Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Rowan
I’m going to call the theme of the day ‘the Sunday smashies.’ Dad has been slamming around downstairs for the past half an hour, and I just don’t care about finding out why. I’m sure that somehow, even if it’s because he did something stupid or lost money at the bar, it will be my fault.
My entire body hurts today, my nerves are shot and every movement sends shards of glass shooting through my veins. I tuck my heating pad around my middle as tightly as I can and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to sleep.
I think I doze off a few times; never really a deep sleep, but enough that it takes the edge off. Enough that I feel like I can breathe again.
Something heavy and solid lands on my legs, sending pain through my bones, and it jolts me from my half-nap. “Put it away,” Dad orders. “Don’t leave your shit laying around my house.”
I stifle a groan and sit up, taking note of the basket filled with clean laundry sitting on my legs. The laundry that I washed this morning, before the flare-up hit; most of it is his, anyway, but I don’t have the energy for a big fight.
“Sorry Dad,” I tell him. “I’ll get it put away in a little bit.”
“No, you’ll do it now.”
I blink at him. “I’m having a bad day. I can get it done in a little bit.”
He picks up the basket by its handles and turns it over, dumping the clean clothes all over me and my bed, some of the pieces spilling over onto the floor.
“It’s not my fucking fault you’re hungover,” he scolds. “Maybe you should think about your responsibilities before you go out all night dressed like a slut. Did you at least make some money?”
The insults should stab through me, but I’m getting so used to his cruelty anymore that it’s more like a claw, scratching away at a lingering wound that just won’t heal, because it’s constantly being picked at.
Sometimes, it feels like the wound scabs over, but other times it’s almost like it’s infected.
“I don’t drink,” I mutter under my breath as he walks for my door. “One drunk in this house is enough.”
My mom would be so ashamed of him. Does he know that? Is that something that he considers when he’s at the bottom of the bottle? When he treats me the way he does? She would be horrified of the creature that took over her husband’s body. He’s not even a person anymore.
“The fuck did you just say to me?” He shouts, and I can’t help but flinch when his hand moves to grip the door handle.
“Nothing, Dad,” I sigh. “Tell Al I said hi.”
He grumbles while he picks through the pile of clothes, looking for a clean version of the same t-shirt he always wears, mumbling about how ungrateful and useless I am – the usual. I’ve heard it all at least a thousand times, in a thousand different ways.
I don’t pick up the mess of fabric after he leaves the room; instead, I open my music streaming app and load up a playlist of my favorite songs before fixing the position of my heating pad.
Macie wanders through my doorway not more than a few minutes later, wearing a look like she’s in trouble, or worried that she’s about to be. She plucks a few pieces of clothing off of the floor, twisting them in her hands and nervously pressing her lips together.
“Hey, kid,” I greet her, holding my arms out to invite her on the bed with me.
She gently sets the clothes on the foot of the bed and climbs up, curling her little body in my arms. She heard Dad; it always scares her, and I hate it. I hate that I can’t just throw her in my car and drive away, take her somewhere far from here so she never has to hear it again.
“Hey,” I tell her, “wanna play a game?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t wanna go downstairs.”
“We don’t have to! It’s just a word game. ‘Have you ever,’ it’s like truth or dare but only truths,” I explain, “and you can’t get in trouble for your answers.”
Her face scrunches as she raises her tiny pinkie in the air and she asks, “Pinkie swear?”
I hold my pinkie finger up, closing it around hers, and I give a firm shake, sealing in our promise to each other.
“You answer first,” I tell her. I put on a display of thinking really hard about my question. “Have you ever…snuck candy after bedtime?”
Covering her mouth with her hands, she dissolves into giggles. “Yeah,” she admits. I already knew that, of course; the girl is a lot of things, but when it comes to being sneaky, she’s like a bull in a china shop. “Have you ever...ate five pieces of pizza?”
“Blegh, no!” I say, shaking my head with a laugh. “That’s too much for my tummy!”
We play a few more rounds with equally silly questions, and she eventually finds her way to my makeup palettes to give me a makeover while we play.
The brushes feel like sandpaper against my nerves as she uses them to gently apply a pretty impressive selection of colors to various places on my face, but I just let her play.
I hope it’s like this when I finally get her out of here.
I hope she even wants to come with me; maybe I should have checked first, but she’s so young, making her choose between her dad and her big sister just doesn’t seem fair.
Maybe just taking her isn’t fair, either.
I have to trust that I know what’s best for her.
