PROLOGUE
A crash echoed through the small house, followed by a curse. The front door down the hall slammed. Liza scooted closer to her sister, pulling the threadbare blankets all the way to their noses, hardly daring to breathe.
She heard the refrigerator door open, the rustle of the plastic bag she’d used to cover the leftover food, and then another curse as something landed on the floor.
“He’s drunk,” Mady whispered, voicing what Liza suspected, but didn’t want to let herself believe. Cold dread settled in her stomach, far colder than the frigid air of the house that their father didn’t allow them to heat when he was gone. Please just let him pass out on the couch or in his bed. Please.
“Shh,” Liza said, trying to soothe her younger sister, even while panic sluiced through her veins. She ran a hand over her sister’s wispy, white-blonde hair. “Just pretend you’re sleeping. Everything will be okay.” I’ll keep you safe.
Liza felt her sister’s shoulders shake but didn’t dare pull her closer. His steps were already approaching, an uneven clop-slide as he lurched down the wood floor of the hallway. He laughed, a greasy sound that made the fear inside her belly rise to her throat. She swallowed it down. Please God, please God.
Only God had never made time for Liza before, and she didn’t really expect Him to now.
Their door creaked open and Liza squeezed her sister’s hand under the covers, her heart pounding, eyes shut tight.
“Who left the goddamned shoes by the door for me to trip over?” he yelled. “And what the fuck is that sludge you left for me to eat?” She heard him spit on the floor.
Liza opened her eyes, meeting her sister’s gaze in the darkened room. The slice of moonlight glimmering through the curtain allowed Liza to see the stark fear in Mady’s eyes. Her lip trembled.
Liza shook with fear too, but a faraway resignation crept closer, like a thief in the night, there to steal any unlikely notion that this could end well. It wouldn’t. The most she could do now was survive it . . . and keep him away from Mady.
Not that he wanted much to do with Mady anyway. His disabled daughter. Damaged. Unwanted by anyone other than Liza.
But sometimes Liza let herself dream. And when she did, she dreamed of taking her sister far, far away, somewhere safe, somewhere where the devil—their father—would never find them. She’d buy Mady the wheelchair her father refused to pay for, opting instead to use his money on liquor and gambling, and she’d make sure they were safe.
But for right then, that misty dream was very far away. Reality was a heartless drunk who would take out his rage at life on her.
“Answer me, or I’ll shake it out of the both of you! You think a man wants to come home to a goddamned pigsty and a plateful of slop?”
Liza turned, sat up. “I did. I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice shaking. There were no shoes by the door. If he’d tripped, he’d tripped over his own two feet. And she’d done the best she could with the small amount of money he’d left for her to buy groceries with that week. But that wouldn’t matter. It never did.
“Daddy, please,” Mady said, her voice a quiet croak.
“What’d you say, you useless piece of garbage?” His dark form, backlit by the hall light, tipped and took a small stumble, his hand reaching out for the doorframe to hold himself steady. “Lying there all day like a piece of trash eating my food and using up my hot water,” he hissed.
Liza’s heart lurched. She pushed the blankets aside, standing quickly. “I’ll go clean up the shoes, make you something hot to eat,” she said, her words tumbling out. Lead him away from Mady. Away, away.
She scooted under the arm he was using to hold himself up and prayed he’d follow. An exhale ghosted from her mouth when she heard the sound of his footsteps as he stumbled along behind her. She’d distracted the monster. But now she’d have to deal with him herself.
A blackness filled her. A loneliness so deep and bottomless that she both feared and hoped she’d drown in it. Suffocate. Disappear beneath its fathomless depths.
What was left of the dinner she’d made for herself, Mady, and her older brother, Julian, a pitiful concoction of frozen vegetables, cream of mushroom soup, and a piece of sausage, lay splattered across the peeled and dingy linoleum. The meal had only been half-edible, but she’d been happy the electricity was on so she could use the stove. It wasn’t always.
She stepped over the mess and opened the refrigerator. A half can of beans, a jar of mayonnaise all but scraped clean, three carrots, a potato, and a carton of milk that held just enough to make Mady and herself a bowl of cereal before school in the morning.
“I could, ah, bake you a potato,” she said. Why did she feel so ashamed? Why was her mind swimming with it? She hadn’t set up this life. He had. So why did she carry the shame while he blamed her? It was all backward, wasn’t it?
“I don’t want a goddamned potato. Stupid girl. You can’t even buy groceries with the money I give you to make a decent meal.” He teetered slightly, stepping in the mess on the floor as he advanced on her. The slap came quickly, like a viper striking, despite the unsteadiness of his drunken stagger.
Although the slap was sudden, it did not come as a surprise. She knew it was leading there. It always led there.
Before she could react, he grabbed her by her arm, twisting so she cried out in pain. She slipped in the congealed mess on the floor, her feet coming out from under her as he hauled her up, squeezing her arm and careening down the hall with her. How is he so strong? He can barely walk, and yet he’s so strong.
She heard Mady sob softly from the room they shared as he dragged her past that door. She expected him to turn right into his bedroom, but he kept on going, toward the back door.
Oh God, no. No. “No,” she said, hot tears coursing down her cheeks, renewing the fight in her. “Please, no. Dad, no, not the cellar. Please.” She tried to turn toward his room instead, the lesser of two horrors, but he pulled her onward.
A door opened and Julian stood there, watching. He wore no expression, but there was hatred in his eyes. Save me, she wanted to beg. But Julian never did a thing. He would not help her now, and she would not ask. Another slap. Her head spun away, arm shrieking in pain as her father pulled her through the door into the cold February night.
“Your mother was a whore, a whore who left me with three useless mouths to feed, one more useless than the next,” he muttered. “I shoulda drowned you all at birth. Put you in a sack and weighed it down, thrown you in the river. Plop, plop, plop.”
Liza wished he had.
His laughter cut the night, sliced her in places deep inside. The door of the cellar creaked as he threw it open, the musty smell that haunted her nightmares punching outward. She tried to turn back, but he shoved her so she lost her footing, tripping, and grasping blindly for the railing. Her hand clamped over it and she barely kept from tumbling forward. Her father followed, pushing her again and she did trip then, missing the final few steps and landing in the hard-packed dirt below. Blinding pain shot up her arm and she whimpered, tiny white dots filling her vision, though it was almost completely dark, the only dim light shining in from the open door above.
There was a soft skittering behind her and she pulled herself into a ball, sobbing openly now. He was going to leave her here, in the pitch-black. Alone. As she slowly lost her mind.