Lies He Told Me

Chapter 5 Episode 5

“We would be more than happy for you to screw off.” I smile at him. “You know, stop eating our foodand spending the little extra money we do have on beer.” I glance at Mom—please, please, back meup just this once, just this one time, please—“Wouldn’t we, Mom?”

Mom is all trembling and flashy-eyed from their argument. But at this, the final conclusion, she wilts.

I can see it. Her thinking of Randy the abuser. Of Carl the coke addict. Jerry the cheater and Paul thesuicide.

She’s thinking that, even if we do get rid of Damon, there will always be another ready to step in line.One with even worse vices. Every successive man has been a downgrade from the pile of humangarbage who preceded him.

I grab Mom’s hand. “Mom. Please. This has been going on long enough.”

Even Damon can tell when his gravy train is in danger of stopping.

His eyes lower, and he ekes out the script he knows so well, “s**t, Terri, I’m sorry. You know how Ican get carried away when I’ve had a few drinks. And your daughter’s right, I am f****d up. I’msorry. Tomorrow, I’ll …” His chest heaves. “Tomorrow, I’ll …”

He sneaks a look to see if Mom’s buying it. No need for him to actually finish the sentence, to summonenough brain cells to actually deduce what it would take to change. He’s not going to do that; ofcourse he’s not. Not even close.

I could smack him, but I squeeze Mom’s hand harder. “Mom, c’mon—how many times has he given usthis bullshit spiel? You’ve said it yourself—he’s leeching off us!”

Damon’s whole body jerks, as if we’ve smacked him, mumbles, “My injury … if you don’t …nowhere to go …”

For f**k’s sake! Mom’s face shows she is caving.

Damon knows just how to play her. His vice may be doing f**k-all and yelling at the hockey games onTV, but her vice is kindness. The kind of kindness that has her accept s**t jobs and s**t men, time andagain.

I want to shake her, to scream at her, but I know there’s no point.

It’s more than that. My mom suddenly looks twenty years older, with the way her hands are lined andher head is bowed.

She has to believe him, not just for his sake, but for hers. So she can believe she hasn’t made the samemistake she always has, the same mistake she always swears she’ll never make again.

“Please, Joy,” she says. She won’t look at me. “Damon and I will talk this over. Go back to bed.”

“No, you won’t!” My voice is too loud. I’ve lost and I know it. “He’s just going to lie to you, like healways does. Mom, look at me!”

But she won’t. Instead, quietly, sadly, she says, “I’m not going to ask you again.”

I stand there for a few seconds, my mind rebelling against it. It can’t end this way … not again.

But Mom and Damon go over to the couch, sit down, and don’t look over, talking in low voices.There’s nothing I can do.

We’re never going to be rid of him.

I wander back to my bed. The tears come, though I hardly notice. It’s cold. My pillow gets wet. Mynose runs.

Happy birthday, Joy. This is your life and it’s never, ever going to change.

“You’re a little b***h, you know that?”

Still half asleep, I roll to the other side of the bed. The door creaks open.

The realization snaps through me: that wasn’t Damon spitting more venom at Mom.

He’s in my room now.

My eyes fly open, bleary with sleep, but I can barely make out his lumpy form. “What are you doingin here?” I hiss. “I’ll—”

His laughter cuts me off. “Call for Mommy? Your mom’s knocked out. Popped some of those Ambienpills she loves so much.”

I scramble half up and back, wrapping my arms around my legs. “I mean it. Get out.”

He takes a step forward. “Or what—you’ll yell for help?”

Another joke—anyone in this building who would answer a scream in the night sure as hell wouldn’tbe coming to help.

“Or use your phone?” He waggles it at me. He’s taken it off the little table by the door where I chargeit.

He’s at the edge of my bed now, undoing his pants, breathing deeply. “I’ve had enough of yourbullshit. It’s time you find out what the real world’s like. What happens to little bitches who causetrouble.”

