Chapter 51
RAZOR
This is harder than I thought, and I always knew it would be difficult, but I owe it to Sunday to reveal the man she is with.
My voice comes out huskier than usual, and yet I can’t help it as I head to that place in my mind I turned my back on years ago.
“My father was an alcoholic.”
I get that one right out there, and yet she says nothing, merely squeezing my hand, encouraging me to continue.
“Mom bore the brunt of his addiction; we all did when he staggered home after one of his nights out.”
The memories swirl around me like fractured ghosts bleeding venom and pain.
It takes a lot for me to carry on.
“He loved mom hard. Too hard. When he was sober, he treated her like a queen. He was obsessed with her. It grew like a cancer that destroyed all our lives. His devotion was twisted, and she paid a heavy price.”
The water gurgles before me, and I note our reflections distorted by the ripples of the water, yet somehow distancing my mind from the reality of the situation.
“She couldn’t move without him wanting to know why.
Even at home, if she moved from one room to another, he kept his eyes on her.
Always watching her, expecting the worst to happen.
She became trapped, physically and emotionally.
She had no friends, no job, and no life outside of him.
It dragged her into depression, and she gave up caring.
Blade and I were distractions, and he began to resent us too.
We took some of her attention away from him.
He hated that, and the beatings started when we were young boys.
Mom tried to help but suffered the same, and we began to dance on a knife edge not to trigger his mood. ”
Sunday lays her head on my shoulder, enough to comfort and reassure, and my heart twists in agony at the thought of ever laying a hand on her in anger.
It’s killing me inside at the mere thought of that, and it’s difficult to speak as I attempt to distance my mind from it.
“It was normal for Mom to face us with a black eye, bruises on her body and a split lip. He was always sorry, cried and begged for forgiveness. But when the alcohol was speaking, he spoke with his fists, sometimes worse.”
I squeeze my eyes tight against the memories, but they edge past anyway.
“I shared a room with Blade beside theirs. We didn’t have much, and it was all they could afford.
A small house means noise doesn’t have far to travel, and the sound of Mom sobbing through the walls will live with me till my dying day.
He abused her in every way, and she took it – for us.
To keep his attention on her, to keep us safe from him.
When we grew older, taller and more able, we joined a gym and worked out hard, mainly to refocus our rage and to give us the strength to fight back one day. ”
I blow out a breath, the agony of the past haunting my present.
“One night, Blade and I came home and heard Mom screaming. That wasn’t unusual, but we knew.
It was time. We found them in the kitchen, and when we burst through the door, Mom was face down on the countertop while he plowed into her from behind.
Blade got to him first, and yet our dad was a huge man with surprisingly fast reflexes.
He saw his reflection in the cupboard door and turned, a knife in his hand we missed.
He slashed at Blade, who took the knife across his face, and yet he held on and grabbed his wrist and brought it down hard on the edge of the counter.
I pulled Mom away and told her to run. To get out of there and call the cops from the neighbor’s house.
She was terrified but did as I said, and as my father attempted to beat the hell out of Blade, I added my fist to the party.
Two against one didn’t end well for our father, and by the time the cops arrived, he was unconscious and badly hurt.
Fractured pelvis, concussion, collapsed lung and broken jaw — that was the list the doctor read off the chart when the cops paid him a visit in the emergency room. ”
Sunday is crying, her tears splash on our fingers as I grip her firmly.
“It turns out his hold on Mom was too strong, and she refused to press charges or back up our story. She put it down to a family squabble, and all was good. I have never felt so betrayed.”
My voice is strong, but inside I am that boy again, on the verge of manhood, realizing that adults can make a shitload of a mess of their lives.
“It turns out that Mom wasn’t strong enough and couldn’t live without him, and after a verbal warning from the cops, we were sent home.
Life became harder when he recovered. He abused us mentally, realizing physical abuse was no longer an option.
I lost all respect for my mom, that hurts the most, and then… ”
I break off, pain slicing through the last remaining chain on the box in my mind, and I hiss, “We came home one night and discovered her broken on the kitchen floor. Blood spilling from her mouth, naked from the waist down. She couldn’t move; she floated in and out of consciousness; he was nowhere to be found.
We called the ambulance, but she was barely alive, and I cradled her head in my hands and begged her to hold on. ”
I am no longer sitting on the edge of the lagoon with Sunday. My mind is back in that kitchen.
“Don’t be like him, Razor. You have it in you, I know you do, so promise me you will never put any woman through what he has done to us.”
“I promise, Mom.”
“I mean it, son. You and Blade are his monsters, and you may not believe me now, but one day you will turn into him.”
“I will never be him.”
Her eyes flicker and her breath gasps long and slow, and Blade cries out, “Mom!”
He is on her other side, the sirens wailing in the distance as we watch our mom give up the fight; at peace at last.
Soft lips press against my face, and Sunday whispers, “You are nothing like him.”
“You think?”
I picture her working the bar, the way my eyes follow every move she makes.
The anger that burns when another Reaper smiles in her direction.
The pain inside me when she walked away and the rage I held toward the men she met along the way.
The college kid, the bastard who took her.
She is wrong. I am my father, and it hurts like hell.
“What happened to your father?”
An innocent question, the answer not so much.
“He didn’t come back. He became a wanted man on the run, and after the funeral and the dust settled, we enlisted in the military.
A few years later we had word of him. We had been searching for him all those years, and one of our leads paid off.
We took leave to find him and, well, you know what happens when a Reaper finds their prey.
His death wasn’t pleasant; just say a lifetime of cruelty was inflicted over several agonizing hours it took for him to die. ”
I have nothing more to give. My sad life story is told, and now it’s up to Sunday to decide whether I’m worth the risk or not.
I am my father; my mother was right. It’s why I grew the biggest fuck-off beard I could, so I didn’t see him in the mirror every day.
It’s why I drown my sorrows in one beer at the bar every night, no more than that.
Only one. Never stepping off the edge, keeping the knife sharpened in my heart, and why I kill bastards for a living.
I love my job. Every fucker I send to their grave has that bastard’s face in my mind, and I kill his memory over and over again as I attempt to be nothing like him.