Page 1 of Iron Will
Prologue
The girl is slight of build. Tangled, hay-colored hair. Dirty pink undershirt.
A pediatrician would tell her mother that she is underweight for seven years old — in only the twentieth percentile for her age group. But her mother can’t afford to take her to the pediatrician.
The girl, whose name is Paisley, crouches in the corner, in the small space between the wooden nightstand and the wall. She’s hoping Mickey will forget she’s there. He’s on the phone, angrily shouting, his voice bouncing off the thin walls of the motel room.
The girl’s mother isn’t here. The girl’s mother doesn’t know Mickey has come back. Mom kicked him out last night. But this afternoon, when Paisley got home from school, he was here.
“I told Jimmy not to fuckin’ worry!” he’s yelling. “He… ah, Jesus Christ, Dewey, I ain’t got it right now! Tell him to chill the fuck out. Naw, man… Bethany’s got the car, I ain’t… Goddamnit, Dewey, what did I tell you?What did I tell you?!”
Paisley doesn’t want to be alone with him when he’s like this. When he gets off the phone he’ll be raging, and she’ll be the only one here. But he won’t let her leave without a good reason.
Desperately, she tries to think of a way to get outside and away from Mickey until he calms down. She looks around the room, casting about for an excuse, when suddenly, an idea comes to her.
Maybe it will work. If she doesn’t get scared and mess up.
Crawling up off the ground as Mickey continues to shout into the phone, Paisley goes to the dresser. She opens the bottom drawer, where her mom keeps the dirty clothes until it’s time to wash them. Paisley finds a couple of plastic shopping bags in there, and stuffs some of her own shirts and jeans inside. There’s a small zippered pouch with quarters in it, and she takes that, too.
At the last second, she turns and grabs the worn chapter book she was reading in her hiding space. She’s read it a dozen times at least, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the only book she owns.
Paisley does all this as quickly and quietly as she can. She shoves her feet into her worn sneakers and moves toward the door. She’s careful not to look at Mickey, hoping he’ll ignore her. He’s still on the phone as she slips by. But when she puts down one of the bags to open the door, a rough hand shoots out. He grabs her roughly by the arm and yanks her toward him. She winces but manages not to cry out. It’s her bruised arm — the same one he grabbed her by last night.
“Where the fuck are you goin’?” he spits at her.
“To do laundry. Mom told me to do it while she was gone,” she lies.
He yanks harder, pulling until her face is inches from his. She can smell his breath, his sweat. She tries not to flinch. She keeps her eyes on the wall, but when he doesn’t let her go, she risks a look at him.
“The fuck are you lookin’ at?”
“Nothing,” she whispers, looking away again.
With a final shake, he lets her go. Barely daring to breathe, she opens the door and scoots through it. She grabs the second plastic bag and pulls it through with her. The bag catches against the latch as the door closes, ripping and spilling the contents on the ground. Hurriedly, she scoops up the clothes and gathers them into her arms.
The girl steps quietly out into the exterior hallway of the motel complex, letting the door slam shut behind her. The room that she, her mother, and Mickey live in is on the second floor. To get to the cold, cement-floored room where the washing machines are, she has to carry the laundry down a flight of rickety stairs.
The quarters make slight ticking noises in her pocket. It reassures her to hear them there.
As she starts down the stairs, she realizes she forgot to look for laundry detergent. She’s afraid to go back inside the room, though, now that she’s escaped once. She decides she’ll try to find some downstairs in the laundry room. Or maybe she can ask to borrow some from somebody. If she can’t find any, maybe she can just wash the clothes in water. But no, there are stains on some of them. And she doesn’t have anything clean to wear tomorrow. If she has to wear dirty clothes, the kids will notice.
Paisley’s face flames hot with shame at the thought. The kids in her school make fun of her enough as it is. They taunt her for her dirty jeans half a size too small, and her scuffed-up discount store shoes. The stinging barbs of her classmates are burned into her mind. Today, Callista, a girl with always-perfect hair and expensive clothes, wrinkled up her nose and told Paisley that she smelled.
Mom and Paisley have never had a lot of money. But now that Mickey’s around, it’s worse. When Mom got mad at Mickey last night and kicked him out, Paisley prayed in her head that he was gone for good. It was better when it was just her and Mom.
God must not have heard her, though.
There’s no one else on the stairs when Paisley starts down them with the clothes in her arms. The mound of laundry is so big that she can’t see her feet, so she has to feel for the next step with her toes. One step down. Then another. She leans against the banister for support. Another step.
Then, the banister, poorly attached to the wall, slips under her weight.
Paisley starts to tumble, her arms letting go of the dirty clothes as she splays them out and tries to catch herself. She cries out as she falls sideways, down the stairs. Her body instinctively tries to turn itself, but there isn’t time.
She lands on her left side three steps from the bottom, her shoulder making a sickening crunch against one of the wooden steps. Her side falls against the one above it. Her head knocks hard against the ground as she comes to a rest. Searing pain rips a scream from her young throat.
Paisley’s body comes to rest at the bottom. Her whole left side is agony. Her head feels fuzzy and pounds so hard she feels like she might throw up. And then, just as the thought makes itself known, she leans over and vomits onto the pavement.
Upstairs a door opens, then shuts. Someone comes running down, making the stairs shake.