Undo the Deed

Amanda feared for her life at home. God, how long had this been going on? The girl tried to think back. It was as if the chaos and violence stretched as far into her memory banks as she could recall, but only in the last five years did it seem like a permanent fixture in her life. Perhaps that was no coincidence-her father's drinking had escalated to levels so high in that time that she was surprised he hadn't pickled himself in the process. When didn't she see a drink in his hand anymore? Almost never, save the occasional self-imposed hiatuses he would go on, and those were only after an especially violent or lengthy period of emotional-and often physical-torture he'd inflicted. He would swear off alcohol, gallantly announcing this was it. Three, maybe four days later, it would start all over again. Amanda could almost predict the pattern there for a while. These days, however, his outbursts were much more random and increasing in frequency and intensity. Only a matter of time before....

Amanda felt a chill as she thought of it. Or maybe it was just the wind.

Every day she lived with the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, of triggering another night of hell. She kicked up a small clump of seaweed in disgust as she remembered how much she had been degraded and belittled, made to feel insignificant and unworthy of living. How many times had she felt the urge to start walking, to let the water come up to her ankles, her waist, to eventually let it consume her, as she had just written in her poem? She couldn't count those urges on one, even two, hands. Once she went another route with some sleeping pills, but after two or three she lost her nerve and merely passed into a good night's sleep. Sleep, when it wasn't ravaged by nightmares, was an honest and fulfilling escape from her life. So was the beach-

The beach! Amanda had forgotten where she was for a minute. She sighed again and bristled at the thought of going home to her father. He had been rather calm the last week or so-how long until the next explosion? She took a last look at the ocean that was so easy to get completely absorbed in, and turned around. Time to get home soon. She had gone to her friend Julie's tonight to pick up some records she'd wanted to tape off. Of course, Amanda's father didn't take too kindly to his daughter having a black friend. but he would really freak if he heard the bold music of Prince and Vanity 6 in his house, so Amanda opted to stash the box of records in the trunk of her car until the coast was clear. She had purposely left Julie's early so she could spend a few rare, private moments here at the beach, and she didn't have to be home until nine. Anything so she could stall being around her family that much longer.

And what a motley bunch the Grant family was, anyway. Amanda's mother, Lisa, was a case study in contradictions. Either she was indifferent to Amanda, totally wrapped up in her own world, or she was bitchy and sarcastic.