Chapter Twenty-Two

TWENTY-TWO

I’ll not sit here and tell you that Hal was the only person in charge of setting the rules—although, admittedly, he was the reason that the vast majority of them existed. I set rules as well. Or at least I set one, the most important one. The rule was this: the situation with Hal and me—our disagreements and our oh-so-slow changes and the ever-developing rules and Hal’s unpredictable anger—Katherine was to be spared all of it.

To be honest, I thought the rule was so fundamental, it would never even have to be spoken. For most of our lives together, Hal seemed to understand. The rules never applied to Katherine. Hal kept his fists far away from her, even when he was drinking, bless him. Sure, Katherine knew when Hal was upset with something or other I didn’t know I had done (she had ears, after all), and Hal would certainly yell at Katherine when she tested his patience a bit too much (what parent doesn’t?), but he never turned the full brunt of himself towards her. He seemed to view Katherine as my responsibility, a checkout clerk to my shift supervisor, and any perceived deficits in Katherine’s behavior were up to me to manage. It made sense, really. Any complaints with the checkout clerks ought to be taken up with the supervisors, anyway. It was all perfectly fine by me—I had excellent managerial skills. I could listen, receive feedback, adjust the way I managed Katherine accordingly, and Hal would keep his hands to himself. I thought Hal and I were on the same page with all that.

The day I found out I was wrong was a fairly typical day. It might’ve been a Tuesday. Katherine was fifteen or sixteen at the time, and Hal was only on his second DUI. I had gone through my usual routine of texting Hal when I arrived at the grocery store, at least three times while I was in the store (you’ll find there is a lot to say about grocery shopping if you think about it), when I checked out (in the line with the female cashier, of course), and when I got stuck in a bit of congestion that might delay my arrival back home. Hal responded to only a few of these texts, but his responses weren’t as mandatory as the texting—the open communication. So I wasn’t alarmed when I pulled into the driveway and started to unload the groceries from the car. But I became alarmed as I heard the faint sound of Hal’s voice drifting through the walls of the house.

Yelling.

For a moment, I assumed he was yelling at me, and I searched my memory for what I could possibly have done wrong. I had told him about this grocery trip yesterday. I engaged in so much open communication. I returned home exactly when I told him I would. Had he found out that the male deli clerk had smiled at me? Did Noelle call while I was away, even though we hadn’t spoken in ages? I braced for impact.

When I entered the house, I realized he wasn’t yelling at me, after all.

Katherine’s bedroom door was open.

When I was a child, I had a friend who got ahold of some fireworks. We were setting them off in her backyard and she held on to one a little too long and it exploded in her hand. It was a bad explosion despite the colorful sparks, loud and bright and hot and bloody. Anyway, that was what it felt like in my chest just then. I ran down the hall.

I could hear enough words to piece together what Hal was on about. Apparently, some new friend had dropped Katherine off after school—a male friend. Hal’s opinions of males who weren’t him had been well established, and I could tell by the sluggish nature of Hal’s consonants that he had been drinking, which only strengthened those opinions.

“I will not have any daughter of mine driving through town like some goddamn WHORE,”Hal was screaming when I got to Katherine’s room.

I could tell by the scene that Hal’s tirade had started abruptly and had been going on for some time. Hal was halfway in Katherine’s room and closing in fast. Katherine had tucked herself into a corner, her back to the wall, knees bent as if trying to somehow push herself through the wall and into the yard behind it. This was a fairly new situation for Katherine. She’d been reprimanded before, but never like this. This was the sort of thing that was typically reserved for me. I’d thought Hal and I were in agreement on that.

“Dad, I already told you?.?.?. ,” Katherine was saying. That was a mistake, arguing back. You didn’t argue back, especially when Hal had been drinking. Katherine didn’t know. She’d never had to follow the rules before.

“YOU’RE FUCKING HIM, AREN’T YOU?”Hal screamed at her.

Katherine’s mouth opened and closed. She looked more confused than I had ever seen her. At fifteen or sixteen, Katherine had already figured out a thing or two about herself and her romantic inclinations. She hadn’t gotten around to telling us yet, but a mother knew these things, and with Katherine it was fairly obvious. Hal was less observant. I figured Katherine was working herself up to making the announcement, but this was not the moment she wanted to choose.

“What?” Katherine stammered.

Don’t make Hal repeat himself. That was another rule. Oh, Katherine.

“YOU IMPUDENT CUNT,”Hal yelled.

I saw Hal puff his body up, his shoulders rolling back, chest protruding. His hands were fists at his sides and he glowered down at her. I didn’t need to be able to read tea leaves to tell what was coming next. Hal lunged forward, fist raised high. Katherine screamed.

“NO,”I shouted, hurling myself at Hal. I got him in his midsection like a football player, knocking him off his balance and pushing him to the ground. He hadn’t even noticed me coming at him, and he went down hard, bouncing once on his side before rolling onto his back. I was on top of him, pinning his arms with my hands, his thighs with my legs.

