Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (4 page)

“Wouldn’t have any idea what that’s like,” I sarcastically say. “No clue. How awful that must be for Regina.”

My daddy doted on me to make up for the life I was born into. He gave me endless attention. He’d spend time with me in West Virginia. He didn’t buy my love, he earned it. I want to resent him for not sticking up for me with Momma, but I can see where he’s coming from. I’d rather live real life with Aunt Amelia than this fake life. Momma and Fate are learning how easy it is to lose money. If you ain’t got a brain in your head, you’ll lie down and die. They’re dying and I’m resuscitating.

When I came home for important events, I was told to keep my mouth shut.
Being quiet for Wil will be easy. I’ve went weeks without speaking to anyone but Daddy and Fate. And when my sister makes fun of me, my mouth don’t open for a long while.

I really like Regina. She thinks like me. So I just roll my eyes that
Fate is upset that her friend has to eat prime rib in any room except the main dining room at Whittenhower Estates. Fate’s too delusional to realize she’s just making excuses to eat fine cuisine. Ironically, Fate failed to see her sister, me, eating in my bedroom. I always ate what the staff ate. Momma had no need for Daddy’s bastard to eat her frilly food.

Only reason I’m roaming free is that Momma won’t leave her room and the staff is gone. Someone n
eeds to do the cooking and cleaning for the blind. I do it because they’re incapable. Making a peanut butter sandwich is as advanced for them as brain surgery is for me.

“I’m going to see Daddy tomorrow. You going with?” I wipe down the kitchen
counters while Fate eats her dinner. I pour her a glass of milk to go with it. I don’t eat. I have my own stuff in my room. Stuff I bought with my own money. I don’t want nothing from Momma, even if it did originate from Daddy.

“Dad doesn’t want to see me,” Fate grumbles while chewing.

“You lie,” I growl. “You’re making excuses. You’re acting just like Momma.”

“That’
s because I’m too much like Mom. Dad doesn’t like me like he loves you. You’re his protégée.” She sounds hurt because I’m my daddy’s girl.

“That’
s not really a compliment anymore, ya know. It’s like saying I’m destined to become a career criminal. Momma won’t even be in the same room with me. You heard her this morning. She said I was tainted by Daddy and my whore of a mother. She said Aunt Amelia was teaching me to be a con like Daddy. You think I don’t see her looking at me sideways? She thinks I’m up to no good. Like I’m going to steal my own dang silver and pawn it.”

“Mom’s not doing well, you know that. She hasn’t been out of her room for a few days.
The problem is that you don’t see what Dad did as wrong. It was, Faith. It was wrong to scam all of those families out of money. He wasn’t being Robin Hood; he was keeping it for himself.”

“You don’t see
m to have a problem spending that money, Fate,” I snap. “Your fancy clothes and your fancy schools weren’t free. Those families paid for it.”

“Don’t start this again.
” She uses that tone that means I’m being insufferable. It’s the same one her mom uses. I loathe that tone, it sets off my temperature. “I know it bothers you that you grew up differently from me.”

“
That’s got nothing to do with this. I don’t want that shit! I don’t care anything about it. I had everything I needed and more. I just want him out of prison, but you and Momma want him there. So yeah, it’s been started now, sister,” I snarl. I fling the dishcloth into the sink, preparing to throw down with my delusional sister.

“It was wrong,” she calmly says. Fate never loses her temper. She just backs down
. I used to think it was because she thought she was better than me, now I think she’s too weak to fight back.

“
It wrong, huh?” I slap my hand down on the kitchen island to gain her attention, and then I swipe her half-eaten sandwich away. I chuck the sandwich and the plate into the trash. She hungry, she can smear some bread. She thirsty, she can pour her own dang milk. I’m not her servant, I’m her sister, and this house is mine just as much as it is hers or Momma’s. I grab her glass of milk and toss it into the sink. The glass breaks, spraying milk everywhere. I ain’t cleaning it up, either.

