put on your lying smiles for everyone else, but you need to be real with me.”
“Fine,” she says and shrugs. “Why wouldn’t your sisters think I’m a whore out for your money? People have always looked at me and seen a slut. Even when I was barely a teenager, I got called that.”
I recognize the darkness in her eyes. I’d seen my sisters’ faces after my father tried to rape them. They fought him off for years—at first with words and dodging his filthy hands. Then they survived by using violence.
I suspect that was one reason the old man hated me so much. Once I got old enough to hit him, his chances of winning against Barbie and Bambi ended. They managed to kick his ass, but he always hurt them too. By thirteen, though, I could put our father down with one punch. He was no longer the big man in the house.
Still, before then, I saw the looks on my sisters’ faces after they’d wrestled their way free of him. The expression is a mix of fear, shame, and rage. I’m not particularly surprised to learn Lana’s known violence in her life. She grew up poor and attractive. Her main source of income involved using her body.
I’ve seen the signs before, in my sisters, the club bunnies, and many of the old ladies. They didn’t choose the violent club life for shits and giggles. Violence has always been a part of their lives. Now they get to be at the top of the food chain, where the suffering rolls down on others rather than on them.
“Barbie’s problem isn’t you,” I explain softly. “She’s got something fucked in her head. The same shit that killed our mom. Dafne Parrish got so paranoid one day that she sped all over town. Finally, she drove her car into a fucking tree at eighty miles per hour, thinking a man in black fucker was after her. Now Barbie’s getting paranoid in the same way, but she refuses to see a doctor. She’ll take a small fear, like Sidonie in town with a woman she doesn’t know well, and feed that fear until she’s in a state of hysteria.”
Lana doesn’t react right away. I reach out to stroke her cheek, expecting her to flinch. But she trained herself long ago to accept what she has no power to stop.
“Where’s your head right now?” I whisper.
“I never felt like my mother loved me. I felt the same way with my sister. I thought I was alone. When Desi was little, like a baby, I loved her so much, but then she got older, and she liked Kenny more. I felt like she didn’t want me once she was old enough to choose. I’ve always felt as if I was on my own. I’m trying to teach myself to be close to people, but it’s difficult not to assume the worst.”
“Why would you think they didn’t love you?” I say, wrapping my arms around her so she can understand how she’s never alone with me.
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Lana’s dull expression cracks a little, and her voice gets small. “My mom loved my dad so much, and I thought she blamed me for him dying. Max wasn’t born yet. He didn’t know her, and he loved Mom. He never wanted me, though. That’s why he killed himself. Having me was too much of a burden. Max would have been another me. That’s why he started using again and OD’d.”
“You’re assuming that, right? You have no idea what your father was thinking. Weren’t you a child when he died?”
“Yes, but why else would he kill himself?”
“Life is complicated,” I say, brushing my lips against her forehead. “Some people are weak and not by choice. Look at Barbie. She wants to be strong, but she can’t control what’s happening in her brain. Isn’t it possible that your dad had something messed up inside of him?”
“I guess.”
“I didn’t want Summer,” I whisper as my fingers stroke her back. “You know I fought that responsibility. Once I had to take her into my life, I was overwhelmed, but I never thought of dying. But my brain isn’t whacked. Just like how you wouldn’t react the way Barbie did because your brain isn’t messed up like hers.”
“Isn’t it? I think all wrong about stuff.”
“Yeah, but not in an irrational way. You’re more like Bambi. Life ran you through the wringer, but you can control yourself. Your mother is the