58. Ambrose—age thirteen
Ambrose—age thirteen
A vintage yellow radio plays a song with a bouncy beat from some new artist, and it’s as annoying as the hail beating at the window.
“Baby, your arm looks bad.” Mom thinks talking to me like I’m a toddler will help. “Can I take a look?”
She stands in the center of the kitchen, moving around from the refrigerator to the work surfaces. Dozens of baking supplies line the countertops around us.
Her eyes pay little attention to the whisk and bowl in her hands. Eyes on my body, she wants to look at my scratches, missing the days when she could touch me without me having a breakdown.
I shiver, discomfort clawing at me. I keep my arms around Dollie, minimizing it, because while I feel how much Mom cares these days, by spending her every waking hour trying to invade Dollie and my lives, educating us, inviting our only friends over for dinner on occasion, pretending we’re a normal family, we can’t erase the past.
To this day, it’s never come up between us, that I know all the things I do.
I keep those thoughts to myself, using them only as ammunition for my broken brain.
Dollie doesn’t know. Can’t know. She’s seeing ghosts in every corner of this house, shadows that move without being attached to a host. She’s haunted enough…
by the past, and by whatever she thinks lurks in this house.
She can’t find out that our parents put us in the hands of a maniac, who to this day walks free, all for some book deals that would pay to fix up this shit hole.
That’s exactly what it is now.
It isn’t the creepy old house that enchanted me with the stories the old pictures told. It’s a mess of half-finished jobs that Mom can’t face, and Dad has no time for. They have the money, but the motivation is gone, taken with our childhoods and all for fucking nothing.
The guilt keeps Mom’s head low whenever she looks my way, and it keeps the weight off her fragile bones. She fears, I know. I can feel it.
“Ambrose, your arm?” Mom’s eyes flick back to me through bushy, uncut bangs.
The color is somewhere between blonde and brunette these days, but stress has welcomed a few grays, which are pinned back in a loose bun.
I kinda wish she would divert her attention to her appearance and take it away from me.
The giant mixing bowl in front of her swallows up her frame as I look at her and shake my head.
I won’t be showing her my arm, even if she drops to her knees and begs. My skin is raw from the itch I can never seem to scratch away. I keep it at Dollie’s waist, pinning her to me. Having her close makes things slightly better on my nerves.
“Are you not feeling like signing? I thought we said it would help with communication.”
It has, I’ll give that to Mom. She puts in so much more time with me than Dad, the man who can hardly look at me, does.
That’s his choice.
And mine is that I’d prefer to keep my distance from them both. I shift across the kitchen, taking Dollie with me.
A new smell enters the room, overpowering the cupcakes Mom is baking. Vanilla is drowned out by a musky cologne that clings to Dad.
“Evening, guys.” Water drips from his hair.
“Hey, Daddy!” Dollie has a big, welcoming smile on her face.
“Hey, princess. Did you save me a cupcake?”
“They’re not done yet. We’re running behind, aren’t we?” Dollie gazes up at me, and I match her expression with a smile as she brushes my longer strands of hair from my face.
It’s been a while since I cut it because it annoys Mom whenever I do it myself, and it annoys me when she reminds me of how uneven it is.
Smile at Dad three times, or Dollie dies tonight.
False happiness appears and disappears from my face, once, twice, three times.
Dad’s eyes bore into me, flicking to Dollie as her soft fingers slide down over my cheek.
“Keep smiling. It makes my heart happy.”
“Gen’, a word.” Dad points over his shoulder.
Mom follows him to the dining room, her shadow still in view as she pulls out a chair.
“I know what you’re gonna say, and I’ve tried.”
“Try harder.” The words come out thick and fast in his accent.
“Come with me.” Dollie leads me to the other side of the kitchen, finding Mom’s perfectly mixed frosting set aside on the breakfast table. “I think we should just taste a little bit. What do you think?” Wide, hopeful eyes stare up at me.
My height is starting to come between us. Dollie has commented on me outgrowing her because we’re no longer close in height. I stand easily a foot over her head these days. It means she has to stretch slightly when spoon feeding me frosting from the same spoon she uses herself.
It’s innocent.
To her.
To Dad, it isn’t.
“It’s too much. They are siblings. People are gonna talk.”
Their conversation is whispered, but it isn’t quiet and can be heard from the next room.
“Do you think I don’t know that!”
“I think you need to do more to keep them apart.”
“This isn’t new, Ronan. It’s been this way since they came home.”
“They’re joined at the hip. You can’t deny it’s getting worse. I mean, come on. There was a time when they were okay as long as they were in the same room, but now?—”
“No. They’ve always preferred being close, Ronan. You’re not the one here daily watching them.”
“Exactly. So, I don’t get how you can’t see that they’re literally gonna have to be pried apart.”
“You know what, yeah, it’s a little extreme, but is it that important? He’s withdrawn. There are some days he doesn’t even speak to us. Some days when they won’t leave the bedroom?—”
“That they shouldn’t be sharing. He’s a teen, hitting puberty. Do you want to have to explain some incestuous teen pregnancy to the locals? Do you want me to lose my job?”
