by Andi Bremner
I showed Trinity the way and whilst she was gone turned on my parents. “Could you be at least a little bit pleasant? I really, really like this girl.”
“I haven’t said a word,” my father replied darkly from where he sat at the end of the table.
“Yeah, but you haven’t exactly stopped Mom from going out of her way to make Trinity feel like shit.”
“Watch your language,” my mother snapped, “and I can’t make anyone feel any particular way. I’m doing my best to make her feel welcome.”
“Well, maybe you could try a little harder.”
“Luke I just don’t understand. I mean why do we have to meet her? It’s not like she is going to be part of your life for very long, and it will only make things more awkward when you…”
I gripped the edge of the table and glared hard at my mother. “If you dare mention Melissa’s name one more time I am telling you I will stand up and walk out of here and I won’t be coming back.”
Brooke gasped. “You go Luke!”
My mother was about to say something but then she shut her mouth, glancing over my head. I turned to find Trinity approaching, her face smooth and impassive. This lunch was going dreadfully and I wanted nothing more than to take her away from it. I hated how rude my family were being—my dad for basically ignoring her and my mother for being such a bitch. The only one who redeemed themselves was Brooke, who was lapping up every piece of gossip she could get her teeth into.
“So, Trinity,” my mother began, sounding a little more pleasant, “tell me, what does your father do for a living?”
Beside me Trinity stiffened for a moment. “It’s just been my mom and I.”
“Oh, has he passed away?” God, I didn’t have to wonder where Brooke got her gossiping nature from.
Trinity shrugged. “Not that I’m aware of. He’s just not a part of my life.”
“And your mother?”
“I’m going to see her later today actually,” she answered before taking a sip of her water and looking around, “you have a lovely home here, Mrs. Morris.”
This pleased my mother who beamed. “Oh thank you, dear. It’s nothing fancy but we call it home.”
Trinity blinked and continued looking around, taking in every detail. I made up my mind right then and there that I was going with her to her mother’s.
The rest of the lunch passed uneventfully. My mother was still trying to be a bitch but she didn’t dare mention the Newtons again, and Trinity was being as formal and polite as possible. The tension was palpable and I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of there. We were at the door, saying goodbye, Trinity thanking my mother for her hospitality and for the lovely food while I tugged on her hand. We turned, just as Melissa’s mother stepped up to the door.
“Oh, Luke!” she exclaimed on seeing me, “it is so good to see you.” Learning forward she kissed me before turning her gaze to Trinity.
“Mrs. Newton,” I said tightly, “we were just leaving.”
“Oh surely you and your friend can stay,” she said, her gaze wondering over Trinity, “for just a little while. It has been so long.”
I had seen her for dinner just last weekend. I gripped Trinity’s hand getting seriously pissed off. “We have to leave sorry.”
“Perhaps another time then,” she implored and I managed a small shrug before escaping with Trinity. I don’t think I had ever been so relieved to be out of my family home, nor had I ever been more embarrassed by them.
As we made our way down the path to my car Trinity kept her head held high, her hand clinging tightly to mine. I had to admire the way she held herself in the face of my mother’s onslaught.
It was only when we were in the car and had pulled away from the house that I spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For my mother,” I told her honestly, “for how downright rude she was and for my father who just sat there and barely said anything.”
“They’re disappointed, Luke,” she told me, her voice dropping slightly, “not in you so much but in me. I’m not who they want you to be with.”
I picked up her hand and kissed it. “But you are who I want to be with. They will just have to get used to it.”
She shrugged and turned to stare out the window at the passing houses. “They might not. They might never like it and they may never like me. You have to get used to the idea of that possibility.”
I shook my head. “My mother is a real piece of work that’s for sure.”
She laughed, but it was a hollow sounding laugh. “Your mother is lovely. You should meet mine.”
“I will,” I told her, “I’m coming with you today.”
She turned toward me and her face fell. “No. No, you can’t come with me.”
“I’m coming,” I told her and I meant it, “if you want I will wait in the car while you visit and get your things.”
“Luke…” She paused and the pain that was etched across her face nearly broke my heart. “My mother, she’s not like yours. You won’t get invited in and given a four course lunch.”
“Like I care about that shit.”
“And we don’t—she doesn’t—live in a house like yours.”
“Again, Trinity, like I care about that shit.”
I wanted to tell her that I knew it was her mother who hit her but I didn’t want to push it. I wanted her to trust me. I wanted her to trust me enough to tell me.
“We’ll go there now,” I told her suddenly, “right now. We will go and get the rest of your stuff and I promise if you want, I will just wait in the car. But I want to do this with you, let me be there for you.”
She nodded but then didn’t say word as she turned to stare out the window.
