tw: strong language, domestic violence
His mother hid them as best as she could. Even in the brunt of Utah summer, she would don the heavy sweaters and long-sleeved shirts, hiding her skin and her feelings under the dark fabric. She smiled and talked to her friends at church gatherings, and even though she winced once or twice when bending down to pick up one of her many children, no one noticed a thing. Indeed, she looked happy, the pinnacle of what a good Mormon wife could be.
At home, it was a different story.
In the safety of her house, the joyful smile faded and her shoulders drooped. She walked as if she was on eggshells, crossing the floor without a sound, as if she feared waking the ghosts that slept under the floorboards. After sermons on Sundays, Richard would watch his mother drift through the front door and into the bedroom, the only place in the house that she had expressly forbidden him to enter. Once, he had followed her silently, slowly peering in through the crack in the door, childish curiosity outweighing the fear of the belt that his father wielded.
Richard saw her remove the shirt, body turned away, saying nothing. At that age, the nudity meant nothing to him, but he noticed something else- the patterns of bruises that discolored her back, blooming like sadistic rosettes on the translucent skin. They were dotted here and there, some solitary, some in clusters, fading from purple to blue to green and giving the impression that some infectious disease was rotting her flesh away. He watched as his mother grazed the bruises with trembling fingertips, touching and feeling them as if she could not believe they were real. He watched as her shoulders shook and her head bowed in utter defeat, in utter hopelessness. And as she leaned against the mirror and uttered a lonely cry, a sound so deep and despairing and filled with true, tangible pain that it pierced his innocent heart, Richard watched it all and could not look away.
He remembered that scream. There would be many others.
The Church household had never been a harmonious place, least not in Richard's memory. His mother was the kind one, a gentle Mormon girl that had dated once, married, and had her dreams snatched away. His father was a tall, roughly hewn construction worker with muscles from clinging to steel beams all day. He was always sullen and brooding, whether it was over finances or where he could sneak away to drink the next day. He would crawl to the pub on Friday nights and stumble home early the next morning, eyes unfocused and reeking of whiskey's acrid perfume. On these days, Richard's mother would say nothing, as if by averting her eyes she could pretend that the problem didn't exist. Later, Richard would wonder why she never stopped him, why she never did anything, but at the time it was only routine. Go to school. Come home. Hide the children. Leave Daddy alone.
At the time, it was manageable. Daddy works hard, sweetie, let him rest. Daddy's out on a late job tonight, go back to sleep. Daddy was having bad dreams last night, honey, that's what the screaming was about, everything's all right, everything's okay.
And he believed it. Richard, in his childish naïveté, clung to his mother's excuses, repeated them over and over in his head during the nights when the screams filled the house. He ran through them until he could recite them like scripture, grasping at them for comfort when he could hear the cries through his bedroom walls. Daddy must be having bad dreams tonight. Everything's all right, everything's okay.
The next day, everything would seem normal again. Richard would run eagerly into his father's arms and show off his new Lego car, and his father would smile and ruffle his hair and call him "my little man", which made Richard so proud. More than anything else, he wanted to be his father's son, his daddy's big boy. Once or twice, he even got to tag along with his dad to the construction site and wear a hard hat and speak into the walkie-talkie while he sat on the curb, kicking his heels against the pavement and watching his father set sparks to the metal on the fourth story. The other workers nodded knowingly and patted him on the head, and it made him deliriously happy to be singled out as his father's child. When he was older, that would change.
It had started slowly at first. Once a week, drinking with work buddies, stumbling home, ranting and raving at the wall or outside in the garage. The only damage was a shattered bottle or two, tossed in a drunken fit at the wall, the crystalline shards swept up and thrown away before the children awoke. Back then, the problem was easy to hide, the broken pieces gathered and hidden before outsiders could ask questions. And what would answering them help? The general consensus in the family seemed to be that there was no explanation, only silence. Just as ignoring a cancer distances the condemned from their death, so the Church family distanced themselves from the problem.
