Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2

by Nikki Roman

  “Not exactly…” I say.

  He pushes my shirt up, discreetly. “I felt it when I lifted you,” he says. “What happened here?” He puts his hand over the cut, drawn with Ashten’s knife. My stomach moves as I breathe, pushing against his hand.

  “Mom found your letter,” I say.

  “Did she hurt you? Is she the one who did this to you?”

  “She locked me in my room and boarded up my window when she found out I was coming to see you and Dad,” I say. “I broke the door down.”

  “Wow, you were able to break down the door? Skinny little you?”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  His hand moves from my stomach and he pulls my blouse back down. “You wanted to see your daddy. And he would have done the same, if he had been in that position.”

  “Mom’s going to beat me senseless when she sees I’ve escaped,” I say.

  “No, she won’t,” Clad says. “If she tries to hurt you, call the cops, Okay? Call them, they’ll help you.”

  Like they helped you? I want to say.

  Clad smooshes my face in his hand, forcing me to look him in the eye. “Okay, now go say goodbye to your dad, and don’t tell him anything about your mom,” he says. “Got it?”

  “Not a word,” I say, between crushed lips.

  He puts his arms around me and I press close to him, feeling the ridge where his six pack starts. Then he lets go, kissing my temple, he whispers in my ear, “I love you, Bailey.”

  “I love you too, Clad,” I say. “I love you too.” My voice cracks on the last ‘I love you,’ and it occurs to me how much I have longed for the opportunity to say that to him again.

  I return to my dad and settle on his lap, my arms hanging loose around his neck. “I love you, Daddy,” I say, kissing his cheek.

  “I have to tell you something,” he says, playing with my locket.

  “Anything, Daddy.”

  “I’m getting out in a week, they’re letting me go,” he says. “I tried to think of a creative way to tell you but…”

  “Really?” I ask in disbelief.

  “Yes, really.” He laughs. “I’ve behaved myself and I’ve paid my dues. I’m coming home soon darling, what do you think?”

  “I think,” I say, “that is the most wonderful thing anyone has ever told me.”

  He tries to open my locket but his nails aren’t long enough. I undo the clasp, open it for him, and put it around his neck. He looks down at the picture of Mom and smiles sadly. “I’m coming home.”

  Chapter 19

  I floated home on a cloud, generated by the reunion of my father’s arms and gentle touch. A cloud that held me up like a weightless angel. One that seemed like it could hold me for ever and ever, but unexpectedly pieced out into smaller, less puffy clouds, leaving me in mid-air about to descend an awfully long drop.

  I hurtle back to Earth like a sky diver whose parachute has failed to deploy. I pull into the driveway and see Mom’s car sitting there, its fogged headlights staring back at me sorrowfully. Even it knows what’s to come. The only clouds that last are those in heaven.

  I close my car door silently, open the apartment door silently, step into the kitchen and stand before my mother silently. She’s at the stove, heating up some type of sauce in a frying pan, being anything but silent.

  “I came home early,” Mom says.

  I remove my wedges, preparing for a fight.

  “And, I was going to let you out of your room and cook you a special lunch.” She scrapes at the pan. “Imagine my surprise when I returned to see you gone and your room a wreck.” She now smiles at me and laughs a little. “You look so pretty today,” she says. “Did you show your daddy what you really are?”

  “What am I?”

  “An ugly little girl covered in scars and bruises. A selfish bitch who doesn’t listen to her mother. Why don’t you ever listen to your mother, Bailey?” she says. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO!”

  “You couldn’t keep me from seeing my own father!” I say. “He knows exactly what I am, and he loves me for it!”

  “You told him, didn’t you? Whined to your daddy about how I beat you and don’t feed you? When all I’ve ever done is given up my whole life for you!” Her eye twitches as she scrapes at the pan again. “Working night shifts, double shifts at Indigo, flashing my breasts so I could put food on the table. Well, I gave you everything I had. I never held anything back. All you ever did was take from me!”

