I'm in Mom's office because it's the only part of the house other than the kitchen that has a phone, and Mom is in the kitchen making dinner. So if I'm going to call, I have to do it in here. Because it'll be a secret call. Maybe a call I shouldn't make.

I know Dad's number by heart. I don't know why, I almost never call him, he calls me. But sometimes I just like to repeat it to myself so I know that I can get him if I need to. I know if I really need him, he'll come.

I might really need him.

No, Mom might really need him.

Well, maybe me, too.

I'm sitting in Mom's chair at her desk, it's the kind of chair that rolls and swivels, but I just swivel, and just a little. The phone is black and has one of those stretchy twisting wires. I straighten it, let it spring back into place, again and again, Dad's number rolling through my head.

It only happened last night, but Mom acted like it never did. She tried to cover the bruises with makeup, but I could tell they were there, because she's done that before, after the last time Shawn beat her up. Only this time, such a long time later, he didn't just beat her up.

My mother's never told me about . . . sex. But I know about it, kind of. It happens in the Bible, even though they never teach it in Sunday school, I read about it myself and asked my teacher what it meant, and she told me in a quiet voice. And sometimes kids at school talk about it and giggle or say bad words, usually older kids, sometimes not. But I don't know what it means, really, not exactly, I just know that it's something that happens when two grownups . . . take off their clothes and do something that can end up with the woman being pregnant, and that's how babies are made. I don't know, but I know that it's supposed to be something private but good. God even says so. And I think my mother does it sometimes . . . I think, and I've never said this to her or anyone, but I think that's why she's had boyfriends sleep over.

But Shawn isn't her boyfriend, not anymore, and he didn't sleep over.

I was asleep when Shawn banged on our door. That woke me up.

I had barely sat up in bed when Mom came into my room in just a shirt and panties, she must have been asleep, it was one in the morning – she was scared, really scared, and Mom scared – that was what scared me so much. I've never seen her eyes that big, and she grabbed me with both hands and said, I remember it word-for-word, I think: "Sydney, lock your door and get in the closet. Do not come out until you hear me, me, say for you to."

BANG BANG BANG. Shouting. And I said, "Mama, who –"

She pulled me out of bed, let go, and backed towards the door. "Lock it behind me and get in the closet!" she hissed, and right after she closed the door, I did what she said, I turned the lock. I was panting. I may have been crying a little, I couldn't help it – and just as I was going to my closet I heard the front door open, and I don't think it had been long enough for Mom to get to the door. I don't know why she would have gone to the door.

I got in my closet and hid in the corner, with my head in between two coats. I think they were the camouflage one I wear when I hunt and the red one I wear to school.

Shouting. It got closer. He was in our living room.

I was really starting to cry, really, I was so scared, because I recognized the voice now, I knew it was Shawn, it was Shawn after he had been drinking, it was Shawn the way he was when he hit my mother that time, that awful time. I pressed both of my hands over my mouth and wondered if Mom was going to die and if I would die, too.

I don't – I don't want to think about it too much. What I heard then. But I can't – I can't really help it, it keeps playing, right along with Dad's number.

First Mom sounded angry, and then she sounded scared. She stopped demanding and started asking . . . begging. My uncle told me I should never beg, not for anything. But I don't think that's always true.

I could make out some things. Words. Some were bad. Really bad.

I remember Mom screaming Shawn, no!

And Shawn, please!

Something crashed into something, I found out today that it was the record player in the living room crashing into the floor. Glass Houses was in it when it fell and it broke, too.

Shawn was yelling like I've never heard anyone yell before in all of my life –

We're gonna have some fun now, you stuck up bitch!

That was after he started hitting her. I think he pushed her into the wall . . . They had gotten closer to me, to my room. They were in the hallway. I heard my mother crying. I heard her gasp, and then make a short, high sound, a very bad sound, I can't even describe it . . . like pain held in. Not sounds of pain, but – actual pain needing to get out but it just can't.

