The Knowing: Awake in the Dark (12 page)

No one else spoke. We found the car and just as we were about to load Robbie in, another vehicle approached driving at a crawl. The driver was an old man and his wife. They craned their necks to see what we were doing and pulled over in front of our car to help.  They knew the area and Robbie was taken to a hospital and into emergency surgery. He’d broken his femur which required pins to be inserted for stability. His leg was then placed in a large cast.

For the first time, I was grateful for my message but frightened too.
Where was this voice coming from, and how does it know things?
I wondered. Suddenly, the voice I’d heard within took on a new meaning.
I have to stop dropping acid
, I thought. I hoped it would quiet the voice and stop me from seeing the
light-body
too, but it didn’t.

Weeks after our snow day, as I walked home from school, Aaron drove by. I hadn’t seen him in months. Although I’d been deeply hurt, I’d never stopped thinking about him and still wrote his name on my spiraled notebooks and pretended he loved me.

He slowed down and pulled to the curb.

“You want a ride?” he asked.

He leaned casually out the window, smiling at me. He wore mirrored sunglasses and my heart skipped a beat when I saw him. My stomach filled with the flutter of love and in an instant, I was awash with new hope.

Maggie knew about my close call at Aaron’s. She especially hated Dan but she didn’t like Aaron either. In my mind, I heard her say, “He is such a scumbag,” she’d say or “What a loser. What, can you possibly see in him?” She continually warned me to stay away.

I was thrilled that he stopped for me. “A ride would be great,” I said happily. I climbed into his car without hesitation. We pulled away from the curb with screeching tires. Another thrill ran through me.

“You feel like going for a ride before I drop you off?” Aaron asked.

“Sure.” I said, bright with enthusiasm.

We drove with the windows down and music blaring, breathing in nature’s fragrant spring air. We passed a tanker truck at high speed on a two lane road. I saw our image mirrored in the tankers side as we passed and it is forever seared into my memory.

Maggie got a job as an assistant manager for a fast food restaurant in order to help our mother pay bills. We’d both curtailed our drug use. Maggie took school more seriously while I took Aaron more seriously. Maggie and I began to grow apart.

I spent more time at Aaron’s, sneaking out at night and returning before school the next morning. I’d carefully fit my fingers inside the cool metal casing of the window and silently pulled it back. Cold night air rushed through the small opening of our bedroom where my sisters pretended to be asleep. I swung first one leg and then the other through and shimmied out onto the condo’s rooftop quietly moving across the sand papery tiles to the fence below. The neighborhoods slept as I hurried along the quiet streets and made my way to Aaron’s. I spent four nights a week with him. It became a bone of contention between Maggie and me.

“You better stop sneaking out, Nita,” Maggie whispered as I slipped through the window one morning. “Mom knows what you’re doing, you stupid ass. She hates him too. You know he can go to jail for statutory rape, right? You better knock it off. I’m not going to protect you when she has his scummy ass locked up.”

“Fuck off,” I replied.

After school that day I sat on my trundle bed and folded sheets I’d stolen from our linen closet to give to Aaron. It wasn’t the first batch of goods I’d stolen for him. I’d pilfer through our meager pantry taking canned goods, minute rice and anything else he could eat.

I heard my mother behind me in the hallway. I turned toward my bedroom door surprised she was home. She was supposed to be at work but stayed home because her back hurt again. My mother struggled for years with severe back pain from herniated discs. When the pain became intolerable, she got high on wine and painkillers. That day her eyes were wet and unfocused, threaded with red veins creating an odd shine. Her energy was flat.

She leaned casually against the doorframe looking in at me.  She held a pistol casually in her right hand letting it dangle at her side. I recognized the gun as one she carried in her purse regularly. I looked away frozen in fear that squeezed my guts and spread like a fever  stinging my skin. I stared down at nothing. 

“I drove to that scumbag’s house last night, where you spent the night,” she said.  “I was going to knock on the door and blow his fucking head off when he answered it. But then, I realized that you would never forgive me. You would blame me and hate me for the rest of your life, and then you would just go find yourself another scumbag anyway. So,” she continued, “I decided I would have to kill you instead. I can’t stand who you are, and I can’t believe you steal from me, for that worthless piece-of-shit, you call a man. You make me sick.  I’m just going to kill you and put us both out of our misery.”

Her words pierced my heart. I felt my emotions bleed. I was stunned.  My mother was rarely home and while we weren’t close, I never suspected how she felt. I never imagined that she would want to kill me. I sat fearful and empty as my mother raised her arm and pointed her gun directly at my head. I heard a harsh click as she pulled back the hammer.

Oh shit,
I thought squeezing my eyes shut,
she’s going to do it
. And I was absolutely immobile, unable to complete a thought. Regret for who I was, fused my throat closed preventing me from swallowing. A blanket of energy encircled my body but I was pretty sure it couldn’t stop a bullet. And then I
knew
she wouldn’t do it.  Suddenly, the phone rang. The bell was shrill and relentless and screamed endlessly. My heart thudded forcing blood to pound in my temples like I’d gobbled ice cream.

“Looks like you’ve been saved by the bell,” my mother, smirked.

I would learn days later that it was Isla calling from Cadet School, which she’d started a month before, like the goody-two-shoes I thought she was. Isla never broke the rules, took drugs or cut school, she was too afraid. Isla lived for our mother’s approval, which she never got. Our mother thought that Isla was stupid and told her so regularly. “I can’t believe I have a child who is so stupid!” She’d shout at Isla, who would stare at our mother with eyes full of pain.

Turning away from me, my mother lowered the gun and went to answer the phone. My body shook and my bowels turned liquid.  I ran to the bathroom and locked the door until my mother left and then I fled.

