Chapter Twelve #2
"Both of you come with me, please. We can go right now, and I'll get you two anything you need.
" My aunt wedges her right foot between the doorframe and the door, preventing it from closing completely.
The leather of her jacket creaks as she reaches through the narrow opening for Mom's hand.
"You can't keep living like this. Look at yourself, Cynthia. Look at what he’s done to both of you.
There is more of your body covered in bruises than not.
You don't deserve this and neither does Si.
Please, come with me. I have a spare room and money saved up.
Let me help you." You can hear the heartbreak and desperation in her voice as she pleads with her sister. Her eyes keep darting to the kitchen, knowing she doesn’t have long to try to get through to her.
"You know there is no way out of this for me.
We've tried before, it will end the same every time… or worse. He'll always find us. He has connections everywhere—the department, the judges. He has files of false police reports documenting every mark on Silas’s body, all saying I’m the one who put them there.
.." Mom's voice cracks. "I can’t lose my child. He’s already taken everything else from me, Silas is the one thing I’ll never give up no matter what I have to go through to keep him with me.
Please, Syd, I need you to go. I can't worry about you being in this house too when I have Silas to protect. "
My aunt's eyes flick to me, lingering with a mix of helplessness and sorrow as the backdoor creaks open. The sound makes Mom flinch, her shoulders tense, bracing for the blows she knows are about to come. Sydney's gaze darts back to my mom, tears threatening to spill.
"One day, this will all seem like it was just a bad dream.
" Sydney squeezes my mom's hand, her voice dropping to barely a whisper.
"We'll figure it out and get you both away from him.
I promise." Then she turns without another word, closing the door behind her with a soft click that feels more like a death sentence than a goodbye.
The silence that follows is deafening, punctuated only by the sound of my father's heavy footsteps.
"Cynthia!" Dad's voice booms through the house, making the walls seem to vibrate with his rage. "Why the hell was she here?" Each word drips with venom, the kind that usually precedes his worst moments.
Mom's face goes chalk-white as she turns to me, her trembling hands smooth my hair back away from my face in that gentle way she always does when she's trying to be brave for me.
"It's okay," she whispers. I can barely hear her voice over my heartbeat thundering in my ears.
"Go to your room and play your new video games.
Turn the sound off and lock the door. I'll handle this. "
"But Mom—" My voice betrays the fear I'm trying so hard to swallow down.
"I'll be fine, Silas. Everything is okay." The lie hangs heavy between us, her forced smile not reaching her eyes. We both know better. Nothing is okay, it never was.
I nodded and retreated to my room like she asked, each step feeling like I'm abandoning her.
The screaming starts before I even reach my door.
Dad's thunderous accusations, Mom's softer voice trying to explain, to placate the monster.
I sit on my bed, my back against the headboard and knees pulled to my chest, listening to the familiar sounds of violence until suddenly.
.. nothing. The house falls into an unnatural silence that terrifies me.
This quiet isn't peaceful. It's the kind of silence that follows something terrible, and I already know this silence is worse than any scream I've ever heard.
I quietly creep out of my room and make my way to the kitchen. I was halfway to the kitchen before sounds began filtering through the thick silence. I could hear the clanking of dishes in the sink, metal silverware scraping against ceramic plates, water sloshing with every movement.
But something was wrong, beneath those seemingly normal sounds were other noises that made me stop dead in my tracks.
My father's labored breathing mixed with deep, animalistic, grunts of exertion.
The sound of water hitting the linoleum floor.
Then I noticed the gurgling. The wet, desperate sounds mixing with violent splashing.
My hands tremble as I press myself against the wall, inching forward until I can peek around the corner. The scene before me didn’t make sense at first, my mind struggling to piece it all together. Time slows to a crawl and my brain fights to deny what my eyes are showing me.
It was like I was living inside a horror movie playing in slow motion.
Every instinct I have in me is screaming at me to move, to run and help her, to turn and flee, to scream until someone comes to save us both.
