All Due Respect Issue #1 (6 page)

The tears make their way from the corners of my eyes and down my cheeks, but I do not wipe them. I feel one dangling from my chin. Waiting to fall. Amanda is with her grandmother. I hope she is sleeping. The gun in my hand weighs a hundred pounds, I dropped on my ass at least a half hour ago, but the weight of the thing on my legs, over my hand, is keeping me from moving.

I loved Corey more than myself. That was my second mistake. A woman should never love a man more than herself, not even her own son. I should have learned that lesson when I saw what his father had done to him. When I saw the bright ribbons of blood in the bathwater curling from under his butt. When he sobbed and cried and shook, refusing to tell me what had happened. I pulled him out of the bath and held his wet body to my chest, letting the water soak into my clothes, letting his tears soak my shoulder. Letting my tears disappear into his wet hair. He smelled of wet grass and baby soap. He was five. Amanda had been in her bedroom, then. Sleeping quietly. Only a baby.

I wanted to kill their father. I wanted to rip his eyes out of the sockets and spit in the holes. But I had the children to think of. I didn’t say a word. I put Corey to bed, and I called the police.

They made Corey testify. They brought a video camera into the police station and had a psychiatrist with a stuffed doll talk him through everything his father had done to him. I sat in the corner with my fist in my mouth, hoping he couldn’t see the way my face twisted up when he talked about what had been done to him.

Corey was never the same. He didn’t smile as much. He didn’t like playing with the other boys. When I cooked, he stood next to me at the stove, holding my leg, watching my every move. When I showered, he sat on the bathroom floor and played with his Matchbox cars. When I slept, he crept in from his bedroom, and crawled into my bed. His small, warm body pressed up against mine. I let him.

Amanda grew. She was strong. She was happy. She laughed and played on her own. I loved her, yes. But she didn’t need me the way Corey did. Corey still watched me cook. He watched me wash the dishes. He watched me sit at the kitchen counter and pay the bills. Sometimes, he still crawled into bed with me at night, curled into a ball, and pressed his back against my side. Amanda was fine. Amanda was always going to be fine.

When she was six, she started wetting her pants at school. It happened three times. At home, she would be sitting, quietly doing her homework or playing with her Barbie dolls, then suddenly, she would jump up and run to the toilet, face twisted up, eyes squinting.

“Amanda,” I said, tucking her under her pink comforter and brushing her wild brown hair away from her forehead. “What’s going on? Why do you wait so long to pee?”

Her lower lip pushed out, and she sucked a ragged breath in. “I don’t know.”

“Do you know when you have to go? Do you hold it?”

She closed her eyes, and nodded, tears coming now.

“Then why don’t you go?”

A sob twice as big as she was came up out of her chest and she wailed. “I don’t like to go pee! It hurts!”

I knew.

I pulled her up out of her bed and held her tiny body to me.

“Who touched you there?”

“Barbie.” She said, her little body shaking in my arms.

“Who was playing Barbies with you when it happened?”

She sobbed, and tightened her arms around my neck. I couldn’t tell if my breathing was ragged, or if her shaking was rattling my chest, or if it was every part of me cracking from the inside out.

“Tell me who, Manda. Tell me. I won’t let them hurt you.”

She nuzzled her face into my neck and whispered, “Corey.”

The world went out of focus and I squeezed her so hard I thought I might hurt her. The room spun around us and my throat closed up, holding the screams tight in my lungs. I heard her whimper in my ear and things slowed down, back to real time.

I took three long breaths and put her back into her little pink bed and walked out of the room. I felt my hands shake, my arms dead weight. I closed the door behind me and fell to the floor, biting down on my lower lip to keep from screaming. That night, I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, swallowing rocks. The door to my bedroom creaked open, and Corey lifted the blanket. For a moment, I hated him.

“What did you do?” I asked him. He froze. One leg on the bed, the other dangling off, the blanket still lifted in his hand.

“ANSWER ME. What did you do to your sister?”

He stayed like that, half in the bed, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. I reached out and smacked his face as hard as I could. I felt the shock all the way up my arm. My hand stung. Corey’s head hit the pillow and he yelled out in pain.

“TELL ME WHAT YOU DID, COREY!”

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I’m sorry I didn’t know it would hurt her! Please don’t put me in jail like Daddy!”

All the strength went out of my body. All the anger flushed down some rusty drainpipe inside me. I reached out for my baby boy and pulled him to me. I said, “It’s going to be alright, Corey. You’re not going anywhere.”

No one played alone in the house anymore. Amanda stayed away from Corey, her dark eyes grew wide when he got too close. She spent more time in her room. Corey stayed with me. But Amanda was fine, really. She was always going to be fine. She still smiled and played with the neighborhood kids. Her schoolwork was excellent. She stopped wetting herself.

At bedtime, I talked to Corey. I told him, “You
never
touch someone on their butt or their privates. You
never
go alone with your sister. You
never
hurt someone the way you were hurt.” Tears would fill his blue eyes and he would tell me he understood.

I went to Amanda’s room. Pink and soft and happy. She lay in her bed with a fluffy white stuffed cat pulled tight to her chest. I tucked her in and said, “You tell me if your brother comes in your room. If he comes in your room while you’re asleep you scream. You
never
take your bottoms off for anyone, only by yourself. You
never
go alone with boys. You
never ever
touch anyone the way your brother touched you.” She pulled the stuffed cat tight against her neck, quiet tears rolled down her face and she nodded.

