Inside the store, I asked the clerk to use the telephone.
“The pay phone is around back,” he said without looking away from his television.
“I don’t have any money. My husband left with my belongings.”
“They usually come back. Wait outside.”
The pay phone had been damaged and no longer worked. I returned to the curb and sat in the narrow strip of shade beside the building.
That was when I finally understood that the incident was not an isolated joke. It was the latest cruelty in a pattern I had spent years pretending not to see.
Kyle and his brothers had hidden my car keys before an important interview, causing me to miss it. They had placed a realistic eviction notice on our apartment door and watched me pack in tears before admitting it was fake. They made frightening telephone calls, ruined my clothes, and filmed my reactions whenever possible.
Each time I became upset, Kyle told me to develop a sense of humor. His brothers called me difficult, and his mother said I should feel grateful to belong to such a cheerful family.
Sitting in the desert, I admitted the truth.
I hated how they treated me.
More painfully, I hated the person I had become while trying to please them.
Then I remembered that Kyle had borrowed an old phone earlier that morning and placed it in my jacket pocket. It had almost no battery, but one message appeared before the screen went dark.
Don’t be angry. It’s only a prank for the channel. We’ll come back later. Relax.
His brothers ran an online prank channel and were desperate to become famous. Kyle wanted their approval badly enough to turn his wife into entertainment.
