Shhh...Mack's Side Read online

  “Okay. Does your mom have corn?”

  “Yeah, I saw it in the drawer.”

  Gia followed me across the yard to my back door.

  My mom grabbed my shirt from behind, trying to stop me with a frown. “Mack, what are you doing? Get out of there,” she whispered and then went back to trying to close a deal. I ignored her and jerked away. Gia stood there like a good little girl while I shucked the corn, peeling back the husk, running around the bar from my mom.

  “Mom, stop. We have to make popcorn.”

  “Can I call you back after I take care of my bratty daughter,” my mother finally asked. Uh-oh. I was in trouble. If I made her get off the phone from a business call, I was in for it. I didn’t falter, though. I couldn’t let her see my weakness. I continued to clean the corn, leaving the mess on the floor.

  “I’m going to beat your ass. Give me that,” she growled, reaching for the corn. I tossed it to Gia and she handed it to my mom. Traitor.

  “Go home, sweetie. McKenzie will see you tomorrow,” my mom coaxed with a warm smile. Gia smiled and left like a little angel.

  I tried to run away, but she was quicker. Holding my arm, she held true to her promise and beat my ass. She meant business.

  “Okay, Liz,” my dad said, coming to my rescue.

  “Yeah, sure, Mark. It’s almost eight o’clock. She hasn’t had a bath and she has homework. It’s nice of you to come home and be a goddamn parent!” my mother screamed.

  I cried out, holding my stinging butt. I didn’t want them to fight. I would rather my mom go back to ignoring me and my dad not being home. It was too late. The tension was already in the air. I ducked out of the picture, unnoticed. Listening to the same fight they had every time they were mad, I disappeared up to my room.

  Looking out my window, I saw Gia’s dad in his office over the garage. He was walking around in circles, talking on the phone. I sat at my desk and opened my book. Digging through my backpack I searched for my list of words, listening to my dad call my mom names. I looked everywhere. I even walked back downstairs. They were nowhere to be found. Walking back to my room, I took the cordless phone from the upstairs hallway and called Gia. I watched her dad, Kyle, answer it at his desk.

  “Hi, can I talk to Gia?” I asked.

  “Hi, sweetie. How you doing?”

  “I can’t find my words.”

  “Uh-oh. That sounds pretty serious. Where do you think they are?”

  “Maybe in my desk.”

  “At school?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hang on. Let me see if I can find Gia for you. I bet she can help you out.”

  “Thank you.”

  Gia was acting like me with her mother, whining about something. Kyle ended up giving me the words, patiently spelling them out, over and over. I wished my dad was like Gia’s dad. I never heard him yell. He didn’t yell at Gia’s mom, either. He was nice and fun, always throwing Gia and me around in the pool, laughing, and doing stuff with us all the time.

  Like when we were on vacation. My dad wanted to work. Kyle wanted to have fun. He took us for ice-cream, to amusement parks, went swimming in the ocean and sightseeing. He watched silly movies with us, one little girl curled under each arm. I always felt safe with Gia’s dad. He made me feel good. That’s about the age I started pretending that Kyle was my dad, married to my mom, and Gia got my workaholic dad and her mean mom. Her mom wasn’t really mean. She was just like my mom. All work and no play.

  I think I was around ten when I started feeling things, like I could hear things. I was spending the weekend with Gia so my parents could go away for their anniversary. Even at ten I knew how stupid it was. They would be fighting before they got there. It was impossible for them to be around each other that long without it.

  “Why can’t I go to Grandma’s? I don’t want to stay next door.”

  “I’m not putting you on a plane and sending you half way across the United States.”

  “Dad, can I go to Grandma’s instead?” I looked to him for help. My mom ignored me and continued to pack.

  “Sure, what’d your mom say?”

  “I swear you’re the most ignorant man on earth,” my mom snapped, tossing fancy lingerie to her bag.

  “You wearing that?” my dad asked with raised eyebrows.

  “Shut up,” she said, giving him the eye. They didn’t have to hide anything from me. My ears were just fine. I was old enough to put two and two together. I heard the screaming matches they didn’t care to hide from me, and I heard the moans from the closed door later on the same night.

