Page 15
In an odd way I am really happy to be able to give him something to worthy of his disappointment. Everything else has been a mild annoyance. A fire drill leading to this very moment. He will be able to put his making-me-feel-like-a-failure skills to good use today.
Because today the fire is now real.
“…you’re pregnant,” my father says, like he was the one telling me the news.
I flinch because hearing the words out loud somehow makes it even more real. Like now that he knows, I am even more pregnant than I was when I came through the door.
“They don’t teach about condoms in that private school of yours?” the senator asks me, then I see the regret cross his face the second the question leaves his lips, because he already knows the answer.
Tanner sees the same thing I do and he answers for me. “No sir. They don’t,” he says with a huge smile. And I know why he is smiling. My father has campaigned against teaching contraception in our local school district. His plan for teaching sex-ed had been an abstinence only course called Abstinence Only.
“Wipe that ridiculous smile off your face,” my father says to Tanner, leaning across the desk. “I’ll have Nadine call a private doctor. Of course I can’t stand behind a termination, but as of right now the law is on your side, and it’s still your decision to make until, the Republicans change things that is. ” It isn’t a statement about my options, it was a suggestion. An order.
“No!” I say, standing up. I hold my loose dress against my very rounded belly so he can be face to face with what it was he was suggesting I do. “It’s too late for that,” I say, “and even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t just call a doctor and get rid of it. ” I stare him down.
“What do you mean it’s too late?” my father asks cautiously.
“She’s already six months,” Tanner says, trying to deflect some of his bitterness away from me.
Thankfully it works because the senator moves on to a new plan. I’m still waiting him to call my mother.
“We need to sort this out, figure out how we are going to approach this mess,” my father says. “There is a lot to consider in matters like these,” and he’s right. We have to talk about what I am going to do about school. who would be taking me to my doctor’s appointments, and lots of other details. I intertwine my fingers and take a deep breath.
“Look,” I start, but my father holds up a hand to silence me and reaches for his desk phone, dragging it from the corner to the center. He flips open his cell phone and scrolls through. Finding what he’s looking for he pushes the speakerphone button on the desk phone and references his cell as he dials.
“This is Mags,” a woman’s voice announces.
“It’s Price,” my father starts. “We have a situation here. We’re going to need to work out a strategy, backlash, and then we need to talk approval rating. Maybe take a poll. ”
Mags. I know that name.
The man in front of me, my father, the one bent over the desk phone, doesn’t care one bit that his teenaged daughter is pregnant. He doesn’t care that I will miss school. He doesn’t care that I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby, or that my entire world is about to change in the most drastic way imaginable. No.
This phone call is like tossing a bucket of ice over my head and dragging me back to the reality that was the senator.
Because his phone call was to the one and only Mags Allbright.
Public relations extraordinaire.
I am not his daughter.
I am a situation.
That was officially the last day I called him Dad. From that day on I called him by one name and one name only.
The senator.
My father sat behind his desk looking very much like he did the day I told him I was pregnant, except maybe a little worse for wear. There were circles around his eyes, his hair was noticeably grayer, his complexion now slightly yellowed. I sat down in the same green chair I’d sat in three years before.
“You’re not going to say hello?” a voice asked from the corner. I turned my head to see my mother sitting with perfect posture, her legs crossed at the ankles, in a high-backed chair.
“Hello,” I said. My mother sat forward, bracing herself on the armrest. She picked up a glass tumbler that was filled with some sort of dark liquor and stood. She set the glass down on the senator’s desk, the liquid splashing over the side. “Are you feeling better now that you’re back from…the spa?” I asked.
“I’m fine, dear. So glad to have you home,” she said robotically. “I’m assuming you don’t remember me either,” she stated.
I shook my head and then remembered the picture frame I was still clutching in my hands. “I remember her, though. ” I turned over the frame in my hand and pointed to Nikki.
“You remember Nicole?” my father asked, sounding very surprised.
