Turning Left

I was there the morning they pulled the body up out of the swamp. I was fourteen, in that awkward phase between child and woman. My Momma and I hadn’t talked in two weeks, and I was forever dreaming about running away from home to become an actress or singer or lion tamer. I didn’t give a damn where I went, as long as I got away from the shit-hole of life.

It wasn’t a place I usually visited — a murky watering hole that was a favorite among the little boys who ran around town without shirts or shoes. By the end of the summer, they’d be these little wrinkled nut-brown things with wild looks in their eyes. It would take the teachers until Christmas break to tame them. The summer I turned eleven, my cousin Mal tossed me into the muddy, swirling water. When I popped back up, my skin was peppered with mud and leeches. It took Momma four hours to pull them off me. After that, I avoided the watering hole.

The morning they found the body, that was the morning the letter came. The morning I learned just how fast I could run. The day I decided to escape.

My Daddy was a piece of white-trash scum, at least according to Momma. He stole her heart at their Junior prom right before he stole her virginity. He was manipulative and malicious and more than just a little evil, so she said. I wasn’t even born yet when he got himself into serious trouble and wound up in the state penitentiary. Momma never wanted to tell me what he did, but I’m not stupid — it was pretty easy to find at the local library.

He stole a car from a little Mom-and-Pop gas station at the edge of town. Some lady was stupid enough to leave her sleeping baby out there while she picked up smokes and beer, and he had no idea what was in the back seat. He didn’t even bother looking. He drank his way through most of a 12-pack of PBR and ended up running that cute little sedan into a light pole. He walked away with a broken collarbone and a few bruises, but that little baby wasn’t so lucky. They said the car seat wasn’t buckled in right, but he might have been just fine if someone had gotten to him fast enough. When they found the car the next morning, with my Daddy passed out beneath the back bumper, the baby was dead.

It was big news down here. That lady had some pretty rich family members and they were all broken up over the death of one itty-bitty baby. Can’t blame them. When Momma lost all those babies when I was little, it was hard on all of us. Can’t imagine meeting a baby and then having it up and die on you. Especially like that.

Of course, he was guilty. He didn’t even try to deny it. My Grampy said he felt damn guilty over it all, but the court didn’t care. They put him in jail, and Daddy just waited.

Sometimes I got letters from him. Momma tried to hide them from me when I was little, but, after I found a box of them under her bed, I told her I wanted to see them. I figured I deserved to know what he wanted to say to me. They weren’t anything special. He told me he was sorry he wasn’t around to see me grow up. Every letter, he asked me for pictures and then for my forgiveness, before trying to give me all those little life lessons your father is supposed to teach you. Hard to teach a girl how to change her oil when you’re behind bars, though.

That day, the day I watched them pull that body up out of the water, Momma got another letter. It wasn’t from Daddy, but from the State Pen. I know what it said ’cause I picked it up and read it while she was crying on the floor. “We regret to inform you…”

She screamed. She’d always acted like she hated him, but she still screamed and cried. She broke the vase Uncle Bobby brought home from Italy, and the family picture we took the summer we drove all the way down to Disney World. My step-daddy, Ray, tried to calm her down, but she just threw the remote control at his head, then Sissy’s dinner plate. He came away with a goose egg and blood running down his face.

I laughed at him. Momma always told me I never knew when to keep my fool mouth shut, and this was no exception. He looked like an idiot standing there with blood trailing down the side of his face and this glazed look in his eyes, like someone had kicked his puppy. Better, he looked like someone had chucked the puppy at his head. So I laughed.

That got a reaction from the bastard. He couldn’t get mad at Momma — she was grieving over her long-lost high-school sweetheart. Plus, he’d already been in trouble with the law once when he’d given her a black eye and broke her wrist. That time, Mare Johnson, momma’s cousin and the only female police officer in town, took him away for a week. When he got home from jail, he was full of apologies and regret, but it didn’t last long. He turned his attention to me and Sissy whenever Momma wasn’t around. I think Momma knew, though she never said a word, and Mare suspected, but I refused to tell her the truth of it.

