Bittersweet Wreckage Read online

  The bus ride back to school was quiet and reflective with my earbuds glued to my ears to drown out the noisy bus crowd.

  After dropping Mariana off at her house in the lower Almaden track homes, I sped my compact SUV into the foothills. I had at least an hour’s lead before Dad came home to change for another one of his many corporate events that night. If my dragon was in protection mode, I’d dodge him until morning.

  The SUV crawled through the gate onto our circular driveway, at snail speed per The Rules. I punched the garage door remote for my slot in the far side of the four-car garage. The second the door hit mid-stride, my stomach splatted on my feet. The King’s new primo sedan sat in the first stall.

  Groaning, I parked and shut off the engine. Five minutes of self-pitying later, I entered the hallway from the garage to the kitchen and stopped to listen. I took off my flip-flops and stuck them in my stuffed tote. Deadly silence met me. My kind of silence.

  Yet, the moment I stepped into the bright, immaculate formal kitchen, the skin on the back of my neck tingled. My gaze swept the dark cherry cabinets and earth-toned granite counters, across the center island to the dining nook. In the far corner beyond the mahogany dinette set, half hidden by a matching china hutch, sat Mom, curled into a ball on the floor, fixated on the deepening blue sky out the window. The torn sleeve on her lacy pink blouse dangled down her arm. Her salon do had unraveled in a tangled, golden mantle over her shoulders, covering her left cheek. A bottle of pills lay tipped on its side next to a half-empty bottle of vodka.

  My tote slipped on top of my foot, a thousand pounds of carnage to my toes. I darted to the corner, ramming my side into a heavy chair. Oww! So much for that kidney.

  “Mom!” I grabbed her thin shoulders, wanting to shake life back into her. Her glassy-eyed stare rotated to me and she gave me a twitchy series of blinks. “Did you drink vodka with your pills? Should I call nine-one-one?” For the longest time, she didn’t respond, her scary vacant eyes glossing over me. I shook her again.

  “No, honey.” She clasped my arm, stilling my motions.

  “No, what?” I cried, fingers pressing into her slender shoulders, emotions slamming against my chest. “Did you drink? What did he do to you?”

  Through my pulse beating my ears into submission, I heard Dad’s midlife crisis sports car rev to life and the garage door glide to the cement. “Thank you, dragon lord,” I grumbled.

  “You know I don’t drink when I take my pills,” she said weakly.

  “Then what’s with the vodka?” I rubbed my aching side.

  “I tried to make his martini the way you do. I screwed up.” Sobs rolled through her torso. “Then he told me he was going solo tonight. Said he’d already told me. Guess I forgot.” Her words drifted to a murmur.

  “Oh, Mom.” I hugged her. A wave of guilt swept over me. I’d created a monster with the perfect martini. She always screwed up the measurements when under the influence of her prescription cocktail and forgot to use tongs on the ice. I didn’t think she ever believed me about using fingers. Heck, I hardly believed me.

  Drawing away, I studied her wrecked makeup, zebra stripes of mascara marring her flawless skin. The imprint of Dad’s fingers smeared the black across her right cheek. “You were all dolled up to party tonight? I bet you looked fan-frigging-tastic.” I elevated my tone to hide my fury, noticing the budding bruises on her upper arm where he must’ve grabbed her.

  “Looked is the operative word.” She heaved out a breath. Her ritzy perfume enveloped me in the flowers of her trademark scent. Apparently, it exuded the scent of elegance, seduction, sophistication, and money. Smelled like musty old-lady boob powder to me. Knowing Dad loved it made me want to gag as the cloying scent of flower petals stuck in my throat.

  I’d never seen her in such a state. She usually sucked it up and popped another pill or ten. What else had he said or done to her? I feared her answer. Please, please, let her have reached her breaking point. I’d give up everything I owned and disappear to Russia. Just gas the bed and strike the match, like that old movie, The Burning Bed. Let Jerkface wash his own precious cars, make his own gourmet meals, and cater to his every frigging need.

