Scared of Beautiful (Scared #1)(10)
“I saw. I was going to call you tomorrow.” I lie, in part because though I know it was always my intention to call her back, I know I probably wouldn’t have actually done it.
“I need your help,” she looks up at me, tears welling in her eyes. “I need to leave, and I need your help.”
The desperation in her voice saddens me. But not for the reasons it should. In the last few years of high school, my mother had planned to leave my father at least twenty times. Each time, she was as determined as she is now, and each time she stayed. I sympathized the first ten times, but I gave up eventually, although she never did. Once I told her that we should just leave, just walk out the door and not come back. She told me that a father should never be denied the opportunity to say goodbye to his child. So she marched into his office and told him we were leaving. He asked her how an uneducated woman like her would support herself and a child. Told her that she had no hope in the real world, because useless women rarely did. Told her he brought her from the bottom to where she was now, and if she f*cked with him, he would make sure that’s where she wound up again. She yelled that she didn’t care anymore. And to my utter shock, she stormed out of the door, pulling me with her. We left without a stitch of clothing and went to the Bronx to stay with Aunt Megs, mum’s best friend from high school.
By the time morning came, my father had suspended my tuition at St Bernadette’s, the private high school that I attended, frozen all of her accounts and credit cards, and changed the locks to our apartment. Aunt Megs tried to tell her that she didn’t need any of that. She cried for hours before borrowing what little money Megs had to catch a cab back to our apartment with me in tow, again. My father made us stand in the hallway, knocking for half an hour before he opened the door. He reeked of scotch, and before we could walk in he grabbed my mother by the hair, pulling her in and slamming the door behind us. He screamed that she was shit, and that he knew she’d come crawling back. Asked her why he should bother letting her back there when there were a dozen women lined up to take her place? That a man like him could have the world if he wanted it. He asked her if she was prepared to be a good f-ucking wife and do as she was told from now on. She nodded in fearful submission, tears streaming down her face. He pulled her up the stairs by her hair and slammed the bedroom door behind them. By the following morning, my father had restored my place at St Bernadette’s. I went to school and blocked the events of the last few days from my memory.
Until she reminded me of why I ran away to Brown in the first place. Why I threw every check in the drawer and never cashed them. Why I refused to believe that any man on this earth would be nice to a woman if they didn’t want something in return.
“Why now, what’s different this time?” I ask bored, grateful that Jade is not here to witness the train wreck that is my family.
“This time I have to.” She looks up at me with sheer determination in her eyes, and for a moment I wonder if she may be serious. “I’m going to stay with Megs, she’s already agreed,” she continues. “All those other times I stayed for you, but you’re safe now, and I can finally leave for good.” She looks so overjoyed that her face appears almost manic.
Another memory flashes back. One of my mother asking my father to come to watch my ballet recital when I was seven. I stood in the hallway and listened to him tell her that she was the one who wanted a child, that it wasn’t in his plans. And to be grateful that he even allowed it. That’s all I was, a liability to him, and that he was far too busy making money to spend two hours in some f-ucking amateur concert. She came alone after that to every recital, every t-ball game, and never asked him again.
Megs is probably somewhere in the Bronx rolling her eyes, preparing for the house guest that is my mother to stay for a day again before racing back to our Central Park apartment. Just as I am while listening to her in Providence. I really want to believe her, but history is a motherf*cker. The past almost always repeats itself.
Although I can’t bring myself to believe her entirely, I walk over to my bedside drawer and take out my second bankcard and hand it to her. Maybe if I make sure that she has money, he’ll have nothing to hold over her anymore, and she may just conclude that she doesn’t need to go back. She takes the card gratefully and wraps her arms around my neck, embracing me in a tight hug. As her daughter, I should hug her back; tell her that she’s going to be fine. But the most I can manage is placing my hands awkwardly on her back. I should tell her that I can take care of her, since my six figure trust fund from my grandparents landed in my account when I turned nineteen, and that I promise to keep her safe. But I don’t, because I can’t. How can I honestly commit to saving the soul of someone else when I can’t even f-ucking save my own?
My father hated me all the more for the fact that my grandparents left him the company, but left me everything else. In their professional years, they had amassed a sizeable fortune: stocks, shares, and properties. I suspect that they had an inkling of the kind of f-ucking * that their son was, and wanted to make sure that I would never have to beg him for anything. And, adding insult to injury, they named their long time and family lawyer trustee to the funds until I was of age. My father was never even given the option of seeing that money. He put forward a number of appeals, stating that as my legal guardian, he should be nominated trustee. The will was iron clad. He failed in all of his attempts. And now, well, now with some well placed investments, my net worth almost matches his. I considered that to be a spectacular f-uck you very much.