Chapter Sixty-Six
"What do ya mean ya took Lorna to the damn ER?" Mr. Morello's voice boomed through the living room one evening—a few nights after Stansie had taken their twelve-year-old to the hospital for an examination from the family reunion incident she'd been informed of—as his hands gripped tightly onto a medical bill he fixed his eyes on. The longer they lingered on the amount displayed at the bottom of the paper the angrier he grew. He shook his head ragefully and threw the document violently in his wife's direction, who sat on the sofa rolling her eyes in disdain.
Stansie crossed a leg over her other one and lifted a hand exhaustively up to hold on her temple. Every time Joe yelled she used her hand to gently massage at the temple it was resting on top of. She felt a huge release of air come out through her windpipe. The past few years there was an ever growing tension between the pair of them. She couldn't recall a time in those years where they weren't arguing over something. It wore her down tremendously the incessant bickering and the unrelenting rage which never ceased in her husband's voice or demeanor.
Most of all, she thought, the contempt that hadn't ever faltered from his tone when he brought up anything to do with Lorna—especially in the more recent years—was what brought her the deepest of pain and exasperation. She couldn't understand what his problem was with their youngest child, their youngest child who's heart was as big as her dreams. No reason for her husband to be such a prick to her, she angrily shook her head.
Eyes glared darkly across at Joe, who situated himself on his beloved recliner with a beer by his side along with that stupid remote. Her head shook even more to observe the beer and remote lying on the end-table next to the chair, his hands both now gripping onto each one. The fucking beer and the god-damned fucking remote were all he truly cared about at this point, she realized and she wasn't allowing it anymore. She couldn't. Her stress levels were too high to continue to deal with the shit he was putting them all through.
"Why do ya gotta be angry over it? You should be showing concern for our daughta instead of sittin' there screamin' and hollerin' bout the fuckin' bill," Stansie finally yelled right back at him. Taking the bill he chucked at her and setting it on the table that separated where each of them were sitting. Both of her hands were thrown up in the air as her own bout of anger boiled underneath her skin. It felt, to her, that he didn't even care about their daughter's well-being—it was all about the fucking money with him recently.
Reaching for his bottle of half-finished beer, Mr. Morello chugged a good portion of it down before slamming it back onto the coaster and shifting his focus onto Stansie. He looked menacingly into her eyes, frustrated with her for always being so quick to defend that god-forsaken Lorna. His head shook at the thought. That little girl had his wife all wrapped up around her finger and he couldn't stand it. Clearly, there were a few screws loose in Lorna's head—yet, Stansie was too oblivious to even see it, too fucking busy trying to get him to accept Lorna's existence to realize the child was a fucking nutcase.
He clicked the lever back on the recliner so the position of the chair shifted backwards and the foot rest came forward. His eyes remained on Stansie the entire time. "Because your fuckin' waste of an ER trip cost us fucking five hundred goddamn dollas," he retorted in response, copiously waving his hand in direction of the paper lying atop the surface of the end-table. The rage continued to escalate as he mirrored his wife's gestures with his own hands being thrown up in the air and shaking about to keep her attention on him and what he was saying. "We ain't got no five hundred fucking dollas to be throwing away when there wasn't even nothin' wrong with Lorna. Aside from her mental fuckery."
Stansie clasped her hands loudly together and sharply stood up from the sofa. She grabbed the paper off the table and ripped it violently up, letting the small pieces fall onto his lap. Eyes peered down at him disgustedly, sick at the words he was perfectly okay with allowing to slip from his mouth. Her focus momentarily averted onto the merely empty beer bottle and she, without hesitation, picked it up and threw it against the wall. Though, she much rather would have enjoyed throwing the damn thing at his head instead.
"Our little girl was fucking sexually assaulted by your perverted, piece of shit, brotha and you're worried about five hundred fucking dollas? God, can ya be anymore of an asshole Joe? Where's the sympathy for Lorna? She is hurt and you don't even care," Stansie all but cried out. Tears fell from her eyes, anger morphed into a heartache. Heartache for what her husband had now become.
