until I’m good and ready.”
“Can’t you see the looks on their faces? You’re making them sick. I thought I was doing them such a favor by trying to do everything by the book, everything right, never saying anything bad about you, always trying to keep to the schedule no matter what, and here you are, on drugs now, drugs you’ve obtained in a fake name, or stolen maybe, who knows, so you’re a criminal, too. Are you on them right now? Is that why you let Jewel bounce on the couch with a jawbreaker in her mouth? What if that had happened at your place, Mal? What if Casey hadn’t been here, and Jewel choked to death while you stood there in a daze?”
“That wouldn’t happen! I love my daughter!”
“Then why are you doing drugs! Why did you drink and drive with her in the car!”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why the fuck shouldn’t it be?” I’m roaring now, past trying, past caring. “I’m tired of your excuses, I’m tired of your tragic past, I’m tired of putting my kids in the line of fire every time I drop them off with you. Get out.”
“No.”
I start to dial one-handed. “Get out now, or I’m calling the police to haul you away, with your illegally obtained drugs in your purse.”
“Maybe I’ll tell the police you hit me.”
She rears back and whacks herself on the cheek. It leaves a red mark. “How do you like that!” she shrieks, and she slaps herself again.
I recognize this. Mallory is spinning out of control now, like a dervish. I walk backward up the stairs, slowly. She continues to slap her face, her smile triumphant.
The kids are all gathered in my room, on my bed. I join them, close and lock the door, and call 911.
I hear some breaking of things downstairs, which makes Jewel gasp. I pull her into my lap. She presses one ear against my chest, and I cover her other ear with the palm of my hand.
I hear Mallory scream up the stairs: “Jewel is not even yours!”
I press my hand harder over Jewel’s ear as I tell the dispatcher, “Yes, I’m having a problem with my ex-wife . . .”
After a minute or two, I turn on the radio to drown out the tantrum, which has gone past intelligible speech.
I hear someone shouting on the other side of my front door. I go to my window, and look down to see a patrol car.
I think of Mallory slapping her cheek, and a sick fear spreads in my stomach that if she plays her role to the hilt, I may be the one hauled off in handcuffs.
There’s more shouting from downstairs. I look out the window again, and when I hear the bedsprings squeak for the kids getting up I use my best stern-Dad voice. “Stay back.”
Jewel does not need to once again witness her mother in police custody. Mallory is in cuffs, being lowered into a police car. This is what needed to happen, I know. But she was once my wife. My children’s mother.
A deep voice calls, “Mr. Turner?”
“In here,” I answer, forcing myself to be calm.
“Come down the stairs, sir. Make sure I can see your hands.”
I tell the children to wait, and descend the stairs, hands palm out, in front of me, and I reach the landing where the stairs curve down into the living room, where I have an aerial view of half the main floor.
The officer’s face has a practiced calm. Surrounding him are the remnants of my living room. A fireplace poker is in the guts of my TV. Curtains are torn down, the computer is smashed to the floor. DVDs, books, anything she could grasp in the living room, she must have used as ordnance.
This makes the time she threw a mug at me look like an amusing prank.
He asks me who else is in the house and where they are. While I wait on the landing, he ascends the rest of the stairs, peeks into the rooms, always watching me at the same time. When he seems satisfied no one is lurking about, we descend the stairs together.
“We need to speak to you, sir. She says you hit her, and there’s a mark on her cheek.”
I flinch. “No. This is going to sound crazy, but I swear it’s true. She slapped herself, on purpose, trying to get me in trouble. That’s when I took the kids upstairs. She’s . . . she’s not right. Never