The Sometimes Daughter

by Sherri Wood Emmons

  “Wow,” he said, “that’s soon.”

  “What am I going to do?” I asked. “What if they want to move?”

  “I don’t think your dad’s going to move just like that,” he said, his voice calm and sure. “I think he’d probably talk to you about it before he made any decision like that. Right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I just ... Why does he have to get married?”

  Matt laughed. “Because he loves her,” he said. “And he’s been lonely. And she makes him happy. You want him to be happy, right?”

  I sighed. “I guess so.”

  “Look,” he said, “In a couple years you’ll be getting ready for college. And when you go, he’ll be alone. You don’t want that, do you?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Besides, you don’t hate Treva. I mean, she’s okay, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “It’ll be okay, Judy.” His voice was warm. “I mean, it will change some things, but not the important stuff. He’ll still be your dad. He’s not going to leave. I mean, he’s not like my dad ... and he’s not like your mom. He loves you.”

  I sat a minute, just letting that sink in.

  “I know,” I said finally.

  “And, Judy, I love you, too.”

  “What?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I said, my breath catching in my throat.

  “Go to bed now,” he said. “I’ll come over in the morning.”

  “Okay. Matt? Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Just for being ... you.”

  I hung up the phone and went back to bed, pulled the covers over my head, and drifted away to sleep. Matt was right, it would be okay. Treva wasn’t awful. Daddy loved me. And Matt loved me.

  It would be okay, just like Matt said. Life was good.

  41

  “It’ll be okay,” Matt repeated. “I know you’re not excited about it, but Treva is okay, and your dad seems really happy.”

  “I know.” I sighed and leaned my head on his shoulder. We were sitting on the sofa at his house, watching television.

  “She’s there all the time anyway,” he said. “It won’t be so different.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Can I come to the wedding?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I think so.”

  “Okay, good.”

  Having Matt there would help, I thought.

  “Do you guys want a soda?” Matt’s mom walked into the room.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “So, I hear there are going to be some changes at your house.” She smiled at me as she sat down.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”

  “Are you excited?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m still getting used to the idea.”

  “I can understand that,” she said. “It’s a big adjustment, I imagine.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hope it all goes well,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  I liked Matt’s mom. She was nice.

  “You want to take a walk?” Matt asked.

  “Okay.”

  We put on our jackets and walked outside, wandering aimlessly and holding hands. Before we’d gone far, I heard someone calling my name. Down by the train tracks, Luce Watkins was waving frantically.

  We jogged toward her. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “You’ve got to help!” she yelled. “Mitch has gone crazy.”

  “Who’s Mitch?” Matt asked.

  Oh, hell, I thought. Not now, please not right now.

  “He’s got Trent and Sarah at the house and he has a gun,” Luce said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the abandoned house Lee Ann and I had explored the previous summer.

  “Whoa,” Matt said, grabbing at my arm. “If someone has a gun, we need to call the cops.”

  “You can’t!” Luce shrieked, staring at him. “Trent will get busted if you do.”

  “I don’t care,” Matt said. “We should call the police.”

  “You have to help them, Judy. Mitch will listen to you.”

  Matt stared at me in confusion. “Who the hell is Mitch?” he said.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  I ran after Luce toward the house. I wasn’t sure what I would do once I got there, but I did not want anyone calling the cops. Trent would rat me out in a heartbeat.

  I climbed on the wooden crate someone had put under the broken window and looked inside. I could hear Mitch yelling from another room. I climbed in as quietly as I could and tiptoed toward the kitchen. Mitch stood in the doorway, his back to me. Sarah was crouched in a corner, Trent standing in front of her. Trent was a lot bigger than Mitch, but Mitch was holding a gun, waving it in front of himself and yelling.

  “I want my fucking money!” His words were slightly slurred.

  “Hey, Mitch,” I said, as calmly as I could.

  He spun and pointed the gun at me. His eyes were unfocused, like they’d been the night at the park. He stared at me for a long minute, then slowly lowered the gun.

  “This prick owes me three hundred bucks,” he said, pointing at Trent.

  “I don’t owe him anything,” Trent said, looking past Mitch at me. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Mitch walked toward him, the gun raised again.

  “I gave you good stuff and you never paid me for it,” he yelled. “I want my money!”

  “Hey, Mitch,” I crooned, “hey, I was there when you sold us the stuff. We paid you for it. Remember? We were at the park and the car went by. And I gave you the money and we counted it together. You remember that, don’t you?”

  He turned toward me and froze, his eyes focused on something behind me.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  I turned and saw Matt, standing in the hallway. He was staring at the gun in Mitch’s hand.

  “I, uh,” he stammered.

  “He’s my friend,” I said, planting myself squarely between them. “He’s okay, it’s cool.”

  “It’s not cool,” Mitch said, glaring at me.

  “It’s all right,” I crooned. “Matt is leaving now.”

  I looked at Matt. “You’re leaving now, right?”

  “I’m not leaving without you,” he said, his face grim.

