The years passed and
dad became invested in my life. After mom died, he was the only family I had.
Graycen made me promise to never live with him. Dad would still get hammered
every night. However, Graycen said it was okay for him to visit from time to
time. I loved Ella and Graycen and our little family.
The buzzing in my
blood for something more was still there. It had calmed somewhat but it was
always there in the back of my mind. I wanted the violence and the anger.
Luckily, Chantel filled that void for me. Her depression had gotten worse over
these years and Chantel was unemployed with no motivation to try to find a job.
Ella largely ignored her mother which I think made the problem worse. Chantel
was riddled with guilt thinking she was ruining Ella by being jobless and that
it was her own fault that her daughter wasn’t speaking to her. I hated to tell
her that her thoughts were true.
I had been spending most of my time helping
Chantel find a job. Graycen and I were raising Ella and doing a fine job at it.
We didn’t need Chantel. She was becoming annoying. She was always moping around
the house and never contributing. The woman who once had a spotless house was
now “too tired” to clean. The woman who cooked amazing meals now couldn’t get
out of bed because she had a “headache”. I really wanted to tell her that she
could just sit in her own misery and fuck off but Graycen told me that would be
a bad idea. I reluctantly listened to him.
Graycen was my saving
grace. Ella was getting harder and harder to control. She was seventeen and
learning how to drive. Driving was an important life skill. It meant freedom
and being able to go experience life on your own. Ella had just gotten her
license. We were throwing a little party. She invited some of her friends from
school. Now, I understood that artsy children were weird, but some of these
kids had tattoos and smoked weed. I didn’t want any drug use around Ella. She
had grown up with violence and alcoholism and therefore was prone to it. I was
afraid her friends might be a bad influence.
Ella had been enrolled
in extra art classes but we also made her take something useful; economics. She
was simultaneously taking business courses and art courses so she could start
an art store. Graycen and I wanted her to be successful and make something out
of her life. She needed practical skills now. We had a plan to teach her
budgeting, finance, and how to fix her car herself. We would teach her
self-defense and how to cook. She would be incredibly capable.
Ella’s friends sat on
the couch and ate watermelon cake. Some Katy Perry pop song blasted
while Ella laughed and danced. As the festive mood died down, Graycen served
everyone Earl Grey tea. All the girls were curled up on top of each other like
a pile of puppies. The clink of the ceramic plates seemed to echo like gunshots
in the silence. I ran the sink and the sound of liquid on metal splashed onto
the dreamy mood we had concocted.
“Ella seemed to be
having fun,” I said.
“She’s growing up so
fast,” Graycen said.
I handed him the
dishes and we watched as the soap suds flew in companiable silence.
“I wish she’d stay
little forever,” I said.
Graycen smiled. “She
needs to grow up. She’s seventeen. Soon she’ll be going to college and moving
out of the house.”
I didn’t want to think
about that. A life without Ella. What would I do with myself?
A few days later a boy
dropped Ella at the house after school. His blue beat-up car looked like it had
been fished out of the junkyard. The bumper was rusting and it was missing a
side mirror. Ella had the biggest grin as she closed the car door and stepped
inside.
“What were you doing
with that boy?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes
and brushed past me. Her jacket smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. It wasn’t
her. It was the boy or her friends I guessed.
“Talk to me young
lady,” I pressed.
She cracked open a can
of soda. “Jayden is just a friend, relax.”
“He’s a boy and boys
only want one thing,” I said.
Ella looked at me as
if I was dumb. She slurped her soda and I idly wondered if one day it wouldn’t
be soda she drank after school but beer. She shouldn’t be liking boys at her
age. She should be in school and studying and soaking up everything the world
has to offer; except semen.
Later that night, I
sat down with Graycen. The steaming mugs of tea and butter cookies warmed my
icy thoughts. Ella and a boy was a sign of trouble.
“I think we should
give her the talk, buy her condoms and lube, and maybe make an appointment with
the OBGYN,” he said.
“No. No way. She’s
just a little girl. She’s not ready for that.”
“She’ll decide if and
when she’s ready, but we should prepare her in case. The alternative is she
ends up pregnant. It’s a high school fling. She’ll be in college soon. She
should be prepared,” Graycen said.
“No. What we should be
preparing her for is heartbreak and that all men are liars,” I said.
“Daniel, don’t be
stubborn. She’ll be fine.”
He took my hand in his
and for a second, I believed him.
Until, a few weeks
later, the boy and Ella came home together. They wanted to watch a movie. She
snuggled closer to him. It was one of those things that couples do; that bubble
where nothing can touch you and it’s the two of you against the world. Ella and
her boyfriend had their own language. They could understand each other with a
look. He knew when she was thirsty and grabbed her a soda. She knew when he was
cold and wrapped the blanket snugly around him. They took care of each other.
They had their own thing without me. It just wasn’t fair. I felt like a child
who had his favorite game snatched away. Ella wasn’t mine anymore.
Graycen grabbed my
hand and squeezed it so tight I swore it cut off circulation. I needed that. I
could breathe again. My carefully crafted world was starting to crumble. A door
creaked and Chantel poked her head out. We all sat in the kitchen with some
beers. Ella’s laugh was like background music and the T.V. lights flickered
blue and white.
“It’s good she has a
boyfriend,” Chantel said. She gazed out towards the living room.
Graycen stepped on my
toes. “Yes, it is,” I forced out.
“I think she should do
study-abroad in college. We’ve saved enough to afford it. She could go
somewhere like Paris or Nigeria or India. It would be good for her, I think,”
Chantel said.
“Study abroad can be
dangerous. She should be home where it’s safe,” I said.
“What is wrong with
you, Daniel?” Graycen asked. His eyes narrowed as if searching me for bad
intentions. He leaned close to me. He was inspecting and waiting for me to do
something. I was too close to him to be able to hide.
“I just worry about
her. I want her to be with us forever,” I said.
“I know but life
continues on. I want her to leave this town. I want her to build a life away from
here and create her own family. She needs to leave this dysfunctional, toxic
place,” Chantel said.
From the other room,
Ella laughed and gripped the boy’s arm. He smiled and kissed her forehead.
The next few weeks
blurred into a year. Time and emotion became detached. Ella would be graduating
high school with the boy.
It was a dark and
stormy night. The roads were flooded. Ella’s boyfriend was coming down the
mountain. He had been visiting his family over spring break. Ella was so
excited to see him again. They had gotten into the same college. Ella and Jayden
would be together forever.
“I’m going to the
store,” I said.
I drove the car up the
mountain. The wind and rain almost pushed me sideways and wrapped my car around
a tree. The darkness was thick and potholes abundant. A car coming around the
bend swerved and honked at me. What an asshole. Its lights were so bright I
could hardly see. The reflections bounced around blinding me. Each car was a
cycle of bright and dark. But I was looking for one car in particular. The blue
beat-up gizmo that idiot drove. The sharp bend was coming up.
Perfect timing.
I revved the car and
drove. Water parted around my car as if Moses himself was driving it. Blue.
Bingo. I hit the tail end of his car as it passed me. I needed to protect Ella.
Men were dangerous. His car spun and hit a tree. Glass sparkled on the ground
like fresh snow.
The headlights
flickered and the rain drowned out the noise in my head.