  “You won’t have to worry about that anymore,” I scream at her. “Because Daddy’s coming back. And he’s never going to let you hurt me again!”

  “Oh, honey, honey,” she says, mocking me with a high-pitched drawn in laugh. Grease speckles her face as she scrapes at the pan. Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. “Honey, go to your room.

  “What?”

  “Go to your bedroom, you’re grounded.” She shrugs at me and smiles pleasantly, as if to say, ‘that’s all, what else am I supposed to do with you?’

  I don’t trust her for a second, and I certainly don’t trust her enough to walk past her with my back turned.

  “Go on, then,” she says.

  “You sure? Not gonna’ slap me or something?” I try her.

  “Go, before I change my mind.”

  I start to pass her -one eye over my shoulder. She stops scraping and lifts the pan off the stove, bringing it to the sink. Suddenly, something hits me hard on the head. Hot grease drips down my neck and shoulders, burning me. I fall to my hands and knees.

  “Where’s your father now, Bailey?”

  I try to get back up but she whacks me a second time. I struggle with her as she grabs my hair and drags me into the bedroom. Fight back, fight back! A lightning storm surges behind my eyes, purple and blue streaks of electricity shocking my brain. I try to see past it all, to open my eyes and focus on Mom.

  I locate my voice and say, “What drug did you take this time? You’ll kill the baby! I don’t care about me, only the baby!”

  “You, Bailey. You are my drug, you horrid little girl, you have always been my drug!”

  “I never did a single thing but put up with all your abuse!” I yell, no longer able to hold back my emotions. “You’re bringing a child into this world that will have to suffer the same abuse I have. I won’t let you, Mom. Its better he die in your stomach, where it’s safe!”

  I lash out at her, striking her in the stomach with a power-filled punch. And then, I black out to her screaming, “My baby! You’ve killed my baby!”

  Her scream is my lullaby.

  •••

  I drift in and out of consciousness; every piece of pain inside of me gathering to the back of my head where it all throbs and aches. I am vaguely aware of Mom coming back into my room, screaming at me more and pulling me off the ground by my shirt. She slaps me across the face one way and then slaps me the other. Slap, slap, slap. Scrape, scrape, scrape.

  I’m an electric current traveling through wires. I’m the ring of Jell-O that forms around the rim of a Jell-O snack cup. I’m a pricker in the carpet that everyone gets stuck by but is never picked up. Strange and insignificant. I’m the girl lying in a nest of glass and nightgowns as her mother tries to slap her awake.

  Light breaches darkness, coming in through cracks and crevices. Leeching into me, it travels through my blood stream, pumps through my heart, journeying to my head where it shines behind my eyes. I wake up from the light. Someone is taking my clothes off. I think it is Cairen and I wonder how I got to the Allie and how he got hold of me this time. I can’t move but I can make sounds. A groan and a whimper combined.

  “Bailey, it’s just Mommy. I’m trying to change you into something more comfortable.”

  I groan, whimper. Change me into a new body that doesn’t hurt.

  “What the…” Mom says. She stops undressing me.

  What? What? The suspense is killing me. I’m wide awake now.

  “Where did this come from?”

  I sit up a li
ttle to see what she is talking about. She’s staring down at my stomach. “I did it to myself,” I say, lying back down. I give her the wrist I cut as proof. “Go look under the stove.”

  Mom leaves the room and comes back a second later, crying, with the bloody knife in her hand. More proof. I might not have cut my stomach myself, but it’s winning me sympathy points right now and considering the circumstances, I could really use some sympathy points.

  Putting her head on my stomach, Mom cries. I remember punching her stomach and regret it instantly. Did I maybe kill my baby brother? I bring my fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry I punched the baby.”

  “It’s okay,” Mom says. She picks her head off my stomach, finishes dressing me in one of her nightgowns and picks Spencer’s quilt off the floor, covering me with it. She hands me Clad’s baby blankets and I tuck them under my cheek.