We both knew he couldn’t catch me. When I was little, he could chase me down and beat me whenever he felt like it, but ever since he broke his ankle while he was out hunting, he couldn’t keep up. That winter when he was hobbling around on crutches, I found running. For a little while, I could forget the world around me and focus on the way my blood felt, pounding in my head. When I started running, nothing else in the world mattered. Nothing could catch me. No one could hurt me. So I ran, and this time, Daddy Ray chased me.

Daddy Ray wasn’t a bad man, as far as step-daddies go. My friend Flora from church camp told me once her step-daddy has been slipping into her bedroom three times a week since she was six years old.

“It’s not so bad, ‘Livia. I mean, really. It used to be bad, but it’s better now. He’s always real nice about it. Tells me how much he loves me, how important I am to him, how happy he is that I’m his little Baby Girl.”

“Jesus wept, Flora.” I just stared at her, digging into my bag of microwave pork rinds. “How can you say that?”

“Don’t take The Lord’s name in vain, ‘Livia.” She had this little moon-eyed smile whenever she talked about him. It’s the same look you see the older girls wearing when they come back from lunch hour with their boyfriends. “‘Livia, he loves me. He promised. He told me, when I’m older, we’re gonna leave. Just me ‘n him. We’re gonna leave, and he’s gonna marry me, and we’re gonna have a family together. He doesn’t love my momma anymore.”

“Don’t be so damn stupid, Flora. Why would a grown man like that leave with you? You don’t even got any titties.”

She sniffed, looking hurt at my words. “He loves me, ‘Livia. I don’t expect you to understand something like love. But he loves me. And we’re gonna have a baby. We’re gonna have a family.”

I heard Flora got sent to live with her Aunt Maude out in California for a few months. There’s gonna be a new little baby when she gets back, and nobody’s even gonna ask. No one will even care. Everyone knows about what’s going on with Flora and her step-daddy, but no one talks about it.

Flora and I, we’re not really friends anymore.

But Daddy Ray, he was never like that. I don’t think he could have done it, even if he wanted. I overheard my Momma telling her friend Clara about him once. “Limp as a blessed noodle, Clara! Limp as a noodle.” No, my step-daddy, he’s always liked to use his fists.

I could hear him behind me, blowing out air like a goddamn moose plowing through the woods. Every so often, he’d stop and gasp and try to catch his breath before hollering out my name. I wasn’t running as fast as I could. I’m not ashamed to admit I was kind of enjoying it. Hearing him struggle to catch me, knowing he never would. Blood pounding in my ears and the adrenaline pumping through me, reminding me I was still alive.

“Goddamn you, ‘Livia! When I catch you, girl, you gonna regret it!” And I would, too, if I let him catch up with me. The bruises would last for weeks, if I was lucky enough to escape breaking something. And when he finished with me, he would stare down at me, that massive chest heaving, his eyes narrowed, “You had that comin’, girl. You had that comin’.”

So I ran. I ran until I couldn’t hear him behind me anymore, and then I ran some more. I ran away from the daddy I’d never meet. I ran away from the girl who let her step-daddy fuck her, just ’cause it made her feel better about herself. I ran away from a momma who drowned her sorrows in the bottom of a bottle, a step-daddy who took out all his frustrations on his wife and her girls. I ran away from a town filled with people that knew about everything that happened behind closed doors, but refused to pry into their neighbors’ business.

I ran away from myself.

I didn’t hear anything while I was running. Daddy Ray faded into the distance, and nothing else mattered but the blood pounding in my ears, tears for a man I’d never met stinging my eyes. You only get one daddy, and mine hadn’t been worth a shit, and soon he’d be rotting in a grave.

When I was a little girl, I used to dream about him getting out of jail, and coming back, and we could all be a real family. I’d have a real daddy, and it wouldn’t matter that he was a murderer, ’cause he’d be home, and he’d be mine. He’d walk me down the aisle someday, and he’d giggle when he held my babies for the first time. That was what I’d always wanted. That was what a daddy should be.

I ran until I was long gone, past all of it. Goodbye, Louisiana. Hello, anywhere but here.

Rough hands grabbed me. I let out a shriek, arms flailing as my stomach jumped into my throat. He’d caught me. I was stupid, and he caught up to me, and now I was going to pay for laughing. I was going to pay for Momma’s tears and his frustrations and everything else in the world that was pissing him off. But it wasn’t the tires over gravel, pack-a-day voice of Daddy Ray that broke through the haze of my escape.

