Читать книгу Memories of You - Margot Dalton - Страница 6

June 1977

TODAY WAS MY seventeenth birthday; nobody remembered but me.

The rain is coming in the window again where some of the glass has broken away. Last week I nailed a scrap of tar paper across the opening, but it keeps coming loose. The rain blows in and falls onto my face and shoulders. I’m so cold.

I can hear them outside my room, so I turn my face to the wall and try to concentrate on the rain. It rattles on the metal body of the trailer like gunshots, and the whole thing shakes in every gust of wind.

They’re both drunk, but my mother is worse. She’s been screaming and throwing things. Now she’s starting to cry, so it won’t be long till she passes out. That’s the way it always happens.

I wonder what shape the man is in. This is a new one, a guy she picked up last week at the bar. I don’t know him yet, so I’m afraid. They’re all like wild animals, you have to learn their habits so you can feel safe around them. This one looks at me sometimes, but he’s never made a move.

He’s so ugly. It makes my stomach heave, thinking about him. I’m not sure my mother even realizes anymore how ugly they are. He’s got a big roll around his middle and a spotty little beard, and his breath stinks. One of his front teeth is missing, too.

A bug scurries over my blankets, and I flick it away and hope it’s gone. God knows what else is living in here. It’s always so dirty. I try to clean things up but. it’s impossible because every night my mother brings some filthy man home to drink with her. They drop food and knock things over, then pass out on the floor or on her bed. They spill liquor, too, and it makes sticky pools that draw the bugs.

I can’t hear my mother’s voice anymore. She must be asleep. The man’s singing some kind of drunken song. I remember how he looked at me earlier and I wonder if he’s going to try to come in here tonight.

If he does, I intend to kill him. I have a hunting knife under the pillow and I’m not afraid to use it. I’m not.

Today is my seventeenth birthday.