“We got your letter,” Mother said. She and Stepmother were both on the phone. “You remember the rule, though, right?”
“Yeah,” Girl said. The family rule was that the children couldn’t just call and say they were not coming home from Alaska. They had to come back and discuss it in person, and have a waiting period of at least a month to make sure they didn’t change their minds.
“I don’t know if your mother will be well enough for you to go. We need you here,” Stepmother said.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Mother interrupted. “I’m getting better.”
Girl was flooded with fear. Could they make her stay in New York to be Mother’s caretaker? For how long? Would she ever escape?
“I think you should stay here and start school in Alaska,” Father said. “And maybe we should go to court. I called my lawyer. We could switch it so I have full custody.”
Girl was uneasy. Father knew the rule about returning home, and it scared her that he wanted to break it. And custody? She didn’t want to do anything that couldn’t be undone. She trusted her mother implicitly, but Father was someone less trustworthy, a parent that she might need to escape from in the future.
“You know the rule,” she said. “And we don’t need a lawyer. Mother won’t fight me moving here.” Something about her father scared her. She didn’t trust him—something was off. She went back to New York in time for school. Mother and Stepmother agreed that she could move in mid-October.
Girl started high school in New York. Every morning all the grades gathered in the cafeteria, and she tried her hardest to be late as often as she could.
“Come on, Girl, it’s time to go!” Mother called. “And you need to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“At least some peanut butter on toast.”
“Okay, okay.” She slathered some peanut butter on wheat toast and carried it out the door wrapped in a napkin. She ate it as she slowly walked the four blocks to school. Brother was going to School of the Arts this year, so she didn’t have anyone to walk with. Girl had spent most of her life walking to school with Brother, and she missed having an ally. They were the kind of kids that made easy targets for bullies. Maybe I’ll get hit by a car, she thought. She had to cross four streets on her way to school, and she could picture stepping out in front of a moving vehicle. Bam—blood and a bright light. She figured if they killed you with the first hit it probably didn’t hurt too much.
No such luck today, though. She entered the school and walked into the loud cafeteria where all students had to report before homeroom. Her shoes squeaked on the shiny asbestos tile floor as she walked past long Formica tables of rowdy teenagers, the waft of soured food and the antiseptic bite of floor cleaner strong in the air. Girl had to walk past the senior table to get to the freshman table. Chuck was sitting there—the blond skateboarder who was quite possibly the cutest boy she had ever seen. As Girl walked by Chuck, all the boys barked at her. She had thought the kids shouting “Lezzie” at her the year before was the worst that could happen, but she was wrong. This was even worse. “Ruff, ruff, ruff!” The room was too bright. Her stomach sickened as she kept her eyes on the shiny tile floor. She was a dog—an ugly, worthless mutt. Girl looked up and met Chuck’s eyes. He was barking, too. When she moved to Alaska no one would know she was one of the biggest nerds in ninth grade. She could be anyone she wanted. Until then, she’d try harder to be late to school.
Father wrote Girl multi-page letters filled with longing for their upcoming life together, words about the culmination of love long obstructed. His cursive words made her stomach queasy and she hid the letters from her parents, but Stepmother somehow knew anyway. “He’s wooing you,” she said, “just like he woos his girlfriends.” Girl pretended she didn’t believe Stepmother, but she knew it was true. She threw away Father’s letters as soon as she read them. “Your mother always nagged me, what I like about you is that you don’t … you are so much smarter than #Five ever was … you understand me so much better than any woman I ever married …” Girl felt his tone was slightly disturbing, but she wasn’t going to give up his newfound attention by questioning it. Choosing to move in with Father bumped Brother out of his role of favorite child.
Girl wore her best outfit on the eleven-hour plane ride: peach lace blouse, ruffled denim miniskirt, snakeskin shoes. She looked out the airplane window, but instead of clouds she saw only daydream-movies of her beautiful new life. Father picked her up at the airport and took her home to his apartment. Once she was settled in to the apartment, Father left to spend the night at his girlfriend Daisy’s house, leaving Girl his hospital pager number in case of emergency. Daisy didn’t have a phone installed yet. Girl stared at her father’s red jacket and his bald spot peeking through his brown hair as he walked out the door. He didn’t look back. Her bedroom mirror, stagnant and dark, reflected only an empty wall.
This became his habit—every night he would leave after dinner and not return until morning. In this void, Girl would lose her virginity, fail school, cut scars into her body. None of that was enough to make her father notice her. She could not make him stay.
Father came back to the apartment every morning to make her cinnamon toast and chit-chat as she got dressed for school. “Girl-Girl!” he’d call, walking in with a plate in one hand and a