“That,
sure as shit, didn’t stop Momma from going to spas and taking vacays. You didn’t stop spending money on purses that cost more than Aunt Amelia’s trailer. Daddy may have stolen that money, but he worked hard for it. And you and Momma worked just as hard spending it.”

“There is no sense even talking to you when you get this way,” Fate says, walking away from me.

“Really,” I screech, “Really? You had no problem with me taking your SATs two years ago or your college entrance exams today. That’s was a crime. You making your baby sister a criminal. You making your Daddy a criminal to pay for your elitist bullshit. You just spent it and turned a blind eye to where it came from. And now you have no problem spending the money I worked for.”

“What are we supposed to do, Faith, starve?
Our accounts were seized and this house is next. We have weeks, maybe less, until we’re homeless.”

“I don’t expect you to starve, Fate. I expect you to get a
damn job or pawn your shit or treat me with some respect. I’m not the hillbilly moron you call me behind my back, and then have the nerve to ask to take your tests.”

“You offered,
” Fate lamely replies, no shame in her tone. Her patronizing voice sets me off like a timer on a bomb.

“
And you took me up on it,” I scream. I curl my fingers into my palms, curbing the need to pick up the wrought-iron stool Fate was sitting on and smash it into the French doors- anything to get her attention- to impart some dang knowledge in her blank skull.

“I can’t get a job. I have to go to school.”
Even heated, she doesn’t raise her voice… and boy, if that don’t make me meaner than cat shit. Her innocent expression ramps up my temper to murderous-violence levels.

“Great. That’s great. I’ve been working for three years
, saving for my future. That’s the money you’re spending now. So as you bitch about pb&j, you’re spending a fifteen-year-old’s future. My nineteen-year-old princess of a sister can’t get a job because she has college after she spent an entire year touring Europe and sitting on her ass. Well, no shocker here, but I have to go to HIGH SCHOOL,” I scream bloody murder. “One year ago, I graduated from junior high. You’re the adult!”

“Which is evident by the way
you speak, isn’t it?” her haughty attitude dominates her voice. “If you’d go to school, you wouldn’t sound like an idiot.”

I’m stunned speechless at the level of disrespect and blindness.
“Wow… just wow… You completely missed the mark on that one, sister. But thanks,” I seethe. “I’m the moron that’s too stupid for school, but smart enough to be used by you. Here, I thought I spoke like this because I was tossed from my home by my momma because she didn’t want me no more. I see this accent as a badge of honor. It means I’m not as ignorant as you. But nope, everyone here thinks it’s from a lack of intelligence. How intelligent are you, with your pretty soft spoken words, sister?”

“
You’re upset and using me to vent. I will leave you to it,” Fate calmly says and heads for the front door.

“
You need a dose of reality, Fate. Do you really think Daddy and I take care of you and Momma out of love? We do it because you’re weak. It’d be like tossing a dog out in the cold or throwing a baby in a dumpster. I have too much humanity for that. Today, I had to pretend to be you to save you, and it goes unthanked. You’re my responsibility now that Daddy can’t take care of you. But you know what, eventually I may cut the dead weight,” I threaten.

“Are you saying you don’t love me?” She whines
, her blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. Usually that would have me backing down, but not today.

“Are you saying you love me? Because from where I stand, you only love what I can do for you, same goes for Daddy. He stole, you spent,
and you leave him to rot. You and Momma are leeches, sucking us dry.”

“Why are you so nasty? I’ll be at Regina’s,” she cries, heading towards the door.

“Have fun with that. Pretty sure you’ll be leeching off of her next, but maybe she’ll make you work for it. Tell the Whittenhowers I said hi!”

I trudge up to my room, pounding my feet on the stair treads. A lot of good it does me since I
only weigh eighty pounds. I don’t make the impact I was hoping for. But it doesn’t matter since I see her leaning on my door and my temperature boils over.

