Mute (26 page)

“Good job, baby.” Moni smiled warmly. “Every time I
finished my homework, my momma used to give me a Popsicle. Would you like one?”

The girl nodded eagerly. Moni took one each of the
four flavors out of the freezer and let her choose. To her relief, Mariella
picked strawberry and not grape. Not that it would have meant anything if the
girl had showed a tendency for purple since she has nothing wrong with her,
Moni thought. Tropic the cat stretched with his back arched and placed his
front paws on Mariella’s lap as he begged for a lick of the treat. A cat can
avoid its owners all day, and then it sees them eating and all of a sudden it’s
their best friend. The girl extended a gooey red finger for the purring feline.

Just then, the doorbell rang. Tropic bolted to
Moni’s bedroom before he scored a taste.

“Save some room. That must be our friend, Aaron,
with the pizza,” Moni said. The girl didn’t seem all that thrilled, but at
least she didn’t run away like Tropic.

Keeping her eyes on the sliding door, Moni undid
the chain and swung open the front door. “I’m glad you could…” When she saw
those deceptively charming brown eyes and that dimpled chin, she nearly
swallowed her tongue.

“Make it? Well I sure am too,” said Bo Williams.
Inviting himself in, Moni’s father stepped through the doorway before she could
regain her faculties, and slam it in his face. He spun around and guided the
door firmly closed. “You’re looking mighty fine for someone who’s been in a car
wreck.”

She shrank from his gaze and avoided meeting his
eyes. “I got cut up a bit pulling the other officer out.” Moni held up her
bandaged hand in the hope that he wouldn’t beat on an injured woman. Her
memories of her bruised mother’s pleas for mercy told her that it wouldn’t make
one bit of difference. When her mother had blocked the entrance to Moni’s room,
he had shoved her. Moni remembered hearing her mother’s head thud against the
wall and then her mother’s soft sobs as her father penetrated her room. Then he
came to her closet.

“I saw you bleed’n on TV and figured I oughta come
over and make sure you’re okay.” Her father’s bushy eyebrows arched into his
crinkly forehead in an expression of sincerity fit for a vulture.

“I’m fine. Thank you.” She started backing toward
the couch so she could shield Mariella from the man who had left a scar on her
life; Mariella had enough lasting wounds.

“I see you’ve got company.” His eyes shifted toward
Mariella. He strolled toward her. Even at 51, Bo Williams had retained much of
his burly frame from his days as a linebacker. His skin had gotten as wrinkled
as an old leather sofa, but he still had sturdy muscles under there. The man
walked with a slight limp from a sore hip. Too bad Moni couldn’t outrun him
with her back against the wall—a position he always caught her in.

“I reckon this is my new granddaughter.” He leaned
over and put his hands on his knees. A smile crossed the prickly hairs of his
unshaven face. “I’m Grandpa Bo. What’s yer name sweetheart?”

The way he eyed her like a tasty new chew toy made
Moni’s stomach curdle. She stepped in front of Mariella and shielded her from
his gaze. The girl grabbed a hold of her leg.

“You’re not supposed to come within a thousand feet
of children,” said Moni, reminding her father of the terms of his release.
“Your parole officer would nail you if he knew you were out here.”

“You’re probably right. Why don’t you give him a
call?” He gestured with both hands toward her phone on the counter. Then he
crossed his arms and flexed his biceps. “Go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”

Seeing the threatening message behind those words,
Moni wished prisons didn’t have weight sets. She didn’t move a toenail.

He father nodded in satisfaction. He trotted over
and sat on the couch besides Mariella. Instead of using common sense and
fleeing, the girl stared at him curiously with her hands in her lap.

“I asked for yer name.” he said. “Are you fix’n to
answer?”

Mariella provided her usual response. She looked at
Moni hoping that she’d answer for her. No. She couldn’t let her father know
anything about the girl. Even the newspapers haven’t printed her name. She
didn’t need him showing up at her school and asking for her.

“Not much for jabbering, are ya? That’s not such a
bad thing.” He struck Moni with a gaze that made her feel covered in earth
worms. “My kid was way too loud. She didn’t know when to shut up.”

