37. Ambrose—age nine #2
“Nine. He’s just lanky.”
“Oh, my god. Do things right, call his parents. I will fix his face, I will. I’ll do his stitches, but you have to call his parents,” she pleads, hanging off his arm.
Colin says nothing, and the silence unnerves me more than his voice.
“If you won’t do it, I will. I’m a doctor. I’m meant to help people. How do you expect me to just let this happen?”
“I expect you to respect your fucking husband.”
His dirty glove comes up, meeting her face.
Her head bounces off the surface, and her blood splats in my direction before she falls to a pile on the floor.
I jump then, and again, as his big clown shoe kicks into her stomach, and she winces.
“His parents don’t give a shit about him.
All they care about is the money they bring in selling books about their missing children.
The documentaries and fundraisers. How much money do you think goes into finding the kids when they’ve known I’ve had them all along? ”
Again, his shoe meets her stomach.
Out of my sight, she vomits. The sound of her stomach ejecting rings in my ears with the words that make mine try to do the same.
“His father is a detective—a skilled cop. The resources are there, even if he didn’t know where to find them.”
The taste of vomit stays on my tongue and burns in my throat as I force it back down.
Dad knew him. He planned this.
It can’t be true.
“They bought that fucking house, and there were so many issues. They needed so much money to fix it up.”
“They didn’t know they’d be treated like this,” his wife speaks, but her voice is different, owned by pain.
“Well, maybe not, but that’s on them.”
Tears fall as I blink.
Even if Dollie and I get out of here, we have nowhere safe to go.
Dropping from my seat, in a trance, I breathe hard as I land uncomfortably on my leg.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Colin snaps.
“She’s hurt,” I barely whisper, my lip trembling. I shouldn’t care, but I do. I’ve never witnessed anything like this. A man hitting the person he’s meant to love above all else. Dad has never hit Mom. Never even hit Mammy back in Ireland, and they argued all the time.
No, Dad doesn’t hurt his wife… just his kids, by letting this monster into our lives. That thought torments me, my blood running cold.
“Oh, so you wanna help my wife?” Colin nears me, that strong alcoholic scent burning my nose as I breathe him in. The bottle in his hand pointing at me. “That isn’t your job. She’s gonna help you. Get up on the table, and you, Barbara, get the fuck up.”
My eyes stay on her as she pushes herself up, tears dripping to the floor where those quirky glasses stay, the glass broken beyond repair.
“Get up on the fucking table!” Colin’s scream is for me and my delay. I do as he asks, trembling as I lie back against the cold surface, avoiding splatters of blood while anticipating stitches.
“He’d be better upstairs.”
My body stiffens at her words.
I can never go up there.
“What, where you left my mother to die? No. I’ll get your shit. You can do it here.” Colin’s stomping feet move off to the living room, taking the broken bottle with him.
His wife says nothing at my side as she sits on a high stool, head bowed and body trembling.
“He’s cruel to you,” I speak almost silently, trying to keep my voice too low for him to hear while also trying to stop my cheeks from flapping apart.
Again, she says nothing.
And again, I try, “Please, help us. My sister is in the basement. She’s only seven, and she’s underweight. She’s terrified of him. Please, I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“Shhh…” she coos as Colin enters the room. “Gauze, please, and some alcohol to sterilize his wounds.”
“He was talking. What did he say?” Colin sways, almost as if he’s consumed more alcohol since leaving the room.
“He just asked what he looks like.” Her eyes stay on me, and I focus on their dark brown shade as sadness lingers beyond the fresh bruise.
“Fucking ugly. No one will ever look at you without wanting to be sick again.” With his tongue pushed out, he makes a retching noise, pretending to vomit in my face.
I turn away from him.
“Yeah, you better get used to that, you ugly little fucker.”
Fluttering my eyes shut, I only wish I could do the same to my ears. His comments hurt, but they aren’t true. Dollie looks at me without judgment, seeing past the scars and trauma that we share.
No one else matters anymore.
Keeping my eyes closed as alcohol burns my wounds and seeps through them into my mouth. The alcohol numbs me enough that I don’t focus on what comes next, on my skin being pressed tightly or what’s likely some kind of fiber weaving through my cheeks to keep them together.
I think I tasted too much.
Did she do it on purpose?
The next thing I know, I’m on the puffy couch, face down on the cleaner side of a grubby pillow. A song plays in the background—a story told through lyrics about every day feeling longer and love getting stronger.
I lift my head, and it’s heavier than before. Colin’s wife— what was her name again— she sits in front of me, stroking my hair but looking away.
It’s hard to tell if more bruises cover her face or if my blurred vision is putting them there. She spares me a pitiful glance.
She moves closer, then farther away. Then closer, then farther away.
She isn’t rocking, and I don’t understand how this is happening. I focus on her, unable to turn around and face anything else because I can’t see Colin.
But I hear him behind me, singing along to this song.
Visions of Dollie fill my head, in that basement, cold and terrified and waiting for me to return.
The vision is interrupted by a pain in my rear that spreads to my stomach.
I force it away, seeing Dollie peek over from the step that barely gave us room to move. She faces away from the fire, though it’s no longer lit. Her eyes are on the door, waiting for me.
I’ll be back soon.
Using her for inspiration, I feel the dirty pillow subconsciously. Unlike her, it brings me zero comfort.
The pain inside me fades away and takes the images of Dollie with it.
All I see is Colin’s wife sobbing in front of me.
My eyes move past her as the TV cuts to standby. The black screen acts like a mirror, and I see Colin behind me, zipping up his striped pants, that bottle still in his hand.
Mirroring his wife’s actions, I sob, too, the pillow catching each tear. My cries turn into a wailing sound, and that sound turns into a scream, and I can’t stop, I really can’t stop.
I don’t even know why I’m crying. I don’t understand what’s happened, just how it makes me feel.
“Don’t keep making that noise,” Colin warns, but it falls on deaf ears. “Don’t keep making that noise!”
My brain doesn’t listen, and my new stitches pull.
There’s a need inside me that says I have to be louder than the voice that threatens this will happen again and again for the rest of my life.
Oh, God. I want to die.
Beyond my screams, I hear a muffle of words come from Colin’s wife. Her lips move rapidly, but I can’t make out what she says with tears clouding my vision.
Colin’s dirty lips move to my ear, the cruel whisper somehow seeping inside. “I said, don’t keep making that fucking noise.”
A pain scrapes against my throat, starting at the right, below my ear, and spreading all the way to the left.
The noise dwindles to nothing as the pain grows worse and worse. Something tickles my chest, and I glance down at a trail of blood. My fingers travel to my throat, and I bring them to my face. The dark red kiss that stains the tips makes me lightheaded as the promise of death looms.
My eyes blink rapidly, and I focus on squeezing the pillow with my unstained hand because it keeps me alert.
“You will never talk again. If you so much as try, your little sister will suffer like you have.”
He uses my own condition against me as I continue to focus on the pillow, still squeezing. On the tears on Colin’s wife’s face that become clear as my own fall as she rushes around the room, screaming about stopping the bleeding. On the painful and cruel whispers that Colin drills into my ear.
“Do you understand?”
I can’t nod.
I can’t talk.
I can’t do anything.
Everything goes black, and I feel like I’m finally leaving here…
But what about Dollie?