Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

I realize, from Robyn’s previous disappearing acts, that she is probably sleeping at her friend Jenny’s house even though she hasn’t called and her curfew is midnight. My eyes fall to the overflowing laundry basket sitting on the edge of the couch as the air conditioner kicks on. We can’t afford to run the air. I stand up and walk to the thermostat, moving the dial up to 86. Pickles, our little tabby, regards me disinterestedly from the couch.

I move to my purse, plowing through its contents for my Rolaids to quiet the persistent burning in my gut. I dig out two from the roll and greedily chew them.

“Did you see this?” Rob growls, suddenly at the doorway to the living room. He is fresh from the shower; heading to work on the weekend after a full forty hours during the week; picking up extra shifts whenever he can. The idea was so that we could save to buy a house. But with the prices of everything, including housing out here, we might as well be trying to save to buy an island in Belize.

He holds his brush in the air as if it were a wounded animal. It is his good one, the one with boar’s bristles he bought last month at the mall. Rob is fastidious when it comes to grooming. But his brush has long blond hairs in it and most of the bristles look as if they’ve been matted down with some type of gooey substance.

“And the bathroom?” he says, a clear thread of anger woven in between his words. “There’s crap all over the place.”

I nod.

“From her getting ready last night.” I face him. “She hasn’t come home yet.”

Rob is still scowling at his brush. “Good,” he says.

“Rob,” I admonish him.

“I know,” he says, frowning.” But look at this room,” he adds, waving his brush in the air.

I look around and see evidence of our daughter everywhere. Clothes strewn on the surface of every piece of furniture. Barrettes and scrunchies and tubes of lip gloss dot the coffee table. Her school ID is partially obscured by a comb. A can of Diet Coke is on top of the TV. Even from here, I notice shiny splotches of spilled soda covering the screen like freckles.

“She thinks the entire house is her own personal closet,” he snarls. He shakes his head. “I can’t wait till she moves out.”

I sigh.

“The minute she gets home she cleans all this shit up,” Rob adds. He turns to head back to the bedroom and then stops and swivels around. “And you tell her she’s grounded. She’s supposed to call when she stays over at what’s-her-name’s.”

I drop my face into the palms of my hands, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with my fingertips. I need coffee.

I trudge to the kitchen, opening the cabinet over the microwave and pull out the bag of filters and a can of store brand coffee. I think about happier days. Days when Robyn, young still, would come into the kitchen while I was making dinner; or into the bathroom as I was hunched over the toilet with a scrub brush. She’d worn a smile as big as a silver dollar. “Hello, Mama,” was all she would say. And I’d feel my heart melt with love. Two little words that said everything.

Minutes later, Rob swings into the kitchen.

“I almost forgot,” he says, “There was a message on the answering machine. Your mother called. Again.”

A horn honks in front of the house.

“That’s Dusty,” he says of his coworker and drinking buddy who gives him rides into work so I can have the car.

He pecks me on the cheek, then dashes out the door, even before the coffee is finished. I hope he won’t use his ATM card to pull any more cash out of the checking account for Starbuck’s. I need every cent in there to pay the bills and buy food for the week. I mentally kick myself for not reminding him of this fact. My thoughts alight on Rob’s message from my mother.

I haven’t spoken with my mother in at least two weeks. She loves to call and give me updates on my sister Petra ’s perfect little life. Though Petra and I are separated by only two years, a gulf the size of The Hundred Years War lies between us. She stayed in Aztec, married right out of high school and a year ago just had her third child. Her husband, Larry, an accountant has the salary to afford Petra the luxury of being a stay at home mom. Their house is perfect. Their cars are new. Their school-aged children are on the honor roll and “The Baby” is so beautiful that Petra is thinking of having her model in baby food commercials. Mom calls me regularly to castigate me for not communicating with Petra. She also finds it necessary to list and catalogue all of her health problems, starting with numbness in her fingers to the ulcerating corn on her big left toe.

I busy myself with the task of making coffee, mentally going through my day. Print reports for work. Finish my homework that’s already late for my Excel class. Laundry. Walking across the kitchen floor, my bare feet stumble across an island of something brown and sticky. I add ‘mop kitchen’ to the list. I open the refrigerator door to get the half and half only to discover we’re out. I add ‘groceries’ to my ever-expanding list of tasks. I feel my body sag with fatigue.

And just then, I hear it. The quiet whoosh of the front door being opened with stealth. My heart flip-flops in my chest. Unconsciously, I take in a cavernous breath of relief.

“Robyn?” I walk to the edge of the kitchen and peer through the doorway. There, on the other side of the living room at the front door stands my daughter. Her mascara is smudged in thick, dark smears beneath her eyes, giving her face an innocent, panda-like quality. Her lipstick, too dark to begin with, has left her lips stained, looking almost as if she has a Kool-Aid smile. A tear the size of quarter scars the left thigh of her fish net stockings. In her hand, she dangles her shoes in the air by their straps. She looks tired and bedraggled. She meets my eye and in that first instant a jagged pain slices my heart. I find myself wanting to comfort her so badly I literally feel my arms ache.

“Hello, Mama,” she says.

I cross my arms in front of me.

“Where have you been, young lady?”

She scowls and rolls her eyes.

“I know,” she says in a suddenly snotty voice. “I’m grounded. Big deal.”

“Why can’t you at least call?” I ask. “Is that too difficult?”

“I told you I was going to Jenny’s. She had a party for me. You know I always spend the night at Jenny’s.”

“You do not always spend the night at Jenny’s,” I say. “And another thing. You ruined Dad’s brush. He spent twenty-eight dollars for that brush!” My voice rises with each word. In my head I see dollar bills whirling madly out an opened window.

“Well have you noticed all his beard hairs in the sink?” she shoots back. “It’s hella gross.” She throws her shoes on the floor in a dramatic fashion. “Besides, you said when we moved that we’d buy a house with a swimming pool. And that I’d have my own bathroom. It’s not my fault we have to share. I hate Pittsburg!” she yells at me.

“Don’t you swear!” I scream back. I take a deep breath in a futile effort at remaining calm. “Yes, you are grounded. And I want this room picked up and the whites put away, as I asked you to do yesterday,” I say, looking at the laundry basket teetering on the armrest of the couch.

Robyn rolls her eyes again and huffs out a breath of disdain. The coffee machine hisses and coughs as if commiserating with her.

“Robyn,” I say, calmer now. “We can’t live like this. Not knowing where you are; who you’re with.” I fold my arms in front of me, feeling suddenly cold by images of an injured Robyn lying on a hospital gurney. “What if you get hurt? You didn’t even take your ID with you last night. If you were knocked unconscious or something, the police wouldn’t even know who to call.”