Thirty-seven
My father’s furious cursing rolls over me like smoke, thick and choking. Sheetrock ruptures again and again under his fists.
The front door slams open in an explosion of shattering wood and harsh male voices.
My father grunts. Beneath my cheek, the floor vibrates.
Strong hands roll me over and skim my body. When something closes around my neck, I try to get away, but my arms and legs don’t work. I scream, but all that comes out is a whimper.
Sarah, if you can hear me, don’t fight. Your father is in custody and we’re taking you to the hospital. You’re going to be fine.
I wait for relief to come. It doesn’t. I need my brother. I need James.
Don’t try to talk.
Someone cuts my jeans from my body.
I black out immediately.
Thirty-
eight
The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
James’s voice filters into the black hole I’m lying in like fine, powdered snow, and settles in drifts in the corners of my mind.
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and cried.
The drifts get bigger, taller, until they’re high enough for me to climb out of the blackness. When I finally come to, I’m in a soft bed and someone has dimmed the lights, or maybe it’s nighttime, because my retinas don’t burst into flame when I open my eyes.
My head hurts so bad, it might kill me.
As soon as my eyes are shut again and the headache dims a little, I become aware of other things. Unfamiliar things like the cool, sterile air and crisp cotton sheets. Nice things like my brother’s hands clutching one of mine and his soft hair brushing my wrist. Horrid, painful things like my burning throat and the million shards of glass stabbing my left hip. When I shift and whatever I’m wearing brushes against those shards, I wish whoever saved me from my father would’ve let me die.
My bed moves ever so slightly in a rhythmic pattern as familiar to me as breathing. James’s breathing. I slide my fingers from his hand and comb them through his hair. He stirs, rubs his cheek into my palm, and blinks up at me. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
This might be the worst I’ve ever seen him look. Eyes red-rimmed with circles so dark they could be bruises. Stubbly beard. Hair a grimy mess. When I force myself to meet his gaze, everything that’s happened between us these last few days doesn’t matter anymore.
The last tiny thread of sanity I’ve managed to hold onto snaps
.
James climbs onto my bed and holds me like he’s done hundreds of times while I sob into his chest. The whole story spills out of me in ragged gasps that probably don’t make any sense to him but I try anyway. Lasagna. The leather belt. The pot handle sticking out over the edge of the stove…
When I’ve cried myself into exhaustion, he scoots closer, slips his arm around my shoulders, and awkwardly nestles my body against his. Maybe he knows how badly my hip hurts, because he’s careful to keep the heavy hospital sheet off that side of my body.
“So…Dad’s in jail.” There is zero happiness in his voice, even though we’ve spent most of our lives waiting for this to happen. “We’re finally free.”
He blows out a breath that borders on a sob. It takes him a moment to be able to look at me again, and when he does, a single fat tear rolls down his cheek. My heart breaks. I reach up to cup his face in my hand, blocking out as much of the pain as I can so my arm doesn’t tremble.
“James,” I say softly. “I’m okay.
We’re
okay.”
He shakes his head and rests his forehead against mine. “This is all my fault. If I wasn’t being such an asshole about everything, I could’ve stopped him.”
I don’t see how, though my mind flashes to the gun hidden on the top shelf of our closet. Not even Sam could’ve stopped this.
Sam
. My heart aches just thinking about how he must be feeling right now. If he even knows. I squint at the windows. “What time is it?”
“It’s quarter past eight.”
Then he doesn’t know. I’m contemplating stealing James’s cell phone and lying about having to use the restroom when a nurse slips into the room and gives James a meaningful look.
“How about you go down to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee?” she says. “I’d like to talk to your sister alone for a few minutes.”
For a second, I think he’ll say no. He holds my gaze, his eyes screaming just how badly he doesn’t want to leave me alone, but then he gives in and slides off my bed.
I lie there silently, watching her leaf through my chart as James trudges out of my room. When his footsteps fade away and the elevator at the end of the hallway slides shut, she closes my chart and gives me a concerned look.
“How are you feeling?”
I manage a weak smile. “Everything hurts.”
“I’ll bet it does. Give yourself a few days and you’ll feel good as new.”
She smiles and shifts her weight from one foot to the other, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. I know exactly what that smile means. No way am I spilling my secrets to this woman when I’ve got a headache the size of Alaska and my throat feels like I swallowed an entire desert. Closing my eyes, I wish for the nurse to leave and James to take extra long getting coffee so I can pass out.
“Sarah?”
I ignore her.
“I know you can hear me and you don’t have to answer, but if you need to talk to someone about what’s been going on at home…”
The nurse hesitates. I can feel her body heat and concern, thick like too-sweet honey, hovering beside my bed. When I don’t acknowledge her offer, she sets something on my lap. “Both the police and Child Protective Services will be by in the morning. Press the call button if you change your mind about talking to someone before then. I’ll listen.”
The only person I want to see right now is Liz—a startling realization, but not even my discomfort changes how I feel. I want her warm hugs and her shoulder to cry on. I want her to tell me she loves me and that everything will be okay.
I want a mother.
