You Love Me(You #3)(98)
“Right,” he snorts. “Because that’s you, Emmy, always looking out for your family. Just calm the fuck down and let me think.”
Megan was right, Mary Kay. Ivan is a fucking pig.
I must be patient. You’re a lot like Love Quinn, drawn to these bad men, prone to enabling them even when they’re abusing you. You should have kicked him out but instead you’re providing safe harbor, as he mouths off in front of your daughter—that Megan came on to me—and he picks up an empty can and tosses it on your carpet.
“Where’s the fucking beer in this house?”
You jump off the sofa and run out to the garage and Ivan continues defending himself by attempting to discredit all nineteen women who have joined #MegansArmy. It’s a classic excuse, the code of dishonor that keeps men like Ivan in control. He grabs his phone off the floor (finally) and shows us a picture of a woman named Wendy Gabriel. “See this one?” he snarls. “I didn’t lay a hand on her. She grabbed my hand and put it on her leg. But they don’t tell you that part of the story.” He spits at the article in his phone. “Fuck you, fake news!”
You return from the garage with two beers and he groans—This is a Michelob Light—but he pops one can and shoves the other in the freezer and goes back to screaming at his lawyer about how he never harassed anyone. Ever!
I’m worried about Nomi. She’s been staring at the same Klebold poem in her book for several minutes now and I’m a protective stepfather. I pick up the remote and turn on the TV. She looks at the TV. “Can you put on a movie?”
“Sure. What do you feel like?”
She stares at the ad for an antidepressant. “Something soft.”
I go to the guide and see Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and I click on it and she grunts. “Well not that soft. Do they have that Hannah movie you told me to watch?”
We’re not going there now and she opens her book. “Whatever,” she says. “I’m reading.”
Ivan is still screaming at his lawyer and we need to get him out of this house. Ask him to leave, Mary Kay. Do it. You chew your upper lip and crack your brass knuckles and Ivan says he’s sorry and it’s a hollow apology and his voice peters out as he slams the bathroom door. I get out of Phil’s chair and toss the remote to the Meerkat and you follow me into the kitchen.
“Mary Kay,” I say. “You don’t need to let him stay here. You know how it goes with these things. It’s only gonna get louder.”
“It’s not that simple, Joe.”
Nomi opens Columbine—regression is the word of the day—and you sigh. “This is embarrassing but this house belongs to him.”
This is good, you’re opening up to me and I nod. “Okay…”
“It’s a long story. Phil and I weren’t the best with money.”
“So the house is in Ivan’s name?”
You are embarrassed and you shouldn’t be and we’re so close, Mary Kay, inches away from true freedom. Words away from it.
Ivan slams the bathroom door and he’s on the phone again. “You call yourself a lawyer? You wait four hours to call me back and you pooh-pooh me when I suggest we offer these girls some money? Since when did all these women become allergic to money? Before or after they became allergic to dick?”
Nomi closes her book and picks up her phone. “I’m gonna go see if I can get back into NYU.”
See that, Mary Kay? That’s good news and we’re already back on track. But then Nomi tosses her phone onto the sofa and sighs. “I don’t know who to email about school and maybe I won’t even bother with college.” She grabs the remote. “I mean why bother when our whole family is so messed up no matter what we do?”
She makes a good point, but she won’t feel so dismal once you and I start our family. You try to sit by her and she pushes you away. “Nomi, damn it, look at me. I love you. I promise things will get better.”
She’s crying but she’s still fighting you, pushing you away, the way she did when she was inside of you, hesitant to leave your womb and enter this nightmare of a world. The third time you try, she lets you envelop her and she is back in your womb now, crying softly into your bosom.
It’s a tender moment between mother and daughter and I remain silent, respectful, but Ivan slams his phone on your table. He spills beer on your hardwood floor. “Well, the witches are winning. Good job to their dads and great job to their moms.”
“Ivan,” you say, reminding him of his own fucking niece. “Come on, now. I’m asking you to cool off.”
He whines that he can’t cool off because there aren’t enough places to sit in this fucking house so I jump out of RIP Phil’s chair. “Ivan, please. Have a seat.”
He doesn’t thank me and he doesn’t move. “I can’t sit around while there’s an active witch hunt.” And then he contradicts himself and takes my chair. The living room is silent, except for the family on the screen. Ivan starts to cry.
My work here is done—you know it, I know it—and I put on my coat and wave goodbye to the Meerkat so that you can send Ivan on his way, which you will. The crying was a white flag and the man knows he is a goner.
But then Ivan sits up and says, “Well there is one piece of good fucking news.”