The Good Daughter (29 page)

Mama stood at the living room window, watching the street, even though Howie had disappeared long ago.

“Mama, come sit down with me, watch a show with me,” Delilah said, patting the cushion next to her on the leather couch. “We never did see
Confessions of a Shopaholic,
Mama. Maybe we can find it on Showtime?”

“I don’t feel much like watching TV.”

“I know, Mama,” Delilah coaxed, “but time will go by faster and you won’t worry so much if we’re watching something funny.”

Missy heaved a sigh, dropped the window blind, and took a seat on the couch next to Delilah. “I wish he hadn’t gone out tonight,” she said fretfully, folding her arms across her chest.

“Try to not think about it, Mama. It’ll be better if you don’t.”

They didn’t find the movie they wanted, but
The Devil Wears Prada
was playing on another network and it was a movie they both loved. Halfway through, Delilah paused the movie to make
a big bowl of popcorn, cooking it on the stove and then coating it in melted butter and salt the old-fashioned way.

Delilah poured soda into two glasses, carried the drinks in, and then went back for the popcorn. “Refreshments are served,” she said, settling back down on the couch. But instead of pushing play for the movie, she talked to Mama, telling her about Memorial and her favorite teachers, Mrs. Hughes, the biology teacher, who was actually from Ireland; and her English teacher, Miss Brennan, who really loved to read; as well as the teachers she didn’t like, Ms. Jones and Mr. Osborne. “I’m not sure about Miss Powers,” she confided between handfuls of popcorn. “But I don’t think she likes me.”

“Why doesn’t she like you?” Mama asked, puzzled.

“I don’t know. Maybe because I never smile at school.”

“You don’t smile?”

Delilah shook her head.

“Why not?” Mama persisted.

“Why should I? I’d just look like a dumb-ass like the rest of them—”

“Delilah Marie!”

“Well, they are. Most kids are. They don’t know anything.”

“And you do?”

Delilah didn’t answer right away, thinking that she knew a lot more than she wanted to know. A hell of a lot more. Like fear. She knew fear. She knew what it smelled like and tasted like.

She knew danger. She knew how to never turn her back on a door, as well as to check a room for windows, and make sure they all opened.

She knew she needed plans—escape plans, backup plans, save-Mama’s-life plans.

Most of all she knew hate. And the hate was what would kill her, if Howie didn’t kill her first.

“I’m just not like the other kids,” Delilah said quietly, wiping her buttery fingers on her pajama pants. This wasn’t the life she’d imagined when she was a little girl dressing up in princess costumes. But then, she couldn’t imagine this was the life Mama wanted either, when she’d bought her baby girl pink tulle dresses and plastic gold crowns.

Mama seemed to know what she was saying and for a moment she looked so sad. “It’s not always going to be like this, Dee. It’s going to get better. I promise.”

“Not if you stay with him.”

“I’m not talking about me, Dee, I’m talking about you. When you’re eighteen. When you finish high school. You’ll be able to move out, get a place of your own, and it’ll be so exciting, so good for you, baby.”

“I’m not going to leave you, Mama.”

“Oh, baby, you’re growing up. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you—”

“Not leaving you alone with him.”

Missy reached out to lift a strand of hair from Delilah’s eyes. “Baby, as soon as school is over, you’ll want to go—”

“No. Not if it means leaving you with him.”

“Dee, honey, Howie’s not going to let you stay with us forever.”

Delilah set the popcorn bowl down on the coffee table with a thud.
“What?”

“You’re only here till you finish school, and then you’ll go live your life, and Howie and I will live ours.”

Delilah wanted to howl and scream and take the bowl of popcorn and hurl it at the wall. She wanted to break the TV and shatter the coffee table’s glass top and rage the way Howie raged—violently, wildly, selfishly.

But that would only end up hurting Mama.

So after a moment of fighting with the devil inside herself, she sat back down, picked up the popcorn, and put it on her lap.
“We should finish the movie,” she said, “before Howie comes home.”

Later that night, with the movie finished, Delilah was in bed, drifting in that lovely place between awake and asleep, when she heard a door slam followed by quick, heavy footsteps.

Howard was home.

Would he be in a good mood or a bad mood?

She opened her eyes, held her breath, listening. The house was suddenly quiet. It seemed to be listening, too.

