The slap comes out of nowhere. No anger, no warning, delivered so rapidly I blink and doubt what I saw. But nothing else makes that same dull thwack but flesh on flesh, and an angry red splotch marks Elle’s cheek.
Greg turns back to his papers as if nothing momentous has just happened. “I suggest making Walter an appointment with a psychologist for competency testing,” he says, “although if we can get him to sign power of attorney papers during a period of clarity, that might be easier. Chances are good nobody will look too deeply into whether he was competent when he signed. At least, as long as the police continue to leave him alone.”
As my shock dissipates, my anger increases.
Elle hasn’t moved an inch. Her back is ramrod straight, her chin is still tilted up, but she sniffles, despite her attempt to blink back tears. The last thing in the world she’ll want right now is sympathy or a rescuer.
“Elle, would you please go check on Grandpa?”
She accepts the option clause I’ve given her, dashing out of the room and down the hallway. Greg glances up, eyebrows lifting in surprise when he catches my glare.
“What?”
“Do you make a habit of hitting her?”
“Only so far as she makes a habit of sassing me.”
I try to keep my voice level. “Was that sassing? It sounded like a legitimate request to me.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Maisey. Somebody needs to discipline that child. If it wasn’t for me, she’d be spoiled rotten.”
“I didn’t ask about discipline. I asked if you slap her like that often.”
Greg sighs, heavily, pushes back his papers, and turns to face me. “I can’t believe we are having this conversation. There are more important things to worry about right now.”
“Nothing is more important than my daughter.”
“Which is exactly why she needs to be slapped. You’re letting her get way too full of herself. She needs to be taken down a peg. And stop looking at me like that. She’s not hurt. It will be good for her.”
“Was it good for me the time you hit me?”
“Are you really going to bring that up, now? That was what, twelve years ago?”
“I had a root canal twelve years ago. That was good for me. I’m wondering about the therapeutic value of getting slapped by your lover. Or your father.”
“If you insist on revisiting that night, let’s just put it in perspective, shall we? You were pregnant. With our baby. I wanted to do the right thing and get married. You were completely delusional and incapable of rational thought.”
“So you hit me.”
As I say the words, understanding floods in. Somebody has turned up the volume on the sun. Light reflects off the tile floor, shines out of the walls. Everywhere, light. I can almost hear the angels singing.
It wasn’t my fault that he hit me. His anger is not my fault. I am not responsible for his behavior, then or now.
“You’re blowing that one supercharged moment into something it wasn’t,” Greg says.
“My cheek turned purple. My eye swelled up. I told people I ran into a door.”
“Don’t be a drama queen, Maisey. I barely tapped you.”
My response is derailed by Dad shuffling back into the kitchen and over to the burbling coffee pot. He’s gotten into the clothes I put out for him, but his shirt is buttoned crooked. I look behind him for Elle and am relieved to see she hasn’t followed.
Greg scans my father’s disheveled appearance in a slow-motion, exaggerated, top-to-bottom eyes-as-movie-camera pan meant to emphasize his point. “Can we get back to business now? This isn’t something you can put off.”
Dad picks up the coffee pot and a mug. I hold my breath, willing his brain and his hands to put together the process this time around. He hesitates, then sets the mug on the counter and starts to pour.
“I always wondered about Maisey’s story that she walked into a door,” Dad says. “It didn’t fit. The bruises were all wrong.” He successfully returns the pot and turns to face us, holding the mug in two uncertain hands. There’s nothing uncertain about his eyes, though, or the words he now directs at Greg.
“You need to leave my house. You’re not welcome here.”
Greg laughs, a discordant, misfit sound in the drama-filled kitchen. “With all due respect, Walter, I don’t believe you really mean that.”
“I remember the night you told us you were pregnant, that you had moved out of Greg’s place,” Dad says, looking at me now. “Your cheek was greenish-black. You told us the door story. And you know what? I wondered. I wondered then, when you said the two of you had a fight and it was over between you. You always were precise with words. You didn’t use the word argument. You didn’t say disagreement or falling-out. A fight. That’s what you said and what you meant. He hit you. We could have known. Should have known.”
“Twelve years ago,” Greg says. “Actually, thirteen. I made a mistake.”
“And now my granddaughter is hiding in her room, and she has a bruise growing. Did she walk into a door? Or was that also a mistake?”
Greg slams down the papers he’s holding. “Can we get back to what’s important here? Settling your affairs and keeping you out of jail, for example?”
Dad shrugs. “I have an attorney. I have money. I don’t need a man who hits women in my house.”
“Maisey,” Greg says. “Please speak reason to him.”
There’s a wildcat in my belly, hissing and spitting. My hands have claws. I want to launch myself at this man who has hit my daughter, to tear his smug face with my fingernails, to scream and shriek and watch him bleed.
Which would make me as bad as he is. I breathe. Once, twice, three times, before responding.
“You heard him. It’s his house.”
“You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding.”
I stare him down. His eyes actually fall away from mine, and his hands start packing papers back into the briefcase.
“Fine. If you come to your senses, let me know. You have today. My flight leaves tomorrow morning, and I’m driving to Spokane tonight. I have a ticket for Elle, by the way, and will be by to pick her up tonight at seven. Please make sure she’s ready.”
The click of the latches sounds like finality.
“She’s staying with me, Greg. I’m the custodial parent.”
“Are you sure you want to play that game with me, Maisey? I’d think about that very carefully if I were you. I’ll be by for her at seven.”
We let him see himself out.
Dad stands by the counter, still holding a mug that has yet to make it to his mouth. I get up and take it from him, carrying it across to the table.
“Drink up,” I tell him. “I need to go talk to Elle.”
Elle sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed, scribbling furiously in a journal. When the door opens, she glances up to see who it is, then resumes writing without saying a word. Her hair screens her face, and I tuck it back behind her ear so I can see her cheek.
“I don’t think that will bruise,” I murmur, half to myself, letting my fingers trace the reddened skin.
“I’m fine,” she says, the pen not pausing for an instant. “And I don’t require a lecture.”
“Why on earth would I lecture you?”
“Because I talked back, and I should learn when to keep my mouth shut and then I wouldn’t get hit.”
“Is that the way it works?”
She shrugs. Won’t look at me.
“Does he hit you often?” I select my words with care, as if they are expensive items on display, and I can only afford a few.
The pen hesitates in its mad rushing, and she shakes her head so her hair falls free again in front of her face.
“Elle.” I place my hands over hers and stop the scratching of pen on paper. She is rigid beneath my touch, and when her eyes come up to meet mine, I’m relieved to see hot rebellion burning as bright as Blake’s Tyger. Greg hasn’t broken her or her beautiful, extravagant self-confidence. Not yet.
“I don’t care if he’s my father. He didn’t have the right to hit me. Not like that.”
“I agree.”
“Linda doesn’t.”
“She thinks it’s okay?”