“I reckon this is my new granddaughter.” He leaned over and put his hands on his knees. A smile crossed the prickly hairs of his unshaven face. “I’m Grandpa Bo. What’s yer name sweetheart?”
The way he eyed her like a tasty new chew toy made Moni’s stomach curdle. She stepped in front of Mariella and shielded her from his gaze. The girl grabbed a hold of her leg.
“You’re not supposed to come within a thousand feet of children,” said Moni, reminding her father of the terms of his release. “Your parole officer would nail you if he knew you were out here.”
“You’re probably right. Why don’t you give him a call?” He gestured with both hands toward her phone on the counter. Then he crossed his arms and flexed his biceps. “Go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”
Seeing the threatening message behind those words, Moni wished prisons didn’t have weight sets. She didn’t move a toenail.
He father nodded in satisfaction. He trotted over and sat on the couch besides Mariella. Instead of using common sense and fleeing, the girl stared at him curiously with her hands in her lap.
“I asked for yer name.” he said. “Are you fix’n to answer?”
Mariella provided her usual response. She looked at Moni hoping that she’d answer for her. No. She couldn’t let her father know anything about the girl. Even the newspapers haven’t printed her name. She didn’t need him showing up at her school and asking for her.
“Not much for jabbering, are ya? That’s not such a bad thing.” He struck Moni with a gaze that made her feel covered in earth worms. “My kid was way too loud. She didn’t know when to shut up.”
Her father had told her to shut up when he whipped her over and over across her bare arm with his leather belt. He nearly crushed her wrist with his grip so she couldn’t get away. She couldn’t stop screaming and crying. He had told her to shut up again, but Moni didn’t stop until her throat burned so bad that she couldn’t utter a sound.
She stared at the fist-sized bull head belt buckle her father had strapped over his jeans. Moni reached for Mariella. The girl took her hand and followed her away from the couch toward the kitchen.
“Where you think you’re going?” He sprang off the couch and took center stage in the middle of the living room. They couldn’t make a break for either door without running into him. She couldn’t get her gun either because she had left it atop the bookshelf full of African warrior art. “After all I did for you-you treat me like some kind of leper. You wouldn’t have gone to that fancy police academy without my money. I put you up your whole life. I put a roof over your head by bust’n my ass every day in a sweaty garage. I’ve been working since my pa died. I supported my little sisters. It never stops with you women. How long I gotta keep break’n my back?”
If only he had meant the part about his back breaking literally, Moni thought. Recalling that his griping usually preceded a severe beating, she sheltered Mariella behind her.
“With all the money I’ve given you for rent, I’ve repaid my debt to you ten times over,” Moni said.
“By doing what? Pretending to be a cop as an excuse for babysitting? That’s not real work. I work in the auto shop, but they keep me in the back like a damn cockroach. They don’t want anybody recognizing me from my mug shot. I wouldn’t have to deal with that shit if your fucking friend didn’t go squealing on me. She shoulda taken it like a trooper.”
After her father had abused her best friend, she didn’t talk to Moni again. Her friends abandoned her because she lived with a monster. Even when they locked him up, her friend blamed Moni for not warning her and keeping her away from her father. Moni knew her friend had been right.
She wouldn’t let him make Mariella the next casualty. Moni had so many vicious barbs inside her she yearned to launch at her father. They fell flat inside her mouth when he locked eyes with her. “You’re not welcome in my home. Please leave,” was all she mustered. Mariella reached out from behind her and squeezed Moni’s hand.
“You’re asking me to leave? You’re asking me? ” He shouted in her face and pointed his thumb at his rock solid chest. Moni flinched and stumbled backwards. “I should be telling you to leave. If it weren’t for you, my landlord wouldn’t be threatening to put an eviction notice on my door.”
“But I paid your rent for this month.”
