Chapter 4 Jay
Six months now, and we've got a rhythm going, a pattern to our survival that's become as natural as breathing.
I know the sound of Henderson's truck coming up the gravel drive, can distinguish it from any other vehicle by the rattle of the loose exhaust pipe and the whine of the failing transmission.
I know the difference between how he slams the door when he's just tired from work and how he slams it when he's been drinking at the bar in town. The tired slam is quick and careless, the drunk slam is harder, more aggressive, followed by stumbling footsteps on the porch.
I know which floorboards creak and which ones don't, have memorized every squeaky board between our bedroom and the kitchen.
I know that Mrs. Henderson goes to bed at exactly nine-thirty every night, sets her alarm and disappears into the bedroom, and that she sleeps like the dead once she's out, wouldn't wake up if the house was burning down around her.
I know that the best time to raid the kitchen for extra food is between two and three in the morning when even the dogs outside have stopped barking and settled into sleep.
Ivan knows all of this too now. I've taught him everything I can think of, every trick and survival technique I've learned in my years bouncing through the foster care system like a pinball, and he's a fast learner, quick to pick up on patterns and remember details.
He reads Henderson's moods almost as well as I do these days, can tell just from the sound of the man's footsteps whether it's going to be a good night or a bad one.
He knows when to make himself scarce, when to disappear into the barn or our room, knows when to keep his head down and his mouth shut no matter what's happening around him.
He's tougher than he was when he got here six months ago, that skinny scared kid clutching his garbage bag like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth and preventing him from floating away.
He's still skinny, still gets scared sometimes when Henderson yells or reaches for his belt, but there's a steadiness in him now that wasn't there before, a core of steel that's been forged in fire.
I'm proud of him for that, even though proud feels like a strange word to use about survival, about a kid learning how to take a beating.
It's March and the weather is starting to turn warm, the Georgia spring arriving with its sudden heat and humidity.
The trees are budding, the grass is turning green again, and that means the school is switching from indoor PE to outdoor activities, which means shorts instead of sweatpants and long sleeves.
Ivan comes home on a Tuesday afternoon with his face all twisted up in that particular way he gets when he's trying not to panic, when he's holding himself together through sheer force of will, and I know something's wrong before he even opens his mouth to speak.
"What happened?" I ask immediately, closing the door to our room behind us.
We're in our small shared space with the door shut tight, which is the only place in this entire house where we can talk without being overheard, the only place we have any privacy at all.
"Henderson got me pretty bad last night," Ivan says. He's trying to sound calm, but I can hear the fear underneath it, trembling just beneath the surface like an earthquake waiting to break through. "On my legs. The backs of my thighs."
I remember last night with perfect clarity.
Henderson came home from somewhere around eight o'clock already half-drunk and in a foul mood, radiating anger like heat off pavement.
Ivan had accidentally left a light on in the bathroom after brushing his teeth, and that was enough—that tiny infraction was all the excuse Henderson needed.
I heard the belt from our room where I was lying in my bed pretending to be asleep, pretending I couldn't hear what was happening just down the hall. I counted the strikes like I always do, keeping a mental tally. Five. Five times the leather came down.
I wanted to go out there, wanted to throw open the door and put myself between them, wanted to stop it, but Ivan and I have talked about this strategy extensively.
If I interfere, if I try to protect him in the moment, it gets worse for both of us.
Henderson's rage doubles, redirects, multiplies.
So, I counted each strike and hated myself for every single one, hated my own helplessness.
"Let me see how bad it is," I say.
Ivan turns around without a word and pulls down his jeans enough for me to see the damage Henderson inflicted.
The welts are bad. Angry red stripes across the backs of both thighs, some of them already purpling into bruises that will last for days.
A few of them broke the skin and there's dried blood crusted along the edges where the leather cut deep enough to tear.
My stomach turns over violently and I have to breathe through my nose for a second to keep my face neutral, to keep Ivan from seeing how angry this makes me.
