Stand Alone (19 page)

“You can stay with me for a while. Prove yourself, if you want to convince me that you’re responsible. Show me how responsible you can be. Because lately
  
…
 
you’ve been getting in too much trouble on your own. Time to rein it in.”

“I can be responsible,” Justine argued. “You don’t have to treat me like a little baby! I’m not going to go all over town with you.”

“You are today. And for a few days. We’ll see after that. You show me that you can be mature and make good decisions, and I will consider letting you stay at home alone or go out on your own again. Until then, you will be with me.”

“You can’t make me,” Justine asserted, folding her arms across her chest, her jaw jutting stubbornly.

“The more you fight me, the longer it will be before you can be trusted again.”

“That’s not fair,” Justine protested, her voice a plaintive whine. It wasn’t the first time Em had tried a stance like this.

“Fair is what I decide it is. It’s fair to base your privileges on how responsible you are being. All you have to do is behave, and you get more privileges. What’s unfair about that?”

“I can’t be good all the time. And as soon as I make a mistake, you’re going to take something away from me, or say I can’t go out for another week or something. I’ll never be able to earn my freedom back.”

“I see little miss drama queen is back today. Quit over-dramatizing it. Nobody said you would never be able to earn your privileges back, or that you were going to be penalized every time you make a mistake. I think I was pretty clear. You want to be able to go out, you stay with me and show me you can be more mature. If you don’t want to go out, then I guess there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Fine,” Justine said, tight-lipped, “I won’t go out.”

Em raised her brows and shrugged. She looked back down at her breakfast to concentrate on what she was eating. Justine watched her suspiciously. Something didn’t make sense. If Em wanted Justine to go with her on her errands, why was she being so calm about Justine saying that she was going to stay home? She had to know that as soon as she was out of the way, Justine would just hop on her board and do whatever she wanted to. But Em looked completely unconcerned.

Stunned by a sudden thought, Justine dropped her fork and bounded up the stairs to her room. She looked around.

“Where’s my board?” she screamed.

There was no answer. Justine looked under the bed, in the closet, and kicked around dirty clothes on the floor to make sure it hadn’t been covered up. She went back downstairs and looked around the front door and in the coats closet. She went back into the kitchen.

“Where’s my skateboard?” she demanded, outraged.

Em raised her brows.

“Why would you need your board if you’re not going to go out?” she questioned. “If you want the privileges, you have to earn them by coming with me.”

“Where’s my board? It’s mine, you can’t take it away from me! It’s my board!” Justine broke off, swearing angrily. “Give me my board!”

Em shook her head.

“When you’ve earned it,” she repeated calmly.

Justine went back up the stairs and started to tear through Em’s room. Under her bed, in her closet, anywhere she thought Em might have been able to secrete it away. Justine’s lips curled into a furious snarl. She frantically searched the room. Then the mostly-unused study. Maybe it was in the basement.

Justine hurried downstairs to look. At the top of the basement stairs, her eyes caught on the latch on the door. Burma had insisted that the padlock that was sitting dormant in the eye be disposed of, as evidence that no one could be locked in the basement. But the latch itself was still there. And even if it was just closed with no padlock in it, is would still be nearly impossible to escape from the basement if someone was trapped down there. And if someone shoved something through the eye, like a pen or a spoon, there would be no chance of getting out. Justine looked over her shoulder. Em was still sitting at the dining room table eating breakfast. There was no need to be nervous about her. Still
  
…
 
Justine hesitated before proceeding down the stairs to see if Em had hidden her board down there. She moved quickly, not wanting to be caught there for long. She walked through the piles of junk, the cans of stored emergency food, the Christmas tree and other odds and ends. She didn’t see her board anywhere. Justine shoved blankets and bags aside, furious tears starting to course down her cheeks.

Where was her board? There were only so many places in the house that it could be hidden. It wasn’t a small item, and Em generally kept a neat house. Justine should be able to find it. She couldn’t believe that Em would have the nerve to steal her board. To take it away so that Justine was crippled, and couldn’t leave the house when she wanted to. How could Em do that? It wasn’t fair!

