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“Okay. Hey, my stop is coming up, so…I guess I’ll wait to hear from you again?”

“Sure thing, kiddo. And chin up. Everything will be fine.”

“I hope so. I’ve got to get off now. Talk to you soon.”

“Love ya, kitten.”

“You too, Dave. And thanks.”

I scramble from the bus before smelly guy gets any closer. I’ve had enough of scary people crowding my personal space for one night.

***

Gravel crunches as I step into the dark alley behind the studio. My breath catches when I see Mama’s car through the studio window. She’s not supposed to be home for another hour at least.

Can I pretend I was in the studio the whole time? Not likely, since her SUV is parked on the other side. Daddy’s car is gone. It’s just Mama in there. I can tell her I was doing homework at a friend’s house. Or…
crap
. I smell like cigarette smoke and bus fumes. Panic tickles the back of my neck as my adrenaline kicks into overdrive.

The house is dark except for a light in Mama and Daddy’s room. I stand in the yard and look up, trying to get a glimpse of her silhouette. There’s no sound but the distant traffic and buzz of power lines.

I creep to the back door and turn the knob at a snail’s pace so it won’t click. I put my hip into it—it’s really stuck tonight—and I’m rewarded with a loud shudder from the glass.

At the top of the stairs, I hear a wet choke and a gag, like someone throwing up. She must be sick. No wonder she came home early.
I toss my purse on my bed and take a few tentative steps down the hall toward her door.

There it is again, a hacking sound. Now I’m really worried. Against my better judgment, I step into her cavernous room to see if she’s all right. If she’s sick, maybe she’ll let me help her. She might let down her guard.

The bedroom is empty. But the door to her bathroom is wide open, and she’s on the floor. Every hair on my arms stands on end.

“Mama, are you—”

I never finish my question. I see for myself that she’s definitely not okay. She kneels in front of the toilet with the fingers of one hand down her throat. She glances up at me with watery, mascara-smeared eyes, and I know.

Mama’s
off her meds
.

I leap back to make a run for it but slam into the
door frame
. Pain shoots down my shoulder. She catches me by the arm and drags me down the hall toward my room. One hundred years of family pictures bounce off the wall and crash to the floor.

She wipes the vomit splatter from her mouth with the back of her hand and sings, “Oh-ho, no you don’t! I know you were out tonight, and I know who you were with, you little slut! Get in your room. I’m going to teach you a lesson.” She slaps me across the face, and I stifle a cry. “You know who saw you? Know how I found out?”

From the light that filters through the window, I see her eyes contain an unnatural mania.

“
Answer me.
”

She slaps me again. The sting brings unwanted tears.

“I will tell you, darling daughter. Marcie Swann saw you enter a bar with Isaac Laroche. The man you threw yourself at New Year’s Eve. Don’t think I forgot that little incident.”

She leans closer.

“I told Marcie she must be mistaken. My daughter’s in her studio day and night, practicing for her
big audition
.” Her voice gets louder and higher with every word, and she waves her arms over her head. “She and Isaac Laroche are just colleagues, I said.”

She’s so close I can taste the vomit and acid on her breath. Bile rises in the back of my throat.

“Mama I didn’t—”

“And do you know that when I came home, I
knew
you wouldn’t be here. I
knew
you’d be an embarrassment. But then I thought, no, even if my daughter’s willing to put out, Isaac Laroche wouldn’t do that to us after we defended him.”

“Mama—”

“We almost got kicked out of the Mystics for helping him. Did you know that? The Swanns tried to blacklist your daddy’s practice. You have no idea the work I put into restoring our good name, all because your Daddy insisted on doing what’s right. ‘It’s the right thing to do, dear. He’s just a boy.’ God, I got so sick of hearing that. Your little antics the other night brought it all up again. R.J. might get kicked off court, and they might ban both us and the Laroches—and your precious Mr. Cline—from the ball.”

She shoves me into the wall. I don’t think about the pain tingling at the back of my head. Instead, I think about how much she loves this part—the opening act to her monthly attacks. I’m her audience, and she loves a reaction. It’s a play we’ve rehearsed time and time again.

First, she comes at me with her right hand, then her left. I know what’s coming and what’s expected of me—she seems to get off on the fear in my eyes. But this time I change the script. Instead of turning the other cheek and letting her get it all out, I grab her left wrist before her palm connects with my face. Her surprise couldn’t be more plain—or frightening.

She smiles.

“Fighting back, are we, darling? Did your piano teacher show you how to fight? Does he like it rough, too?” She cackles at her own insult.

“Stop, Mama!”

She twists her wrist, but I grip harder. I dig my fingernails in until I feel one sink though her thin flesh. She wails and jerks her weight back, pulling me across the room and onto my bed. She’s so thin I could take her if I didn’t shake so hard. She lands on top of me. I twist away and shove with my knees, but she has hold of my hair. She yanks me back down and slaps me over and over, cursing and laughing like a lunatic. Her small hands feel like glass blocks pummeling my cheeks into my teeth. I swallow the taste of blood and fear.

“Come on, jailbait, show me what he taught you.”

I pull up my knee and wedge it between us. I shove as hard as I can into her stomach. She heaves and rolls onto the floor.

“Crazy bitch!” I kick her in the ribs but I can’t bring myself to put much force behind it. She’s so skinny I’m afraid I’ll break them all. Still, for a sliver of a second, I realize this is the first time I’ve defended myself. The first time I’ve hurt her back. For once, I’m not numb.

It doesn’t last long.

