by Alana Terry
It gave her an entirely new outlook on what Mom had experienced the last ten years of her life. What if the reason she stayed with Chuck wasn’t because she was too weak to leave him but because she was scared of what he might do to her kids? By the time Pip came around, she must have felt even more trapped. For years, Kimmie wondered why her mom hadn’t simply walked away, had cried herself to sleep at night asking God why her mom hated her and Pip enough to keep them trapped here.
Maybe Kimmie had been wrong. Maybe it was her love for her children that bound her mother to this monster.
Kimmie had vowed to never repeat the same mistakes her mom did, but wasn’t she doing the exact same thing? Apologizing to Chuck because she didn’t want him to get angry and possibly hurt her brother. Persevering in this purgatory of an existence because her only other option was to leave Pip alone with his father, abandoning the brother she loved.
“Why aren’t you eating that, boy?”
Kimmie’s spine stiffened while Chuck glared at Pip’s bowl of burnt chili. Pip glanced to her, and she rushed to fill the silence. “They had a pretty big lunch this afternoon at work.” Wrong thing to say. Why did she mention the daycare?
Chuck grabbed his son’s bowl and shoved it under his chin. “You eat this food your sister made, or you’re gonna be sleeping outside with the bears and the moose tonight.”
Pip’s eyes widened.
Chuck sneered, taking apparent pleasure in his son’s fear. “That’s right. Pretend like you understand what I’m saying. Pretend like you’re not some stupid, idiotic …”
Kimmie was clutching the sides of her chair to keep from jumping up and slapping him. Tears stung the corners of her eyes, not of anger or fear or even grief, but of sheer hatred. She wanted to see Chuck dead. She wanted to be there when he gasped his last breath, his ugly, gaping mouth hanging open, his curses finally silenced. The hatred coursed through her entire body, fueling her. She began to shake. The only thing that kept her from seizing whatever utensil she could grab hold of and attacking her stepfather was that she didn’t want to scare her brother.
“Eat your chili, Buster,” she whispered.
“That’s right,” Chuck mocked in an imitating falsetto. “Eat your chili, Buster, because you’re lucky I even let you sit at my table. You know what most parents do to little boys who don’t know how to talk by the time they’re your age? They make them crawl on the floor and lick up their food like dogs.” He jabbed his spoon toward his son. “That’s what I’m gonna do with you if you don’t eat every single bite from your bowl, you hear me?”
Kimmie turned toward her brother and scooped a small spoonful of chili into his mouth. Trying to shut out the sound of Chuck jeering at his son for having to be fed like an infant, she pictured a life free from everything. Free from Chuck, free from this revolting trailer. Free from her grief and her guilt, free from the questions about her mom’s death that plagued her.
“That’s right,” Chuck taunted, his voice rising in pitch. “Feed the tiny little baby. Then don’t forget to change his diaper too. Is your diaper dirty, you stupid little idiot?”
Kimmie kept her back to him. He was egging her on, a dinner game he’d played hundreds of times with her mother. Teasing and jeering until Mom started to cry or showed some other display of emotion, enough to fuel Chuck’s sadism until he felt he had the right to heap physical abuse on top of the verbal. Kimmie refused to fall victim in this game of his. She wasn’t going to give him the privilege of seeing her emotions, of sensing her fear. She wasn’t going to show any sign of weakness.
He could beat her if he wanted, but her mind and soul belonged to her alone. She wondered what he’d do if he realized how much hatred she hid buried beneath her expressionless exterior, how many times she’d sat at this same table and visualized his pained and tortured death.
No, it wasn’t a Christian attitude. Mom had taught her to forgive anyone who wronged her, but Mom wasn’t here anymore, and her strategy of rolling over like a compliant dog welcoming its master’s boot wasn’t going to get Kimmie anything but injured. She knew that the Bible talked about love and grace and forgiveness, but there were also times for wrath.
And right now, the thing she prayed for most was for God to afflict her stepfather with every kind of disease and painful torment in his vast, almighty repertoire.
