SUNDAY DINNER wasn’t as bad as Jenny had anticipated. She didn’t realize her parents would never be willing to let anyone know Jenny had done something wrong, not even Virginia. They grilled Virginia on her recent unemployment while her sister shot Jenny dirty looks.
Jenny retreated to her room not long after Virginia left. Things felt weird with her parents. Sunday nights she used to curl up on the couch with her mother and watch a movie they could both agree on. Her father would sit in the chair with a book, uninterested but present. It was hard to explain, but Jenny always felt a little extra special to them after an evening with Virginia.
She didn’t feel special tonight. Her father had yelled at her. She just wished she could have it both ways. She wished she could break the rules without disappointing her parents. Unfortunately, these things were mutually exclusive, and she had to decide which path she preferred.
Jenny crawled onto her bed with a magazine she had already read and leafed through the pages as if a new picture or article would appear. She had no TV in her room. She had no cell phone. Her room was supposed to be a sanctuary, but without stimulation, it was suffocating. She was almost fourteen; she wasn’t going to sit on the floor playing with stuffed animals. It started to feel calculated. Her parents did this on purpose. They weren’t letting her grow up.
A knock at the door startled Jenny and felt too on the nose. As she sat on her bed, stewing over how her parents treated her like a child, there was her mother, at the door and ready to smother away any notions of independent thinking.
Another knock.
Jenny flipped the magazine to the next page, waiting for her mother to lose patience and just barge in.
Only she didn’t.
Jenny could hear footsteps, soft on the carpet in the hallway but recognizable. She placed the magazine down, the abnormality piquing her interest. Maybe she was being too hard on her mother. Jenny was the one who had quit the pageants. She had changed their dynamic. She could be more tolerant of her mother. Give her the time to adapt. Her mother was sensitive, emotional, and prone to overreaction, but they could find balance. Linda was already improving if she was willing to walk away when Jenny didn’t answer the door.
She slid off the bed and made her way across the room. She would poke her head out and tell her mother good night, rewarding her for allowing Jenny some space. She opened the door and looked down the hall, but it wasn’t her mother who had been knocking.
“Dad?”
Her father turned around to face his daughter, tentatively, and seeming like he had already mentally committed to her not opening the door.
“Were you sleeping?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she lied, not wanting to admit she was just in there being a brat. “It’s OK, though.”
“I was just going to let you know that I am heading back to work tonight.”
“OK,” she said. It wasn’t uncommon for him to leave late Sunday night instead of Monday morning. Jenny noticed it always correlated with a particularly stressful weekend. Usually Linda or Virginia was to blame. She was pretty sure it was her this time. He had never felt the need to personally notify her before. “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head but keeping his distance.
“OK,” she said, hoping he would elaborate a bit, but at least he hadn’t said yes. “I’m going to see Ms. Willoughby again,” she offered, to seal the deal. “The guidance counselor,” she clarified.
“That’s good.” He adjusted his stance a bit, clearly uncomfortable. “I’m trying to do things differently with you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, knowing full well he meant he didn’t want her to be like her sister.
“I’m not going to let things get out of hand. Do you understand? You have a lot of potential. I don’t want you to throw it away.”
“I’m not, Dad,” she spat back in kind to what she felt was at least an insult and at most a threat.
“Watch the attitude,” he barked.
“It’s not attitude. I just want you to trust me and stop treating me like I’m a freaking baby.”
“If you don’t want me to treat you like a child, you need to stop acting like one.”
“OK, whatever you say. You’re always right. You’re the best dad who ever existed,” she scoffed, not sure exactly why the whole interaction was making her so angry.
The door to her parents’ bedroom opened, and out came Linda to insert herself. “Is everything OK? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Jenny muttered.
“Calvin?” Linda looked to her husband, eyes glazed over from the post-dinner glasses of wine.
“Everything is fine. Go back to bed.”
“Why don’t you stay tonight? It’s already so late,” she suggested.
“No, we talked about this. Don’t even start.”
Linda’s head fell to the side as if there might be a little more protest left in her, but she couldn’t find the strength and just slunk back inside the bedroom. It was gross to watch, and Jenny felt disgusted by both of them.
“Bye, Dad,” she said, stepping back into her own room and shutting the door. He wouldn’t come in for the last word. She knew he regretted knocking in the first place.
LINDA’S BEDROOM DOOR had been closed for over an hour when Jenny cracked her own door open. She hadn’t seen JP all weekend. She had been too scared to try to sneak out while her father was home, but now he was gone, and after their little interaction, she felt even less motivated to do as she was told.
She tiptoed down the stairs, the ritual almost second nature by now. She reached the bottom and went right for the lamp on the end table, no need to feel her way around anymore. As soon as the room lit up, her senses were heightened and she noticed it right away: The door to the alcohol cabinet was wide-open. Someone was in the house.
Jenny turned the light back off to hide in the darkness. She crept toward the kitchen, feeling the floor turn from carpet to tile under her feet. She paused again for any sounds. Silence.
As she reached the kitchen island, halfway to the garage door, she noticed the bottle of bourbon that had assaulted her nasal cavity the first night she snuck out. Things weren’t adding up, but time wasn’t on her side. Getting out of the house was her only concern.
She reached the door to the garage, and as she grabbed for the handle, the light over the oven switched on. Jenny whipped around to see Linda revealed under the pointed yellow glow. It wasn’t an intruder, but her mother, looking like a stranger. Mascara ran down her red face as she stood holding a glass of the brown liquor.
“Mom?”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Nowhere.”
The lie seemed to cause Linda physical pain. She recoiled into herself, relying on the counter to keep her on her feet.
“Mom?” Jenny asked, taking careful steps toward her.
“Did I do this to you?” Linda whined, alcohol robbing her of any dignity.
“Everything is OK,” Jenny argued, reaching a hand to her mother’s shoulder.
The touch triggered Linda, who regained her strength and lunged toward her daughter, grabbing her by both arms. “Tell me where you’re going! Are you doing drugs? Are you having sex?” She shook her daughter for an answer.
“No, Mom, I promise. Please stop.” Jenny was tearing up now. An uncontrollable reaction to being violently shaken.
Linda’s eyes widened in a moment of brief clarity, and she released Jenny’s arms, horrified at what she was doing, and collapsed back against the counter.
Jenny retreated one step at a time until she felt the door, reaching behind her back and sliding her fingers around the knob.
“Mommy needs you to be a good girl,” Linda pleaded. “You are being a very, very bad girl.”
Her mother had devolved into something infantile, a behavior scarier in that moment than any physical harm she could do. Jenny returned to her first plan, yanked the door open, and bolted.
“Jenny!” her mother yelled into the night, watching her daughter sprint down the driveway where she could find cover just beyond the jurisdiction of the house lights. “Come back! I’m sorry!” Her screams faded away with every stride Jenny took.