  I go back to sleep, this time by choice. I dream about my dad and Clad. The three of us, dancing on tables in the visitors’ room with the inmates in their lovely orange jumpsuits. But just as I am getting into the dream, Mom wakes me back up. She holds a mirror to my face and shows me the bruising. My eyes close and open like a doll with broken blinking eyes; slowly, heavily.

  I give the mirror back. My stomach is rumbling I feel like I might throw up. It’s the sick feeling I get when I stop taking the Vicodin.

  “Do I have any Vicodin left?”

  Mom shakes her head. “I couldn’t convince the doctor to fill out anther prescription for you, it’s all gone.”

  “But I had at least twenty pills left?”

  “Yep,” she says. “I took every one of them.”

  I let this sink in. “You never have anything good to say, do you?”

  “I’m just a terrible mother,” she says.

  She leaves me alone again. I try to call her back in to help me to the bathroom, but she doesn’t come. I throw up on my floor and all over Spencer’s quilt. This is not a good time to be going through rehab. I wonder if Mom locked my door when she walked out, if she’s ever going to come back, or if she’s just going to let me rot here.

  I try to sleep again, but the smell of my own vomit and the wet blanket keeps me awake. Mom went so long without hurting me, I got too comfortable. Thought I was safe, but if I can make it through this I really will be. One more week and Mom will never be able to touch me again. I know Dad will save me.

  Mom opens the door and pokes her head in. She has her cellphone in her hand. “I’m going to call for help,” she says. “But who do I call?”

  911 would be a good start.

  “If you’re worried about hurting me again, don’t be. Dad’s coming home. He’s going to save me from you,” I say.

  “Well, I can’t call your dad. So give me a number, or I’m going to work. Your choice.”

  “Call ‘Lana and tell her to bring Holden. He’ll know what to do with me. And then, call Spencer too.”

  She walks back out of the room. A little while later the doorbell rings and Angel barks like crazy. Mom shows Holden and Alana to my room.

  “What the fuck is this—the exorcist or something?” Holden says looking down and seeing me on the floor.

  Remember that time I wanted to melt into the carpet at Goodwill after Spencer found out I cut myself? Well, that’s what I feel like doing right now.

  “Just call me Emily Rose,” I say.

  Alana slaps him on the chest. “Be nice, she’s sick!”

  “Why aren’t you in bed?” Holden asks.

  “My mom has the only bed…”

  “Are you kidding me?” Alana says. “Holden, put her on her mom’s bed—now.”

  Holden carries me into my mother’s room. He orders Alana to fill plastic baggies with ice and wrap them in paper towels. Then he holds the ice to my face and under my head where a lump the size of a golf ball has formed.

  “I can hold it,” I say, trying to take the ice from him.

  “No, I got it. Just relax. I’m here to take care of you. Can you tell me what happened?”

  Am I allowed to tell him what happened? I could always make up another story about how I did it to myself. I wonder if Mom still has that bloody knife…

  “I hit my head and blacked out. And…” How do I explain my cheeks? I went slap happy on myself? I envision Mom taking my hand and forcing me to hit myself with it: Why do you keep hitting yourself? Why do you keep hitting yourself?

  “It’s okay. I know what really happened,” Holden says.

  Why didn’t you just say so before?

  The doorbell rings a second time and Angel loses his nuts and bolts all over again. Alana runs to get it. I don’t know where Mom has gone but it’s obvious she doesn’t plan on greeting all our house guests.

  “Where’s her mom?” Spencer growls. He goes through the apartment opening and slamming doors. “I’m going to kill her when I find her!”

  “Dude, chill out!” Holden says. “She left for work.”

  “Left for work?” Spencer bellows. “Left for work! The coward! And you just let her go?”

  “Was it my business to stop her?”

  “I would’ve!” Spencer barks. “Where’s Bailey? I’m taking her home with me.”

  “She’s in her mom’s room…are you allowed to just take her?”

  “Do I need to sign a permission slip or something? Yes, I’m allowed to take her! That or let the police in on this.”

  I’ve never heard Spencer so angry and revved up. Wait till he sees me.

