“Tell him!” he yelled, flinging her backwards, her body striking the refrigerator, making the pans and flower vases atop it rattle and clank.
“Tell him what a whore you are! Tell him how we hadn’t been married a year when youleftme and decidedyoudidn’t want to be married anymore,” he yelled. “Tell him how you fucked some nameless, faceless guy andgotthis goddamn virus!”
I stared at my parents in shock. I saw my Mom glance at me, the fear and shame that had flooded her face was slowly giving way to something else.
“We wereseparated, Will,” she responded, her anger finally sparking. “Things hadn’t been working and youknowit! Webothknew itwasn’tworking!” She looked down at her hand where her wedding ring encircled her finger. “…Isn’tworking…” she whispered, but only loud enough for me to hear.
“He was nameless toyou, Will,” she answered, her eyes voice growing stronger even though her eyes were still distant, her face sad. Defiance grew and edged her voice as she seemed to refocus on the present and continued, “…butIknew who he was. I just never toldyoubecause I knew what you would do!”
“What the fuckshouldI do, Harley? Tell me that!” He demanded, flinging his beer bottle he’d picked up from the table across the kitchen, the crash of the glass against the wall made me jump. “My wife ran away and slept with some guy and I should just forget about it? Ignore it? Pretend it never happened!?”
“I certainly ignored enough ofyouraffairs!” she spat back angrily.
“That was different!” He screamed. “How did you expect me to live without sex, Harley?! Men have needs!”
“Needs?Needs?” My mother’s voice turned into a mocking laughter. “Is that how you described it to Angela, the server you fucked at our wedding? What about Marilyn, the tour director on our honeymoon? How about Dori? Oh, and how about that skank at the sheriff’s office, Ellie?”
My father seemed to deflate for a moment as my mom named the many women he’d had affairs with over the years. He seemed to shrink into himself as she pressed her verbal attack. I’d known, of course, or at least, suspected. Our town was too small not to. My father stood, unflinching, as her words flew at him.
“I could have lived with that, though, Will. I could have lived with you. Then you made me give up everything—give up my family, give up my friends. You even demanded I give up mywriting,” she said. “I had nothing else!”
I knew my mom had written books before I was born, mostly romance novels and other fiction. I’d found a box of them in the attic when we were getting ready to move and had snuck a couple of them into my room to read.
“You’re ‘writing’ wasfilth!” he said, an odd calmness coming over him as he spoke. “No decent woman would have read that crap, much less written it! I should have put a stop to it a long time ago. I was the laughingstock of the station!”
“Of course, we can’t havethat!” she replied, tossing her hair back as she laughed, mirthlessly. “It’s always aboutyou! You andyourcareer!” she said, her chest heaving. “God knows, you can’t have your reputation be tarnished by having anintelligentwoman as a wife! A woman with needs every bit as strong as any man’s! My writing wasmine,Will.The only thing I had until Nicki was born!” she looked over at me, her voice trailing off.
My father’s eyes, the odd calmness that had washed over him, had scared me worse than his rage.
“Dominick…” he said, his voice trailing off into a whisper. “He was my son, and you murdered him.”
“What are you talking about, Willis?” my mother responded, confused. “You know I’d never hurt Nicki—” her voice was cut off by the sound of flesh against flesh as my father’s fist flew out and struck her.
Mom cried out as she was knocked backward against the refrigerator, her hand going to her lip where my father had punched her. She was more shocked than hurt at first, I thought. That would change.
“Dad!” I yelled again, jumping forward, desperate to protect my mom.
“Will, no!” She yelled, but he began striking her.
“No? By fucking around on me, you got sick and passed this fuckingdiseaseon to him. To myson! Maybe I should be glad we haven’t slept together since you got pregnant! At least it saved me from catching this filth from you, you goddamn whore! You. Killed. My. Son.” He timed his blows with his words and he struck her over and over and over.
I tried to stop him. God knows, I tried! I yelled. Screamed. Pulled on his arm with all my might, trying desperately to get him off of her. Nothing could stop him. The blows rained down inexorably. I begged him to stop hurting her. He didn’t hear me. Didn’tseeme. I didn’t think he ever really had.
Finally, I did the only thing I could think of doing to protect my mother. I ran to the living room closet to grab an old baseball bat from a futile attempt at little league. I could hear the obscene grunts and wet, slapping sounds from the kitchen as my father continued to beat her. She had stopped screaming. That scared me more than her cries had.
I ran back into the kitchen only to see my father kicking my mother’s prone body.
“Leave heralone!” I yelled. I swung the bat with all the force my tiny frame had and struck my father on the shoulder. The blow staggered him, but Dad was a big guy, thick framed and broad shouldered, while I was a scrawny fifteen-year-old boy with a body ravaged by frequent illness.
He turned to look at me, that dead gaze scaring me more than any threat he could have mustered. I swung again… and his left hand flashed up to grab the bat with his palm. I stared in shock as his fingers wrapped around it and he whipped it away from me. His other hand flew out and struck me across the mouth, sending me flying backwards into the wall. I collapsed, stunned, feeling the coppery taste of my own blood filling my mouth. More began running down my chin from the split lip he’d given me. My hand flew to my face and came away crimson. I stared up at my father, the man I’d loved, respected, all my life.
“Dad?” I said fearfully, hating how weak my voice sounded in that moment. Tears mixed with the blood on my face and he took another step toward me. I couldn’t help it. I flinched.
That slight movement… something about it, or maybe the terror in my voice, seemed to finally get through to him. Life slowly began to leak back into his gaze.
“Nicki…” he began, looking from me to where my mom lay, moving weakly on the floor. “Harley…”
He started to reach toward her, then spied the blood that smeared the back of his hand. He had split his knuckles from hitting one of us, I didn’t know which one. When he saw the blood on them, something new entered his eyes, something I hadn’t seen there before. Fear.
