13. Alison #2
Dad stares at me. “Move.”
“No.”
“Alison.”
“No.” My voice is louder this time. Tobias grabs the back of my sweater with both hands.
Dad steps closer. “You will move when I tell you to move.” I stay exactly where I am. His hand closes around my upper arm. Pain shoots all the way to my shoulder. I don’t tell him. He knows. That’s the point. “Move.”
“No.”
Dad jerks me forward. Tobias loses his grip on my sweater. I twist back toward him immediately, but Dad grabs my other arm and shakes me so hard my teeth snap together.
“Enough!” Mom screams.
Dad doesn’t even look at her. “You have forgotten who you are speaking to.”
Fear is everywhere now. In my chest. In my throat. In the trembling I can’t stop in my legs. Every lesson I have ever learned in this house is screaming at me to fix this. Apologize. Agree. Make him calm down. I look past him at Tobias. His cheek is bright red.
“No, I haven’t.”
Dad goes still. So do I. His fingers dig deeper into my arms. “You will do what I tell you to do, Alison, or you will find out exactly how much worse I can make things for you.”
My heart pounds. I know exactly what he means. This house. Mom. Tobias. He doesn’t need to say more. A week ago, that would have been enough. Maybe yesterday. Not with Tobias crying behind me.
“You hit him.”
“He disobeyed me.”
“He is six years old!”
“He is my son.”
“And you are not hitting him again.”
Dad hits me. My head whips sideways. For a second, the kitchen disappears beneath the ringing in my ear. My tooth catches my lip. I taste blood. Tobias screams my name.
Mom screams. “Roman!” She’s between us before I can straighten. She grabs his arm and yanks him away from me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Jane.”
“You hit her!”
Dad shoves her. Mom flies backward into the edge of the island with a cry.
“Mom!” I start toward her.
She pushes herself upright. “Stay with Tobias!”
Dad turns on her. “I told you to stay out of this!”
“You hit both of them!”
“I am disciplining my children!”
“No.” Mom’s voice cracks, but it gets louder. “You are hitting them because you’re angry!”
Dad grabs her arm.
“Let go of me.” She jerks against him. “I said let go!”
He yanks her toward him. “You have spent years undermining me.”
“Because somebody has to protect them from you!”
He throws her backward. Her shoulder slams into the wall. A framed picture crashes to the floor. Tobias screams again. I grab him around the waist when he tries to run to her.
“Mom!”
“I’m okay.”
Dad reaches her before she can get away from the wall. Mom shoves at his chest. “Don’t touch me.” He grabs her wrist. She fights him. Actually fights him — furious and terrified and trying to pull free all at once. “Roman, let go!”
“Stop behaving like this!"
“You just hit our children!”
“Our daughter has forgotten her place and our son is following her example.”
“Listen to yourself!”
Dad throws her sideways. Mom hits the edge of the table and goes down hard. A glass falls with her and shatters across the floor.
“Mom!”
She gets back up. I don’t know how. Her hair has fallen loose around her face. Her chest is heaving. One hand is pressed against her side.
She looks at Dad like she hates him. “Don’t you dare put this on them. They are scared of you because of your actions.”
Dad grabs her again. Mom tries to shove him away. Then something changes. Her hands stop. Her shoulders shift. Her face turns slightly. Dad hits her. She turns with it.
My stomach drops. Not because he hit her. Because Mom knew. She knew it was coming.
“Mom?”
Her eyes flick toward me. And suddenly I remember long sleeves in warm rooms. Makeup when she wasn’t going anywhere. Closed bedroom doors. A bruise years ago that came from walking into a cabinet. Another from slipping in the bathroom. Mom laughing because she was always so clumsy.
Dad still has her arm. She isn’t fighting him anymore. She knows when to stop. She knows what makes it worse. My mother knows the rules. The same ones I do. I just never knew we learned them from the same man.
“You’ve done this before.”
The words come out without permission. Mom’s face breaks. Only for a second. It’s enough.
Dad looks at me. “Stay out of matters you don’t understand.”
Something hot tears through the fear. “You hit her before.”
“Alison.”
“How many times?”
“I said enough!”
Tobias is sobbing against me. Mom’s eyes close. “Ally.”
Dad releases her. Mom stumbles backward.
Tobias pulls away from me before I can stop him. “I hate you!”
Everything freezes. Dad turns toward him. I know that look. So does Mom.
“No,” she says.
Dad takes one step. I get there first. I put myself between him and Tobias again. My cheek burns. Blood coats my tongue. Both arms throb where he grabbed me. I’m still scared. I don’t move. “Don’t.”
Dad stops. “Move.”
“No.”
“Alison, I am warning you.”
“Then warn me.”
