She rolled her eyes. "1 have homework, Mom."
And that was that.
Of course the reason there had been distance between them had little to do with the fact that they didn't read aloud anymore or make crafts on rainy Saturday afternoons. By then, Emma had trouble even looking at her mother without feeling guilty. And even stronger than her guilt was the feeling of lying in a boy's arms, safe and taken care of, not every night but lots of nights.
The boys changed names and faces, but always there was someone sneaking through the front door after dark.
Her tenth-grade year she met Terrence Reid, a quiet football player with dreams of being a doctor someday. Terrence lived a block away, and that year he started walking her home from school.
"It's not out of the way." He shrugged. "Besides, I like the conversation."
Terrence was a church boy, one of the few on the football team who didn't drink or stay out late on Friday nights. "If I want to be a doctor someday, I can't mess up," he told her once. "I have to stick with my plan."
Emma thought him a curious boy. He was funny and kind and safe. He had none of the dashing good looks or daring personalities of the other boys who paid her attention, and over time they became friends. Every topic was open for discussion on their walks home from school, all but one.
The other boys in her life.
Terrence never asked, and she never volunteered information. Emma figured Terrence knew about the other boys in her life. Whether he knew or not, they were there. And though Terrence stayed her friend until the day she moved in with Charlie, the two of them never dated, never even explored the idea.
Once in a while the boys who spent the night would offer Emma drugs or a cold beer, but she always turned them down. She might've been a sinner for having boys spend the night, but she wasn't low enough to turn to drugs. Not even close.
But one decision had a way of naturally leading to the next. The summer before Emma's junior year, she stopped attending church with her mother because it made no sense to keep pretending. "I don't believe the way you do." Emma put her hands on her hips, her tone ruder than she intended. "Don't make me go, Mom. Nothing could be worse than pretending I believe when I don't."
"What happened to you?" Her mother's voice was strained and louder than usual. "When did you stop being the girl I knew?"
Emma had no answer for her. She simply turned and ran from the room.
Before her mother went to work that night she knocked on Emma's bedroom door. "Emma?"
With everything in her she wanted to open the door and run into her mother's arms, cling to her the way she'd clung to her when she was twelve and she had found her mother crying over her father's scrapbook. But the road between then and now was a long, crooked one, too complicated to walk back down.
She'd made her decision when she began having boys spend the night. That night she squeezed her eyes, shut out the tears blurring her vision, and shouted at her mother, "Leave me alone! You don't understand!"
The doorknob turned, and for a moment it seemed her mother was going to come in anyway. Emma half hoped she would. But then there was the sound of her mother letting go and walking back down the hallway.
After that Emma didn't go to church, and her mother never asked again. They'd taken their positions, set up in opposite camps. The battle line was drawn, and neither of them made more than a halfhearted attempt to cross it.
The fall of her junior year, Emma wound up pregnant. Two boys had been keeping her company the month before, and she had no idea which one was the father. The pregnancy clinic down the street was very willing to set up the abortion and the one that followed it six months later.
By then, Emma no longer felt alive.
She'd stopped the visits from boys, but nothing could stop the nightmares, the faces of babies that haunted her at night. The voices started not long after. She'd be brushing her teeth at the bathroom sink and look in the mirror.
You're a killer, Emma. You're worthless. You should take your own life, the way you took the lives oj those babies. Worthless. . . trash, Emma. Nothing but trash.
Sometimes she'd put her hands over her ears to stop the noise, but that didn't work. The voices didn't come from somewhere outside herself. They came from inside.
A month later she went back to having boys stay the night, and this time when one of them pulled out a rolled-up cigarette and offered it to her, she hesitated.
"Come on," he told her. "You'll be on another planet in fifteen minutes."
Take it, Emma . . . who are you kidding? You're no better than a drug user . . . you're not above it. It's what you need, Emma. Try it, you'll see.
The voice taunted her, pushed her, and she put the cigarette to her lips. "Light it for me?"
"You got it, baby." The boy did, and it was just like he told her. In fifteen minutes she was on a different planet.
Being high was better than anything she'd tried yet, better than having control over her life and better than boys. Because when she was high, the voices were utterly silent. At least at first.
When she reached her senior year, her mother found a box of joints in her dresser drawer. "What are you doing to yourself?" She held up one of the tightly rolled cigarettes. "Is this who you've become? Is this all you want for yourself?"
Her mother's anger was fierce, but it had burned out quickly. By then her mother was too tired to fight with her. A month later she'd stopped Emma in the hallway. "I know what you're doing, and I won't stop you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Even though Emma's tone was cruel, again she had the urge to take her mother in her arms and break down, tell her she was sorry for all the things she'd done, and beg her to take her to the library. Just one more time. But the idea left as quickly as it came.
"You know what it means." Her mother was calmer than she'd ever been, but her eyes held a world of pain. "You're sleeping with boys when I'm gone. The neighbors have told me. I'm praying for you, but I can't force you to live the life I want for you." She found a sad smile, but it didn't last for more than a few seconds. "I love you. I always will. But I'm turning you over to God. Only He can help you now." Her mother held her gaze a few moments longer. Then she turned and headed for her bedroom.