  “She’s like, sixteen… isn’t that kidnapping?” Holden says.

  When Spencer doesn’t answer I think Holden turns to Alana, because she says next, “Isn’t trying to kill your daughter called attempted murder?”

  Spencer marches into the room and finds me on the bed. He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and picks me up so fast that he ends up taking the comforter too. One second I’m lying in Mom’s bed and the next I’m in the backseat of his truck.

  Holden and Alana follow us out. “Don’t you wanna take some of her stuff?” Holden asks.

  “What stuff?” Spencer says. “Her mom doesn’t buy her shit. All her clothes are torn and her shoes have holes in them. I’ll buy her stuff myself.”

  He noticed that? I’m suddenly self-conscious. I had always thought he didn’t mind the way I dressed, thought he liked it, even.

  Spencer gets in the truck and starts it up, but before we can pull out of the driveway, Holden stops us and asks, “Who exactly are you, anyway, rampaging in here and plucking Bailey out of her mother’s bed?”

  “I’m Spencer, her boyfriend.”

  “Oh,” Holden says.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to get Bailey to my house before her mom gets back and sees I’ve taken her.” We pull out of the driveway and down the road.

  “Why haven’t you been returning any of my calls?” Spencer asks.

  “I broke my cellphone and Mom had me locked away,” I say. “I escaped to see my dad and when Mom found out she went ballistic.”

  “How did that go?”

  “Great, he’s getting out in a week.” I give a small smile, my face hurts when I do so.

  “Wow, that soon? Maybe he’ll let you live with him…”

  “I’m more concerned if Mom will let me live with him not the other way around. I still don’t know how she’s going to react when she finds out you’ve kidnapped me.”

  “She can’t do anything about it. I told her over the phone that if I came I was going to take you away, that or call the police. She didn’t argue,” he says.

  “I’d kiss you right now, but it’d taste like vomit. I love you when you act all macho like this. Like I’m Lois Lane and you’re Spiderman, or something.”

  I lean past the front seats, and rest my head on the center console. Spencer ruffles my hair. “Are you okay, baby?”

  “I am now,” I say.

  Chapter 20

  Spencer

  A circus, Bailey called it. Her mo
m, the ring leader, controlling the natural order of everything. The rest of us elephants walking on two legs, or lions growling on command.

  “Why do we keep playing part in her circus?” Bailey asked.

  It seems she had already asked herself that same question. She wanted to get off the ride, but she knew it wasn’t going to stop for her. Sitting on my mom’s bathroom rug, in one of our beach towels, she stared back at my family like we could stop natural order, her eyes so large they might have turned to vortexes and sucked everything up in them.

  Mom had helped her into a hot bath and washed her hair. She put burn cream on her back and let her sleep in her bed. It was really all she could do. In truth, it felt like that was really all any of us could do. Sydney had cracked her whip and who were we to fight against it?

  •••

  In the kitchen, I find Sarah at the table in soccer garb, downing a grapefruit bigger than her head. “The charity case is back,” she says between slurping bites of grapefruit.

  “You know what the thing about charity cases is?”

  “No, what?” she says, pouring half a cup of sugar onto the abnormally large fruit.

  “They’re grateful. Some of the most grateful people you’ll ever come across. They don’t ask for anything, except a little help.”

  “They suck you dry, like leeches. You’re going to get tired of taking care of her. Someday you’re going to want someone who isn’t in pieces.”

  “Sarah, get your head out of your ass and open your eyes! I love her. When she’s whole and when she’s not. I don’t love her any more or any less because she’s in shambles. That’s what love is. You never even had a boy look your way, you wouldn’t know.”

  She points her spoon at me, her eyes squinting as if she’s about to tell me off, then her shoulders and the corners of her mouth droop. “I’m done eating,” she says pushing the grapefruit away from her and getting off the chair.

  Sauntering around the corner, she moves in the direction of Mom’s room. My muscles tense, I don’t want her bothering Bailey so I follow.