The words scare me almost as much as they anger him.
His face darkens. “You think you have choices because you’re eighteen?
” I say nothing. “You will do what I tell you while you live beneath my roof, and if you continue challenging me, I will remind you exactly how little control you have over what happens in this house.”
His eyes move past me. To Tobias. Cold crawls down my spine. “Don’t use him to threaten me.”
“Then stop giving me reasons to!”
“You hit an six-year-old because he wanted his sister!”
“I disciplined my son!”
“No.” My voice shakes now. I don’t care. “You hit him.”
Dad takes another step. “You need to be very careful.”
“Why?” My heart feels like it might break through my ribs. “You’ll hit me again?”
His face changes. Mom sucks in a breath. Dad reaches for me. His phone rings. Nobody moves. It stops. Dad’s eyes stay on mine. Then it rings again. He looks at the screen. And the rage on his face changes shape.
He answers. “What?” Silence. His jaw clenches. “I’m dealing with something here.” Another pause. “I know what happened. I’ve been trying to contain it since you left the school.”
Victor. Mom looks at me.
Dad turns away. “You never should have engaged—“ He stops. Just stops. Someone cut Dad off. And Dad lets him. His jaw works. “Fine.” Silence. “I said I’ll handle it.” Another pause. Then, quieter, “I’ll be there.”
He hangs up. The kitchen looks destroyed. Glass on the floor. A picture broken against the wall. Mom holding her side. Tobias crying behind me. Blood on my lip.
Dad looks at all of it. “This conversation is not over.” Mom’s face loses what little color it had left. I see it. Dad sees me see it. His gaze moves to the ring on my hand. “Celeste. Seven.” I don’t answer. “Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
His eyes narrow. Then he grabs his keys and walks out. The front door slams hard enough to shake the glass. Nobody moves until his car starts.
Mom’s knees buckle. I catch her before she hits the floor. “Mom.”
“I’m fine.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I need to check Tobias.”
“He’s right here.”
Tobias throws himself at her. Mom wraps both arms around him and winces.
“Your side.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
She looks at me. Neither am I. None of us are. Tobias starts crying harder against her. Mom kisses the top of his head again and again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
I don’t know which one of us she’s saying it to. Maybe all of us.
I look at the broken glass. The picture on the floor. My mother’s shaking hands.
“How long?” Mom closes her eyes. “How long has he been hitting you?”
“Not now.” There is no anger in it. Only fear. She looks toward the foyer even though Dad’s car is gone. Like he might still hear us. Like he always can.
Then I remember what she said before he came home. The agreement. “What were you trying to tell me?” Her eyes find mine. “About Victor. About Dad. You said there are things I don’t understand.”
“Alison, don’t.”
“What does Victor get?” She looks toward the foyer again. Then at Tobias. Something changes in her face.
“Your father keeps everything.”
I go still. “What does that mean?”
Mom’s lips press together. “Go upstairs with your brother.”
“Mom.”
“Please.”
I stare at her. She has already said too much. I can see it. So I take Tobias upstairs. He is quiet until we reach his room. Then I see the backpack on his bed. He walks over and opens it.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
My heart sinks. “For what?”
“For when you leave.” He starts pulling clothes from his dresser. Two shirts. His pajamas. Then he grabs his stuffed frog from the bed and shoves that inside too.
“Toby.” He doesn’t look at me. “If I’m good, can I come?”
My eyes burn. I sit on the edge of his bed. “Come here.” He does. I take his face carefully between my hands, avoiding the angry red mark Dad left across his cheek. “You don’t have to be good for me.”
His eyebrows pinch together. “What?”
“You don’t have to earn me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to listen perfectly. You don’t have to stop crying. You don’t have to make Dad happy. You don’t have to make me happy either.” His eyes fill again. “You are my brother. There is nothing you can do that will ever make me stop loving you.”
“Even when you marry Victor?”
My eyes fall to the ring. Hours ago, it felt like a claim. Now it feels like a countdown. I look back at him. “Especially then.” H
e climbs into my lap. I hold him until the crying stops. Until his breathing slows. Until he falls asleep against me.
Then I take pictures. His cheek. His arm. The fingerprints already beginning to darken beneath his skin. I take pictures of my arms. My face. My lip.
Then I go back downstairs.
Mom is still in the kitchen. She hasn’t cleaned any of it up — the glass, the broken frame, all of it exactly where it fell. She’s just standing at the sink with both hands braced on the edge, staring at nothing.
When she hears me, she straightens fast, the way she always does, and reaches for the color she keeps in her voice. “You should be with your brother.”
“He’s asleep.” I stop beside her. “Mom.” She won’t look at me. “Let me see.”
“Ally.”
“Please.”