The Tribuo - 42. Part IV, chapter 14

- XIV -

EMMA

When I got home on Friday evening, I couldn’t sit still. I kept hearing my father’s words in my head. “Emma… I always sent you cards… Not just on your birthdays… I sent you one every week. And I sent your favorite teddy bears…”

I furiously shook my head. No, he was lying, he had to! My mother would never… Or would she? No! He is a lying sack of crap! I used to love him, adore him, dream about him… But then my mother told me that he didn’t care about me at all, that he forgot about the fact that he even had a daughter, that he… I closed my eyes. God, I needed a drink right now.

I paced around my apartment until 7:30 in the evening. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I am going to find out once and for all. My mother’s house was paid off, and I knew that I had to sell it, but ever since she died, I wouldn’t get anywhere near it. I simply couldn’t. Well, I am going to do it now…

It took me almost half an hour to finally find the house key, and soon after that, I was driving down the painfully familiar road.

...The electricity was cut off, of course, but I knew that beforehand, so I brought a flashlight. The minute I walked into the house, my mother’s voice started shrieking in my head.

“What do you think you're doing?!” she was raging. “How dare you! Get out of my house! I always told you the truth, always! How can you even doubt me? You are going to ransack my private things now? Just because that sorry excuse for a man told you all that garbage?! Get out of…”

“You are dead,” I muttered. “Shut up!”

She kept screeching, but now her voice sounded muffled and distant, as if she was getting farther and farther away. Jesus, this whole 'voices in my head' thing was truly driving me insane. I need to do something about it before I go completely mad.

I looked through every single drawer, cabinet, and closet. I didn’t find anything. Well, I guess my father was lying after all…

“Or maybe she just threw everything away,” someone else whispered in the back of my mind, and I cringed. A new voice? Great, just great.

I made my way into the master bedroom, which I saved for last, and pointed my flashlight into the corner. Nothing but dust and cobwebs. I spent maybe twenty minutes in that bedroom, looking in each corner, checking out the closet and all the shelves. Nothing. I was about to leave, when I realized that I never looked underneath the bed. I laughed out loud. Come on! She certainly wouldn’t keep it under the bed, would she? I guess, since I am here anyway, might as well look, right?

I kneeled on the dusty carpet and pointed my flashlight underneath the bed. There was something there. I swore softly under my breath and reached for whatever the hell it was. I ended up crawling under the damn bed, and when I got back out, I was assaulted by a platoon of vengeful dust bunnies. After some violent sneezing and coughing, I finally looked at whatever it was that I dragged out. It was a huge black garbage bag with a wire tightening it. I tried undoing it, but finally gave up, and just tore polyethylene apart.

I squeezed my flashlight as hard as I could when postcards, letters, and tiny teddy bears fell out of the bag in a whispery wave. I stared at the pile in front of me and started shaking my head. I didn’t even have to pick up any cards or letters. Each one of them had my father’s funny, round-lettered handwriting on it. He never had a great penmanship -- everything he'd ever written looked like it was done by a fourth-grader.

“Emma, how are you?” “Happy Birthday, Funny Fish!” He always called me Funny Fish when I was little… “Emma, here is to you…” “I miss you, Fishy!” “Emma…” “Emma…” “Emma…”

I dropped my flashlight and it went out. I sat in the dark bedroom and cried harder than I had cried in my entire life.

...It was almost eleven in the evening when I finally left my mother’s house. The minute I locked the front door, she immediately started screeching in my head again. I don’t know if it was because I finally stopped crying, or because I let my guard down, or maybe because of something else, but she was back in all her glory.

“You are a rotten, ungrateful daughter! You will pay for this! Don’t even think that you will get away with this, Emma! How dared you to go through my personal things?! You are as worthless as your father! You are...”

“Shut up,” I whispered. “Please, why can’t you just shut the hell up? Please!”

I was digging in my purse for my car keys, trying my best to ignore the damn voice in my head, so when someone said, “How’s it going?” behind my back, I ignored it as well, thinking that it was just another figment of my imagination.

“Are you deaf or simply rude?” the same voice asked, and this time I knew it was real.

I tried turning around, but before I could, there was a hefty blow on the back of my head, and the last thing I remembered seeing, was an explosion of tiny yellow-and-silver stars in front of my eyes.

*****

When I opened my eyes, at first I thought that I got into a car wreck, and tried to sit up. Then I realized that I wasn’t in my car. I was lying somewhere in the dark, and my entire body hurt like hell. I finally managed to sit up and cried out when a flash of blinding pain shot through my stomach. I could taste my own blood in my mouth, and it made me so nauseous that I threw up. The smell and taste of bile made me even sicker, and my stomach tried to turn inside out.

Finally, I crawled away from the stench and managed to stand up. My legs were shaking and I realized that I was covered in liquid dirt. I guess it rained while I was out. Jesus, what the hell happened?!

“It’s payback, Emma,” my mother said immediately. “You got what you deserved!”

“Shut up already,” I muttered and tried wiping mud off my legs. Then I brought my hand closer to my face and blinked when I saw that it wasn’t mud. It was blood. Then I remembered somebody asking me if I was deaf or simply rude. What happened after that? I didn’t remember.

Something tickled the inside of my thigh and I looked down. It was dark, but I could see black trickles running down my legs. Oh, God… Did he… No, no, no, oh God, please no… I slowly got out of the ditch and limped towards my car. I wasn't surprised to find my purse lying on the ground untouched. I guess I would be surprised if I weren't so numb right now. I found my phone and flipped it open.

