Bad Mommy

by Tarryn Fisher

  “You remember … it was after the cruise. I was in bed for weeks…”

  George had shaken his head. “No, no, I don’t remember. I think I’d remember something like that.”

  Darius had laughed all the way home. “Do you think she realizes that she’s lying? Or is it truth in her head?”

  I looked at her now, as she was trying to play the pity card. It had always been her strongest play, hadn’t it? Sick, fragile, depressed, alone—whatever worked.

  “George was abusive,” she said. “I didn’t want to tell anyone I was afraid of him.” I pictured George—sheepish, polite, downtrodden—George. I imagined he wasn’t very good at being aggressive, but who knows? Fig brought out the absolute worst in people. “He wouldn’t let me tell you what I’d done. He threatened me.”

  “With what?”

  “Huh?”

  “What did he threaten you with?” I waited for her to answer, hoped for it even. If she told me something plausible, perhaps … what?

  I smiled. What was the point of this? Even if I told her what I thought of what she did, she wouldn’t hear me. Fig was like Darius in that way, they only thought of how things affected them.

  “When did it start?” I asked her. The best thing I could get out of this was closure. Darius had disappeared after he left that night, changed his number.

  “I don’t remember,” she rushed. “I think I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

  “You have PTSD?” I asked. “From what?”

  “Just everything that happened. I don’t remember,” she said, again. How many lies were there so far? I was losing count.

  “You could have fucked some stranger. I loved him.”

  “I know. I think that all the time.” She was looking at her shoes, avoiding my eyes.

  “Were you in love with him?”

  Her head shot up, and she laughed. “No,” she said, firmly. She was being dismissive, but that confession hurt me more than anything else she’d said.

  “It would have been so much better if you’d said yes,” I said, softly. My heart was starting to ache. “So, you hurt me, hurt my child, hurt George—all for a couple fucks? It didn’t even mean anything to you.”

  “I mean, I loved him, sure, like a friend,” she rushed. “We were very good friends. He was already cheating on you, Bad—Jolene. I wasn’t the only one.”

  “You didn’t know that at the time. You can’t use that as justification. You can’t use anything as justification.”

  “I’m not! I came here to say sorry!”

  “You coming here doesn’t have anything to do with people finding out about what you did? Say, the authors whose websites you design?”

  She feigned shock. “No! How could you say that?”

  “I can say plenty about you, Fig. Why didn’t you come before? Darius has been gone for almost a year.”

  “I told you, George was practically keeping me prisoner. I wanted to so many times. And that thing you said to him about the cologne, so not true. I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy.”

  “I loved you, Fig,” I said. “So much. You hurt the person who actually loved you. Not your prison guard, George, or my husband, who used you to get back at me. I loved you for who you were.”

  “You said you’d never leave me,” she fumbled. She was fake crying again. You’d think such a good actress would be able to summon tears.

  “I didn’t leave you, you left me.” It hit me in that moment. It was her—she’d been the one who sent those videos to Ryan, Miss Wink1986.

  “How did you get those videos? The ones of Darius masturbating?” I could see it on her face, she was turning it over in her mind, trying to decide if she should own up or not.

  “He sent them to me. I thought it would be easier coming from Ryan, that it would push you toward him.”

  Oh my god. How had I not seen it? Of course Fig was the woman he was speaking to in the video, the one he told to come over when I left. I covered my face with my hands, trying to suppress my rage.

  “You tried to play matchmaker by using my husband’s disgusting cheating videos? Do you have any idea how crazy that is?”

  “I was trying to help,” she said, quickly, her face pale. “I didn’t know he was gone. I wanted you to see him for what he really was.”

  I had the urge to claw at her face with my nails, slap her good. She actually believed the things she was saying to me. The crazy, psycho bitch.

  “You were trying to help yourself,” I said. “You wanted Darius, and you were trying to get me out of the picture. That’s why you’ve suddenly ended things with George. Even if you didn’t know he was already gone, you were sure he would be after I saw those videos.”

