It was going to be a fun fucking night.
Iwas pacing in the kitchen, tapping my phone against my leg in agitation.
When I finally finished up with Ms. Thomson, I went upstairs to find Caleb in the living room watching TV, just as I had expected.
What I hadn’t expected was the look of pure terror in his eyes when I called his name.
I could immediately tell something was wrong…well, more wrong than normal. When I asked him why he had come over today, he flinched like he thought I was going to hit him. I asked him if someone at home was hurting him, and that totally set him off.
For a second, I was worried he was going to run away, so I grabbed him, and that’s when I immediately knew my suspicions had been correct.
This boy’s parents were abusing him. No one reacted like that to someone grabbing their shoulders.
At first, I thought he was just having a trauma response, but it quickly became apparent he was falling apart because he was injured beneath his shirt.
I had lost my temper… not with him, of course, but that didn’t seem to matter. I yelled at him to tell me who was hurting him, and that, of course, just made things worse.
I was such a fucking idiot.
Whoyellsat a kid like that?
I, of course, regretted it immediately and apologized, explaining that I wasn’t angry with him. I was angry with the people who had hurt him.
After that, he had thrown his arms around me and sobbed into my shoulder, scrunching up my T-shirt in his tiny fists.
Violence had never been my go-to response to confrontation, but as I held this little boy while he sobbed, all I could think about was how good it would feel to beat the shit out of the assholes that had hurt him.
I told him he could stay over if he wanted and got him set up with a room upstairs.
He was currently curled up there sleeping, which was why I was freaking out a little bit. I was pretty sure having a minor sleeping over without parental consent legally counted as kidnapping… even though it was obviously safer for him here than at his own home.
I couldn’t let the kid go back. Not when I knew his parents were hurting him. I had given him a T-shirt to change into, and the bruises on the boy’s chest and back were so gruesomeit mademystomach churn… and I cut open dead bodies for a living.
I could call Child Protective Services again, but they hadn’t done shit last time. What if the result was the same? What if his parents punished him for it?
I didn’t think his parents knew where he was, which gave me a little bit of time to figure out a plan. At least I knew he was safe here for tonight.
I was on what felt like my hundredth anxiety-ridden lap around the kitchen table when my mother billowed in.
Because that’s what my mother did, shebillowed.
Iris Fairview was all deep red curls, silk robes, and vintage dresses. Today, she was wearing a green floral satin robe that looked like it came from a different time, with her burgundy hair piled up high on her pixie-like head.
She was willowy and delicate, and she always had a dreamy smile on her face. Nothing really ever seemed to anger my mother. She met life’s obstacles with a sort of detached optimism, as if she lived entirely in thenowand never worried about the future or dwelled on the past.
She flowed through the kitchen towards the stove, turning the old-fashioned dial to put her nightly pot of tea on. At this late hour, she was likely brewing some homegrown chamomile from her garden.
“What has your aura so dark, dear?” she asked in her usual dreamy tone, and I slumped down into one of the white, chalk-painted kitchen chairs.
“Caleb is here. His parents are definitely abusing him. I told him to stay the night, but I don’t know what I’m going to do when they come looking for him.”
My mother turned away from the stove and leaned back against the counter, thoughleanedfelt like too pedestrian of aword for what she did. Shedrifted.Like a feather settling quietly on a surface.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, honey. Your dark angel will take care of them.”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered, though I wasn’t really paying attention. I was now googling what legally counted as kidnapping in the state of Ohio.
“Not this ‘dark angel’shitagain,” my sister grumbled as she strolled in, texting someone on her own phone. She beelined for the fridge and popped it open, critically examining the inside. “Ryan has a girlfriend, Mom, and I would hardly consider her to bedark.”
