The Funhouse

to make a good girl out of you. I've made you go to church. I've forced you to read the Bible and pray every day. I've preached at you until I'm blue in the face. I've taught you all the right ways. I've done my best to keep you from going wrong. I've always been aware that you could go either way. Either way. Good or bad.” She swayed, put a hand on Amy's shoulder to steady herself. “I've seen the potential in you, girl. I've seen that you have the potential for evil. I pray my heart out to Our Lady every day to look over you and guard you. There's a darkness deep inside you, and it must never be allowed to come to the surface.”
        Ellen leaned very close, put a hand under Amy's chin, lifted the girl's head, and met her eyes.
        Amy felt as if ice-cold snakes were uncoiling inside her.
        Ellen stared at her with a peculiar, drunken intensity, with the burning gaze of a fever victim. She seemed to be looking into her daughter's soul, and there was a mixture of fear and anger and hard-edged determination in her expression.
        “Yes,” Ellen said, whispering now. “There's a darkness in you. You could slip so easily. It's in you. The weakness. The difference. Something bad is in you, and you have to fight it every minute. You have to be careful, always careful.”
        “Please, Mama…
        “Did you let that boy touch you tonight?”
        “No, Mama.”
        “Unless you're married, it's a dirty, filthy thing. If you slip, the Devil will have you. The thing inside you will come to the surface for everyone to see. And no one must ever see it. No one must know what you've got inside you. You've got to wrestle with that evil, keep it caged.”
        “Yes, Mama.”
        “Letting the boy touch you-that's an awful sin.”
         Getting drunk out of your mind every night is a sin, too, Mama. Using booze to escape from your worries is sinful. You use booze and the church the same way, Mama. You use them to forget your troubles, to hide from something. What are you hiding from, Mama? What are you so afraid of?
        Amy wished she could say all of that. She didn’t dare.
        “Did he touch you?” her mother asked.
        “I told you - no.”
        “He touched you.”
        “No.”
        “Don't lie to me.”
        “We went to the prom,” Amy said shakily, “and he got sick, and he brought me home. That's all, Mama.”
        “Did he touch your breasts?”
        “No,” Amy said, unsettled, embarrassed.
        “Did you let him put his hands on your legs?”
        Amy shook her head.
        Ellen's hand tightened on the girl's shoulder, the talonlike fingers digging painfully deep. “You touched him.” she said, her words slurring just a bit.
        “No,” Amy said. “I didn’t.”
        “You touched him between the legs.”
        “Mama, I came home early !”
        Ellen stared at here for several seconds, searching for the truth, but at last the fire went out of her dark eyes; the debilitating effect of the booze became evident again, and her eyelids drooped, and the flesh of her face sagged on her bones. When she was sober she was a pretty woman, but when she was drunk she looked haggard, much older than she looked otherwise. She let go of Amy, turned away, tottered back to the table. She picked up her empty glass, carried it to the refrigerator, dropped a couple of ice cubes into it. She added a little orange juice and a lot of vodka.
        “Mama, can I go to bed now?”
        “Don't forget to say your prayers.”
        “I won't forget.”
        “Say the rosary, too. It wouldn't hurt you.”
        “Yes, Mama.”
        Her long dress rustling noisily, Amy hurried upstairs. In her bedroom she switched on a lamp and stood by the bed, shuddering.
        If she failed to raise the abortion money, if she had to tell her mother, she couldn't expect her father to intercede. Not this time. He would be angry and would agree to any punishment her mother proposed.
        Paul Harper was a moderately successful attorney, a man who was in control in the legal arena, but at home he relinquished nearly all authority to his wife. Ellen made the domestic decisions, large and small, and for the most part, Paul was happy to be relieved of the responsibility. If Ellen insisted Amy carry the baby to term, Paul Harper would support that decision.
        And Mama will insist on it, Amy thought miserably.
        She looked at the