There were more footsteps. Muffled voices. Her mama’s. His. A cupboard door opened in the kitchen and then banged loudly shut. More voices. A little louder. A little faster. Were they fighting?

Her ears strained. Her heart began to pound. It didn’t feel right, the energy in the house. Everything felt heavy now, heavy and quiet.

Tense, Delilah stared up into the dark, fingers gripping her covers, waiting for the moment when everything changed, exploded, and even breathing felt dangerous. Someday she wouldn’t be here, she told herself, someday she’d be out, away, safe from all this.

But Mama wouldn’t be.

In the kitchen, the voices grew louder. For a change, Mama was the one shouting. Howie said something back and then Mama screamed at him, not an in-pain scream, but an in-anger one.

They
were
fighting. Mama was picking a fight. Mama shouldn’t do that. Mama would pay for it.

Delilah crept from bed, sat on the floor, her ear pressed to the faded wallpaper.

“Keep your voice down,” Howie said. “You don’t want Dee to hear.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I do.”

“Who was she? Where did you meet her, Howard?”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“You don’t think I know,
Michael
? You left your computer open. I saw the messages—”

He slapped her hard, the sharp crack of his hand echoing, silencing her. “It was a business dinner—”

“Some business when you come home smelling like sweat and sex and someone else’s perfume!” And then she was walking away from him, and Mama never walked away from him.

Howie chased after her, cornering her in the hallway.

Delilah moved to the door and peeked through the old-fashioned keyhole.

“And I told you it didn’t happen,” he said, flinging her around to face him.

Delilah could see her mama’s chin jerk up as she played with her wedding ring, sliding it up and down between her knuckles. “I’m not stupid, Howie.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I’m not,” she insisted thickly. “I used to work. I have some computer skills—”

“That was called a cash register, Missy, and you sold perfume.”

“It was retail and I was a manager—”

“In the fragrance section of a cheap department store.”

“It paid bills.”

“It paid for your cigarettes and vodka and nothing else. You needed me. You still need me. So watch your mouth.”

“You want me to get a job? I’ll get a job—”

“How are you going to do that when you don’t even drive?”

“I drive. I just don’t have a car.”

“You don’t have a car because you don’t need a car. You don’t go anywhere.”

Missy wasn’t backing down tonight. She stood there staring him in the eye, jiggling her ring relentlessly. She didn’t speak for a
long moment, and when she did, her voice shook. “Fine. I’ll take the bus.”

Delilah saw Howard slam his hand against the wall right next to Missy’s ear, making her head bounce against the wall. “What the fuck is wrong with you tonight?”

“You said I’m not smart and I can’t do anything…well, you’re wrong. And I’ll show you—”

He silenced her by putting his hand around her neck, fingers squeezing, choking off sound. “I don’t need this shit now. Honest to God, Missy, I really don’t. You’re not going to work. You’re not going to take the bus. Your job is here, taking care of Dee and me. Got that? You hearing me?”

Missy’s throat worked.

His hand fell away. His mouth screwed up tight. “Didn’t hear you, Missy. Can you repeat that for me?”

“Yes,” she croaked.

“That’s it, baby. Now kiss me. Show me we’re good, that it’s all forgiven.”

Delilah watched Mama stretch up on tiptoe, and Delilah turned away. Shaking, shivering, she crept back into bed, and wished she were dead.

H
owie was gone by the time she woke up the next morning. Missy was sitting in the kitchen at the table, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette. Her hand was shaking as she held the cigarette to her mouth. Purple fingerprints marked her throat.

Delilah stared at the bruises as she poured milk on her cereal. Her mother exhaled slowly, blowing out a stream of smoke.

Normally Delilah would say something about the smoke. Howie hated Mama smoking, much less in the house, but it seemed kind
of pointless to talk about what Howie liked when he’d gone and choked Mama last night.

Delilah concentrated on eating her Cap’n Crunch. Howie said she was too big for little kids’ cereal but Delilah didn’t care. She loved Cap’n Crunch. It made her mouth happy.

“It’s not what you think,” Mama said, stubbing out her cigarette after a long silence.

Delilah concentrated on reading the back of the box. The Cap’n needed help finding buried treasure. Every day she filled in the missing letters so he could find it. A man needed his treasure.