"Oh, really? Is that what Lorna told ya?" Joe pushed the foot rest down again and infuriatedly got up from the recliner to walk over to the short woman he now wished he'd never even met let alone married. He grabbed quite roughly onto each one of her shoulders, glaring heatedly down into her brown eyes. It hadn't gone unnoticed by him the tears leaking from the bottom of them. A smirk formed on his face to see such. "You know damn well Lorna's just makin' up lies because she hates going to the reunion. George didn't do shit to her."
Stansie yanked herself from his grasp and pushed at him rougher than what was normal for her to do. "Explain to me why she's been wettin' the bed every night since the reunion and barely fucking eating then. And why the doctor at the hospital informed me not only was she sexually molested by your demented brotha but his fucking pubic hair was found on Lorna's underwear she wore that day? Lorna wouldn't have even told me if I didn't keep prying her to," she spoke through gritted teeth, the only way she could keep herself from not strangling her husband right then and there.
"Fuck off Stansie—Lorna's only wettin' the bed cause' she fuckin chugs two big glasses a water right before she goes to bed. Ain't got nothin' to do with this bullshit story she's puttin' in your head. And you expect me to believe Lorna just happened to wear the same underwear she wore the day of the reunion—how dumb do ya think I am?"
Smacking a hand across his face, Stansie shook her head at his stupidity. The frustration wouldn't let up. She knew she shouldn't have slapped him but god the way he fucking dismissed their daughter made her want to do worse than a measly little slap. Oh how she wanted to choke the idiot out of him. She sucked in a sharp breath and did her best to control her bubbling rage. "You are an asshole, Joe, a big fucking an asshole," she hissed at him, balling her fists tightly along her sides.
"You're not just dumb, you're a jack ass. Lorna wasn't wearing the damn underwear, dumbass, I brought it with us in a fucking Ziplock. Because, unlike you, since my daughta told me about the incident, I did my research on how to help her. Maybe you should try that, huh? I just don't fucking get it, Joe. Why are you so mean to Lorna lately? Why do ya hate her so much? She's our little girl, you should be furious with your brotha for violating her not fucking callin' Lorn a liar and mental case. You should be on my side wanting to get your brotha put away for what he's done to our baby."
The last statement that was spoken was enough to reignite the rage in Mr. Morello's body. He roughly grabbed Stansie by the throat and pushed her all the way against the wall near the front door of their house. Eyes stared vengefully down into the widened brown ones of his wife. "If you even dare try to tell the police this bullshit story about my brotha, I'll kill Lorna. Ya hear me? I'll fucking kill her," he growled lowly, making sure only she could hear his words.
Gulping unnervingly, Stansie sputtered from the tightness around her neck. It was so tight that she couldn't speak. She lifted her hands up and used them to force Joe's away from her neck. After finally catching her breath, a few seconds later, she returned his stare with a maddened one of her own. She could hardly believe what she heard him just say. Surely this man in front of her was not the one she married all the years earlier. The man she married never would have threatened to harm their own children let alone murder one.
"If you even think about touchin' just one strand of her hair, I'll make sure your ass is hauled off to jail along with your brotha's." She swung her hands roughly behind her, hitting the wall in a harsh manner. Eyes held their focus on the man in front of her. A man she hardly recognized anymore. "I want a fuckin' divorce, Joe. I'm sick a you and your shit and I'm real sick a you treating my sweet Lorn like she's your own personal torture device."
"A divorce? Ya want a damn divorce, Stansie?" He angrily shouted and watched as she nodded stridently in response. The sight gained a furious shake of his head along with his hands grappling her shoulders once more, shoving her against the wall for a second time. He inched his face closer until his mouth was basically pressed onto the rim of her ear, "Ya don't want me to kill Lorna? Fine. But I'd start watching my back real close if I were you, Stansie. I'm not lettin' ya put my good brotha's name in vain and I will silence you permanently if I have to in order to keep my word."
The room was mostly dark only lit up by the screen of the television hung on the corner of the wall in her hospital room in the wee hours of the morning when Lorna was suddenly awoken by the sound of the door creaking against the hard tiled floor. She turned onto her side, yanking the cover up further, and didn't think too much of it since she was a patient in her town's local medical facility—a place deemed safe, she told herself as she rested there with her eyes barely peeping through their lids.
