Chapter 8 - Just Another Night Of Family Showdown

I shut the wooden door behind me. Careful to not cause any noise. I walk past the dark living room and dirty kitchen and head straight to my room.

I hang my jacket carefully on the hook beside my door. Lining up my shoes under it, I rearrange the order. Place some stray shoes in their proper place. Mom must have borrowed a pair. I take my socks and carefully place them in my clothes hamper. I take my jeans and blouse off and fold them, piling them on top of my dirty clothes from the other day. I need to do laundry soon.

I plop down my old chair. Grab a pen and add soap to my list of things to buy at the grocery store. Hand washing everything is time-consuming but I honestly don’t have a choice. I’m counting down the days until I receive my first pay from Cane Industries but I doubt buying a new washing machine is on top of my priority list. Maybe a repair? I added it to the list.

I’m getting lightheaded. The food I bring for lunch at the office just isn’t enough. I’ve finally set aside my pride and accepted my friends’ offer for food. I think they’ve noticed the meager amount of sandwiches I bring. Rosie has taken the personal challenge of inching her sides over to me despite my refusal every time we sit together. At first, it was fruits, then it graduated to finger foods and she’s now doubled whatever she buys and gives me some. She offers it up to the group but I know she’s doing it for me by the looks she gives me. And of course the nudges of the food over to me.

I normally wouldn’t accept charity but they’re so nice and I’m even contemplating if I could answer more of their personal questions.

I grab a glass of water from the kitchen. Everything is still and quiet at the house. It’s just a matter of time.

I open a packet of noodles for my dinner.

“The water bill came.” My mom, Alison Blake, has finally left her room.

She takes the gas stove lighter beside me and lights her cigarette.

I stir the noodles. She sits at the dining table, a video already playing on her phone.

“I don’t have the money yet.”

“Well, why not?” She barely looks at me. Concentrating on watching her celebrity video while taking a hit from her cigarette.

“Pay isn’t due this week mom, it’s at the end of the month.”

“What should I do with the bill then?” She gives me a look.

“I don’t know, stall? I gave you the last of my savings, is that gone already?”

She shrugs and goes back to her video. The latest Kardashian gossip.

“Mom, what happened?”

“Are you saying I wasted the money? Do I look like I have an addiction to you? Did I gamble it away?” She raises her voice with every question.

“No, I…”

“Then why are you asking me?!”

“I just, that’s the last of it.”

“What do you want me to do? It’s gone. You know, I never asked you like this when you were growing up. Did I ever ask you where you put your allowance? I just gave you money for your school.”

“I know Mom, I’m just alarmed cause I don’t know what to do.”

“Are you insinuating something, my lovely daughter?”

I stay silent. I know by now that I shouldn’t speak when she’s like this. It would only cause more trouble. Whatever I say, she would misinterpret it.

“Have I ever questioned you like this when I raised you? Did I ever tell you to pay me back for all the milk I gave you? Do you know how much milk formulas cost?!”

She plows on. “You know just because you have this bigshot job at that bigshot company, you’re so high and mighty now. Have you ever considered you’re just a glorified slave to that CEO?”

My appetite is gone but I don’t want to waste the noodles. I quickly transfer it to a bowl and add the powdered seasoning. I’ll eat it in my room.

“Oh so now you’re just not going to respond? Are you so high up on a pedestal that you can’t even be bothered to answer your mother?” She flicks the ash of her cigarette on the floor.

“When you’re the one picking a fight in the first place. Ridiculous.” Her challenging tone clues me in that she’s just starting with this.

“No, I’ll just eat in my room.” I scurry to my safe haven. In my escape, I didn’t ensure that the door would close without any sound. Right on cue, I hear her scream.

“Ms. Arrogant Hotshot slams the door!”

I carefully place the bowl on my tiny desk. I held my breath, waiting to see if she would storm my room as usual.

She doesn’t. Maybe she went back to her video. I heaved a deep sigh.

I spoon some of the noodles into my mouth. The heat of the soup soothes me.

The front door slams. I put the spoon down and listen.

My nerves are getting the best of me. I tap my foot, wanting to relieve the tension. Maybe this time, my parents would have a normal conversation..?

Right on cue, my mom is screaming her lungs out.

I think she told Augustus about the water bill.

I creep over to my bed. I smooth out some wrinkles while listening in. I crouch down on the floor when my mom’s voice is joined by Augustus’ yells.

With my eyes trained on the door, my left-hand feels for the baseball bat I keep under my bed.

A few beats later. The door of my room bursts open.