  “Please, Dad,” I begged.

  “McKenzie, stop. You’re not going there. We’re only going for one night. Go find something to do.”

  “Are you going to have make up sex?” I asked, touching the black lace.

  “What? Who told you that?” my mom asked with a frown.

  “I watched it on Sex in the City.”

  “You’re not allowed to watch that show.”

  “Well, I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Go!”

  I pouted, stomping my way out. My life sucked. It was stupid. I should just run away. Run away to Michigan with Grandma and Grandpa Coen. It wouldn’t do any good. They would never miss me. I ran away to Gia’s garage once for two hours. I was mad at my mom because I wanted to go to the mall. Gia got new roller blades and was outside, going up and down our street.

  My mom was bitching up a storm to my dad. Trying to work and ignore her at the same time, he half listened. Like he always did. Never. My mom was furious because she had to listen to me whine about it until she either took me to get a pair, too, or Gia put them away. She wasn’t going to put them away. She was rubbing it in. She was enjoying knowing I was on the other side of the curtain, envying her new rollerblades with sparkly wheels.

  “Why the fuck wouldn’t she just pick McKenzie up a pair, too? She did that knowing McKenzie would drive me crazy if I didn’t take her to the store. She’s going to try and steal this restaurant listing. She’s trying to keep me from digging into it before she gets a chance. You take her, Mark. You take her to get new rollerblades.”

  “No. She doesn’t need new rollerblades. Just because Gia gets something, doesn’t mean McKenzie has to have it, too.”

  What?! “Yes it does,” I whined. I should have begged my mom for them away from my rational dad. I didn’t want him making sense to her right now. I was trying to be manipulative.

  “No, it doesn’t. Now go find something to do before I give you something to whine about. I’m trying to work.”

  “Yeah, Mack. Your dad’s trying to work. It’s Sunday, remember?” my mother sarcastically replied, ushering me out of the den.

  “Like you’re not going to work, Liz. I’m not stupid. If it wasn’t for you wanting to work, you’d already have her in the car to shut her up,” my dad accused. Bam. I was right. My dad knew her, too. Not that he had room to talk. It was football season and a Sunday afternoon. He was hid away with his nose in front of graphs and pie thingies instead of screaming at the television like I knew Gia’s dad was doing.

  “Just work, Mark. Your job is more important than mine.”

  Great. Not again. “Mom—Mom—Mom,” I tried interrupting to stop the fight. “Mom. Mommy.” I didn’t want to listen to a fight. I wanted new rollerblades. “Mom. Mom. Mom.”

  “STOP!” my mother screamed.

  “You go buy her the rollerblades that I’ll be throwing over a nail in the garage in few days when she’s on to something else. Here, take my credit card. Why don’t you see if you can buy her some morals while you’re at it? You sure as fuck aren’t going to teach her any.”

  “Mom. Mommy. Mom.”

  “McKenzie, so help me god, if you don’t stop.”

  “If you don’t stop, Mommy will go buy you what you want,” my dad explained the consequences of me not shutting up soon. It really could go either way. I still had a chance.

  “What are you going to do
with her, Mark? Huh? You think maybe you can be a dad once in a while, too?”

  “Why? She’s going to have new rollerblades regardless of what I say. Why wouldn’t she? Gia got some. How the hell do you expect me to teach her anything when you’re always competing with Melanie?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Mom. Mom.”

  “It means you just got a new car last year. I’m paying over a thousand dollars a month in car payments now because you had to have a new car. Melanie got one. You had to get one that cost just a tad bit more,” my dad yelled, holding his fingers about an inch apart.

  “You don’t pay my bills. You’ve never paid my bills”

  I sighed, now the fight was going to go into the money part. That’s how it always was. I went up to my room defeated, and packed my backpack to run away. I fell asleep in a lawn chair in Gia’s dark garage. The fight was over when I came in the back door to my mom cooking dinner.

  “Do you have homework to do?” she asked, not looking up from her cutting fresh vegetables right in front of me. She didn’t even look for me.

  “Was competing with the Edwards always an issue?” Lila asked.