  She was shaking her head, but there was no conviction. Holy shit, this was nuts, a real life plot twist.

  “My therapist said I’m not a sociopath. I asked her. She said that she could see I was remorseful, that I care.”

  I wanted to laugh. Darius was a therapist, or he had been at least, and he was an absolute sociopath.

  “Ah, well. Any good therapist would tell you that sociopaths and psychopaths can fool almost anyone, even them. You’re not a sociopath, Fig. You’re a psychopath. There’s a difference.”

  She blinked at me.

  “Your friends are mean girls. I see what they say online. I saw a lawyer about it. They’re cyber bullying me.”

  “Oh, wow. Nice deflection. You really want to call someone else a mean girl? You’re the ultimate mean girl, Fig. If my friends are angry it’s for good reason.”

  “They’re just blinded,” she said, her voice shrill. “Everyone is blinded about you. But, I know. I’ve seen the real you, I’m not one of your adoring fans.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Everyone loves you,” she spat. “You’re a human being. Everyone thinks you’re so wonderful. They worship you. You’re just a person like the rest of us. It’s ridiculous. You’re just a person!”

  “Who are you trying to convince?” I asked.

  She stopped dead.

  “I’m sorry if I don’t have the worship gene like the rest of them.”

  I took a step toward her. “You have something worse than the worship gene, Fig.” Her sharp, little shoulders were bunched up, her eyes on my face. “It’s called the crazy gene. You can buy all my clothes, and eat at the same restaurants, you can rub my perfume behind your ears, hell, you can even fuck my husband, but at the end of the day, you’re still you. And that is the absolute worst punishment I can imagine. Average, desperate, unhappy you.”

  She looked shocked. I suppose I would be too. I’d spent the last year of my life being a better friend to her than I had to anyone else before. She was unaccustomed to any type of harsh words from me.

  “You don’t deserve Mercy,” she said. “You stole her from me.” At first I didn’t think I heard her right. Her teeth were clenched, and she was splotchy in the face. Was she talking about my daughter, or referring to the concept of mercy? Stole her? Oh my god. She was talking about my daughter. I was still formulating words, trying to understand when she spoke again.

  “You’re an evil person. You’re keeping her from her father to spite him. He was a good father. You have no right.”

  I stared at her clenched fists, unbelieving. She didn’t know, she really didn’t know.

  “Wow, Fig. New low. After everything he did to you and me you’re still going to defend him. I don’t know whether to be disgusted or laugh.”

  “He’s her father,” she said, again.

  “No, actually he’s not.”

  She flinched, looked away then glanced back at me like she wasn’t sure if I was messing with her.

  “I allowed Darius into our lives, just like I allowed you in. Neither of you were deserving. Especially not of Mercy. And neither of you will ever be allowed near my daughter again. Do you understand me?”

  “You’re crazy,” she said. “That’s why you hide behind a pen name, so no
one can see who you really are.”

  I pulled out my phone, keeping an eye on her while I dialed the numbers. “I’m calling the police. You need to leave.”

  Without another word she turned on her heel and walked quickly away. It was a flee scene if I’d ever seen one: a guilty retreat. I watched her disappear into her own house, imagining her bolting the door, eyes wide and haunted. What would she do now? I thought about the railway tracks and my heart started racing. What if she did something to herself? Had I been too cruel? I didn’t know what to do, whom to call. She needed…

  I bit down on my lip forcing myself to stop. Fig Coxbury was no longer my problem. I had to let go. I had to let go.

  By the time the police arrived I was shaking so badly the officer slung a blanket over my shoulders. I felt pathetic, weak. I didn’t want to have this sort of reaction. I was strong, but this hadn’t exactly been the best year ever. I was grieving. But her words were playing over and over in my mind: You stole her from me. You stole her … from me.

