Abby's cell buzzed.
She strode across the room, running the tips of her fingers along Rex's back as she reached for the phone. "Hello?" she asked.
"Abby?"
Abby's eyes widened at the near-forgotten voice. "Jack?"
Abby and Jack sat curled at the end of Abby's bed. Abby's hair was in pigtails; she was seven years old. She was reading to her little brother, just short passages from her favorite book: Charlotte's Web. Jack was smiling broadly as she spoke. She was the only one he'd ever listen to. He idolized his big sister. She, in turn, became closer to him than most other girls were with their little brothers.
Their parents walked in. Her daddy was smiling; he always used to smile. Her mom was talking to him, but stopped when she saw the children. She also gave them smiled. Abby paused to smile up at them, and Jack looked up to her with his big eyes and exclaimed, "Abby! Keep reading!"
"Abby, it's good to hear you."
"It's good to hear you, too, Jack," Abby replied. She collapsed on her couch. "How are you?"
He was silent for a moment before answering. "I hit a rough patch. Got canned, Abby."
"Oh, no." Abby, too, was silent then; she knew her brother well enough to know that it was his own fault, but she was still upset for him. This was the longest time he'd held a job since…he'd never actually held one this long.
Don was yelling. And throwing things. Abby held her hands over her brother's ears, trying to shield him from the worst of what their father was saying to their mother. She was thirteen now, and it was her responsibility to keep him safe. From the world. From the kids at school. Now, from Don.
She hadn't called him Daddy for three years. Not since the first time she saw him hit their mom. She had learned that their marriage wasn't going well at all, but as a good Catholic couple they stayed together. They put on a good face in public, and Abby and Jack were expected to do the same. Once, when the school guidance counselor called her parents in for a conference, Don hit her for telling. Her mom told her to take it.
She could feel Jack's tears under her fingers. She told him it was okay, that she would always be there for him. Even when Don was drunk, she would be there. She just kept saying safe things, telling him over and over that it would be all right. She hoped he believed her, because she didn't.
He asked her why Don was hitting mom. She answered that he was bad, because it was all she knew to say.
Abby knew why Jack was calling. The last time he called, she gave him a place to stay without a second thought. This time as well, she knew she had to give him a place to stay.
"Can I hang with you a few days?" he asked. She nodded, knowing still that he couldn't see her.
"Yeah," she answered, not thinking clearly. In another family, she could ask, 'Can't you stay with someone else?' In her family, however, there was no one else.
"Great," Jack said, a smile in his voice. I'll see you--in two days?"
"Yes."
She was fifteen now. Her mother was dead for two weeks. She had to be the woman of the house, now, and to Don, that included everything. He came into her room the previous night while she was asleep and bound her wrists together with a belt. She was in her room sobbing the next morning. Her eyes stung when she had no more tears to fall, and still she moaned and screamed, beating her fists against the wall.
She dropped out of school the day the grief counselor came to talk to her. The lady acted like she actually cared, but she didn't really. She was there for her paycheck, and Abby wasn't afraid to shout it to her face. The grief counselor had been stunned, but she didn't care. Her friends…maybe they did care. But they would never know how it felt to lose their mom. To lose her mom to suicide.
So her mom never cared about her, either. She escaped the first chance she got. She didn't care that Abby would be hurt. She didn't care. Not that she did anything while she was alive.
Abby let a moan escape her lips again. Last night after…Don hit her. He beat her and struck her with a belt and told her she was a sinner, and that God wanted her dead. That was his favorite line. God had wanted her mother dead, and her mother obliged Him. Now her father said that God wanted her dead. Maybe she should follow her mother.
She had raw skin on her back and legs where she had been hit, and some across her chest. She had a black eye. She supposed Don wouldn't want her to go to school anyway. Too much incriminating evidence.
The doorknob turned. Abby froze, horrified. It would be Don. He would scream at her again. If he had been drinking, he would throw a beer bottle at her. He did so to her mother often, so often.
Abby inhaled, relieved, as she saw it was Jack.
"Oh--Jack!"
Her brother came to her, delicately putting his arms over her shoulders to hold her in a hug. She tensed at first--she was suddenly timid of close contact--but slowly relaxed, allowing her head to fall onto her brother's shoulder. She supposed he understood. Even though the scars on her back seared against pressure, and some were probably ready to open any moment, she didn't care. Tears began to pour down her face again, uninhibitedly. She didn't have to say anything.
The door flew open, practically falling from the hinges. Don was standing in the doorway, just a silhouette until Abby's eyes adjusted. He snarled something unintelligible and Abby instinctively pushed herself up, making to stand in front of Jack. Her brother, however, pushed her back down and got up himself, a barrier to protect her.
"Stay away from her!" he shouted, exhibiting more bravery than I'd ever seen. Don threw a beer bottle to the ground; it shattered into a thousand pieces.
"Shut up," Don shouted. "Get out, boy."
He was drunk and angry. Additionally, he was twice the size of Jack. But seeing the determined look on his son's face, where none had ever existed before, made him forget even to swear him out. He stared into Jack's face, and, seeing the immobile fury, and stood down.
He turned from the room, leaving a minefield of glass shards where he had stood. Abby looked up at her brother, admiration in her eyes. Jack turned to her and reached a hand down to pick her up. She looked at it a moment, then accepted it, climbing up onto shaky legs. Jack also held out a bright green paper.
"Got this in school," he explained. Abby looked at it, and saw it had a phone number and was titled, Child Services. Abby winced, never wanting to look for help. Jack, however, looked at her earnestly. "Abby, please. If you can take Don, fine, but I can't. Do it for me, please?"
Abby felt a fresh batch of tears come to her eyes, but she wiped them away. She wouldn't relive last night. "Go next door and call them," she whispered. "Hurry, Jack."
The clock struck three. Abby looked up at it, suddenly aware that there were tears brewing in the corners of her eyes. The memories were breaking the flood gates that kept her from drowning.
Deep inside, she realized why she would always be there to save Jack. Jack had been there to save her.
"I'll see you then, Jack," she said quietly after the click of his phone hanging up.
After Jack made that call, everything began to turn around. The people came and took them to a foster home, and the police were tipped off about Don. He went to jail, and his children survived. They never saw him again, and nothing was happier than that fact. She went to the foster home at night, but Abby learned to live independently. (That was perhaps the best thing her new family could teach her, and she was grateful for it.) She never returned to high school, but she attended college a short while until she dropped out to work at the zoo. She was finally free.