Dub 1

The Princess
My mother doesnt like to be called Karin.
Never call me that, she hisses from her perch on my front step. She shudders, with a
tiny ick. Your father called me that. She takes a deep drag from her cigarette.
*

Karin! KARIN! my father is roaring.

I put down my dictionary and the list of definitions I was copying out to decorate the
walls of my room with. Pusillanimous (meaning lacking courage) falls to the floor, halfdefined. I scramble to my window and peer down from my second floor vantage point of our
century-old, rotting, rental farmhouse. A tunnel of dust eats the driveway from the house all the
way down to the road, Mum in her gold Saturn shooting out the end like she was shot out of a
cannon. Dad marches across the front lawn, stopping to watch her hit the road and turn toward
town. He shakes his head and breaks into a run, disappearing into the kitchen with a slam.
Mish! Honey, come get your shoes on. Weve gotta go.
Dad? I rush to the stairs, sit on the top step and straighten my legs, hurtling down the
over worn carpet on my butt to get there faster. This feels big.
Usually, I can hear Mum yelling first. Then she cries. Then she slams every door in every
hallway on the way to her room. Then the house settles for a few hours, until the suffocatingly
quiet dinners (or silent in her case), eleven-year-old me trying my best to employ my budding
sense of humour for relief.
Honey, hurry up. Come on!

Dub 2

Hes striding lion paces to the front door, wallet and keys in hand. He grabs my flip-flops
and tosses them at me.
What happened? Wheres Mum going? I ask as I stuff my feet into my flip-flops,
adjusting my toes as I hop along behind my father.
He frowns, his face purpling fast. Im guessing the bank. Oh God.
What? Where are we going? Why was she speeding so much? I dont get it. Dad, where
are we going?
The bank, he says, setting his face in a scowl as we get in the Taurus and begin to speed
through the settling dust. I clutch the door handle tightly, forcing myself to keep my eyes open as
we whip through the gravel.
Dad, youre going too fast, I protest.
He doesnt look at me.
Weve gotta stop your mother from taking the money.

Your father refuses to be amicable! my mother tells me later that afternoon, sitting next
to me on the loveseat in our living room. It was finally official: she was the one telling me they
were getting separated.

Dub 3

Thats the only answer I got regarding why she left, other than a shaky, unexplained
comparison of herself to the girl in my Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul book who almost
killed herself because she was so depressed and saw no other way out.
Do you understand why I have to go? she asks, gripping my hand hard.
I nod. Id been waiting for thisalmost hoping. It was pretty clear that no one was happy
in our house. If leaving was what it took her to find calm, I supported it. I hoped for calm myself
in the aftermath.

When she reached out to an abuse group after, he laughed.

I never hit her.
After she hung up on him the next week, he smacked the side of the filing cabinet so hard
he dented it in a straight line the exact length of his hand.

It wasnt until I had to run from him, nine years later, that I had any real idea why she
left. Always Daddys girl, it wasnt until I had to hide my new address from the parent that raised
me that I began to think my mother had it right. Fifteen months after running and since any
contact with my father, and I know shes right.

Dub 4

She shakes. Sucking on her second smoke like its her only source of oxygen, her eyes
bulge a bit as she stares past my shoulder, not seeing me anymore. I know shes thinking about
him, bitterly, and will for a while.
I catch myself up on her appearance while she wont notice the scrutiny and get insecure.
Shes still rocking her recent Joan Jett haircut. Shes finally gained some weight, too. Her bum
really is coming back, just like she had excitedly proclaimed. I smile. Its good to see. I
remember a pale, waxy woman that smelled sick, and starved on the couch down to eighty-nine
pounds. I guess, like me, she couldnt just decide to be happy for him. By the time she left she
was translucent like our sheets on the line that August.
She eventually returns, mutters fucker under her breath, and apologizes to me for her
language (like she always does). She stubs out her smoke and grabs another from her pack. She
lights up and launches into a full-fledged tale (because no story is ever short with my mother)
about one of her dance students. I listen intently, and absorb everything I can about the woman
Ive spent so much time estranged from.
In a squeaky, accurately high voice, she mimics her male student animatedly: Ms. Dub,
he said to me, I just
Mum, does it bother you that you still have his name? I interrupt.
She stopssighs.
I mean Dad, I add.
No, really? she mocks in the high-pitched, vapid voice she refers to as her blonde
voice, with a half-smile and an eye roll.

Dub 5

I feel bad for bringing him up again. Sometimes it feels like the only way we can relate to
each other, still, is through him. Sorry.
I knew what you meant. She pauses. It used toall the time. But Im used to it now.
She shrugs the same sanguine shrug I am so known for. Besides, if he wants a divorce, hell pay
for it. Thats how Ill know hes serious, she says with a triumphant, almost Dad-maniacal glint
in her eye.
Shes frightening in her patience. After waiting nine years for me to understand on my
own why she left, and another year aligning our stories and realizing she had been wrong in
hoping hed treat me better because I was his only child and all he had, she still stubbornly waits
with his name. Still playing, shes still determined to be stronger than himto outlast him. But
how do you outlast someone that believes they are entitled to everything?
Besides, she says with a dramatic flip of imaginary hair over her shoulder, pursing her
lips into duckface. Im not Ms. Dub. Im not Karin.
I laugh at the disgusted look on her face, nose scrunched up. I know. Youre the
Princess.
Thats right, she says. Im Princess Kiki. She kicks her size two and a half sneakered
feet into the air, childlike.
She renamed herself after the breakup, and has actually been reasonably successful at
getting us all to call her Princess Kiki. She has even dubbed her new car, her navy blue Subaru,
The Kikimobile. Im not kidding. I think she just decided one day that shed had enough of
Karin, and Kiki was the fun new choice to fully express her youthful attitude.

Dub 6

And Immmm she prompts, tapping her foot when I dont immediately respond and
sticking me in the ribs with her poky little fingers.
I laugh again, turning away from her tiny claws. Twenty-three! Youre twenty-three!
Thats right. She settles back into her seat, content, and puffs away for a few moments.
What are we going to do when I turn twenty-three? That one will be hard to explain.
Im the Princess. I can do whatever I want.
I cant help but nod and chuckle. Yes, Mum. You can.