These Gentle Wounds

by Helene Dunbar

  “Right. It’s much better to sit here and just let everything go to hell?”

  “It isn’t your problem,” I mumble, and I’m not at all surprised when his response is, “Since when?” I don’t remember a time when Kevin hasn’t been looking out for me.

  Taking a breath feels like too much work. I don’t want to think about anything except the notes of Sarah’s flute calling to me. But Kevin wants to act, to keep me safe, and he isn’t going to give up until he’s confident he can do that. I just don’t feel like being his cause right now.

  My hands shake as I put the headphones back and will myself to let go, to leave my brother and float away to a place where there are no lawyers, no evil parents, and nobody I have to let save me. A place where there’s only Sarah, and her flute, and her kisses, and her questions.

  Twenty

  I’m not sure who first looked at a lobster and thought it might be food. I don’t know why anyone ever thought that algebra was important. And I’m seriously trying to figure out what drugs have been dumped into the water system to make anyone think that my spending a “trial” week with my father is a good idea.

  Ms. DeSilva says she tried to fight it. She says we got unlucky with the judge we were assigned, who is all about the rights of biological parents. She says I’m not being sent there tomorrow because I’m being punished. She says it’s the law. She says it’ll be okay.

  Jim says he’s sorry. Kevin doesn’t say anything at all; he just keeps cooking things that foam and smoke and make us stay clear of the kitchen. When I look in the mirror, all I can say is “Fuck,” over and over.

  We’re off school for two days of teacher training, which gives me too much time to stare in the mirror. I can distract myself for a few minutes by thinking about Sarah, or skating, or classes, but there’s nothing strong enough to keep the

  realization of what’s happening from lurking around the corners of my thoughts like a ghost.

  I swear Jim’s grandfather clock is ticking too fast. The hands spin around the dial, counting down my time. My fingers drum against my jeans as I try to figure out how to slow it all down.

  “Knock it off,” Kevin says, throwing a pillow at the back of my head. “You’re wigging me out.”

  I don’t turn around. He’s just going to have to deal with it.

  It’s Thursday night and if I had my way we’d be getting ready to go to Sarah’s show, but all of a sudden Jim decided to get all parental and tell us we had to stay home.

  Yeah, that worked out well.

  Kevin pulls on the back of my shirt and sighs. “I can’t take this anymore. Come on.”

  He’s holding out the key to the window like it’s a biscuit for a dog. I should be offended, but suddenly I want to get outside more than anything in the world.

  I follow him through our room and out to the walk. If I had any doubts about how freaked out he is, it’s clear now. He isn’t even bothering to make sure I’m pinned to anything.

  I pull myself up so I’m standing on the wall. I can feel how the breeze would carry me. How it would feel to slip off the edge. If I jumped, it wouldn’t matter anymore if I was normal or not. It wouldn’t matter if I was still a freak. I’d just be the kid who jumped off the roof. Maybe everyone would even forget what Mom did and this would be the new big Maple Grove story.

  I throw my arms out wide and close my eyes. I already feel like I’m in flight.

  “Ice?”

  I try to ignore him. I’m feeling so much lighter already. All I need to do is take one more step.

  “Sure, let’s do it,” he says, pulling himself up next to me. The breeze is blowing his hair back and I don’t recognize the expression on his face.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Is the altitude making you stupid?” His voice is calm and matter-of-fact, like he’s giving me a hard time for not blocking an easy shot. “We’re brothers,” he says, as if that makes everything simple and clear. But then I guess it always has.

  I want him to leave, so I ask a question I know he doesn’t want to answer. “Why didn’t you ever tell Jim about the things my dad did to you?”

  His eyes flash. “Why?”

  I hear all of the reasons he doesn’t want to tell me in the tone of that one word. But he doesn’t go away; he just teeters a little on the wall.