  I turned my attention back away from the busy streets below, returning to the present. “Yeah, I guess so,” I confessed, sitting on the sofa in front of her.

  I liked Lila. She was quite a bit older than me, but she practiced in a way I hadn’t experienced before. Most of the therapists I’d seen throughout my twenty-six years always wanted to go deep, talk about feelings and emotions. Lila didn’t do that. Lila let me tell my side of the story without passing judgment. Tossing in a question here and there like that, she’d get me back on track. She had a certain way she practiced. Like nothing I’d ever seen before. She was smooth in a sneaky sort of way. She could have you talking about something you hadn’t planned on in the flip of a switch.

  “Let’s stop here. When you come back next week I want to discuss the visions you mentioned.”

  I left with a prescription of the new meds Lila was trying me on. I wasn’t sleeping well, and I needed to be sleeping. We had Fashion Week coming up at the magazine. I didn’t have the energy to do Fashion Week on no sleep. I needed my sleep for the next month.

  Absolutely wonderful, just great. I slipped off my shoe with the dangling heel and tried like hell to hang on to the umbrella. Of all days to wear a skirt. The wind whipped my dark hair, sending wet strands to my face. Squinting my eyes from the sting of my own hair, right to the eyeball, I struggled to make it to my door.

  Thank god my doorman loved me. Charles walked half way up the sidewalk to shelter me with an umbrella. One that wasn’t being blown to smithereens.

  “You’re my favorite person in the whole world,” I sang, taking shelter in his much-better-than-mine umbrella. Mine was going in the trash. Stupid, stupid umbrella. And shoe. Stupid shoe.

  “You’re very welcome. Take the elevator today, Ms. Perry.” He nodded, holding the door with a bright white smile. Normally, I slipped off my shoes and walked the twenty-one stories to my apartment. I didn’t do it for the healthy exercise. I did it for the exhaustion. My theory being the more fatigued I was, the better chance of sleep I had. I liked Charles. He looked out for me in a sense. He never came out and told me that. He just assured me that he was worried once when I’d gotten back from a five day trip. I probably read more into it than I needed to, but it felt good to have someone worry about me and wonder where I was.

  I did take the elevator. I’d punish myself tomorrow.

  “You have a good night,” he said with a nod. Dismissing me with my broken shoe, he took my discombobulated umbrella. No sense in taking it upstairs. It was never going to serve its rightful purpose again. That was about the extent of our conversations. Charles was polite, friendly, and all business. I imagine he was trained not to be too friendly. He had a job to do and it didn’t consist of befriending the tenants.

  I checked my cabinets for food, knowing I wouldn’t have much luck. A bag of potato skins. Yuck. I spit and sputtered stale potato skins to the sink, tossing the bag to the trash. Two pop tarts, not my favorite kind. They were strawberry with no frosting. Somehow I picked up the wrong box. I hated plain pop tarts. Gia liked the plain ones, not me. Stupid rain. It could have waited until my belly was full.

  “No.” Swipe. “No.” Swipe. “No. Swipe,” I audibly said, trying to pour my one glass of wine. Days like this was when I wished I would have never made the one drink rule. I was going to want more. “No. No. No.” I continued my search, swiping my thumb over the ginormous list of delivery. Nothing sounded good. Placing an online order, I decided on cheese pizza from Mario’s.

  I showered, wrapped my hair in a towel, and slipped into my soft white robe. Nursing my one glass of wine, I sipped it here and there, needing to savor it as long as I could. Or I could just break that stupid rule and finish the bottle. No. No. I wasn’t doing that. That would break my promise. Shaking my head, I forgot about the stupid rule, why I had made it in the first place, and got to work. I had a deadline. That’s what I needed to focus on. Deadlines.

  I didn’t spend the last almost three years of my life working to get where I was to slack now. I had to keep up. Sliding my glasses up the bridge of my nose, I focused on my screen, hoping the photo shoot was waiting in my email.

  My stomach growled, thinking about the cheese pizza. Taking notes and sorting photos, I started my plan for the layout. Ignoring a call from my mother, I buzzed the pizza up. Sniffing, savoring the smell, I lifted the cardboard lid. Hmmm. Heaven.