The thought fueled her determination, and she fed her brother in silence.
CHAPTER 18
It was Kimmie’s good luck that the electric company decided to make good on their threat to cut off the power that night in response to a delinquent bill. Chuck’s plot of land, like many others in the area, came equipped with a wooden outhouse, a remnant from Alaska’s homesteading days, and as she led her brother outside, she had the chance to speak to him in private.
“The way your dad’s treating us isn’t right.” She’d lost track of how many nights after a dinner just like this, or worse, her mom would hold Pip in her arms and croon, “Your father loves you. He just doesn’t always know how to show it,” or some other nonsense. Kimmie figured Pip was confused enough by his father’s abuse that he didn’t need anyone else making excuses for such unforgivable behavior.
“I’m trying to think of a way to get us to a safe place. Would you like that?” She searched her brother’s face for any sign that he heard or understood.
“It’s not always going to be like this. We can pray …” She stopped herself. What was she trying to tell him? That they could pray and God would whisk them to safety as if he were a genie from a magic lamp? How many sleepless nights had Kimmie spent after moving in with Chuck, begging God to free her from that existence? To strike her new stepfather dead or make Mom brave enough to leave him or do something to stop the torture she constantly lived through.
But God hadn’t answered her prayers. Ten years later, he still hadn’t answered. She was still here, an adult but every bit as much dependent on her stepfather as she’d been in her teens. She wasn’t mad at God, but she didn’t want Pip to end up doing what she did, setting all her hopes on a prayer, a prayer that failed to come true. Kimmie still talked to God, but mostly it was to ask him to shield Pip from the worst of the horrors they had learned to endure.
She didn’t have the strength to hope for anything more.
Mom was different. Mom had kept her faith until the very end. “God’s got a reason for everything,” she’d say while icing Kimmie’s black eye so the bruise wouldn’t raise quite as many questions at school. “We can always trust God to do what’s best for us in any situation.” That was another one of her favorites.
Kimmie didn’t doubt God’s goodness. She’d experienced waves of peace that swept over her during the depths of her turmoil and inner pain, signs of God’s love she knew were divine. What she did doubt was her mom’s simplistic expectation that if they remained steadfast and patient, God would usher them into some happily-ever-after dream world where Chuck was kind and their dilapidated, drafty trailer transformed itself into a home like her sister Meg’s mansion on the Anchorage hillside.
If Kimmie wanted the fairy tale ending, she’d have to find a way to work out the details on her own. Sitting around waiting patiently had gotten her mom killed — yet another mistake Kimmie was in no hurry to repeat. She felt Taylor’s card in her pocket, gleaning vicarious strength and courage. Just knowing someone else cared about her safety, someone with the authority of the state backing him up, gave her an unfamiliar sense of boldness and determination.
She would find a way. She would break free from this cage. She would find her happy ending, and she would give Pip the life he deserved.
Kimmie fingered Taylor’s card. The outhouse was situated halfway between Chuck’s trailer and their nearest neighbor. Mrs. Spencer was an elderly woman who sometimes let Kimmie use her phone. If she left Pip here and started to run …
She glanced at her brother, who sat on the outhouse toilet. No, not yet. The last thing she
needed was for Pip to follow her and slow her down or fall down the outhouse hole if she left him here alone. Her plan would have to wait. Tonight. Not so late that Mrs. Spencer would be in bed or alarmed by a knock on her door, but late enough that Pip would hopefully be asleep and Kimmie could come out here alone.
Thank God they’d cut off the power.
Her mind made up, she helped Pip off the seat and cleaned him up. Without any running water at home and nothing stored in bottles, they’d skip brushing their teeth tonight. You couldn’t get a cavity from one act of negligence.
