Michael is behind the taxi driver, carrying two more bags. As soon as he walks in and sees Bobby on the sofa, his face changes. It is a look of perverted happiness. He is happy that I did this. He is happy to catch me doing something he and my mother have forbidden. He is happy that I have handed him a reason to go ballistic. Once all the bags are inside and the taxi driver has been paid and dismissed, Michael sends my mother to their room to start unpacking. She gives me a small hug as she passes and tells me it is good to see me. She nods at Bobby, who has since gotten up off the couch and is standing next to me with his hands uncomfortably in his pockets. I hear her suitcase rolling down the hallway behind her clacking heels. Then I hear the door close.
Michael starts by saying hello to Bobby and asking after his parents. He asks him how the baseball season is going and if Bobby thinks they have a chance at a winning season. Sit down, he tells us, relax. It is slow torture for me, and Michael is relishing every second. Bobby has no clue what is going on. He thinks Michael is finally coming around to him. He thinks his curiosity is genuine. Michael asks him if I told him their rule about not having boys in the house when they are out of town. Bobby pauses, unsure of what to say. Then he makes the conscious decision to totally screw me. He tells Michael, right in front of me, that he was not aware of the rule and that I told him that it was okay for him to come over. I want to punch Bobby into oblivion. I want to scratch off his face. I want to spit flames on him. But instead, I just sit there. I am bracing myself for what will come. And I know that in school on Monday, Bobby will get what he deserves.
After a few more minutes of small talk, Michael tells Bobby to leave, and as he is walking out the door, Bobby turns to me and tells me that he will see me later. I say nothing from my place on the couch. As soon as the door closes, Michael is up out of his seat and bent over me, with his hand clasping my chin tightly. He is in my face screaming about my disrespect for my mother and about my disregard of the house rules. I tell him to go fuck himself and swipe his hand off my face.
In an instant he is on top of me, grabbing both my wrists and pushing me into the corner of the couch. I screech at him to get off me, but instead, he twists my arms up and over my head. Stop it, I tell him, you’re hurting me. I try to buck him off me, but he is so angry. He switches his grip to hold both of my wrists in just one of his giant, hairy hands, and he smacks me hard across the face with the other. Then he lands a punch to my stomach. It bites into me and jars my bones into the sofa. I’m still struggling to break free, but his grip is too strong. I scream as loud as I can, hoping my hapless mother might decide to step in. Michael says that I need to change my fucking attitude. I need to show him a little respect. And if I don’t, he’ll send me, and my mother, out the door. I stop fighting immediately, though I’m not sure why.
Isn’t that what I want? For me and my mother to be separate from Michael? For him to be out of our lives? But on some level I wonder, what if she says no? What if she chooses staying with him over coming with me? What if I have to watch her beg Michael to let her stay? I can’t lose any more of her. I can’t be separate from her. I won’t let him have all of her. I won’t let him wreck us any more than he already has. He won’t win.
When I am still, Michael lets go. He stands up and looks over my head. I know that my mother is there. That she heard me scream and that she saw and heard what he did. But neither of them is saying a word. A moment passes, and Michael walks toward the front door, picks up a bag, and heads down the hallway. I hear my mother walking behind me. But her footsteps aren’t getting closer, they are growing quieter. She is not coming to me, she is walking away.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emma—Present Day
It is nine o’clock at night. David and I are sitting at my table with the box from Michael in between us.
“Are you sure you want to open it?” he asks.
“Yeah. I’m sure,” I say, reaching for the box with both my hands. David stands up, digs in his pocket, and pulls out his keys. He uncoils a Leatherman from the key ring and unfolds the blade, handing it to me as soon as it is open. I use the knife to slice the tape, then I fold the blade closed and hand it back to David with an awkward smile. The air feels heavy. And I feel queasy. I hate that I am hesitating. I hate that Michael has such absolute control over this moment. I hate him for doing this. I hate him for doing everything he has ever done. And I hate myself for being so goddamned curious about what is in this box.
“I hope it isn’t a fucking tarantula,” David says, I think to lighten the mood.
“Wouldn’t there have to be two tarantulas for that?” I say, looking up at David with a small but serious grin. I’m joking, yes, but I feel sick. “I’m pretty sure that I would prefer a pair of tarantulas getting it on to whatever is actually in here,” I add as I am bending open the flaps. David puts one of his hands on top of mine, stopping me.
“You don’t have to do this, Emma,” he says. “You can throw it away or we can tape it back closed and return it to him without even looking.” I know all that. I know I don’t have to do this. I know that by deciding to open this box, I am doing exactly what Michael wants, but I can’t not open it. Because what if it is something from my mother? What if it is something I am supposed to have?
“I know,” I say, “and I appreciate your wanting to protect me from this.” I pause for a minute and eye the box. “It says a lot about you, you know.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asks in surprise.
