by L. L. Akers
“Emma,” Gabby said, “do you want me to butter a biscuit for you and put some jelly on it?” Emma didn’t like gravy on her biscuits, and she didn’t like cheese in her eggs. She liked ketchup on her eggs. Mark knew all this by now, but he was obviously just an asshole. Emma nodded her head and kept looking down at her empty plate. Gabby couldn’t see her being able to eat in the state she was in, and that would bring the wrath of Mom down on her.
“Mom,” Gabby tried to say in the most respectful voice she could, while buttering Emma’s biscuit, “Emma doesn’t look well. Can we make our plates and eat in the bedroom, just in case she’s contagious or something?”
“Hell no, you can’t eat in the bedroom. We’re going to eat at this table, like a family. If you don’t want to be part of this family, then go on. But stop trying to baby Emma. She’s fine.”
Okay, if that’s the way this was going to play out, Gabby would play along. She knew she was already on shaky ground and it was probably going to get worse, because she could feel the filter on her mouth quickly losing its place. But she had to see what this sick pervert had to say for himself. He had to have known why she and Emma disappeared last night when Gabby interrupted his game.
“Mark, what about you? Do you think Emma is all right?” Gabby asked innocently.
“Well, Gabby, I think your sis is just a bit embarrassed. I promised her I wouldn’t tell you or her mother, but it seems there’s a misunderstanding here, so I’ll clear it up. Emma hasn’t been going to the potty like she should. Nearly every day when I pick her up from school, she has on wet underpants. I discovered her hiding them a few days ago and tried to keep them washed up so as not to put any more work on your Mom. When you came in last night, every pair of her panties, other than the ones she’d hidden under the couch, was in the dryer, just finishing up,” Mark explained patiently.
Gabby looked across the table at Emma. She still wouldn’t look up and she’d started to shake. Surely Mom had to be seeing straight through this.
“Mom, look at Emma. She’s shaking. Do you believe his bullshit? Don’t you think if she suddenly started peeing her pants, years after being potty trained, we would’ve known it? I haven’t even smelled pee around here, have you?”
Mom finally looked at Emma, long and hard. It appeared Emma could feel her looking, as she began to shake even harder. She still hadn’t looked up since she’d walked into the room with Gabby.
“Emma, is what Mark is saying true, honey? Have you been having accidents at school?” Mom asked.
The silence in the room was deafening as they waited to hear what Emma would say. After a full minute had passed, she looked up at Mom, her tiny body shaking and her big blue eyes wet and glossy, and ever so quietly, so they almost couldn’t hear her, she said, “Mama, I—”
“I think that’s enough,” Mark interrupted in an authoritative tone, as if he were their dad, sitting at the head of the table, acting like they were his family. “Pissing our pants is no conversation for the breakfast table and our food is getting cold. Emma knows she’s too big to skip potty breaks at school, and I don’t think she’ll have any more trouble with it. Will you, Emma?”
You jerk. You purposely interrupted her because you’re afraid. You don’t have anywhere to go either. If Mom believes us, you’re the one out on the street. Gabby had just recently come to discover through word of mouth that before he moved in here, he was living in a camper trailer behind his bar, which he’d since sold. And the seemingly unending flow of money he’d had when he first started dating Mom seemed to have trickled to nothing. Gabby had heard him several times ask Mom for twenty bucks here and there “until he could get the register balanced.” Yeah, right. Now it seemed all Mark’s money went to his drycleaner to be sure his fancy shirts were cleaned and pressed and his jeans ironed with the crease he liked in the front of the legs.
Emma didn’t answer. Mom stared so hard at her, studying her, and for a moment Gabby thought she would see what a broken little girl she had transformed into and scoop her up in her arms and deal with this nightmare. But she turned on Emma too.
“Emma, you answer Mark right now! If he asks a question, you answer yes, sir or no, sir, immediately!” Mom yelled directly into Emma’s face, spit flying.