In the moonlight, Damon’s eyes are black pools. He stinks of beer and sweat and the Listerinemouthwash he obsessively uses.

I stand up, my bed creaking under my weight, and tell him, “Get the f**k out of my room.”

He totters in place for a second, as though considering it. For a few seconds, I hope beyond hope thathe’ll do it. That he’ll leave and never come back.

But then he lumbers forward and all hope shatters.

I scramble out of the way. He’s still fiddling with his belt and zipper, mumbling, “I’ll show you …show you … we’ll see if you’re like your mom … if you shut up when I …”

As he staggers closer to me, my foot jabs out, lashing into his crotch.

And then I’m out of there. I race to Mom’s room, locking the door behind me.

I shake her. “Mom! Mom, wake up! Wake up, Mom!”

A strangled yell behind me, smashing noises.

And then, thank God, her eyes snap open. She gives me a glassy stare. “Joy?”

The door bursts open. So much for the lock.

“I’m gonna …” Damon stops, trails off, seeing Mom half up.

I find my voice. “He tried to r**e me.”

Mom’s face looks ghostly, her eyes half lidded. Is she even actually awake?

“Mom? Did you hear me?” Her glassy gaze slides over to Damon, then back to me.

I get on my feet. “Mom? I mean it this time. I can’t take this anymore. I can’t. It’s either him or me.Either he goes, or I do.”

I can’t believe my eyes. She sits there, staring out at the wall.

Like she can see everything and nothing all at once in the peels of paint. I stand there, gape at her,wait for her to respond.

A moment, an eternity passes. Outside, something wails, long and high.

I grab her, shake her harder than I expected, so hard I’m surprised I can’t hear the rattling of herbones, though I can feel them under my clenched fingertips.

I jolt away, horrified. With her, with myself, with this whole insane situation.

But Mom just sits there.

All I can do is stand and wait, as if she’s an eight-ball that still might give me another answer, the oneI’m hoping for instead of the harsh, ugly reality that’s demanding that I look it in the eye. But I can’t dothat, not yet. Not while there’s still hope for my mom to snap to her senses.

Wait for those dull eyes to brighten, that vacant look to sharpen.

For my f*****g mother to see me—see the daughter she cooked a birthday cake we can’t afford,who’s been through it all with her, who she could never, ever, ever even thinking of losing. What doesshe always say—that nothing in this big, stupid world is more important than her little girl? I’ve heardit countless times. I always believed her.

But right now, when it matters most?

The creak of our floor is the only change. Damon’s stepped forward, Damon who—just, ugh. Momstays catatonic. Practically lifeless. I’ve seen statues more lively and dynamic than her right now.

She isn’t gonna move. So I realize, with Damon’s next step, that there’s only one thing for me to do.

I leave the way I came in: run, run, run, run. As fast as I can, don’t stop, don’t even think of stopping.

Just run. I grab my Kodiak backpack, the one I’ve had half stuffed with clothes for years, almost like Iknew this moment was going to come and that it was going to go exactly like this.

Just run—out the door, down the hall. Someone’s barking, something near? Doesn’t matter. Run,around the corner, past open apartments that never sleep.

Outside, fresh air swipes me in the face as the front door groans closed behind me. My legs jar to astop. I take another breath of fresh air. Breathe in. Breathe out.

But I stand there for another few seconds, as the realization of what I’ve done smacks around theinside of my head. I’ve left my money. Left my home.

It doesn’t matter. I can’t go back.

The refrain thrumming through me takes over again, booming louder than ever in my head: Run-run-run-as fast as you can, don’t stop, don’t even think of stopping.

So I take a deep breath, put my head down, and do exactly that.

I run away from my home.

The dark streets of the city open their jaws to welcome me. I can already see the rats, smell thesewage, hear someone yelling, “Helloooo there, darlin’…”

Happy birthday, Joy. You just lost everything you know and love.