It was only a matter of time. Seconds, likely.

I turned to Katherine, who looked as if she were prepared to cry just as soon as she became less terrified. “Run,” I said.

“Mom?” she said.

“Get out of here,”I said. “Go next door. Run.”

Katherine ran.

She left just in time. With a grunt, Hal threw me off him. I slammed into Katherine’s dresser, her little knickknacks clattering above me. A bottle of lotion rolled off and hit me on the shoulder. I leapt to my feet with speed, putting as much space between Hal and myself as I could. I needed distance between us while I expressed my opinions, even if only for a moment, which was all the time I was likely to get. Hal was on his feet.

“You do not treat our daughter like that,” I said. There was a fierceness in my voice that I had never heard before.

It was a rare line in the sand for me, perhaps one of the first I had ever drawn. I hardly ever outright disagreed with Hal—that was the rule. I knew how to handle Hal, after all. I wasn’t scared. I’d figured it all out. But Katherine was another story altogether. I was perfectly willing to make a heaven of any hell in which I happened to find myself. But I would be goddamned if I made my daughter endure it.

“Excuse me?”Hal’s shoulders rolled back, his chest puffed out, his hands fists at his side. He was glowering down at me. He moved to close the distance but I darted back. I still had more to say.

“You can do whatever you like to me,” I said, my voice loud, firm, confident, “but you do not—do not—lay a hand on our daughter.”

“Are you telling me how to discipline my own child?”Hal wasn’t a cornered animal now. He was a starving lion. He was a pack of wolves. He was a circling hawk. And in all those metaphors, I was a rabbit with a wounded leg. But I wasn’t frightened, and I wasn’t going down without a fight. And let me tell you, a fight was coming.

“You heard me,” I said. “And if I ever—ever—catch you treating Katherine like that again, I swear to Christ, I will take her away from you. I don’t care if you kill me, but with God as my witness, you will never see her again. Do you understand me?”

Hal must have understood me. His hand met my face with a thundering crack—open palm but hard, hard enough to knock me to the ground. There was a ringing in my ears and my head felt shaken loose. My hand rose to my face, which was hot and stinging. I blinked through the disorientation and saw his feet in front of me.

Things got much, much worse from there.

But everything is survivable. And I did survive, of course. So far, my survival rate has been excellent.

Afterwards, Hal left the house to go continue his evening at a bar somewhere and I lay on the floor outside of Katherine’s bedroom, breathing and surviving. I was very aware of the breathing because it hurt quite a bit and it seemed that I needed to do a lot of it—more than usual, it appeared. But breathing is a success, and we never take time to celebrate the little successes, do we?

It was time to make plans.

Standing didn’t seem like a viable option, as I was still dizzy and throbbing and couldn’t see out of my left eye. Crawling wasn’t comfortable and I was sure I was making quite the mess out of the carpet, but it was the lesser of two evils at that moment. I dragged myself to where my purse had fallen by the front door. For a moment, I thought about the groceries slowly going bad out in my car, but I pushed that thought aside. I had more pressing problems. I felt around in my purse until I found my phone. I could barely see, but I knew by heart the number I wanted to call.

It’s a funny thing about being alone. You never really notice it when it’s happening. Of course, you’re aware that nobody else is there, but you are so busy with the little things. You’ve become acclimated to solitude, but it only takes one little thing to jolt you into the realization that for the past several years, you have been completely alone in all of this.

Noelle picked up on the first ring.

“Margaret?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

Speaking would give it all away, of course, because my lips were thick and my tongue wasn’t right and my mouth wasn’t doing the best job of moving. But you don’t really have a choice over the phone, now, do you?

“Hi, Noelle,” I said, lying back down on the floor.

“Jesus Christ,” Noelle said, “what happened?”

“I need a favor,” I said.

“Oh my God.” Noelle sounded panicked. “Do I need to call the police? Do you need an ambulance?”

“No,” I said. “Please, don’t.”

“Jesus, Margaret, you sound—”

“I need you to come over here right now,” I said. “I need you to get Katherine. You need to take her.”

“Margaret—”

“It isn’t safe for her here,” I said. “Please.”

There was a pause. Noelle was still thinking about the police, I could tell. But finally, she sighed. “I’ll be right over,” she said.

After I hung up, I stayed on the floor, the phone pressed against my chest. It was wet; I would probably need to wipe it off before the blood dried on it. Soon, sooner than I’d have liked, I would need to stand up and take care of some things. I would need to gather some of Katherine’s things for Noelle to take with her. I would need to do something about my face before Noelle showed up and once again started talking about calling the police. I would eventually need to do something about the carpet, but not yet. One must prioritize in these situations. I could lie there a little longer, celebrating my success.