Turning Point

by Deborah Busby

  Forget I was there? No such luck.

  I praised the gods when the timer went off, signaling that the pizza was ready for ‘his royal highness’.

  I sliced it, saving one small sliver for myself, and put the rest of the pizza on a plate. I thought about pouring him something to drink with his dinner, but the last time I brought him a glass of water with his plate, he had thrown the full glass at my head.

  "You bitch," he’d sneered. "You think I don't know what you’re doing when you try and get me to drink that shit? I'm drunk, not stupid.” Then he pushed me into the wall as he stormed out the door.

  I wanted to ask him what exactly he thought I was trying to do when I offered him a glass of water. Get him hydrated? Get him sober? It didn't really matter. In Derek's eyes, everything I did was wrong.

  But even if I couldn’t do anything right, at least I could learn. I never made the mistake of bringing him a drink with dinner ever again.

  I grabbed the plate, minus the beverage, and took a deep breath as I made my way into our living room. Derek sat on the sofa and watched a rerun of a Super Bowl game from ten years ago. Last few minutes of the game? As though he didn’t already know how it ended. Oh well. I didn't really care what he was watching, as long it kept his attention off me.

  Once upon a time, Derek had been handsome, with dark, wavy hair that he had kept short. He’d had perfect skin, perfectly white teeth, and the deepest blue eyes a girl had ever seen. I got lost in them a time or two myself. He’d had the body typical of a high school football star, and he wasn’t just hot; at one time, he’d been a nice guy too. He was always carrying his girlfriend’s books between classes. Every Friday, he left a rose inside her locker. How did I know this? My locker was next to hers our senior year, so I knew kindness was in him — somewhere deep down.

  Now...Derek was different.

  Time and hardship had morphed him into an entirely different person. Years of smoking and drinking had robbed him of the beautiful skin and white teeth he’d once possessed. He had a beer belly now, and too much extra weight to be healthy. I had no grand delusions that he would have stayed exactly the same. Time and age take their toll on everyone, and gaining some weight is a natural part of life, but for Derek, it was almost as if he just didn't care anymore. About himself, about anything.

  The biggest change in him, though, was his eyes — still blue, but empty and lifeless.

  Derek sat on the couch in his work clothes. His shirt was so dirty that I could barely make out the name of his father's construction company imprinted on the front, and his jeans were coated in a thin layer of dried mud and grease. A big, black smear covered his seat on the sofa, simply because he refused to change. His work boots, propped up on the coffee table, had deposited a few chunks of dried mud onto the carpet. Something he would blame me for later, I was sure.

  I made a mental note: clean it up when he moved — if he ever moved.

  "It's about time! God, if y’were any slower, I’d hafta put you’n one o’ those homes for retards." He complained as I put the plate in front of him.

  Without a word, I turned, left the room and walked down the hall to our bedroom. I changed quickly; slipped into sweatpants and an over-sized t-shirt, and then pulled my long brown hair into a ponytail. This was my uniform. Comfort was now more important to me than looking good.

  As I turned around to smooth my hair, I caught a glimpse of myself — my whole self — in the mirror above my dresser and I moved in for a closer look. I turned thirty-eight this year. In four more years, I will officially have lived longer than my mother did. Age didn’t scare me as much as the years I’d left behind me, wasted and unused.

  Standing in front of my reflection, I acknowledged that I didn't look that bad for my age. With all of the strain of my marriage and running my own business, I supposed it could have been worse.

  My hair was finally showing the slightest bit of gray right at my temples. It had started with just a strand or two, and now was prominent enough for me to see at a distance. I had tiny lines around my eyes when I smiled, which was a rarity. My breasts pointed pretty much due south and I had a bit of a soft and squishy area right around my mid-section.

  I was aging well...all things considered. What did it matter anyway? I had a husband who only saw my flaws and frankly, I was past the age when anyone else was likely to look twice.

  Enough with the self-analysis. I hurried back into the kitchen just as Derek walked in, carrying his empty plate. I busied myself at the sink, trying to ignore him, hoping he would return the favor. I also knew that he never willingly brought his dishes to the sink, though, unless he wanted something from me. My stomach twisted into a knot as I thought on what my two choices generally were: be his punching bag or have sex with him. Either way, it was something unpleasant.

  Derek came up behind me and pressed himself into my backside, growing hard against me. Tonight it seemed it would be option number two. He reached around with one hand and grabbed my breast while he put the plate on the counter next to him, turning my nipple in between his fingertips. Derek's idea of foreplay.

  Not right here. Please don't try and do it right here.

  "This kitchen’s a mess," he slurred into my ear, the smell of alcohol burning my eyes.

  I simply nodded.

  "You better hurry and clean up this mess because I want to tap that in a few minutes.” He roughly squeezed my nipple between his thumb and forefinger again, as the boys used to do on the playground in sixth grade. “You may have the fattest ass in town, but it’s my ass.”

