“I just wanted to make sure you got home safe.”
The silence stretched between us. My head was rattling with what I could say to him that wouldn’t set my mother off in a barrage of questions. “How did you know my number?”
“Kota had it.”
Wouldn’t Kota have told him I was okay? It made me wonder if there was another reason why he called and he made up an excuse. “Oh.” I wanted to ask further but I didn’t know how to phrase the question. How did Kota manage to get the number when I didn’t even know it yet? My mother crossed her arms in front of her. Her scowl made creases at the corner of her mouth and around her eyes. Oh please, I thought, not while I’m on the phone. I don’t want Silas to hear.
“He said I should wait to call. He said you were probably freaked out still from this afternoon and that we needed to give you a break.”
Kota had told them to avoid me! “I... I’m fine.”
“Who is it?” my mom said in a loud tone.
“It’s the school,” I said, loud enough for Silas to hear. My mom looked at me as if she didn’t believe me but stalked off back to her bedroom, or at least in that direction.
“Not safe to talk?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” I said, again trying to sound bored and unimpressed in case my mother was still listening, hoping Silas would understand.
“I won’t be around tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve got practice.”
“That’s okay.” Was he thinking I would assume he would be around? Or would he have come over if he didn’t have practice? His true meaning whirled around in my head. What was practice? I wanted to run to my room with the phone and shut everyone out but doing it would look so suspicious.
“I’ll talk to you later?” he asked.
There was a distinctive click and then the sound of breathing. My mother had picked up another phone and was listening in.
“Yeah,” I said.
“‘Bye,” Silas said and hung up.
I held my breath, waiting and listening to the breathing on the line.
“Hello?” my mother’s voice sounded like an echo in my ear because I could hear her from her bedroom as well as in the phone. “Who’s on the line?”
I cringed and pulled it away from my face. I heard the line click again and then I switched off the phone.
“Sang! Come here!”
I shuddered where I stood, gently placing the receiver onto the cradle. I steeled myself, readying my lies.
Keeping friends was harder than I thought.
“Sang,” my mother spat as she leaned on the edge of her bed. The mattress sagged under her weight. When I was eight, my mother went to the hospital with a sinus infection, stayed for a month, and came back with a bottle of morphine and was kept to her bed. My parents never told us what was wrong with her, but I overheard whispered in their late evening discussions about her liver and pancreas. Sometimes at night she cried out in pain and my father took her to the hospital. She held her bottle of pills in her hands now, twisting her palm over the cap as if trying to remember when she took the last one.
“Yes?” I said in a near whisper. I stepped barefoot onto the cream carpet of her bedroom, doing my best to look bewildered. If I could only make her believe me this time.
“Who called you?”
“The school,” I said. My eyes flitted to they light brown and ivy green wallpaper along the walls and the whirling wicker fan above her bed. Her eyes were too intense for me. “It was a reminder about registration.”
Her thin lips pursed. She put her bottle of pills down and smoothed her chubby fingers over the covers of her quilt blanket. “It looked like you were trying to hide something.”
I sighed. “I’m not used to getting phone calls.”
“Why was it a man? Why did he only ask for you?” Her eyes narrowed at me, picking the holes at my story. “Why didn’t he also ask about your sister?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my fingers fluttered to the base of my throat. “Maybe he’ll call back for her in a minute. Or maybe it’s because I’m younger...”
She chuffed. “No. You’re lying. I don’t think the school has our phone number.” She stood up and then pointed a finger at me. “Who did you give this number to?”
My eyes widened and I took a step back, accidentally bumping into the wall. “No one! I don’t even know our phone number.”
“It sounds like a lie.” She crossed the room toward me. “Why are men calling to talk to you?”
“I don’t know!” I cried out, turning my face away from hers, pressing myself back against the wall. Please, no. Not now.
She grabbed my arm and started wrenching me until I was on my knees. I cried out in pain. “Who called you?” she asked through her teeth.
“The... school,” I sobbed. What would she do to me? There was no way I was going to tell her about Silas. She could do what she wanted to me.
Her nose flared and I felt the sweat from her palms as she pulled me up to my feet. I cried as she yanked me in to the kitchen. My heart was pounding and my body was shaking. Why wouldn’t she just believe me this once? Why couldn’t I call people like other girls?
“Get on your knees,” she said.
I closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around myself and sunk to the floor. It wasn’t uncommon for her to punish us by having us kneel on the floor for hours at a time. I thought this was one of those cases. If that was the case, I would have been grateful.
She started moving around me, pulling vinegar from the shelf and lemon juice from the fridge. I didn’t understand but I kowtowed to her on the floor, crying. I whispered to the floor, pleading under my breath that she would stop and just send me to my room.
She created a concoction of half vinegar and half lemon juice in a glass and then handed it to me. “Drink all of this. You are never, ever to let a boy call here.”
My lips trembled. “Please don’t make me,” I begged. Tears slid down my cheeks, dripping from my chin.
My mother reached for my hair, yanking it back until my face was up.
“Okay!” I screamed, “I’ll do...”
The glass was pushed to my lips so hard I tasted blood at first as my lip split, and then all I could taste was the heat of the acid mix between lemon and vinegar. I forced myself to swallow, unable to catch a breath. If I didn’t drink, I would drown.
The liquid slipped past my throat and I felt it burning. Out of instinct, my hands sought out her arms, trying to push her away. She held me in place until I drained the glass. When I was finished, and her hands released me, I collapsed to the ground in a heap. I choked, holding my palm to my mouth, gasping and sobbing so hard that I couldn’t catch my breath. My lungs ached as I was trying to breathe and my throat was on fire. Every breath was painful to my throat.
She threw the glass into the sink and it shattered against the metal. “Next time a boy calls, it’ll be bleach. Get up and go to your room. I don’t want to hear from you.” She stalked back to her bedroom and I heard her shaking her medicine bottle and opening the container.
I felt my stomach lurch. I pushed my palm to my mouth until I could run up stairs to the bathroom. I knelt at the toilet, my head buried in the bowl and I heaved.
When I was done, I fell on my back against the carpet of the bathroom. My body trembled and I tried breathing through my nose and mouth at different lengths but it was useless. Every little bit of air passing my throat made the pain sharply return. I forced myself to stop sobbing so it wouldn’t hurt so badly. I got up, nearly crawling on my knees to the sink, dipping my head under the faucet for water, but the water’s coolness sent me to my knees again as it splashed against my throat.
I sensed someone watching. Marie stood in the doorway. Through the tears in my eyes, I shuttered under my sister. Her brown hair hung long past her shoulders and her dark eyes looked curious and fearful.
“What was it this time?” she asked. I knew what she wanted. She wanted to make sure she never did what I had done.
I parted my lips, “Ah...” I coughed. “A boy...” I whispered. My eyes popped open. I tried again to talk. Nothing. I closed my eyes, and fresh, hot tears slid down my cheeks.
My mother made sure I couldn’t answer the phone.
Nathan