From which side of her body she was lying on, she had a clear view of the clock which was nailed to the wall directly in front of her. It was only half past five in the morning her eyes squinted to read the numbers. Maybe the squeaking of the door was from a nurse or wind produced by people walking up and down the halls outside of it were the statements she used to rationalize to herself with. Her sister and Nicky wouldn't be by for another few hours and she tightly held onto hope that the reasoning for her patient room door making noise was of an innocent, simple nature.
Her heart monitor that resided behind the headboard of the bed grew a little louder and faster with the beeps alerting her of what she already knew from how out of breath she was due to her vastly climbing heartrate. A sigh escaped her; she placed a hand onto her chest and tried to keep it in place as if the gesture would somehow poof her heartbeat back into a normal rhythm.
Footsteps, however, immediately alerted Lorna that her previous thought of an innocent reasoning being behind the door creaking open was vastly a wrong assumption. She pulled the covers ever-so-slightly up further to hide her face but whoever entered the room had likely already seen her. Their steps grew louder the closer they got and she felt her teeth innately clattering together from the fear rising through her. It wasn't too long until she heard the breath of the person directly in her ear and she instantly jolted up from the bed.
The second she had her eyes aimed in direction of the culprit of said breathing they came right in view of those of her father's. A lump was thickly swallowed down; she wasn't too surprised to realize the producer of the noise to be her dad. It was an inkling she had that if it wasn't a nurse coming to check on her than the person had to be Mr. Morello. Since he knew where her room was now it made sense. He, obviously, was pissed at her for the big scene she made yesterday afternoon during his unwelcome visit. Of course, she thought, of course he would come back for revenge. And what better way to do that then to wait until the early hours of the morning when no one else was there with her?
A devious smirk had effortlessly found its way onto Mr. Morello's face as he stood hovering above his youngest child. He harshly grabbed her face with his hands and held it mere inches from his own. Eyes stared heatedly down into the slightly fearful and slightly still sleep-filled ones of Lorna's. "I didn't appreciate the way ya were talkin' to me yesterday, little girl. And in fronta other people? Ya got some nerve, Lorna, some fuckin' nerve. Ya oughta be nicer since you're the one with the sick, fucked up, mind. You're warped to think being lesbian is somethin' to be proud a."
"But, but you were being mean to my girlfriend—why, why are you allowed to be an asshole to people but none a us can tell ya to stop? That's not fair," Lorna cried out, shaking her head disappointedly as she returned her father's gaze with a distasteful one of her own. She wished her stare had the capability of killing him right then and there. He didn't deserve to be alive when all he did was bring pain to the people's lives—people he was supposed to care about, to protect from the kind of hurt he instead caused them.
There came a harsh contact with her cheek. Lorna reached her hand up to rest around it, the flesh still stinging from the gruff slap Mr. Morello's hand gave to it. She swallowed thickly, eyes saddened. Saddened that he was such a cruel person. Saddened that her father who once cared about her and her older siblings now was the reason they all hurt so tremendously—physically but even more so mentally and emotionally. She could hardly remember a time where he wasn't dishing out verbal or physical attacks to her or Franny.
"What did I say about speaking to me like that, young lady?" The words spat loudly from Mr. Morello's mouth. Anger boiled beneath his skin and it innately had his hands reaching across to grab at Lorna's throat in a rather harsh manner. He let the nails of his fingers dab sharply into the surrounding flesh while peering into her eyes fiercely.
Lorna swallowed uneasily, merely unable to take in any air from her father's tight grasp—albeit it hadn't been tight enough to completely cease the inhalation of air. However, the close proximity wasn't doing much to calm her fraying nerves. Their eyes were on the same level and it wasn't hard for her to see just how furious Mr. Morello was. It oozed with ease from his eyes. "I'm just speaking," a breath of air was taken in to help bring some steadiness to her voice, "I'm, em, I'm just speaking the truth, dad. I—I won't let you bash my girlfriend. It's mean and not fair."
