My mother wanted to be a good mother. And the first time my father called me a whore, she laughed. I was thirteen, dressed for the roller rink. Where are you going dressed like that? Pink holographic skates, frilly socks to match, leggings, a baby-blue leather jacket layered over a white turtleneck, and hair pulled back in a high pony. As I walked to meet my friends parked along the street, I could hear my father’s booming voice and my mother’s high-pitched mocking laughter turning to wet sobs. The voices grew louder, and my whole face turned ruby red. All in front of the chaperone parent and my friends, who sat in the backseat, shifting awkwardly, side-glancing one another, then looking back to me, but never really making eye contact again. 

Go get changed. It’s what my mother said to fifteen-year-old me, appalled at the crop top I’d picked out for a day at the public pool with friends. Our bickering turned to a screaming match, hands at her temples, fists at my sides. I called her a bitch, and she slapped me across the face, leaving a mark that she helped cover up with too-orange concealer. She kissed the top of my head and asked me to say I love you as the car picking me up honked outside. I squirmed away from her, frowning deeply, furious about the shirt I’d ended up in, believing it impossible that I’d have any fun now, hating her for ruining my day. My orangeade cheek still burned.

My mother had been at her best when she tucked me in and warned me about the monster in the closet down the hall. My little body, in footie pajamas, held the thin blankets up to my trembling chin. She’s hungry tonight, she said, taking a drag of her cigarette, held between two slim, red-nailed fingertips, prints swirled and yellowed, hacking into her balled fist, lips touching skin ever so slightly, leaving behind a faint ruby red lipstick stain like a teenager practicing kissing.

It was the same story every night that kept me glued to my bedsheets. Some mornings, I left them damp and ammonia-scented. She put a lock on my bedroom door, heavy, heaving. When my mother was done locking me up, she would crawl out the window and wave goodbye, cigarette smoke trailing from side to side, as if a protection spell.

The woman in the hall closet was loud and snarling, so beast-like that the lock on my nearby bedroom door rattled, an alarm piercing my dreams. On some nights, I can remember my mother returning quietly, slipping through the window, nicotine stick gone, nightdress trailing behind her, making a beeline for the bedroom door, checking the lock, getting on all fours to peek at the crack beneath the door. Eventually, I stopped worrying about the monster in the hall, comforted by the glint of the silver padlock.

When I turned sixteen, the ritual stopped. All of a sudden. Just like that. No more nighttime smoke breaks in my room. Gone was the lock from my bedroom door. The growling, grumbling creature living among the neatly stacked linens stopped being restless. And gone were the brief moments of tenderness and terror between my mother and I.

That’s weird, Shell, once said a friend from high school when I told her about my childhood boogeywoman, my mother’s nightly escapes out the window. And I felt embarrassed for joining in on the conversation about imaginary friends and monsters.

When I turned sixteen, my mother moved into the spare bedroom and stopped sleeping next to my father. One morning, toast between my teeth, she looked at me and said, Your father isn’t a good man. She was always saying strange things, anxious to a fault, her worries spilling over into my mouth. But this time, I could see her eyes were welled and red, little bullseyes itching to get poked out. My attention a pair of darts. I have to go, Mom. Honestly, just get a divorce. It came out carelessly, but I meant it. Tired of hearing their little jabs, tired of the tension.

Why don’t we leave?

I had asked my mother this on a night when she’d been in my room, when I was still small and scared of the woman in the closet. She likes little toes, but don’t worry, the lock will protect you. Her fingertips tickled my feet, still sticking out of the blankets. I laughed, even though I didn’t find it funny. But sometimes it made me happy, this bedtime ritual of ours.

Why don’t we leave?

Is that what I asked? Could that be what I asked back then? Her pointer finger and thumb circled around my whole, small hand. Her eyes got teary, and it made me want to cry too, though I wasn’t sure why, but when you’re a child, seeing your mom cry rouses something in you. And thinking of this now, my eyes are teary like hers because I think I know what it must have been like to be scared, to be afraid of the thing behind closed doors.