But just as ignoring a cancer leaves the disease untreated, so the symptoms began to become more obvious. A stockpile of bottles appeared in the basement, hidden from the prying eyes of church friends in the beat-up fridge in the corner. Richard's father began to drink on Wednesdays after a hard day at work, or on Sundays when the minister was gone and the silk tie could be loosened and thrown away. One day, when Richard showed his dad his macaroni portrait, the man bent down to kiss Richard's forehead like always, but his breath stank of alcohol and cigarettes and made the young boy wrinkle his nose in disgust. He didn't show him anything after that. He was afraid of the strange odor and what it could mean.
By now, Richard was old enough to connect the dots, old enough to understand that something wasn't right. He tugged on his mother's patchwork skirts, and when she looked down at him with tired eyes, he asked her with his innocent voice why Daddy was so angry all the time. She blinked slowly and shuddered, as if there were monstrosities hidden beneath her eyelids. "Pray for Daddy," she whispered. "All we can do is pray."
And Richard prayed. He prayed every night when the slaps echoed through the house, closed his eyes and wished so fervently for Daddy to get better, help Daddy get better. But it never got better. It only got worse.
It was a morning in late summer, and the sun hid behind billowing dark clouds that blanketed the sky as they did when nature refused to play by seasonal rules. Richard, who had just turned eight, was playing with his toy trains on the floor of the kitchen, surrounded by his three younger brothers and baby sister, their mother chopping vegetables and watching the children out of the corner of her eye. Their laughter filled the room like soft music, dancing around the glowing lights and making their mother smile- until she heard the truck.
The truck, with its sputtering, ancient engine, choking on the way up the driveway. It was still morning. Too soon.
They heard the wheezing truck sputter to a stop, heard the heavy thunk of the door slamming shut, heard the crunch of boot treads against gravel. At the sound, Richard's mother tensed up, the knife clattering out of her hands and onto the smooth stovetop. She froze, and it was clear that something was wrong. Her eyes were wide and empty, a dark storm brewing in the back of her head.
Richard paused in his playing, confused. "Mommy?" he asked, "Mommy, what's the matter?"
His mother did not turn around. Her body was rigid, unmoving, as if someone had changed her muscles to stone. "Hide," she muttered, her voice a wavering breath that made Richard scrunch up his face as if his ears were mistaken. "Mommy, what do you mea-"
She whipped around suddenly, fear discoloring her face. "Hide the children now!"
He recoiled, tears pooling in his eyes, biting his lip to keep from crying out in fear. "Mommy!" Outside, the footsteps crunched closer, grinding gravel into the ground on their way to the door.
His mother heard them, and shivered. She raised a trembling finger to the children's bedroom, the open door beckoning them to safety. "In the bedroom," she hissed urgently, shoving Richard's little sister into his arms. "Quickly!"
She herded them into the little room, the little boys looking confused, the baby gurgling and reaching out to touch her brother's face. A single tear fell onto the baby's cheek, and she widened her eyes in surprise; another, gleaming like a diamond, bloomed on her chin, and she squealed before wiping it away.
Then their mother shut the door, and the light from the hallway ceased its illumination of the room. The children huddled together in the darkness, muted by their fear, waiting breathlessly as the front door opened and slammed shut. One of the smaller boys started sniffling, tears pooling in his eyes, and Richard drew him close.
"B-be quiet," he whispered, trying to sound brave in spite of the tremors in his voice. "It's going to be all right. Everything's okay."
Erratic footsteps in the breezeway, their dull thumping muffled by wallpaper, wood, and insulation. Their father, home from work too early. The children could hear the gruff exhale, the squelch of shifting leather, the crystal clink of bottle against table. At the sounds, Richard crept towards the door, his heart quickening. The click of the television, the buzz of static, the incoherent mumblings of news anchors through papered walls. He pressed his ear to the door tentatively and could barely make out the remnants of his mother's soft voice.
"Robert, is everything all right?" The question was laced with fear; her voice, pleading, powerless, as if she knew that asking was hopeless already.