I waited in the park for Maggie to finish work and I told her what had happened. I’d expected her to take my side, but Maggie was ambivalent. She hated that I was involved with Aaron and blamed me for causing stress and upsetting our mother. Maggie had the guns removed from our house but after that incident my days living at home were numbered.  I was fifteen.

As my relationship with Aaron grew, my relationship with Maggie crumbled and my mother checked out emotionally in a way she hadn’t before. There was a constant storm in our house and we were fat with turmoil and struggle.

Maggie warned me again to stay away from, Aaron. “He is such a lowlife, Nita.  He has nothing to offer. What the hell do you see in him?”

“I love him and he is not a, lowlife. You just don’t know him.”

“Oh please. I know him and all his scummy, friends.” Maggie countered, “He is a piece of shit and you know it. He doesn’t love you, he is a scumbag, open your eyes. You better get a grip or you won’t like what comes next,” she threatened.

“What? You’re my mother now. You’re going to get all high and mighty? I have to do what you say? Go fuck yourself,” I screamed and I ran out the door.

I was determined to prove everyone wrong about Aaron.
They don’t know him
, I told myself. I refused to see his mean edge as something bad. I stubbornly denied what I
knew
from the beginning. He was dangerous. When his anger exploded in a jealous rage, it just meant, he loved me. I ignored Maggie and her warnings until she made good on her threat.

I’d arrived early at my part time job as a gas station attendant after school. I pushed through the glass door and warm air hit my face blowing my hair back in a welcoming huff.  My eyes immediately fell on two tall boxes pushed to the corner of the tiny room. NITA, was scrawled in black marker across the front of each.

Tony turned toward me with a quick nod and returned to his task. He mumbled, “Someone dropped those off earlier, said they were for you.”

“Really?” I replied. “I wonder what they are.”  I moved toward the boxes.

“Girl that left them was kind of a bitch,” he offered.

“What’d she look like?”

“I don’t know. Kinda curly, brown hair.” She dropped the boxes outside and yelled, ‘These are Nita’s ‘and then drove off. Bitchy, if you ask me.”

It was Maggie,
I thought.

I dug through the boxes and my heart sank as the truth settled in. 

“Holy crap,” I muttered. They’re kicking me out. I can’t believe it. What, am I gonna do?”

“Bummer, man. That sucks.” Tony murmured. “Wish I could help you, man, but you know how it is, the old lady would NOT understand.”

“That’s cool. I’ll find somewhere to go.” But my mind was reeling.
Who could I call and what was I going to do?

I called a school friend, Deanna, who lived nearby, she and her boyfriend picked me up after work and we went to her house. I’d known Deanna since eighth grade and although we weren’t close, we were friends. We ran with different crowds. She had a boyfriend that I didn’t know who liked to talk on CB radios and “mud run” in his Jeep.  I went home with Deanna that night with no plan or idea where I might go. I was deeply hurt and in a state of shock that I would be kicked out of my house. I sat opposite of Deanna’s mom on the coffee table’s edge. She held my hands in hers as she spoke.

“Call me mom, everybody does and tell me what happened?” she said.  Her eyes held such compassion, I had to look away.

“I don’t know,” I replied as I shrugged in disbelief.  “I got to work after school and all my stuff was there. I guess they don’t want me anymore.”  Tears rimmed my eyes and my body was rigid with rejection.

“OK, doll” she said as she patted my hands. “You can stay here and share Deanna’s room but you have to go to school. Can you agree to that?”

I nodded in agreement, unable to speak for the emotion that had stolen my voice.

“Mom” gathered me into a hug and said, “It’ll be all right, don’t you worry now.”

Deanna took me to her room where twin beds occupied opposite walls. I should have felt relief that I had somewhere to stay, but I didn’t.

Days later, after I’d moved into Deanna’s house, I saw Maggie at school. She walked right up to me and said, “Mom didn’t kick you out. It was me. I’m sick of your shit. I told you to knock it off but you wouldn’t listen.”

Her words ripped through me. I folded my arms across my chest as a protective numbness covered me like a shining suit of armor.

“Does she even know you did it?” I asked.

“She drove me to drop off your stuff, dumb ass, but I’m the one who did it” she said with power and pride in her voice.

Maggie’s kicking me out was like swallowing razors. The fact that it was Maggie’s doing devastated me despite my pretense. I couldn’t reconcile her turning against me. We had always stuck together no matter what, all we ever had was each other and now she threw me out, exiling me.
Fuck her
, I thought bitterly. My stubborn pride prevented me from asking to come home. Instead, I shut out my family for rejecting me and I judged them for judging me. I set out to prove that I didn’t need them. The fact that my mother had supported and allowed the circumstance was crushing.
She doesn’t love me. She probably never did
. I felt victimized, unable to see my part in getting kicked out. I refused to acknowledge my lying and stealing.

The truth was simple. My mother could not cope with me at home so she surrendered control to Maggie. She’d abandoned Karina in a similar way. I buried the rejection and hurt, hiding behind an ever growing attitude of,
I don’t care, I don’t need anyone
mantra
.
In my mind the only person who cared about me at all was Aaron.

I stayed with Deanna’s family for the next five months. I attended school as I’d promised but I had a no idea how to function in a family unit. I was especially uncomfortable during meal times when the family sat together in the kitchen talking about their lives and accomplishments. I felt I had nothing to offer. I didn’t talk about Aaron because I knew others judged the relationship as inappropriate, because of our age difference. I didn’t earn good grades in school nor was I involved with any social activities there. I never attended any school functions like prom, homecoming, dances or a sports event. I spent my free time with Aaron and his friends and had few of my own. During those five months, I spent most nights at Aaron’s returning to Deanna’s for showers trying to avoid meal times. Near the end of my time there, Deanna began to question my living in her house.