“Olivia Jean! What the hell are you doin’ out here, girl?” The voice was familiar. I shook my head and dashed my hand against my eyes, pushing the tears away. Mare Johnson. Mare’s Momma, Colleen, raised the girls together on her own.

Momma and Mare had been close as kids, but I knew Mare didn’t approve of Momma’s life choices. Every time they talked, they ended up in a screaming match about Daddy Ray. Every time there was a new bruise, Mare tried to get Momma to report it. To run away. Escape the hell her life had become. The hell she stayed in, year after year. But every time there was a new bruise, Momma came up with a new excuse for Daddy Ray. Momma didn’t let Mare come around much anymore.

Mare was different, though. She was smart, and everyone around town thought that she would do something with her life. She got a full ride scholarship to LSU. Once she left, no one thought she’d ever come back.

That’s what people do here. They leave as soon as they can, and they never look back. But Mare, she wanted something different. She got her degree and she made her way home. She said she wanted to make it a better place. She keeps trying, but nothing ever really changes.

I glanced around, taking in the scene around me. Small clumps of people stood around the tiny watering hole, all of them talking in hushed voices and staring at the murky water. Butch McConnell’s massive tow truck teetered at the water’s edge, tires shored up with two long planks. An awful grinding noise floated over the crowd as the truck slowly winched something up out of the muck.

“‘Livia? Did you hear me, girl?”

I glanced up at Mare, “What’re they doin’ out there?”

Her eyes hardened as she glanced back at the tow truck, “Never you mind, girl. You get on home. Now.”

I shook my head, frowning down at my shoes, “Can’t, Aunt Mare. Daddy Ray is on a tear.” I paused for a moment, “Momma got a letter today. From the state.” Tears sprung to my eyes again and I bit the inside of my lip, a tangy taste grounding me and stopping them from falling.

Mare looked at me for a long moment and nodded once. She didn’t have to ask. She could see it in my face, hear it in my words. Her face softened as she looked back at the truck, “Your Momma always did love that boy more than she should have.”

I waited for her to shoo me away. She didn’t.

“What’s goin’ on over there, Mare?”

“Pastor John’s kids found a car when they were going swimming.”

“A car? How the hell did a car get in there?”

Mare glanced at me for a moment and shrugged up a shoulder. We both knew it wasn’t something she should talk about. And we both knew by the time the first fireflies were lighting up their asses, the whole damn town would know everything there was to know about that mysterious car, “We don’t know yet. Someone drove it in there.”

I watched in awe as an old, battered sedan rose up out of the murky water. Chocolaty streams flowed from the doors, drowning the new spring grass. The air was hot and heavy, and I could hear thunder rumbling in the distance as the world drew a breath, holding it. Waiting.

I could swear my step-daddy was right behind us, still puffing away as he gave chase. Always running and grasping for something he couldn’t have, something he wanted to take and break and devour.

Hell. Maybe he was like Flora’s step-daddy after all.

Someone was talking to me. I shook my head, clearing the sun out of my eyes. Mare, hovering over me, looked like a worried mother hen. She always had that look on her face, ever since I was a baby. Mare couldn’t have any kids of her own, and in some ways, she had been more of a momma to me than my own when I was little.

“Olivia, what’s going on with you today? You’re never this scattered. Are you okay, baby?”

She had that look adults sometimes get. The one where they want you to reassure them you’re not fucking the boy next door, or that your best friend isn’t in the bathroom puking her guts out because some bitch in History class said she was fat. It pleads with you to tell them everything is just fine, that you’re one of those well-adjusted teenagers who don’t really exist. I couldn’t tell her about Daddy Ray and his fists, or how I wanted to scream and cry for a dead man I’d never met. I couldn’t tell her, because she’d never understand. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to help anyway.

“No, it’s ok, Aunt Mare. I’m fine.”

She nodded again, turning her eyes back towards the swimming hole. The car eased down into the mud with a gentle squelching. She sighed heavily, “I’m gonna take you home, girl. You don’t need to be here for this.”

“No, Mare, it’s fine… I’ll walk home.”