"Okay," I say finally, and I make myself appear calm and steady even though I want to put my fist through the wall, want to scream, want to hurt Henderson the way he hurts us. "Pull your pants up. Let's think about this."
Ivan pulls his jeans back up carefully, wincing as the denim brushes against the wounds, and turns around to face me. His eyes are too bright, shining with unshed tears.
"PE is tomorrow," he says. "We're starting track and field. Coach Bryant said we have to wear shorts for outdoor activities. It's not optional, he was very clear about that. It's a safety thing or a school policy thing or something."
I sit down on my bed and Ivan sits down next to me immediately, close enough that our shoulders are touching. I can feel him shaking a little, these tiny tremors running through his whole body that he's trying to hide from me.
"If I wear shorts, everyone's going to see what Henderson did," he says, and the words come out rushed and desperate.
"The coach is going to see. The other kids.
Everyone. And the coach will ask questions, and he'll report it because he has to report it, right?
That's what teachers are supposed to do?
And then social services will come and they'll investigate and they'll take us away and we'll never—" His voice breaks on the last word and he stops abruptly, pressing his lips together hard to keep from crying.
"Hey," I say gently, and I put my hand on the back of his neck, squeeze gently in a gesture that's become familiar between us. "Hey. Breathe, Ivan. Just breathe for a second. We're going to figure this out."
"How?" he asks desperately, turning to look at me with those wide, frightened eyes. "How do we figure this out? I can't make the bruises disappear. I can't hide them if I'm wearing shorts. There's no way to—"
"You take the cut in PE," I say, interrupting his spiral into panic.
Ivan looks at me, confusion breaking through the fear on his face. "What? What does that mean?"
"You don't dress out," I explain patiently.
I've done this before, at other schools in other placements, navigated this exact situation more times than I can count.
It's not a perfect solution but it's the only one we've got right now.
"You tell the coach you forgot your gym clothes, or you feel sick, or your shoes don't fit, or whatever excuse sounds believable.
You take the cut for the day." I lean forward slightly, making sure he's listening to every word.
"Most PE teachers, if you don't dress out, they mark you absent for the class period.
Give you a zero for participation that day.
Call it a cut. You take enough cuts, your grade drops, or there's some punishment.
But that's it. That's all that happens. No investigation, no questions, no social workers. "
"But Coach Bryant is strict," Ivan protests. "He doesn't just let people skip without consequences. He makes you run laps later if you take too many cuts. Like, a lot of laps. He makes kids run around the whole football field multiple times while everyone else is playing."
"Then you run laps," I say simply, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"But—" Ivan starts.
"Ivan." I turn so I'm facing him directly, so he can see my eyes and know I'm serious.
"What's worse? Running some laps around a football field, or getting pulled out of here and sent somewhere else?
Somewhere without me? Somewhere where you don't know the rules and you don't have anyone watching your back? "
He's quiet for a long moment, and I can see him working through it, doing the terrible math the same way I taught him to calculate these impossible equations.
Pain versus separation. Punishment versus losing each other.
It's a horrible calculation for a twelve-year-old kid to have to make, but that's the world we live in. That's the only world we've got.
"I'll run the laps. The laps are worse in the moment but they're not permanent. They end eventually."
"Right," I confirm, relieved that he understands.
"Running laps isn't going to kill you. Being sore for a few days isn't going to kill you.
But if someone sees those bruises and makes a mandatory report to child protective services, that's it.
Game over for both of us. They'll have us out of here by the end of the week, probably faster.
And you'll go to some group home on one side of the state, and I'll go to some other placement on the other side, maybe another family or maybe a group home too.
And we'll never find each other again because the system doesn't keep track of that kind of thing, doesn't care about keeping foster kids connected. "
Ivan nods slowly, absorbing this information. He's still shaking but it's getting better, like having a concrete plan is helping him hold himself together, giving him something to focus on besides the fear.