“You really should go out tonight.” My sister’s voice filtered through my cell phone’s speaker, that same damn concerned inflection seeping into her words. 

 

I had to resist the urge to groan loudly into the receiver, pausing briefly in my steady stride down the sidewalk to adjust my grip on the bags of groceries in my free hand.  “Frank said he would take me out.”

 

“But that doesn’t mean you’re going,” she sighed.  Well, she wasn’t wrong.  “Melody, it’s your birthday.  You need to go out and do something.  You can’t sit at home with Dad, that’s only gonna make it worse.”

 

The weight of the grocery bags had made my fingers go numb, the plastic handles digging into the digits and making the tips turn a vague shade of purple.  Just one of the joys of doing all of the shopping when you didn’t have a driver’s license.  I picked up my pace.  “Vee, we’ve been over this.  Would you really want to do anything on your birthday if it was the last time you saw her alive?”

 

“Mom wouldn’t want this, Mel.” There was a pleading edge to Veronica’s voice.  She probably felt guilty that I had spent the last two years living with and supporting our asshole dad.  Well, she should.  She was the one who took the easy way out and got married to escape that hellhole, leaving me to deal with daddy dearest all by myself.  I guess that was one of the perks of being eight years older than your younger sister.  You have more escape routes laid out in front of you.  “She’d want you to be out there enjoying yourself, just like we did that last night with her.”

 

“Vee,” I snapped.  “Shut up.”  I was past shedding tears over the last memories of my mom, but it didn’t mean I wanted to relive them.

 

“I’m sorry,” she sounded withered.  Good.  I was in no mood to deal with her half-hearted attempts at salvaging my life.  It was clear I had to do that on my own.

 

I pushed open the gate to my small yard with my hip, the latch long broken and rusted away.  “Listen, I gotta go.  I just got home.  Hopefully Dad’s asleep or something.  That’d be the best birthday present he could possibly give me.”

 

Veronica was silent for a moment, I almost thought the call was dropped, but then she spoke up, my phone precariously balanced between my shoulder and ear as I rummaged for my keys in my hoodie pocket.  “All right.  I’ll talk to you later.  Please, at least think about going out.  Happy birthday.  I love you.”

 

“I love you, too,” I responded out of habit.  I was rarely conscious of when those four little words left my mouth anymore.  

 

I shoved the phone in my pocket as I wrestled with the old, rickety doorknob.  It took a precise jerk upward followed by a a counter-clockwise turn of the bronze knob before I was able to stumble through the door and drop the grocery bags on the old carpeting with a dull thud.  I looked down at my hand, lined with deep imprints from the handles of the plastic bags, a vague tingling sensation flowing through my fingers as the blood began to circulate through them once more.  I really needed to get a driver’s license.  And then a car after that.  Lord knows Dad would never let me use his.  It would give me too much freedom.

 

Quietly shutting the door behind me, I flexed my fingers to help get the feeling back into them before dragging the bags into the kitchen.  It was a small apartment, a single hallway connecting the living room, kitchen, my room, and my parents’ room—well, my dad’s room—and it was the only place I called home for the last nineteen years.  It wasn’t much, but it was all I’d ever known.  Kinda like a lot of other things in my life.

 

I sighed, unloading the grocery bags on the kitchen table and began to put away the contents.  Milk.  Bread.  Butter.  Beef.  Whiskey.  You know, the essentials.  My parents always had a deal with the liquor shop down the street that my sister and I could go pick up their daily fixes ourselves.  My dad worked and my mom didn’t really like to leave the house, so five year old me and thirteen year old Veronica would meander on down the block and pick up the drink of the day.  I could barely see over the counter and yet that guy still had no qualms selling to us.  Good to know no one thought there was a problem in this small Brooklyn apartment.

 

As I closed the fridge, I heard some shuffling around in the hallway, followed by some muttered curses and a groan.  I immediately tensed up, already anticipating any and all problems Dad could possibly find with the day.

 

“Hey,” his voice came from the doorway, raspy with sleep.  For as long as I could remember, Dad never got hangovers.  He was a functional drunk both during and after the fact.  Unless, of course, he never really gave himself the chance to be hungover.  There was always a glass or bottle of something in his hands.  Said glass was just empty this time.