  As he stepped away, he slapped my butt so hard that the crack of his hand against my skin echoed in the quiet kitchen and my face burned with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. I almost let a cry of pain escape but that would have only given him satisfaction. So I bit down hard on my lip until he grabbed a new beer out of the fridge and staggered back into the living room. I heard the creak of the sofa as he collapsed into it, and then, and only then, did I dare reach back and rub the sensitive skin that must have certainly been one bright, red handprint.

  What an asshole!

  I quietly put the garbage bag filled with empty beer cans in the pantry. It was the fifth bag I’d filled in the past week and a half. I made another mental note: take them to the recycling center on my way to work in the morning.

  In Oregon, I was able to get five cents for every bottle or can that I recycled. With Derek's drinking habit escalating over the past seven years, I’d been able to put away about three thousand dollars into a secret savings account. Even though I had no idea what I would do with the money, it gave me some peace of mind to know it was there.

  I filled the sink with soapy water and put my shaking hands into the warmth. Why did I let him get to me?

  Could I have sex with him tonight? Sure. I suffered through it all the time.

  But why did he have to be so mean to me? And disgusting? Did he even care about me at all? Even the smallest amount?

  Better yet, why did I put up with it? I should just pack a bag and leave.

  But I wouldn’t. Because even as I asked myself the questions and plotted my escape, I already knew the answers – knew how it would all play out. For now.

  Someday I would leave, though…someday he would give me no other choice.

  I looked out the window into the dark and rain beyond, and wondered how on earth I ever got to this place.

  When I was growing up, I always had my nose in a book and dreamt of nothing more than being one of the creators of those worlds and the pages that I escaped into each and every day. I’d wanted to be a writer since as far back as I could remember.

  In high school, I was essentially a piece of furniture. Everyone knew I was there but no one actually paid attention. Not like they paid attention to my elder sister Hannah. Hannah, with the long blonde hair, the big boobs, and a personality that demanded to be noticed. One might think that I was jealous of her, but I wasn't. I didn't actually want any attentio
n. All I ever wanted was to get as far away from Cannon Beach as possible. I wanted to experience life.

  Eventually, all of my reading and studying paid off. When I graduated from high school with a full scholarship to Brown University — all the way on the other side of the country — everything was perfect. My mom was sad to see me go, of course, but she wouldn't be totally alone. Hannah was staying in Cannon Beach with her.

  I excelled in college and graduated from Brown four years later with a degree in English and the respect of my instructors for my dedication to my education. I had a promising future, had been accepted into the graduate program starting the September after I graduated, and was offered my pick of teaching assistant jobs with any one of my previous instructors. I was writing every day and several agents had expressed interest when I completed my first full-length manuscript. I was on the right track. I was going places.

  My life was perfect and all of my dreams were going to come true. I knew it.

  Then a phone call changed everything.

  My mom had gone in for a routine check-up and the doctor found a lump in her breast.

  "Mom, I'm coming home," I had announced.

  "Don't be ridiculous, sweetheart," she responded. "Let's see if this is really something to come home for, before you rush back here."

  It was definitely something — something terrible. Further tests showed the lump to be malignant. Cancer. There were even more tests and then finally the devastating news. The disease had invaded the rest of her body.

  I was on the next flight to Oregon and by her side as she waged the battle of her life. I sat in the waiting room, praying, during her four-hour double mastectomy. Hannah, as was her habit, was a no-show.

  When I brought Mom home, I changed the bandages that covered where her breasts used to be. I monitored her medication. I held her as she sobbed for the loss of a piece of herself.

  "Do you think I am still a woman?" She asked through her tears, desperate for reassurance.

  "Of course, Mom! Of course! You’re more of a woman than anyone I know." I held her and stroked her hair, knowing that this was only the beginning.

  Then, when her treatments began, I drove her, over two hours one-way, to Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland once a week for the latest and greatest chemotherapy. She called me her “chemo buddy” and we played cards or watched movies on my portable DVD player while we did our best to ignore the poison that dripped into her veins.

  I held her head while she vomited profusely after those treatments, too. Sometimes she wouldn't even make it all the way home before the nausea took her, and we would have to pull over on the highway so that she could throw up.

  Those trips? It took over four hours to get back to Cannon Beach. Every time that I thought that she was going to be sick again, I prayed that the car would go a little faster or, the road would shorten somehow, so that I could get her home and into her bed sooner.

  Still, through all of it, there was no Hannah.

  I helped her shave her head when her hair started to come out in clumps. The first time I saw a bald spot I ran to the bathroom when she wasn’t looking and broke down in tears. It devastated me to watch my mother, the woman I loved most in the world, suffer. I told my mom that I would shave mine as well, in a gesture of solidarity, but she wouldn't allow it. So, I cut it extremely short and had my hair made into a wig for her.

  Sometimes, at night, she would shake and tremble from the medicines they gave her. I would hold her in my arms, both of us under a pile of blankets, rocking her back and forth, always trying to comfort her and keep her warm. I forced her to eat, even when she didn't have much of an appetite — a side effect of the drugs. Every year I walked in support of breast cancer, donating my time and my money to the cause. Each November, a portion of the sales of the bookstore went to the breast cancer research fund.

  In my devastation, I needed someone to talk to, someone to lean on for support. I needed my sister… but she was never there for me.