What the hell? Gabby thought. It was as if Mom was under a spell from this sociopath. She was throwing her own flesh and blood under the bus, all to keep this man, who basically was just a free-loading mooch. All the gifts and the dinners out and the extra things around the apartment were no more. They were in the same situation as before, only with a bigger belly to feed.
Emma scrunched her eyes together, as if to dull the impact of their mother’s screams, and mumbled, “No, sir.”
“No, sir, what... Emma?” Mark asked, in his fake fatherly tone.
“No, sir, I won’t have any more problems taking potty breaks,” she answered quietly, still staring down at her plate.
Un-fucking-believable, Gabby thought. Now Emma was too afraid to tell the truth and Mom definitely didn’t believe anything she had to say. What was she going to do now? She knew one thing; she wasn’t leaving her sister with him again. She’d talk to her boss first thing in the morning about needing to be home by 2:30 tomorrow and every day after to meet Emma, and Mark better bring her straight home from school.
CHAPTER 9
“Emma, how’s Mark been treating you on the way home from school?” Gabby asked while sitting at the table helping her with her homework.
Mark had brought Emma home every day after school for the past month. While Gabby watched her sister’s spunky personality melt away, she tried to get her to talk. Was she just still upset about the hide-the-panties game, or was something else bothering her? Maybe it was because of Mom not believing them. Whatever it was, she was slipping further and further away. If Mark came into the room, she falsely cheered up, as if she were afraid to make him mad. It was only when he wasn’t around that Gabby saw the other side of her—the depressed little girl she’d become.
This was getting hard to understand. If Mark was there—unseen—her spirits were down. But when in his presence, she perked up. Of course it looked to Mom like the whole thing was a misunderstanding and that Mark was the doting father lacking in Emma’s life since Dad’s Houdini act... but Gabby knew better. Something was up; she just couldn’t figure it out. Gabby wished she could talk to Mom about it, but she knew Mom would blow another gasket.
“Fine,” Emma answered distantly.
“Well, you know if he says anything to you or does anything weird, like that game he made you play, you can tell me, right?”
“Okay, Gabby,” she said quietly, almost in a whisper. “You don’t have to keep telling me that. I know.” Emma looked up at her as she finished, flashing haunted eyes at Gabby.
Just as Gabby was getting up to grab Emma’s snack, the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Gabby, is this you?” a familiar voice asked.
“Dad! Yeah, it’s me. Where are you?”
“In Mississippi, selling all-terrain vehicles. Can you believe it? How are you girls?”
“Dad, why did you disappear? Why haven’t you called us?”
“Gabby, I’m sorry. I really am. But I needed to put some distance between me and your mom. I was hurt. I saw the notice in the paper about the divorce being final, and I think that was what I was waiting for. I understood our marriage needed to be over. It would have never been over if I’d stayed. I needed space to get my head straight. Can you understand that?”
Emma was dancing around Gabby, grabbing for the phone as Gabby held her arm as high as she could to try to keep it away from her for just a minute.
“Is that Dad? Daddy... Daddy... It’s me, Emma! I want to talk to Daddy!” she excitedly chanted until Gabby finally handed her the phone, telling her to give it back before hanging up.
“Daddy, when are you coming to get me?” Emma asked, bursting with happiness.
There
was a long pause. Gabby watched as Emma’s eyes lost the sparkle and her smile faded away.
“Oh... how far is Mississippi?” she answered, tears starting to swim in her eyes. It was horrible to watch. “Okay, Daddy, I love you too. Here’s Gabby,” she said, handing over the phone.
“Dad, it’s me. When are you coming to see us?”
“Like I told Emma, I hadn’t planned on coming for a while, Gabby. I have a job now and don’t have any vacation days built up yet.”
“What about summer? Can you take Emma there for the summer? School gets out in a month and I have a job too, Dad. There’s no one here to watch her.”
Gabby held her breath, waiting for his answer. This call couldn’t have come at a better time. Gabby was worried sick about Emma being out of school for the summer, home alone with Mark. She still wasn’t sure something didn’t happen, or wasn’t still happening, and she couldn’t be here every day, all day.