A taunting snicker sounded through the older man's windpipe upon hearing his daughter's meek response. He used that as encouragement to deepen the depth of his nails inside the flesh of Lorna's throat. It was deep enough to cause discomfort—and possible marks left behind afterwards—but not to take her breath away. No, he thought, he couldn't strangle her when she was the only one who had the chance to save him from his failing liver. He needed to keep her around at least until after the transplant which he wasn't going to take no for an answer.
"Not fair, huh?" He gripped tighter on her neck. "Know what else ain't fair?" He waited for Lorna to give a head shake, a rather timid one, before he went on speaking. "The fact that you have the ability to save me from dyin' and yet I hear you're refusin' to. Hm, is that right?"
The nearness that only kept seeming to get more intense brought a strong sense of uneasiness to Lorna. She tried to break out from his grasp but she felt it instantly strengthen the second she did. Her bottom lip sucked underneath her top one and she averted her eyes onto the half-open door on the other side of the room. She shook her head madly hearing her father's revelation. "No, dad, what's real not fair is you get to have the chance of a new liver when mom never did. Mom deserved that chance a million times more than you. Mom was good and nice and she never hurt me," sniffles poured through as she spoke accompanied by tears soaking her cheeks.
Frustration and heartache gradually began to overpower her. The desire to get as far away from Mr. Morello kept building up—she couldn't stand to be in the same room as him let alone have his hands and fingers pressed so roughly into the flesh of her throat and neck. But no matter how much effort or force she put into trying to break free of him she failed. He was too strong for her, she defeatedly concluded. Tears spilled almost uncontrollably from her eyes; she could barely see his face from the blurring of her own eye liquid.
That was it. That was just it. That was all it took for Mr. Morello to be unable to resist his rage any longer. Retaining his tight grip around Lorna's throat, her pulled her to the back of the room and slammed her into the wall so that her posterior collided rather painfully against it. He stared darkly down at her, still not releasing his hands from her neck. "No, your mom got what she fucking deserved. I warned the bitch not to go to the police about my brotha and she didn't listen. Now you better listen to me and give me ya liver or else you'll be moving in with good ole' Uncle George when I die. Is that what ya want, little girl? Wanna live with your favorite uncle and be his whore for the next three years?"
Lorna acted on impulse and swung her leg up to kick at her father until he had no choice but to crumble in pain from her foot colliding with his genital region. She took the time he used to yelp as her chance for an escape. Yet, right as she was about to exit through the door leading out into the hallway she felt a tight yank on her hair and stopped in her tracks.
"Nice try," Mr. Morello chuckled, grabbing onto the lobe of one of her ears and utilized it to pull her away from the door with. He brought her right back to their previous spot and shoved her against the wall once more. "Believe me, Lorna, if you don't agree to donate your liver to me, I'll find a way to make your life hell. Ya don't know what I'm capable of, little girl. Not one bit."
Their conversation was interjected swiftly right after. The sound of fast footsteps clacking atop the hard tiled floor instantly gained both of their attention. Lorna, out of relief, shifted her eyes onto the culprit while her father remained with his hands on her throat and an irritated shake of his head followed suit.
Both, however, were surprised when they realized the person behind those footsteps to be none other than Mikey Morello.
Upon seeing his one and only son standing in the doorway, Mr. Morello quickly released his hands from Lorna's neck and made his way towards Mikey. Mikey, who—once he'd gotten closer—appeared to have a highly perturbed expression sitting on his face. Mr. Morello forced a smile on his own, genuinely happy to see his son after seven months of his being away. "What're ya doing here, Mike? It's good to see ya but how'd ya know I was here?"
Mikey backed slightly away from his father, vastly unnerved after walking in on whatever the hell happened to be going on between him and Lorna. He shifted his eyes across the room on her, studying her closely. A sickness gradually settled in his stomach when he noticed how pale and meek she looked just standing there by the wall. What the hell had he missed while he was gone? He swallowed and returned his focus back on his father.
Eyebrows arched darkly atop his eyes. "I'm here because Franny called me and told me what's going on with Lorna. And speaking of Lorna, what the hell were ya doin' to her just a minute ago?"