She whispered something.

Then I think he threw her onto the floor.

I can't – I can't say for sure they – I can't say for sure they had sex. I know it wasn't good, and sex is supposed to be good. But I'm really afraid that's what happened, I'm really afraid, because I know my mother is afraid of Shawn. She's not afraid of anything but Shawn, because Shawn is a very bad guy, and he is not someone who should be anywhere close to my mother. He is not someone who could do anything good with her.

So maybe I'm wrong.

I wrap the phone cord around my wrist and pull it tight, because I don't think I am.

I could hear him grunting, steady, like the rhythm of a song. Slow at first, then faster, and then it stopped and Shawn laughed, he laughed and gasped and laughed.

Mom was quiet by then. Quiet for a long time. Then she whispered. And Shawn whispered. Then laughed more.

Mom whispered, Shawn talked and laughed. He talked and laughed for a long time.

I heard him call her bitch again. Dad called Mom bitch once and she slapped him. Mom didn't slap Shawn last night. I think she was still on the floor.

Then Shawn's talking and laughing got farther away, then even farther. He hit the piano keys, with both hands, I know, I heard the notes, and they were loud and jumbled, and it was an awful sound, one more awful sound, and I leaned my head back and croaked when I took a breath in and sobbed when I let it out.

The front door slammed closed and shook the walls.

After a while I heard my mom walking down the hall, slowly. But I stayed in the closet, like she told me to.

It must have been an hour later when she knocked on my bedroom door.

"Sydney, honey? It's me. Everything's okay, come open the door."

She was pretending it was a good voice but it wasn't.

I came out of the closet. I remember that I was shaking so hard that I had to grip my hand with the other to unlock the door. I opened it and Mom came in, smiling. Lying. Her hair was wet, she had showered. It was dark, so I didn't know she had bruises yet.

"Mama," I cried, and she bent down and held me and told me he was gone now.

"What did he – what did he do –"

"He was just mean to me, like he used to be. He's gone now, baby, honey, baby, baby . . ."

"He'll come back!"

"No . . . no."

And she fell asleep next to me on my bed, or at least I fell asleep next to her, because she kept singing "Piano Man" until I was out. I saw how bad her face was this morning, makeup can't do much, really. And she didn't even say anything about it. And I couldn't even ask. I couldn't eat breakfast either.

It's Saturday. Mom let me watch cartoons more than she usually does, but I couldn't say what happened in any of them. I was still shaking the whole time. I'm still kind of shaking. I'm looking at the phone, and I'm playing with the wire, and I'm shaking.

Dad's number, Dad's number.

There's a horrible lump in my throat, and I don't know if I gasp to hold back the sob or if it's Mom opening the door that makes me jump.

She blinks. "Sydney, what are you doing?"

I pull the phone cord tighter on my arm. I swivel in the chair and gulp, no sobs, be a grownup, Sydney, you're eight years old. "I don't know."

I see her eyes go to the phone. And she's too smart for me, she gets it. "Who did you want to call?"

She's trying to sound sweet but that's all fake.

"No one."

"Nana and Papaw?"

"No one, Mom."

"Don't lie, Sydney, what would your daddy say about that?" The words aren't out of her mouth all the way before she understands. "Is that who you're calling? Your dad?"

My mouth can't answer. No, sobs, no, stay back. Please.

Shawn, pleas e!

"You want to call your dad." The fake sweet tone is gone.

"Mom," I start, then say, "Mama, I think – what happened – with Shawn –"

Her head shakes fast. "Sweetheart –" Fake sweet tone is back. "– Shawn and I just had a fight. It's nothing to worry about. It won't happen again."

"That's what you said when you broke up with him, but it did happen again, and this was worse." Can't stop it, the crying, my throat is too tight for me to talk without my voice trembling. "Did he . . ."

"Did he what?"

I don't even know how to say it. I'm embarrassed to say it, it's grownup stuff, and I tell myself to be a grownup but I'm not, really, and I could be wrong –

But I have this awful gut feeling and Dad says I have good instincts.

