I stayed at Ruthie's house for three days waiting for Matthew. I hoped he'd won the battle, but when my mother, not Matthew, finally came to get me, I knew otherwise. She looked horrible. My father had never beaten her so badly before. She wouldn't be able to go out in public for weeks.
"Where's Matthew?" I asked.
My mother stared straight ahead and said, "He's gone."
"So your dad killed your older brother?" the lieutenant asked. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as if trying to process the information. "Is that why you killed him?"
I didn't respond. I couldn't.
"Was it self-defense?" he added.
I looked out of the window and fought back tears of anger. I wouldn't cry. I refused.
"Stephen, I want to help you. But you have to work with me. You have to tell me the truth."
I shrugged. "What is truth anyway? What does it matter?"
"The truth is everything. The truth shall set you free."
I turned and glared at him then. My father often quoted that scripture in his sermons. I hated those words. They were empty and meaningless coming from my father and they certainly weren't going to help me get out of my current situation. If anything, the so-called truth had ruined my life.
"I will never be free," I said, turning away from him again.
"Is that because you're lying to me?"
I do lie sometimes. Everyone does.
But not dangerous lies.
I lie to protect people.
Lieutenant Drake stood and walked to the window. "Smoke?" he asked holding out a cigarette for me.
I shook my head. "I'm allergic."
Lieutenant Drake looked at the cigarette then put it back in the pack, choosing not to send me into an allergic reaction.
"In eighth grade, Ruthie and I decided to experiment with cigarettes. We met behind the gymnasium and held the cigarettes between our fingers for ten minutes before we had the courage to actually light them."
"What happened?"
"It took about three seconds before my throat closed up and I couldn't breathe. Ruthie ran to get the school nurse. After the principal and the nurse were sure I wasn't going to die, Ruthie and I faced suspension for smoking on school property. But I told them it wasn't her. I was alone and she just happened to be walking past to find me choking."
"You protected her."
I nodded. "It was the least I could do. I owe her. Without her in my life..." I couldn't finish the thought. I didn't know what my life would be like without Ruthie. I probably would've killed myself by the time I was ten.
"What did your dad do when he found out you got suspended?"
"I didn't get suspended."
Lieutenant Drake looked a question at me.
"Why not?"
"My father called the principal.
Worked his magic.
Got the suspension revoked. But when I got home -"
"He beat you." Lieutenant Drake said, finishing my thought.
"He broke my collarbone." I self-consciously touched the slight bump where the bone hadn’t healed properly.
Lieutenant Drake sighed,
then
sat back down.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this," I said. "I guess I feel if you know me, you'll understand me. No one understands me except Ruthie."
Lieutenant Drake leaned back in his chair. "Why don't you tell me more about her? How did she deal with Matthew's death?"
The next few weeks were miserable. My father tortured my mother. He kicked her in the stomach, pushed her down stairs, and beat her to within an inch of her life. He told the congregation that she had gone to California to visit her family so no one would get suspicious.
I worried about her. She would go days at a time without eating. My father wouldn't let her. I would sneak into her room and try to give her some food. Sometimes he would catch me and beat me, too. One morning, he left to run some errands. I called Ruthie and had her bring over some of her grandmother's biscuits. I tried to feed Mother, but she was in so much pain it hurt for her to even sit up.
"I'm sorry, Stephen," she said weakly.
"
Shh
, just try to eat something, Mother." I didn't know why she tried to apologize to me. She didn't do anything wrong. She swallowed a couple of bites of food and almost vomited.
"It's
all my
fault. I'm so sorry, Stephen." She was delirious. She didn't know what she was talking about. My father had driven her crazy. I tried to quiet her down.
"Don't try to talk. Just eat."
"Just remember I love you. No matter what happens, I love you. I did it for you." Her tone frightened me. She sounded like she was giving up. What did she mean, she did it for me? What did she do? She started convulsing and vomiting blood. I thought she was going to die right there in front of my eyes. But she didn't. She survived.
Whenever someone asked, my father claimed Matthew ran away to join the Navy. I knew that wasn't true. I was convinced that he killed my brother and hid the body. I also knew Ruthie was devastated, but she didn't want to let it show. She tried to be strong. I remember she dragged me to the police station in order to file an official complaint against my father.
"I
wanna
report a murder," she said as she marched into the Livingston police station. It was a little country station with only two or three officers comprising the entire force. The building was smaller than my house. At first, no one even acknowledged our presence. Ruthie had to repeat herself three times before anyone even looked at her.