“Okay, Mommy.”

“Okay,” I said, and kissed her forehead.

After a while, I stopped the nightly talks. They deserved a normal childhood. They deserved to move on.

I moved on.

I reach out and touch his face. It’s already cold. My stomach tightens, pushing against my lungs and a sob bursts out, filling the silent room. I’ve made so many mistakes. I curl into my lap with the pain in my gut. I know today, maybe for the first time, I’ve done the right thing.

I sit with him for an hour, my hand on his cold cheek, letting the poison come out of my eyes, sobbing out all my regrets. I should have never married his father. I should have reported what he did to his sister. I should have watched them more carefully. I should have looked out for Amanda they way I looked out for him. I had always thought Amanda would be fine.

I wipe my face on the sleeve of my shirt and took the duct tape from the table. Grunting, I roll Corey into the rug and wrap it in tape.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I say. “I’m sorry but it’s over now. It’s done.”

I slide open the back door as quietly as I can and pull in the wheelbarrow. I cradle my son in my arms for the last time, knees straining with his weight, and drop him into it. His head sticks out near the handles and his legs are well over the front, and I thank God silently that the rug is blocking him from my view. I take him out the backdoor and to the garage, then open the back of my SUV. Lifting him, I remember a time when I could carry him in one arm on my hip. The strength goes out of my knees and I fall with his body on top of me, biting into my lip to keep from screaming.

The drive to the river is longer with the headlights out. I scan the road ahead and all the side roads for another set of headlights, if I am seen, it’s all over. Amanda has to have her mother to help her through this.

His body seems heavier now. I can’t lift him again, so I grip the rug tight and pull him out. I drag him to the bank and stand there.

“Corey, I love you. I did this for you. They say it never stops. They say the urge is always there. I can’t…” My knees hit the dirt next to the rolled up rug and I run my hand over it. “You looked just like him.”

My chest hurts and my eyes hurt and my legs hurt from the lifting, but there’s still work to be done. I stand up, grip the rug in both hands and I tell him, “It’s over for you now, Corey. You’re okay now.”

I pull him down the bank and into the river. Mud and cold water covering my shoes and seeping up the legs of my pants. Back at the SUV, I have a garbage bag and a change of clothes. I work quickly, tying the bag up tight and putting it inside another.

I drive into town and leave the bag in a dumpster around back of the grocery store. I look at my watch, trash pickup on this street is in four hours. I drive back toward my house, then pass it, and on to the next town. It’s already three in the morning. I have to work quickly. I put the gun in a Styrofoam take out box and then put it in a plastic shopping bag. I drop it in a trashcan outside someone’s house.

I want to sit here and let the sun rise over me. I stare out onto the suburban street. I wonder what is going on beyond the manicured lawns, behind the drawn curtains. I wonder if the mothers and fathers in those houses know the nuclear blast that goes off in a mother’s chest when she sees blood stains in her son’s underwear. If they know the silent, heavy anvil of guilt that rests on a mother’s chest long after the police have taken her husband away. If they can imagine living the horror three times. I wonder how many of them tell their friends over coffee, “I could KILL those kids sometimes!” but will never know what it’s like to have to do it, but dawn is threatening to break and I don’t even have the luxury of sitting in my car and being envious of their soccer tournaments and family game nights.

The spot where the rug lay for its short time in our home is clean of blood, but I mop the living room with bleach water just in case. I scrub my hands hoping to wash the river dirt and gunpowder residue off of them, but not knowing how.

I change into my pajamas and crawl into bed, just for a moment. My eyes fix on the bare spot where my son used to sleep. Not for years, but it feels like yesterday. I put my hand on the empty spot and close my eyes. I breathe in through my nose and I can almost smell him, baby soap and wet grass. My baby. My son.

I pick up the phone and dial 911. “Yes. My son,” I say, breath hitching, “I just woke up, he never came home last night.”

The police arrive and tell me everything is going to be fine.

“It was his sixteenth birthday,” I say. “Maybe he got into trouble with his friends and was afraid to come home?”

“I’m sure that’s all it is Ma’am. You know how teenagers are.”

I wish I did. I don’t say so, and they leave with phone numbers of Corey’s friends.

I sit on the floor where I had knelt next to Corey the night before. I remember the look on his face when I told him I had seen him in Amanda’s room that morning. He didn’t try to explain. He said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry.”

Then he saw the gun.

Then he was gone.

I call my mom and tell her Corey is missing. When she arrives she tells me it will be okay, and I tell her I am sure it will. When she leaves, Amanda comes and sits next to me on the couch, presses her body next to mine, and rests her head on my shoulder.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Is Corey coming back?”

I put my nose in her hair and breathe in. She smells like apple shampoo. My heart jumps in my chest for a moment, an echo of the first time I held her in my arms. “I don’t think he will.”

“I hope he doesn’t.”

Yes. Amanda will be fine.

Renee Asher Pickup
is a writer living in the California Desert. She has had fiction published in places like
Out Of The Gutter Online, Alliterati Magazine
, and
Solarcide.com
. She is one-third the
Books and Booze
podcast and editor-in-chief of
Revolt Daily
.