I wait until the nurse’s footsteps have faded before opening my eyes, just in case. On my lap sits a pile of colorful pamphlets. The one on top is for a crisis center a few blocks from the hospital.
Abuse Victim Services
it says in bright yellow and purple graphics. Frowning, I stuff that one under the bottom of the pile. The next, printed on a far less colorful piece of paper,
Abortion Clinics in Oregon.
What the heck?
But then I keep reading.
Suicide Awareness
,
Coping with an Unwanted Pregnancy, Gray
Haven Home for Battered Teens
… By the time I get to the fourth pamphlet,
Incest and Pregnancy: Know Your Options
, I’ve figured out what’s going on and the world drops out from under me.
They think my father raped me. Maybe more than once since, if they gave me an internal exam, the doctor would know I’m not a virgin. And James would’ve told them I’ve never had a boyfriend if they bothered to ask.
A few minutes later, James walks back in with a paper coffee cup in each hand. I stuff the pamphlets under my sheets and wipe away the tears that started falling again. If it’s even possible, he looks worse than before he left for the cafeteria. My eyes linger on his sad face, his broad shoulders hunched in defeat beneath his thin white t-shirt.
When he hands me the second cup of coffee and flops into the plastic chair beside the bed, my heart breaks all over again. He’s been crying, not that anyone else would be able to tell. I touch his arm—the best I can do without moving too much—and try to look reassuring.
“We’ll be okay,” I say.
He nods and stares at my fingers tracing circles on his bicep. “I’ve gotta convince them not to take you away from me. I can’t lose you. I won’t.”
His eyes get watery and he takes a big gulp of coffee to keep himself under control. Guilt tears me apart from the inside out when I think of Sam and what I promised. Even if CPS doesn’t toss me into foster care for the next five months, one way or the other, James will lose me. I’ll break the promise I made to him when we were little, back before I knew what it meant to grow up and fall in love and want to be with someone other than your brother.
I shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting a normal life.
Except…watching him fall apart, giving up on his coffee and burying his face in my stomach when he finally breaks down, I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to choose Sam if I’m forced to pick between him and my brother.
Thirty-nine
They don’t take me away from James, though I suspect it’s a close thing.
After we’ve both been interviewed by Child Protective Services and they’ve determined living with my brother is the most stable option for me, he’s there, reaching for my hand when they inform us our father didn’t have health insurance and never bothered to sign me or James up for state health care. We should expect an enormous bill in three to four weeks.
By the time we’re through with all the release papers, James looks beaten, both physically and emotionally. I see a massive bruise on his forearm that wasn’t there when he left last night but when I ask about it, he shakes his head and leaves to get another cup of coffee.
Detective Lilly is our last visitor.
James wheels me from the lobby where the nurse left me into a small meeting room where the detective lounges comfortably in what looks like a very uncomfortable hospital chair. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch my brother size him up, standing a little taller when Detective Lilly rises to shake his hand.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” he says. “Your reputation at the Armory precedes you.”
James grunts. “Those guys run their mouths too much.”
“It’s a pleasure all the same. I did a little boxing myself back in the day. As I told Sarah, ol’ Knockout had his way with me more times than I’d care to admit.”
James frowns at me and I realize he doesn’t know that the detective and I have already spoken. I ignore him, but Detective Lilly sees everything.
“She didn’t tell you? We met Sunday afternoon when I stopped by the house to ask a few questions about your mother’s death. I had hoped to speak with you as well, but you weren’t home. Maybe we can talk before you leave today?”
“Sure.”
Detective Lilly launches into his questioning, leaving me no time to be grateful for his omitting Sam. Recounting every awful detail of what our father did to me in front of my brother nearly kills me, especially the parts my mind is already starting to block out. James shoves away from the table before the end, looking equal parts furious and disgusted, and storms out of the room.
“Your brother is very… passionate,” Detective Lilly observes. “Have you had any trouble with him? Any arguments that turned physical? Any inappropriate behavior?”
Fear slides up my spine and spider-webs across my skin. “No, never.”
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Miss O’Brien? Anything you may have left out of our last conversation that might help me keep you safe?”
When his dark eyes pin me in place, I lose the ability to speak. What is
with
him? He clearly knows the effect he has on people, so I have to wonder how intimidating the victim helps anything. The tiny flare of irritation gives me the strength to shake my head.
“Carry on, then.”
It takes five very long minutes to finish telling the detective what happened and answer his follow up questions. James never returns to the room, and when I wheel myself out into the hallway, I’m not surprised to see him slumped in a chair in the waiting room, looking like he’s been crying again.
“Detective Lilly is ready for you,” I say when I finally reach him.
He stares past me, unfocused and unblinking. The living dead.
“James?” I shake his arm. “Hey, everything’s going to be fine. Just go talk to the detective and we’ll go home, okay?”
“How can you say everything’s gonna be fine after what Dad
did
to you?” His eyes shift, a sick pool-water blue instead of sapphire when they finally focus on me. “How can you ask me to take you home when every time I look at that kitchen, I’ll know what I almost lost?”
“Because everything
is
going to be fine,” I insist. “Now that Dad’s in jail, we can start over. That’s what I want more than anything.”