“He wasn’t trying to hurt me,” Missy added. “Happened during sex—”

“Jesus, Mama! Really?” Delilah dropped her spoon. It clattered against the rim of the bowl and milk splashed onto the faded green place mat. “You think I want to know this?”

Her mother’s lips pursed, compressed. She tapped out another cigarette, studied it before sliding it back into the box. “Just didn’t want you to worry that he’d been mean. He wasn’t mean. Sometimes when adults make love—”

“I’m still eating, Mama.”

“Okay, fine. We’re fine, then.”

“No, we’re not fine. I’m not fine. You’re not fine. But if that’s what you want us to do today, play pretend, I’ll do it, but only so I can keep from hurling my Cap’n Crunch all over me and you.” Delilah picked up her spoon, took a mouthful. The cereal had started to get soggy. She hated it soggy. She didn’t even have to chew. She swallowed the bite and spooned up another five little golden squares. “And don’t call it making love. He’s not making love to you when he’s choking you.” Milk dripped from the bottom of the spoon. “Goddamn, Mama! Even I know that.” She shoved the spoon in her mouth and muttered around the milk and cereal, “Disgusting pervert.”

Delilah didn’t know if her mother had heard the last part, but
Missy shot her a hard look and took a sip of coffee. She drank it black. Delilah couldn’t understand why anyone would drink coffee black, but then, she couldn’t understand how any woman could be with Howie. And her mom did both.

Delilah took another couple bites of cereal before it was too soggy to finish. She got up and dumped the bowl into the sink so Mama wouldn’t see her wasting food. “Heard you and Howie
talking
in the hall last night,” she said, squirting dish soap into the bowl and washing it by hand, and trying to sound nonchalant.

“You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, Delilah. You know Howie doesn’t like that.”

“Kind of hard not to hear when you were both screaming.”

Mama lit another cigarette and then almost immediately snuffed it out. “I’m already halfway through a pack and it’s not even eight yet,” she muttered, sitting back in her chair and gently touching her throat. “Anyway, what were you saying?”

“You picked the fight with him last night, Mama. You accused him of smelling like sex and sweat and somebody’s perfume.”

“That’s between him and me.”

“You know he’s just going to go crazy on you when you bring stuff like that up.”

Missy’s fingers slid lightly over the purple fingerprints on her neck. “I’m his wife.”

Delilah returned to the table, sat down. “You have a death wish, don’t you?”

Missy managed a small, tight smile. “I held my own last night. You should be proud of me.”

Delilah couldn’t stand watching her mother touch the bruises and dropped her gaze to the middle of the wood table with its napkin holder and the little blue-and-white ceramic salt and pepper shakers in the shape of Dutch shoes.

Holland,
she thought. That’s another place she and Mama would go if Howie were gone. She and Mama would visit Holland
and see the tulips and the windmills. She read somewhere that everyone in Holland rode bikes. Mama wasn’t much for bike riding, but she’d like the tulip fields. Mama loved flowers. “If we could go anywhere together, you and me, where would you want to go?”

“Oh, honey, I don’t know. You mean, like to go shopping?”

“Or traveling. Is there someplace you’d like to visit with me? Someplace special you’ve never been?”

“Oh, I like Las Vegas. Howard took me there when we were first dating.”

“I know, Mama, but what about me? Would you want to go somewhere with me? Just the two of us?”

Missy took another quick sip of coffee. “Not sure that would ever happen, baby, but Seattle would be nice. I hear it’s real cool and green with lots of big trees and lakes and mountains.”

“You don’t want to go to Paris? Or Italy? You like pasta, Mama. Lobster ravioli.”

“Seattle would be nice. They have ferries, you know, that take you to all these islands. There’s one called Orcas Island. Learned about it on the Travel Channel.”

For the longest minute Delilah couldn’t think of anything to say, and then she pushed herself slowly up. “Okay, Mama. We’ll go to Seattle and ride one of those ferries. Maybe go up the Space Needle, too.” Then she walked out of the kitchen, went to her bedroom, and dressed for school.

Her fingers felt stiff as she zipped her plaid skirt and buttoned the white uniform blouse. Her vision blurred and it took her a minute to find her socks and shoes. Maybe she was having a breakdown. Maybe she was coming unglued.