“Don’t get too comfy, Momma. This ain’t your house no more. You
always called my mom a whore because she spread her legs for Daddy. Well, what do you call what you do? You’re worthless. You do nothing but bleed Daddy dry and act all uppity about it.”

Momma looks me over for a long while. She looks disgusted that she likes what she sees. Well, I don’t like what I see. I see a dried-up desperate woman. Lara loves plastic surgery. It’s not making her look younger, just funny. I wonder if she’s jealous of Fate and me. Lara with her bleached hair, brown eyes contacted in blue, and her augmented body. Her daughters are what she’s tried to change herself into… and failed.

“Gwen was a blight on the area. Lord knows how many kids that woman has floating around. She sold you back to your father. What kind of mother does that? I haven’t treated you the best, but I never sold you.”

“You woulda
if you coulda, though. Ain’t that right, Lara? I ain’t calling you Momma no more. We ain’t kin. You already sold Daddy out to the Feds,” I hiss in disgust.

“You’re all alike.”
She deeply sighs, like this conversation is inconveniencing her. “Amelia raised Tom and Tom and Amelia raised you… con-artist, the lot of you. I’d thought Tom had changed, but all he did was get better at it.”

“Like you didn’t know Daddy was a criminal.” I roll my eyes at the absurdity of it. “You love to judge while you turn a blind eye on what you’re doing. You’re worse than he ever thought of being. I want you out of my house. It’s not yours. It’s Daddy’s, so it mine and Fate’s now. We’ll be here until we’re kicked out. I promised I’d take care of Fate, but I never said nothing about you. I don’t care how bad Fate acts, I’ll take care of her. But
, you and I, we ain’t blood.”

“Good luck with that,” she evilly purrs, heading towards her room. “You know where to find me.”

~Chapter Three~

“Do you have any weapons on your person?” A burly guard mutters, like he’s playing a broken record and sick to death of hearing it.

“No, sir,” I shyly reply, giving him guileless eyes. “It’s just me and my clothes,” I mumble to the floor.

“I need to pat you down, m
iss. How old are you?” His hawkish gaze scrutinizes me. It doesn’t help that I’m only fifteen, but being a shrimp makes me look like a little kid with curves. “No unaccompanied minors are allowed in the visitation room,” he sternly says and scowls at me, like I’m making his job more difficult by sneaking in here.

“I’m
nineteen, sir,” the lie automatically rolls off my tongue while the guard kindly pats me down. I borrowed Fate’s Id again since she wouldn’t come with me today. No amount of guilt tripping would get her to visit Daddy. Since she wouldn’t drive me, I had to take a bus. I can drive well enough on dirt roads where you may or may not ever meet another vehicle, but this sure as shit ain’t West Virginia. New York has too many cops that would pull a fifteen-year-old over for driving without a license, and it would’ve been obvious when I plowed into everything in sight. I’m just visiting. I don’t need to be staying for committing a crime on my way here.

“The inmate will be with you shortly. Please have a seat and wait,” he says i
n parting, leaving me alone in the small gray room. Only thing in the room is a hard plastic picnic table that’s bolted to the floor. I sit on the side that faces the door so I can see Daddy coming.

Daddy is what they call a white-collar criminal. His trial ain’t scheduled for another six months and he wasn’t given bail- said he was a flight-risk. In fairness, he would’ve flown the coop. I haven’t seen him since his arrest, but I can tell they’re treating him right. It’s not too bad here compared to the prisons other felon
s are jailed- cushy. This isn’t my first visitation. Folks back home got locked up a lot, and Aunt Amelia and I would visit them. This place is a palace compared to the regular accommodations prisoners receive.

“Daddy,” I s
hriek when the door opens and my daddy’s face is revealed. My feet freeze me before I can run up and hug him. I was lectured that you don’t touch the inmates. 

“How’s my baby girl doing?” Daddy sounds so happy to see me that I want to burst with elation. “You’re a breath of fresh air,” he uses his diction from home. When it’s just us, he drops that phony tone he adopted when he moved to New York.