 

“Hey, Dad,” I kept my voice flat, glancing back briefly in his direction to acknowledge his presence before looking out the small window above the kitchen sink.  He hated to be ignored, and I was in no real mood to antagonize him today.

 

“Why are you home from work already?”  He sounded accusatory, like I’d actually be stupid enough to skip out on work early.  Someone in this house had to bring in money.

 

“It’s almost seven, Dad.  I’m a bit late, actually.  I had to stop by the store on the way home to pick up some stuff.”  My tone was casual, conversational.  It had to be.  Dad got pissed at even the slightest hint of lip for anyone.  That’s why not even his own parents speak to him anymore.  He cut them out of his life on his own a long time ago.

 

“Ah, shit, Melody.” He stormed forward and pushed me aside.  I staggered, surprised from his sudden approach, but stayed on my feet.  It’s not the worst I’d seen him do.  “You fuckin’ know that’s not where the bread goes.  Did you fuckin’ put anything where it belongs?  For fuck’s sake, I’ll do it myself.”  He opened the refrigerator, another string of curses falling from his mouth as he began to rearrange the groceries I’d just put away.  Apparently putting the milk on the middle shelf instead of the top shelf was his trigger today.  “Do I have to fuckin’ do everything around here?”

 

“Sorry, Dad,” I muttered, turning to leave the kitchen, but I didn’t get far.

 

“Mel!” he barked, holding out his empty glass to me.  “Fix me up a whiskey sour while I fix this shit.”

 

I took it from him without a word, snatching the lemon juice we kept on hand from the refrigerator door.  I didn’t exactly expect a warm hug and a joyous “Happy birthday!” from him today, but I guess I had hoped to at least be left alone.

 

I fixed the drink and left it on the kitchen counter for him as he continued to rummage around in the fridge and pantry.  I didn’t even buy that much for him to rearrange.  Whatever, it would keep him busy for a few minutes.  I’ll have that many more minutes of peace.

 

I walked briskly down the hall and to my room, but my footsteps stopped just short of passing through the threshold.  It had taken me easily six months to be able to sleep in my own bed after mom died, but now I was faced with that same lung-crushing dread as I stood outside my room.  It was two years ago today, on the night of my seventeenth birthday, that I last saw my mom alive here in my room, laying in my bed.  We hadn’t done much that day, but the fact we convinced mom to leave the house and Dad was in a rare good mood was good enough.  We went to a local mini-golf course, my mom, my dad, my sister, and I, and we had one of those family fun nights that all of my friends seemed to complain about.  It was nice and it was my birthday.  For once, Dad hadn’t ruined the night with a plate shattered on the kitchen wall or a knife to mom’s throat.  It was nice.  It was fun.  We were a family.

 

But then we got home and mom said she didn’t feel well.  She laid down in my bed for an hour, and when I went in to check on her she said she couldn’t see me.  She couldn’t see anything.  I ran and told Dad that something was wrong with her.  He rolled his eyes.  Something was always wrong with her.  But this was different, it felt different.  And it was.

 

They took my mom away in an ambulance, her yellowing skin and swollen legs a clear indication to outsiders that something was wrong, but to us that was just her, it was normal.  Turns out that it wasn’t, and a week later she died from cirrhosis of the liver.  I guessed all of those liquor store visits my sister and I were sent on never should have been.

 

My phone buzzed in my pocket.  It was one of three text messages from Frank, my boyfriend of the last three years.

 

Happy birthday!  How was work?

 

You’re not still in work are you?

 

Babe, I’m picking you up tonight to go out.  Please don’t ignore me.  You can’t sit inside with him this year.  Not again.  I’ll be there at eight.

 

I was really hoping he would forget.  I mean, Dad clearly forgot, why wouldn’t Frank?  Granted, he was right.  I couldn’t stay here tonight.  I didn’t even have the solace of my room to run to, and the idea of having to sit in an awkward silence while Dad watched the Mets game wasn’t the most appealing.  I sighed, rubbing at the bridge of my nose before responding with a simple Okay.  That’s probably more than Frank expected to hear from me, at least.