Instead, I do nothing. Fear keeps me frozen in place like a statue.
I watch helplessly as my worst nightmare becomes my reality.
My father towers over my mother from behind, one hand brutally fisted in her dark hair at the back of her head, forcing her face down into the murky dishwater filling the kitchen sink.
His other hand is blocking my mother's weak attacks.
She's clutching a butterknife in her right hand, desperately slashing through the air in frantic, uncoordinated arcs.
She's trying to stab at anything—his arm, his side, anything at all that might cause him to loosen his grip so she can breathe again.
I silently will the knife to find its target, for her to land just one blow that might give her a chance.
Please, please, just one hit. But the dull blade slips from her soap-soaked fingers and falls to the floor.
My father erupts in laughter. It's the laugh of a predator that knows its prey is finished and he has won.
The splashing gradually slows, and her body goes limp in stages.
First her legs stop kicking, and her arms slowly fall to her sides.
Her wild thrashing becomes sluggish, barely more than twitches.
Her body starts to sag, and her fight fades away.
Then the air bubbles from her breaths stop floating to the surface.
Still, my father holds her under the water as he watches her final moments.
When she goes completely still, he continues to hold her head under the water for several more moments, making absolutely sure the job is done.
Then he releases her, he allows her lifeless body to collapse onto the floor like a broken doll.
Water drips from her hair and clothes, pooling around her body on the floor.
"Mom! No!" The words tear from my throat before I can stop them. My father's head whips around, his eyes burning with a feral intensity like I've never seen before. Not even during his worst drunken rages. There's something unhinged there now, this is a monster fully unleashed.
"Don’t just stand there gawking. I need help moving her.
Grab her feet." His voice is eerily calm, not at all matching the wild look in his eyes or the sweat dripping from his forehead.
"We need to get her in the bathtub before she starts going stiff. I don’t want to deal with that bullshit tonight.
" He says it so casually. Like we're moving furniture around the house instead of my mother’s dead body.
I'm still standing in the doorway, my fingers digging into the wooden frame as if it could somehow anchor me to reality because none of this can be real.
The floor seems to tilt and spin beneath me as I stare at her body sprawled out across the floor.
She's gone, and I'm standing here helpless, just like I've always been.
The woman who sang while she cooked me dinner, who'd secretly slip me extra cookies when Dad wasn't looking, who taught me how to tie my shoes.
All that's left is a broken, hollow shell on the kitchen floor.
I manage to shake my head no, the small movement taking every ounce of courage I possess. I want my mom back. I want to wake up from this nightmare. I don’t want to help him do this to her.
His face darkens, and he takes a few steps toward me.
"Boy," he snarls, water dripping from his uniform onto the floor with every step.
"You'll get your ass over here and do as you're told, or I promise you'll be six feet under, sharing the same grave with your momma.
" His voice drops to a deadly whisper, and I know without a doubt that he means every word.
“And trust me, nobody is going to look too hard for either one of you.”
The tears come without warning, burning like hot trails of acid down my face.
I try to choke them back, but it's useless.
He's on me before I can even try to wipe them away, his massive hands fisting the front of my shirt so tight I can barely breathe.
The fabric cuts into my neck as he shakes me.
My teeth rattle in my skull, my feet barely touching the ground.
"Don't you fucking cry. I've told you over and over again, haven't I?" His breath is hot against my face and reeks of scotch. One hand releases my shirt to jab a meaty finger toward Mom. "This is what happens when you disobey me. You want to end up just like her? Is that what you want? "
I shake my head no, tears still falling despite my attempt to stop them. My throat feels like it's closing up. I’m choking on my own fear and grief.
"Then get her fucking feet like I told you to do.
" He shoves me hard enough that I stumble backward, tripping over Mom’s feet and falling against the counter before I catch myself.
"You're supposed to be a man, aren't you?
Act like one and stop being a whiny little bitch.
Real men don't cry, but they sure as hell follow orders. "