"Joey, c'mon," Snake trying to cheer me up. Angie was at daycare and Emma was picking her up. Craig left last night and hadn't come home. He might not come home today, either.
"Snake, did you hear me? I grabbed him, I shoved him to the floor…hard," I couldn't stand myself. Looked down at the table.
"He'll live,"
I shook my head, tapped my fingers on the tabletop.
"You don't understand. His father, he, I should never have done that. Now I'm like his father,"
I looked out the window. Craig wouldn't come home. I knew it. I felt it in my bones.
"Joey, you are not like his father. You haven't beaten him, you shoved him. Once. You haven't broken any of his bones or made him black and blue or terrorized him. You are nothing like Albert," Snake could sound so reasonable. He talked a good game.
"Yeah, but even so, just touching him like that, when I was angry, I swore I would never do that. He was so screwed up when he first came to live with me, he was so frightened. I wanted to be…to be a positive male role model, fuck," I slammed my fist on the table, almost hard enough to go through the table. This guilt was eating at my stomach lining.
"You are. You have been. I've seen him, too. I've had him in classes all these years and I've seen the changes. Positive changes because of you. He used to jump at every noise, he used to fall asleep in class, make excuses for everything. Wear long sleeves and all that in the nice weather. He was jumpy as hell. Now he's okay. Give yourself credit for that,"
Jesus, could Snake make it sound good. And I wanted to feel better. I wanted to believe that it was no big deal. A little shove. So what? But Craig was an abused child. You couldn't, you couldn't do that. I shouldn't have done that.
"How was he…today?" I could hear the nervousness in my voice. Heard it loud and clear.
"He was fine. Pissed off, but fine,"
I sighed, and all my worries came to nestle in my head. Bills. Selling the house. The car lot. Creditors and collection agencies and no one buying cars and utilities being shut off. Stress. Things were very stressful. Wasn't that the excuse Albert used to give for being "impatient" with Craig?
"Snake, he's not fine. He ran away. He, I traumatized him. It wasn't all that long ago, you know, when he lived with Albert. It was only two years ago. And now…"
"Joey, he's fine. You are not Albert. He knows that. But you live with him, and you're not always going to get along. And stress does happen, and people do things they don't want to do. You shoved him. He's fine. He will live. He will come home when he's ready. Give yourself a break,"
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Getting later. Angie was home, coloring and watching T.V. It was getting darker faster and still he wasn't home. In a minute I was going to start calling people. Everyone who I knew he knew. I'd call them all.
So I went through it, all the kids on the list. Ashley sounded vaguely concerned, denied knowing where he went. Jimmy hadn't heard from him. Marco didn't know anything. Manny sounded flustered and surprised that I would think she'd know where he was. Spinner hadn't heard from him, either. Sean sounded guilty saying he wasn't there. That's where he was.
"Listen, okay, he doesn't want to talk to me or come home. But is he at least there? Please, I'm worried sick,"
"Okay, yeah," Sean said, and I could almost see him looking over his shoulder at Craig.
"He's there?"
"Yeah,"