Emma had wanted to shout at her mother to stop, to turn around. She wanted her mother to put up more of a fight before she let her go. She didn't want to be turned over to a God she didn't believe in. Wait, Mom . . . come back. . . .
But the words died on her lips, and the voices kicked in.
See? You're beyond help, Emma. Worthless. The sooner you're out oj this house, the happier your mother will be.
And that became the message day after day after day.
* * *
Chapter 13
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The frightening part of Emma's story came next. Everything about her life with Charlie had been terrifying. Emma's heart skipped a beat and slipped into a strange irregular rhythm. What if Charlie knew she was here at the shelter? What if he was coming for her right now?
He is coming for you, Emma. He's on his way here, and he's going to kill you! Just like you killed those two babies and all your mother's hopes and—
"No!" Emma waved her hand, fending off the voice.
Behind her, one of her daughters stirred. She looked, but neither of them was awake. She pressed her fingers to her mouth and looked out the window. She forced herself to exhale slowly. Charlie wasn't coming for her. If he knew she was here, he would've already come.
An ache filled her chest as she glanced at the pad of paper on her lap. Why hadn't she listened to her mother in the first place? So her father had died. Lots of kids lose their parents. She wouldn't have had to turn her back on everything her mother stood for. What had that done for her, anyway? She might as well have lost both parents—all by her own choosing.
She picked up the pen, and her mother's sweet face came to mind.
Dear Mom,
I'm
sorry. I'm so very sorry.
That was as far as she got before the tears came again. Her mother had done so much for her—working two jobs, praying for her, and trusting her even when she had acted in direct defiance to everything her mother asked of her, everything she believed in.
The letter was pressing in on Emma's heart, filling her mind with things she wanted to say. But she'd allowed the memories to take her this far. Maybe she needed to relive the rest of it first before she could explain what she'd done and take the next step with her mother.
Emma closed her eyes. ...
***
A month after she graduated from high school she took a job at a diner a few blocks from home, and the next week she met Charlie. He was Hispanic, a bouncer from the bar across the street, and everything about him exuded power and intensity. He wasn't quite six feet tall, but he was thick with muscles and he had an angry stare that made people keep their distance.
But not Emma.
Around Charlie she felt safe. He kept coming around, and when she had a break she'd slip outside in the back alley and the two of them would kiss.
"You're the most beautiful girl I know," he'd whisper in her ear.
And she'd melt in his arms. "You know what I feel when I'm with you?"
"What?" He kissed her neck, her collarbone.
"Protected." She grinned at him. "No one would mess with me when I'm with you."
"Because I'd kill him."
Emma would laugh, flattered that Charlie's feelings for her ran so deep.
But after a few weeks one of the other waitresses cornered Emma in the kitchen and pointed a finger at her. "He beats his girls. Stay away from him."
"You're just jealous."
"No, I'm serious. His last girl worked here until he put her in the hospital."
But Emma had dismissed the warning. Charlie would never beat her. He was strong, but he would use that strength to protect her. She was convinced. Two months later when he asked her to move in with him, she didn't hesitate.
At home, her mother had stood in her bedroom doorway, tears streaming down her face, and watched Emma pack her things. "Was it something I did? something I missed along the way?"
Emma kept packing.
"If it doesn't work out, I'll be here, Emma. I'll always be here. I never meant for things to turn out this way."
"Look." Emma exhaled hard. "It isn't you, Mother. It's me. I need my freedom." Again she felt the strange twist of conflict in her soul—the desire to stop and beg her mother to hold on to her, to never let her go versus the desire to push past her without stopping to say good-bye. It was the anger, of course. The anger that had wedged itself in her heart back when she was twelve.
In the end, Emma had stopped only long enough to give her mother a stiff hug. "I'll be in touch."
"I need an address or a phone number." For the first time that afternoon her mother got angry. "If you leave like this, then maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you shouldn't come back."
"Fine." Pierced by pangs of guilt, Emma walked past her mother into the kitchen, grabbed a pad of paper near the phone, and scribbled a number on it. "There. Now you can call me." Even as she said the words she wondered why she was acting so cool toward her mother. Why the angry tone? How had she gone from feeling like her mother was her best friend to treating her like an enemy?
The answers wouldn't come, and Emma barely stopped long enough to say good-bye on the way out the door. She had made a promise to herself as she climbed into a cab and headed for Charlie's place: no matter how bad life got, she wouldn't come back to her mother's house. Not until she had made a life for herself. Got some college or skill training, found a job and some stability. Then maybe they could find their way to common ground once more.
But for all Emma's intentions, none of them had materialized. The first time Charlie hit her, she was already six weeks pregnant with Kami. She'd gone out for milk and bread and come home with an extra jar of peanut butter.
He pursed his lips and snarled at her. "I said . . . milk and bread. Nothing more."
"Charlie, we're almost out." She gave him a nervous laugh. "I'm saving us a trip."
"You don't know about my money." He'd shoved her across the kitchen, and the corner of the vinyl countertop dug into her back. "You're sucking me dry."