She held Pip’s hand and shuddered as they made their way back to the trailer. An icy blast stabbed through her sweater. The sun was setting earlier and earlier each day, a sign of winter’s soon arrival just as telling and ominous as the termination dust on the mountains. She wasn’t going to spend another winter here in a trailer that could never heat up past fifty-five degrees, power that turned on and off based on when Chuck remembered to pay his overdue bills. By the time the winter solstice came, when it was dark by three and the sun refused to rise until after ten, she wasn’t going to dig around for candle nubs because Chuck drank away their utility money.
She was going to be in a warm home by a roaring fireplace, making as much hot chocolate as she and Pip could ever care to drink, both of them tucked up in blankets and relaxing on the softest couch imaginable. She’d take Pip to the library, check out an endless supply of books, and read them all to him for hours at a time. Of course, she’d save her best voices for when it was just the two of them together.
They would be happy.
And they would be safe.
She gave her brother’s hand a squeeze. “Come on, Buster. Let’s get you home.”
CHAPTER 19
Kimmie hoped that with the electricity cut off, Chuck would fall asleep early. Without his TV to keep him company, there wasn’t much else for him to do. It was far too much to expect him to get up and attack that pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen, and besides, without the electricity the well didn’t run. In the early days after Mom moved in with Chuck, the trailer was hooked up to a generator to prepare for Glennallen’s sporadic power outages, but it had fallen into disrepair, and Chuck always maintained it was too expensive to fix.
Kimmie was looking forward to a quiet night. Chuck couldn’t expect her to stay up and clean, not with the sun down and no running water. She might crawl in bed with Pip and cuddle for a while until it was time for her to go back out. She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d do if she managed to make use of Mrs. Spencer’s phone, but maybe the extra couple hours would give her time to think up a plan.
Back inside the trailer, she helped Pip take off his coat.
Chuck was in his chair, waiting for her. “Put the kid to bed then come out here.”
She didn’t know what he wanted, but at least Pip would be excused from whatever sadism Chuck might have in mind. It was the most Kimmie could ask for, at least at the moment. In a few hours, she’d tell Chuck she had to use the outhouse and head over to the neighbor’s. Mrs. Spencer usually turned off her lights around nine, so Kimmie would plan her visit shortly before that. She’d call Taylor.
And then what?
The seed of a plan had started to germinate in her mind, but it would take time to fully form. She had to muse over it for a little while. It couldn’t be rushed. Whatever Chuck needed her for, she hoped it wouldn’t take too long. She helped Pip into his favorite pajamas, teaching him the names of the dinosaurs — at least the ones she could remember — while pointing to the pictures. Sometimes she wondered if any of her extra effort to coax Pip to talk was getting through, but she’d never stop. She was convinced that Pip had more to say, more to learn, more to achieve than those who just knew him as a speech-delayed child would ever give him credit for. With Mom dead, Kimmie was now her brother’s only champion and advocate.
She knew she certainly wasn’t ready for the challenge, but it had been thrust upon her nonetheless.
“God will always equip you to do the work he’s called you to do,” Mom used to say, but at the time Kimmie had been more worried about keeping her stepfather from knocking her out than she’d been about growing in her faith. Still, Mom continued to sprinkle these little devotional moments into their days, teaching her about the Lord and his plan of salvation. The spiritual upbringing in the family was now another task that rested entirely on Kimmie’s shoulders. Had she ever talked to Pip about heaven and sin and forgiveness? She wouldn’t know how to have a conversation like that with a neurotypical three-year-old. What was she supposed to say to Pip?
All that would have to wait. The longer she tarried in the bedroom, the angrier and more impatient Chuck would grow. She kissed Pip’s cheek, but he struggled and clung to her when she tried to tuck him in.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “What do you need?”
He made a back and forth motion with his fingers near his mouth. The pantomime was easy to discern. “You want to brush your teeth?”
He responded with a grunt.
“There’s no water tonight. It’s okay. It won’t be too bad to skip it for just this once.”
Pip’s eyes widened as if Kimmie had just confessed that she was the one who killed their mom, and she let out her breath. “Fine,” she breathed, “just stay here for a little bit, and if you’re still awake when I come back, we’ll brush your teeth then.”
