What?Funny sort of argument. Well, two can play that game.
“You mean the kind of argument when he puts his hand on my ass and suggests we could have some fun while my mom’s at work?” I say.
Her jaw drops. “Hewhat?”
“He put his hand on my ass, Mom.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t joking? He’s always been a bit …”
I shake my head. “You don’t mistake stuff like that, Mom.”
Her hand flutters as she presses it to her chest. Then she sinks into a chair at the kitchen table. “He done anything like that before?” she says.
I shake my head again, and she presses her lips together.
“He did do this, I swear. I wouldn’t make it up.”
She holds up her hand. “I know you wouldn’t.” She reaches out and grips my fingers. “You’re a good girl, Sadie. I’m just …” Her hand rests on her chest again. “Horrified. All this time … I mean he never helped much with you, but he was around when I was working.” She shakes her head. “I’m not excusing him, I’m ... God, I’m so sorry, Sadie. I don’t know what to say. Hetouchedyou? Why would hedothat?”
She pulls me forward, and I bend down and slide my arms around her back. She’s been with Jake ever since I was six, before we moved in here.
“I wondered if he’d taken something. His eyes were unfocused and …”
She leans back and makes a face. “You know he’s always smoked. I think he’s been doing more of that lately.”
“Why are you with him, Mom? He’s just always been this awful, inappropriate, weaselly guy. And I …”
She purses her lips, then gets up and walks over to the fridge, pulling out a couple of frozen dinners. “Let’s put some food in the oven and then we can talk.”
I pull out mats and cutlery as Mom puts the meals in to heat, and we sit down at the battered kitchen table.
She smooths her nylon uniform over her legs as she says, “Right from when I got pregnant, I had no one. No family. No money. No one to turn to. No qualifications that would get me a job with a baby to look after. Your dad took off before you were born, cleared all his stuff out of the apartment we shared one afternoon when I was at work, and I never heard from him again. I had no idea how I was going to take care of you and cover the rent. I carried on living there and did what jobs I could find, but the money was never enough. We were evicted eventually.”
She’s told me some of this story before.
“I got a place in a women’s shelter and begged on the street so’s we could eat. I worried about the situation we were in with our older neighbor, Mr. Friedman. I don’t know if you remember him, but he found me a cleaning job with a friend of his, Mrs. Katz, who had a house in a nicer part of town. It came with a room in her basement, and for the first time, I had something that might work. But Mrs. Katz paid me next to nothing and told me that the room was my pay. I couldn’t do much about it because we needed a roof over our heads, and I could look after you as I cleaned, so Iaccepted it and kept searching for other opportunities. I got another cleaning job, and for a while we had a place to live and money to buy food. No more, but we were survivin’.
“Then Mrs. Katz said I stole something from her, and we had to move on. I didn’t steal nothing, but she was a mean old coot, and I think she wanted rid of us. We went from shelter to shelter, one terrible room after another. We were thrown out when I didn’t have enough cash to keep a roof over our heads. Cleaning, begging, I was doing anything. I stole stuff too. Not proud of that, but we had to eat.”
I have vague memories of this time—a series of damp, dingy places. My mom was constantly stressed, sometimes out at night.
“Then, one night, I met Jake. He came out of a bar drunk as a skunk, and I was on the street outside asking for money. He stopped to talk to me, and I realized that, if I could snare him, you and me’d be okay. He could hardly stand, so I offered to help him get home. That night, you and I slept on his couch, and when he woke up in the morning, he couldn’t remember who I was. I said he’d promised me a place to stay for a few weeks. I’m not proud of it, but I did what I had to do.” She studies me with sad eyes. “It was what I had to do,” she repeats, in a whisper this time.
As her eyes fill with tears, I get up, shuffle around the table, and pull her into another hug, inhaling her familiar smell of cleaning products and cheap shampoo.
“God, Mom. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had to do all that because of me.”
She pulls back, shaking her head like a dog with a flea in its ear. “It wasn’t only because of you, and I haven’t regretted it once. I couldn’t be prouder of you.” She wipes her hand across her face as I straighten up.
Maybe she wouldn’t be so proud of me if she knew I’d lied to Williams Security.
“Jake’s never been a bad guy. Is he an asshole? Yeah, he is. He drinks too much and makes lewd comments all the time, but he’s always just been a pain in the ass, like a lot of men. But he never hit me or forced me, you know what I’m saying? It was survival. It was enough.”
“I don’t want to make you feel bad about Jake. I …”
“God no, girl. I’m livid. He touched you? That’s abuse. He’s been like adad to you, not a very good one, but still … I counted on him. Trusted him to keep you safe.” She scrunches up her face and looks toward the kitchen window.
Oh, boy. Nothing I can say or do will make this better.
