Chapter Sixteen

Life Line

 

WHEN SATURDAY ARRIVED, I dreaded getting up in the morning. I was frightened about going to the house in Mount Adams, but I desperately wanted to talk to my mom.

As soon as it reached noon, Uncle Butch sat down at the table where we were having lunch. I kept my gaze down at my bowl of tomato soup. I avoided eye contact with him as much as I could. Today was no exception.

“Time to call your mom,” Uncle Butch said. It was as if he was planning this moment all week. He even sounded happy about it.

I held onto the table half-expecting that I would drift off the porch. “Can Wendy come with me?” I asked with deepening uneasiness.

“I don’t see why not,” Aunt Lori said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Uncle Butch said. His very presence made me tremble. “She’s still on restriction. Also, I have to stop by the office and I don’t need them running around in there.” His voice was firm. I could see that Aunt Lori was reluctant to argue with him and would rather stay out of his way.

“Then I’m not going.”

Uncle Butch cut me a malignant look.

I ignored him. I would rather pour pickle juice into my eyes than go to the house with him alone.

Aunt Lori walked over to me as soon as the words left my mouth. She knelt beside me and combed my hair back with her fingers. “What’s the matter, honey?” she whispered.

The sheer act made me feel so comforted I could have cried. I wanted to cry, but I was too afraid. This never happened echoed in my head. I couldn’t help it. I grabbed Aunt Lori and hugged her, burying my face deep in her neck.

“What’s this? What’s this all about? Don’t you want to talk to your mother?” Aunt Lori asked.

How could I tell her? My uncle raped me, your husband. And what do I say to Wendy and Paige? Oh, by the way, your daddy is A Monster.

Aunt Lori looked directly into my eyes. “I’m sure she misses you terribly, and if she doesn’t hear from you today, she might even come up here and get you.” She laughed nervously. 

“Please Daddy, can I come with you?” Wendy pleaded. “I won’t get in the way.”

He compromised. “No, but if you two young ladies promise to be good the rest of the weekend, I will lift the restriction.” Wendy seemed happy with that and stopped pleading.

I had only just begun. “Please, Aunt Lori. Can Wendy come with me?”

Aunt Lori’s voice caught, as if she was about to say something. Ask something. She was picking through the rubble, trying to figure things out.

“Yes. That’s a great idea. I need some things at the house and Wendy can help get them.” I don’t know if she was figuring anything out or not, but I was thankful and let out my breath. I think this was the first time she verbally disagreed with Uncle Butch.

“Yay!” Wendy said.

Uncle Butch started to say something, but he hesitated like people did when they sense something was different.

I sat in the back and stared out the window, but I could feel his eyes on me. The car stopped, and Wendy went inside the house immediately. Uncle Butch got out of the car and stretched his legs. I was the last one out.

He threw his cigarette on the ground and snubbed it out with his shoe. Then he went into the house, leaving me standing alone in the gravel driveway. The tiny rocks threatened to push up through my flip flops as I walked toward the door. 

I wasn’t in any hurry to enter the house of horrors again, but I did want to call my mom, so I climbed the steps with cement shoes and entered the house. Wendy was already in the family room with the TV on.

Uncle Butch was standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open, most likely searching for a beer.

I walked to the phone hanging on the kitchen wall and picked up the receiver. I heard the first ring. “Come on, pick up,” I said under my breath.

My feet were burning holes through the floor. I stretched all the coil out of the phone line and it was just enough to allow me to walk around the corner into the dining room. I felt like I was on a leash and he was my master. I leaned against the wall, hoping it would hold me up.

My mom finally answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Mom?”

“Yeah, honey. It’s good to hear from you.”

“Mom, listen, you have to come and get me right now!” I whispered and was hoping she could hear the urgency in my voice.

“You’re going to have to speak up, I can’t hear you. We must have a bad connection.”

“You need to pick me up. Now!” I whispered—yelled so Uncle Butch wouldn’t hear me.

“Honey, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Uncle Butch. He . . .”

Uncle Butch was on me in one quick move, like . . . that night. He was standing right beside me running his sausage finger across my neck.

“What is it? You sound upset.”

“Don’t,” he spit-whispered in my ear. He smelled like cigarettes and bologna. My ear was wet and I wiped his spit away.

“Nothing, Mom. I miss you is all.”

 “I know. And it won’t be long now, I promise.”

“Okay, Mom.” I hoped she didn’t hear the disappointment in my voice.

“Are you having fun? Are you getting along with your cousins?”

“Yeah. Getting along great.” I couldn’t help the sarcasm.

“Good. Tell everyone hello for me and I’ll see you real soon.”

“Okay. I love you,” I said as I hung up the phone. I was disconnected from my mother, disconnected from the rest of the world.

Uncle Butch winked. “That’s my girl.”

He said it like it was a pat on the head. I felt the collar tighten around my neck, felt him pulling on the leash.

But I pulled back. “I’m not your girl!”

“You better watch yourself. Maybe I should take you down a notch.”

“You do what you have to do, and I will do what I have to do.” I turned away from him and called into the family room. “Wendy, it’s time to go.”