"Did he make you do something bad?" I whisper. "Did he do something . . . really bad to you?"

Her eyes are wide, like one of the dolls I sometimes think I want before I remember that that's not me. And Mom, she starts, "He –"

And then she's right here, right in front of me, bending down with her hands on the armrests so we're face-to-face. "Sydney, listen to me," she says, serious, eyes still so wide, "Everything is fine, and none of this is your dad's business. It's a secret." She takes a long, up-and-down-and-up breath. And her voice kind of changes when she says, "Like how you play piano."

I go really still.

"That's a secret to him, right?" She says, lifting her eyebrows, nodding. "If he found out what happened with Shawn, it would be like him finding out you played piano." And her voice gets really low now. "We don't want either of our secrets to get out, do we?"

I'm not a grownup. I'm not. I don't understand some grownup things, like – what might or might not have happened last night, but – but I know, I know when someone is saying something mean to me without actually saying it, because even though I don't think anyone's ever done it to me, I've seen it done to other people. I've seen Mom do it to other people.

"So, what?" I say, and my voice is high, but it's clear now, no more shaking. "So – if I tell Dad what Shawn did to you – if I tell him so he can protect you, you'll tell him I play piano? Just because I want to keep you safe?"

I'm never supposed to yell at Mom, but I'm getting close, but I'm mad and scared so I don't really care, I really don't, even when her eyes widen even more and it looks like they might fall right out of her head, I don't care.

But I care when she says, "No," like it's the hardest word she's ever had to say, like it burns her throat on the way out. I care when she shakes her head again, smaller this time, but, no, now she's doing it fast. And I care when a tear falls from her eye, when her hand goes up to her mouth but drops just as fast, when she talks again, still like it hurts – "No. No, honey, I –" And now she gets on her knees. Falls on them, really. She takes both of my hands. "That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever said, I – I would never – I would never try to, to force your hand like that, I'm –" She isn't looking at me. She's looking at the floor, at nothing, but it's like she's seeing something scary, really scary, and I don't move, I don't know what to do – I shouldn't have yelled –

Mom squeezes my hands. "No matter what, your daddy won't know about piano until you're ready for him to." Now, now she looks at me. Eyes still scared. And that scares me, and I'm sick of being scared. "I promise, honey, I'm sorry I said that . . ." She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes – another tear comes – and she opens them and says, in a deeper, stronger voice, "But he never needs to know about what happened with Shawn."

I don't think she's right but I can't argue with her, not now. I don't know what's going on, I don't know anything about any of this, so I just sit still and wish I had never come in here.

"And anyway," Mom says, letting a breath out, smiling but not really. "It isn't going to happen again, because . . ." She nods a little. "I'm going to make sure he goes to prison."

"You can do that?"

"Yeah." She lets go of one of my hands so she can wipe her face. "I've, um, I've already started looking into it." She fake-smiles wider. "And maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm awesome at my job, so – it's like I told you, baby. He won't –" She's holding both of my hands again, looking at them, our long fingers tangling up. "You don't have to worry about him."

She unwraps the phone cord from my wrist, whispers.

"And neither does your daddy."

. . . . .

A.N.: Hey, guys. Just a few things . . . first, a gentle reminder that I very rarely manage to watch the episodes as soon as they come out, so if you want to leave a review concerning the most recent episode, please give me a spoiler alert and I'll come back to it after I've caught up (any episodes older than a week are free game). Second, logicaltribbles has made another great playlist, this time specific to Sydney and Carl, and I highly recommend it. Here's the link:

:/ 8tracks logicaltribbles/ good-doesn-t-get-any-better-than-you

She's pretty awesome. Finally, I've published a new story, this one in the world of Once Upon a Time. I'm pretty excited about it, and if any of you guys are fans of that show, too, I'd love to hear your opinions.

As always, thanks for reading - you guys are the best.