley figured if it tasted like piss, the flavor couldn’t improve that much when cold.
Amy got to go with Jane, the social worker. Jane took her to the movies and to eat at McDonalds. Hayley didn’t understand how they thought this helped Amy learn anything; she got special stuff for being bad. If she was really bad, like the time she hit mom, she would go overnight with Jane and have pajama parties.
Amy said all she had to do was act up and Jane would come. She just talked, said what Jane wanted to hear, and she could go wherever she wanted. Had all the adults in her world had gone crazy?
Except for her friends, she didn’t seem to get anyone’s attention. She could make them laugh easily, goofing off in class or being loud and sarcastic at school. Her friends loved it.
Last month, a boy bugged Mandy at recess, shoving her down and saying mean things. When Hayley saw him push her friend, something inside her snapped. She charged, shoved him on the ground, and kicked him in the stomach until a teacher broke them up.
After pushing him, Hayley remembered little, but she could still feel the burning in her belly. Her friends had been in awe, giggling and talking about it for days. Her mom had been really angry. She grounded her for a week and made her apologize to him.
The school didn’t make a big deal of it. After all, she was just a girl and the boy a notorious bully. It didn’t seem to matter that she was a full head taller than him. Mr. Horton scolded her and he called Mom. Said Hayley needed to learn how to act like a young lady, not a thug.
After fishing the key from a bucket on the porch door, Hayley unlocked the door and shoved Jacob inside. She worked hard to keep her anger in check.
She often thought about her real dad and the stories she’d heard about him She had dreams about a gun and Devon’s little body hitting the wall. Sometimes she wanted to hurt people like that. Just throw them into a wall and listen to them cry about it. Would she turn out mean like her real dad?
“Hay, can I have grilled cheese for lunch?” Jacob’s voice startled her.
She helped him with his coat and hung it with his backpack next to the door. “Don’t you want to eat what Mommy packed for you?”
“I forgot.” Jacob smacked his forehead. He sat at the table with his lunch pail.
She checked the answering machine while he ate. There was one message.
“Hey Hayley, just making sure you guys got home okay. Call me.” Her mom’s voice was cheerful. She was trying to make sure Hayley wasn’t mad.
The way her mom always tried to keep everyone happy, never “rocked the boat” as Granny would say, was annoying. You got much better results if you shook people up a bit. She wanted to be the one who didn’t conform, who asked questions and stated her feelings, but really, when it mattered most, she said nothing. Just like she said nothing about Grandpa Warren, or what he did. She’d never be able to erase those things from her mind and should have demanded that they do something. Instead, she’d gone along with her mom’s plan and said nothing so she wouldn’t upset her dad.
Sometimes the ache inside grew so intense she wanted to just tell him everything. Mom had told him some, but he should know every detail, so he’d underst
and what an awful person his father was. When the words sat on the tip of her tongue, though, when she could taste the bitterness of them, she backed down, kept them inside. Why? Because that’s the way life worked. You didn’t put yourself before your family.
Sighing she picked up the phone and punched the button for her mom’s work. She answered on the second ring.
“Hey, we’re home.”
“Is he okay?” Her mom sounded out of breath, the register beeping in the background.
“Yeah, the teacher sent his clothes home. You want me to wash a load of laundry with them?”
“Sure, that would be great.” Then she said something to a customer before continuing, “Grab the basket out of the bathroom. You’ll have to use the clotheshorse. The dryer isn’t working. Love you.”
“Love you too,” Hayley muttered to the dial tone.
She hated washing clothes; didn’t even know why she’d offered. Now she would have to drag the old washing machine out from the porch and set it up; a job. She loathed having to crank the clothes through the wringer. She wished they had a machine like Mandy’s. It spun the clothes on its own. Hayley also hated hanging the clothes on a rack, which always seemed ready to collapse.
Sighing she opened Jacob’s bag of clothes. “Ew, gross!” she gagged.
Jacob looked up from his lunch. “What? Oh, yeah.”
Hayley held the bag away from her, furious with Jacob’s teacher. “Couldn’t she at least have dumped the shit out of them first?”
“You said a swear,” Jacob mumbled through the cookies in his mouth.
“I don’t care.”
She ran to the bathroom and did her best to scrape the clumps of poop out of Jacob’s pants and underwear. The stuff had seeped into the fabric and Hayley had to dump the clothes in the sink and run water over to get enough off so they could go in the wash. “Stupid bitch. Useless, retarded, lazy jerks…” She continued her tirade downstairs as she dragged the washer to the sink and hooked its hose to the tap.
Jacob said nothing, perhaps fearing that instead her anger could be directed at him. After a while, he fidgeted with his lunch pail. “Can I go play?”
“Yeah, but don’t mess up the living room.”
He dashed out before she finished the sentence. She shook her head, threw his wet clothes in the washer, and realized she’d forgotten the basket. Hayley cursed again as she stomped through the living room and up to the bathroom.
Later, when the clothes were washed and hung on the rickety clotheshorse, Hayley found Jacob asleep on the living room floor, so she went to sit outside.
Nothing in her life went right since she told her mom about Grandpa Warren. Chipping at the old picnic table with a stick, she wished she’d said no to him or at least ran away when he started acting weird. What could he have done about that? Would he have ran after her? She didn’t really know, but she suspected that he couldn’t have done a thing about it. Her teacher told them the other day that through history, women had been subjected to violence and forced into subservience, because they were taught from an early age to be the weaker sex. Many parents still raised daughters to think and act as second best, without even realizing what they did. Then they talked about women getting the right to vote and other milestones they’d made, despite being weaker than men.
Propaganda, one of the boys had called it later.
