35. Nicola
Nicola
It’s my twelfth birthday. We sing over a small homemade cake, no icing, my mother slightly off-key.
When I close my eyes, I imagine a store-bought cake, tall and pretty, and my name written on the top in pink icing.
I imagine little bows and swirls, maybe some piped frosting roses.
My father cuts it into four pieces with two strokes of a kitchen knife, then walks away, taking his down into the basement.
“What’s gotten into him?” Janice mumbles.
My mother sighs, her eyes flicking toward the living room. She keeps her voice low. “He isn’t feeling well.”
“The sickness again?” I ask. My mother shakes her head as if to say Don’t mention that. Shame on you.
Of course, there are no doctors to call. No bottles of pills to feed him. Mom refuses to get him help. The embarrassment would be too great. And so, the invisible sickness lingers, affecting us all like a virus.
Downstairs, I hear him tinkering in the basement, talking in different tones and voices, and my stomach lurches. Something is coming, coming, coming for him. Maybe I could stop it, but do I really want to?
My mother catches my face and glares at me. “It’s just another day. You know, Nicola,” she says, her voice sharp.
Except it isn’t another day. It’s a very particular day for me. The memory comes swiftly, without effort. I will it away, but here in the dark place, there’s no room for resistance.
I wish I could run right out of here, right to Martha and Emmy on the other side. Back to my life and everything in it that I used to know. I want out of here so badly, but the cage Martha’s constructed for me is a vast fortress of remembering.
I freeze at the familiar squeal of the basement door opening. My father’s footsteps climb the stairs, a heaviness in his step that signals I’ve upset him by just being here, and now, I smell the deep odor of mildew and sweat and rage as he approaches me.
“See what you did?” His gruff voice sends an earthquake through my spine. I turn around. My father’s eyes are stretched far back, the whites too big, as if they haven’t shut for sleep in a very long time.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say.
He smiles, unnatural, large, his teeth bigger and sharper than I remember.
My father—or one of them—steps toward me and starts taking off his belt. “We talked about this, didn’t we?” He bends down low, his face inches from me, his breath sour in my nose.
This is the part where I need to move. I need to flee, to escape.
I fly up the stairs, the heavy thud of him behind me.
Adrenaline pulses through me like a thousand fireflies lighting up all over my limbs.
My hands and feet dig into the carpet as I scramble up the staircase and cut the corner toward my bedroom.
As I lunge forward toward my door, his hand lands on my back.
His fingers scrape down my skin, but I wrench away from him and dart behind the door, slamming it shut.
My body plummets to the floor, hitting hard between the door and the opposing wall.
At the same time, my father slams into the wooden door, shoving himself against it.
I plant my body down behind my door without a lock, placing my feet against the opposing wall, my legs braced straight out in front of me.
He can pound for hours, but he can’t get in.
I’m the perfect size to hold him at bay.
“Open the door, Nicola!”
My body moves and jolts with every impact from him. I close my eyes as he pounds the door at my back, willing it to be over.
The thuds grow louder, harder against my back, and my legs begin to shake.
Something is wrong. A deep ache starts in my calves and grows up into my joints.
The pain intensifies, and then I realize, I’m too big for this now.
My legs are just that fraction too long to wedge.
My knees buckle upward and begin to bend slightly, and I know then: the brace won’t hold.
Suddenly, everything stops. It’s quiet. I pause, my breath going in and out like ocean waves. I hear footsteps coming, quietly at first, then louder and louder until they’re on top of me. I hold tight as my father charges the door.
My back shoves forward, my right leg collapses and goes numb. Something cracks, and I let out a tiny wail as shards of wood fall around me and everything turns dark. I reach for my left leg and realize in an instant that it is broken.
Pain shoots up from my leg and into my spine. I feel the stab of bone cutting through my skin.
My left leg, still weak and numb. He broke it first.
Everything is dark as I crawl toward my bedroom window.
I think I may be able to get to it and climb out.
I feel for the carpet and begin to crawl.
His hands find my shoulders. He might stop now, I think.
But then I remember and feel his hands grip my shoulders, rough and calloused.
His eyes are on fire, a desperate, uncontrolled look that will take him far, far away.
I shield my face with my hands as he forces me backward onto the hard floor.
It’s okay, a voice says to me from the darkness. I’m here. Let me take over now. You’ve done the best you could. It’s time now, Nicola.
“Okay,” I say out loud, knowing it is her. She helped me before. I know she can do it again. Her name is like a piece of glass on my tongue, smooth and cutting all at once.
“Martha, can you help me? Can you make it stop?”
Of course I can, little sister, she says. I thought you’d never ask.