Page 29 of Cain
“Uh-oh,” Jill said, tucking some of her curly hair behind her ear as she sat outside her room. Her feet were set on her sister’s empty seat, the orange and black paint drying as the scent of the nail polish lingered in the air around her. “I know post-crying eyes when I see them. Sit. I’ll do your nails. You tell me what happened.” She pulled her feet off the chair and waved.
I fought the urge to say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to walk away and go wallow in my room all alone. So I sat. “Just the orange, though, please.”
“At your service,” Jill said, twisting open the bottle. “I used to do nails, you know. Before the whole podcast thing. I did nails. Always had a ‘gift for gab,’ as my dad liked to say. Worked in both careers, I guess. So. I’m assuming this has to do with your asshole ex.”
“He’s contesting the divorce.”
“Controlling men always do.”
“Yeah. I guess I was just hoping he would want to wipe his hands of me. Find a new naive young girl to take advantage of.”
“Did he not make you sign a prenup?”
“I did. I think the exact wording, though, only protected his assets before the marriage. The house, the cars, the money in those accounts. So anything he’s acquired since then is negotiable in the divorce.”
“You deserve it after putting up with him.”
“I don’t even want it. I’ve told my lawyer that a dozen times. But everything still has to follow this process.”
“The long, expensive process.”
“Yeah,” I agreed as she picked up my hand and started painting my nails with quick, efficient swipes. “I mean, I knew this was going to be a pricey process. I just hoped he would make it easier and just agree so we can go through the discovery process and get the ball rolling.”
“Well, everything you’ve said about Piece Of Shit Perry says he likes nothing more than control. This is just another way for him to have it. He knows he has you by the short hairs because he has all the time and money in the world and you don’t.”
“Yeah. I guess. Or he wants me back.”
“I swear on all that is holy, you better not go back to that man.”
“No! No, I couldn’t go back to a man who hit me.”
Jill shrugged at that. “A lot of women do. Our mom did. Like you, she didn’t have much. Unlike you, she wasn’t strong enough in spirit to grit her teeth and push through. She really struggled with work. And it was, you know, easier in a way to go back where she didn’t have to worry about those things.”
“But she had to worry about being hit.”
“Yeah, but my granddaddy beat the shit out of my mom and aunts when they were growing up. I guess it was… familiar in a way. She was raised thinking that a man could raise his hand to hurt you… and still love you. Fucked with her head.”
My mother had a lot of flaws. More than I could name. But she was the stereotypical cigarette mom. She was brash and loud and opinionated. She had a mouth like a sailor and the worst road rage I’d ever witnessed. She sucked at holding down jobs and jumped from man to man.
But, one thing I will say was she made sure I knew that no man ever had a right to put his hands on me.
She told me with words all my life.
Then, when I was eleven or twelve and she was dating some deadbeat with no job who still somehow thought he had a right to nag her about dinner not being done on time, he went beyond their usual nightly arguments and slapped her across the cheek.
I could still remember vividly that sound. That smacking of his hand on her cheek. And the way my mother stumbled back from the impact, knocking my dinner plate off the counter, making it wobble on the faded linoleum floor of our trailer.
What I remembered even more vividly, though, was the look that came over her face then.
I’d heard the term “red with anger” before, but never witnessed it until that day.
She barely even hesitated.
She snatched a hot skillet off the stove and beat the ever-loving shit out of him with it while telling him what a sorry excuse for a man he was.
She beat him clear out the door.
Then we sat down and ate his dinner while she iced her face, a lit cigarette dangling from her lips.
