"Ok! Ok! I will drive next!" I volunteered. I felt somewhat more rested after my nap. A hot cup of coffee would help too.
We pulled into another truck stop in Banning. It was already starting to get hot outside I checked my watch. It was only nine in the morning and just your typical mid July weather. Abby, Emma, and I left the boys and headed to the ladies room to freshen up and get in some girl conversation.
"I can't believe we are almost there!" Emma was squealing as she brushed her hair in the mirror.
"I know! I'm wondering when my parents are going to call and bitch at me." I was really starting to worry.
"Don't start freaking out Valerie!" Emma rolled her eyes. "You talked to your mom about this right?"
"Yes. I did" I sighed trying to relax. "I don't think she really expected me to do it. She didn't want me to go you know. She didn't want me to leave her with him."
My mother...I told her everything. There wasn't much I kept from her except how much of an asshole her husband is. I didn't want to have to decide between us yet. Martin Fredric Allister was a far cry from what his campaign posters promised the voters. He and my mother met when she was waiting tables. Money was really tight. My grandparents helped her out as much as they could but their health was fading and we lost both of them before I was seven years old. Martin swept her off of her feet and showered us in luxuries we has only used to pretend we could afford.
He soon had us move into his big house. A huge stucco structure on it's own mountain. it had seven bedrooms and ten bathrooms. There were maids, and cooks, and a nanny to keep me and my new step sister quiet and out of the way. Courtney hated me as soon as my tattered shoes crossed the threshold. She was arrogant and prissy, a real Scottsdale princess. I stayed as far away from her and the poison she surrounded herself in. Courtney had it out for me no matter what I did. When I found out what kind of man her father was it all began to make sense. My only luck was that she also attended boarding school in Europe and I hardly saw her unless it was a school holiday of some sort.
When I was ten Martin decided to adopt me. I also took his last name. I really believe that it was only so when he announced he was running for office no one would question him about who he really was.
Soon I began to notice he was making my mother into his own version of a brunette Barbie doll. Then I noticed the bruises. She had told me once a few years later that he beat her almost every night if she did not please him the right way or if she objected to his demands. I hated him with every fiber in my body.
"Come on." Emma said hugging me tightly. "lets get out of here."
I followed her and Abby out and we got drinks, snacks, and cigarettes. I chugged an energy drink and soon we were ready to get back on the highway.
"How much longer until we get to Six Flags?" Sam bounced up and down like a small child.
"My goodness! Excited much?" Emma and I were laughing at Sam. We had all agreed to his plea to go there. " We will be there in a few hours! You short little dancing freak!"
"Screw you!" Sam flipped Emma off and got into the front seat while Abby sat between the boys in the back. I took the wheel and soon we were on the road again. Emma tried to make idle conversation with me but my head wasn't in the conversation.
I kept thinking about the night Martin attacked my mother in front of me. He had lost his job recently at a powerful law firm. He and the other partners had a disagreement and he had refused to compromise so he walked out. One night he had come home drunk. he reeked of Jim, Jack, and Johnny...and he was in a foul mood. You could hear him slurring hateful things before the door flew open knocking my nanny Sonia to the ground.
"Stupid lazy Cuban whore! Get the Fuck up off of my God damn floor!" He back handed her so hard that her head hit the marble planter near the stairs and made an awful popping sound. My mother gasped and tried to get me to run. I tried to check on Sonia but my mother convinced me to let her try and calm him down first. I had never seen him like this. She shoved me under the baby grand in the foyer and bent down to whispered to me.
"Stay here love. If he comes after you or if something happens to me run." She told me quickly and followed him down the hallway.
"Martin honey. I am so glad that you are home!" I could hear my mother say in a soothing voice. Pretending that she hadn't seen what he had done. Sonia was now lying in a pool of her own blood. Her skull cracked by the handcrafted Italian mosaic planter my step father had thrown her into. She was clearly dead.
"Get me a drink bitch." He muttered to her. I held my breath as he passed my hiding place under the baby grand piano. "Were are the girls?'' He somehow stumbled to the hallway towards his study and luckily he hadn't seen me. My mother waved me to get out before he did.
"They are sleeping sweetheart." My mother followed him down the hall. I can barely remember what happened next. I only knew he began to choke her. I could hear her gasping for air. At only eleven years old I picked up a letter opener off of the hall table and rushed into the room thrusting the shiny but dull blade into his thigh. He let go of my mother who slumped to the floor and stepped back a few feet then fell on to the sofa behind him and finally passed out from the alcohol.
My mother and I bandaged him up before he regained consciousness and we called 911. We told them that Sonia had tripped and fallen down the stairs crushing her skull in the proses. The county coroner did not want to rule it an accidental death so Martin paid him greatly to cover it up and keep it out of the headlines.
The next night he also started to come into my room at night. He was an awful and sick, sick man. I had blocked most of that out of my head. My poor mother never knew the real reason I hated him so much. After almost four years Martin started to leave me alone. he started to beat and rape my poor mother instead. If he had too much to drink it would be worse. She finally convinced him to go back to work after the bank wanted to take the house in Scottsdale. After that we moved into a smaller house and Courtney came home from Europe after graduation. I had just turned sixteen. That was also when I started saving money so I could get my mother and myself out of there.
I shook my head trying to clear my head when I noticed something in the distance.
"Hey guys!" I called to my friends. "We are almost there! I can see the roller coasters!"
The car erupted in cheers and I turned the car on towards the freeway exit.
Atom Feed (xml)
No comments:
Post a Comment