  “I hope you spent a boatload of his money.” I helped her stand, noticing her perfectly manicured pink fingernails, a startling contrast to my gnawed stubs. “Do you want me to fix your hair and makeup? Let’s pick out another blouse and we’ll have our own party. We’ll celebrate the end of junior year.” I uselessly pulled up the sleeve of her torn blouse, needing to distract my fists from slamming the floor, adding another injury to our insult.

  “Oh, Ivy.” She slumped in the dinette chair that’d imprinted my right kidney. “I don’t know where you get your grit from. Certainly not from me.”

  Yes, from you. You represent almost everything I don’t want to be. I’d never say that to her face. I loved her too much to destroy what little my father left behind to destroy. I remained silent, sitting in the chair next to her, fingering the silk roses sticking out of the vase centered on the table.

  I pulled out a rose and tossed it toward the center island. Giggling like the bad girls we were so not, Mom and I pulled all the stems out one by one and tossed them in the air, watching them fall in an array of pinks, whites, and greens carpeting the floor like a meadow of sin. Shouting in triumph, I picked up the fancy-schmancy urn in both hands and slammed it on the stone floor. Shards of ceramic sprayed the room, pinging the walls and cabinets. My release blazed through my veins, driving out my myriad aggressions.

  Dad had gifted Mom the expensive vase the day she’d popped me out. She’d always hated the blue urn, purchased by my father in the hopes that his second child was the son he desperately wanted. A namesake to carry his name into future generations of jerks. The vase always adorned the table, an ugly reminder that I was a measly girl. No hitting the perfect family lottery in this house.

  Slowly, I turned to Mom, eyes slivered to avoid whatever emotion she’d conjured up in her drugged haze. “Sorry. I couldn’t stop myself.” The consequences promised to be brutal, but I’d fess up to breaking the constant reminder of all I lacked—man junkage—and all I’d been—a lousy Cinderella—over the last seventeen years. Mom wouldn’t take the fall.

  She gasped, her eyes widening praying mantis style, crinkling the tiny fine lines in the smeared mascara below her eyes. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged tight. “Oh, Ivy.”

  Then she eased into Stepford Wife mode to clean the mess we’d made. “Do your chores tomorrow and you’ll avoid him all day. He won’t pay attention to us on Sunday while he schmoozes with the bigwigs from work.”

  “You mean brown-noses with the muckity-mucks?” I’d rather watch lint grow in my belly button, pick it out, and snack on it than play serving wench for another corporate shindig.

  “Your dinner’s in the fridge to heat up when you want.” She stood straight, her eyes suddenly lucid. “I won’t be here to eat with you. I’m going out.”

  Shock steamrolled up my spine. Mom didn’t possess one spontaneous bone in her body. “What? Where’re you going?”

  She dipped her head, and I crouched to hold the dustpan, peering up at her blank mask. “One of the ladies from the club invited me to her canasta night. I originally declined it because—”

  “You thought you were going out with Dad.” I finished her sentence, scooped up the last pile of ceramic dust, and dumped it in the trash compactor. “Is that the canasta and cake thing he approved of?” I did air quotes, my disdain practically shooting off my fingers. How much trouble could a gaggle of women cause playing a lame card game and stuffing their flat stomachs with two bites of cake?

  She nodded absently, afraid to commit to an answer.

  “Wait.” I snatched the hand vacuum out of the pantry. “Does Dad know you’re going out?”

  A long tense hush descended before Mom slowly lifted her head. “I’m a grown woman. I can do what I want.”

  Holy mother of doormats.
That shock rolling up my back exploded into an ice storm. The defiance on her face froze the words of incredulity ready to trip out my mouth. Where had this masked mother materialized from?

  “Okay, sure. Just watching your back.”

  “You’ll have a nice night here by yourself. I know you haven’t had much alone time lately. Start your summer off reading one of your fat fantasy novels.” She squeezed my arm, released me. “It’ll be good for both of us tonight.”

  Like a stunned droid, I finished vacuuming then stepped into Jerkface’s inner sanctum. I neatly wrote a note telling him I’d accidently knocked the vase onto the floor. I offered to sacrifice my allowances and my first-born to replace it. I scrawled my name and drew the tail of the “y” into an ivy tendril the way I used to do as a kid. Dad had always smiled and traced the ivy with his finger. Probably because he’d named me after his beloved grandmother. Whatever. It might buy me points. Whatever punishment he’d mete out wouldn’t be so bad if I confessed my crime upfront and offered penance, a time-honored tradition in the Lynwood asylum. I filled his candy bowl with the taffy, hoping to score more points.

