5

While I binged and purged, Mom stopped eating and joined a volleyball team. She’d become skinny like a model. I could tell by the way she smiled at herself in the full-length mirror and swerved when she walked that she liked her legs. Her brown polyester skirt floated inches above her knees. According to her, everyone said she had terrific legs, and it was true. She never worked out at a gym or walked farther than down the driveway to the car and from the car to her office, so when she joined a volleyball team I was surprised. I’d never seen her wear white socks, just Hanes control top pantyhose that made her shapely legs shimmer and glide.

The volleyball team was where she met Chris, a hunky postman she hastily moved into our house after they had been dating for a few months. He had a Tom Selleck moustache and wore little, blue terrycloth shorts. He spent a lot of time in the garage building stuff: bookshelves, cabinets, and canoes. He woke up at 5:00 a.m. to deliver mail then came home and napped from about 3:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m.

You didn’t want to wake him up.

In our house, there was a bar downstairs with stools where Mom and Chris gulped yellow booze with three ice cubes from rocks glasses. Mom liked to swish hers around in a circle, making the cubes clack against her glass.

The sound reminded me of galloping horses. Mom loved to tell stories about being a little girl when she got drunk. “My brother got everything,” she growled. “He could go out and do whatever he wanted. I had to get perfect grades and do all the housework. Do his homework. The happiest day of my life was going to ride Kathy’s horse. I wanted to stay there and brush the horse and ride her horse, Bo, forever. I didn’t care when he kicked my teeth out. I wanted a horse more than anything in the world.” I wanted to give her a horse—anything she wanted. I hoped Chris would.

The first night it happened, I closed my eyes in bed and listened to them argue. Mom’s bedroom was directly above mine. I heard a loud thud. I recognized the sound of her body being slammed against the bedroom door. Mom kept whimpering, “Please stop.” His feet stomped across the ceiling like a monster. I expected to hear a laugh track, but there was only yelling. He threw things that hit the walls. I imagined the lamp and the alarm clock splitting into shards.

Outside, the wind blew the redwoods hard. Branches creaked and snapped. The sound was like limbs breaking. I liked the outside sounds better than the inside ones. I opened my window and inhaled damp forest air. I thought about crawling out the window and grabbing the tire swing and slowly lowering myself down like Wonder Woman.

I heard feet running: heavy long strides above me like Sasquatch.

“If I can’t sleep, no one’s sleeping!” Chris turned on all of the lights and televisions in the house full blast. The stereo blared Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler.” I knew all the words because my mom played that album nonstop in her green Volvo while she smoked her menthols. We would sing along loudly to “She Believes In Me.” My eyes were open and I mouthed the words, but I held my breath and didn’t stir. If I was very still, I figured they would stop.

Mom appeared in the doorway and sat on my bed. I’m not sure why. She had a cut on her lip that was bleeding through the Kleenex. I worried about her pretty smile. “I love you,” she said from beneath the tissue and pet my leg. She was drunk.

In a few minutes, she left, then the lights, televisions, and stereo were shut off, and it was quiet apart from the wind. I was wide awake, so I turned on my black and white television and watched the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in an elaborate white wedding dress walk in front of thousands of fancy guests. She stood close to a man with a big nose. He wore a stiff military jacket and had delicate hands. The woman was slim with soft blonde, feathered hair. The train on her dress was at least twenty-five feet long. I watched them say vows and kiss with formal elegance. The woman had golden skin. Her expression was gentle and prim. I wanted to look exactly like her. I studied her hair. I had no idea who they were, but the news announcers told me they were Lady Diana and Prince Charles.

The mornings after Mom and Chris fought, I watched her dab beige Avon makeup on her bruised eyes and smear frosted pink lipstick on her swollen lips before she went to work as a legal secretary. I followed her around and spelled words out loud for my spelling test as she admired herself in the mirror and sprayed Charlie perfume on her delicate neck. “Res-tau-rant.” She reached for a string of beads the color of dried blood and put them around her neck. She took them off and chose a string of rose quartz, lavender, pink, and white orbs instead. “R-E-S-T-R-A-N-T.”

“Wrong.” She dug around for her matching lavender quartz earrings. “R-E-S-T-A-R-N-T.” She’ll yell if I screw up again. “Three syllables. You’re missing a syllable. Pay attention.”

All of her suits were color coordinated. She used to match her taupe vests with blouses that she would tuck into her nylons. Her suits were polyester because, she said, “They don’t need ironing.” She was a joiner of women’s groups, an attender of luncheons, and president of AAUW (American Association of University Women). She was a member of DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). She was treasurer of her class, and she drank with sorority sisters. She never missed a day of work. She cooked and cleaned. She was stern, capable and delicate, like Lady Di, I think. Her boyfriend beat her, and she loved him. I loved him, too. He paid attention to me and liked the same music that I liked. We sang along with the radio in the car. His raspy, deep, voice in harmony with mine as we drove. “He’s the love of my life,” Mom used to say.

The night Mom’s yelling became screaming I called the cops from my yellow phone, then climbed out of the window and walked up the cement stairs alongside the house. I watched Mom convince the cops dressed in a women’s organization voice and matching blouse. “Everything is fine,” she said. The cops talked softly and wrote things down on small pads of paper, then they left and it was just me in the moonlight, spying on her from the side of the house. I felt guilty. Mom went inside again, but I walked down the hill and through my neighbor’s garage into my best friend, Kate’s, house. Kate’s mom, Rose, was a second mom to me. Rose was standing in the dark kitchen drinking a glass of wine. When I told her about the yelling, she said, “It’s just water off a duck’s back.”

I didn’t believe her. I figured she just wanted me to go away. It was a school night. I went outside and walked the streets of my small town in the moonlight, then snuck back into my window at sunrise like nothing happened.