Squinting his eyes at his son, the older and taller man threw his arms up in the air with a violent shrug of his shoulders. "What're ya talking about? I ain't done nothin' to her. I was just checking on her," he spoke through gritted teeth. But he'd be damned if his son turned against him, too. He already had enough to deal with with his daughters he certainly didn't need Mikey harping on him as well.
A scoff came through the short-haired brunet nineteen year old. He may have been away for a while but that surely didn't make him blind or stupid. Clearly something wasn't right with their father. He turned from him and carefully walked his way over to Lorna. Concern and worry and quite a bit of confusion oozing from his eyes and facial features. "Lorna, what happened between you and dad? Are you okay?" He asked in a slightly hushed voice so that only she was truly able to hear his words.
Though now that he was only a few inches away from her, he was easily able to see the faint nail marks imprinted upon the skin of her neck and throat region. The sight only intensified the sick sensation which had already begun forming at the base of his stomach. What the hell had been going on? The query ran repeatedly through his mind. What had he left his sisters to deal with? Guilt began to arise within him the more his thoughts pondered on the past several months he had spent away in the military. He felt like he'd come back to a completely different life. And maybe he did.
"Oh, uh, erm, uh nothin'. S'all good, I'm fine." Lorna pursed her lips into a smile but she didn't even believe herself. She knew it was all a lie—she wasn't okay, nothing was fine. Everything had gone to shit, again. As usual. As normal. Her life had a knack for going to shit, she thought.
Mikey shook his head disbelievingly. He could read his youngest sister like a damn book, he always could ever since they were little kids he had the ability. A sigh escaped him to realize how hard Lorna was trying to hold it together when clearly there lied faded tear stains along her merely translucent cheeks. Carefully he lifted a hand to wipe the remaining tears away with. "No, Lorna, it doesn't look all good. And ya don't like fine to me. What happened?"
The younger brunette sucked in her bottom lip and gradually turned her head to peer at their father before shifting back focus on her brother. Speaking on what actually happened seemed like a poor decision with Mr. Morello still in the room within earshot. If she said anything she knew that would only lead to him coming back another time when she was alone once more and she had not the energy for a second round of this.
Following where his sister's head had previously been pointed in direction of, he saw their father come into view and felt a lump form at the pit of his gut. He concluded she wasn't comfortable answering the queries he asked with their dad's standing in the room and sighed. That wasn't a comforting conclusion to stumble upon he thought to himself. His eyes fixed back on Lorna and a soothing hand was placed on her shoulder, "Ya want me to have dad leave? And then you can tell me what's going on?"
Despite the uncomfortably thick swallow, Lorna nodded her response. It wasn't really something she desired to do—explaining the whole situation to her brother, her brother who'd been on a base across the country for nearly eight months and had absolutely no clue about just how fucked up their father was—but she knew it wouldn't be fair to keep him in the dark. He had the right to know the truth. He was her brother, after all.
Nodding back to her, Mikey released his hand from her shoulder and walked once again towards their father. A big, deep, breath was drawn in through his mouth before he felt confident enough to say anything to the slightly taller man. Arms crossed firmly over his chest as he peered ahead into Mr. Morello's eyes—eyes that came across in a vastly meaner tone than he ever remembered witnessing. "You need to leave this room, dad. I don't know what's going on but I can see you're making Lorna uncomfortable and I don't like that. Get out."
He stood in that spot without a muscle being moved until he saw their father abide by his command and fully exit the room. After, Mikey quickly went to shut the door and then came back to where his sister was at. Still meekly standing against the wall in the far corner where he'd first seen her only fifteen minutes ago upon his initial arrival. A sigh escaped him as he took one of her shaky hands in his, giving it a comforting squeeze.
"Why don't we get ya back in bed, okay? Ya don't look real well, Lorna. And Fran didn't really give me much of an explanation on what's been happening," he gently said, carefully using his hand to guide her away from that wall and instead over to her bed.
