You Can Trust Me

Trigger Warning: This story contains explicit themes of psychological manipulation, and implied violence, domestic abuse, and child abuse. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

I trailed behind the linebacker going into the casino, my footsteps almost inaudible against the cacophony of slot machines and drunken laughter. "Norm!" a chorus of voices shouted as the linebacker joined his friends at a table. I felt a pang of envy.

I knew I shouldn’t be here—my wife would be so disappointed—but the adrenaline was all that kept me moving forward these days.

Even though the comradery was not for me, I felt it. It was more emotion than I ever felt from my wife and daughter at home. I loved them. As much as a man could love his family. But I never really connected with them. I didn’t understand their expressions; neither their words nor their body language made any sense to me. It was like I was trying to read a closed book.

Not like the obviously joyous men that came together at the casino every night. They smiled and laughed with their whole bodies. They communicated with more than just words; their laughter, their gestures, they were an open book.

I couldn’t understand the blank nod I would get from my wife when I brought her home a bouquet of roses to show I had been thinking of her. I expect to be baffled by a teenage daughter—who knows what they’re thinking. But my wife I should understand, shouldn’t I? But no matter how many presents I brought home, it never seemed enough. So instead of getting mad, I stayed out more.

I’d come to the casino, where I understood what was expected of me.

When it was late enough, or when I had spent all my money, I’d go back to our 4 bedroom house where she’d be waiting for me. With that blank look on her face. Was she going to be angry? If she yelled, at least I’d know what she was feeling. She’d probably just tell me about the true crime episode she’d watched after putting our daughter to bed. And then she’d turn out the light and roll away from me.

How was a man supposed to put up with that?

"The nanny did it," my wife said as I walked through the door, her eyes glued to the TV screen.

“The nanny?” I questioned, fairly certain we had never hired a nanny. Our daughter was much too old at 15 and, besides, who would pay her?

"The case I was watching," she clarified, "the one with the two moms and the kids who drowned. Turns out it was the nanny."

“Oh,” I replied, reconciling this information with real life. Our real life. Sometimes I wondered if my wife saw the difference between her life and the true crime stories she watched. She talked about the cases like they were happening to her, or at least in her life. To her friends maybe? But she didn't have any friends; not any more.

She had truly terrible friends before we were married. I was glad she ditched them. I hated her hanging out with them. What kind of self-respecting men keep married women in their social groups, anyway? I’d never seen a woman with the guys at the casino.

When our daughter came, she became the focus of my wife’s life. It never changed, and it felt right. But she was 15 now. Maybe that’s why my wife was so out of sorts lately. She didn't have any mothering left to do. Maybe we should adopt another baby? I could play in a few tournaments, raise some cash…

I chose to surprise her. I brought the baby home in a car seat, pretty sure all our daughter’s old baby stuff was waiting in the garage.

She wasn't adopted. I had tried to raise the cash but the tournaments were fixed. It was so obvious. But I found out you can foster children and get paid for it! This baby would fix everything. My wife would have something to do and bills would be easier, thanks to the government checks.

She'd stop staring at me and focus on the baby instead. This, I knew with absolute certainty, I did right.

This was how we would start over.

I got the call when I was in the casino, just minutes from bluffing my way to the grand prize. I could feel the win in my soul when the call interrupted me and threw me off my game.

I was half expecting it. The baby was in the hospital.

Two weeks after living with the squalling creature I was sure my wife was punishing me. I didn't know why; I had done this for her.

But from the moment she saw the baby she got even more quiet and unexpressive. I got angry after a few days–who wouldn't? I was going to return the child, but my daughter said she’d help. Ever since, my daughter was the one that took care of the baby most of the time, but it never seemed to stop crying.

Something must have been wrong with it.

“The doctor said there was water in her lungs, as if she had drowned, but mom left her in her rocking seat just for a few minutes. How could she drown in her chair?” My daughter’s expressions I could read. They were clear and obvious—tense eyebrows meant fear; soft frown was sadness.

“The baby will recover,” my wife added, “she’ll be fine.” I searched her face for clues and found none. Did she feel anything?

Wondering what clues my own expression was showing, I looked back at my daughter and schooled my face into a reflection of hers. Pull the eyebrows together, feel the crease between them. Bite your teeth together, don’t force too much of a frown. Don’t look like a clown. Just enough…

“So is the baby going back now then?” I asked, assuming the child would be taken from us for it’s own safety, if nothing else.