“Sure, I’d love to have her visit. I could see if I can find her a sitter while I’m at work. Do you think your mom will let me take her?” he asked, surprised.
“Yeah. She’ll let her go.”
The Girl in the Box
Thoughts race in and out of her perceived consciousness. It was the story of their life: meet a nice guy, give him time to get close. Then he pulls down his mask, abuses you... You try to get away just to fall into the same trap of abuse again—‘round and ‘round.
Why was it her family’s pattern of repeatedly being the victims of abuse? Was there some undiscovered interwoven thread in their DNA? It was a tragedy for them all, senseless. Did they bring it on themselves? Did they somehow attract it? Whose fault was it? Whose job was it to stop it? Where does the blame lie?
She shakes it off. She doesn’t want to think about it anymore. She has to concentrate on something else for a while. She has to try to stay awake. He was coming and going while she was asleep, the restraints coming on and off, the blindfold removed several times, but still leaving her in darkness, only to find it on again the next time she awoke.
Without her sense of sight, having been in the dark for so long—what seemed like days—her ears were especially attuned to all the sounds around her. The heavy darkness was saturated in a disharmony of sounds that never in her life had she paid so much attention to, or spent so long trying to identify.
These sounds were her only clue as to where she was, and she’d yet to piece together the answer. She could hear a steady hum... maybe there was a refrigerator outside her box? A tick-tick-tick sound and a whir-clink-whir persisted to puzzle her. The ticking sound didn’t sound like a clock, she thought, but could it be cicadas or some other kind of insects? She can’t remember exactly what cicadas sound like, but she is sure it isn’t the sound of crickets. If she concentrates hard enough, she can just barely hear what sounds like a cacophony of beeps, all different in pitch and frequency, almost inaudible in comparison to the other sounds. She tries again, and just when she thinks she’s able to block out the tick-tick-tick, hum, and whir-clink-whir to concentrate on listening for the muffled beeps, they slip away from her to be covered up again, just out of her reach, leaving her to wonder if they were just her imagination, or if she was being serenaded to sleep by a family of tree frogs in the middle of the woods somewhere. At least that would mean she isn’t completely alone. With this peaceful thought, she drifts back off again.
CHAPTER 10
“Let her go, you son of a bitch!” Gabby screamed as she pulled backward on Billy’s arm. She’d seen Olivia pull her car into the apartments and rushed down to meet her. As she stepped out of the stairway, Billy drove up, tires screeching. He slammed on the brakes and jumped out, grabbing Olivia, then tried to push her into his truck. He looked like the devil—his sandy-blond hair all sweaty and face bright red, even the tips of his ears on fire.
“Get in the truck, you fucking whore!” he screamed right at Olivia’s ear.
Gabby had jumped right in and tried to help, leaping on his back, trying her best to pull him off, Olivia in the front trying to pull away. Neither of them were a match for him in his rage. He probably weighed close to two hundred pounds, about ninety pounds bigger than each of them and a head taller. Billy slung his arm backward—hard—hitting Gabby in the head, causing her to turn loose of his arm. “Stay out of this, you bitch,” he screamed at her, his nasty cigarette finally falling out of his mouth.
Gabby grabbed the cigarette—the cherry still burning big and bright from him hot-boxing it while struggling with Olivia—took a deep breath readying herself to run, and slapped it against his forehead.
“Fuck!” He let go of Olivia, grabbing his head. “You stupid cunt,” he screeched at Gabby.
“Run, Olivia! Get in the apartment!”
They both took off up the stairs. Olivia made it in first with Gabby following right on her heels. Gabby slammed the door without a second to spare and managed to turn the deadbolt just as Billy slammed his entire body against it. They sank down to the floor, sobbing and holding each other.
“What the hell is going on, Olivia?” Gabby asked, panting.
“We got into a fight. It’s every day, Gabby! I gotta get away from him,” Olivia sobbed.
“Why haven’t you said anything? You know you can always come here.”
