“He’d jumped on her in the bed and started hitting her. I tried to pull him off, but he was stronger than I could ever imagine a kid being. He slung me off. Sent me crashing into the bedside table. It sort of addled me. When I managed to get up, he was beating Momma in the side of the head with the base of the lamp. She wasn’t even conscious. She was just laying there, bleeding and gurgling. That’s all I could hear other than Tommy grunting and her bones crunching.
“I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed the bat Momma kept under her bed and I hit him in the back of the head with it. He just slumped over on top of her. I stood there for a few minutes, waiting for him to move. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t leave Momma and Travis alone with him, so I just stood there, staring at them, not knowing what to do. Travis came in and saw them. He freaked out. He was just eleven at the time. He cried for two days straight. Pulled most of the hair out on one side of his head. Peed in his bed both times he tried to go to sleep.”
Even though I’m lost in days I’ve tried hard to forget, I’m hyper aware of Sig’s silence. He hasn’t said a word.
I haven’t looked at him to see what expression he’s wearing either. I’m afraid of what I’ll find. And it’s too late to turn back now. I’ve said too much already.
The only thing I can do is go on. So I do.
“I killed Tommy. I killed my own brother. I didn’t mean to, but I did. After that, I panicked. I knew I couldn’t let anybody find out. They’d put me away and Travis would be left all alone. A ward of the state. Living with strangers. Or in an institution. And for a child with Asperger’s, that would’ve been horrible for him. We were all he had, all he knew. It was up to me to keep him safe, keep him home. Until he turned eighteen and they couldn’t control him anymore, it was up to me. He was up to me. So until I could think of some way to get rid of the body without getting caught, I put Tommy in a freezer chest, the one out on the back porch that Momma always kept extra meat in when she could afford to buy in bulk.”
“Momma,” I sigh, swallowing because my mouth is as dry as ash. “Momma was hurt. She was hurt bad. I thought she was going to die there for a while. She didn’t, but she never really woke up again after that day. I took care of her, cleaned her up and did the best I could to keep her alive so we wouldn’t get caught or split up. Everything I did was in order to keep Travis and me together and safe, without anybody knowing what had happened. I stayed home from school for three days. Dripped water in her mouth to keep her from dying of thirst. She finally healed up enough that she could take some sips of water through a straw. Some of her teeth were busted, so I’d mash up Spaghettios and feed them to her. I didn’t know what else to do. Eventually, taking care of her was like after school chores of any other kind.
“For a few months, Travis and I got into this weird new routine. Almost normal, I guess. We both went to school. Came home and did our homework. I fixed dinner. Mostly soup for a while, but then I started taking the bus to the grocery store using some money I found in Tommy’s room. That didn’t last very long, so I started forging Momma’s signature and cashing her disability checks. It was weird, but no one even noticed that our family had fallen apart. I guess that’s what happens to the poor kids. The world…life…just sort of forgets about you and you fend for yourself. However you have to make do.
“Surprisingly, we did all right for a while. But then, during the fall of that year, Travis got in a fight at school. He just went nuts. Ended up putting the other kid in the hospital. Paralyzed him from the waist down. The parents pressed charges. He went to juvie for seven months. There was nothing I could do.”
I feel…tired. I’ve never told anyone my whole story. And while I’ve relived parts of it in my head over the years, I’ve tried not to dwell on it because it’s full of bad memories and counterproductive emotions. I learned a long time ago that feeling sorry for myself wouldn’t get me a damn thing. So I’ve made myself focus on planning–a way out, a better life, how to keep Travis safe. I’m always planning. It’s the only thing I’ve got going for me in life. A plan.
“Then what happened?” Sig asks softly. Still, I don’t look over at him. I don’t think I can bear it.
My face is tight and wet from my tearful outburst. The neckline of my shirt is even soaked. I haven’t cried like this in a long time. I haven’t let myself. Even now, I don’t think I allowed myself to feel, per se; I think I just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Somewhere deep down, I feel like I’ve been waiting half my life for someone like Sig to come along, waiting for someone to care enough to ask. For someone to unlock the door and let it all out.
“It was while Travis was gone that I realized how vulnerable we were without a legal guardian. How things would be different if only I was eighteen. In my head, I guess I thought that would fix everything. I was already thinking it when Travis finally got out of juvie. But when I saw how…broken he was, when I started listening to what he’d say during his nightmares at night, when he’d pee the bed and cry in his sleep, that’s when I knew I had to do something. He’d been sexually abused in juvie. It’s hard for him to make friends, but it’s not hard for the bullies to find him. And they did. I wasn’t sure he’d ever be all right again. That’s when I decided that I’d be eighteen one way or the other. I had to be able to drive, to get a job, to keep Travis. I had planned it out in my head that if anyone ever asked about Momma, we’d say that she left. Like Dad. And I’d file for custody of Travis and we’d be fine. But only if it ever came to that. I don’t know if that actually would’ve worked, but I was just a kid. I was doing everything I could to survive. So, out of sheer desperation, I took Tommy’s social security card and got my driver’s license. His name, his birthday with my picture on it. An insignificant little card for most people, but for me, it said that I was almost twenty years old, the age Tommy would’ve been. That square saved our lives. It bought us time, time until Travis could turn eighteen, time until we would be able to run away somewhere and start over. Never look back. That was my plan anyway. But that was before I met Lance Tonin.”