She got mad then—fighting mad. Without thinking, she rushed at him, screaming. "How dare you lay a hand on me!" She gave him a sharp shove, but it didn't budge him. 'They warned me about you, and I defended you!" She shoved him again.
Throughout her tirade, the anger in his eyes grew. Now that she was inches from him, he reared back and brought his hand full force against her face. The blow knocked her to the floor, and then, her face throbbing, she'd had the most difficult realization.
The warning about Charlie had been right on.
She lifted her head and felt the skin around her right eye. It was already swollen and tender, but it wasn't bleeding. "Charlie . . ." Tears clouded her vision. She reached out to him, her voice as weak as a child's.
Sorrow and regret filled his eyes. "Emma—" he dropped to his knees and took her hand—"I'm sorry. I ... I didn't mean it."
She was in his arms before she had time to think the decision through. That day, through his apologies and whispered promises, Emma convinced herself that everything would be okay. Charlie might have an anger problem, yes. But he loved her. They were going to be parents together, after all. If anyone could help him, change him into letting go of the rage, it was her.
It was the same thing she'd told herself every few weeks for the next four years, through the births of Kami and then Kaitlyn, while she went to the emergency room for stitches and CAT scans more than a dozen times, through the days when she wouldn't leave the house because her bruises were too dark to cover with makeup—even on her caramel-colored skin.
Charlie didn't mean it. Charlie loved her. Charlie could change.
All those years she did everything she could to avoid her mother. She scheduled her rare visits between her beatings, and when her mother acted suspicious she would make up a story. She'd fallen down the stairs or tripped going up the slide at the park. Conversations were always awkward, because deep down, Emma doubted that her mother believed her.
After each visit, her mother would collect her purse and car keys, hug and kiss the girls, and give Emma a sad, longing look. A look that found its way to the darkest places in Emma's heart, even if she didn't let on that it did.
"I love you, Emma." Her mother would take tender hold of her shoulders and kiss her forehead. "You can come home anytime. You and the girls."
Emma would toss her hands into the air and exhale an exaggerated breath. "I'm happy, Mother. How many times do I have to tell you?"
Her mom would study her a moment longer, say one last good-bye, and leave without looking back. Time after time after time.
But the awful truth was this: Emma had been wrong about Charlie. Nothing was going to change him, not her love or her determination or her decision to stay with him. When she told him she was pregnant with their third child, his rage grew and so did the violence and strength of his attack.
"Get rid of it." He grabbed her arm and pressed his fingers deep into her flesh. "I don't want another kid,- you hear me?"
She'd lifted her chin and looked straight at him. "I won't, Charlie." She was still haunted by the memory of the babies she'd aborted when she was a teenager. The babies she'd destroyed. No matter what Charlie did to her she wouldn't take the life of another child. "You can kick us out, but I'm keeping the baby."
Charlie shook her hard and then stormed away. Emma's willfulness made him angrier than ever because he had no intention of letting her go. "You're mine," he told her almost every day. "I'll never let you out of here alive."
By then, Emma was convinced that Charlie meant what he said, that if she tried to leave he really would kill her. Her and the girls, no doubt. So in her final weeks with Charlie, she began to make a plan. She wou
ld run away with her girls and her things and move some place safe, where Charlie wouldn't find her and hurt her.
The problem was, she had no money, and her only friends were the drug dealers who kept her and Charlie supplied with the best pot and crack and a handful of people they used with. Drugs remained very much a part of Emma's life—one way to shut out the voices that still plagued her, a way to drown out the noise of Charlie's fury. But she never used when she was pregnant, not at all. The moment she learned about her third child, she quit on the spot.
So how could she take her girls and move in with a drug dealer? She'd been working on her plan the day her mother dropped in without calling. It was the first time her mom had seen the bruises for herself.
What her mother didn't know was that Charlie had been home, laying low in the bedroom. When her mom left, Charlie came out of the room, his steps slow, eyes locked on hers.
Emma still wasn't sure what set him off that day, whether it was her pregnancy or the fact that her mother knew about the beatings. Whatever it was, Charlie grabbed the girls and locked them in their bedroom. Then he turned on her.
"Charlie . . . don't!" she screeched, holding up her hands to fend off his blows. "I love you. Please . . ."
But he didn't stop. Not then and not when she was on the floor fifteen minutes later. This time her abdomen took most of his attack. He would've killed her,- she was sure of it. But a car pulled up outside. One of his druggie friends honked.
Charlie stepped back. His eyes were bloodshot, and his chest heaved from the exertion he'd meted out on her. "I'll finish you later," he hissed, and then he was gone.
Emma had lain on the floor weeping and bleeding and missing her mother with every fiber of her being. Why had she turned her back on her mother's love? All those years her mother had only wanted the best for her, and what had she given in return? Sarcasm and deception, heartache and isolation.
In the other room, the girls were screaming, terrified from the sounds that had filled the apartment. She struggled to her feet and swayed, forcing herself to breathe, to survive long enough to reach her girls. As she took her first painful steps and realized there was blood between her legs, she was sure about two things.
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