I nodded. “Just one memory. She’d come to my window, asked me for help. Money. ” My eyes welled up with tears, but I fought them back. “I told her no. ”
The senator sighed. “I’d forbidden you from seeing her after she went to rehab the first time, but you didn’t listen. You never did when it came to that girl. ”
“Apparently one time I did because I remember sending her away from my window. ”
“And you should be glad you did,” my mother chimed in, “because she’s. —”
“Margot,” the senator warned.
“She’s what?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but a part of me needed to hear it out loud.
“She’s dead,” my mother finished, with a shrug of her shoulder. “That poison she was shooting into herself finally killed her. They found her in a dirty motel on the side of the highway. ” There was no reverence in my mother’s voice; her nose was turned up as if she smelled something foul in the air. “She had a purse full of condoms and drugs. She’d turned to selling herself to support her habit. ”
I stood from my chair, almost knocking it backward. “So, just because you buy your shit with a fancy label and pour it into crystal, you think it makes you somehow different?” I pointed to the drink in her hand. “Nikki shot her shit into a vein, you’re mainlining yours down your throat. ” I shook my head in disbelief. “You ignorant bitch! She was an addict, just like you’re obviously an addict. The only difference between the two of you is that she didn’t try and make it look pretty. ”
“Get. Out,” my mother said, her hand visibly shaking. She threw the glass against the wall and it shattered against a picture of George W. Bush.
“Both of you. Stop. Margot, the car is waiting. Go. I’ll join you shortly. ” My mother leered at me as she did what she was told, leaving the room in a huff. The front door slamming shut a few seconds later.
My father didn’t address my mother’s behavior. “We have to leave for an event in Myrtle Beach. In the meantime there is a specialist coming to see you. He’s an expert on brain trauma and memory loss. He works mostly with veterans at the VA, but has agreed to come work with you. Try and behave while we’re gone and…your mother…she’s…fragile these days. Go easy on her. ” he stood up and buttoned his jacket. He opened his desk drawer and retrieved a gaudy bright gold watch with red diamonds around the bezel. “We’ll be back Thursday,” he clipped, and left the room.
Suddenly my fear of being alone made no sense at all. Because I’d much rather be alone than spend another minute with my parents.
I vowed right then and there to be the mother to Sammy, that according to my memories, my mother never was to me.
I wanted Sammy to grow up feeling loved and knowing that no matter what I’d always be there for him. The last thing in the world I ever wanted was for him to grow up and hate his own mother.
Like I hated mine.
Chapter Nine
King
When the debris settled in the room, I crawled on my stomach, stealing a glance out from behind the coffee table where I’d ducked for cover. The
couch where Bear had been sitting could no longer be seen in the rubble.
And neither could Bear.
There was a commotion of voices. Commands were barked. It sounded as if the orders were being spoken into a canyon, and all I could make out where the echoes of their voices.
Pain. Dull and pulsing, radiated from my head. Blood dripped into my eyes. My vision blurred, I squinted. Two men carrying AK’s clamored over the remains of the wall and entered the apartment. They were fixated on something hanging from the pile of debris on the couch and that’s when I finally caught a glimpse of Bear.
Or at least, part of Bear.
His leg hung at an awkward angle, dangling over a large piece of concrete. His jeans ripped. His calf dripping blood.
Something moved outside and my attention snapped back to the hole in the wall. There was large truck just beyond the wreckage, it was still running, the headlights on and shining directly into the apartment. Attached to the grill was some sort of ramming device.
Leaning up against the truck, was Eli.
He spotted me and smile, tipping his hat to me like he was greeting an old friend.
A crunching noise sounded from behind me. I turned my head to find one of Eli’s men standing over me, pointing his AK in my face. “You gonna die today,” the man said. Scars covered one side of his jaw, a shitty thin lined prison tat covered his neck. A toothpick hung from his lip, moving up and down when he spoke.