“Tara?” I whispered after a minute or so.

“Who is this?” she asked with puzzlement.

“Tara, can you please come and get me?” I tried to speak up, but instead, I just started sobbing. “Tara, please…”

“Emma?” she asked incredulously. “God, where are you?!”

I told her the address, and then I dropped my phone on the ground, fell on my knees, and wept.

 *****

I don’t know how much time had passed since I called her, but finally, she came.

“They closed the damn bridge,” she said angrily when she got out of the car. “I had to go all the way around! Sorry it took me so long, I was… Emma!”

I looked up at her, unable to squeeze a single word out of my throat. Her eyes widened in horror.

“Jesus Christ...” she muttered. “What…”

Then she stopped talking and pulled me up on my feet.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you to the hospital…”

Hospital… That means I will have to talk to the police as well. That means everyone will know. Everyone will be talking about this, pointing fingers, whispering behind my back, showering me with mock pity and phony sympathy…

“No,” I said finally. “No, Tara, please… No hospital, please! I can’t…”

“Emma…”

“No!” I almost screamed. “No hospital, no cops! Please!!”

She bit her lip and slowly nodded.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s get you home then.”

I thought of my apartment, my doorman, my neighbors, and almost vomited again.

“Tara, I can’t go there,” I muttered. “All those people… They will see me… They will know… I can’t…!”

“Okay, okay,” she said soothingly. “Come on… I am not going to your apartment, okay? Come on…”

I don’t know why, but I believed her. She helped me to get into her car, and I realized that I was going to get blood all over her seat.

“Tara… I’ll get your seat all dirty,” I said, and she looked at me with a strange expression.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said finally, and helped me to buckle up.

...She drove to some house, got me out of the car, and all but carried me to the front door.

“Seth!” she called when we got inside. “Help me, will you?”

I blinked. Who is Seth? Then some guy walked out of the living room, and my hazed mind registered the fact that he was wearing really dark sunglasses, but for some strange reason, it didn’t seem weird right now. I tried shrinking back into Tara’s arms.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s okay… He is going to help, okay?”

“What the hell…” he said incredulously.

“Help,” Tara said shortly and he fell silent.

…An hour or so later, when I could finally breathe without crying and shuddering, I looked at Tara and said:

“No police, Tara. If someone finds out about this, I…”

“Don’t worry,” she said dully. “But Emma…”

“No buts!” I interrupted her. “Nobody will ever know but you! Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she muttered and closed her eyes.

I glanced at Seth. He was standing by the table, his back towards me, his shoulders rigid.

“He won’t say anything,” Tara said, and I looked at her, startled. Her eyes were open now and she looked at me with a strange mix of pain, puzzlement, and understanding.

“I need to get home,” I muttered. “I don’t want to inconvenience you…”

“Stop,” Tara said softly. “You need a shower. Then you need sleep. Come on,” she helped me to get up and led me to the bathroom. “There is a clean towel in there, and there should be a new toothbrush in the cabinet… Don’t lock the door, okay? If you need help, just yell for me…”

“Okay,” I whispered and she closed the door.

*****

I scrubbed myself until my skin started to look raw, but I still felt dirty. “You should,” my mother immediately agreed in my head. “You are dirty, Emma. You got what you deserved, too. And you didn’t even resist, you dirty sack of flesh!”

“I couldn’t, mom…” I muttered, choking on my own tears. “I couldn’t! He knocked me out, he…”

“Oh, please!” she snorted. “Likely excuse! You didn’t resist because you wanted it!”

“No!” I sobbed quietly. I didn’t want Tara or that guy to overhear me. “Mom, I swear…”

“It’s you own fault,” my mother’s voice said with authority. “You got what you deserved! You are nothing but a fat whore, Emma! Doesn’t surprise me a bit though. You were always weak and rotten! You wanted this, you…”

And then I heard a soft chiming sound go off in my head. It sounded like some kind of a string had suddenly snapped. Right after that happened, my mother’s voice disappeared. I turned off the water and climbed out of the shower, feeling strangely calm. Icy calm. I absent-mindedly dried myself, and started brushing my hair. My own image in the mirror made me nauseous.

“You got what you deserved,” I whispered, my hand frozen in midair, fingers clutching the hairbrush. “You got what you deserved… You got what you deserved… You got what you deserved… You got what…”

Suddenly, ice that was encasing me, blew to pieces, and I screamed and hit the mirror with the hairbrush as hard as I could. Glass broke almost right away, falling apart in big, sharp chunks, some of them exploding into my face in small, vicious shards. I stared at one of the sharper pieces, and almost reached for it, when the bathroom door burst open and Tara ran in.

“Emma!” She breathed. “Oh God, Emma… Come on! Please, come on!”

I dropped the hairbrush and fell into her arms.

“She is pitying you,” I thought hazily. “You disgust her… Remember the repulsion on her face when you kissed her? That’s because you are repulsive…”

I let her lead me into the bedroom, and didn’t even react when she put me into bed and tucked the blanket around me.

“I’ll get you a drink, okay?” she asked softly. “It’ll help you sleep, all right?”

I closed my eyes, wishing for her to go away and stop soaking me with her damn pity already. She left, and then came back several minutes later with a steaming mug of something that smelled like tea. I obediently drank some and wondered what she put in there, because the taste was funky. But whatever it was, it made me groggy almost immediately. I dropped my head onto the pillow, and my last thought before I fell asleep was, “I know what I have to do now…”