Safe and Sound(5)

Lola fought an impulse to smile. “You better go.”

Out of the corner of her eye she caught his nod.

Lola tried to squash the empty feeling that reared up as soon as the Pontiac’s taillights disappeared around the corner of the building. He’d acted like he actually cared about her, about what happened to her. Lola shook her head. He didn’t. A year of silence had proven that. Actions always spoke louder than words. She’d learned that the hard way. Many times.

It was hard to believe they were the way they were now; barely speaking and uncomfortable in each other’s company. They used to be so close. Lola was at his house all the time; his mother and father had been like her surrogate parents; she like a daughter to them.

A lot had been better just a short time ago. All of it before Bob had entered her life and snuffed out all the joy like a dark cloud of doom.

When Lola reached her house, cold and beyond tired, she unconsciously turned to the buttercup yellow two-story house across the street. She always did that, no matter how many times she told herself not to. Expecting to find the yard empty, she stumbled when her eyes made out the tall figure of a man standing in the grass.

Her heart squeezed. Lola quickly turned away and hurried to the door. She looked back one last time as she reached it. Sebastian’s hand lifted and dropped as he walked toward his house. Lola leaned her hot forehead against the cold door. A spark of hope fought to bloom within her and she wouldn’t allow it to.

***

Breakfast dishes washed and put away, Lola went about sweeping the kitchen floor. She’d made pancakes she and her mother both had picked at and Bob had complained were too chewy, though he’d eaten six of them. She’d gotten the wrong kind of orange juice too; the kind she always got, but today it had been the wrong kind.

The kitchen was painted a cheery yellow and accented in red checkered curtains and apples galore. It used to be her favorite place to be. She and her mother would bake cookies together and talk about silly things, giggling and happy.

Lola and Sebastian would do their homework at the table. She and Rachel, another friend she’d lost touch with, used to gossip about boys and girls over PB and J’s and milk.

Things had been pretty wonderful just a year ago. Such a short amount of time, really, and yet it seemed the year since Bob showed up had been never-ending.

Now there was a gash in the cherry wood table from Bob’s steak knife from the time Lola had overcooked his steak and burned the potatoes. It had been a small rebellion on her part that had led to food being splattered across the wall, the gash in the table, a broken plate, and her mother’s tears.

“What are you doing?” Bob demanded from the doorway.

Lola jumped, dropping the broom. She quickly picked it up and faced him. “Sweeping.”

He moved into the room and grabbed the broom from her. “You can’t even sweep right. This is how you sweep.”

Lola watched him push the broom back and forth across the floor. How could there be a wrong way to sweep?

He wore a blue flannel shirt with holes in it, only partially buttoned, and gray sweat pants. Bob had never been a handsome man, but for a time he’d been groomed and clean; now he was just disgusting in smell and looks. Her skin crawled. How could her mother stand his touch?

“See?”

She nodded, though his way of sweeping and her way of sweeping looked quite similar. And she’d swept that floor a million times since he’d been married to her mother and he’d never once complained about the way she swept. But of course she couldn’t say any of that.

Lola used to. She used to say things.

He shoved the broom at her and Lola fumbled to grasp it. “I’m taking your mother grocery shopping. Did you make a list like I told you? With the right kind of orange juice written down?”

She nodded.

Bob put a hand to his ear and cocked his head. “I can’t hear you.”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“On the counter.”

His eyes drilled into hers and Lola shifted, wanting to run from the room. “Get. It.” She didn’t move fast enough and he pinched her arm. “Now.”

Lola darted to the counter and plucked the small sheet of paper from it, outstretching her hand with her head down. Bob snatched it from her fingers and she quickly pulled her hand away.

Bob feinted toward her with his fist raised and Lola jerked back, her face heating as he laughed. “Not so tough, are ya?”

Lola stared at the back of his head as he walked from the room, anger and hate burning through her. She could see herself grab a large pot and bash him over the head with it. She could hear the satisfying thud as metal met flesh. She could see him fall to the floor, unconscious and maybe dead. And she was happy.