And When She Was Good Read Free Page A

and cold to pretend a sudden errand on her bike.
    â€œI said I wouldn’t.” Despite her best efforts, a note of exasperation crept into her voice.
    â€œAre you getting smart with me?”
    â€œNo, sir.” Her voice was very tiny now, a mouse squeak.
    â€œI said, Are you getting smart with me? ”
    She tried to speak so he could hear her. “No, sir.”
    â€œARE YOU GETTING SMART WITH ME?”
    â€œN-n-n-”—she could not get the words out. This was new, at least with her. But this is how the fights with her mother began. Her father kept hearing disagreement where there was only appeasement. “N-n-n-n-”
    He threw his beer can at her head. His aim was impressive; the can struck her temple. Empty, or close to, it didn’t hurt, but she flinched, then continued to the kitchen, trying to remember why she had started to go there in the first place.
    The house was small, but it was still shocking how fast he came up from the sofa and into the kitchen behind her, grabbing her shirt at the collar and whirling her around to face him.
    â€œI—will—have—respect—in—my—house.” Each word was accompanied by a slap. The slaps were surprisingly dainty and precise, as if he were beating out a staccato rhythm on some improvised piece of percussion. Helen had had a drum set when she was a baby. She knew because she had seen the photos of herself playing with it, but she didn’t remember it. She looked so happy in those photos. Did all babies—
    Now he was banging her head on the kitchen table. Again he seemed to have absolute control. It was so slow, so measured. He was still speaking, but it was hard to focus on the words. Something was bleeding. Her nose, she thought. She heard another voice, from very far away. “Oh, Hector, oh, Hector.” Her mother was standing in the doorway that led from the carport, a bag of groceries in her arms.
    Her father acted as if he were coming out of a trance, as if he had no idea how he came to be holding his daughter by the scruff of her neck.
    â€œShe was very disrespectful,” he said.
    â€œOh, Hector.” Her mother put the groceries on the kitchen drainboard, dampened a paper towel, and applied it to Helen’s gushing nose.
    â€œI think I might have a concussion,” Helen whispered.
    â€œShhh,” her mother said. “Don’t upset him.”
    And that was the day that her father went upstairs and broke every single album she had, cracking them across his knee as if they were very bad children who needed to be spanked. That was okay. Albums weren’t cool. Not that she could afford CDs or a player, but she could live without the albums. She liked to listen to WFEN, a station that broadcast from Chicago, available on her little portable radio late at night. It wasn’t a particularly good station—it played soupy ballads, things that were old-fashioned even by her mother’s standards—but she liked the idea that her radio could pick up something from Illinois, even if it meant a night listening to Mel Tormé and Peggy Lee.
    â€œThat’s old people’s music,” her father said, standing in the door.
    She started, but he was already gone. Maybe he had never been there at all.
    That weekend her father went out and bought her a Sony Walkman and ten tapes from Lonnie’s Record & Tape Traders. Indigo Girls and Goo Goo Dolls and De La Soul, Dream Theater, and Depeche Mode. She couldn’t begin to figure his selection criteria. He also bought her a heart-shaped locket from Zales. Her mother exclaimed at how pretty it was. She wasn’t envious that it was Helen who had gotten all these gifts. She seemed happy for her. Helen understood. Every beating she got was one her mother didn’t get. Hector’s beatings were a finite commodity. A man had only so much time in the day.
    A few weeks later, when her mother fastened the locket around