“Yeah.” I’m not sure if I should go on, but I can’t help myself. “It says that you care about me. And that all the shit that went down with Michael over the years doesn’t matter to you. You clearly don’t want to know what’s in this box, and that tells me that you’re willing to know only as much about me as I want you to know. And that, to me, is a respect thing, and I want you to know that I appreciate that. I appreciate that you respect my past as the past. I only hope that by opening this box and possibly dredging shit up, things aren’t going to change between us. Because I like us.” And now, in addition to feeling sick about Michael’s package, I feel sick about Googling David. I feel sick that I couldn’t afford his past the same respect that he is affording mine. I want to spill it. I want to tell him that I know about Anna Spaight and how he lost her. I want to beg his forgiveness for my hypocrisy. But I won’t. Because I am a chickenshit.
“That’s some deep stuff, Emma,” he says with a smattering of sarcasm. I look up at him, and his lips are curled into a grin. I feel relieved and annoyed at the same time.
“Fuck you,” I say as I lightly smack his arm. “But I mean it.”
“I know you do,” he says, “and I do care about you. As a fuck-buddy, I mean.” Now I am really annoyed.
“Okay, fine,” I say, “here’s the deal. If you still like me after seeing whatever the hell Michael put in this box, then you can graduate to being my boyfriend.”
“Really? Jesus, that’s some good shit.” He steps back from the table and puts his hands in his pockets. “Go ahead. Open the box. It doesn’t matter what’s in it. It won’t change things now. Even if it’s a videotape of you snorting coke with the pope, you’re stuck with a carpenter for a boyfriend.”
“Lucky me,” I say as I open the box and pull out a mass of wadded-up newspaper.
“Lucky me,” David says. I look up at him and smile.
In the crumples of the newspaper are my real father’s dog tags. They are cut into pieces, and the chain that used to hold them around his neck—and mine—is broken in half. I sit with these small fragments of my father resting on my open palms. I look up at David, and I feel the blood drain from my face.
“He kept them. That fucker. He kept them,” is all I can think to say. I fold my hands around the pieces and close my eyes. I want to scream. I want to get that gun out of my drawer and pop Michael’s fucking head open with it. David must know that I am swimming in hatred because, when I open my eyes, he is kneeling on the floor next to me.
“Dog tags,” he says, not wanting to ask more.
I take a deep breath. Here we go. “They were my dad’s. He was deployed when I was like three or four. He was gone for a year and a half, and when he came back, he gave them to me. I used to wear them everywhere.” The anger is washing off of me, and now, now I feel sad. I want to keep talking. I want to tell David everything. I want him to fix me.
I slide out of my seat and sit down next to him on the floor. I am still holding the dog tags, my hands in my lap. “I guess I didn’t know my dad that well because I was so young when he left, but I do remember thinking he was the bomb. He was so much fun. My brothers were actually pretty sweet back then—they used to stick up for me. All three of them watched over me and kept me in line. My dad used to play games with Ricky and Evan and me, and my mom was so freggin’ happy all the time. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t really that way, but I just remember it being so great when I was little. And I remember the day he came back. My mom was so incredible. She made it this really big deal. She made everything special for my dad. And for my brothers and me. That picture of me and her next to my bed, that was taken at a family reunion a few months after my dad came home. He was a hero, you know? I always felt like everybody looked at me like I was special because he was my dad. Because my dad did this amazing thing. Because he came home, and he fit himself right back into life. And my mom, you know, she made it so that he could do that. Without a single glitch. He slid right back into place.”
I look up at David, and he is staring at the dog tags in my hand. I think that he must want to know why they are cut into pieces. And why Michael had them.
“So, life was great. But then, when I was six, my dad got sick. Really sick. He had the stomach flu and then a few days later, he had trouble breathing, and he had this pinched feeling in his chest. My mom took him to the clinic, and the doctor said that he thought my dad had an infection in his heart, something called myocarditis. It’s caused by some kind of a viral infection, and the only way to diagnose it is through a heart biopsy. They came home from the clinic with some steroids, even though the clinic doctor suggested they go straight to the hospital for more tests. My dad said the biopsy was too invasive, and the steroids would fix it. And my mom, she didn’t make him go. She put on her rose-colored-glasses and said that he would be fine. A day later his heart failed and that was it. My dad was gone and everything changed.”
“Emma,” he says, “Jesus. That is horrible.”
“My mom met Michael at some stupid church thing a year later, and before anyone could argue, they got married, but I never understood why. Michael was never nice to her. Or me. I mean, she needed his money—she had three kids to raise. And I guess she figured that if she married him, none of us would ever want for anything. But it was more than that. She thought she didn’t deserve anything better.”
I’m staring at the pieces of metal in my hand, thinking about how different life would be if my mother had taken my father to the hospital.
