I apologize for the delay. I try to get something out at least once a month. The last few months have been chaotic.
--
When I was a little girl, my dad would let me sit on his lap when he played poker with his friends. That's how I learned how to play cards. I'd sit in a room clouded by a fog of cigar and cigarette smoke, and my father would even let me have a sip of his whiskey. I would wince from the harsh beverage, but I didn't want to appear weak to him, so asked for more even though I hated it. Thankfully, he only ever allowed me to have one sip.
Cards destroyed my father. I remember hearing the fights through the thin walls of our trailer. My dad withdrawing cash for a game and coming home drunk and broke. Winning never made it better, it just encouraged a riskier bet and an eventual worse loss. My mom began to hide cash from him. She'd take her paycheck, withdraw all of it immediately and stuff it away like a squirrel.
Dad figured out she was hiding money and tore the trailer apart one night. He broke the walls, tore up the couch cushions, and threw all the glasses and plates out of the cabinets. I was too scared to ask him what he was doing, so stood petrified in the center of the living room as a tornado of desperation destroyed everything. Mom came home and started screaming, and that was the first time I saw my father strike my mother.
The more she refused to tell him where the money was, the more he hit her. He held her against the wall by her throat, choking her so hard she couldn't tell him even if she wanted to. He let her go, and she took a picture frame off the wall and smashed it against the top of his head. A little piece of wood and glass did nothing more than piss him off.
The entire time I remained frozen in place.
One of the neighbors called the police, and my dad became belligerent with the officers. Even after everything she lied to the police and asked them to leave. The cops weren't stupid and tried to coax my mother to tell them the truth, but just like she wouldn't tell my father were the money was, she wouldn't tell them anything either. They left, and my father started asking nicely. My mother, tired, scared, but more than anything, frustrated, gave him enough to make him go away.
My parents never divorced, but soon after they never lived under the same roof again. I split my time between them, and when I was with my dad, he'd let me play poker with him. Hold'em was always my favorite. My dad let me win, so I let myself believe I was a better player than I actually was. Winning felt amazing. Walking away from a table with more money than I arrived with was exhilarating. In those days I was pocketing five to ten dollars, but to a child, I might as well have won the World Series of Poker.
The last time I saw my father I was twelve. My mother wouldn't let him in her house, so asked me to the door so he could talk to me. He kissed my forehead, and said he might be away for some time. I watched him walk down the porch, and I never saw him again. A year later, his debts caught up to him, and he was found shot dead in a motel room in an apparent robbery. It remains unsolved to this day.
I continued to play poker, but now I didn't have my father to let me win. When I was a teenager, I stole money from my mother for late night games in dark rooms no teenaged girl had any business being in. She started to hide money again, but I always knew where she put it. Her hiding spots had never changed. She saw me becoming my father, so kicked me out when I was seventeen. My grandfather was the only person willing to take me in.
My father's father was a locksmith. I dropped out of high school not long after mom gave me the boot. My grandfather's deal was I work for him, go back to school, or get out. So, I worked for him. I rode along in his van and learned the trade by watching him do it. No door was locked to him. No safe couldn't be cracked. There was nothing that could stand in his way. Like my father, he was a card shark. Unlike my father, he never let me win.
My grandfather would have me disassemble old pocket watches and then reassemble them. It taught me to understand how things work. To make the complicated, simple. To undress problems to their bare parts and examine the pieces independent from the whole. Once I could do it with a watch, I started to do it with locks.
When I was twenty-two, having been under his tutelage for five years, he collapsed on a job. The doctor told us stage IV lung cancer. He opted not to go through treatment and was dead in three months. I didn't cry for my father, nor for myself when my mother removed me from her life as if I was disease. I cried for him.
With no one of support to turn to, I returned to cards.
--
Thursday - April 7, 2021
The sun is high enough in the sky to penetrate my blinds and strike my face. The sudden light stirs me awake, and I lift my hands to shield my eyes. I place my hands on the bed below me, and push myself up, so my back is against the wall. Headboards are expensive. I've never had one.
My mind is foggy, and I don't remember much before I went to sleep. There is this nagging feeling I wasn't alone when I closed my eyes. I scan my room and see a suit jacket neatly folded over the side of my dresser. My brain buffers to life, and I remember who is likely still in my apartment.
I'm still wearing the clothes I wore yesterday, so don't need to get dressed to leave my bedroom. The apartment looks the same. My ears pick up the sound of keyboard typing in the kitchen, so I lean out of my room and see Matt at my two-person kitchen table working on something.
"Good morning," he says, without lifting his eyes from the screen. He has placed glasses over his eyes, the refraction making me assume they're to reduce blue light. I don't reply and walking into the kitchen and start making coffee. When I arrive at the pot, it's already brewed, with about one mugs worth missing. I continue saying nothing and pour myself a cup. "Feeling better?"
"I obviously wasn't in the right head space last night. I guess, thanks for not taking advantage of that," I say, taking a sip. I only drink it black.
"I wasn't in a good place when we met either," he says, ceasing typing and removing his glass. I took his money anyway. "You were my therapist, so do you want to talk about it."
"I don't know you," I say. I lean against the counter and hold the cup in both hands.
"I'd imagine you don't know many of your customers."
"That's different," I say. "I don't typically hash out my life with them."
"I don't typically call an escort."
"That's what they all say."
The room is quiet, and we both wash the weird down with coffee.
"I couldn't help but see your name when I needed to find your address," he says, and I groan into the coffee. "Your name is literally Lady Smith?" I nod in embarrassment. "Like, at birth?"
"My mother said it made me sound regal," I say, shaking my head. "She didn't give me a middle name, so I can't even go by that if I wanted to."
"Lady Smith. Figured it was just the company."
"That's what I hope everyone assumes," I say, and finally join him at the table. "What were you working on?"
"An audit," he says. "I'm a forensic finance analyst."
"Forensics? Like with law enforcement?"
"Sometimes. I've contracted with local, state, and federal investigations."