“Right,” I said quietly, not wanting to gloat in the fact that I had won, “you need to tell me where you live.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Trinity
I hated having to tell Luke where I lived. Living with Mark was bad enough, he’d seen what a shit hole that was, but at least it was temporary and it wasn’t where I had grown up. As I rattled off the address and watched Luke key into his GPS I cringed as recognition flittered across his face. He knew this area of town, he knew that it was full of shitty houses, that drug dealers made their homes there, that most people barely had a high school diploma and no one went to college.
We made the way in silence and I was glad that he had agreed to wait in the car. The last thing I wanted was for him to meet my mom. The girls from the band had met my mom a few times over the years but only briefly and she had never been any more polite to them than she was to me. She wasn’t downright mean to them, but she ignored them as she ignored me. One time she had been drinking and I had gone with Molly who had seen my mom slap me across my face. It was the only time she’d ever hit me in front of anyone and I had never before let anyone come to my home with me.
Except now. Now Luke was with me.
He pulled up in front of the house and sat there quietly for a few moments. I looked out the window and saw what he saw. A shitty, run-down house. The paint peeling from the gutters, the door faded and cracked, mismatched and torn curtains hanging in the windows. The lawn was pretty much dead and interspersed with dirt and gravel and my mom’s shitty car was parked in the driveway. I tried to imagine what he thought as he looked at the home I’d grown up in, the home that was so very different to his.
“I will just be a few minutes,” I told him, unbuckling my seat belt, “okay?”
His eyes bored into mine, darker than before. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
I shook my head. “I really don’t.”
“You embarrassed about me or something?” he tried to joke but it just sounded sad since we both knew that wasn’t the reason. I didn’t bother replying as I unclipped my seatbelt and slipped out of the door making my way up to the house.
The house was quiet and for a minute I thought she wasn’t there or that perhap
s she was asleep. Quickly I closed the door behind me.
“Mom?” I called and then waited. No answer. I noted an empty bottle of vodka on the floor beside the sofa and the overflowing ashtrays. The house stank, and not just of cigarette smoke. I suspected she hadn’t been doing any dishes since I left.
Making my way down the hall I decided I would just grab the rest of my things and leave. She was probably passed out drunk anyhow. Now was not the time to see her, not with Luke waiting in the car outside.
I paused at my bedroom door at the sound of sobs coming from my mother’s room. She was crying.
I’d seen my mother cry many times over the years, usually after something had happened with Kent. Crying mother was not someone I liked being around as she entirely unpredictable. I had made up my mind to ignore it when I heard a sob break through and my heart clenched.
She was crying. And she was my mom.
Without thinking I moved across to her room and pushed open her door a little. “Mom?”
She lay on her side on the bed, curled up in the fetal position. She still wore the uniform from the diner, even down to her shoes and her face was blotchy. She must have been crying for some time.
I pushed the door open a little more. “Mom? Are you okay?”
She shook her head and was wracked by sobs once more. I stood helplessly in the doorway not sure what I should do.
“I just came to get some things,” I told her after a few moments, “then I’ll be gone.”
“You’re leaving me? You’re leaving me too?” she sobbed, sounding like a broken hearted little girl.
“You don’t want me here,” I reminded her, “remember? You asked me to leave.”
“Everyone leaves me,” she cried, “everyone just uses and leaves me.”
I wanted to tell her that wasn’t what I would do, but I didn’t. It was what Kent did but now wasn’t the time to point that out to her, not that there was ever a right time to point that out.
I turned to go and she called my name, stopping me in my tracks.
“Where are you living anyhow?”
I turned back. “At Mark’s house for the moment.”
“Isn’t he married?”
“His wife left him a little while ago.”
“So you’re whoring with him? Are you the reason Melody left?”
I flinched at her words but they didn’t hurt as much as they once had. I was getting used to them, I realized, something I never thought would happen. Or maybe it was that Luke had me thinking different things about myself now.
“No,” I told her honestly, “Mark is just my friend.”
“I’ve heard stories about you again,” she said and then sat up on her bed, wiping at her face, “about what you’ve been up to.”
I bit my lip but didn’t say anything.
“Kent left me,” she said eventually, “for good this time. He said he won’t be coming back.”
I blinked at her. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “I keep hoping that he will leave her. That he will come to me for good. But it has been so long Trinity and I am so tired. Do you know what it is like to be so tired? To be waiting for something for so long?”
I had never heard my mother talk like this before, so desolate and so sad. I was used to her rages, her anger and her blame. I wasn’t used to her honest feelings.
“Yes,” I told her honestly, “I do.”
She snorted. “How would you know? You just do whatever you like without a care in the world. You’ve always been like that, even when you were a little girl. You just did what you wanted, running away to your grandparents whenever you wanted without a care in the world. You never cared about anyone but yourself.”
I shook my head. “That’s not true.”
She pushed herself off the bed and walked toward me. I wanted to run away and hated that I was so scared in the face of my mother. I wished I didn’t tremble when she got close to me.
“Of course it is,” she spat, “you just care about Trinity and what Trinity wants. If it hadn’t been for you…”
“I know,” I finished, “Kent would have left his wife for you.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” she snapped, “it’s true. He told me many times. It’s why he’s left me for good this time, because of you.”
