MONDAY
I’ve never feared death, even as a child. Instead, I fear life. Life is much more horrifying and soul-shredding and cruel than death could ever be. But this fear had never felt more real, more alive than it did right now.
I sat silently in Aria’s room as the dawn broke through her semi-closed window blinds. Watching her sleep took me back to a time when things were much simpler. I had thought her bedwetting days were the worst it could get. Night after night she’d wake up covered in pee soaking her pink horsey bedspread and Scooby-Doo pajamas. Every night, no matter what time I cut off drinks or how many times I made her pee in the potty before bed, the whole house would shudder awake as her cries drifted to my bedroom. And every night I’d change the reeking sheets and cuddle her back to sleep for another couple of hours until dawn.
This is the worst of it, I’d thought back then with sleep-deprived certainty. It’ll get easier as she gets older.
And for a while, I was right. Up until age ten or so, when her desire for independence started showing. It was the little things at first: not wanting me to kiss her in front of friends; needing personal space. But she was still princesses and ponies and ballerinas – little girl dreams and little girl dramas. Everybody said she was the perfect teenager, the rare one who didn’t turn into a rebellious hellion overnight. I often said it myself. But last night … last night she sullied that absurdly Pollyannaish image beyond repair. I wasn’t experienced or sophisticated enough to handle this – whatever it was. It was mind-boggling, and there were no easy answers. Hell, I didn’t even know the right questions.
I had married the only man I’d ever made love to. I’d gone through four years of high school and two years of college with my virginity intact – maybe it was because I was a prude, or maybe it was because I wasn’t given an option otherwise. The boys weren’t exactly kicking down my door, and even if they did, Daddy would have chased them away with his shotgun. He really was that archaic stereotype, clinging to outmoded chivalric notions of virtue, and protecting his daughter at any cost.
How different things were now. How different my experiences were from Aria’s. I’d imagined a parallel life for us; we were always so much alike, after all. We got along so well, shared the same interests. I’d always thought our relationship to be more like gal pals than mother and daughter – fluid and easy. Boy, was I wrong. I clearly had no idea who she was. In the face of my sleeping daughter, I could no longer recognize the little girl who sucked her thumb and fell asleep with a board book in her tiny, chubby hands.
‘Honey,’ I whispered, not sure I should wake her, but too worried not to try. I sat next to her, in the crook of her bent knees. I swept her sweaty hair out of her face, pressing my palm to her cool forehead. ‘How you feeling, sweetie?’
Her eyelids fluttered open, then squinted back shut.
‘My head hurts so bad. Can you get me some pain medicine?’
‘Sure, honey. But we need to talk about last night.’
She groaned, curling into the fetal position and holding her stomach.
‘I think I’m going to be sick, Mom. Can we talk about it later?’
‘I just want to make sure you’re okay.’
‘I feel like I’m dying. Am I dying?’ She opened her eyes and grimaced. I recognized that hungover plea for sweet death and smiled. I might have been a prude in high school, but I drank my share of hunch punch.
‘No, honey, you’re not dying. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Are you okay after what happened with Ryan?’
‘What are you talking about?’ She looked up at me, puzzled.
‘You know … you and Ryan …’ Please don’t make me say it aloud.
Her expression was blank, confused. ‘Ryan? Mom, my brain hurts too much to try to figure out your hints. Just spit it out.’
‘You don’t remember last night – what happened?’
‘No. I don’t even know what day it is. Do I have school today?’
I rubbed her back like I used to do when she was little. ‘Yes, it’s Monday, but you already missed school. I’m trying to see if you recall the party at Robin and Grant’s house last night. Nothing?’
‘Oh, yeah, the party. I know Ryan and I shouldn’t have been drinking, but I just wanted to try it. I had no idea I’d wake up feeling like this. Please don’t tell me I did something mortifying in front of everyone …’
‘You did get drunk, honey. And …’ I stopped. I couldn’t put words to the horror of seeing my daughter with Ryan on top of her. Her hollow eyes staring up at him, his hungry gaze locked on his prey. Because that’s what she was, wasn’t it? His conquest.
My fists tightened as I let the truth sink in, boiling my blood. I wanted to kill Ryan. A dozen ways to do it flashed through my mind. I shook the rage away. He was only a boy. He was Robin’s son. I needed to remember that. He was practically family. I was there at his birth. I was at his baptism. I went to his Little League games and now to his high school ones.
Ryan was the kind of kid who visited his elderly next-door neighbor because he didn’t want her to be lonely. The one who took Aria under his wing when she first started high school so that she wouldn’t get lost finding her classes. He never struck me as a typical adolescent boy, but how well did I know him, really?
‘Am I grounded?’ Aria pressed her fingertips to her temples. ‘I won’t even care if it means I can go back to sleep and make this headache stop.’
‘We can talk about this another time,’ I decided aloud. We would figure this out together, later. Maybe I was overreacting.
‘Sorry, Mom, but I don’t feel so good—’ Aria paused and looked up at me pitifully. ‘I’m going to throw up.’ She bolted up, the bedsprings squealing as the quilt clung to her halfway across the floor. A moment later I heard the bathroom door slam shut as she heaved into the toilet.
I couldn’t tell if she had any recollection of what happened other than drinking. Maybe the full memory would return to her, but what if it didn’t? I didn’t know what any of this meant. Should I tell her? Should I let her remain blissfully ignorant? It was uncharted territory that I had no idea how to navigate.
The truth felt like swallowing sand. All I knew was that I saw what I saw, I was the only person other than Ryan who knew what happened, and my sweet baby girl’s innocence had been stolen.
Unless Aria wasn’t so innocent. What if it hadn’t been her first time? A teenage girl was bound to keep secrets. It wouldn’t be the first time a mother discovered her daughter was living two different lives – one at school, one at home. What did I really know about my own child? Absolutely nothing. I only knew what she showed me, and last night I’d seen more than enough.
But that look on her face … the confusion and vacancy … it told me a story that I was afraid to read. A story that my daughter had no idea what had been done to her, and she couldn’t stop the ending even if she tried. The ending would be the same no matter what I did – my daughter’s soul would be broken.
Murderous rage bubbled up inside me. Maybe Daddy was right all along. Daddy said teenage boys were no good; that their brains were in their peckers and sex was all they thought about, the only thing they wanted. Well, I wanted to wrap my fingers around Ryan’s scrawny throat and squeeze the life out of him. And if I couldn’t follow through with killing the little shit, I knew someone who would.