  “Look. I didn’t see my dad all that often back then, and … ” All of his bravado seems to leak out with his next words. “Your dad threatened me. What do you think Jim would have done? He would have gone ballistic and called the cops.”

  “Maybe they could have protected you.”

  Kevin’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, and they would have split us up, and then where would you have been? What do you think he would’ve done to you?” He crouches down and sits on the wall, pulling on the leg of my jeans. “Sit down.”

  The lights of the nearby houses are sparkling, calling to me, but I want to hear what he has to say, so I do it.

  “And now … ” Kevin wipes the back of his hand across his forehead and starts ticking reasons off on his fingers. “It’s too late. We were too young. It was too long ago. We can’t prove anything. Talking about it would just cause even more problems. Besides,” he says, lowering his voice, “my dad doesn’t need to know about all that.”

  I grip the brick under my leg and run my fingers along the edge of the wall. It sucks that my brother went through all of that for nothing. He got hurt and now that I’m being sent back there … it doesn’t mean anything.

  “You shouldn’t have kept quiet just for me,” I say. Thinking of what would have happened if Kevin and I had been split up as kids is threatening to send me somewhere else. I wipe my suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans.

  He sighs. “Maybe we should go to Canada after all. What do you think?” He’s trying to smile, but it’s forced. His hands are clenched in front of him.

  I watch as his knuckles turn white with pressure and say, “It could be like those road movies. We could get motorcycles and ride through the desert together.”

  I hope he’ll smile a real smile, but he just looks at me. “I’ll kill that bastard if he hurts you,” he says softly, like it would be no big deal. Like it would solve all the problems in the world.

  There’s nothing I can say to that, so I watch as the streetlights flicker into life and let the silence hang around us.

  “Have you talked to Sarah?” he asks, breaking the quiet. The question feels bigger than just a couple of words.

  “About what?” I ask sharply. Thinking about her makes me feel guilty, since I promised her we’d be at the show and we aren’t.

  “Hmm,” he says. The sound of it hangs in the air between us, fluttering like a moth.

  Kevin wraps one arm around his legs and looks out somewhere in the distance. I can’t tell what has his attention.

  “After Mom did … what she did, all I wanted was the chance to talk to her one last time,” he says. “You know, to see if there was something I could have done. At least to say goodbye.”

  His eyes are so dark and piercing when he turns to look at me that I jerk back, and he has to reach out and grab my wrist to keep me from tumbling off the wall. He doesn’t let go.

  “Do you think it would have made any difference?” This is the first time we’ve really talked about That Day in years.

  He shrugs. “Maybe not. But maybe it would have helped me.”

  I shake my head. “I was there, and it didn’t help.”

  He tightens his grasp on my wrist. “That’s not the same and you know it.”

  I try to shrug off both his hand and the uncomfortable somersaults in my stomach. Something moves out of the corner of my eye and I look down to see my other hand thrashing away. Great. That’s a new one.

  Kevin doesn’t know that I’ve turned the ringer off on the house phone. Regardless o
f the fact that I’m trying to pretend I don’t care, everything in me is screaming to talk to Sarah. To see her. To hope she can think of some way to get me out of going tomorrow. To hope she can give me the courage that enabled her to run away.

  But I know I wouldn’t be able to hold it together with her. She makes me feel exposed in a way I don’t feel with anyone else. Normally, I like it. But I can’t imagine what she’d think if she knew I was just going along with this without putting up any real sort of fight.

  “Ice.” Kevin’s voice is harsh. He thinks I’m off somewhere, only I’m not lucky enough for that to be true.

  “Sarah should just forget about me.” The thought makes me sadder than I thought was possible.

  “Like that’s going to happen,” he says sarcastically. “Have you forgotten Mom? You know better than anyone that it doesn’t work that way.”

  I can’t imagine Sarah thinking of me in the same way I think about my mom. I can’t imagine she’d let me haunt the edges of her thoughts until I was somehow a part of her. But I like that maybe I won’t be able to forget her now, that maybe in a really small way, she’s a part of me because she’s a part of my memories.

