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Delilah wrings her hands together and she looks away for a moment. This bittersweet catharsis seems to heal, but her price to pay is to expose the wounds she hid in the first place.
“Elam started acting very strangely. Even for a secret monster he just got weird. He approached Pierce, introduced himself as my father and told him he didn’t want Pierce seeing his little girl anymore. They got into a shouting match. That was a long time ago now.”
Three minutes.
“I went back to my old job but I was dead inside. And of course I started seeing a bad boy there. I had no idea he was fresh out of rehab. I had no idea he was estranged from his wife. We were caught having sex in the building. Fired. My life was over.
“We did drugs recreationally. Nothing new for me. I clung onto this dirtball even though I knew I shouldn’t have, and before I knew it he turned ‘recreational’ into ‘daily habit.’ You know how some folks can tie one on and wake up the next day and just go about life like they never did? And others get bowled over and ugly right off the bat? James, the guy I was seeing, he got ugly. He couldn’t moderate himself. He dove headfirst into the deep end and held his breath. And that was it.
“I’m sure he blames me for where he’s at now. He stopped going to his group meetings to go out with me.”
She smiles the way someone does when they know the truth and don’t want to say it. So they put up a face and hope the moment melts away. My guess is she would not have been cool with a boyfriend who didn’t party. She knows it. But she puts on her face anyways.
Her eyes shimmer beautifully. Tears glaze over them and I hate how the glistening makes her so pretty. It’s not that I enjoy her turmoil, but I agree with her mother that not even pain can spoil her allure.
“I don’t remember when my downward spiral began, but I remember when Elam told me I could get out if I wasn’t going to pay him the mortgage. Now he had me, I guess. I knew how to earn my keep.”
She bursts out crying. I look away. Hearing it is enough.
Delilah continues: “So I started sleeping with him again. Elam. I didn’t know what else to do. He held my leash and he tugged at it. He knew just when and where and how. Maybe that was when the spiral began. No, it began before that...but it got much faster then.”
She calms down some to cry softly. Two minutes.
“I kept it going for a while. Elam wrote me letters—terrible things. He insinuated his wife could die in her sleep and he and I could relocate. He’d sell his company. We’d live happily ever after. He made odd statements. Creepy, veiled things. He started coming by again, not calling, not announcing himself. I woke one night and his car was idling outside. It was like three in the morning.
“I’m sure he did it more than once. I’m sure he was inside the house. But I never told anybody. I never called the cops or anything. Like I said, I make bad decisions. Looking back on it, maybe I should have. But anyone who knows me and who knows Elam...they would side with him. I’m not much of a...oh, I don’t know.
“I’m just not much. How’s that?”
No one says anything different. I don’t know why. I don’t either. But I don’t know the girl. She might be dead on.
“By this time I was drowning my sorrows in booze. I got back into recreational drugs. I think it got the better of me. I don’t remember a lot of my life. I remember waking up a lot and knowing I’d had sex the night before. I’d be nauseous from over doing it. I’d have strangers in the house. Even my parties were getting out of my control. Friends of friends of friends would show up. People so far removed from the guest list I might as well have broadcast the party’s time and date on the radio. I’d spend most the night meeting the folks who were inside my house, touching my things.
“At one of those parties a guy stayed over with me. I don’t remember his name now. All I remember was the guy had a Bugs Bunny tattoo and at some point Elam came in the room shouting. Who knows where he came from. He woke us up. Called me a whore and a jezebel. He threw things. He ran the guy off. We were screaming. I felt like such a raging bitch. Like a harpie or something. I never burned with hatred so much before that moment. Elam told me he was going to sell the house and I just freaked.
“I don’t remember what I said or did...but I think he started to ask himself if I was going to be good enough to be his new wife. I might have put some big dents in those golden happy dreams of us. Looking back on it I imagine he was buried further in some la-la land than I thought. I think he invented an entire world around us. Whatever it was, I needed him to not be mad anymore. I needed to do something. I had no job, I had no money.
“A few days later he came over and we made up. More sex. Big surprise, huh? Then we were kind of on-again off-again and I just started treating myself poorly. I even tried getting back with Pierce but that was so foolish. I was drunk so much during those few months. I think I got old to Elam. I put on weight. I quit bathing regularly. I think I changed something in him...I think he could smell the end on me. Maybe he couldn’t put his finger on it...but instinct told him I was rotting.
“I have no respect for myself anymore.”
Time’s up.
“So I left. Moved in with my mom. Elam would call and my mom didn’t know any better. They were old friends. When he told me he sold my house I was so desperate and depressed and on edge and hateful and sick of myself I tried to earn the house back. He used me. I think he got me pregnant. I mean, I am pregnant, I assume i
t is his. I’ve had sex with other guys since him. But he still sold the house.
“I was so unearthly mad. The word ‘fury’ cannot contain how angry I was. I think God was upset with me for poisoning my body with such hate and malice. Elam...I was so—unclean. I have felt like trash, but never like this. I had to hurt him back.
“I told Elam I was going to give his letters to the police. I wanted to make him pay for how bad he destroyed me with that house and how he made me act and how gross and used up and no-good-for-anyone he made me. I just wanted him to go away for good.
“He had a sweet wife, children who loved him. Those kids are my age. Hell, they’re a few years older, really. No one else knew about this second face of his. If he and I just agreed to part ways, we could keep our mouths shut. I would. It’d be easy. It’d be over. I keep secrets, Lord only knows. I have so many, what’s one more?”
Delilah scratches at her hands in some kind of biblical gnashing of teeth outburst. She grabs her hair and screeches. She almost jumps in her seat and looks so uncomfortable, so ready to uncork we all get uneasy. Meltdown.
“I mean, seriously? Right? Look at me. Jesus Christ, I let a guy do anal with me and then I gave him a blowjob! He was supposed to recognize the devotion in that act! What the fuck good am I? That’s something rapists do to women they are trying to degrade and I do it just because it might have kept the sonofabitch around! I did that for attention! I don’t share that little juicy tidbit! I can sure keep quiet about fucking my surrogate father for half my life!
“I just wanted him to go away for good. Is that so bad?” The woman sitting next to her reaches out and offers her hand. Delilah snatches it up like it were a lifeline and white-knuckles her grip.