“No.” My daughter was blunt. “There’s no where else for her to go, so she stays with us. We’re her family now. You chose her and now she’s ours.”

Things started to get better after the incident with the baby. My wife paid more attention to it, watching it more carefully. That made sense, she didn’t want to be responsible for another accident.

She also started to pay more attention to me; watching me more carefully. At first, I appreciated it. When a wife wants to know about her husband’s life, she’s shows interest. Interest is caring. She cared for me.

But I hated having to defend myself all the time. So what if I didn’t win all week at the casino? It was my money, wasn't it? Why did it matter if I spent extra time in the garage, and why should I have to tell her every little thing I did, all the time? Is there a point where wifely interest becomes something less appropriate?

She was watching me all the time. Not like before, with that blank stare. But like she was paying attention to my every move. Waiting for me to do something. What was she waiting for? It was pissing me off.

I went to the garage to escape her constant attention.

That’s where I was when the dog drowned. I can’t prove it, I can’t prove I was in there, but I was. It’s not like I have a camera tracking me all the time.

She looked at me like it was my fault. Like I put the heavy, reflective vest on it and dropped it into the pool so it would sink to the bottom.

Like I forced our daughter to jump in after it and almost drown herself trying to rescue it.

I was in the garage.

I didn't like how she looked at me anymore.

Nothing was going according to plan.

My wife never stopped complaining. I didn't have control over everything, did I? I couldn't help it if we were unlucky and things kept breaking down and getting in the way.

The power outage couldn't possibly be traced back to me, even though I was certain she blamed it on me anyway. How was I supposed to explain why it only affected certain rooms, was I an electrician all of a sudden? The baby was sleeping anyway, it's not like it was bothered. Not like me. My garage lost power, and that did affect me.

I don't know why she was so mad at me, distrustful even. She's the one who knew how to fix it, what does that say about her?

She never left me alone after that. She was becoming unbearable. Always harping about money, security, and where I was spending my time, as if was her business. She was the one constantly buying new toys for the baby. If she was so worried about money, maybe she should be more careful about how she spent it.

Nobody could blame me for wanting to be anywhere else. I wasn't gambling, I was trying to earn money for her and that baby's toys. If I was in the garage, maybe I was trying to improve our security, like she was always complaining about. Nobody could prove otherwise.

I did improve our security. I hid a camera in the baby's room. I wanted to know why my wife was so worried about it all the time, so I decided to keep an eye on it. If you ask me, she was too paranoid. Standing over the baby all night long, just staring at it wasn't going to help anything. It just made her more tired and angry, but at least I knew why she wasn't coming to bed.

My daughter was the only one in the house who seemed to stay sane, despite all the baby's crying all the time. I saw her on the camera too. Playing with the baby. Giving it toys to try to distract it from it's crying.

The baby was absolutely well supervised, nobody could claim otherwise. I don't know why it died any more than the doctors did. It couldn't have been poison, that's completely impossible to prove. So it must have been, like they said, an allergic reaction. Maybe to one of those new toys my wife brought home.

It couldn't have been helped. We didn't know. I don't know why my wife was so loud, crying. It wasn't even our baby, not really. And all it did was cry. Maybe my wife missed the noise and that's why she was crying so much.

I was grateful for my daughter. She was the only one who could get my wife to stop her howling.

She even comforted me, sitting with me and enjoying the quiet when her mother had finally fallen asleep. The quiet was so nice, and I was glad to have my daughter share it with me.

With the baby gone, maybe we would have another chance to get back to normal.

I recognized, in hindsight, the baby wasn't the best decision. It was partly my fault but I had just wanted to fix things with my wife. It just went wrong.

But it was just the three of us, again. We could move on for real this time.

I did feel some responsibility so I decided I would try to stay home. Maybe I could listen to my wife and she would tell me how to fix things, so I stayed home instead of going to the casino. I didn't even go to the garage. I watched my wife, waiting for her to show me or tell me what she wanted. I watched her, like she always watched me.

I never understood her. She didn't tell me anything and she didn't ever give me clues.

So I watched my daughter instead. My real child. She was doing things right. She was always happy. Smart. She had friends.

The more I watched her, the more I could see she was like me, social, not like her mother. She wasn't dead inside, she was full of life.

We had a special bond and spending more time at home would let us grow even closer.