Justine stomped back up the stairs to the main floor and confronted her mother. Em had finished her pancakes and was sitting comfortably with an open newspaper, calmly reading the day’s news or advertising. Justine snatched the newspaper from her hands and threw it to the floor in a fury.

“Where is my board?” she demanded.

“Your board is somewhere safe, where it will stay until you have proven yourself worthy of the privilege. When you have proven yourself, you will get it back.”

“This is not freaking fair!” Justine screamed at the top of her lungs, stomping her feet like a child. She was impotent with rage, filled with fury, with nowhere to direct it, no legitimate way to release it or to fix the situation. If she started hitting or throwing things around, there would be no board. Justine knew that. She had to have her board back. She had no money to replace it. No way to earn money while Em was in this mood. “This sucks! Give me my board!”

“Screaming isn’t going to get your board back.”

“You can’t steal my property! I’m going to call the police!”

“Go ahead. They can add another nuisance call to your file. That will go over well for your court case.”

Justine screamed wordlessly, grabbing a handful of hair in both hands and pulling hard. She stomped her feet again, screaming. Em’s face darkened.

“Stop that now,” she ordered in a low, threatening tone. “You want to have the neighbors calling the police? If you want to earn back your privileges, including your board, you can start now. Go upstairs and start cleaning up your room. And then you can clean up whatever mess you made in my room, and the rest of the house that you just ripped through like a cyclone.”

Justine opened her mouth, still winding her hands around her long hair and pulling, her body stiff with fury.

“No more screaming, no yelling,” Em said sharply. “Go get started on your chores.”

Justine stomped back up the stairs to the second floor and threw herself onto her bed, screaming wildly into the pillow, powerless to express the rage boiling inside of her or do anything about it. She beat her fists against the bed and yanked at her hair, swearing and yelling into her pillow.

The doorbell rang half an hour later, as she was starting to calm back down again. Justine sat up, pushing loose hair out of her damp face. She crawled to the edge of the bed and stuck two fingers through the horizontal blinds to peek out. A police car sat at the curb. Justine whispered a curse. This was either going to make Em either very angry, or insufferably superior.

Justine waited to be called downstairs, but instead heard the noise of feet coming up the stairs. She pushed hairs that had strayed out of her braid away from her face and glanced at her reflection in the mirror across the room. Her face was red and sweaty. She looked wild and unkempt, especially with the stained blouse that she had chosen to wear. It was too late to do anything about that now. Justine grabbed the bottom of her shirt, flipping it up to wipe as much of the sweat off of her face as she could. There was nothing else to do.

There was a brisk knock on the door, and it was pushed open without giving Justine a chance to respond. Justine bit back a protest. Em hung back to allow the two police officers to enter. Then she stood in the doorway to watch.

“We had a report of a disturbance,” the tall, narrow police officer stated. “Checking to make sure that everything is in order.”

His name badge said Hodge. The other was Raymond. Both seemed vaguely familiar, but Justine couldn’t think of where she had run into them before. Neither of them seemed to recognize her.

“Everything is fine,” Justine growled, looking away and rubbing her forehead. “I was just mad.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“I was mad because she,” Justine nodded toward Em, “stole my skateboard. I was looking for it,” she glanced around at the mess on the floor. “But she took it and she won’t give it back.”

“I see,” Hodge nodded, and Raymond jotted something down in his tiny notepad. “So you were upset about that.”

“I was screaming, yeah,” Justine admitted.

“But you’re okay.”

“Yeah.”

“And nobody has laid hands on anybody else?” Hodge looked from Justine to Em and back again. Both shook their heads.

“No. Nobody got hurt.”

“We’d like to interview the two of you separately,” Hodge said.

Em looked reluctant to separate. She opened her mouth to protest. Raymond motioned for her to move back, and followed her out of the doorway and into the hall. Em’s words of protest were unclear, and faded as they walked away and back down the stairs again. Hodge looked at Justine and closed the door softly.

