Page 8 of Honey Sugar
“Spit it out, girl,” Daddy barked. I brought my shoulders up around my ears and dropped my gaze to the tips of my shoes. They were cute flats. They were pink and white with little polka dots all over. They matched the pink pants I wore. “What did Jeffries do?” Daddy’s voice smacked me in the side of the head and I jerked my eyes to his. They were glassy like Mr. Jeffries.
“Nothing,” I muttered moving past him and to the stairs.
“Stupid ass. She gets that shit from you, Liv! Damn girl don’t know her ass from a hole in the wall.” I rolled my eyes as I moved down the hall into my bedroom. Everything inside me told me to slam my door but I closed it gently and twisted the lock while I undressed and took a shower.
I wanted to wash the slick and slimy feeling of Mr. Jeffries eyes and words off my skin. I scrubbed hard until my usually honey brown complexion glowed red from friction. Only then was I clean enough to step out.
How could I feel so filthy without being physically violated? My mind buzzed with all sorts of thoughts. I wanted them to shut up. My head was like a leaky faucet dripping thoughts and scenarios even though I wanted silence. It usually dripped all night long. I pulled my mop of sandy curls on top of my head, secured it with a ponytail holder, and sat on the side of my bed.
I stared at the extra-value sized bottle of Tylenol on my nightstand for a few minutes, drumming my fingers against my cheek. The pills inside called to me like the sweetest siren song. It was just as deadly too. The Tylenol bottle was a decoy. I had a few handfuls of real Tylenol pills on top but what hid underneath was what I really wanted. Lying inconspicuously at the bottom were more than a dozen Xanax pills.
After the day I had, I needed to pop a few to take the edge off. I held my hand out and before I grabbed the bottle, I noticed the way my fingers trembled in the air. I couldn’t tell if it was from the addiction coursing through my veins or the aftereffects of what happened at Honey Sugar with Mr. Jeffries. Either way, I was going to give in and take four pills to make me forget about it all.
I grabbed the bottle and emptied its entire contents onto my pink comforter. I sifted through the white, oval-shaped Tylenol pills until I fished out what I wanted. The slim white rectangles. The letters XANAX were embossed on the top. It’s how I knew they were real and not knock-offs.
My pediatrician, Dr. Beaumont wrote me prescriptions for the name brand pills every month when I saw him because I told him in confidence that my father was abusive to my mother but not me.
That was a lie.
Well, it wasn’t totally a lie because most of the time Daddy didn’t hit me but when he did I found myself wishing I were dead. I didn’t tell Dr. Beaumont about those times because I knew he’d have to report Daddy to the police. Nobody in Sugar Bayou would believe that Beau Marchand would lay a finger on his daughter or wife. He was a pillar of the community. It would be blasphemy.
I swallowed down the Xanax and popped a honey whiskey hard candy in my mouth to ramp up the potency. After that, I hurried to scoop the decoy pills back into the Tylenol bottle. I didn’t know what I was going to do once I was eighteen and didn’t need to see Dr. Beaumont anymore. I hated thinking about it. My brain went fuzzy trying to figure it out. I willed the pills to work faster. I wanted them coursing through my bloodstream and mellowing out my nervous system.
After the shame of popping pills to relax subsided, I got dressed in an oversized nightshirt and unlocked my bedroom door. If I left it locked, I’d have to hear Daddy’s mouth and that was the last thing I wanted to do.
Soon as I settled down on the bed and turned on the TV, Mama knocked and walked in my room. Good thing I unlocked the door. “Can I talk to you for a moment, Ivy?”
“Sure, Mama.” I slid over and she sat beside me. Once she was close enough, I saw the faint tear tracks still clinging to her brown skin. I wondered what she was crying about. I knew it was Daddy but I wondered what he’d said or done. I knew not to ask even though the Xanax were working their magic and I was starting to mellow out.
“When you came in, you looked…rattled. What happened with you and Mr. Jeffries?”
“Well…” I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them. I didn’t know if I should really tell her or if I should gloss over things and give her the watered down version. Sometimes it was hard to gauge my mother. One minute she cared a little and the next she was too wrapped up in her own trauma to be bothered. I’d grown exhausted from only being loved halfway.
“Well, what girl?” She wrung her anxious hands and I pulled in a deep breath. I was gonna go for it and tell her everything. It would either end horribly or it would be anticlimactic. I rolled the dice.
“He told me he wanted more strawberry delight. I told him to come back tomorrow. Then he told me what he really wanted was…me. Only, he wasn’t that nice when he said it.” My brows furled as I tugged on my earlobe. “Then he offered to buy twenty jars if I let him put his mouth on me.” Repeating the encounter gave me chills and not in a good way. I tugged on my earlobe a little harder until it felt warm between my pointer finger and thumb.
Mama stared at me with blank hazel eyes. Not what I was expecting. “Well, did you sell him the jars of moonshine or didn’t you?” She huffed.
“I…didn’t. Did you hear what I said, Mama? The man banged on my car so hard, I’m sure I have fist-sized dents on the roof. All because I wouldn’t let him have his way with me and you’re asking about moonshine right now?” My sentences were disjointed partially because of the Xanax and partially because I was floored that all she cared about what the liquor.
“Men will be men, Ivy. You should have given in a little to make the sale. Some men take what they want. You gotta learn to deal with that.” She rubbed my leg and gave me a loose smile that said I’d do better next time.
I hoped to god there would be no next time.
I opened my mouth to say something but Mama’s phone started ringing in her pocket. My eyelids were starting to grow heavy. The sedative moving through my body told me it was time to go to sleep. It was time to shut off for the night before I had to endure another session of my mother getting shouted at and beaten like she was no better than a common slave.
I glanced at Mama’s phone in time to see Aunt Sarah’s name flash across the screen. I wondered what she could possibly want. She hadn’t talked to Mama for years. Sometimes I wished Auntie Sarah was my mother. At least she had sense. She tried to get Mama to leave Daddy all the time but it never worked. I guess she got fed up with her little sister’s battered mentality and stepped back. I didn’t blame her.
I wished I could step back too.
Mama pressed the phone to her ear with an expression that looked like the halfway mark between a frown and a smile. Her brows crashed together but her lips curved up hesitantly. “Sarah?” She said quietly into the phone. I strained to hear what was being said on the other end. A sense of urgency took over me once I heard how upset Auntie Sarah sounded on the other end. I scooted closer to my mother and stretched my neck to hear better.
The only thing I could make out for certain was my cousin, Titan’s name. It settled in my ears like hot coal. Besides the obligatory happy birthday texts, I hadn’t spoken to him since we were younger. My stomach twisted in knots. I hoped he was okay.
Mama stayed on the phone with Auntie Sarah for fifteen minutes and I fought off heavy eyelids and cement limbs like a warrior the entire time. I had to know what was going on. It had to be something important for her to call out of the blue in the middle of the night.
Mama finally put the phone down after ending the call. She looked at me and said, “Titan is gonna come stay with us for a while. He needs to lay low. Sarah wants us to tell your father that he needs to spend some time away but things are more serious than that.” She rubbed her forehead and shut her eyes from a moment. I watched her lips move rapidly and wondered what prayer she was reciting and if it would help since none of her prayers helped when she was getting abused.