Her eyes focused on me again, taking in the disheveled hair, the mud on my bare knees, “‘Livia, you’re four miles from home. I’m driving you.” She fixed me with her best cop look, and I knew arguing wasn’t going to get me anywhere. She shooed me away, herding me as far from the car as she could.

Through the muddy windshield, I could see a head resting against the steering wheel. From the curve of the neck and the size, I was pretty sure it was a woman. Her black hair was shiny with the murky water. There was a crowd milling around, debating what they were going to do with her. The county coroner pushed through the crowd, yelling and waving his arms. He made up for his short stature with a blustery voice that demanded attention.

How did she die? Did she scream while the car sank down into the muck? Did she pray to unyielding gods? Was this the only way she could find peace?

Maybe her step-daddy was worse than mine, and she didn’t give a damn what happened anymore.

Mare let me sit in the front seat of her cruiser, just like when I was little and she’d find me down the road from the house with my tiny little Hello Kitty suitcase Momma found at Goodwill one year. She always flashed her lights before picking me up and setting me in the front. We’d go down to Dairy Queen, and eventually she took me home.

Momma never even seemed to notice I’d been gone.

The silence hung thick and heavy, stretching between us like an endless summer day. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was home already, waiting for me to get back. Or maybe he was still stumbling around in the woods like an idiot.

Maybe, if I was lucky, he’d have a goddamn heart attack out there, and Pastor John’s kids would find him some day, too.

“What happened, ‘Livia?” Her eyes were on the road, but she was still staring at me, gauging my reactions.

She didn’t have to ask. She knew what kind of man Daddy Ray was. Everyone did.

“It’s nothing, Aunt Mare.”

She nodded, considering her words. She knew better than to push the topic if I didn’t want to talk about it. If there’s one thing I inherited from Momma, it was her stubborn streak. “How’s school going? How’s Bobby? That’s the boy you were dating isn’t it?”

Bobby McGuire. We’d dated for a year before he dumped me for a younger girl willing to give him head. She was desperate to be one of the cool girls fucking a guy on the football team. It bothered me, but Bobby was just like all the other guys around here. Just like Daddy Ray.

“We broke up a few weeks ago.” I kept my face turned away from her, my eyes scanning the woods for a sign of Ray. I could feel the tears starting to creep out of my eyes, and not even a sharp bite on the inside of my cheek could stop the burn this time.

“Oh. Damn, I’m sorry, ‘Livia. You want to go get some ice cream or something? My treat.”

I shook my head, making a noncommittal noise. She wanted me to talk to her, to open up, to explore my life with her.

Mare pulled up to the stop light a mile away from home, her right blinker letting out a soft, steady ticking sound. “Look, Olivia, I know shit at home isn’t great for you right now.”

She paused for a moment, waiting for me to respond. I just shrugged up a shoulder, and she took it as her cue to push on, “And I need you to know that if you ever need anything, I’m here for you. If you need to talk to someone, or go out for ice cream or dinner or whatever, you just have to let me know. You just have to talk to me, ok? Anything you need, I’m here for you. But you’ve got to talk to me, baby girl.”

I nodded and time stood still. One of those moments where the world inhales and holds its breath, waiting to see what path you’ll take. Will you turn right, and go back to a world of bruises that no one acknowledges and always running for your life, or will you take the left-hand path, venture into the unknown? Seek something you can only hope will turn out better, because it’s hard to imagine things getting much worse.

I saw the lights on the cross-streets turn yellow. Time was running out. Soon, the moment would pass, and that would be it. I might never have this chance again. Next time, I might be the dead girl in a muddy car.

“Take me home with you, Aunt Mare.”

“What?” She sounded startled, shooting a look at me. I shifted in my seat, glancing back at her. There was no point in hiding my tears from her anymore.

“Please? Don’t make me go back there. Anywhere else. Please. I can’t go back there, and I need help.”

Our light turned green, and Mare just stared at me. She knew this would change everything for both of us. And she knew this might be my only way to escape it. Daddy Ray and his fists. Momma and her alcohol. A world that expected me to accept all its shit without a word, without ever fighting back. She nodded once and gave me a ghost of a smile, her hand moving to the turn signal and interrupting the steady tick.

She looked back to the road, and without another word, we turned left.

Turning Left first appeared in The Bloody Key Periodical, Vol. 1.