  “Go!” Mitch shouted. “Both of you just get the hell out of here. I got no problem with you. It’s him that’s the problem.” He turned back to where Trent stood. “And I’m gonna solve it.”

  “Mitch,” I said, “don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I said get the hell out!”

  Matt grabbed my hand and started pulling me down the hall toward the bedroom with the broken window. I let myself be dragged along. I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Stop right there!” a man’s voice shouted.

  A policeman was standing in the bedroom, his gun leveled at Matt and me. We froze.

  “Officer,” Matt said, “there’s a guy in the kitchen with a gun. He’s stoned out of his mind and he’s threatening another guy in there.”

  Another officer had climbed through the window by then.

  “Check out the kitchen,” the first cop said. “And you two, up against the wall.”

  He patted us down and made us stand facing the wall, our hands above our heads. From the kitchen we heard the sounds of a scuffle.

  “You okay?” the cop with us yelled.

  “Got him,” the other cop yelled back.

  In a minute, he had marshaled Trent and Sarah into the bedroom, along with Mitch, who was wearing handcuffs and yelling obscenities.

  “Okay,” said the first cop. “We’re all going downtown.”

  They called for more police cars. Then they put Sarah and me into the backseat of one car, and Matt and Trent in another. Mitch rode by himself. Sarah didn’t say a word the entire time. She just sat in the car crying.

  At the police station, they took Mitch to a hold
ing cell. The rest of us sat on a bench in a crowded room that stank of sweat and urine. I looked around at the other people in the room—most of them drunk or stoned. These were the people my dad represented in court.

  And now he’d have to represent me. I gripped the bench tightly and felt like I might throw up.

  Matt sat next to me on the bench, but he never spoke. He wouldn’t even look at me, just stared straight ahead, his mouth set in a straight, hard line.

  After an hour or so, his mom arrived. Her eyes were red and her hands shook as she signed some papers. They left without a word. He never even looked back.

  Piper Watkins arrived next. She glared at me as she led Trent out the door.

  Finally, Daddy arrived. He scanned the room when he walked in, caught my eye, and shook his head. After he had signed the papers, he walked over to where I sat beside Sarah. She was still crying, her arms curled around herself.

  “Hey,” Daddy said, touching her shoulder. “Do you want us to stay until your parents come?”

  She nodded, running the back of her hand across her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  We sat, not speaking, for another fifteen minutes. Sarah’s father arrived then, signed the papers, and took her by the hand. We watched as they left.

  “Okay,” Daddy said. “Let’s go.”

  I followed him to the car and we drove home in silence.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I said as we pulled into the driveway.

  He said nothing, just parked the car and got out, slamming the door behind him.

  I followed him into the house, wondering what he would say when he finally spoke to me.

  “What the hell were you doing in an abandoned house with a drug dealer?”

  “I ... That is, we ...”

  “Now, Judy! I want an answer right now!”

  “Trent and I were buying pot from Mitch and then reselling it.” I said it very softly, not looking at him while I spoke. “I tried to get out of it, but Trent wouldn’t let me.”

  Daddy sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands.

  “Honest, Dad, I wanted to stop. But Mitch wouldn’t sell to Trent. He’d only sell to me. And Trent said he and Sarah would say I was dealing acid if I didn’t help him. And that everyone would believe them because of Mama.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me?” he asked.

  “I didn’t want you to know.”

  “So ... you and Trent were selling pot. And Sarah was part of it. What about Matt?”

  “God, no!” I said. “Matt didn’t know. He just followed me to the house because he was worried about me. He probably won’t ever talk to me again.”

  Daddy sighed. He looked older than he had just the day before and very tired.

  “Well, you’ll have to go to court,” he said. “I don’t think they can charge you with anything except trespassing, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said.

  He just nodded.

  The police did charge me with trespassing. Matt and Sarah and I all appeared before a judge, apologized, and got a stern lecture about wasting our lives and throwing away chances and disappointing our families. Our parents had to pay fines of two hundred dollars each. I knew it would take a long time to pay my dad back. And probably longer to regain his trust.

  Trent got charged with trespassing and drug possession, because he’d been holding when the cops showed up. His parents had to pay a five-hundred-dollar fine and he got kicked off the football team. I’m sure Piper Watkins believed I was the devil incarnate by now.

  Mitch was the only one who went to jail. He got convicted of possession with intent to sell, trespassing, resisting arrest, and assault with a deadly weapon.

  Matt didn’t speak to me at the hearing or even look at me. He didn’t wait for me after school or call or acknowledge me in class. It was like I didn’t exist anymore. I called him twice after the hearing, but his mother just said he didn’t want to talk to me. I felt like the floor had collapsed beneath my feet, like there wasn’t enough air in the world to fill my lungs, like I was drowning in pure sadness. And I knew it was my own damned fault. I had spoiled things with Matt. I had spoiled things with my Dad. I had messed up my life, just as surely as Mama had ever messed up her life.

  Did that mean I was like her, after all?