If I kept staying home, the weird things would stop happening. I would make sure of it.

I stayed home, nobody could say I wasn't trying. I was there.

I couldn't help it if my daughter was accident prone. I couldn't watch her every second of every day.

The mirror in her room fell, that happens. Glass breaks and people get cut. It's terrible when it happens to a child, but I couldn't be in my teenage daughter's bedroom all the time. If anything, my wife should have been more careful in there.

And I couldn't follow her around every time she walked up and down the stairs in our house, could I? It was just a sprained ankle. My daughter didn't blame me. We even bonded over it. I told her all about the time I had sprained my ankle when I was almost the same age as her. We had something in common but nobody could hold me responsible for her slip. If anything, I'm sure my wife was coming down the stairs behind her; she could have tried to catch her.

But my wife just kept getting more and more angry at me. Spending time at home wasn't helping. She hated that I was getting to know our daughter better. Maybe she was jealous. Jealous of her own daughter? Was that possible?

As bitter as she was all the time, I was starting to finally understand her. She would wrinkle her nose and snarl like the dog used to. That was disgust. When her eyes went wide eyes and she was extra jumpy, she was scared. I don't know what she was scared of, but she always seemed to be scared.

And always the tight lips, clenched jaw. I was beginning to think she hated me. I just didn't know why. I had only ever tried to make things work and nobody could say otherwise.

A social worker came to our house. "Just protocol," she said, her eyes scanning the room as if looking for evidence. I felt like I was on trial, and I didn't even know what the charges were.

I don't know what they were looking for. It was just a family home. Maybe a little less clean than could be expected. My wife really was slacking in her housekeeping duties.

I watched the social worker – she was hard to read. I watched my wife. She had turned to stone again, but her eyes kept darting toward me. Scared?

I watched my daughter. She was calm, collected, and defended me justly. As she should – I had done nothing wrong and nobody could say otherwise. I didn't know what they were trying to prove.

The questions the social worker asked made me wonder though…maybe something bigger was happening. What if my wife was hurting our daughter. What if the social worker was suspicious of her because all the accidents. My daughter didn't say anything in her support, she only defended me. Maybe there was something I had missed.

I started to watch my wife in a new way, looking for clues. The more I watched, the more she tried to hide herself. Get away from me. Avoid me.

That only made me watch more carefully.

When I wasn’t watching, my daughter got hurt again.

I was in the garage when it happened. My daughter even swore I was in the garage when it happened.

Where was my wife when it happened?

It’s obvious now that my wife was the problem all along. It was never my gambling or that I spent too much time away from home. It wasn’t the baby's fault. It was my wife. Something was wrong with my wife.

If she wasn’t around, the bad things would stop happening. My daughter would be safer. She loved me more than her, that is why she was always so adamant about making sure everyone knew it wasn’t my fault. I was her hero. My wife was jealous of our relationship. Wasn't that disgusting? Shouldn’t a father be close with his daughter? Don’t most mother’s want that for their families?

My wife was responsible for all the trouble. My wife was hurting our daughter. Not me.

But who would believe me? In this society? A man’s word against a mother’s?

No one would believe me. She would lie, of course. Try to turn the situation around on me. And she’d probably win. They’d probably take my daughter away from me and then she’d never be safe.

I had to protect my daughter.

I confronted my wife. Predictably, she denied everything. She pleaded with me and begged me to let her go. To let her leave with our daughter.

How could she think I'd let her leave with my daughter?

I didn’t mean to kill her though. Not really. She was my wife. But she fought too hard, I couldn’t help it. In the end, it was self defence and nobody could prove otherwise.

My daughter was still in the hospital when the cops came to collect my wife.

I told them everything. All of my suspicions. How shocked I was when she basically admitted to everything.

How could I have missed it for so long? Raised eyebrows and wide eyes – shock.

What made her like that? Furrowed brow, chewing on bottom lip – confusion.

What was I going to do now, now that it was just me and my daughter? Trembling, shaking head, staring at the ground–heartbroken and grief-stricken.

The cops were looking at me but I couldn't read their expressions. They were neutral, as a police officer should be.

The social worker was there again.

She said it would be up to my daughter if she came home after being released from the hospital. I wasn’t allowed to see her until she had gone through a psychological evaluation after being told the news of her mother. When the doctors felt she was ready, they would ask her if she wanted to stay with me or find alternative accommodations.