“He’ll find me here and bring me back. I’ve tried to leave over and over. He won’t let me go—”
“Olivia!! You better open this door if you know what’s good for you. I’m just getting madder and madder every second you make me wait. Open the fucking door!” he screamed.
Gabby jumped up defiantly and turned toward the door.
“Billy, I’m calling the police. If you don’t want to go to jail, you better get the hell out of here,” Gabby threatened, meaning it.
“Fuck you, Gabby. You know she’ll come home any-goddamn-way,” he snarled through the door. “If the police come, I’ll tell them you assaulted me. I got a burn on my fucking forehead to prove it.”
“Go ahead, Billy. I’ll just tell them you’re too stupid to find your pie hole and thought it was on your forehead, you big dumb ox,” Gabby taunted. “Then I’ll open the door and let them see us hundred-pound girlies that you had to defend yourself against. Won’t look so macho then, will you, big guy?”
“Gabby, stop it!” Olivia whispered, so scared her nerves were making her teeth chatter, even though she was obviously hot and sweaty from that struggle. “You’re making it worse by taunting him. Just don’t say anything at all. Maybe he’ll leave.”
“I can hear you, Olivia. And I am leaving. I’m going home right now to set our house on fire with all your shit in it. How’s that sound, Olivia? Looking forward to losing everything you’ve worked for?”
They listened as he stomped down the stairs. They ran to the glass doors overlooking the balcony. He looked up and flipped them the bird, then kicked the window out of Olivia’s driver’s door with his booted foot.
That idiot, Olivia thought. He knows we don’t have the money to replace that.
He ran to his truck, tripping over the curb and falling down. He jumped back up like a jack-in-the-box, looking to see if they were still there, watching his super-cool exit. Gabby clapped her hands high in the air, giving him mock applause. That made him even madder, so he ran back over and kicked out the other front window, looked up, and gave them a double-bird this time, then jumped in his truck and peeled out, burning rubber.
Gabby looked at Olivia and smiled. “Well, at least he’s gone.”
They both burst out laughing in relief, breaking the tension.
“Why haven’t you called or come over?” Gabby asked. “The last time I saw you was the night you stayed over after we found the bruises on your back. And really, when I got home from work you were so tired you hardly said a word. You acted like a freakin’ zombie, went to bed, and then snuck away in the morning and haven’t called since. That really sucked. Olivia. I’ve been worried sick about you.”
; Olivia thought about the best way to explain this to Gabby without Gabby taking the burden and the blame on herself. There really was no easy way. She’d just have to jump in with the shortest, least painful truth and keep the rest to herself, just like she had been.
“Gabby, while you were at work that night, your friend, Tom, came by. He asked to wait for you and I let him in. I quickly figured out he was a dirty hound dog after only one thing, and I told him to stay the hell away from you.” So much for the truth, Olivia thought. Oh well, it was partially the truth.
“Olivia! Dammit! How could you do that? I really liked him. I agonized over why he never came by again. I thought there was something wrong with me... and then I guess you heard about my next screw-up with Gabe, no pun intended...”
“Gabe?”
“Yeah, Mark hooked him up with me. We hung out for about a month—he was even hotter than Tom—but it turned out he was only after a piece of ass, and he got it. On our birthday!”
“Seriously? You lost your virginity on your seventeenth birthday? That is such a cliché! Well, congratulations. But, if he was only after a piece of ass, best to have let him go anyway.”
“Well, the guy was a mystery. That was one of the things I liked so much about him. It was like trying to figure out a puzzle—you know how I love puzzles—but once he was gone, Mom finally told me Mark knew him because he’s a no-good loser. He runs shine back and forth from Kentucky, supplying all the dives out in the county with that shit. I wondered what such a good-looking, smart guy was doing hanging out at the Mutant Lounge.”
“What’s shine?” Olivia asked.
“Moonshine, dummy! Homemade alcohol... really strong. You can light it on fire and it burns a pretty blue flame if it’s the real good stuff. But it’s illegal and expensive. Gabe apparently is a criminal; he just hasn’t been caught yet. After hearing that, I’m glad he disappeared.”