She had no idea how she’d manage that without any tap or running water, but she’d figure something out. Prying herself free from his hold, she blew him a kiss and hurried to the door.
She’d kept her stepfather waiting long enough.
CHAPTER 20
Chuck was cleaning out his ears when Kimmie stepped back into the living room.
“You wanted to see me?”
He didn’t turn to look at her. “Got these for you.” He tossed a manila envelope by her feet. “Need them filled out by tomorrow when the mail comes.”
She picked up the envelope as well as a few of Chuck’s used Q-tips. “What’s this?” She bent back the fastener.
“Disability application. You’ll need that now you aren’t working no more.”
Kimmie’s mom had never been one to gamble. She thought cards and dice were wicked, and she never took any risks. Kimmie wasn’t like that, so she searched Chuck’s face to try to detect how serious he was. This might all be some bluff. She could put up a tiny fight and be back at the daycare by tomorrow.
Or Chuck might be so set on keeping Kimmie at home that he’d do anything, even hurt Pip, if she defied his order.
Just how far should she push? And was she feeling lucky?
Like earlier, she decided to appeal to his greed and selfishness first. “You know, I think the state’s really backed up right now on applications.” She wouldn’t mention her own firsthand experience applying for Pip’s medical coverage. “It’d probably take a while for the money to start coming through.” She also wouldn’t mention the fact that no reasonable administration would label her unfit for work. Because Chuck had managed to eke money out of the system for years for no other disability than being a lazy alcoholic who preferred his drink over gainful employment, that didn’t mean that anyone who filled out this packet could count on receiving a regular check.
Filling out his stupid application would get him off her back, but it wouldn’t put breakfast in Pip’s mouth.
“Another thing I started to wonder just now,” she began, trying like usual to downplay her ability to actively think and reason for herself, “is if maybe we’d be better off in the long run keeping things the way they are.” She didn’t say the word daycare, didn’t want to trigger him and set him off for a half-hour tirade. She could tell by the tightness in his face that she was walking on thin ice, but she’d have to venture out just a little further and hope it wouldn’t crack.
“The nice thing about the current setup is it has Pip eating most of his meals outside of the
home. It’d take quite a bit more grocery money to make up that difference.” She watched Chuck warily, knew that he was still unconvinced. “He’s usually really hungry by bedtime,” she added hopefully.
It was this last comment that tipped the scale against her.
“You think I’m not doing my job as the man of this house in providing for my family?” His diction for once was impeccable, which only increased Kimmie’s fear. Her stepfather was mean, violent, and sadistic whenever he was drunk, but he tired easily and soon lost interest.
When he was sober, on the other hand …
“I didn’t mean that at all.” She opened the envelope and pretended to look through the first few pages. “I’m sorry. It’s just, things have been a little difficult for us all …”
“Difficult?” her stepdad roared. “You want to talk to me about difficult? Your mom had the nerve to hang herself in my garage, leaving me an idiot of a son who can’t even say his own name and an ungrateful brat who stands in my house and tells me how to run my family!”
Kimmie shook her head vehemently. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”
He was out of his chair now, and Kimmie didn’t know whether the first object to meet her body would be his fists, his boots, or some projectile. He grabbed her by the ponytail, snapping her neck back and twisting her head up to face him.
“Let’s get one thing right, you spoiled little princess,” he hissed into her face. For once, she wished for the familiar scent of beer on his breath. “This is my home, and as long as you live here, you better expect we’re going to do things my way. If I say go on disability, you go on disability. If I say punch your brother for being a stupid, speechless idiot, you punch your brother for being a stupid, speechless idiot.”
All day, Kimmie had been testing this thought in her head, this nagging suspicion Taylor had fueled with his speculations and questions back at the daycare. Was this the kind of outrage Mom witnessed before her husband killed her? Kimmie was smart enough to know that she was stupid not to feel scared. Stupid not to cower, to get on her knees, to beg for forgiveness.
