That was my universe. Adams’s single brown eye, now glazed over, and Mom’s soft, clammy hand.
The only time Mom quit touching me was when Vic came and sat by us on the couch. Mom shifted so her body blocked more of mine from Vic’s sight.
Vic soon began to trace Mom’s thigh with his gun. She only had on a T-shirt and a pair of Adam’s boxers. I could feel my eyes tear up as he slid the muzzle under the hem of her boxers. She gasped and stiffened.
Vic laughed.
He pulled the gun back, took out the bullets, and put them in his pocket. He got up and went over to Adam’s body. With a ripping sound, he pulled the waistband of Adam’s boxers, and the rigid body lifted slightly. Vic slid the gun under Adam’s lower back and let go of the boxers. Adam’s body covered the gun, but it caused him to lie in an even more awkward position than before.
From Mom’s breathing, I thought she was going to start crying again, but she didn’t.
Vic walked back and sat on the couch again. This time, he used his hands. One returned to the spot under the boxers. The other slid beneath her T-shirt. She cursed at him, and he withdrew the hand from her boxers. Without warning, he reached around her and smacked me hard on the head. Mom began screaming at him. I don’t know what she was saying. Vic started hitting her with both hands, backhanding her face and punching her chest and stomach. The force pushed her backward, smothering me between her weight and the sofa cushions.
He grabbed the neck of her T-shirt and pulled her from the couch. He forced her down by Adam. He started to pull off her boxers, but she started screaming again and tried to kick him. He slapped her again. She didn’t move for several seconds. I thought she was dead. I started to cry. Vic stared at her in shock. He must have thought she was dead too.
After a few seconds, she started to move again. He reached out and resumed removing her boxers. Mom kept saying, “Not here, not here,” over and over again. He told her that she could deal with it, that Adam could watch.
She told him to fuck off, to bring Adam into the bedroom, just not here, not in front of me.
He looked at me then. Really looked at me. I looked back. I didn’t see hate there. He wasn’t angry at me. He didn’t look like he wanted to hurt me. He didn’t look like he cared to hurt me either.
Without a word, he once again pulled Mom by the hair. He dragged her, half sliding, half crawling behind him into the bedroom. The door slammed shut.
I sat on the couch. I didn’t move. I sat there listening for Mom’s voice. I never heard it. If she made a sound, it wasn’t ever loud enough to carry to the living room. I could hear Vic, though, constantly yelling, screaming names at her, cursing Adam. I could hear the smack of his fists as he hit her. Finally the sounds of his screaming and hitting faded into long, drawn-out groans. Even after his groans had finished, Mom didn’t return to me until the sun was starting to come up.
It was just me and Adam. We stayed in the living room. More than once I started to get up and go to him. Curl up beside him. Wrap his arm around my shoulder like he would do when he and Mom would rent a movie and we would eat popcorn on the couch. I wanted to shake him, to have him rescue me and Mom from Vic. Have him take us away again. Load us up into his truck and just drive away.
I knew he was dead. I knew he wouldn’t come back. I knew he couldn’t help us. I knew he was beyond wanting to.
I knew I would never get that puppy.
Lookingback, I can clearly count three discernible days. There may have been more, but I know there were at least three. I am sure people had to have heard the gunshot, had to hear the screaming, had to hearsomething. I don’t know what they thought—maybe a lovers’ quarrel. Maybe they were afraid too, afraid to get involved. Whatever the reason, no police came. No one came to rescue us from Vic.
We didn’t do anything. Vic didn’t talk to us. Mom and I never spoke. She would cook. He would eat. Mom never did. She tried to get me to eat, but I wouldn’t. I drank water, but only when she drank. Several times a day Vic would take her to the bedroom. The second time, she fought again, but after that, she walked back willingly. Adam lay there, never moving. After that long, in the summertime too, I am sure that there must have been a smell. There would have had to have been. However, I don’t remember it. Maybe we didn’t notice as our noses were entrenched in it. Maybe it just didn’t matter.
The strangest thing about it all is that I don’t remember it ending. I don’t have any clue what happened. I don’t remember leaving Adam’s body. I don’t remember driving away. I simply remember being aware that we were back home again. Back in our house in El Dorado.
Maybe the police finally came. Maybe Mom snuck us away during the night. Maybe Vic just walked away. I fantasize that Mom managed to kill him, but I doubt it. It doesn’t ring true for some reason, not that she wouldn’t have or couldn’t if she’d gotten the chance, but I just don’t think she did.
We were back home. I remember very clearly her taking me in her arms and pulling me to her lap before bed. She told me we were home, that we were safe. That we weren’t going to leave again. She told me she loved me and she was always going to protect me.
She told me never to talk about it with anyone. I never did. Not even Donnie. It was only after several nightmares that I told Jed.
Eighteen
I hesitatedoutside the church doors. I hadn’t slowed down for a second this morning. I knew if I did, I would start to think. Start to actually use my brain and do what I knew was intelligent. The right thing. I had gotten out of bed, brushed my teeth, ignored the bathtub, thrown on a hat and the same clothes I wore yesterday, and broken the speed limit on my way.
However, now that I was here, just reaching for the church door handles made me pause and consider my actions.
What was I doing? Really. Was I trying to prove something? The thought didn’t even make it all the way through my brain before I knew I was definitely trying to prove something. The question was, who was I trying to prove it to? Mom? The church people? Me? God? Was I really wanting to do this? Did I really want to take this on? Did I want to do this enough to stick with it? What if Jed got down here and we decided to move back to Denver or somewhere else? I wouldn’t only be screwing myself if this blew up.
Of course, itwasgoing to blow up. There wasn’t any option.
I was in the church and walking down the hallway. Seemingly my body had decided the questions didn’t matter. The rightness and wrongness were irrelevant. Obey the whim. Damn the consequences.
I realized I was heading to where the pastor’s office had always been, but considering everything else had changed, that probably had too. The office was probably up in some tower, complete with glass bookshelves, glassdesk, maybe even a glass computer, but no windows, of course.
Shockingly, the office hadn’t changed, unless they hadn’t yet moved the sign with Pastor Thomas’s name to the new location. I threw open the door.