“My brothers took to Michael immediately,” I continue, “because he let them do whatever the hell they wanted. I watched that man twist my mother and brothers into people they never would have become if my dad was still here. Michael had his thumb pressed down on all three of them right from the start, and I’m the only one that saw it. I’m the only one that stood up for myself and refused to let him take me over. And it pissed him off. He wanted to control me just like he controlled them, but there was no way in hell I was gonna let that happen. I fought back. I always fought back. And the only sort of control he had over me was that he forced me to spend my life walking on eggshells, always wondering what he would do next. At first I thought he didn’t like me because I was in his way, because I was some sort of obstacle to my mother. For a long time I thought he saw me as his competition because I was so young and I still needed her so much. But as I got older, I realized that he was, in fact, manipulating me, just in a different way. He did have control over me. A sick kind of control. And I played right into it.” I look down at the dog tags and sigh. “And, apparently, I still am.”
My eye sockets hurt, and I want to cry. I put the dog tags down on to the floor and press the heels of my palms into my eyes. And then I growl. Not because I am sad, but because the anger is coming back. David wraps his arm around my shoulder. He kisses my cheek. I am sure it is out of pity.
“For five years I wore my dad’s dog tags every day. I wore them everywhere I went. When I was little, I used to pretend they were some kind of shield against Michael and against what my brothers were becoming. I used to pretend they were protecting me from something worse than what was already happening. I would kiss them at night before I went to sleep. Then, when I was twelve, my brother Evan ratted me out. He told Michael that he saw me smoking a joint with a bunch of boys one Saturday night when I was supposed to be at a friend’s sleepover. It was true. I was smoking a joint with a bunch of guys, and Michael freaked out and punished me, because that’s what he does. I was pissed as hell about the punishment, and so I smashed my mother’s perfume bottles all over the kitchen floor. He ripped the dog tags from around my neck and cut them up with a pair of tin snips right in front of me. My mom watched him do it and never said a word. He told me he was going to flush them down the toilet because I was an ungrateful brat, and so I always assumed that they were gone. But he must not have done it, because here they are.”
I touch one of the metal fragments on the floor. I pick the piece up and throw it across the room. The rest of the pieces follow suit. One after another, I sling them against the far wall. They bounce off the drywall and land on the carpet, scattering around the room. And then I am crying. I am sitting on the floor sobbing, and before I know it, the rage takes over and I am spewing words. Everything is spilling out of my mouth. All the humiliating and disgusting things Michael has ever done to me. I am not looking at David, but I can feel his eyes on me. I am churning out a long line of impassioned and enraged words, telling him story after story, painting a twisted picture of me. I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want breathe. I just want to spew. I am rabid.
David gathers me into his lap, chest to chest, face to face. I feel relief and nervousness in the wake of my rant. David knows everything now, and I can’t take it back. My legs are wrapped around his waist, and my arms are limp against my sides. His hands are woven together against the small of my back, and he is looking at my face. I expect to see pity in his eyes. I expect to see sympathy. But I don’t. Instead, I see fire. I see the crazy current. As stupid as it sounds, I see the phoenix.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was after midnight when we finally fell asleep, and now David is jostling me, telling me I’d better get moving. Telling me I’m going to be late for work if I don’t get out of bed. I can hear the alarm sounding, but I am in a mist of sleepiness. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to remove myself from David’s arms. I don’t want to see my puffed-up face in the mirror, or the empty box on the table, or the metal pieces scattered across the floor. I just want to lie here.
But David won’t let me. He pulls himself away from me, sits up and climbs out of bed. He walks over to my side and turns me so my legs are hanging off the bed. Then he pulls my arms until I am sitting up.
“Come on, Emma. Let’s go. Get ready, and I’ll take you to work,” he says.
“No. I don’t want to go,” I say as I lie back down.
“You have to,” he says, pulling me back upright.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because if you don’t, then he wins.” Fuck that shit. He’s right. Michael wants me to be wrecked about his little present. And I am. But that doesn’t mean I have to show it.
I stand up and walk to the shower.
I leave the bathroom door open, and a few seconds later, a naked David is standing behind me. Without saying a word, he opens the shampoo bottle and starts washing my hair. I am facing him, and he is watching his hands weave through my hair. Then
he tilts my chin up, and the water rinses the bubbles from my hair. David washes my whole body with what I can only describe as kindness. He is careful and slow and tender. I am bewildered. My heart swims with appreciation, and my tired limbs slowly wake with every stroke of the washcloth. His touch is as sensual as ever, but there is no expectation, no innuendo in it. Only care. When he is finished, I offer to do the same for him. But he stops me, telling me I should get out of the shower and get ready for work. And so I do. I get dressed, we eat some breakfast and get into the car.
On the way into town, David mentions that it is Tuesday. His poker night.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to sit in your cubicle with you today,” he says, “but you are coming with me to poker tonight.”
“Really?” I say. “Why?”
“Because I don’t trust him, Emma. And I don’t think you should be alone. Not for now at least.” I am surprised at the resolution in his voice.
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