“That isn’t going to happen, any of it, and we’ve done other things that risked your career, and your kids being a little co-dependent is hardly the worst of it.”
“We made a mistake, but let’s do right by them now.”
“I am. He needs this. He needs her. And she loves him, more than she does either of us.”
“Because she doesn’t spend time with us. You’re letting guilt rule you. You give in to him every single day because you feel terrible about what happened.”
“I’m not having this conversation here.”
Dollie feeds me another spoonful, and I just know these American buttercreams are gonna be sparse by the time Mom gets around to decorating them.
“Fine.”
Dad’s creaky shoes move over the floor, heading our way.
“You know,” Mom stops him with her words, those shoes that test my patience, silencing. “I sometimes wonder if it’s guilt that stops you from bonding with him.”
“It’s time, Gen. I’m overworked.”
“You have time for Dollancie. You greeted Dollancie. But she wasn’t the one who was sexually assaulted, and that’s why you see him differently. He needs you. I need you to be there for him.”
Dad says nothing in return, but neither of them enter the room with us.
Are you okay? Dollie signs, using the hand movements Mom has taught us recently.
I nod.
Big blue eyes question me, her disbelief sitting on pulled-down eyebrows.
Her arms band around my waist. “I love you.”
I love you, I mouth, but she doesn’t see it.
My fingers spread on her back and hold her that little bit closer.
The song on the radio finishes, and another begins. The upbeat start of the old tune sends shivers down my spine.
Sweat forms under the black tee that Dollie presses into my spine, and I straighten. My whole body turns rigid.
“What is it?” She pulls back, feeling the change in me instantly.
Her touch is fading away from me, getting replaced by bigger hands. I blink, and I’m back on that sofa, in that living room. Mrs. Bannadosi sits in front of me with tears in her eyes. Her scumbag husband is behind me, and my body is rocking.
“Ambrose.” Dollie’s gentle touch brings me back to reality as she swipes tears from my cheeks. “Is it the song?”
My heavy limbs hang lifelessly at my side. It’s too fucking hard to move. Too hard to breathe past the dry feeling in my throat.
I close my eyes, and I see him again, that dark shadow leaning over me. I smell him, cheap cigarettes, and his sweat on my body. His breath in my face.
I snap my eyes open to a soothing lullaby whispered into my ear over the radio. Dollie’s voice calms me enough to twist my head to her, but tears still fall, landing on her round cheeks. Our noses brush, and I pray with everything I have left in my soul that she isn’t too close to see my words.
It’s the song. I need it off.
Leaving my side, I feel every step she takes to the old yellow radio that matches absolutely nothing in this green-painted kitchen. The distance between us makes my T-shirt cling that little bit tighter with the rise and fall of my chest.
An echo of noise comes from behind me, and I can’t make out what the softer sound is as it rings in my ears.
I need to get out of this room.
Out of this T-shirt because I can still smell his scent all over me.
A delicate touch dares to caress my shoulder. I pull away from it and hit out with a swinging fist. Mom’s small body flies backward, holding a hand to the red mark on her face. Dad catches her before she hits the floor.
I’m sorry, I sign, like she likes me to do. My chest pounds as I look her way.
“Baby, it’s okay. You’re okay.” She pushes out of Dad’s arms and takes a step toward me.
I watch her mouth move and understand what she says, but it isn’t okay.
She’s wrong. That song replays in my head until all I hear is a mush of words that blend together.
Something about every day going faster. Faster than rollercoasters.
Faster. Rollercoasters. Faster. I still see Colin’s wife and her tear-stained red cheeks. Mine probably look worse.
I still smell him over the frosting Dollie fed me.
I still want to die because of him.
I collapse to my knees, more tears dropping, and bones crunching on the hard tiles. The left one screams out in pain, but I don’t acknowledge it with anything more than gritted teeth.
“Ambrose,” Dollie places herself on my lap. She turns my head to a bottle of water in her small hand and guides it to my mouth, like she knows what my body needs.
Knowing what my mind needs, she returns her song to my ears, and I find the strength to fight through my demons and follow her voice home.
Shaking arms wrap around her, needing us close.
My parents stand opposite me in our kitchen, and as my surroundings come back around me, I catch the ass-end of Dad telling Mom that they should probably call my psychologist and see if they can take me somewhere.
“No!” Dollie turns, the sharp movement dropping the water bottle between us. “He isn’t going anywhere. Not with those people. I can calm him down.” Her voice changes pitch, softening from a terror-filled one to something that caresses my soul. “Shall we go to our dome?”
I nod.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now, princess.”
Dad takes a step toward her, ready to pry her from my sweaty hands.
Reaching behind me, I see the knife that Mom had been using to cut up strawberries to set atop her cupcakes, and I reach for it.
I wouldn’t hurt my father, even after all he’s done to me, but I point it toward him in threat, and I mouth the words, take her from me, and I’ll shove this through my chest.
He can’t take her from me. Not right now when I need her most.
Not ever.