"What kind of a murder would you like to report, little girl?" Stanley Pender asked as he knelt down, smiling at Ruthie. At the time, I thought he was about 150 years old. I probably wasn't too far off. He was a relic at the police station. I think he was the first officer in the town. These days he never did any real work. He was more of an honorary deputy. "Is it your dog? Did someone hurt your dog?" he added.
"No," Ruthie said still determined, "someone killed my Matthew. His brother," she added, pointing to me. I had stayed a few steps behind her with my head down. I was a little embarrassed. I knew no one would believe her. They would give her the same look my pre-school teacher had given me when I tried to tell her what my father
did
to me and my mother.
"And just who killed Matthew?"
he
asked, still smiling.
"Reverend Phillips," Ruthie stated boldly. Stanley's smile melted off his face.
"Girl, you can't go 'round
accusin
' innocent people of
thangs
. Do you know what God does to liars?"
"The same thing he does to murderers! Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that. I
ain't
a liar!" Ruthie yelled with her hands on her hips. "He did it. I know he did!"
"Stephen," Stanley called still staring at Ruthie. I thought he might take off his belt and give her a beating right there.
"Yes, Sir."
"Why don't you go home and teach your colored friend some manners? And tell her your brother joined the Navy. He's not dead."
"Yes, Sir."
I grabbed Ruthie's hand and tried to pull her out of the station. She kept ranting about how my father was a murderer and how we might be next.
"He wouldn't leave without saying goodbye! He's dead, I know it!" No one listened.
Ruthie and I sat on the stone steps outside the police station as the skies darkened. We sat there in silence for what seemed like forever. I knew Ruthie was trying to come up with a plan. I thought she'd want to leave as I felt the first few drops of rain. Grandma Esther had just straightened her hair and any kind of moisture would make it curl up again. But Ruthie didn't move. She just sat there. As the rain started to come down harder, Ruthie started to cry. Matthew had been like a father to her. He was another one to add to the list of people she loved that had left her.
We coped with our grief by searching for Matthew's body in the woods. Ruthie thought that if we found a body maybe someone would believe us. We let Goldie sniff his clothes and run around the woods, thinking she could find where my father had buried Matthew. She was just a puppy, though, and most of the time she'd end up chasing a squirrel while Ruthie and I continued the search. We looked for clues and even dug numerous holes, thinking we had found his grave. We finally decided that we would never find his body and gave ourselves some closure by holding a memorial service for him by the lake.
We both dressed in black and met at the lake right before sunset. Ruthie drew a picture of Matthew, and we taped it to a tree during the service. Then we both gave speeches, sharing what we loved about Matthew and what we would miss the most.
"I'm
gonna
miss the way he'd tuck me in at night and tell me that everything was
gonna
be okay and the way he made me feel safe," I said.
As tears trickled down her face, Ruthie said "I'm
gonna
miss the way he would put me on his shoulders on the way to the park and how he would pick us up from school every day and on Fridays take us for ice cream."
Then Ruthie sang "You Are My Sunshine" because that was her favorite song to sing with Matthew. I felt the song was pretty appropriate. For our entire lives, Matthew was the only ray of sunshine. Next, we took the drawing of Matthew and buried it in one of the holes we had dug, looking for his grave.
My life got much worse without Matthew. My mother became just a shell of her former self. She barely spoke, even to me. Sometimes she would just look at me and start crying. Then she would grab me and say "I'm sorry" over and over again. I guess she was apologizing for the way my father treated us. She thought it was her fault that she didn't have the strength to take me and leave. I didn't blame her, though. I could handle the abuse. I had gotten used to it. It was just mind over matter for me.
Every day during the summer, Ruthie and I went swimming in our lake. One day, when I was thirteen, our innocent summer recreation became something more.
I was sitting on the grass, taking a break, when she sauntered out of the water. Suddenly, I saw her differently. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She was still my best friend on the inside, but on the outside she had changed. I finally noticed she was absolutely gorgeous.
"Are you coming back in the water?" she asked, completely unaware that I was undressing her with my eyes. It wasn't difficult to do, considering the tiny yellow swimsuit she wore. We were so close that we often overlooked modesty with each other. At that moment, I mentally thanked whoever had created the bikini.
"Stephen? Are you okay?" I realized that I had missed her question because I was too busy staring at her breasts. A flush came over me, and I felt a warm sensation all over my body, especially in my swim trunks.
"Stephen, why are you all red? Are you sick?" She went to touch my face.
"No, don't touch me." I jerked away from her hand.
"What's wrong? Did I do something?" She was starting to worry.