Her father had told her to shut up when he whipped
her over and over across her bare arm with his leather belt. He nearly crushed
her wrist with his grip so she couldn’t get away. She couldn’t stop screaming
and crying. He had told her to shut up again, but Moni didn’t stop until her
throat burned so bad that she couldn’t utter a sound.

She stared at the fist-sized bull head belt buckle
her father had strapped over his jeans. Moni reached for Mariella. The girl
took her hand and followed her away from the couch toward the kitchen.

“Where you think you’re going?” He sprang off the
couch and took center stage in the middle of the living room. They couldn’t
make a break for either door without running into him. She couldn’t get her gun
either because she had left it atop the bookshelf full of African warrior art.
“After all I did for you—you treat me like some kind of leper. You wouldn’t
have gone to that fancy police academy without my money. I put you up your
whole life. I put a roof over your head by bust’n my ass every day in a sweaty
garage. I’ve been working since my pa died. I supported my little sisters. It
never stops with you women. How long I gotta keep break’n my back?”

If only he had meant the part about his back
breaking literally, Moni thought. Recalling that his griping usually preceded a
severe beating, she sheltered Mariella behind her.

“With all the money I’ve given you for rent, I’ve
repaid my debt to you ten times over,” Moni said.

“By doing what? Pretending to be a cop as an excuse
for babysitting? That’s not real work. I work in the auto shop, but they keep
me in the back like a damn cockroach. They don’t want anybody recognizing me
from my mug shot. I wouldn’t have to deal with that shit if your fucking friend
didn’t go squealing on me. She shoulda taken it like a trooper.”

After her father had abused her best friend, she
didn’t talk to Moni again. Her friends abandoned her because she lived with a
monster. Even when they locked him up, her friend blamed Moni for not warning
her and keeping her away from her father. Moni knew her friend had been right.

She wouldn’t let him make Mariella the next
casualty. Moni had so many vicious barbs inside her she yearned to launch at
her father. They fell flat inside her mouth when he locked eyes with her.
“You’re not welcome in my home. Please leave,” was all she mustered. Mariella
reached out from behind her and squeezed Moni’s hand.

“You’re asking me to leave? You’re asking
me?
”
He shouted in her face and pointed his thumb at his rock solid chest. Moni
flinched and stumbled backwards. “I should be telling you to leave. If it
weren’t for you, my landlord wouldn’t be threatening to put an eviction notice
on my door.”

“But I paid your rent for this month.”

“Yeah well, the money ran out before I could pay
it. And it’s your fault, ya hear. Three nights a week I used to fish underneath
the bridge and catch enough for dinner. Then the murders started and they taped
off the walkway. They say the fish in there are poisonous. And I’ll be damned
if it isn’t ‘cause of your case. The same guy in the lagoon who wants that girl
of yours doesn’t want me to eat. He’s starving me until you give her back.”

“That’s completely ridiculous. Why would he starve
you and not me?”

Ignoring her logic, her father threw his hands up.
“He’s gonna starve everybody. And then he’ll do worse to you. You get it yet?
Just give him what he wants.”

He nodded toward the little girl hiding behind
Moni. Some grandfather he made.

“That won’t happen. Mariella is staying here with
me.”

“Well, if I can’t eat by the river, then you’re
gonna pay me for my troubles, but first you’re gonna feed me. What you got to
eat?”

Moni’s heart dropped like a stone inside her chest
when she saw that her father wouldn’t take her money and leave. He had set his
mind on staying for dinner, and maybe longer. She could never stop him from
getting what he wanted. She felt so embarrassed that she looked helpless in
front of Mariella. The girl squeezed her hand tightly, as if she thought it
would strengthen Moni and transform her into the hero the young one deserved.

Her father shoved his way past her into the
kitchen. Along the way he nearly knocked Mariella into the wall.

“Watch where you’re going!” Moni yelled as she
knelt down and cradled the trembling girl against her chest. “This is a fragile
child.”

“Oh don’t worry,” he said coldly as he towered over
the two of them. “I know how to handle fragile children. You remember, don’t
you darlin’?”

