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She floundered from man to man for almost two years, which meant we lived in six different cities in that time.
By then, Jake had wizened up, sending Letha a cell he kept on his account so he could contact her, so she could tell him what city she was in so he could send her money discreetly in the mail. It was nowhere near the amount our mother continued to get - and spend on herself - in child support, but it ensured that she got new ballet shoes when she needed them, and some new clothes when she started getting picked on at school in my tomboy hand-me-downs.
Then our mom got her ass done and fat sucked out of everywhere, and steered us in the direction of New York City because the men weren't so 'superficial' up there.
I flourished in the city.
Everyone was a fucking asshole, and totally comfortable with that.
They were crass, guarded, detached, cynical, and messy.
They were my people.
I got a full-time job, just a couple hours after school in the afternoons, then long shifts on the weekends. At seventeen, I could get away with it, but was paid under the table anyway, so no one was the wiser.
It allowed me to give Letha some pocket money on top of what Jake still sent her, but also sock some away for a day I knew would come sooner or later.
When I would have to move out.
My fights with my mother were getting worse, almost coming to blows at times because I, apparently, scared away all her suitors.
And, well, her attitude toward Letha was getting more savage again because, and there was no mistaking it, even at her young age, Letha was already about a thousand times better looking than our mother. In another five years, she was going to put every other woman in a room to shame.
And our mother, the vain, selfish, shallow woman she was, resented that.
In a strange twist, she somehow snagged herself husband number three that year, some stockbroker with beady eyes and a too-big nose, but enough zeros in his bank account to tempt her.
We all moved into a penthouse apartment.
And everything was good for a while.
When our mother was happy, the whole house could rest easily.
Until, of course, we couldn't.
This time, though, it wasn't exactly her fault per se.
Unless marrying him counted as a strike against her.
I was just resentful enough to say it did.
I had come home from a twelve-hour shift waiting tables - on my birthday weekend, the big eighteen saying I had freedom I had yet to feel -and I had passed out still in my work tee on top of my comforter.
I woke up to a cold hand under my shirt, cupping my breast.
I'd never heard my voice make the sound it made then - pure rage, calling my mother's name, making her come stumbling in, a little wine-drunk because she realized that money didn't make up for her sudden lack of youth.
"Kurt, what are you doing in here?" she asked, brows furrowed.
My mother could be given very little credit, but there had always been a rule that the men never came in our bedrooms. Until this night, when I was suddenly not a risk for a child abuse charge, when a man finally broke that rule.
"Feeling me up in my fucking sleep, that's what he's doing," I told her, crossing my hands over my chest that, just from a touch, somehow felt dirty and violated.
It wasn't like I was some blushing virgin. My cherry got popped in the back of some much older guy's pick-up truck the year before. And I hadn't been a saint after that either. But it had always been my choice whose hands got to touch me or not.
So even though the act wouldn't leave any permanent scars, it added another layer of distrust toward the male sex, one I would carry with me for, well, ever.
My mother had looked stricken, though underneath it, I could see the resentment, the part of her brain that was maybe thinking - now that I was of-age - that I was 'stealing her man' instead of being groped without my consent.
"This can't be happening. No. I can't handle this right now," she declared, tearing up, rushing out of the room, her shithead of a husband following behind her, doting on her, just like she wanted, just like she always wanted, even though he was doing it with hands that had just touched her own damn daughter inappropriately.
The rage that night was something new, something that spurred action.
I grabbed a duffle bag, shoving all my clothes and loved possessions inside. I fished my cash out from beneath my bed, shoved it into my purse, then went to wake up Letha as I packed bags for her as well. Four of them. Because, thanks to Jake, she actually had things she wanted to hold onto, things that reminded her of love.
