Free WickedSeduction by Tina Donahue Page A

happened?”
    What hadn’t? Marnie searched Tor’s eyes, seeing worry there,
along with so much kindness and warmth, she couldn’t run away any longer.
Still, she hesitated to reveal events she’d only discussed with her therapist
and Alice. “Are you certain you want to hear this? No need to be polite. I
understand.”
    “I don’t think you do.” He leaned over and brushed his lips
against hers.
    The warmth of his mouth comforted Marnie as few things
could.
    Tor eased back. “I want to know…if you can share. No
pressure.”
    She smiled weakly. “You are the nicest guy on planet
Earth.”
    “Since time began,” he said. “There is a difference.”
    Marnie laughed, surprised she could. “I wish Mamá could have
met you.”
    Tor looked stricken again. “Did he…?”
    “No,” she said when Tor didn’t continue. “My father didn’t
murder her. She died almost two years ago of breast cancer. I know this sounds
awful to say but I think for her, passing was a relief. She’d had such a hard
life.”
    “After your father was gone things didn’t get better?”
    “Not really. It’s hard to unlearn what you’ve come to expect
as normal. When he was around, Mamá tried to make everything perfect, terrified
if even one towel wasn’t folded right or if her shoes weren’t lined up in the
closet all hell would break loose. Nuts, I know.”
    “Not if you’re trying to survive.”
    “We were definitely trying to do that.” She lowered her
face, ashamed but also angry at what he’d done to them. “Sometimes, when I’d
come home from school, she’d be on her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen
linoleum with a toothbrush to get every bit of dirt, even though there wasn’t
any I or anyone else would be able to see. I think after a while, cleaning
became her talisman. If she kept everything sparkling, he’d be okay when he got
home after work. He never joked around or was nice, but there were times when
he’d be quiet for a few hours until he fell asleep. Of course, no matter how
hard Mamá or I tried to make him happy, his anger kept escalating over stuff we
couldn’t predict.”
    Tor shook his head. “Like what?”
    “He gave her a black eye when one of the buttons on his
shirt had a loose thread. He kept screaming about what a lousy homemaker she
was, how stupid and lazy. Didn’t matter that the shirt was new and the
manufacturer had caused the imperfection. My father raged for minutes at Mamá
for not being the kind of person he deserved to be married to. After he got
tired of screaming, he punched her in the face as easily as anyone else would
swat a fly. The moment she fell to the floor, his anger evaporated as though
the previous minutes hadn’t happened. While she was still sobbing, he told her
to get me ready for my cousin’s birthday party. I was five or six at the time.
Mamá’s eye was swollen shut by the time we arrived at my aunt’s house.
Everybody noticed, I could see them sneaking peeks at her, but no one said
anything. My male relatives greeted my father as if he’d done nothing wrong,
shaking his hand in greeting, slapping him on the back, talking sports,
laughing. No one ever stopped him.”
    “Your mom was afraid to call the police?”
    Marnie laughed sadly. “Three of my uncles are cops. Where
was she going to go? They sure as hell didn’t say anything at the party. They
looked embarrassed, as if she’d caused my father to hit her. Her fault,
of course. If she’d only been a better wife and mother, he wouldn’t have gotten
angry.
    “By the time I was eight, her days and mine revolved around
avoiding or placating him. No one talked at meals unless he did first and then
we told him what we thought he wanted to hear. He controlled what we saw on TV,
how hot or cold the house was, what we wore and ate, how Mamá cooked the food.
I knew his rules better than I did my subjects at school. At night, I’d write
in my notebook how he reacted to whatever we’d said earlier.