 

I could hear Dad still rummaging around in the kitchen, so I turned and walked to the end of the hall to the bathroom.  The least I could do was wash up and make myself presentable.  I doubted Frank would care if I didn’t look my best, but I sure as hell did.  Our bathroom was old.  The tiles were an old lime green—probably from back in the fifties when this place was first renovated—the sink an off-white color with mold growing in the space between the ceramic sink top and the wall, and the mirror foggy from years of water splashes and a long crack along the side from that time my dad cut himself when shaving and threw the razor at the mirror. 

 

It wasn’t until I looked in the mirror that I realized how tired I actually was.  Not even my makeup and eye cream was enough to hide the bags under my eyes.  All I did anymore was work.  Work and sleep, the two things that let me escape this hell house for a few hours every day.  If I timed it right, sometimes I didn’t see Dad at all, and those were the best days of all.

 

I touched up my makeup, brushed out my hair, and did the best I could based on what I was working with.  Hopefully it was enough to at least fool strangers into thinking I wasn’t actually a real life zombie.  Mom was the one who taught me all of this in the short time that I had her.  She showed me how to straighten my hair, the right way to put on eyeliner so I didn’t poke myself in the eye, how to properly highlight my cheekbones and accentuate my features, all things a mom tended to do.  My fingers traced the curve of my lips, painted with my mom’s favorite shade of lipstick—Revlon’s Silver City Pink—and traveled down to my color bone where my favorite necklace rested.  A simple silver chain with a silver Treble clef dangling from the delicate links.  It probably seemed stupid, but my family was a musical oriented one.  Mom was a dancer, dad played a bunch of different instruments—guitar, piano, accordion—and if there was anything that kept this family together, it was the rare times we would sit around the living room and play or listen to music.  Hell, even my name was heavily influenced by their love of music.  I used to hate it, but since mom died, I felt closer to her than ever when I listened to those songs she used to teach me the Charleston.

 

“Mel! Mel, where are you?”  Dad’s voice boomed loudly in the small apartment.  I took a calming breath before I poked my head out the bathroom door.

 

“In the bathroom, Dad!”

 

He appeared at the end of the hall, seeming to be in a better mood than he had been an hour ago.  That whiskey sour did him some good.  “Ah!  There you are.  I was worried you had gone to bed before I could say happy birthday.”

 

It took all of my self-control to not openly gawk at him.  “O—Oh.  Thanks.  Yeah, sorry I was just freshening up.”

 

He strode forward, a bushy eyebrow quirked in curiosity.  He was a tall, lanky man, not really someone many people would think intimidating, but it’s really all about demeanor in the end.  “For what?  You just got home.”

 

“Yeah, but, like you said, it’s my birthday.  Frank said he wants to take me out.”

 

Dad scoffed.  “You’re still going out with that pussy?”

 

“Just because he wouldn’t punch you doesn’t make him a pussy.”

 

“He said he’s a boxer, and yet he wouldn’t fuckin’ punch me?  What kind of bitch-ass boxer is he, then?”

 

“The kind that doesn’t want to punch his girlfriend’s father in the face.”

 

He waved me off, like that was an insignificant detail.  “Doesn’t matter.  You’re not going out tonight.  You never go out on your birthday.”

 

I swallowed against my dry throat, building up the courage to defy him.  “Well, I’m going out tonight, Dad.”

 

“What, and leave me alone?” His voice was losing that rare conversational tone it had a moment ago, taking on that usual antagonist edge I’d grown up with.  “How the fuck is that fair?”

 

I finally stepped out of the bathroom.  It was almost eight, I had to be ready for Frank.  “I’m just doing what mom would want.  She’s probably already looking down on me and shaking her head for wasting the past two years of my life.”

 

“So, what, you’re saying you’re over it now?” His voice was gradually growing in volume.  I flinched with every decibel it rose, a side effect from my childhood.  “We can all fuckin’ move on now and forget all about your mother, I guess!”

 

“That’s not what I said—”

 

“You’d leave me here alone to deal with this while you’re out partyin’ it up with that fuckin’ boxer.”  He paced up and down the hallway, his agitation growing with each second.  Every step he took only made my chest grow tighter.  “Everyone leaves me in the end.  Everyone.  My parents.  Your sister.  Your mother—”

 

“And whose fault is that?”  I snapped, feeling strangely brave in front of the man I watched degrade my mother my entire life.  The man who cut her off from her friends and family.  The man who drove her to drink.  “You’re the one with the winning personality.”

