Her stomach turned as his breath hit her. “Please,” she whispered.
Bob shoved away from the wall. “Your mother is trying to sleep. In case you forgot, she works third shift. Keep it down.” He shook a finger at her. “No vacuuming.”
“No vacuuming. Sorry. I should have known that.”
His lips twisted. Bob ambled from the room, kicking over a soda can as he went. Fizzy brown liquid soaked through the carpet in an uneven circle.
She went to her knees, anger and fear and relief warring inside her. She hated Bob; she was also terribly scared of him. Lola’s body trembled and tears seeped from the corners of her eyes, dropping to her lap.
At times like this, she almost hated her mother as much as him. How could she allow this to happen?
A sob escaped her. Lola put a hand to her mouth and slowly got to her feet. She took a deep, calming breath. And another. This time wasn’t so bad. It could have been worse. With that thought in her mind, Lola cleaned up the spilled soda.
***
Lola’s bedroom was her safe haven, the one place in the whole house where she wasn’t afraid. The room she spent as much time in as she could when she had to be at 310 Sycamore Drive.
She sat on her bed with the pink and white polka dot bedspread. Lola and her mother had picked it out together. Before. She ran a hand across the soft material, sadness washing over her.
The bedroom was big enough for the daybed, dresser, and computer desk, but not much more. A full-length mirror hung on the back of the door. She and her mother had painted the walls lavender. The lone window in the room had iridescent curtains that shimmered in rainbow colors when the sun shone.
Everything in the room had been done pre Bob Holden. It had been so long ago some days all those happy memories seemed like they had all been nothing but a dream. All the laughter and smiles shared with her mom. Maybe none of it had ever happened. Maybe it was all in her head and now was the reality and always had been.
Her mother had met Bob when he’d started working third shift at Ray-O-Vac, the factory outside of town that made batteries. At first he hadn’t seemed so bad. At first Lola had thought everything might be okay. As soon as he’d moved in, he’d gotten mean. And once he and her mother married, he’d gotten even meaner.
It had started out with a teasing comment that wasn’t exactly teasing, ridicule, a criticism, and escalated into physical and mental abuse. A pinch here, a shove there, a slap across the face, name calling. And what had her mother done about it? Nothing. She had done nothing and she continued to do nothing.
A knock sounded at the door and Lola scrambled to her feet, her pulse immediately racing.
Please don’t be him.
“Lola?”
The door opened and there stood a washed-out version of Lana Murphy; now Lana Holden. She wore a red shirt that went to her knees and black pajama pants. Her auburn hair was dull and showed gray.
Lana’s pale blue eyes were tired and shadows had found a home beneath them. Her stooped shoulders made her seem shorter than her five feet six inches; her body was thin to the point of unhealthy.
Lola stood by her bed, keeping her distance. “Hi, Mom.”
It physically hurt Lola to look at her mother. It was her mom, but it wasn’t. The changes had been so gradual Lola hadn’t noticed them until one day she’d looked at her sad, worn-out mother and hadn’t recognized her.
Lana’s lips turned up in a fleeting smile. “Hi, honey. Did you start supper?”
Her skin flushed and she looked at the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock on the stand beside her bed. “Of course I did. I do every night, don’t I?”
Her mother’s face fell and Lola’s chest constricted. She looked down so she didn’t have to see the pain in her mother’s eyes. “Thank you for that. I’m just so tired all the time.” Lana lifted a hand to her limp hair and let it fall to her side. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she mumbled, turning away.
Lola wanted to scream at her, to shake her. She wanted to throw something, to hit the wall. Anything to get her attention, to force her to wake up.
You know what’s wrong and you do nothing about it!
Her hands fisted and she clenched her teeth. The words she so desperately wanted to shout would have no effect on her mother except to make her sad. And then Bob would get involved. She knew from experience.
***
Lola worked most nights at Granger’s, the local grocery store in Morgan Creek. Three to four hours at the cash register on weeknights and usually six hours either Saturday or Sunday, but sometimes both days. It was how she paid for her clothes and whatever else she wanted that Bob didn’t consider a necessity.