My mom enters my room sobbing.

She holds her face, hair disheveled, and her right cheek already forming a bruise.

She collapses on my bed. I’m still clutching the bat I bought 5 years ago for self-defense.

I let it roll until it reaches the wall, glad I don’t need it anymore tonight.

“Is he done?” I ask her but keep my eyes vigilantly on the door.

“I don’t know. I just walked out.” I don’t respond. We’ve had this conversation a thousand times over by now. This is nothing new. I’ve even used my baseball bat to defend us a couple of rounds already.

That’s why she went straight to my room.

“I’m sorry about earlier. I was just stressed.” She apologizes. “You know I say shitty things when I’m mad. I don’t mean it, you do know that right?” She says in a sweet voice.

I just hum my response. Besides the regular beatings Augustus inflicts on us, these apologies from my mother are another regular occurrence in this household.

What can I do but forgive her when she hurts me? It’s not like any child would find it easy to deny her mother when she apologizes like that. Maybe it’s very naive of me to hold onto a few percent of hope that she might change. Maybe she can keep her word next time? Try to keep her cool and be reasonable.

I doubt it very much.

“Words hurt mom.” If a while ago I was stoic when she was screaming at me, now I’m just hurt. This cycle we’re in is exhausting.

“Sorry, baby. I’ll try better next time. I don’t know what comes over me sometimes. I just blurt these things out.”

“Okay, just... Is it safe for you to go back to your room? He’s not out there anymore?”

“I’ll go check.” She slowly gets up and peeks through the small opening of the door.

I take the time to observe her if she has fresh injuries besides that on her face. One time it got so bad that she kept on moaning that her back hurt. When we examined it, it looked like Augustus kicked her so hard that she might have fractured a bone or something. It was our best guess since we couldn’t get her checked at a hospital.

She rubbed Vicks vaporub on the black area and refrained from lying down on the bed. I think she slept on my bed in a seated position for a whole week. Of course, my tiny bed couldn’t fit the both of us so I slept on the floor. But for our safety, I’d sleep on the floor even for a month if it meant that he would back off. I was just glad it afforded us a full straight week of peace.

No such luck this time. I guess he’s done taking out his anger at the lawn chairs and came back just when Mom peeked.

In a flash, Augustus kicked the door open. Slamming the knob on the wall and shoving my mom forward.

She fell on the floor.

On instinct, I go to help her but he catches my elbow and yanks me back.

Augustus Blake has different levels of assholeness.

The first level is simple enough, if he’s pissed but feels lazy to do anything about it, he would just scream until his face gets so red and swollen, that spit would fly all over while he curses us.

The second level is when he trashes the house. He would grab anything that he could get his hands on and throw it, smash it, or just inflict damage on the furniture in general. He would usually target anything close to him. In a snap of a finger, anything can fly.

He once grabbed the oven toaster and smashed it on the TV. I cried that night, the TV was the only thing that kept me showing up in the living room and outside my safety zone. It was one of the few things I bought with my first pay. I just bought a second-hand outdated box TV to replace it. I still heat my toast on a pan now. I couldn’t salvage the toaster.

The third level is when he hurts us. Usually, it’s my mom and when he’s especially angry, he includes me. These are the times I’ve had to shield her from him or stand between them so that we wouldn’t end up in an emergency room. Hospital bills are no joke.

The fourth level or red alert is when I fight back. These are the moments when my favorite bat comes out to play. It wasn’t like this before but I don’t know, I just snapped a couple of years back when he was punching the daylights out of me. The first time was actually kind of funny, I just grabbed whatever was near me. Turns out, those massage apparatus? Those really bulky ones? Yeah, you can use that to defend yourself when someone is beating your face in.

From then on, I saved up for a bat and it has been a source of comfort for me that I can defend myself and my mom. It’s just really tricky because he has high blood pressure and when he gets so red and hyped up, we’re afraid that he might just drop dead.

I don’t care if he dies, I just don’t have the money for hospital bills or funeral services right now.

So now, it’s a fine line between not angering him so much, defending myself, and just not plain dying when he’s lost his shit. It’s a delicate balance.

“Stay out of this.” He says.

I reflexively get my elbow and my body away from him. I’m not sure if it’s because I fear him or because I’m disgusted by his general presence.

Mom stands up and places herself beside me.

He glares at us. He’s a small man, I’m barely a few inches shorter than him and he’s skinny. But when he’s mad, it’s like he conjures up this well of energy and uses it for destruction.

I quickly lock the door when he exits my room.

We’re safe. Another day, another fight we survived.