Chapter 56 Samson
Come back tomorrow,” I shout, my voice unsteady.
My heart is racing.
I look around the boat.
“It’s me,” says Phoenix. “Let me in, Sam.”
I look at Mom. Fresh panic in her eyes.
“We have to.”
She puts her head in her hands. “But… they’ll take you away. I’ll go back to… They won’t understand.”
“I’m coming in,” he says. “I’m coming in now, all right.”
I shout, “It’s not how it looks, Phoenix,” through the door. “This is not how it looks.”
A long pause.
Coughing.
“I know, bud. Let me in, though, eh.”
She starts crying again.
I want to hide him. Hide my shirt. Hide my own mother and the marks on her neck.
I crack the door ajar and see his gaunt, pale face staring back. His leather jacket. His black Levi’s. He is shivering out there. I open the door wider.
“Is anybody hurt?” he asks.
I squeeze my eyelids together to stop crying. Then I open the door wider still and he stands there taking it all in.
He does not step inside.
“Are you hurt, ma’am? Are you bleeding?”
“No,” says Mom, struggling to stand up. “But… he’s gone.”
Phoenix comes in and closes the door softly behind him. He walks around Dad, treading carefully, moving slowly, avoiding the rug, adjusting the drapes.
“Are either of you hurt? Any injuries?”
We both shake our heads. He leans down and checks Dad’s neck for a pulse.
“Did he try to hurt you? The marks on your neck. Did he have his hands around you?”
She points to the belt on the floor.
Phoenix takes a sharp breath and rubs his mouth and jaw with his hand. He’s lost more weight. “The ordeal you two have been through.”
He rubs his temples.
She says, “We need to call someone. I don’t know who.”
Phoenix says, “I’ll help with all of that. Don’t you worry. I won’t leave you alone.”
I gesture toward Dad’s trophy. “I had to do it. I had no choice, Phoenix, honest. Her eyes were rolled back. I’m telling the truth. He was yelling at her, holding her feet up. Her eyes were white.” My voice cracks. “She was nearly gone.”
“Listen to me, both of you.” He smiles a pitiful, hollow smile.
Checks with his eyes to make sure we are following.
“Look right at me. I’m going to take this over from here, yeah?
Deal with the authorities for you. It’ll be a lot of questions, a lot of time.
I’m gonna take the strain off you both, all right? ”
“You can’t do that,” she says. “This is my problem. You’re not up to it.”
“Listen to me, Peggy, can I call you that? You’ve both been through a trauma.
Not just today, I don’t mean that. For years.
I don’t pretend to know much about what you’ve lived through, but I do understand some of it.
And I want you both to know that this, all this, isn’t yours to pay for.
Neither of you. It just plain isn’t. You mustn’t pay for any of it. ”
“I didn’t have a choice,” I say, choking on the words.
“He’s gone, Samson, buddy. It’s over now. He’s bullied you both for years, hasn’t he? Isn’t that right?”
Mom squeezes her eyelids together and nods.
Phoenix has tears in his eyes. In a gentle whisper he says again, “He’s done it for years, hasn’t he?”
I nod.
“He won’t do it anymore.”
She looks at him. “How did you… know?”
“Can you both do me a favor, please? I want to shoulder this. Grant me that wish. I don’t want you pair splitting up, accused of things you don’t deserve, agencies involved, months of inquiries and questions.
I couldn’t bear to know that’s what’s happened to you two.
Do you understand what I’m trying to say? ”
Mom nods. Tears in her eyes.
“I don’t understand anything,” I say.
“Look back to the bedroom door,” he says. “Both of you, for me, look the other way at that door.”
I turn to the bedroom door then glance back.
“Keep looking at it, Samson. Over there. Focus on it. Trust me.”
Mom holds me tight and we stare at the distant door.
I squeeze her.
An audible thump behind us. I start to turn but she holds me firmly in place. I struggle harder and Phoenix is spitting on his hands and rubbing his fingers all over the Hugh Higgins Memorial Prize. More dull thumping noises.
“Don’t,” I cry out.
Mom squeezes me tighter still. Holds on, her arms digging into my chest.
“What are you doing, Phoenix?”
She pulls me back toward the kitchen, smothers me with her arm.
It goes quiet.
He walks over to join us. Kneels down on the floor right next to us. Puts one hand on each of our shoulders. He’s out of breath, can hardly talk. Droplets of blood on his jacket.
“I came in and saw your mom hanging from the door.” He pauses to catch his breath. “She was on the door, yes?”
I nod, a tear rolling down my cheek.
“Right then.”
“He was killing her,” I say.
Phoenix sighs. “I came in and saw that, and then I hit him with the trophy.” He winces in pain and tries to catch his breath. “Then you came home, Samson. Have you got that? Is it clear? Who came to the boat last?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I did.”
“Good man. That’s it, buddy. Who hit your father?”
My lip trembles. I bite on it. Tears erupt from my clamped-shut eyelids. “You did, Phoenix.”
“I did, didn’t I? I had to. Peggy. I had to do it. For both of you.” He’s more agitated now. Panting. “He made your lives hell, didn’t he? Yeah? Messing with you. Just like he made my life hell for years back at junior high.”
Mom frowns at him.
“I had to move away in the end. It was the only way.”
“At school?” I say, opening my eyes, wiping them.
Phoenix takes a deep, labored breath and wipes his own eyes with the sleeve of his leather jacket.
“Two years. Every single school day. Haunted me on weekends and holidays. Back then I had blond hair. I was a big kid, emotional eater. Andrew was bullied by an older guy for a bit, I remember it, whole school saw it, and then he turned into one himself. You go one of two ways, I guess. I was in the firing line, that’s all.
Two years that felt like twenty. Never got over it, really. But you’ve both had it so much worse.”
“Did he know?” I say, frowning, gesturing to Dad at the far end by the woodstove.
“Him?” Phoenix frowns. “I was nothing to him. He probably never even remembered it. I’ve had work done since, changed my looks over the years, trips to Mexico, changed my hair.
And then sickness changed me even more. Anyway, it’s over now.
For all of us. You two deserve to live, I mean it.
You’ve been looking out for each other all these years, living defensive.
I know how exhausting that is. Now it’s time to really live. Live your lives.”
“And you, Phoenix,” I say.
Mom pinches the bridge of her nose to stop herself crying.
“I don’t have long left.” He smiles at me. “A month, maybe. Taking this burden is no hardship for me. If anything, I’m grateful to you both.”
“What?” I ask, reaching out and touching his shoulder.
“Taking all this from you. I know I’m doing a good thing. There’s not many moments in a man’s life when you know that for sure. You looked out for me, and Jeff, both of you. And now I’m going to look out for you and make it all worth something.”
“No, Phoenix.”
His lips are blue. Gaunt cheeks. He’s struggling to catch his breath again.
“We’ll get the sheriff out here soon, Samson.
I’m leaving all this anyway, remember that.
I’ve made my peace with it all, honest. I’m going.
It’s all right. I’m off and you two are sticking around.
He can’t get at you anymore, that’s the crucial thing.
This isn’t yours to pay for, remember that. This isn’t yours to pay for.”