“Yeah well, the money ran out before I could pay it. And it’s your fault, ya hear. Three nights a week I used to fish underneath the bridge and catch enough for dinner. Then the murders started and they taped off the walkway. They say the fish in there are poisonous. And I’ll be damned if it isn’t ‘cause of your case. The same guy in the lagoon who wants that girl of yours doesn’t want me to eat. He’s starving me until you give her back.”
“That’s completely ridiculous. Why would he starve you and not me?”
Ignoring her logic, her father threw his hands up. “He’s gonna starve everybody. And then he’ll do worse to you. You get it yet? Just give him what he wants.”
He nodded toward the little girl hiding behind Moni. Some grandfather he made.
“That won’t happen. Mariella is staying here with me.”
“Well, if I can’t eat by the river, then you’re gonna pay me for my troubles, but first you’re gonna feed me. What you got to eat?”
Moni’s heart dropped like a stone inside her chest when she saw that her father wouldn’t take her money and leave. He had set his mind on staying for dinner, and maybe longer. She could never stop him from getting what he wanted. She felt so embarrassed that she looked helpless in front of Mariella. The girl squeezed her hand tightly, as if she thought it would strengthen Moni and transform her into the hero the young one deserved.
Her father shoved his way past her into the kitchen. Along the way he nearly knocked Mariella into the wall.
“Watch where you’re going!” Moni yelled as she knelt down and cradled the trembling girl against her chest. “This is a fragile child.”
“Oh don’t worry,” he said coldly as he towered over the two of them. “I know how to handle fragile children. You remember, don’t you darlin’?”
Unable to bare the trauma of seeing his face, Moni shut her eyes. She felt herself in the darkness of her closet. She could hear his heavy breathing. It made the thin door vibrate. Sometimes she grabbed the handle and tugged with all her might. She could never prevent him from opening it.
The doorbell rang. Moni’s eyes shot open. She had totally forgotten about Aaron. He had stood up to Darren despite having a gun in his face, so he shouldn’t be afraid of her father.
“Now’s not a good time for company,” her father said. “Tell the dipstick to take a hike.”
With a nod, Moni led Mariella on a jittery gait toward the door. When she got away from her father’s reach, she swung it all the way open so Aaron got a clear view of the unwanted guest.
“Whoa. Looks like you ladies have the munchies,” Aaron said as he balanced a couple of pizza boxes in his arms. She noticed a fresh tomato sauce stain on his shirt-evidence that he had stolen a piece on the way over. “Hey, is that your…”
“He’s my father,” Moni cut in. She made sure Aaron saw her shoot her old man a wary glare.
“Hey, man,” Aaron called to him. “I hope you like hot pepperoni. But who doesn’t right?”
Marching toward the young man with a bull rider’s swagger, Bo Williams had lost his appetite for food. He looked ready to sink his teeth into something else.
“She’s not taking company right now, so git.” He pointed a greasy fingernail toward the road.
Aaron didn’t budge. “But, dude, she invited me.”
“I’m not gonna warn you twice, boy.” He made a fist armored with two fat and bumpy gold rings. They could easily cave in a nose.
Aaron looked right past him to Moni. “Hey, I live with my parents and they aren’t this harsh. What gives? Is he sauced up?” He made a drinking motion and gulping sounds. Like so many young men, Aaron didn’t think a man more than twice his age could hurt him. If he had a sense of the violence Bo Williams could unleash, he didn’t show it.
Her father directed his disapproving frown on Moni. “So this is the kind of loser you’re dating. You deserve his dumb ass, I’ll tell you that much.” Then he turned on Aaron with double the fury as his face swelled like a microwaved tomato. “You wanna see some sauce? When I was in the joint, I learned how to cut open a man’s throat by digging a key into his neck. I got a whole keychain full in my pocket.”
“Jail, huh? That’s pretty hardcore.” Aaron said without sounding startled in the least. Her father gnashed his teeth and reached into his pocket.
“Okay, that’s enough getting acquainted for one day.” Moni interjected before Aaron earned a fist through his head. “Now dad, I’ll give you that little loan and then you can be on your way.”
