My mom emerges, hair in disarray. She quickly ties the robe she’s wearing, even though it’s four in the afternoon. Her eyes go straight to the envelope in my hand. She lights a cigarette and clamps it between her wrinkling lips, reaching to grab the envelope from me.
It’s hard to see her now. It wasn’t that long ago when we were all together. It was never perfect. It wasn’t even close, but the years have not been kind to my mother, the former homecoming queen. Now her once smooth skin is speckled with spots and fine lines. Her fingers are almost skeletal, stained yellow between forefinger and middle finger from the cigarette that’s always jammed there. If she stopped smoking for two weeks, she could probably afford the vacation on her own. It’s an ugly thought and I push it down.
My mom doesn’t deserve any kindness from me. I know that. I don’t do it out of weakness. I’m doing it for myself, to prove I’ve risen above the path she laid out for me. If my mom gets her way and thinks she pulled one over on me, so be it. I can be above that. I can let it not matter to me. She tucks a strand of her straw-dry blonde hair behind her ear, licking her lips.
She and Ronnie both lean over it, tearing it open like kids on Christmas. My mom’s eyes light up when she sees the bills, but she pulls them out and counts through them twice, forehead creasing.
“Six hundred? That’s all?” she asks.
The show of good humor on Ronnie’s face fades as he rounds on me. “That’s all family is worth to you, Emmaline?”
I take a deep, slow breath, pushing down the first words that threaten to spill out. Ungrateful. Bitch. Bastard. I focus on the decision that led me to do this. This is for me. It doesn’t matter how they respond to it. “There’s a cruise to the Bahamas leaving in a month. If you book it this week, it’s only five hundred and seventy dollars. With tax. You’d have some extra money there to get a few drinks on board.”
My mom’s face says it all. It’s not enough. It’s not what she wanted, and she’s disappointed. As much as my intentions were set on doing this for me, the look on her face breaks through my resolve. I feel a swell of emotion rising up. Sadness. Anger. It would be one thing if she had bent over backwards to take care of me my whole life. Instead, she and my dad both took turns screwing my brother and I over to get themselves a step ahead. I can thank her for keeping me alive, but even that feels like a stretch when it seems like her sole motivation was the hope that I’d be a lifeline she could cling to.
Something inside me snaps. All my good intentions evaporate in an instant. I reach out and grab the money from her. “Fine. If you don’t want it--”
My vision goes blinding white as something hard collides with my face. I blink through the confusion and feel a pulsing pain explode in my cheek and my head. I’m lying on the filthy carpet, sideways. Ronnie stands over me, hand still across his body from backhanding me. My mom kneels beside me protectively, glaring up at him.
“You fucking touch my daughter again and I’ll kill you!” she shouts.
“Watch. Your. Fucking. Mouth,” he says to her, finger stabbing periods between each word in the air as he advances on her.
“Mom. Come on,” I say, struggling to get back to my feet and pulling at her.
She stands, shoving me out the door and locking it behind me. It was all a blur. It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds. I’m outside, the chilly air biting at my skin. She’s in there with him. I tug on the doorknob as I hear the two of them shouting at the top of their lungs and plates breaking.
It’s not the first case of domestic abuse I’ve witnessed, not by a long shot, but it’s the first time Ronnie has actually put his hands on me. I walk to my car slowly, stunned and hurt. My whole face is throbbing painfully, and I can’t stop the tears that stream silently down my cheeks. I’m still shaking with rage when I get in my car and dial the police to let them know they need to come out to the trailer park. I wish it was the first time I had made that call. I speak in low, flat tones and hang up when the operator tells me to wait on the scene.
I know Scarlett will be at the office working on the design for a new series of milestone onesies we’re planning, so I drive straight there. It’s a short drive from the trailer park, but I spend the entire drive buried in thought, face still throbbing from where he hit me. I avoid looking in the rearview to assess the damage.