Whisper Me This(95)

Dad is made of tougher stuff. “We found the broken bones when she was dying,” he says. “Ribs. A collarbone. A cheekbone. Did you break them all at once? Or one at a time?”

Boots takes a long swig of beer. “I’m empty. Fetch me another, Marley.”

Marley doesn’t move. She stands across the room, hands on hips, looking at him as if he’s as much a stranger to her as he is to me. “You beat her?” she asks.

He slams the can down on the table and raises his voice. “I asked you for a beer!”

She doesn’t budge. “And I asked you a question.”

“Don’t you turn this on me,” he says. He levels a finger at Dad. “You. Coming here into my house, turning my daughter against me. Get out. The lot of you.”

None of us move.

I’ve got both hands cupped over my nose and mouth now, trying to use them like a mask.

Marley crosses the floor, only a few steps, each one taken with precision, to stand directly in front of Boots. “Nobody ever told me that you beat her.”

“She left us,” he says. “Walked away from me and you when you were just a bit of a thing. Not a second thought for either of us. Don’t you let these people make you forget that.”

“I’m not likely to forget,” Marley says.

“What kind of mother leaves a child behind?” Boots smiles a gap-toothed smile at her.

Silence descends. Every one of us can see that there is no excuse for abandoning a child. Mom took me with her. Why not Marley?

In this moment I understand my sister’s anger. How would I feel if I’d been left behind? Not just left, but left with this old asshole of a man. I wonder how often Marley has been beaten. I can’t help picturing fists smacking against my mother’s flesh hard enough to break bones.

God.

My stomach erupts into heaving I can no longer control. I struggle up toward my feet, one hand over my mouth, the other pushing against the arm of the sagging couch for leverage. I can taste the acid. I’m not going to make it.

But then Tony is there, just in time, with a plastic grocery bag he grabbed up off the cluttered floor. When I take it from him, he holds back my hair. His hands are so gentle; his presence feels like a fortress of protection. When the spasm ends, he takes the bag, knots it, and sets it outside the door. Marley brings me a glass of water, silently, wordlessly, an act of grace.

Boots wheezes laughter. He taps a cigarette out of a half-empty pack and lights it.

“I remember that day like it was a painting on my wall,” he says, blowing a stream of smoke out in a cloud around his head. “It was about this time of year. Blue sky. The whole world turning green with promise, but what does she do? Can she enjoy it? Of course not. Nothing was ever good enough for her.

“‘I’m leaving,’ she told me. Just like that. No by-your-leave, no warning. ‘I’m leaving and I’m taking Maisey.’

“‘How am I supposed to raise a child?’ I asked her. ‘A man’s got to work and such.’

“‘You’ll figure it out,’ she said. ‘You’ve got your mother to help you. I can’t manage both of them on my own.’

“She didn’t even kiss Marley good-bye. I know this is a sore spot with my daughter, but let me tell you this. I raised her, and she turned out good and strong, so good riddance to Leah, I’ve always said.”

His words fill the room with finality.

I sit with the enormity of it. My mother did this thing. She was justified in leaving him. I can see that. He’s a heinous example of a human being. But leaving a baby. I try to imagine leaving Elle behind and can’t do it. I’ll go back to Kansas City with her, if I have to. I’ll put up with Greg for the rest of my life, if that’s what I need to do to keep her safe.

I wish she wasn’t here now, though. She’s too young for this. I’m too young for this.

And then Dad leans forward, puts both hands on his thighs, and says, “Enough with the lies. How about if you tell them what really happened?”





Leah’s Journal

And here we are, at last, at the moment I’ve been dreading and avoiding and talking circles around since I started writing this story. The moment that has cast its wide shadow over the rest of my life, and your life, Maisey’s, and Marley’s. And I suppose even over Boots.

If we were Catholic, maybe I’d go to confession, but I don’t think I could speak this aloud. I’ve always told myself I did the only thing I could. Truth? Or a comforting lie that helps me maintain my distance from the past?

I don’t know. I’ll never know. So here are the facts as I remember them.

It was a Sunday morning, just past dawn. Boots was out all night, partying.

I didn’t sleep that night. I spent it packing. Very carefully, knowing that I would have to carry everything with us in one battered old suitcase. I packed their favorite blankets and their blue bears, the one good thing Boots ever gave them. I took the little stash of money I’d been hoarding from what I coaxed out of him for groceries and rent.

We had moved into an apartment in Pasco, not far from the Greyhound station. I’d already bought the tickets. All I had to do was get us there. It wasn’t a long walk, not more than half a mile, but with the way my ribs were hurting, the weight of the suitcase, and trying to coax the girls to walk, it stretched out ahead of me like a marathon.