Lorna only gave a small nod and allowed her brother to pull her along towards it. In the state she'd currently happened to be in, she even allowed him to help her get settle back against the pillows and tucked under the blankets. Her mind too consumed and focused on the words her father had spoken to her right before Mikey's entrance. Something about it didn't sound right. There had to be a darker, more twisted, meaning to what he'd told her and she was determined—yet also heavily terrified—to get to the bottom of whatever it was.
"Mikey," she finally called out once the blanket was pulled up to her shoulders and her head lie on the middle of her pillow. "Mikey?" His name repeated from her mouth, this time in a questioning tone as she reached a hand out for one of his.
Instinctively, the brother gave in to her silent request and covered her still lightly tremoring hand with his. Eyes peered down at her with a heaping volume of concern seeping from them. The longer he was in her presence the easier it was for him to realize how utterly off something was with her. It strengthened his guilt tremendously. "Yeah Lorn? What's wrong?"
More like what wasn't wrong, the thought popped into her mind. She shook it away and drew in a long breath. There was so much that needed to be said and yet she had no idea where to start or how to start, really. It was overwhelming for her to even only think about. "Mikey, I'm a lesbian. I have a girlfriend," the words spilled from her lips. She was a bit surprised that out of all the things that needed discussed that that happened to be the one which came out first.
"You're a lesbian?" Mikey repeated with a questioning eyebrow.
He recoiled his shoulders in a shrug and gave Lorna's a hand another tender squeeze. She nodded apprehensively, he observed and let his thumb stroke around her knuckles to wordlessly show his support. But then the more he thought through the disclosure the stronger his concern grew. Was that the possible reason his sister now lied meekly in this hospital bed? He swallowed uneasily at the contemplation. "Did someone hurt ya because of that? Is that why you're here? Tell me who did this to ya and I'll rearrange their damn faces."
Turning on her side, Lorna felt her heart swell at her brother's comment—he always did his best to protect her, she recalled and she couldn't be more grateful for having such a caring older brother. At least not all men in her life were sick like her father and uncle, she reminded herself. She came out of her thoughts and shook her head while returning the squeeze Mikey gave her hand with one of her own.
"No, no. No one did this to me, ya don't gotta worry," she gently assured, holding in a yawn that she felt brewing. Her hand reached up to place on her brother's cheek and she felt a strong gush of relief to have him home again. Thankful he wasn't injured or killed back at the military base. Their family suffered enough deaths, they didn't need to lose Mikey, too. "I just passed out yesterday when um when I was meeting with my therapist. I'll be okay. No big deal."
Crossing his arms over his chest, Mikey situated himself on the edge of the bed with his head tilted so that he was better able to look down at his sister. Having been on the base for as long as he had, he'd forgotten how incredibly stubborn Lorna could be. "How exactly is passing out not a big deal, Lorn? What's going on with you? What're ya seein' a therapist for? I feel like I walked into some fourth dimension or somethin'," he shifted his shoulders forward while scratching his temple with his index finger.
A large breath exhaled through Lorna's throat. Both hands were brought up to either side of her forehead and she utilized them to massage each temple. She returned her brother's stare, without issue observing how deeply confused and puzzled he appeared to look. Another breath came out of her, guilt slowly came to the surface. "I don't erm—there's too much, too much to explain and it's just real draining for me to even think about, Mikey. I'm still kinda shocked you're actually here."
Mikey gave a sad smile and gently grabbed one of her hands. His heart felt unusually heavy as he sat by her side having not the first clue as to what was happening in either of his sister's lives. He sighed and brushed a finger comfortingly around the palm of the hand he was grasping. "Okay, why don't ya just tell me why dad's here? Can ya do that?"
"He, um, he has a bad liver from drinking too much." Lorna swallowed thickly and shut her eyes for a moment. Visions of her dad's chasing she and Nicky around their front yard with the gun rapidly came flooding through the front of her mind. She dug her nails deeply into the flesh of her temples the second such memory popped up. "Dad, erm—he also, he kinda maybe tried scaring me and my girlfriend with a gun."
"A gun? What, what do ya mean dad was scaring you and your girlfriend with a gun? Lorna, was dad—did he threaten to kill you just because you're a lesbian? Are ya sure he ain't the reason you're in the hospital?"