Unable to bare the trauma of seeing his face, Moni
shut her eyes. She felt herself in the darkness of her closet. She could hear
his heavy breathing. It made the thin door vibrate. Sometimes she grabbed the
handle and tugged with all her might. She could never prevent him from opening
it.

The doorbell rang. Moni’s eyes shot open. She had
totally forgotten about Aaron. He had stood up to Darren despite having a gun
in his face, so he shouldn’t be afraid of her father.

“Now’s not a good time for company,” her father
said. “Tell the dipstick to take a hike.”

With a nod, Moni led Mariella on a jittery gait
toward the door. When she got away from her father’s reach, she swung it all
the way open so Aaron got a clear view of the unwanted guest.

“Whoa. Looks like you ladies have the munchies,”
Aaron said as he balanced a couple of pizza boxes in his arms. She noticed a
fresh tomato sauce stain on his shirt—evidence that he had stolen a piece on
the way over. “Hey, is that your…”

“He’s my father,” Moni cut in. She made sure Aaron
saw her shoot her old man a wary glare.

“Hey, man,” Aaron called to him. “I hope you like
hot pepperoni. But who doesn’t right?”

Marching toward the young man with a bull rider’s
swagger, Bo Williams had lost his appetite for food. He looked ready to sink
his teeth into something else.

“She’s not taking company right now, so git.” He
pointed a greasy fingernail toward the road.

Aaron didn’t budge. “But, dude, she invited me.”

“I’m not gonna warn you twice, boy.” He made a fist
armored with two fat and bumpy gold rings. They could easily cave in a nose.

Aaron looked right past him to Moni. “Hey, I live
with my parents and they aren’t this harsh. What gives? Is he sauced up?” He
made a drinking motion and gulping sounds. Like so many young men, Aaron didn’t
think a man more than twice his age could hurt him. If he had a sense of the
violence Bo Williams could unleash, he didn’t show it.

Her father directed his disapproving frown on Moni.
“So this is the kind of loser you’re dating. You deserve his dumb ass, I’ll
tell you that much.” Then he turned on Aaron with double the fury as his face
swelled like a microwaved tomato. “You wanna see some sauce? When I was in the
joint, I learned how to cut open a man’s throat by digging a key into his neck.
I got a whole keychain full in my pocket.”

“Jail, huh? That’s pretty hardcore.” Aaron said
without sounding startled in the least. Her father gnashed his teeth and
reached into his pocket.

“Okay, that’s enough getting acquainted for one
day.” Moni interjected before Aaron earned a fist through his head. “Now dad,
I’ll give you that little loan and then you can be on your way.”

Her father shook his head. “You want me to leave
‘cause that punk’s here? Don’t bet on it.”

“What?” The moment he caught on to the extortion,
Aaron set the pizza boxes down and fronted up on Bo Williams with his arms wide
and his chest pumped up. It would have looked intimidating if Aaron had more
than chicken scratch for muscles. “You’re hitting your daughter up for cash?
That’s low, man. You’re gonna leave here as penniless as you came.”

“You got plenty of yap, don’t cha little doggie?”
Bo Williams got nose-to-nose with him. Moni tugged at Aaron’s arm, but he didn’t
back away. “If you stick your nose in my family, yer gonna get it bit off.” He
flashed a grin of yellow-stained teeth with a few gaps in them. No doubt he had
knocked out more teeth than he had lost.

 
Darren had
kept her father at bay since his release from prison and her street-tough ex
could probably tackle a bull. Aaron fought walls of water and flopping fish—not
exactly good practice for an ex-con with a reputation for fighting dirty. He
got the family kicked out of Disney World on Moni’s first time there because he
got into a fight with another dad in line. He had gouged the man’s eyes bloody.
The experience had freaked the victim out so much that he didn’t fly back to
Florida for the court appearance, so her father walked free.

Aaron showed no signs of skirting this fight. Moni
wondered whether he had fallen head over heels for her in a little less than a
week or whether Aaron had a delusional macho complex that wouldn’t let him pass
up any challenge. Either way, she held Mariella tight while she shuffled away
from her father.