She looked up at the sky. Fluffy clouds drifted across the sun. The breeze tickled her face. Why didn’t she just say no? Because she didn’t want to make him mad. Fear did strange things to a person. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore, though. If you wanted to get anywhere, you had to be louder than the rest. She’d pressed so hard on the stick, it snapped in half. Hayley tossed it on the ground.
She was only loud if she got mad, and her anger scared her. Sometimes the back of her head got warm, almost hot, and something inside whispered to her. She didn’t listen to it most of the time, but maybe if she did, she wouldn’t be afraid.
CHAPTER 36
Ronny tapped the steering wheel. The dirt road was deserted, nothing but blackness pierced by the truck’s headlights. He skidded around a corner, dust flying up and through his open window. He tasted the grit, but he didn’t slow down or roll up the window. The cool evening air soothed his temper, helped him keep it in check.
He didn’t know what he’d find when he arrived at the Harrison’s, but their call made him jumpy, and furious. Karen Harrison was Amy’s best friend. She’d been there for countless sleepovers, but this time Karen’s parents had asked Amy to look after their youngest daughter while they took Karen to the hospital. Had Ronny or Dana known this, they would have told them it was a bad idea. He hadn’t worried about Amy being around the little girl, because the parents were always home.
Maybe he read too much into the call. Maybe Amy had vandalized the house; she loved destroying things. Just a month ago, she’d burned up her closet to get back at Dana for grounding her.
Ronny slammed his hand on the steering wheel. Why does she keep doing this shit? Guilt ate at his belly over Amy’s early childhood, but what could he have done about it?
Dana pushed him to sign her into a detention center or a residential facility, but he refused to give up on her. She was his kid.
He slowed down when he saw the lights of the Harrison’s house. His unease intensified when he saw three figures standing at the end of the driveway. Judy and Mark stood close to each other, arms crossed and Amy was a few feet from them, twirling her hair. Ronny stopped the car at the end of the driveway, got out, and walked toward them. “Get in the car,” he said to Amy.
“They made it up,” she whined.
“I said get in the car.”
Amy stomped away.
He turned to the Harrisons. Judy looked like she’d cried rivers. She clutched her battered blue housecoat around her as if she were cold, although the spring night was unseasonably warm. Mark’s features, though pale, painted a man intent on murder given the opportunity.
“That girl needs help,” Mark said. “Serious help.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am. She’s… I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing you can say. Actually, I feel sorrier for you. At least our baby can forget this and move on. Amy is fucked up.”
“What did she do?” Ronny didn’t want to know, but felt compelled to ask.
“I can’t even say the words.”
“If you want to press charges, I understand.”
Mark shook his head. “I will never repeat what I saw tonight. Besides, it’s bad enough to have that for a kid. You don’t need to know the details and you don’t need the law on your ass for it. Just promise me you’ll get her some help.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t know how much. If I thought she was capable of…” But he knew she was capable. She’d done it before. “I’m just so sorry.” Mark’s sneer told him he didn’t care what Ronny would have done. It didn’t change what happened. “Listen, it’s okay. Call the cops. I don’t blame you for pressing charges. I’d do the same if it were my kid.”
“Are you insane?” Judy asked. “We call the cops and then they’ll make that poor child in there,” she pointed to her door, “relive what your daughter did again and again. We just want to forget it ever happened. I don’t want anyone knowing what she did to my baby.” Judy’s voice broke and she turned her face into Mark’s chest.
They walked to their door and disappeared inside without another word.
Ronny glanced behind him, toward the car. Amy sat in the backseat, glaring out the window. What the hell am I going to do with her?
He walked to the driver’s side, opened the door, and after a calming breath, ducked inside. He didn’t know Amy anymore. He didn’t like her and didn’t want her. It was an awful thing to admit, but it was how he felt.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. We were playing,” Amy grumbled.
“You molested a three-year-old child. That’s not playing. It’s sick.�
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In the rearview mirror Amy frowned. “I wasn’t hurting her. She liked it.”
Bile stung the back of Ronny’s throat. He started the car and pulled away. How did you fix someone who didn’t care? “We called Jane,” he said. “She’ll be there when we get home.”
“What’s she got to do with anything?”
“She’s taking you to a group home.”
“I have to be arrested, and a judge has to send me to one of those. You can’t just stick me in one. I have rights.”
Ronny gripped the steering wheel once more, his finger joints blanching. “No, you don’t. I won’t have you in my house. You’re a lying, manipulating little bitch and I won’t have you around the other kids. I can’t trust you.”
“You mean your whore can’t trust me. She’s scared of me.”
“My what?”
Amy slumped in her seat. “Mom. She hates me. Always has. And you love Hayley more. The little princess. I should have bashed her face in a long time ago.”
Ronny gripped the steering wheel, attempting to push the rage that smoldered in his gut down and away from the surface. “Hayley has nothing to do with this and neither does your mother. We’ve all made allowances for you for way too long. We’re done. You don’t appreciate any of it. Maybe these people can fix you, but you need to admit you’ve got problems.”
“Yeah, my problem is my asshole family.”
Ronny let it go. In the past, he’d allowed her to rile him enough to strike her. He wouldn’t do it. As he pulled into the driveway to their house, he realized Jane hadn’t arrived yet. He opened his door and got out. Amy didn’t move. Just sat there, glaring out the window.
“Get in the house,” he said.
“Make me.”
“Don’t fucking try your bullshit today.” He yanked the door open and grabbed her arm. “I said get in the house.”
Amy struck at him, but he dragged her from the car and then shoved her toward the house, ignoring the profanity streaming from her mouth. By the time he wrestled her inside, his temper reached breaking point.