James leaves me in the waiting room with his sweatshirt and the backpack he brought with my change of clothes. Gingerly, I slip my arms through the sleeves and worm the sweatshirt over my head. The burn on my side screams in protest, but when James’s cell phone falls in my lap, I forget the pain.
I frantically scroll through James’s contact list and find Sam’s number. Hitting SEND, I fix my gaze on the door that separates James from me and the phone call he’d kill me for making.
“This better be important, asshole,” a sleepy voice grumbles. “You haven’t talked to me in weeks.”
I imagine him in bed, hair mussed up and an arm thrown over his eyes. “It’s me. I’m at the hospital and only have a second, but I wanted to tell you I’m okay.”
Fabric rustles and Sam curses. “You’re in the hospital? Why? What happened?”
“Um,” I glance at the meeting room. The door is still closed, but for how much longer? “There’s no time to explain, but I swear, I’ll call you as soon as I can. I miss you.”
“Wait—”
I hang up, delete the call log, and stuff the phone in James’s pocket. Not a moment too soon, because my brother throws open the meeting room door and stomps toward me a few seconds later, looking far more pissed off than he did before.
“We’re leaving,” he snaps and grabs the handles of my wheelchair with far more force than necessary. We’re through the lobby and out the hospital doors before I can blink.
“What happened? What did he say?” I clutch my side when he shoves the chair over a speed bump in the parking lot.
“He thinks I did it. He thinks
I
killed Mom!”
My mouth drops open. “What?”
“Every question he asked was a trap. When I refused to answer, he threatened to take you away until I cooperated, but he can’t and I know it. He said he knows about me and Leslie. He says I got the drugs from her.”
“How could he even
think
that?” My brother hasn’t been himself for weeks, but I don’t believe he murdered our mother for a second. He loved her more than anyone.
“No fucking clue, but that doesn’t change anything.”
“Should we find a lawyer?”
“We can’t
afford
a lawyer.”
The wheelchair grinds to a halt beside his truck and he opens the passenger door.
“James, we have to talk about this. We have to do something. I won’t let them blame you for what he did!”
“I’ll take care of it.” He slides his arms behind my back and under my knees. “Put your arm around my neck. If this hurts too bad, I’ll let you punch me afterwards. Deal?”
I do what he asks, but I don’t let him change the subject. “How will you take care of it without a lawyer?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
Far gentler than the nurse who “helped” me into the chair an hour ago, James scoops me up and positions himself to lower me into the seat. My head may be hurting less, but there’s just something about burns that make them hurt way worse than they should. I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood in anticipation of the pain that’s about to come.
Without bumping into anything, he sets me down and kneels on the sideboard to do my seatbelt. “I’m not an invalid,” I say. “And I don’t like your answer.”
“Too bad.” He backs off, but waits until I’m securely fastened into the seat before looking away from my hands and the buckle. When he does, his gaze lingers on my lips. “You’re bleeding.”
Before I can stop him, he wipes the blood away with his thumb.
“Lick your lips,” he says quietly.
I do, but instantly regret it because his eyes glaze over. “I have Chapstick at home,” I blurt out, then realize how stupid that sounds. “It’ll stop. Don’t worry about it.”
He reaches out and presses his thumb into my lip. I don’t miss the way his breaths go shallow when he slides his thumb through the moisture left behind from my tongue.
I grab his wrist and push his hand away. “Stop it, James. I’m serious.”
It takes a second, but his eyes clear and he blinks at me like he has no idea why there’s blood on his thumb and why he’s kneeling on the floor of his cramped truck. He clears his throat, wipes his hands on his jeans, and returns the wheelchair.
We stop by the mall on our way home where he hops out to grab us slices of pizza and triple scoops of ice cream in waffle bowls. I wait in the truck listening to his crackling radio sputter out a bunch of songs Sam would probably love.
Calling him had been a selfish mistake. If he’s not waiting in front of my house when we get there, I’ll be shocked. He’ll take one look at all the bruises and the burn on my hip and get into a massive fight with James over who can protect me better. Then Detective Lilly will show up and throw them both into jail for fighting.
“The cheese pizza they had out looked kind of old, so I made them give me a slice of the one that just came out of the oven,” James says when he slides into the truck. “Fork and knife are in the bag. Oh, and Triple Scoop was out of your chocolate mint chip, so I got you strawberry. Is that okay? I’ll eat it and get you something else if not.”
I blink at him. I think I mentioned wanting to try strawberry once, in passing, at least six months ago. “No, that’s perfect. Thank you.”
He grins. “You’re welcome.”
After we inhale our food, we drive around town for a bit. James keeps the flow of conversation steady and light. Somehow, he’s managed to move past Detective Lilly’s accusations and how horrible I look. It’s like he doesn’t see the bruises and cuts.
As much as I miss Sam, James is turning out to be exactly who I need. He’s not giving me a chance to wallow, or drown in flashbacks or depression. It’s like old times again.
Nobody understands me better than my brother—they can’t, not without having lived the life we have. This is exactly why I love him and why, no matter how much I love Sam, I’m not sure I want to completely abandon my brother. Or whether I can.