 

“Don’t fuckin’ talk back to me, Mel.”  He took long strides toward me, sticking his finger in my face.  A warning.  “Not after everything I’ve done for you.”

 

“What exactly have you done for me, dad?”  I was on the verge of tears, my own voice becoming loud and shrill.  “Refusing to let me go to college while all of my friends did?  I could live with that.  I understood it, even!  Mom just died, you were let go from your job, and See got married.  You needed help bringing in money.  I was willing to do that.  But here we are two years later and you sit at home drinking yourself into oblivion while I work myself to death at a dead-end job.”

 

The hand that held the glass of whiskey pulled back.  I ducked.  I heard the glass shatter on the wall behind my head as my arms began to shake.  “Your mother would never—”

 

“I’m not mom!”  I stood tall again, tears streamed down my face and my knees quaking.  “I’m not her.  I never will be.  And I will definitely not let you ruin me like you ruined her.”

 

That intimidating facade faltered for a moment, his face falling.  “You’re blaming me for her death?  I didn’t kill her!”

 

“You can keep telling yourself that, Dad.” I sniffled, wiping away the tears that still trickled down my cheeks.  So much for looking nice for tonight. “But we both know why she drank.  And it wasn’t because she was out partying all the time.”  I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket.  I risked a glance down at the screen, a text from Frank lighting up the device.

 

I’m here, babe.  Is everything okay? I heard yelling.

 

“Don’t fucking think we’re done here, Mel.”

 

“We are very done here, Dad.” I pushed past him and stormed into my room, quickly grabbing a backpack from the foot of my bed and began stuffing clothes inside.

 

“W—What are you doing?” He sounded surprised, almost panicked.  I quickly slung the backpack over my shoulder, standing as tall as my small frame would allow me.

 

“I’m gonna stay at Vee’s tonight.” I was surprised at how confident I sounded, how strong my voice suddenly was.  A small part of me wished I could have been this strong when mom was around.  Maybe then she would still be alive.  “It’s my birthday, after all.  I should at least see my sister.”

 

“No. No, no, no you can’t leave me.”  Dad ran over to me hugging me tightly to his chest as he pleaded with me.  “Please, I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  Don’t leave me alone.  Not like everyone else did.  Please, Mel.  You’re all I have left.  I’ll never do it again.  I promise.  I promise.”

 

It was the same speech he would give mom every time he beat her.  Every single time he would come crawling back, begging for forgiveness.  She never threatened to leave, she had no where to go, but he still begged for her forgiveness.  And she always accepted it.  She never thought anything would change, but she still dealt with it anyway.  In her mind, she had no other options.

 

But I sure as hell did.

 

A knock at the door cut off Dad’s continuous apologies.  That was Frank.  I pushed Dad off of me, storming from my room and down that short hallway to the front door, passing the kitchen with the rearranged groceries, and my Dad’s bedroom, the door ajar with a stench of alcohol wafting from within.

 

“Hey, Mel.” Frank greeted me with a smile as I opened the door, but that smile faltered upon seeing my tear-stained cheeks.  I could see a bouquet of lilies behind his back.  My favorite flower. “Oh, God.  I’m sorry.  He couldn’t even leave you alone today?”

 

I could hear my Dad wailing to himself from where I left him in my room. I thought I could hear the soft notes of a piano drifting on the air from somewhere in the apartment.  I shut the door behind me in an attempt to block him out.  “Yeah, well.  That’s my dad for you.  C’mon.  Let’s go.  Please.”

 

He held out the bouquet to me, a lopsided smile on his lips.  “I know it’s not much, but happy birthday.”  His eyes fell on the backpack slung over my shoulders.  “You goin’ somewhere I don’t know about?”

 

I took the bouquet from him with a smile, staring down at the white petals in admiration.  “I have some stuff to drop off at my sister’s, if you don’t mind.”  I could still hear a faint wailing coming from within the apartment.  “And I might also need to stop by the supermarket before you take me back home.  I have to pick up some lemon juice.”