I thought maybe was getting a contact high or something, since I never liked pot and didn’t smoke it. I thought, maybe M had been with my family too long, which we all knew could have strange affects on people. Jock was a wreck, though.
Then M got angry with my father because dad was eighty-five and a little deaf and kept asking him the same questions about some electrical mishap in our kitchen when monster finally screamed, “If you want to know so badly, go to Riverhead and take a fucking course!” One second later, he was hugging my father and assured him he was kidding. Anyway by the time he came after me that night he first nearly murdered me, we were all basically terrified of him except for my mother, who was eighty-three and about five foot two. She knew something was wrong when I lost eighteen pounds in three weeks and my eyes were so huge they looked like they were going to take off on their own and go for a little adventure. She also noticed bruises and scrapes and this new unsettling habit I had acquired of leaping up in the air or out of my seat in terror if anyone spoke to me.
Of course, I couldn’t tell Mom I was living as a captive in their cottage house right on the same property as my adorable and trusting parents, because I thought Mom would drop dead on the spot and then I would have to take care of my father AND Monster, which was such a horrifying scenario that I was determined to keep my mother happy and alive as long as possible, which at that point, I thought, would be much longer than how long I was going to live.
But she figured it out. Mothers are like that, especially nosy ones. Something very wrong was happening to her daughter, and that man living with her in the guest house had something wrong with him.
The day before he tried to kill me with his truck, five months after he first lost his grip and turned from too-good-to-be-true sexy, hot, sweet, fabulous new boyfriend to nightmare “I guess I will have to kill you” (Exactly Van der Sloot’s rationale—very, very spooky, my little Mom marched to the bottom of the stairs in “our” (he had taken over everything) apartment and said, “Monster, I want to talk to you.”
Monster’s face conveyed for on brief moment an expression I had never seen before: shame. He turned from the porn he had uploaded on my computer, walked methodically towards the door and down half the steps to face her. I peeked from the door above them. Monster towered over Mom five steps above her and about seven feet taller. Mom goes. “I am kicking you out. Its three days before Christmas and I want you gone and I think you are an asshole. You have to leave right now. Or I will call the police.” She threw her shoulders back to look taller and burrowed her eyebrows to look … I am not sure. I slammed the door at the top of the stairs and leaned against it. Oh my God! She was a dead woman! I thought. He’ll kill her and then me and then the dogs and then Christmas will be extremely confusing when my children and brothers arrive and..
But I heard them have this conversation for a few moments and then Monster say. ‘“I understand.” Fuck you, Monster, you have never said that to me!
I heard him start back up the stairs to kill me and then Mom’s voice booming like I have never heard before, ever, “Don’t you dare walk up those stairs! Don’t you dare get near my daughter. You are leaving right this very second. I have my phone right here and 911 on speed dial. Get out.” And he did. It was just funny because it’s kind of like a jack russell ordering around a coyote or a tiger.