“You’re pretty mad at your mom,” he suggested.

Justine nodded.

“Yeah. I am. I freaked out pretty good, and I’m still mad.”

“Did she explain why she took your skateboard away?”

“She wants me to be responsible. Earn it back.”

“Do you think you can do that?”

“She can take it away from me?” Justine protested. “Just because I’m a kid?”

“Because you’re
her
kid. She’s entitled to do it as a form of discipline. The police don’t interfere with that. I just have to be sure that everybody’s okay. That there’s no abuse or assault going on here.”

“She didn’t hit me,” Justine said grouchily, “and I didn’t hurt her. We’re okay, so that’s the end of your report, right?”

“I need to be sure that you’re okay.”

Justine looked up when he didn’t say anything else. He was waiting, watching her, waiting for her attention. Justine shrugged.

“I want you to look at me,” he said firmly.

Justine looked up into his face. His eyes were gentle, but intense. She could only look at them for a minute.

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you’re okay,” Hodge directed.

Justine steeled herself. She looked briefly in his eyes again.

“She didn’t hit me. I’m okay,” Justine said.

Hodge nodded.

“Okay, then,” he said.

Justine sighed, and lay back on her bed, thumping her head back.

“Things aren’t going to well?” Hodge questioned sympathetically.

“Would you like someone stealing your stuff?”

“No, I probably wouldn’t. But she’s your mom, and you need to listen to her. If she says you need to do chores or something, you ought to do it. Try to get along. In a few years, you’ll be an adult, and things will be different.”

“I can’t wait that long for things to change.” Tears started in her eyes again, and Justine used them to her best advantage. “I want my board and to be able to make my own choices. Not to be worked like a slave for a few more years, just for her gratification.” Justine sniffled. “I’m bigger than she is now, you know, but she’s still a bully. I thought when I was bigger than her,
I’d
be in charge.”

“That’s not quite the way it works, though, is it? Your mom is still your mom, and you’re still a kid. Hang in there. It will get better. And if you are being abused or neglected, you know who to call, right?”

“Can I have your phone number?” Justine questioned, brightening at the thought.

Hodge chuckled.

“No, sorry,” he said. “You can call 911 if you need help. Or CPS. Or Kids Help Phone or something.”

“I’d call you.”

“No, honey. You can’t.”

Justine sat there, thinking about it and looking at him silently. She sighed and looked back up at the ceiling, swallowing to keep the tears from making a reappearance.

“I’d better head out,” Hodge said. He opened the door to leave. “You take care, okay? I know it’s hard being a kid, but things will get better. The time goes faster than you think.”

Justine watched him go. He didn’t close the door behind himself, and she could hear his footsteps down the stairs, and then hear his voice and Raymond’s in the living room. And then the front door shut.

Em left her alone for a while. Justine guessed that Em had learned that much from their years of fighting, anyway. Justine could hear her cleaning up the kitchen, vacuuming the lower level, and eventually turning on some music, which meant she was sitting down to do some of her paperwork. Another half hour passed without incident, then Em appeared in her doorway.

“You haven’t done any tidying up,” she pointed out to Justine. “I need you to tidy my room and change your shirt before we go out. You have twenty minutes.”

“I don’t want to go out,” Justine sulked.

“You know the consequence.”

Justine shook her head. She stared at Em.

“Did you like the cops coming?” she questioned. “Did you enjoy telling them what a pain in the neck I am?”

Em merely raised an eyebrow. She turned and went back downstairs, leaving Justine without anyone to fight.

Justine put on her headphones and listened to music in the car as Em ran her errands. When required, she trailed after Em, attempting no conversation, just listening to her music and dogging Em’s heels. When allowed, she just sat in the car, her head back and eyes closed, and listened to her music. When they finally got back home, Justine took out her earphones.

“Do I get my board back?” she demanded.

“You did very well today. I was impressed that you didn’t give me any trouble while we were out. You did very well,” Em said.