“I have to get my things.” I turned to go but she grabbed my arm and twisted it back causing me to cry out. Before I knew it she had pushed me forward so that I slammed into the wall outside my bedroom. Her hand gripped my arm tight, her nails digging into my skin. “Please mom,” I begged, “just let me get my things and then I’ll go, I promise.”
“So Kent leaves and then you,” she spat, “so I have given up everything for you and now you are just gonna walk out on me too.”
“I’ll stay then,” I told her, tasting salt in my mouth, “if you want.”
“I don’t want you here,” she yelled, “why would I want you here when you just ruin everything? God, Trinity, what a stupid, stupid girl you are.”
She released me suddenly and I drew in a breath but before I could recover properly she slapped me hard, knocking me to the floor. Then she kicked me hard in the stomach causing me to double over.
“You’ve ruined my life!” she screamed, “ruined everything! And now you are trying to destroy his family as well!”
My mother was mad. Both crazy mad and furious mad and I curled into a ball as her blows and kicks rained down on me. She continued with her rant, accusing me of things I couldn’t possibly have down but I didn’t dare argue with her.
“I wish you were dead!” she screamed, her hands going around my throat, “I wish you were dead and gone. I wish you’d never been born!”
Her fingers clenched and tightened around my throat. I clutched at her fingers, pulling at them, as for the first time in my life I fought back, terrified that she might actually kill me. I kicked at her, trying to knock her away as tears trickled down my face. The pain in my throat was burning and I tried to gulp, tried to suck air into my lungs.
Suddenly she was gone. I collapsed back against the wall and floor, sucking air in, the burning in my throat making me wonder if I was on fire. I closed my eyes but the tears continued to stream out of my eyes. Crawling away I curled up into a tight ball. She would only have stopped for a few minutes and would start up any second.
“Trin…” Luke touched my arm and I flung my eyes open.
He crouched in front of me, the expression on his face tight and unreadable. I looked past him to find my mother glaring at me over his head. The murderous expression on her face made me flinch and curl up tighter.
Luke turned around. “You have ten seconds,” he told her quietly, “ten seconds to get the fuck out of this house before I put you out.”
“Who the hell are you?” she spat, “and who the fuck are you to tell me to get out of my own house.”
Luke gripped his hands into tights fists and closed his eyes. I had the sense he was counting his breaths and struggling to get a grip on a temper I had never seen in him before.
“I am someone who cares about your daughter,” he told her tightly, “now get the fuck away from her!” He roared the last past and I squeezed my eyes shut, hating that he was seeing this. Hating that he was seeing my mother, seeing me like this and seeing what she had done.
“Trinity she’s gone,” he said after a moment and then reached out and touched me gently. “I need to take you to the hospital.”
I shook my head. “No. No hospital. I’ll be okay.”
“She hurt you pretty bad, babe,” he told me, his eyes roaming over every inch of me. I licked my lip and tasted blood and my throat ached.
“Just,” I stammered through my tears, “just get me out of here.”
He nodded and pulled me into his arms, lifting me easily against him. I curled against him, relishing in the protection he offered. No one had ever protected me from her before and whilst I cringed inwardly with shame a part of me welco
med the care he took with me.
Luke carried me out of the house and when I looked over his shoulder as we passed through the living room I saw my mother sitting on the couch. She looked up.
“You’re wasting your time with that one,” she spat and I knew she wasn’t talking to me but to Luke, “she’ll ruin your life just like she ruined mine.”
Luke paused and turned to face my mother, his face dark as he slowly shook his head. “You ever lay a hand on her again and I will personally see that you can never hurt her again. You think your life sucks now, you just wait.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond but left, carrying me back to the waiting car. I curled up and in the front seat and turned away from him as he climbed in and pulled away from the house. A flurry of emotions churned inside me. Shame. Hope. Gratefulness. Humiliation. Pain.
“She hurts you.” Luke said after a long few moments.
I nodded. “Yes. Sometimes. She blames me, for a lot of things.”
“She’s always hit you then?”
“Yes,” I told him. I wanted to tell him that I let her, that I had never, ever fought back against her but I couldn’t find the words to tell him that I was a coward when it came to my mother.
“And then she threw you out?”
I shrugged. “She’s thrown me out before.” And then I told him everything. I told him about Kent, about my grandparents. My face burned as I told him about sleeping in my car, about parking behind The Bean and sleeping there. He listened impassively as he drove and it was only after I finished talking that I realized we were back out the front of his apartment.
“You aren’t ever going back there Trinity,” he said when I finally finished speaking. “You can’t.”
“I don’t want to,” I told him, “but I still have to get my stuff. I am okay at Mark’s for a little longer and soon I will have enough money to get my own place.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want you at Mark’s either. I want you with me. Where you are safe. Where I know you are safe.”