“Have you ever…” I cue up my turn, “thought about running away? Just us girls, living in our own house?”
Her tiny face focuses hard; I can’t tell if it’s on my question or her project. “No,” she answers. “But maybe we could! We could make a sports room and a makeup room and a tea parties room.”
“How many rooms do you think we’re going to have?!” I laugh, brushing a thumb over her cheek with a smile.
I will do whatever it takes to get you somewhere safe, space princess.
·
I carefully crawl out of my bed, pulling the covers up over my sleeping sister as I do. She never sleeps in here unless she needs the cuddle, so I don’t mind the tight fit. I can be here for her when she needs it.
It’s been quiet downstairs for a few hours, which means the coast is clear to assess – and fix – the damage Dad did down there.
I’m almost afraid to look as I slowly move down the stairs, a few of them whining beneath my feet.
They’re just as tired as we all are. My mother’s death has been a constant, heavy weight on this house; even the building is breaking down.
My feet crunch into a pile of spilled cereal as I reach the landing, grinding the sugary pieces into dust on the floor.
At least he had something to eat, I guess.
I follow the trail to the kitchen, where the box lays discarded on the floor, surrounded by – you guessed it – even more cereal.
Half of the cabinets are cracked open, probably from being slammed so hard that they bounced off their panels.
There are a few other bits of different foods strewn about the kitchen, and a few broken plates I have to be careful stepping around.
I make my way toward the laundry room so I can grab a broom and a dust pan, clenching my teeth together and willing myself not to get upset.
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
Do. Not. Cry. Over. This.
Stuff. It. Down.
Crying doesn’t change anything; I’ve known that for a long time, now.
Stuffing my feelings into a little box in the corner of my mind, I brush the crumbs and debris into a pile at the center of the room and carefully lower myself to bring it all into the dust pan.
With the mess on the floor and the risky ceramic shards taken care of, I slowly shut each of the cabinets; a habit I’m not sure when I picked up, but the sound of them shutting makes my heart skip, so I try to avoid it when I can.
The living room is so much worse.
As soon as I step over the threshold, the chemical, burning smell of cheap vodka floods my nostrils, making me cough.
It doesn’t take long to find the culprit – a bottle that had recently emptied itself into the carpet next to Dad’s recliner.
It probably got knocked over when he got up to go to Al’s for the night.
The bottle of vodka is not alone; there is a plate of food, which looks like it could have been leftover spaghetti or something, also tipped over onto the floor.
God knows how long it’s been sitting there, seeping into the carpet.
I’m never going to get the stain out, but if I don’t, I’ll never hear the end of it.
The rest of the room can wait. I hurry to grab some carpet cleaner and a handful of rags – all of the rags we have, actually – and I move back to the living room, picking up the bottle and plate and setting them onto the table next to the recliner.
The carpet cleaner goes on in a rich, thick foam that I really hope will dig itself down through the fibers and eat away at all of the filth left in there.
I settle on my knees, clutching a rag in both hands as I scrub and scrub and scrub at the mess, willing it to just come clean.
Even if it just leaves behind a faint stain, please, come clean.
This process goes on on repeat until I reach the last of the rags. My body is begging for a break and I’m starting to feel lightheaded from the elbow grease, but I keep scrubbing. I scrub until tears prick at the backs of my eyes and I clench my jaw as tightly as I can to keep them at bay.
“Please,” I beg the massive blood-red splotch on the floor. “Please!”
It doesn’t budge.
I fall forward, my forehead pressing against the carpet, and my tears spill over in a choking sob. I cry into the stained, foamy carpet until my throat is sore, until there are no tears left to come out.
When the front door opens, I’m still on the floor, next to my pile of used up rags and my empty can of carpet cleaner.
I brace for impact as I hear Dad’s footsteps nearing the living room; he’s home from the bar early tonight, and usually that means he was told to leave.
Al is an understanding guy, but his patience only goes so far.
“Why are you on the floor?”
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, my hands suddenly trembling. “There was sauce and— the floor had— I tried to clean it up, Dad, I tried. I’m sorry.”
“Did I spill?” He stumbles over to me, lowering himself to the ground. I hold my breath while he studies me. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, honey,” he tells me. His insults might just pick at already-existing wounds, but his apologies tear open a brand new one, bleeding me dry every time.
“I won’t yell at you anymore,” he promises, like he always does, and he wraps his arms tightly around me, like he never does.
It won’t last through morning, I know that. But for right now, he loves me again.