The Truth About Ann

By Joe Cleary

A captivating coming of age story!

Ann is trapped, bound by the chains of abuse and self-loathing. Powerless and hopeless, she must find the strength to change her destiny before it's too late. Escape is within her reach, if she can find the courage to grasp it.

It will take everything she has to break free.

An emotional tale of struggle, loss, and freedom!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barker Press
• Release date: Oct 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201020187

Book preview

The Truth About Ann

by Joe Cleary

Barker Press

Copyright © 2021 by Joe Cleary

Published by Barker Press, 2021

All rights reserved.

The Truth About Ann is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Paperback ISBN – 9781956416022

Cover Design by: Joe Cleary

Cover Illustration by depositphotos/vikova86

For everyone who has no voice

and wants to scream.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter One

Happy Birthday

Iwoke up Saturday morning to the sound of the front door slamming shut, which meant my mother had just left for work. It was still early, and sunlight had just started to brighten the shade of my bedroom window. I knew without looking that it was 5:15. Mom left every day at the same time, off to work the first shift at the C-Town.

She worked there most days from 5:30 to 4:00, either working the service desk or on a register. Once in a while, she got to do something different, like help out in the flower department or run returns. One Saturday, she had to work the lot collecting carts all day because no one showed up for the shift, and she couldn’t walk the next day. She had blisters the size of plums. It’s one thing to be on your feet all day behind a counter, and another to spend eight hours hustling around an asphalt lot the size of a football field, especially when you’re over forty, not to mention sixty pounds overweight. I’d worked the carts a few times and by the end of the day I was worn out enough that all I wanted to do was go home to the couch and put my feet up, and I was a lot younger. I outclassed her in the weight department, though.

I wasn’t sure if Grace had come home last night. Grace is my sister, and she’d been staying out late a lot, or not coming home at all, sleeping at a friend’s house. Which friend seemed to vary day to day, but if she was home three nights a week, I’d be surprised. She was three years older than me and had finally gotten to the point where my parents let her come and go as she pleased. She was taking full advantage. I could tell my father was getting annoyed, but my mom had her back, so he let it go even though he grumbled about it almost every night.

I didn’t have to get up for another couple of hours, but I couldn’t sleep anymore, so I pulled up the shade and stayed in bed, watching the sky turn from purple to orange to the lightest shade of blue-gray right before dawn. That was my favorite time of day, when the sun was just about to crest the horizon and the world was still quiet. A few eager birds always started before the sun actually rose, at least in the summer, but they didn’t break the silence so much as contribute to it, if you know what I mean. No cars, no horns, none of the hiss of tires on asphalt on the street outside, and no T.V. coming from the other room. It was peaceful in a way no other part of the day could be, and it had become my habit to enjoy the time to myself. It was about the only alone time I got.

I heard the creak of a floorboard somewhere in the house and knew my father was getting out of bed. My father didn’t work anymore and hadn’t in a few years. He used to drive a delivery truck for Aquastar, a local water company that supplied those big water cooler-sized jugs of water to businesses and the few weird people who kept one in their homes. He did that for three or four years, which was the longest he’d ever held a job in my life. For all I knew, it was his longest stretch ever. Anyway, he got into an accident. Some guy in an SUV decided to make a left turn on 36, which is the highway by my house. I don’t know how much you know about traffic patterns on the Jersey Shore, but left turns aren’t really a thing here. We use jug handles, which means you have to drive across the street you want to turn left onto and make a right around this curve until you are facing the direction you wanted to go. When my cousins from New York come to visit, they complain about them, but I grew up here, so they seem normal enough.

Anyway, the SUV collided with my father’s truck just four blocks from house and put my father in the hospital for a couple of weeks. When he got out, his back was still pretty messed up and his leg was in a cast, so he filed for disability and got it. Now the check comes every month like clockwork, not to mention the settlement from the lawsuit. He spent the lawsuit money taking the family to Disney World for a week and putting a deck and a pool in the back yard, but the disability keeps coming. My mom complains it’s not enough, but he says he’s in pain and can’t work, and the doctor he goes to every couple of months seems to agree, so there’s not much she can do about it. She works two other jobs besides C-Town to make up the difference. Grace and I always kick in a little from our checks, but she hates taking it. She says our money should be for us.

