Page 111 of Road Queens
“No,” she replied. She’d thought she was done crying, but nope; she could feel tears beneath the bandages, knew her sinuses were filling like a bathtub. “It’s not okay at all.”
“We’re sorry,” Amanda said, her lower lip trembling. “Oh, Cass, we’re so sorry.”
“D’you know who isn’t?” When they looked at each other but didn’t answer, she went on. “My mom. She doesn’t care that Dad’s dead. I don’t think she even cares that she’s going to prison.”
“Maybe she won’t,” Sidney suggested. “Maybe she can ... I mean ... self-defense? Or something.” It was strange how her hesitancy, so out of character, made the nightmare worse.
“She kicked him in the balls, shoved him off the dock, then jammed a kayak paddle between his shoulders and drowned him. You wouldn’t think someone her size could overpower someone his size, but ...”
“Once he was down, he couldn’t get any leverage,” Amanda said. “Plus, your mom had the whole lifting-a-car-off-her-child adrenaline rush going for her.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll testify.”
Sidney grasped that straw. “Goddamned right we will! We can tell the judge about the bruises and the black eyes. We’ll tell themeverything. Are you mad at us?” she added in a small voice.
“What? No. Why?”
“We could’ve called the cops. I mean ... we knew. Nobody’s that clumsy. It was the Thing We Didn’t Talk About. We could’ve ...”
Sidney trailed off and looked at Amanda for help. “It didn’t have to get this bad,” she finished.
“Not your fault,” Cass said firmly. “We’re teenagers, for God’s sake, we don’t even have driver’s licenses yet. This isn’t on us. Or at least, it’s not on you guys. And calling the police doesn’t work. Mom just sits there and sits there and denies everything.”
There was a shocked silence, followed by Amanda’s tentative, “We didn’t know that. That you called the cops.”
“Twice.”
“Fuck,” Sidney muttered, staring at the floor. Then she looked up and gestured to Cassandra’s face. “Is your eye okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just swelled shut; that’s why it’s bandaged over. No permanent damage. Doc says it’ll go down in a few days. And a mere twenty-eight stitches.” She managed a laugh. “That’s what ‘mostly superficial’ means around here.”
“Sure,” Sidney said, wide eyed. “Just what I was thinking. Superficial.”
“And nobody’s testifying. Not you guys, not me, not even Mom, because there won’t be a trial. Mom confessed. She told the policeeverything. If the hospital hadn’t called the cops, she would have.”
“Why’d he do it?” Amanda asked abruptly. “That’s what I can’t figure. It’s such a horrible random thing to do, I mean ... a fishhook?”
“I don’t know,” Cass said flatly. “I’ll never know. C’mere.” She reached out and, when they each took one of her hands, hauled them closer. Amanda let out a yelp of surprise, and Sidney almost stumbled.
“This shit,” she told them in a low voice. “This awful shit cycle. I’m done. I’m not putting up with it, not for a minute, not for a—a—”
“Nanosecond?”
“I’m gonna keep saving, and I’m gonna get my bike, and I’m gonna help women like my mom.”
“You mean ... killers?” Sidney asked, sounding not a little horrified.
“She means battered significant others,” Amanda said. “Don’t you, Cass?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna make a place for them. It’ll be theirs. Not a shelter or anything like that. I don’t want to try and reinvent the wheel. This would be something short term, like an ER visit. They won’t have to fill out a form or talk to a social worker or any of that bureaucratic bullshit.”
Sidney blinked. “So ...notlike an ER visit.”
“I’m not following what you’re—”
“I’ll set up a system, and they can call, and I’ll come get them, no questions asked. Like, thesecondthey call. Then I take them somewhere safe so they can figure out what to do. You know that stupid starfish story Sidney did for Fogarty’s speech class?”