  Relieved, I left the office and raced up to my inner sanctum. So much for celebrating the end of the school year. As a senior now, I felt no different, except I was one day closer to my ticket to freedom. I crossed the day off on my countdown calendar hanging inside my closet. Some days I worried what would happen to my mother after I left. Replace me in my role as household slave? Other days, I didn’t give a hoot. I wanted out so bad I’d marry the fat, bald delivery guy and ride off into the sunset in an ugly crap-brown van.

  I chilled in my room, reading my fantasy novel, and caught up on my social media reader and music groups until Mom popped her head into my bedroom. She’d tied her hair in a loose, glamorous ponytail, reapplied her makeup, and changed into a pair of black slacks and a long-sleeved black blouse.

  “Hitting up a funeral?” I sat up straighter, adjusted my reading pillow against the headboard.

  Face flushing, she laughed. “Just didn’t feel all pretty in pink. I’ll be home in a few hours.”

  “You sure you don’t want to stay? We’ll go out for ice cream sundaes to celebrate.”

  “I left you a surprise in the freezer. We’ll go out to lunch and shopping tomorrow afternoon like we planned. I just need to get out for a bit tonight.” Her gaze darted around the room, refusing to land on me. “You’re staying home tonight, right?”

  “Yeah. Mariana’s leaving for Italy tomorrow.” I squinted, assessing her slow motions. “You okay to drive?”

  “Of course.” With a strange burst of energy, she rushed off, leaving my door wide open.

  The click of the front door rose to my bedroom, to the immediate right of the second-floor landing above the foyer. My bedroom resided in the perfect spot for eavesdropping, the best spot to get the goods on my dad to counterattack his four despicable personalities: Mofo, Jerkface, Asshat, and Douchebag.

  Which personality had left Mom in her freaky mood? It wasn’t her thing to go out alone on a Friday night, wear all black, or exit the front door. She usually left through the garage. What had my father done to her earlier? Had she finally snapped? Hope bloomed in my chest.

  I tossed my tablet aside on my bed and raced barefoot down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. The double doors were shut per The Rules, but doors never barred me. I stepped onto the thick carpet, dragging my footsteps to hide their imprints since I risked death without an invite into the room of horrors. I scoped out the room for anything out of place. Nada. The king-sized bed was impeccably made, the dresser tops neat and spotless. The toss pillows were perfectly dented and placed on the bed and stuffed armchairs. She’d even emptied the laundry basket and wastebasket.

  I jetted downstairs to the garage, but nothing appeared out of place there either. I should know, since I was in charge of cleaning the garage. I waved a dismissive hand, having no clue what I’d find anyway, and returned to the kitchen. Alert for sounds, I removed my dinner from the fridge. Mom had made rigatoni, Caesar salad, and turtle ice cream cake, all my favorites. I slid the casserole dish in the oven and set the timer.

  As I reached to open the breadbox to search for sourdough, I spied Mom’s cell hidden in the overhang of bananas in the fruit bowl. I snagged the phone so fast you’d think a demon bore down on me, one who suspiciously resembled Leo Lynwood. The fiend within me was just as greedy for clues. I punched in her password, Dad’s birthday, a password he’d never guess, and saw her text notification icon. She’d received a text from somebody with the initial N. “8 p.m., marina.”

  Racking my brain, I mentally scrolled through my parents’ list of acquaintances and friends and hit a brick wall. What did “marina” mean? The boat docks in Santa Cruz? San Francisco? A name? I tapped on her calendar and scrolled. My eyes bugged out. The canasta and cake party was tomorrow night. Where had my mother sneaked off to then?

  While dinner baked, infusing spicy Italian sauce and melted cheeses into the air, I ate my Caesar salad and watched my favorite music reality show. My mind traveled a million miles a minute to figure out what game my mother was playing. Was she planning to leave Dad? What if she dumped me on him alone? My intestines churned romaine leaves into meltdown territory as I considered all the “what-ifs.” By the time I ate three bites of rigatoni, I was losing my mind and it refused to return. What if Dad came home first and forced me to delve into her phone?