She catches my foot and pulls. I go down hard. I put out a hand in a feeble attempt to catch myself, but I land on my left arm. Pain shoots up my shoulder. All the air leaves my lungs, taking with it any chance I had at getting out of this in one piece.

Mama stands, dusts herself off and glares at me with her hands on her protruding hipbones. “Are you finished yet, honey?”

Where does she get the energy to do this? I’m nearly twice her size; this shouldn’t even be a fair fight. Seeing her sickly hands on her hips makes me think of that almost-perfect day we went shopping in the fall, when we went to lunch and talked like a real mother and daughter. I was so tempted to take her hand and tell her I love her.

She puts her index finger on her chin and looks out the window. “What should your punishment be, hmm? For starters, we could report Isaac Laroche to the police for statutory rape. Would you like to see your knight in shining armor behind bars? No conjugal visits there, I’m afraid.”

“But we didn’t—” I can’t catch my breath.
Did I collapse a lung?
Telling her sixteen is the age of consent won’t matter. And the pain in my shoulder makes it hard to even think.

“I don’t care if you
did
or if you
didn’t
. Marcie
thinks
you did, and that’s all that matters.
Image and reputation, sweetie.
Haven’t I taught you a thing?” She paces the room. “You know he doesn’t love you. They never do. They get what they want and then it’s ‘Get me a sandwich. Bring me a beer. I’ll be home late tonight.’ Is that what you want? It’s too late, isn’t it? At least I waited until I was married.”

“Please, Mama…didn’t do anything. Swear it.”

I beg. I’ve done it before many, many times. If only I could black out—go numb—this would be so much easier. I need to get enough wind to make a break for the door.

She wanders over to my desk. She snatches something off the top and that’s when she suddenly pivots and smiles the most insane smile I’ve ever seen. The light from the window
casts her face in shadows, so she looks like the devil in female form, come to put me through hell for sins I haven’t committed. Though I wanted to.

Does that make me guilty? Do I deserve this after all?

“I know.” She waves something small and square in
her
hands. “What’s the one thing you want most? Ah, yes, to go to the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts.” It’s the case for the CD from the NEC. “All those hopes and dreams. You know, I had hopes and dreams, too.”

She tosses the CD aside, lowering herself down to straddle me. Her nose is inches from mine, and that fetid breath washes its acid bath over my face. I could head butt her, but she grabs a handful of my hair and slams my skull into the floor. Tiny fireworks fizzle under my eyelids.

“We don’t always get what we want. And sometimes,
dearest
, when we
do
, it isn’t worth the price.”

She mutters to herself and chuckles at whatever’s going through her deranged mind. I’m about to go out of
mine
when she shifts off me and lies down on my bed. The woman is on another planet. I use that opportunity to inch toward the door. The pain makes it hard not to cry out. So close, I’m so close.

I miscalculate. My shoulder bumps the open door, and it bangs against the wall. Three short steps and Mama towers over me again.

“Oh, honey, really. Stop trying. It’s so pathetic when you fight back.” She takes a deep breath and blows it out. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re not leaving this room. And you’re not going to Boston.”

She lifts her right foot and smashes it down on my injured shoulder.

I don’t remember screaming.

Chapter Thirteen

Clear plastic bins rattle on the wall. They’re filled with shapes of different sizes and colors. Above me, there’s only light. I feel only pain and the rumble of the world around me.
Then, a familiar voice.

“Can I talk to her?”

“In a second. I need to assess her first. Miss, can you tell me your name?”

My reply is a groan. On the second attempt, I put the right sounds together.

“Julianne.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

I lose my grip on consciousness. After a time—seconds, minutes?—I answer.

“Don’t remember.”

I
do
remember
,
I just don’t want to spill family business to the mousy paramedic with coffee breath.
Also, the pain.
I’m the Thanksgiving turkey, and someone’s pulling my wing out of the socket.

“Juli, give it up. They know.”

R.J.? Can’t be. He’s on his way back to school. I crane my head to see, but the giant collar around my neck prevents it. Ouch. I close my eyes and work to maintain a grip on consciousness.

“Miss, can you tell me your pain level on a scale of one to ten?”

“How bad does it hurt, Sis?”

For
him
, I fight to the surface. “What are you doing here?”

“First, answer the lady’s question. How bad does your shoulder hurt?”

“Um, eight? Why are you here? Oh, my head, too.”

“Forgot to pack my laptop. Turned around when I remembered. Good thing I did, too. Could hear you and Mama yelling from outside. I was coming up the steps when I heard you scream. You were on the floor, and Mama was just…standing there.”

“Where is she? Is she okay?” My breath hitches.

“Shh, she’s in another ambulance. They had to sedate her to get her out of the house. She went wild when they tried to touch her. She’s on her way to the psych ward. It’s okay, she can’t get near you.”

“So glad you’re here.”

He squeezes my hand while the paramedic injects something into the port in my arm.

“Try to relax, miss. You’ll have to talk to the cops at the hospital, but for now, just go to sleep.”

***

According to the clock on the wall opposite my bed, I’ve been out the entire night and into the morning. I didn’t even dream. When I wake, R.J. is still with me and looks like he’s gone a couple of rounds with Mama, too. A day’s worth of stubble covers his normally smooth face, and his eyes are at half-mast.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

I look at him—really look at him—until tears blur my vision. I’ve done what I said I would never do…hurt him.

“Where’s Daddy? No. Don’t tell me. I know.”

“Don’t be mad, Juli. He had to go sign papers.
Commitment
papers. Mama decided she wants help.” R.J. scrubs his hands over his face. “He was here most of the night, but all we did was watch you drool. Should be back soon.”