  42

  “You missed a spot.” Treva was inspecting the dining room, which I had spent the entire morning dusting and mopping and waxing. She pointed to a lower shelf on the hutch that I’d forgotten to dust.

  I sighed and sat down on the floor to clean it.

  I sighed again as I rose and trudged into the kitchen to start cleaning out the refrigerator. Daddy had left me a long list of chores for the day, and Treva had come to make sure I did them and didn’t go anywhere.

  The phone rang, but Treva answered before I could.

  “Yes, she’s here, but she can’t talk right now.”

  I stared at her. I couldn’t even talk on the phone?

  “Yes, I’ll tell her. Bye.”

  She hung up and said, “Lee Ann wants you to call her back.”

  “How come I can’t just talk to her now?”

  “Because you haven’t finished your chores.”

  Treva sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a magazine.

  “That’s not fair,” I said, hating the very sight of her.

  “Suck it up, buttercup,” she said flatly, not raising her eyes from the magazine. “You screwed up big-time, and now you’re paying the price.”

  Tears filled my eyes but I swallowed hard, turned my back to her, and began pulling things out of the fridge and throwing them onto the counter.

  “You’re going to break something if you’re not careful,” Treva said.

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I piled vegetables onto the table and moved the veggie drawer from the fridge to the sink. I scrubbed at it furiously, wishing I could slap Treva and kill Trent and, more than anything, talk to Matt.

  He hadn’t spoken to me since we got arrested. Lee Ann explained to him how I’d tried to get out of the business, but he wouldn’t listen to her.

  “She lied to me,” he said each time she brought it up. “I can handle a lot of things, but not lying.”

  Lee Ann was sure he would come around eventually, but I didn’t think so. I’d seen his eyes when his mother appeared at the police station to take him home. I didn’t think he would ever forgive me for that.

  I dumped some old chili down the garbage disposal and started wiping down shelves in the fridge. It actually wasn’t in bad shape. Daddy had cleaned it before the big Thanksgiving dinner.

  When I had finished cleaning, Treva inspected the refrigerator, then checked it off the list.

  “Okay,” she said, “bathrooms next.”

  I sat down at the table and put my head in my hands. I wanted to scream. I wanted to slap Treva’s pretty face. I wanted to leave and never come back.

  She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently.

  “Okay,” she said. “Why don’t you take a break? Call Lee Ann back. We can do the bathrooms after lunch.”

  She walked into the living room, taking her magazine with her. I sighed deeply, glad for a moment alone. For the last week, I had done nothing but go to school, stay for drill team practice, come home, study, and do chores. No visits from Lee Ann or anyone else, no walks to the park or Smoots, just school, practice, and home.

  I was grateful to still be on the drill team. I’d worried Sarah and I would both get kicked off after we got convicted of trespassing. If we’d been charged with drug possession, we would have been off the squad. But Miss Harrison decided to let us stay, after a long talk with us and our parents. They all agreed it would be better to keep us busy and supervised. So at least I was still a Hornet Honey.

  I called Lee Ann, sitting on the floor in the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

&nbs
p; “Cleaning the house,” I said. “Every damned room.”

  “God,” she said, “how much longer are you going to be grounded?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should ask your dad.”

  “Maybe.” I was afraid to ask, in fact. Daddy had been so angry with me, I was afraid I might just be grounded until I graduated from high school.

  “Well, see if I can come over,” Lee Ann said. “I’m bored to death and there’s nothing to do.”

  “I still have to clean the bathrooms.”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Well, at least ask.” She must have been really bored if she wanted to come clean bathrooms.

  “Hey, Treva,” I said, walking into the living room. “Lee Ann wants to come over and help me clean. Is that okay?”

  She looked at me and I was sure she was going to say no. Instead, she smiled.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think that’s okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  Five minutes later, Lee Ann was at the door. I was so glad to see her, I didn’t even mind that she didn’t actually help clean the bathrooms. She sat on the toilet while I cleaned the bathtub, then sat on the edge of the tub while I cleaned the toilet and sink. And she talked the entire time.

  “Okay, you have to be ungrounded by next weekend,” she said. “Heather Perkins is having a party, and everyone is going. You have to come.”

  “I don’t know if he’ll let me,” I said, scrubbing the toilet with a brush.

  “Just talk to him,” she said. “He can’t stay mad forever. You have to come to the party. Matt’s going and maybe you guys can finally talk.”

  I stopped scrubbing to consider that. Maybe if I told him how sorry I was and how much I missed him, just maybe he would forgive me.

  “I’ll ask,” I said. “But I don’t know if he’ll let me.”

  Lee Ann smiled. “Well, if you think you’ve got it bad, you should hear what Trent’s parents are doing.”

  I sat on the floor and wiped sweat from my forehead. “What?” I asked.

  “They’re sending him to military school.” She paused to let that sink in.

  “No way!” I couldn’t believe Piper Watkins would actually believe her son was in the wrong about anything.

  “It’s true,” she said, grinning. “Luce told me that her dad had already called the school.”