Push

chapter Twenty-Six

Emma—Age 17

I finally got my admission acceptance letter to Case Western yesterday, and I am on Cloud Nine. I cannot f*cking wait to get out of this house. My senior year is almost half over, and I swear, if I can just put up with Michael’s shit for a few more months, I’ll be out of here forever. Once I’m gone, there is no way in hell I am coming back. No way I am returning to this torturous house. No way I will continue to let him control me.
And I’ll admit it, these days he does have control. Complete control over both me and my mother. When they came back from Singapore last year, things changed. Our little game ended. It struck me hard that he could force my mother to make a choice, and that is something I do not want. I do not want her to choose him. I still love her, even though most days I wonder if she feels the same. And I know that if I take things too far, he’ll push her away from me even further. She will let me go. I know it. And I’m not willing to take the risk. So I let him have control. I don’t rile him on purpose anymore. He doesn’t need it. He finds ways to dig into me just fine on his own.
My mom and Michael have been out of the country only three times in the past year. The peace their absence creates has been both brief and blissful. But volleyball has kept me busy. As has Peter Beckman. He’s a senior at Holy Name, and we’ve been seeing each other for the past few months. We met at a volleyball tournament. He was there with a bunch of his friends to watch his twin sister play. I really like him, but I’m sure our relationship will end when he leaves for the summer program at Northwestern in June. Peter is different from Bobby and all the other boys I have screwed around with. He was a virgin when we met, and he is more serious than any other eighteen-year-old I have ever laid eyes on. He is serious about school, about soccer, about his job, about his family and about me. In a way, Peter and I don’t match up. But they always say that opposites attract, so maybe that’s why things are pretty good right now. Maybe that’s why we work.
Peter and I are sitting on the steps of my front porch, talking about college. He knows I am eager to leave because he has seen some of Michael’s finest work. He’s seen him flip out on me big-time. He’s seen how Michael can take a little piece of me and grind it into the ground like dust. The first time it happened in front of Peter, I thought that was the end of us. I was sure he would up and run for the hills. But he didn’t. Instead he stood right next to me, holding my hand while Michael’s face grew red and his mouth spewed at me. He was screaming about a less-than-perfect calculus test. Screaming about how volleyball had f*cking ruined my academics. About how I’m going to fail out of any university that is stupid enough to accept me in the first place. About how I am a brainless moron. Just like my mother.
I spit in his face. Peter’s hand gripped mine and Michael froze. I think if Peter weren’t there, Michael would have hit me as he had done any number of times before. One or two swipes were all he ever took. Ones that wouldn’t leave a mark but would send me a message. But this time, he turned on his heels and walked back down the hallway. To plan my punishment, no doubt. Peter and I bolted out the door and got into his car. When he took me back home a few hours later, Michael was waiting for me. He sent Peter away. I had to wash both of my parents’ cars. In front of the entire neighborhood, I had to scrub the tires with a fingernail brush. I had to scrape the bugs from the engine grille. I had to wax and polish every square inch. And I had to do it all with a bar of Ivory soap in my mouth. A seventeen-year-old with a bar of soap in her mouth.
I found out later that Peter sat in his car down the street and watched my punishment unfold. Unable to help me. Unwilling to get caught up in the whole thing. He apologized profusely the next day, his pity searing through me, but I told him not to worry about it. I told him it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. It probably would have made it worse.
Peter tells me that he has to go to work. It is Saturday, and his shift starts at one. But before he leaves he says he has a question for me. He asks me if he can take me to the prom. His invitation is sweet and warm and inviting, just like him. I accept it with a kiss, knowing that, somehow, Michael will probably manage to f*ck it all up.
* * *

A few weeks later, my mom takes me to buy a prom dress. It is the most fun we have had in a very long time. We laugh at the ridiculousness of some of the styles, and when we finally find the right one, she tells me how beautiful I am. How much I look like my father. It is the first time she has mentioned him in nearly a decade, and I am swimming with emotion. She tells me he would have been proud of me for getting into such a good college and for keeping things together without him.
There are a million questions I want to ask her. About him. About us. About why she changed so much when he died. But I don’t ask because her eyes are already telling me about all of her regrets. We are standing in the dress shop, with me in my new prom dress and her face only inches from mine. Her hands sweep my hair up and twist it gently against the back of my head. She holds it there and looks at me for the first time in what feels like forever. We are locked together, thoughts passing between us. Unspoken words seeping out of our faces. And then she is crying and telling me how sorry she is. I tell her that it is okay. That it is almost over. That I am going to college and moving on and things will be all right. I tell her that I believe Michael takes good care of her and that she’ll be all right, too. I don’t believe a word I am saying, but I think it’s what she wants to hear. She needs to know that I forgive her. She lets go of my hair and wraps her arms around me, hugging me tight against her. I am breathing as if it is my last moment on this earth, afraid to move because I don’t want her to let me go.
“It was my fault,” she whispers into my ear. “My fault that your father died. I should have forced him to get that test. I should have driven him straight to the hospital, and for the rest of my life, all I want to do is punish myself for making that choice. Marrying Michael was part of it. I needed someone to support us, but the idea of moving on was just so.....so wrong. I picked Michael because, if I was going to move on, I needed it to be with someone who was never going to replace your father. Someone who was incapable of replacing him. Because I don’t deserve any better. I don’t deserve a second chance at happiness. I never meant to punish you for it, too, Emma, but that’s what happened. And I am so sorry. So, so sorry.” She stops talking only long enough to let me go and smooth the dress against my skin. “You can hate me if you want to. You might already hate me. I deserve it. I can’t take it back, but I want you to know that I am proud of the woman you are becoming. Proud that you are surviving. Proud that you are so much stronger than me.”
I don’t cry because I’m empty. I don’t hate her. How could she think that? I give her a small smile and use my thumb to brush the tears from her face. All I can say is, “It’s all right, Mom. Everything is okay.”
After that, I think things are going to be different between my mother and me. But outwardly, they aren’t. Michael stays between us, steering both her actions and mine. But inwardly, I know that we do feel different. Each in our own way. I think we recognize that there is still love here, even though we don’t say it, even though we don’t show it. Because we know that if we keep it inside, Michael can’t have it.