“Because I wasn’t a coddled eleven-year-old who’s never had a hard day in his life. Harry has grown up withtwoloving parents in a financially secure home. You can’t compare us. Circumstances made me more empathetic.”
“Are you really defending what he said?”
“Wee yin?”
I turned at that. Even after all these years, Dad still called mewee yin.
“What did he say?” Dad repeated, striding into the room. He bristled with tension and even though he’d cut me to the quick, I suddenly felt a bit sorry for Harry. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Dad.
Mum repeated his words verbatim.
Dad’s expression darkened and he marched toward the hallway.
“Dad, don’t.”
He looked back at me. “He’s twelve in July. He wants tostart spewing nasty shit like that as if he’s a man, then he can take a telling like a man.”
I looked at Mum in worry.
She shook her head at me, fully trusting Dad to deal with it in the correct way.
Too concerned I’d caused a rift between my parents and Harry, I followed Dad against my mother’s whispered wishes for me to stop. He was already in Harry’s room, the door ajar. I held my breath, listening as I watched Dad tower over Harry’s bed where my brother sat with his iPad on his lap.
“… Is that what you said?” Dad growled.
“So what if it was?” Harry whined. “It’s the truth.”
“Do you even realize how much you hurt your sister? Does it even compute? Do you even care, Harry? Because we’ve got big problems if you don’t care that your sister is out there looking like you punched her in the gut.”
Harry flinched and looked away. “I didn’t think it would bother her that much.”
“That you said she wasn’t your sister? Or that you referred to her as the daughter of a psychopath? Or that everyone hates her? None of that was supposed to bother her?”
Silence from my brother.
“If you choose to wield words like weapons, you have to deal with the consequences. And if you’re grown up enough to say terrible things to people, you’re grown up enough to handle the truth.”
I frowned, wondering where Dad was going with this.
Dad lowered himself onto Harry’s bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “Harry, look at me.”
My little brother didn’t bother attempting to deny the order. He turned his head, and I watched as he struggled to meet my dad’s gaze.
“There are two reasons I never, ever want to hear you tell your sister she’s not your sister or hear you throw her birthfather in her face. One—when your sister was only a year younger than you are now, she was terrorized by that man.Terrorized, Harry. He kidnapped Callie and held her at gunpoint before he tried to kill your mother. You have no idea how traumatic that was for them. I never want you to be in a position to ever fully understand that. Ever. So I won’t go into the details. I will say if you did know what your sister has been through, you would be disgusted with yourself for using that man as a weapon against her.”
I heard an inhale of breath and turned to see Mum standing, eyes wide with sadness at the reminder of all we’d been through. And concern that Harry was too young to even know this much. But I’d experienced the trauma as a ten-year-old, and I’d come out all right. Harry was almost twelve, and I did agree with Dad to an extent. If he could use those words against me, he was old enough to understand what he was talking about.
I reached for Mum’s hand and squeezed it in reassurance.
Turning back, I watched Harry lower his eyes, his expression tight. I realized why when a tear slipped down his cheek. Damn.
“Can you possibly imagine what that was like for Callie? That her own father could do that to her and to your mum? Do you understand now why you should never throw that in your sister’s face?”
“Aye.” His voice was quiet and young. “I’m sorry.”
Dad reached for him, and Harry bent his head forward, pressing it against Dad’s chest. Dad squeezed the nape of his neck, his voice softer, but still gruff as he comforted him. “And two, I legally adopted your sister, and in every way that matters, she is my daughter. Callie is just as much my daughter as you are my son. She is your sister in every way that matters. And if I hear you ever say differently again, I’ll takeaway every electronic device in this house that you love and you won’t get them back for six months.”
“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered again, his voice cracking. “I … Axel Beaton and Greg Anderson and his mates have been hassling me at school ever since Callie got back.”