  She’d spoken about her miscarriages, her struggle to become pregnant. Had she been angry with me for having a child when she so desperately wanted one? Did she think Mercy was hers? She’d obviously lost her mind at some point, just snapped. I didn’t understand. And how could you hide those feelings for so long? We’d been friends. Or in my head we had. All these months I’d been fucking one enemy and trying to save the other. What a freak show my life had turned into.

  “I want to file a restraining order,” I said suddenly to the officer. He nodded, like he understood.

  “Okay, we can help you with that,” he said.

  “Against two people. Two people who are fucking crazy.”

  In August I put the house up for sale. For privacy sake I requested not to have the standard For Sale sign on my lawn, and to keep the house unlisted, showing it only to couples the real estate agent knew had a specific design in mind. The very first couple who came by made an offer within the week. The newly married Broyers closed thirty days later. I scheduled the moving truck to come by on a Thursday evening when I knew Fig was out of town visiting her sister. I wasn’t sad to see it go, more like relieved. I’d loved the house once, but then it became the place where my husband failed me, fucked the neighbor, and texted dick pics to half a dozen women from the downstairs half bath. Too much bad juju. I wanted Mercy and I to have a clean slate to start over.

  I bought a two-story in a quiet neighborhood outside of Seattle, a misty blue/grey house with a wide porch. There was space—so much of it—and a breathtaking view of the snow-tipped Cascades. The neighborhood had quiet stillness that rejected the city. It was not my ideal life, but it was Mercy’s, who on move-in day made friends with seven of the children on the block. We hung out in the cul-de-sac with the other families, grilling hamburgers and having s’more nights. We used our car to drive to the market since it was too far to walk. It was peaceful, and boring, and I didn’t like it except on days when I remembered who my neighbor used to be.

  I’d not been there two months when a house on my street went up for sale. A single story brick with a blue door and a large fenced in backyard. A shame, the couple who had lived there before had a girl Mercy’s age. Mercy and I were walking our new dog one day, a husky puppy we’d named Sherbet, when I stopped to grab a flyer from the For Sale display. It was curiosity really, I wanted to see what upgrades they had, and what the backyard looked like. The flyer hung around the foyer for a bit, Mercy made a paper airplane out of it, and then it sat on my kitchen counter marked up with coffee rings for a few weeks before the house sold, and I threw it away. It was another month before I saw the moving van out front, men in blue jumpsuits carrying teal furniture through the front doors. I didn’t think anything of it until another month went by, and I was running in the rain to get to my car. There was a flash of movement on the patio, and I turned my head to look. A woman was standing under the awning staring my way. Her hand was lifted to her mouth as she took a drag of her cigarette. I didn’t recognize her right away, her hair was longer—almost as long as mine—and she’d put on some weight.

  I should have felt more—anger maybe, or fear. It had been a month since the restraining order expired. She’d wasted no time at all. I stood dripping in the downpour, my white shirt soaking through, staring at Fig Coxbury in fascination. No doubt she was smoking my brand of cigarettes, the scent of my perfume on her neck. Inside her home were all of the things I’d chosen for my own, things in her own mind she insisted were hers first. And if anyone thought it strange that she bought another house so close to mine, she’d roll her crazy eyes and say, “Oh please, because I loved it, the neighborhood, the size. A coincidence! It had nothing to do with Jolene Avery. She’s a psychopath and a narcissist.” But, I knew different … we all did. Even Fig. What could you do? Life was weird; people were twisted. You had to make the best of it, or roll over and die. You could knit it out, or scrapbook it out, or CrossFit it out. My way was to write it out.

