Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

“I’m not going to get hurt! My God, is that all you do at night is sit around and like, think of all the different ways I could die? Get a life why don’t you?” She flips her hair back with a fling of her wrist. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“Did you make it to summer school yesterday?” I ask.

She stops, dead in her tracks, a deep scowl on her face.

“Oh Mom. Please don’t start with school again.”

Her voice is bone weary.

“Robyn, your sophomore year starts in a month and a half and you’re already behind in English and Math. If you don’t get through these summer school classes you’re going to start the new year behind and it’s only going to get worse.”

“I hate school,” she says, an undeniable streak of resignation laces her words.

I know this. She has always hated school. Her learning disability has meant that every single day is an effort just to understand what is going on. Never mind about learning the material. Never knowing the answers in class meant frequent hurtful remarks by her peers. I can only imagine the teasing she has endured. At this point, she is sick and tired of the battle.

“I know baby, but you’re on the last stretch. Three more years and you’re done.” Even after all the years of struggle, my cajoling, helping, begging, and threatening Robyn, watching as she fought to understand a concept, so often failing, I still hold an irrational thought of hope in my head. “I could teach you some basic accounting skills or if you’d learn typing, combined with your high school diploma, you’d be able to find a decent job and”

“God Mom! I am not like you!” she says, her voice wavering. “I don’t want to be like you! I’m not some pathetic little bookkeeper. Don’t you get that?” She hesitates only a second. She is opening crying now. “I miss my friends.”

“What about Jenny?” I say. “She seems like such a nice girl. Don’t her parents have money?” I ask. I can’t help but feel that if Robyn associates with the upper crust, their good fortune will somehow rub off on my daughter.

“Besides, moving to California is a fresh start,” I begin. “You weren’t doing well in the schools in Aztec. They’re still in the twentieth century, for heaven’s sake,” I say, trying for a joke.

“But I was happy there,” she pleads.

“But you were failing.” I stop a moment and then continue. “And with Daddy out of a job, we didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Besides, we’re lucky he got this job. The whole economy is starting to get shaky right now.”

“I want my old life back,” she demands.

“I know, honey. But I’m just trying”

“Stop!” she screams, clenching her fists. The jangle of movement from her many bracelets underscores her plea. “Would you just stop trying?” she asks. “All of your trying is freaking choking me!” Her voice breaks.

She stomps away to her bedroom slamming her door so hard I feel the fillings in my teeth rattle in my head.

I check my watch. If I hurry, I can finish putting away the laundry before getting ready for work.

Robyn is in the bathroom, preening, cooling down from our fight earlier. I decide to put the laundry away for her. Clutching the plastic laundry basket, I stump into Robyn’s room, tsk-tsking under my breath. Why can’t she just get her chores done? I pluck out several pairs of her clean panties from among the washcloths and socks and yank open the top drawer to stuff them in. I shove the underwear into the drawer when the back of my hand knocks against something hard. I clear a space amongst the lingerie to find money, lots of it, held together by a rubber band.

“What are you doing?” Robyn’s voice sounds behind me, accusatory.

I spin around holding up the money.

“Where did you get all this?” I demand. I hold the wad of folded bills in my hand reminiscent, I imagine, of stashes exposed by DEA agents from nabbed drug lords.

“What were you doing in my room?” Robyn says, her voice dry and tight. She peers around, as if expecting to find that I’ve uprooted more of her things.

“I was trying to help you,” I say.

“By snooping through my drawers?” she asks incredulously. She is furious. She swipes at the wad of cash in my hand like an angry toddler. I yank back, retaining the money and frown deeply at her.

“I was not snooping. I thought I’d do you a favor and finish your clothes. I was only putting your whites away when I saw this in your top drawer.”

We stand confronting each other a second, as if neither one has read the script any further to know what the next move should be. I hold up the cash a second time.

“Where did you get this?” I ask again.

She leaps across the room, nearly falling on top of me and snatches the money out of my hand.

“It’s mine,” she says, recovering her balance.

“Where did you get it?”

“Doing odd jobs,” she says.

“What kind of odd jobs?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Raking leaves and stuff.”

This is such a bald faced lie it takes me a moment to formulate a coherent response. If my prim and prissy daughter, with her high heels, painted nails, and long blond hair has earned three hundred dollars raking leaves, I am a yak.

“Oh Robyn,” I say, shaking my head. I don’t want her to go on, digging herself any deeper. “Just stop, okay? Tell me the truth. Where did you get all that money?”

“It’s none of your business.”

She turns her back on me and walks over to her dresser, shoving the cash into her purse. She swipes the brush from the dresser and begins savagely brushing her hair.

“I can’t believe you’d go through my things like that,” she says.

She throws the brush onto the bed.

“Robyn, I told you, I was putting your underwear away,” I say defensively.

She whips around, facing me.

“You liar!” she screams. Her face is flushed by anger.

“I’ve had it,” she says. “You’re hella whacked.” She scoops up her purse and then turns around. She doesn’t even look at me, instead, marches over to her closet where she grabs a lightweight sweater.

I huff out an elongated breath.

“I have a right to know what’s going on with my own child.”

“Yeah, right. See ya,” she says between clenched teeth as she drifts by. A cat’s paw breeze of bubble gum and Hello Kitty lip-gloss floats in the air past me.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, trailing after her like a puppy.

As I walk through her room, I catch my face in her dresser mirror. I am shocked to see that I look so haggard. I run my hand through my hair, following Robyn into the living room. I clear my throat to get her attention.

“Anyway, it’s almost time for summer school. I can drive you,” I add, trying to change the subject. But Robyn is fuming. She stomps through the house towards the front door.

“You can’t just go through my things. Invade my life. It’s like, you know, I have no privacy at all.”

She stops in the middle of the living room, her face an odd mixture of fear and defiance.

“Are you walking to school?”

I ask this because normally Robyn loathes walking anywhere she can’t get a ride.

Already my mind is racing ahead. Today is Rob’s birthday; tonight after work, we’re all supposed to go to Red Lobster to celebrate. I still have to wrap his gift: a new brush with real boar’s hair bristles. I wanted this day to be a happy one for Rob. I wanted so badly for all of us to be in a good mood. Still, maybe by tonight Robyn will have cooled off.

“Remember, we’re going out tonight for Daddy’s birthday,” I remind her.

“So?” she retorts. She spins around and walks to the front door. Her hand reaches for the doorknob.