The Glass Castle_ A Memoir - Jeannette Walls [102]
“How dare you?” she shouted. “You’re in trouble now—big trouble. I’m telling your dad. Just you wait until he comes home.”
Mom’s threat didn’t worry me. The way I saw it, Dad owed me. I’d looked after his kids all summer, I’d kept him in beer and cigarette money, and I’d helped him fleece that miner Robbie. I figured I had Dad in my back pocket.
When I got home from school that afternoon, Mom was still curled up on the sofa bed, a small pile of paperbacks next to her. Dad was sitting at the drafting table, rolling a cigarette. He beckoned to me to follow him into the kitchen. Mom watched us go.
Dad closed the door and looked at me gravely. “Your mother claims you back-talked her.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s true.”
“Yes, sir,” he corrected me, but I didn’t say anything.
“I’m disappointed in you,” he went on. “You know damn good and well that you are to respect your parents.”
“Dad, Mom’s not sick, she’s playing hooky,” I said. “She has to take her obligations more seriously. She has to grow up a little.”
“Who do you think you are?” he asked. “She’s your mother.”
“Then why doesn’t she act like one?” I looked at Dad for what felt like a very long moment. Then I blurted out. “And why don’t you act like a dad?”
I could see the blood surge into his face. He grabbed me by the arm. “You apologize for that comment!”
“Or what?” I asked.
Dad shoved me up against the wall. “Or by God I’ll show you who’s boss around here.”
His face was inches from mine. “What are you going to do to punish me?” I asked. “Stop taking me to bars?”
Dad drew back his hand as if to smack me. “You watch your mouth, young lady. I can still whip your butt, and don’t think I won’t.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
Dad dropped his hand. He pulled his belt out of the loops on his work pants and wrapped it a couple of times around his knuckles.
“Apologize to me and to your mother,” he said.
“No.”
Dad raised the belt. “Apologize.”
“No.”
“Then bend over.”
Dad was standing between me and the door. There was no way out except through him. But it never occurred to me to either run or fight. The way I saw it, he was in a tighter spot than I was. He had to back down, because if he sided with Mom and gave me a whipping, he would lose me forever.
We stared at each other. Dad seemed to be waiting for me to drop my eyes, to apologize and tell him I was wrong so we could go back to being like we were, but I kept holding his gaze. Finally, to call his bluff, I turned around, bent over slightly, and rested my hands on my knees.
I expected him to turn and walk away, but there were six stinging blows on the backs of my thighs, each accompanied by a whistle of air. I could feel the welts rising even before I straightened up.
I walked out of the kitchen without looking at Dad. Mom was outside the door. She’d been standing there, listening to everything. I didn’t look at her, but I could see from the corner of my eye her triumphant expression. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t cry.
As soon as I got outside, I ran up into the woods, pushing tree branches and wild grape vines out of my face. I thought I’d start crying now that I was away from the house, but instead, I threw up. I ate some wild mint to get rid of the taste of bile, and I walked for what felt like hours through the silent hills. The air was clear and cool, and the forest floor was thick with leaves that had fallen from the buckeyes and poplars. Late in the afternoon, I sat down on a tree trunk, leaning forward because the backs of my thighs still stung. All through the long walk, the pain had kept me thinking, and by the time I reached the tree trunk, I had made two decisions.
The first was that I’d had my last whipping. No one was ever going to do that to me again. The second was that, like Lori, I was going to get out of Welch. The sooner, the better. Before I finished high school, if I could. I had no idea where I would go, but I did know I was going. I also knew it would not be easy. People got stuck in Welch. I had been counting on Mom