The Whore of Babylon, a Memoir - By Katrina Prado Page 0,2

it and most of the bristles look as if they’ve been matted down with some type of gooey substance.

“And the bathroom?” he says, a clear thread of anger woven in between his words. “There’s crap all over the place.”

I nod.

“From her getting ready last night.” I face him. “She hasn’t come home yet.”

Rob is still scowling at his brush. “Good,” he says.

“Rob,” I admonish him.

“I know,” he says, frowning.” But look at this room,” he adds, waving his brush in the air.

I look around and see evidence of our daughter everywhere. Clothes strewn on the surface of every piece of furniture. Barrettes and scrunchies and tubes of lip gloss dot the coffee table. Her school ID is partially obscured by a comb. A can of Diet Coke is on top of the TV. Even from here, I notice shiny splotches of spilled soda covering the screen like freckles.

“She thinks the entire house is her own personal closet,” he snarls. He shakes his head. “I can’t wait till she moves out.”

I sigh.

“The minute she gets home she cleans all this shit up,” Rob adds. He turns to head back to the bedroom and then stops and swivels around. “And you tell her she’s grounded. She’s supposed to call when she stays over at what’s-her-name’s.”

I drop my face into the palms of my hands, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with my fingertips. I need coffee.

I trudge to the kitchen, opening the cabinet over the microwave and pull out the bag of filters and a can of store brand coffee. I think about happier days. Days when Robyn, young still, would come into the kitchen while I was making dinner; or into the bathroom as I was hunched over the toilet with a scrub brush. She’d worn a smile as big as a silver dollar. “Hello, Mama,” was all she would say. And I’d feel my heart melt with love. Two little words that said everything.

Minutes later, Rob swings into the kitchen.

“I almost forgot,” he says, “There was a message on the answering machine. Your mother called. Again.”

A horn honks in front of the house.

“That’s Dusty,” he says of his coworker and drinking buddy who gives him rides into work so I can have the car.

He pecks me on the cheek, then dashes out the door, even before the coffee is finished. I hope he won’t use his ATM card to pull any more cash out of the checking account for Starbuck’s. I need every cent in there to pay the bills and buy food for the week. I mentally kick myself for not reminding him of this fact. My thoughts alight on Rob’s message from my mother.

I haven’t spoken with my mother in at least two weeks. She loves to call and give me updates on my sister Petra’s perfect little life. Though Petra and I are separated by only two years, a gulf the size of The Hundred Years War lies between us. She stayed in Aztec, married right out of high school and a year ago just had her third child. Her husband, Larry, an accountant has the salary to afford Petra the luxury of being a stay at home mom. Their house is perfect. Their cars are new. Their school-aged children are on the honor roll and “The Baby” is so beautiful that Petra is thinking of having her model in baby food commercials. Mom calls me regularly to castigate me for not communicating with Petra. She also finds it necessary to list and catalogue all of her health problems, starting with numbness in her fingers to the ulcerating corn on her big left toe.

I busy myself with the task of making coffee, mentally going through my day. Print reports for work. Finish my homework that’s already late for my Excel class. Laundry. Walking across the kitchen floor, my bare feet stumble across an island of something brown and sticky. I add ‘mop kitchen’ to the list. I open the refrigerator door to get the half and half only to discover we’re out. I add ‘groceries’ to my ever-expanding list of tasks. I feel my body sag with fatigue.

And just then, I hear it. The quiet whoosh of the front door being opened with stealth. My heart flip-flops in my chest. Unconsciously, I take in a cavernous breath of relief.

“Robyn?” I walk to the edge of the kitchen and peer through the doorway. There, on the other side of the living room at the front door stands my