Alternative accommodations. Like my home was nothing more than a hotel.

I had to protect my daughter, but how could I be expected to be responsible for her all by myself? Raise her by myself? A father can’t raise a child on his own. He can’t be expected to do everything.

Why did my wife have to screw everything up so monumentally?

It was only a week later when I was told I could see my daughter. It almost seemed too soon. How could she be over the death of her mother so quickly? Was she physically recovered?

I thought I’d have more time. It was peaceful at home alone. I hadn’t gone to the casino once. I’d even stayed away from the garage.

But it wasn’t phrased as a choice, so much, as a demand. I was to see my daughter. They gave me an appointment and I was expected.

I didn’t know what was coming next. Would she choose to stay with me? Of course she would. She had always defended me so fiercely. She would never choose to leave me.

Perhaps I could convince her to go. It was my responsibility to protect her and no girl should live alone with her father. To grow up balanced and knowing all the things a woman needs to know, she would need a mother, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t I be best protecting her to encourage her to live with another family?

I walked through the hallways of the psych ward at the hospital and felt the eeriness that comes from being in a hospital. It was secure, but also a prison.

She was waiting, sitting in a chair in her tiny room. There were 3 other beds, with curtains separating each one. I couldn’t tell if the beds were empty or not because the curtains were closed.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said.

She sounded strong. Sure. Confident. Not scared or weak, like I had expected. Not confused or timid like her mother always was.

She smiled at me. A smile meant she liked me still. She trusted me still.

“We’re alone,” she said, noting my glances toward the other beds. “We can talk and no one will hear.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been left alone at home for so long. They told me about mother. I was glad to hear it. They said it was shock, but I corroborated your story. I didn’t know exactly what you had told them, of course, but I explained that mother had caused all my injuries, and now that she was gone, it was safe to tell everyone. I defended you. None of this was your fault.

It’s going to be ok now. Now that she’s gone, she won’t be able to keep ruining everything for you. Everything will be better now. I can help you now. You can trust me. I’ve proven you can trust me.”

I was relieved to hear my daughter talk. Glad that she didn’t seem to expect me to say much. Some of what she said confused me, but I never did understand women very well, and my daughter was both a woman and a child. Doubly difficult.

It was good that she confirmed everything I said about her mother. Great that she was safe.

Maybe everything would be ok if it was just the two of us together. Father and daughter. A team.

Maybe she could help me.

It couldn’t hurt to try. She looked strong. Focused on me. Her eyes were clear and there was no wrinkling of the eyebrows or downward tilt to her mouth. I couldn’t detect the contempt or disgust her mother used to wear.

“I’ll explain everything on our way home,” she said, “and then you can show me the garage.”

Just then, a nurse came in the room. I was watching my daughter when it happened, otherwise, I may have missed it. I may never have realized.

I saw her put on her mask. She was so much better at it than I was, I noticed.

“How are you two doing, do you need any help packing up? You will be going home tonight, isn’t that right, dear?” The nurse wore a smile, but sad eyebrows. She pitied us. She wasted her time. We didn’t need anyone’s pity.

My daughter was right. Things were going to be ok now.

Decision made, I stood up. Perhaps too abruptly, the nurse quick-stepped backwards.

“Yes, we’re leaving now. We don’t need anything. Thank you for taking care of my daughter, we’re going to be ok now.”

My daughter stood and followed me out the door, through the hallway that was no longer eerie, but full of promise, and to the car.

If she hadn’t died, my daughter had a plan that would make sure my wife was taken care of and no one would ever know. She explained it all in detail and it was foolproof.

My daughter was a prodigy, I realized. I could teach her so much, but she might teach me even more. And at only 15.

I had never known such pride.

She even explained to me why it had been so hard for me until now.

I was trying to please her mother, and her mother had been undeserving. My life’s work had always been about the money. The money I needed to keep my wife happy.

My daughter showed me how to focus my work on greater values. Making the world a better place.

By taking care of my wife, I had removed a materialistic, undeserving human from the earth. A woman who was doing more harm than good. I never understood before that I was an altruist, but it made so much sense. Everything was suddenly so clear.

Together with my daughter, I finally understood my life had meaning. We would make the world a better place together.

I showed her the garage for the first time that night.

Perhaps she would become a doctor; she showed such precision when I encouraged her to feel the silky glide of the sharpened scalpel.

And clean too, not a drop of blood got on her clothes all night.