57 Francesca
It’s a beautiful day, I think to myself, sitting on Ryan’s parents’ front porch. Too bad it’s one of the worst of my life.
I feel numb, really. Just sitting here, staring at the house across the street. The house I lived in for so long. I think I ought to feel something about the place- nostalgia, even sadness- but it really is just a building.
It’s the people in it that make it a home, that bring it to life. Or bring nightmares.
Flashes of awful moments with Gary fill my mind.
The crack of the front window against the back of my head when he shoved me.
The sound of the front door slamming into the wall as it was flung open.
The creak in the floorboards at night- my body trained to listen for it, heart pounding while I lay frozen in bed.
But there are just as many- no, there are more- good memories.
Gram and Jamie sitting shoulder to shoulder watching TV. Ryan helping me paint the flower boxes, the ones that are faded now but still hanging from the railing. Christian replacing the awful boob light in my bedroom with a tiny chandelier.
The porch creaks behind me as Christian comes outside, joining me on the bench. He pulls me into his body.
This side of the porch has furniture, a rug, and plants. A few feet away, the contrast is brutal. Jamie’s parents’ side is bare, dead, marked only by an old planter packed with cigarette butts.
My life has come with more than its fair share of trauma, but Jamie’s upbringing was just as bad in a lot of ways.
“Think he did it?” I ask quietly, staring at the front door across the porch.
Christian follows my gaze. He doesn’t answer right away.
“Maybe,” he says finally. “Probably. I don’t know why, but… yeah.”
The screen door creaks open. Jamie’s mom steps out, a cigarette already between her lips. She pauses when she sees us, lighter halfway up.
Then she flicks it on anyway and leans against the railing.
“So, he’s not out?”
Her voice is flat. The overdramatic crying mother from last night gone. In its place is the detached, distant woman who couldn’t be bothered.
“Why do you care?” I ask.
“He’s my son. I care,” she says, taking a drag. “Not my fault he got involved in some shit.”
I feel Christian shift beside me.
“It is your fault.”
He takes a few steps toward her and her eyes widen.
“You let your piece-of-shit husband sink his claws into him. He was a child. A child. And you let him get involved in all sorts of awful shit.”
She bristles. “I had to work. I tried my best- ”
“Bullshit,” he snaps, takes another step forward.
I press my hands into his back. “Christian, stop,” I whisper. “It’s okay- ”
“It’s not okay!”
He’s yelling now, practically vibrating under my hand.
“Do you know he dropped out of school because the principal wanted a meeting with his parents? To discuss his truancy? He knew you wouldn’t show. So he just quit.”
She sort of pulls back, almost like he hit her with his words. “He didn’t tell me that,” she says, defensive, but shaky.
“He knew you wouldn’t care.” Christian steps closer again, so close now that she’s backed against the railing.
“Do you know he broke four ribs once when a car hood fell on him? He couldn’t breathe right for a month.
He didn’t go to a doctor. Didn’t tell anyone.
I found him trying to wrap his ribs himself. He was sixteen.”
I feel tears burning behind my eyes as he continues.
“Right now,” he says, voice shaking with fury, “your son is locked up for a murder he didn’t commit. One that your husband probably did. And you don't give a shit."
I press harder into Christian’s back.
“Christian,” I say again, my voice small, cracking.
He sucks in a few breaths, then says, voice lower, almost a whisper.
“You aren’t his family,” he says. “Not anymore.” He turns to me then, wraps his arms around me, and pulls me close.
I don’t look back as he guides me inside Ryan’s house.