  For Mom.

  I did everything I knew how to do. I prayed, even though I had never been religious. At night, while she slept, I knelt next to her bed and begged God to allow her to live. I bargained with Him, promising to go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life if my mom could only be right there by my side.

  But my prayers went unanswered and the disease progressed rapidly.

  As if caring for my mother during her illness wasn’t enough work, I kept her bookstore, Turning Point Books, up and running.

  Turning Point was my mother's dream come true. It was a quaint little store located on Hemlock Street, where all the tourists stopped and shopped while they visited Cannon Beach. My mom had chosen the name, Turning Point, because when she arrived in Cannon Beach so long ago, she was at a turning point in her life and the name seemed appropriate.

  "Promise me something," she requested late one night after receiving her latest, most devastating MRI results.

  "Anything, Mom."

  "Promise that you will keep Turning Point open once I’m gone."

  I nodded as the tears streamed down my cheeks. "I promise," I replied, sniffling through the words.

  For all my promises and prayers, it wasn't enough to keep her here.

  A week later, back in the hospital, Hannah held one of our mother's hands and I held the other when she told us that she loved us one last time. Then she took her final breath and slipped from this world.

  Mom was gone.

  At the funeral, countless well-wishers came up to Hannah and me and commended us on our dedication. When I saw my elder sister, graciously accepting their admiration, I wanted to hate her, wanted to proclaim to anyone within earshot that my sister was nowhere to be found over the past two years during my mom's illness.

  She had not come to one doctor's appointment, not one MRI. It was hell to get her over to the house even for a visit. Hannah may have lived in Cannon Beach the entire time, but I was the one who had come home and taken care of our mother. I took care of the store. I did it all.

  As much as I wanted to say those things, as angry as I was, I couldn't hate her.

  Instead, I pitied her. She had missed the last two years with our mother, and now she would never be able to get that time back. I didn't care that everyone thought she was amazing during this ordeal, because I knew the truth and that was enough for me.

  Besides, Hannah was the only family I had left.

  After Mom's death, I became frozen — stuck in a place that I didn't really want to be but didn't know how to escape. I couldn't bear to give up the bookstore; it was all I had left of my mom. I kept it exactly the same way she had created it. Sure, I got new books in and the displays changed, but everything else from the wallpaper on the walls, to the ’Come In-We’re Open’ sign hanging in the door, to the bookshelves, to the cash register remained frozen in time — just like me.

  When my mom had opened the bookstore all those years ago, she’d hung a portrait of my father above the front door, claiming that he would be watching out over all of us. So, when she passed away, I hung her picture right next to my daddy's. Nearly every memory I had of her was connected with Turning Point.

  I couldn’t walk away from it, or her.

  I cancelled my delayed admission to graduate school, knowing that I couldn't finish my schooling. I always believed I’d go back to school, perhaps take some distance courses, but as the years slipped by my own personal pursuits became more and more of a distant memory until they disappeared altogether.

  I tried to write, but nothing would come out. I stared at my computer for hours, and then days, without typing a single word. The agents who’d showed interest initially all but disappeared. One day, I simply turned off my computer, put my notebooks away, and stopped trying.

  So much for my great American novel.

  Over the years, I sought solace in the excuse that if my dreams weren't going to come true, the least I could do was keep my mother's alive. Therefore, I fell
into a routine and took over a life that was not my own, taking comfort in the fact that wherever my mother was, she was happy with me.

  And then Derek came along. Marrying him seemed like it was the right thing to do — at the time. He’d been in my class growing up, the typical jock — the quarterback of the football team. Most of the time, except with those sweet moments with his girlfriend, he was a total dick, but he was a football star, so he got away with it. All the girls had such a crush on him, including me, although I never dreamt I would someday be married to him.

  Back in high school, Derek had a bright future ahead of him too. Probably the brightest of anyone I had ever known, including myself. I had dreams, certainly, but Derek’s seemed so much more likely to come true.

  Then one night changed it all for him and his future evaporated right before his eyes.

  Derek was like me — stuck in Cannon Beach. That was our one and only thing in common. Certainly not enough to build a good, strong marriage on, but I thought at the time it was the best decision

  The rest, as the proverbial saying goes, was history. I stopped dreaming of things outside the Cannon Beach city limits years ago. This was my life — for better or worse — and it had turned out to be mostly the latter.

  Shaking off the memories, I dried the last of the dishes and turned off the kitchen lights. Thankfully, Derek was snoring loudly in the living room. I stared at him from the doorway, passed out cold on the sofa, still fully clothed but with his pants undone and his hand jammed halfway inside the waistband of his boxers. I crossed the room to the picture window and pulled the curtains closed.

  On my way out, I bent down and quickly picked up the dried mud from his boots, turned off the TV, then tiptoed down the hallway into our bedroom — grateful for the reprieve from sex with Derek. Mostly, I was grateful for the gift of peace, even though it was short.

  I had learned, over the years, to take my blessings where I found them.

  I shut off the light and then slipped into bed, resolved in the knowledge that, in the morning, I would have to do it all again, just as I had the day before that and the day before that…