  I stashed the bird charm in my nightstand so that I know something will be here, waiting for me to come back. But maybe she will be too, and I don’t think she’d want to remember me as the kid who jumped off the roof.

  I shrug. “I’ll see her in school on Monday, anyhow.”

  The muscles in Kevin’s hand relax and then clench again. “Monday. Yeah. Sure, you will.”

  It seems insignificant. The act of getting through three days. But I know how quickly tides can turn and decisions can be made.

  “I’ll see her,” I say, because sometimes when you say something it makes it more real.

  “Just be careful,” Kevin says into the wind. When I look at him to ask him what he means, he’s already pulled himself off the wall and is standing at the window, waiting to guide me in.

  Big surprise. I can’t sleep. The room feels too hot, and now it’s too bright even though the sun is barely up. Besides, I’m not even sure I want to sleep. It would just make the time go faster and that’s the last thing I want. But flopping around in bed isn’t helping either so I get up and pad downstairs in the half-light, my bare feet slapping against the wooden steps.

  I walk through the living room, looking for something new to capture my mind, but nothing ever changes in this house.

  In the corner of the kitchen is a wooden broom. I take it back into the living room and lay it on the couch. As quietly as I can, I move the coffee table to a safe place.

  I pick up a piece of paper, crumple it up hard, and throw it onto the floor. I can almost hear the roar of the crowd as I stand in front of it, imagining that I’m in goal at the end of some championship game.

  Sliding on the wood is kind of like being on ice. I hold the broom in front of me, batting the paper puck back and forth. It’s freeing to be in goal without the weight and constriction of padding. I make save after save, over and over, although on one I come close to taking out the lamp standing at the side of the room.

  I think about all of the years I wanted to hate hockey because my father loved it. But I never succeeded. When I’m on the ice, my body listens to me. It does what I need it to do. When I’m on the ice, I usually don’t spin. I don’t shake. When I’m on the ice it’s like I’m moving so fast the memories don’t know where to find me.

  I wish I could live there.

  “What are you doing?” The whispered words come at me out of the dimness and I glance up to see Kevin standing in the doorway to the den with his arms crossed, looking tired and annoyed.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I say as I pull myself out of my goalie’s crouch.

  Kevin runs a hand over his eyes. “Yeah,” he says and comes over on unsteady legs, like he’s trying to walk on ice in sneakers. He sits on the couch.

  I flip the paper up in the air, juggling it with the broom, which is actually harder than juggling a puck with a stick. Kevin reaches out a hand and catches it. I stand, staring, while he flattens the paper out and reads it.

  His face breaks into a huge grin and he laughs. “And everyone says I have anger issues.”

  I shrug. Yeah, so I’m using one of my father’s legal letters as a puck. That doesn’t mean anything.

  I lean the broom against the coffee table and sit down next to him on the couch. I remember what Sarah said about everything being easier to talk about and wonder if she would still say that if she knew my brother.

  I turn sideways on the couch so that I can lean back against the arm and draw my knees up.

  When my brother finally talks, I expect him to say something about my father. Maybe even something about Mom. But that isn’t what’s preying on his mind.

  “You’re really into her. Sarah.”

  We stare at each other while I let his words sink in. Between other brothers, this might be a casual comment. A congratulatory one, even. Kevin’s tone says otherwise, and the silence that was already uncomfortable has just gotten all jagged. I look away and pull at a loose thread hanging from the edge of my shirt. It feels like if I pull hard enough my whole life will unravel.

  I roll Kevin’s words over in my mind, trying to figure out his agenda. If he didn’t already know how I felt, he wouldn’t have said anything.

  “Yeah.” I look at him, daring him to find fault with my answer.

  Kevin clenches his hands into fists, like he’s testing out his muscles, and then releases them. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really,” I say. “Why?”

