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Breeding My Daughter and Breaking Her Will
Rayne Vice
Kayla pushed through the trailer door with her shoulder because the knob always stuck when the humidity swelled the frame, her black waitress skirt clinging to the backs of her thighs and her cheap sneakers squeaking against the warped linoleum. The single-wide held the afternoon heat like it had been sealed in plastic, every room humming with box fans that only shoved warm air from one bad corner to another. Beer cans crowded the coffee table. An ashtray overflowed beside Hank’s recliner. Darlene lay half-folded into the couch cushions with a wine cooler sweating against her chest, eyes open but unfocused, lips parted in the slack expression she got when pills and alcohol softened the edges of the day.
Hank stood in the narrow hallway outside Kayla’s room with an envelope in one fist.
He didn’t look drunk in the loose, sleepy way he often did. He looked meaner than that. Tight through the jaw beneath his beard. Greasy hair hanging near his eyes. His stained wifebeater was stretched over his beer belly, and his sweatpants rode low on his hips. His thick arms, browned and scarred from years of labor, flexed as he crushed the envelope enough to wrinkle everything inside.
Kayla stopped with one hand still on the door.
For half a second, no one said anything. The fans rattled. The television flickered soundlessly because Cody had muted it while playing a game in the corner, controller paused in his lap, skinny shoulders hunched like he was trying to disappear.
Hank lifted the papers. “What’s this?”
Kayla’s stomach dropped so hard she tasted acid. “You went in my room?”
“In my house,” Hank snapped. He shook the envelope, and folded bills slipped out with the bus ticket and the college acceptance letter. “You think I wouldn’t find your little runaway fund?”
Darlene blinked toward them, slow and glassy. “What’s she done now?”
Kayla stepped inside and shoved the door shut behind her. Heat crawled under her makeup, making her eyeliner feel heavy. “It’s my money. I worked for it.”
Hank laughed once, ugly and humorless. “Your money. Hear that, Dar? Princess thinks because she carries plates for truckers and old men, she’s a big woman now.”
“It’s mine,” Kayla said, louder this time, though her hands trembled around the strap of her purse. “I’m leaving. I got accepted. I’ve got enough for the first month, and I’m not staying here forever.”