  I sat at my desk looking out at the garden. My fingers lingered over the keyboard. They were itching to write, but I didn’t know where to start. I was quiet about the things I saw, but I saw. I thought of Michelangelo, painter of the Sistine Chapel. I’d been there once, standing quietly under one of the world’s wonders, my neck craned back and my mind wide open. Our tour guide had told us that Michelangelo was known for his bad temper, and in fact, his nose was broken at least once due to all the fist-fights he got himself into. He was nicknamed “la Terribilità,” or “The Terrible One.” During his four-year commission of one of the greatest works of art known to man, he faced terrible opposition because of the nudity in the fresco. He argued against it saying that our naked bodies were a thing of beauty, something God created. Michelangelo’s greatest opposition was Biagio da Cesena, the Pope’s master of ceremonies, who went to the Pope hoping to stop the painting of the Sistine altogether. The Pope, a lover of art, and Michelangelo, brushed Biagio off. But, Michelangelo wasn’t done with him. He painted a likeness of Biagio into his masterpiece.

  The first time I heard the story was from my high school English teacher, who was discussing the virtues of vengeance through art. I thought it stupid of Michelangelo to give his enemy a stage—a very beautiful, famous stage for the rest of eternity. Wouldn’t it be better to ignore such a man, let him fall from history as a weak nothing who failed in his quest to shut down the painting of the Sistine Chapel? I said so to my teacher, who laughed at me, and then urged me to find Biagio in the fresco and then tell her what I thought. I went straightaway to the library after school, and in a dusty corner, I poured over the glossy pictures searching for the depiction of Biagio. I found him and laughed so hard the librarian shushed me. Painted as Minos, the mythological king of Hell, Michelangelo had given Biagio donkey ears and wrapped a snake around his torso. The best part: the snake was biting his limp little penis. I thought of the thousands of people who made the pilgrimage to see the Sistine Chapel each year, all of them seeing the enemy of an artist painted into one of the most famous frescos in the world. Painted naked as dumbass. I could see why the Terrible One chose a different form of revenge. Something more lasting than a black eye, yes? I can make you a part of something great and beautiful and still portray you as the ugly thing you are.

  I rested the pads of my fingers on the keyboard, my mind surging ahead and already composing sentences. This is what I’d been planning since the beginning. Maybe not quite like this. But since the moment I’d seen the hidden things in Fig Coxbury’s eyes, I knew there was a story there. She was a chaotic darkness who dressed up as the light. A deceiver. It had backfired, all right. I’d watched her try to destroy my life, but it wouldn’t be for naught. I would write it, the whole story as it happened—Fig, Darius, George … even Ryan. No one would believe it really happened because it was too fucking looney to be real life. I could already see the reviews, reams of people complaining about how farfetched Fig was. I laughed out loud. There would be the ob
vious comparison to the classic movie, Single White Female. Stuff like that didn’t just happen in movies, it happened to me, and to Mercy. It happened, and it broke my heart. I needed to tell the world about Fig. Fig and her empty, jealous heart. Fig, always the victim even when she betrayed you. Fig, who hurt people because she hated herself so very much. And what would I name myself, the writer? The girl who loved both a psychopath and a sociopath? I’d always liked the name Tarryn…

  Lori Sabin, The Heart of the Operation

  Amy Holloway, The All Seeing Eye

  Serena Knautz, The Southern Gangster

  Jenn Sterling, The One Who Doesn’t Give a Fuck

  Colleen Hoover, The Yoda

  Claribel Contreras, The Giver

  Beth Ehemann, The Cream

  Christine Brae, The Presence

  Jovana Shirley, The Formatter

  Kristy Garner, The Sarcastic Bully

  Traci Finlay, The Mean Girl

  Rebecca Donovan, The Loyalist

  Murphy Rae Hopkins, The Covergirl

  Cynthia Capshaw, The Mother

  Simone Schneider, The Nurturer

  Christine Estevez, The Supporter

  Lyndsay Matteo, The Glitter Log Maker

  Shannon Wylie, The Expert

  Melissa Perea, The Christian

  Andrea Miles, The Logic

  Kathleen Tucker, The Grownup

  Luisa Hansen, The Therapist

  Joshua Norman, The Savior

  Dad