seen him so angry. He was not a guy to show his temper, but he damn sure showed it now. He let me know what a disgrace I was to the family name. He reminded me how much I’d been given in life and how recklessly I’d squandered it. He pointed out what a waste it had been for my parents to have invested any money whatsoever in my education and upbringing, when I was so unworthy of their gifts. He told me what happens to girls like me over time—that we get used, then we get used up, then we get thrown away. He said I was lucky not to be in jail, pregnant, or dead in the gutter, the way I’d been behaving. He said I’d never find a respectable husband now: who would have me, if they knew even part of my story? After all the mutts I had been with, I was now part mutt myself. He informed me that I must never tell our parents what I had done in New York, or what level of calamity I had caused. This was not to protect me (I didn’t deserve protection), but to protect them. Mother and Dad would never get over the blow, if they knew how degraded their daughter had become. He made it clear that this was the last time he would ever rescue me. He said, “You’re lucky I’m not taking you straight to reformatory school.”
All this he said right in front of the young man driving the car—as if the guy were invisible, deaf, or inconsequential.
Or as if I were so disgusting, Walter didn’t care who found out about it.
So Walter poured vitriol upon me, and our driver got to hear all the details, and I just sat there in the backseat and braved it out in silence. It was bad, yes. But I have to say, in comparison to my recent confrontation with Edna, it wasn’t that bad. (At least Walter was giving me the respect of being angry; Edna’s unshakable sangfroid had been so minimizing. I’d take his fire over her ice any day.)
What’s more, by this point, I was pretty much numb to all pain. I’d been awake for over thirty-six hours. In the past day and a half, I’d been drunk and screwed and scared and debased and dumped and reproached. I’d lost my best friend, my boyfriend, my community, my fun job, my self-respect, and New York City. I’d just been informed by Edna, a woman whom I loved and admired, that I was a nothing of a human being—and moreover that I would always be a nothing. I’d been forced to beg my older brother to save me, and to let him know what a shitheel I was. I’d been exposed, carved out, and thoroughly scoured. There wasn’t much more that Walter could say to add to my shame or to further wound me.
But—as it turns out—there was something our driver could say.
Because about an hour into the ride, when Walter had stopped lecturing me for just a moment (just to catch his breath, I guess), the skinny kid at the wheel spoke up for the first time. He said, “Must be pretty disappointing for a stand-up guy like you, Walt, to end up with a sister who’s such a dirty little whore.”
Now, that I felt.
Those words did more than just sting; they burned me all the way to the center of my being, as though I’d swallowed acid.
It’s not only that I couldn’t believe the kid said it; it’s that he said it right in front of my brother. Had he ever seen my brother? All six foot two inches of Walter Morris? All that muscle and command?
With my breath caught in my throat, I waited for Walter to deck this guy—or at the very least to reprimand him.
But Walter said nothing.
Apparently, my brother would let the indictment stand. Because he agreed.
As we drove on, those brutal words echoed and ricocheted throughout the small, enclosed space of the car—and through the even smaller, even more enclosed space of my mind.
Dirty little whore, dirty little whore, dirty little whore . . .
The words melted at last into an even more brutal silence that pooled around us all like dark water.
I closed my eyes and let it drown me.
My parents—who’d had no warning that we were coming—were at first overjoyed to see Walter, and then baffled and concerned by what he was doing there, and why