  I snatched up her cell, erased the party date from her schedule, and deleted the text message. I hid the phone in the kitchen junk drawer, a drawer my father never opened. Criminy, he probably didn’t know it existed. I doubted he even knew where the refrigerator lived.

  The night flew by in a freaky blur. I was usually on high alert for the roaring sounds of my father’s ego-extension hotrod. Either I’d book it for my room, or if I was feeling white-slave generous, I’d hang in the family room to see if he wanted a Spitini or the occasional microbrew beer in a frosted mug with the sourest lime. Once he had two drinks under his belt, my escape for the night was usually complete. Sometimes, his douchebag personality would track me down, then make snide remarks about how messy my room was, or how I should re-landscape the backyard after the weekly landscapers did their best, or attending to his every itty-bitty need. Ugh. I needed a life if we were staying in San Jose, or just kill me now. I didn’t think I’d last until college.

  I scoured and sanitized the kitchen, secured the house, and tromped up to my room to watch a rock concert on my DVR. My recently written poetry was sounding country music sad—my wife hooked up with my best friend and my dog died crap. I needed hard rock to cleanse my creative palette, so I lost myself in hardcore guitar riffs.

  At eleven thirty, Mom stumbling against the wall outside my open door awoke me from my rock stupor. I thanked whoever resided in the heavens that she’d returned before Dad, or that she’d returned at all. Dad would’ve closed my door, so I knew he wasn’t home. I shut down for the night and scuttled under the covers, drifting off fast.

  Chapter 3

  Jarring, soul-wracking sobs awoke me, rising from the entryway.

  I bolted upright, pulling the covers up to my chin, staring at my clock. 2:22 a.m.

  By the dim night-light glow, I sneaked out to the dark landing above the entryway. Doom opened a maw in the pit of my gut as low voices carried up the landing from the foyer—a man speaking and Mom sobbing, trying to talk through her blubbering.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Lynwood. Is anyone else home? Can I call someone for you?” the man asked.

  Loss?

  “No, I’ll be fine. My daughter’s here.” By the sounds of her slurring, I recognized her special tranquilizer world.

  “Okay. Good. We’ll need you to identify your husband’s remains tomorrow. Here’s the address of the medical examiner’s office.”

  Husband’s… remains? The light flicked on in my head. Remains. Medical examiner.

  Stunned, I ro
cked back on my heels. I sat frozen, a statue void of life, as the voices continued to murmur below. Then the front door shut, snapping me out of my haze, and I zipped back to my room, quietly shutting my door. I dove into bed and pulled the covers over my head.

  Mom’s footsteps slogged up the curved stairs. She stopped at my door for a brief moment, the handle rattled, and then her dragging zombie steps moved past.

  No emptiness existed in my chest, no crack, no heartbreak.

  Remains.

  A strange calm pervaded me. More relief than grief filled that burgeoning hole in my stomach before tears welled, huge rolling drops of sorrow. I shouldn’t feel such a lack of grief, or such a load of guilt. I wanted to hate myself for the relief coating the sorrow and fear battling inside me.

  I gripped my dragon pendant tight in my fist, grinding it against the round disc with a dandelion etched on it. Had I wished for my father’s death? Would karma paint a bull’s-eye on my forehead for the rest of my life? I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering from the slew of emotions erecting a madhouse in my mind. Maybe I dreamed it all.

  A fitful sleep claimed me for a couple of hours, and I dreamed my usual dream with a new and strange twist. A grassy field of cottony dandelion seed heads cushioned my battered cage sans door. Excitement swirled in my tiny bird chest, batting down my despondency. Instead of the field of freedom taunting me from behind my prison, the bars to my cage had widened for the first time. Dandelion seed hairs blew in the wind, enticing and encouraging. I found myself outside the cage, perched on top of it, ready to join the winds of freedom.

  ~*~

  Mom knocked on my door at seven in the morning. Dried tears had sealed my eyelids shut after I’d fallen asleep around five. Exhaustion set up shop in my limbs and I melted onto the mattress. My head pounded as if someone had used it for bowling practice overnight, hitting a perfect three hundred.