  “And she knows everything?” he asks. His brown eyes get even darker.

  I pull the blanket off the back of the couch and wrap it around my legs. I know he likes to make me uncomfortable as a joke, but something about this feels different. Something about his voice sounds wrong.

  “So she knows how you just zonk out sometimes? And the pens? I’m sure that doesn’t bother her. Have you told her about the spins?”

  It doesn’t matter whether or not she knows. I know whatever is going on with him isn’t about her. That makes it worse. Way worse.

  His voice, suddenly, is my father’s voice. My father telling Kevin that he’ll never amount to anything. Telling him he should be grateful to even have a place to stay.

  My chest gets tight and I cross my arms and duck my head. Kevin always says not to show it when you’re afraid—that way no one can use it against you. But this is him, and when I look up, his eyes narrow.

  The sides of the room start to close in around me. Like a box. Like the car. Like a coffin.

  He doesn’t stop. “How about … ”

  I press my arms against my ears so I can’t hear him anymore.

  Kevin can be many things. Angry. Protective. Stubborn. But he isn’t cruel. Not to me, anyhow. Not ever. But now his face is hard as stone.

  He leans over to grab my arms away from my head and I catch a whiff of alcohol. He smells like he’s taken a bath in it.

  I wrench my arms free. “God, what did you … You’re drunk!” I’ve seen Kevin drink a beer or two with his friends before. But he’s never drunk. Not really. Not when that was part of what made my father a monster.

  He breaks into a wide grin, but there’s nothing happy in it. “Whoa, baby brother. When did you get so smart? Yeah. I’m hammered. So what?”

  My mind races with emotions, so quickly I can’t name them all. “Does Jim know?” I ask.

  Jim may not be the most involved parent in the world, but he has rules, and I’m pretty sure that messing with his liquor cabinet would be breaking one.

  “Yeah, I asked him before I downed his whiskey,” Kevin says sarcastically. “No, Jim doesn’t know. But that bottle was so dusty I could have written a novel on it. I don’t think he’s going to miss it.”


  I can see it in his face now. That strange glowing darkness in his eyes and how his cheeks are flushed red. For a minute I’m really worried about him. Worried that he’s so upset about me going that he’s resorted to this. Worried he doesn’t know how to handle it either.

  Any sympathy I might feel disappears with his next words. “But maybe Sarah knows. She knows everything right? Even how to change your piss-stained sheets.”

  My fists tighten around the blanket. His words make my teeth clench so hard it takes a minute before I can force anything coherent out of my mouth. “Once. Only once.”

  It was during a spin, a year after That Day. It was horrible and he promised he’d never mention it again.

  “I’m sure she’s got her own ways of distracting you, anyhow.”

  My balled-up fists fight for release. I want to hit him so badly. “Shut up. Please. Just shut up.”

  Kevin stretches his legs out and places them on top of mine. They feel like they weigh about a thousand pounds. I want to push them off, but I’m afraid of making any sudden

  movements. I don’t know this angry, drunk kid sitting in front of me.

  “You should drink with me, Gordie. I bet it would relax you,” he says, getting right in my face. His breath is sour and sweet enough to make me gag.

  I pull back as far as I can on the couch, but his legs are pinning me in place. Everything in me wants to scream, but I don’t want Jim coming down here. I’m afraid if I open my mouth, I won’t be able to stop, so I just shake my head from side to side.

  “Yeah,” Kevin says. “Didn’t think you had the balls for that.”

  I want to ask him what he’s doing. What he wants. But I can only manage, “Why?”

  Kevin reverses himself on the couch and throws an arm casually around my shoulder. Nothing makes sense. My brain says to run, to get the hell away from him as quickly as I can. But my body thinks he’s still my big brother, the one who has always been there for me.

  I’m at war with myself and the smell of whiskey makes my stomach flip upside down. I swallow hard, over and over, to try to keep the contents of my stomach and my emotions inside.