The man shifted abruptly in his seat. "No, everything is fucking not all right!" A pause, another clink of glass against wood, and his father continued in a more subdued tone. "Got- got laid off today. Fucking assholes, they told my boss, those fucking snitches…"
Richard's mother grew a bit braver, her voice emboldened by anger. "Were you drunk on the job, Robert? I can't believe this! How are we going to pay the mortgage now? You know we're already behind on payments-"
"Shut up, bitch!" Richard heard a yelp and a great symphony of shattering glass as the empty bottle missed its mark and connected with the wall instead. There was a deep sigh and a shifting as his father sunk deeper into his seat. Encouraged by concern, Richard turned the doorknob slowly, pushing the door open just a crack. Seeing nothing, he slid out into the light of the hall, sneaking closer to the ambient sound of the television. If he backed up against the wall, he could just make out the image of his father, blurred eyes staring unfocused at the television, mouth twisted in an unpleased scowl.
Suddenly, the man started forward, and Richard cringed in terror of being discovered. Thankfully, though, it was the television that the man was gesturing wildly at, the television that was causing him to utter strings of vile curses.
"… Fucking lost again, dumb shits… couldn't sink a shot if he was being guarded by fucking midgets!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Richard saw his mother rising up from behind the couch, taking a wary step towards the drunkard. His chest beating wildly, he opened his mouth to warn her- to scream- to do anything- but his vocal cords were paralyzed by the botulism of fright. He could only watch in horror as she rose up beside him, fists clenched, an inferno in her eyes and sleet in her voice.
"Robert!" she exclaimed, and the man swung to face her. "Robert, that's enough!"
There was a rushing, a muttering of "I'll teach you, bitch," and Richard's mother flinched as if she could avoid him, but his fists couldn't miss and there was a smack of knuckles against cheek and she cried out like a knife had pierced her chest. Another quick movement, another thud, another helpless cry as she tried to escape but was challenged by steel-toed boots that struck her like sledgehammers. Her helpless cries permeated the air as the man swung again and again, each time burying his fist in her soft flesh with a sickly thud. They rang in Richard's ears as his body trembled and eyes stung, an anguished chorus, punctuating each second that he stood still and did nothing.
Thwack. A single tear ran down Richard's cheek and was absorbed into his shirt. Thwack. He clenched his fists at his sides, fingernails digging into his sweaty palms, body shaking. Thwack. He closed his eyes and saw red.
Abandoning all hope of hiding, he ran forward, arms pumping, adrenaline rushing through his veins. "Stop!" he shrieked, as if the words of an eight-year-old boy carried the power to control the carnage. But, somehow, the blows did pause, as did the screaming. There was an eerie silence as his father's back straightened. On the ground, Richard's mother gasped for breath, her head resting in a puddle of scarlet that had dribbled from her mouth to pool on the floorboards. Richard stood with balled fists, biting his lip to keep from crying, his vision blurred by pooling tears.
Richard's father looked over his shoulder slowly, as if he could not believe that he was being challenged. As they made eye contact, there was something in his expression, something terrifying, like the devil had twisted his features to make him a demon instead of a man. Richard shivered in spite of himself. The man took one step forward. Then another. Ten feet away, and now his shadow blackened Richard's face.
On the floor, Richard's mother convulsed, her crumpled frame wracked by shuddering coughs. Still gasping, she raised a shaking hand towards her husband. "Please," she pleaded faintly, "Not him. Not Richard." Another step. Eight feet. Six.
The woman shuddered again. "Please," she whispered, her voice desperate, "have mercy! Not him, please!" Four feet.
Richard tried his best to keep his chest out and stared straight into his father's eyes. But there was something there, a dark wind, a moonless night, a grotesque black that made him shy away instinctively. Two feet. A stream of blood oozed from the corner of Richard's mouth and down his chin as he dug in with his teeth to keep his voice from faltering. In a fit of foolish bravery, he held up one little hand in the devil's face. "No!" he commanded.
Something tangible in the demon's glare snapped, and he rushed forward. On the floor, his mother reached out for him, crying "No! Have mercy!" at the top of her lungs. A blur. The footsteps, barreling towards him. The whiff of whiskey and cigarettes.
A train slamming into his face. Falling back, into the whiteness, into the oblivion.
Then, the pain. Indescribable. Unimaginable. Heartbreaking.
And all around him, in the brightness, in the nothingness, was the reign of screaming.
