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When the doorbell rings, Mom rushes to get it, smoothing her skirt and fixing her hair. Sometimes, I wonder if she has a crush on him. But when he walks in the door, I have to be wrong, because he’s not… Well, he’s butt-ugly if I am being honest. His eyes are nice, a light shade of blue, but his beard and clothes are unkempt, and his thinning hair could use a comb or something.
He doesn’t look like a wealthy businessman, but I know he is. And I know he is doing Mom a favor, so I have to be on my best behavior.
Mom taught me how to be a good hostess already; her family was old-fashioned Sicilian, so a lot of things I learned, my classmates think are stupid. It seems to make a good impression on Mike — he insists I call him that, not “Mr. Sullivan”.
During dessert, he turns to Mom and says, “I was right, she is a lovely little girl, Maria.”
Mom smiles. “Thank you.”
“One day she could come work for me, too. She’s so polite and demure, clients would love her.”
There’s a beat of silence, thick with tension, before I pipe up, “Maybe for an afterschool job one day. I want to work in publishing!”
Relief is palpable on Mom’s face until Mike says, “A pretty thing like you wasted behind a desk? That would be a shame indeed.”
I don’t know why Mom wouldn’t want me working for the same man she is, but she doesn’t need to worry. I have my life planned out already. And I will be successful.
“Mike wants to move in,” Mom tells me, nearly a year after she has been working for him. I had assumed they were dating, but I wasn’t sure. Mom doesn’t tell me things she deems adult business; the only reason I knew about Dad’s outrageous debt was because I was in the room when she opened the emails.
The relationship doesn’t come as a surprise to me; Mike even convinced Mom to quit the diner and work exclusively for him. She’s been more and more tired and agitated lately, too. Overworked. Maybe this will be a good change? He will be here with her, dates will be easier. Right?
Please let me be right.
Chapter Three
Diana
I WASN’T RIGHT.
I couldn’t have been more wrong if I asked a Magic 8 Ball to predict the future.
Something is WRONG with my mother ever since Mike moved in. She’s spacing out, eyes dull, even her voice is listless.
In fact, the only time she has looked and sounded alert was one day when Mike was out at work and she was at home. She took me aside and said in the patented Mom Voice (you know the one), “When you hear Mike’s friends come by, I need you to lock your bedroom door and go to sleep with your headphones on, okay? Do you hear me?”
I nodded then, scared at the nearly frantic look in her eyes.
What is wrong with his friends?
The feeling of wrongness, of something horrible waiting to happen, follows me every day.
A few months later, I stop putting my headphones on, curiosity getting the better of me. I hear them laughing, sometimes cursing, and moaning. I hear Mom cry. I hear Mike saying, “Told you even her sloppy cunt was a perfect fuck. Nothing better than a live-in whore.”
And I don’t know what to say or do. Is … is this what he has had Mom doing? Why she’s looked like shit for all this time? It’s not office work, he’s turned my mom into a prostitute.
That night, and every night after, I cry myself to sleep, but sometimes sleep doesn’t come and give me a blissful respite.
Like tonight.
There are no men over, but I can hear Mike and Mom arguing. Rather, he’s yelling. She’s crying and saying unintelligible things.
The slap is so loud it echoes in the night and I cringe.
“I fuckin’ told you what the consequences would be if you got too fucked up for me to use you or sell you at night, didn’t I?” Mike shouts.
Fucked up?
That explains the rest of what my immature mind wouldn’t grasp. He got her hooked on something illegal.
