My bedroom door opened and my mom walked in. She didn’t see Carrie at first, but when she did she got really angry and shouted. Carrie woke up. I thought she would apologize for breaking Mom’s rule; that’s what I was doing. But Carrie only sneered at my mom.
My mom called my dad upstairs; I didn’t know what to do as he gripped Carrie by the arm and dragged her out of my room. My mom told me to stay where I was, and then she shut the door to my room.
I put my hand on the doorknob and I wanted to go after Carrie.
I wanted to tell my dad to let go of her.
I wanted to tell my mom that I hated her.
But I didn’t do anything but go and sit back down on my bed.
The front door slammed and I heard my mom shouting, but I couldn’t hear my dad reply so I knew she was on the phone, and I had a horrible feeling she was shouting at Carrie’s mom. I went to the window; I could see Carrie’s house if I looked to the left.
Outside were my dad and Carrie. She was crying and he was holding her by the arm and pulling her. Her other arm was around her stomach because I think she still felt sick. She was crying and shouting at him. He slapped her hard across the cheek and I gasped because you should never hit a woman. My dad looked around to make sure no one had heard whatever it was she’d said, but he didn’t see me staring from my bedroom window. He dragged her into the back yard, and down the side of the shed. I wondered why he had taken her there. I opened my window a little and I could hear her crying and crying and crying and crying…
I should have gone to her, but I didn’t.
I was scared.
I was told to stay in my room.
My dad came out after a couple of minutes. He didn’t look back at her, or up at me; he just straightened his shirt and pants and went around the side of the house and to our front door. I heard it open and close, and then I saw Carrie stumble out from the side of the shed. She was still crying, soft, hiccupping sobs. She was limping and holding her stomach.
I placed my palm on the window, and when she looked up at me she raised her hand up to me. I smiled because Carrie made me happy. Even when she was sad she made me happy.
I didn’t see her for a long time after that. She stopped coming around, and I worried that she would starve so I would sneak to her house and leave food parcels under her bedroom window. I never saw if she got them or not, and we never spoke about them. Or that night.
The next time I saw Carrie, she asked me to help her and I promised that I would. But then when I heard what she wanted me to do, I wasn’t so sure. I was scared. Who could blame me? I was just a kid, after all, and what she had asked me to do was a grown-up thing. An illegal thing.
A really, really bad thing.
