My father, in reflex, dropped the glass he’d been holding. He flinched. My eyes got as big as saucers at seeing my father flinch back in fear from anything. The shattering of the glass seemed like a gunshot going off. Katy hunched her shoulders and put her hand up over her face. Of us, only Brutus remained unfazed, his teeth bared.
The next few moments seemed like molasses. My father coming back to his senses from the fear place he’d gone to, my sister coming unfrozen, me struggling to figure out what had just happened. My father, with what seemed like lightning speed, reached out and grabbed the dog’s collar. The angle he had his arm at, Brutus couldn’t get his head around to bite, so my father dragged the snarling dog out of the room. His eyes locked on mine as he passed me by. My sister stood there, motionless, staring. The back door slammed, then the yelping started.
To be honest, I don’t know why I didn’t stop it. I stood there, listening to what he was doing to the dog, but didn’t move. It seemed to go on forever. “Rape victims often experience that same time dilation,” Dr. Beldsoe told me. The dull thud-thud of his fist, and the snarling that became yelping, that eventually turned into nothing were my entire world at that point. My sister turned for the door and left. One of the other images I see often in my dreams is that leaving; so calm, so ordered. She simply turned and walked out the front door. Sarah came to the top of the stairs and whispered “What’s going on?” but I couldn’t respond. I stood there and shook. Eventually the back door slammed and my father came back in.
“Why didn’t you get a broom and sweep up the god damn mess, son?” he asked, sweeping past me. He smelled of sweat and that other smell, the strong one of whatever it was he was drinking at the time. I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even move. I just shook and stared. He shook his head and walked out the door to the garage. I went to the back door and looked out the window. Brutus was laying on the concrete, and I thought he was sleeping. I didn’t check.
Brutus never woke up, though.
Katy didn’t come back, and, in my eyes, neither did my father.
I don’t talk about this stuff much with Dr. Bledsoe, though. Little boys aren’t supposed to whine. Men aren’t either, but they have the added responsibility of making sure nobody else does, too. That’s what I learned from my dad. Dr. Bledsoe says I’m still angry with him for changing who he was; that I needed him to be stable and he wouldn’t be. He says that I wanted my father to be my hero and when he failed, I internalized. I wonder what he’d say if he knew all of what happened.
I could say that my mom shut off after Katy left, but that’d be untrue. She’d shut off long before. Like a lot of things, looking back on that made it pretty clear. I’d asked Sarah about it, once, four years ago. She’d said only “Yeah, I noticed, too. I never asked her what had happened.” Neither of us had. All we knew was that one day, dad was okay and mom, though strange, was mom. The next, my mother was almost never awake, and my father turned into the sort of man who’d beat a dog to death.
My mother stood in the door, the yellow light of the utility room behind her, using her hands to hold her robe closed. I wanted to pause, to stop walking and just look. It seemed like some image from a movie. I wanted it to go on forever. As soon as my foot landed on the car port cement, she started moving toward me. She was immaculate, even in her bathrobe. The light caught the gray in her hair perfectly. She seemed like some movie starlet from the black and white films; glamorous and regal. She stepped closer and I was reaching out to put my arms around her. Sometimes, no matter how old a person gets, all they want is for their mom to hold them, I guess.
Her face changed, though. She looked back over my shoulder and when I turned my head, I saw headlights coming up the road. I waited a moment, my arms falling a bit. My mother adjusted her bathrobe again. The car was big and yellow. As soon as it pulled into our driveway, I could tell it was a taxi. I thought it was the one I’d taken; maybe I’d forgotten something. Then the door opened, and Sarah got out. My mother immediately moved to greet her. The trunk swung slowly open. My sister was already mumbling and cursing at the driver. I stood there, staring as my mother tried to say hello to my sister, while she was only interested in getting her suitcase out of the trunk, and cursing.
Sarah had gotten dad’s gift for stringing obscene words together. I was never any good at it. I wanted to be, though. I always wanted to be. When we were little, and Katy was still around, we’d have contests to see who could string together the longest sentence entirely made up of curse words. The rules were that you could repeat something you’d said earlier, but there had to be five new words in between each repetition. I’d always get confused before I could even start to repeat what I’d already said. Not Sarah, though. Even Katy would lay there in awe of my sister’s power for cursing.
Tonight was no exception. My mom got close, and raised her arms up, trying to put them around Sarah. Once she heard the river of harsh language coming from my sister’s mouth, though, she backed up a step, and adjusted her robe once more.
Then my father came out. All I heard was “Who in the Sam hell left this god damned door open? Jesus Christ, what am I doing, warming up the—,” he paused, then changed into an entirely different human being, “My god, is that Sarah? Shit and shinola, that’s my baby girl. Come here to me, you,” he said and rushed to her. She closed the taxi’s trunk and rushed to my father’s open arms.
I was stunned. Something had happened in the last four years that I wasn’t a part of. My sister and my father were embraced and rocking side to side. My mother stood next to them, her hand on my sister’s shoulder. None of them were looking at me. I picked up my bag, and walked to the door.
My father caught my eye as I walked past, and he said “Well, Mike. I see you made it,” and his eyes closed. His arms squeezed around Sarah just a bit tighter. I stepped in through the door. My father went to the counter, picked up his wallet, and walked out the door.
The first thing that happened once I was inside was my body relaxed some. It was the smell. Someone told me once that every house has its particular smell. I relaxed the minute I smelled the stale pie crust and old mashed-potato smell of my parent’s house. I walked in to the kitchen and set my stuff down near the dinner table. Centered on that table were the ceramic salt and pepper shakers. I’d gotten them for my mom my first Christmas at school. They’d taken us to a small shop and given us thirty minutes to spend our money to buy gifts for our teachers or friends. I saw them immediately; a salt and pepper shaker set that looked like mushrooms. For some reason, I knew at once that mom would love them. She did, too. She said they were the best gift ever, and put them in the center of the table. They’d never been moved, or even used, that I know of.
I felt a small wave of tension in my stomach, and something flowing from my nose. I could hear them coming in. I went for the downstairs bathroom, my head tilted back at a crazy angle.
“Mike?” my mom called out.
I flipped on the light and rummaged in the medicine cabinet, looking at an odd angle down the length of my face, which was tilted toward the ceiling. I found a cotton ball, wet it, and was jamming it into my nose as my mother came around the corner.
“What is it, dear?”
“Dosebleeb,” I managed. In the mirror, I saw her shudder.
“Still get them quite a bit?”
“Nod neely az obten az hued dink,” I said.
My sister, drawn to whatever was happening in the house came to the door. She looked past mom’s shoulder and, seeing two spots of blood on my shirt, said “Gross.”