One good thing came out of the accident. My father stopped drinking. He used to drink pretty much all the time when he was home, but when he got out of the hospital, he stopped. My mom had poured all the beer in the house down the drain and recycled the cans for the deposit, and when he came home, he didn’t even seem to notice. Grace thinks he was probably drinking when he was in the accident, and that Mike got him off. Mike Zantrusky is the Police Chief in our little town of Shore Point, and he and my dad are good friends, so I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s still better than it was, though. Back then, he would be angry all the time when he got too drunk, which was just about every night. Now he saved his anger for special occasions.

I could hear him moving around. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but I figured the best thing to do was pretend I was still asleep. If he knew I was up, he’d want me to make him breakfast and go to the store for his lottery tickets. The convenience store, which didn’t have a name except STORE on a beat up sign out front, was a couple of blocks from my house and opened at six. He’d have no problem sending me out there without a shower or any makeup to get his lottery. He used to send me for his beer, too, but like I said, that’s over. Thank God, because Harry, the guy who ran the counter in the morning, always looked at me like I was some sort of degenerate, picking up a case or two of Schlitz as soon as they opened every morning. Back then, I had to be up and waiting when Harry unlocked the gate. I guess he knew it was for my father, but it always made me feel like he was judging me, or maybe our whole family. If he only knew. A couple of cases of beer was the least of our problems.

I had stopped watching the sunrise and was watching the hallway when I saw his shadow from the kitchen. We didn’t have a big house, and my father had taken the doors off me and Grace’s bedrooms a long time ago after Grace had been sick all night and no one had noticed. He was paranoid that something would happen to us, or that we’d be up to something he didn’t approve of. I had no real idea what he thought we were going to get up to in our own house with walls as thin as papier mache, but it was his house, his rules, as he was fond of remind all of us, my mom included.

I closed my eyes and heard him shuffling down the hallway. He hadn’t moved so well since the accident, and he’d always been heavy, but he’d put on another fifty pounds since he’d stopped working. The bathroom was right across the hall from me, and I heard him flick on the light, lift the toilet seat, and pee. He flushed and let the toilet lid fall with a loud bang, which was his way of telling me it was time to get up without saying anything. I kept my eyes closed and my mouth a little open and tried to breathe deep and make like I was asleep. I hoped he’d just go away. Sometimes when he drank, he used to get up to pee and go back to bed, but these days he usually stayed up. I knew he probably wasn’t in a good mood if Grace hadn’t come home, and the last thing I wanted to do was get up and deal with his crap.

I heard him turn off the bathroom light, but didn’t hear the floor creak, so I knew he was standing in the hallway outside my door. I kept up the act, hoping, hoping, hoping...

Annie, he whispered from the hall outside my door. You awake?

I ignored him. If he wanted me up, I don’t know why he was whispering.

Annie, he said, and this time I heard the floor creak, but it was the familiar creak I heard every time I stepped into my room. Are you up?

He’s the only one that calls me Annie, and I hate it. I turned over to face away from him and pulled the covers up to my ear.

Aw, come on, Annie, he said, louder, wake up, will ya? I heard the floor creak again as he took another step closer to my bed.

I shifted again, putting my face in the pillow. I knew he wasn’t going to let me sleep, but some part of me held out hope.

Another creak, and then his hand was stroking my hair. Annie, come on, hon. It’s time to wake up. He pulled the covers down and rested his hand on my shoulder. He had big, thick hands, and I could feel the clammy heat of it through my nightshirt.

Mmmpf, I mumbled into my pillow, let me sleep another hour. I don’t have to be at work until twelve.

Living the life of Reilly, are ya? he asked, his hand pulling the covers down. I felt the bed shift as he rested his other hand on the mattress. The springs of my old box-spring squealed in protest, but he paid them no mind as he climbed into the bed beside me. His belly pressed against my lower back. His put his hand on my hip, and then started to slide up under my nightshirt.

Look, I’m not going to give you a play by play. You get the idea. It’s disgusting, and even thinking about it now, I want to throw up. I felt that way then, too.

But you know how I told you about the jug handles? How normal they seemed to me because I grew up with them?

Well, this was the same kind of normal.

When he was done, he pushed himself up out of the bed. It took him a minute to get his legs under him. When he did, he turned around and pulled the covers back up over me, all the way up to my ear. Then, he leaned over and kissed me on the head like he was some kind of normal father, instead of a fucking monster.

Go ahead, Annie, he said, sleep another hour. I’ll make breakfast.

I grunted in response.

It’s ok, hon. Rest up, he said, stroking my hair absently as he turned away. I didn’t move. I’ll wake you when breakfast is ready.

I heard the floor creak as he walked out of my room to the hallway, then heard him pause in the doorway.

And, Annie, he said, happy, birthday. I love you.

I heard