  Did I take my meds? I wondered, staring at the pizza. I hated anchovies and slimy mushrooms. That’s what Gia liked. I hated sharing pizzas with her. I didn’t want those nasty fish things anywhere near my food.

  Gia used to chase me around the room with her tongue out. I’d scream for her to stay away from me. Her breath smelled like Mrs. Belter from Physics class. That old lady, forgot-to-take-a-bath-for-a-few-days kind of smell.

  I dumped Gia’s side in the trash. I couldn’t look at it so close to mine. Had it not been anchovies and mushrooms, I would have blamed the pizza shop. I couldn’t blame them. I was sure, for whatever reason, I ordered it myself.

  I made sure I took the handful of pills before going to bed. I thought for sure I’d taken them earlier, but apparently not. They were right there. I placed my hands over my head and breathed. Slowing it to a nice steady pace, I did the ritual exercises I’d been taught. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. As soon as I felt calm, I started the next phase. I could hear the sounds of the relaxing ocean in my head. The breeze from the sea touched my skin, and I sucked in a long, relaxing breath. The sand beneath my body radiated warmth from my bed. I could almost see the bright sun, piercing my closed eyes while my cheeks welcomed the heat. Cognitive behavioral therapy. Bullshit. That’s what it was. Experts could call it what they wanted, it didn’t work.

  And phase three. Sleep. Peaceful sleep that would last for all of two hours. These sleeping pills didn’t work any better than the last ones. Deep sleep consumed me. Nothing was erroneous. Everything was quiet and still, until it wasn’t.

  “Mack. Mack. Can you hear me? Over here. Come on, Mack.”

  Wind chimes blew in the distance and I could smell a warm spring rain. I was crying. Why was I crying?

  “Mack. Mack. Where are you? Can you hear me? I can’t find you, Mack.”

  That was it. That was when the wind chimes were so loud I’d wake up, clinching my chest, soaked in sweat. Sucking for air, I would heave. In and out. In and out. The loud sound of my own breaths, panting for dear life, never ended. It didn’t matter how many times my meds were changed, it was always the same. It was always the same. The new meds helped for a while, and I rested peacefully for at least five hours. That was good for me. I could function on five straight hours. It was a couple months of nights like these that left me exhausted.

  I’d been down this road before. Upping my meds wou
ld do absolutely nothing. The last time I did that, Lila was on a cruise and I ended up in a psych ward until she was back on dry land. Three days. Jane, my boss, was ready to send out an all-points bulletin on me. I made up some excuse about having to fly home after my grandmother passed away unexpectedly. I had no cell phone service.

  I didn’t really have to explain myself. Jane knew I was unparalleled to the new generation. Jane said I was rare. It wasn’t every day that an employee like me came along. This new generation wanted everything handed to them in an eight hour day. Nobody wanted to work for anything anymore. I heard this lecture time and time again, every time I did something spectacular. I didn’t do it to be ahead of anything or anyone. I did it to occupy my mind, stop the childhood voices, and forget that night.

  Deciding I was so worked up about Mr. Nichols being up for parole again, I breathed. Long. Deep. Breaths. In and out. In and out. I coiled up like a rattlesnake, wrapping my arms around my legs, and closed my eyes. Deep breaths. In and out. Seven years. Mr. Nichols was coming up on seven years of being taken from civilization and having his rights ripped from him.

  I don’t even think it was the thought of him getting out. I hoped he did get out. I needed the day to come and go, stop being reminded of it. I wasn’t sure I could handle it if he served the entire ten years. This was the second time he was up for parole. I couldn’t do it anymore. I would write the letter my mother hounded me over and over again. I’d write it and inform the parole board that I had forgiven Mr. Nichols and I think he has served his time and paid his dues.

  I never wrote the one my mother insisted I write. I never confessed how I was so messed up because of that night, or that I wake having nightmares because of that night. I never told them I was on medication, and was up to four different prescriptions, just to stay afloat and cope.

  I never told them any of it. It would have been a lie. I was messed up before that night ever happened. That night just spread the frosting, evenly over the top. Seven years wasn’t the magic number that I had been dealing with my issues.