The Whore of Babylon, a Memoir - By Katrina Prado Page 0,1

school for one semester, almost driving us to bankruptcy, but nothing helped. Rob began drinking, sometimes heavily and some nights it seemed we fought until the sun rose. I had hoped the move to California would mean a fresh start. For all of us.

“You can’t stop me,” Robyn declares. In her eyes is the steely resolve that all fifteen of her years can muster.

She spins around and yanks open the front door. I blink as the door slams shut. Silence spills into my ears with such force it makes my head hurt.

Should I have tried to physically restrain Robyn? Would that have saved her? Looking back, I think the answer to that question is yes. I should have done whatever it took to rescue her. The problem was that I truly didn’t know what saving her included at the time. Or that I might need as much rescuing as my beloved daughter. On so many occasions I have pondered my choice of words that fateful night; the night that was the beginning of the end, and I have wondered. Did I drive her to it?

Later that night I am lying in bed talking with Rob about the argument. He’s cuddling next to my limp form, his body smells of aftershave and sweat; my favorite combination. The lingering smell of old beer and an even older bar also linger on the air but I choose to ignore that.

“You should have seen her,” I say between silent tears. “She looked awful. Like a hooker,” I sob.

Rob sighs. It is the sigh of the defeated. One who believes any future effort will be wasted.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he says.

“I know,” I add. “She’s always been such a headstrong girl.”

We remain silent a moment. Then Rob says,

“I guess being a teenager means she’s just going through that rebellious period. They all go through it.” He presses me closer. “We did; remember?”

I nod but don’t say anything. My greatest act of rebellion had been watching Rob and his high school buddies cruise the Aztec UFO Information Center’s gift shop as they shoplifted alien head key chains.

“Did I tell you, Thompson at work said his fourteen year old daughter Trish came home last week with her tongue pierced.”

“Lord,” I murmur.

“It’s probably just a phase. Hopefully she’ll grow out of it.”

“Hopefully,” I sigh.

Little did we know how tragically wrong we would be.

July 1st, 2002

The kitchen clock ticks just past five in the morning. My eyes open suddenly and at the same time, a sharp pain shoots down my neck settling into my shoulder, a result of falling asleep in the living room chair, waiting for Robyn to come home.

I throw off the afghan I used to cover myself, my body rebelling at the sudden movement. I wipe off a sheen of sweat already gathered on my face. Instinctively, I know my daughter had not come home yet, and I fight down that bowel-wrenching panic that she lies dead in some gutter, or else unconscious in a hospital room somewhere. Thoughts that bloom in my mind like tenacious weeds; unwelcome and unbidden, yet doggedly persistent.

I realize, from Robyn’s previous disappearing acts, that she is probably sleeping at her friend Jenny’s house even though she hasn’t called and her curfew is midnight. My eyes fall to the overflowing laundry basket sitting on the edge of the couch as the air conditioner kicks on. We can’t afford to run the air. I stand up and walk to the thermostat, moving the dial up to 86. Pickles, our little tabby, regards me disinterestedly from the couch.

I move to my purse, plowing through its contents for my Rolaids to quiet the persistent burning in my gut. I dig out two from the roll and greedily chew them.

“Did you see this?” Rob growls, suddenly at the doorway to the living room. He is fresh from the shower; heading to work on the weekend after a full forty hours during the week; picking up extra shifts whenever he can. The idea was so that we could save to buy a house. But with the prices of everything, including housing out here, we might as well be trying to save to buy an island in Belize.

He holds his brush in the air as if it were a wounded animal. It is his good one, the one with boar’s bristles he bought last month at the mall. Rob is fastidious when it comes to grooming. But his brush has long blond hairs in