These Gentle Wounds

by Helene Dunbar

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” Jordan says.

  My whole body shudders before my brain even registers his words. I hear myself stutter when I answer, hoping I haven’t heard him correctly. “My m-m-m-om?”

  He nods and tightens his grip on my hand. “He took me there. To the river.”

  The room spins and I can’t breathe.

  “Why?” I barely can force the word out.

  Jordan reaches up and puts his hand on my cheek. “He said he wanted me to see what happened to bad kids who didn’t listen to him.”

  My stomach knots tighter than anything I’ve ever felt. If I could, I would run and run until this pain flowed out of me. I close my eyes and press myself against the wall. I pray silently for a spin.

  “Are you okay, Gordie? You aren’t sick, are you?”

  I force my eyes open. He’s staring at me like what he’s been told makes sense. His own eyes are wide and worried and that makes me feel even worse. I force myself to take a deep breath and try to hide the burning panic that’s awakened inside of me.

  “I’m okay,” I say. I’m sure even Jordan knows I’m lying.

  He sits down and settles into my lap while I wrap myself around him like he’s a teddy bear.

  “You miss her, huh?” he asks.

  I lean my head on his and feel his hair soft against my cheek. There’s no way for me to explain to him how much I miss my mom and how sick it makes me to hear how my father has threatened him. “Yeah. I miss her.”

  “I miss my mom too. She used to be different,” he says, sitting within my shaking arms.

  I know it’s wrong and even illegal. I know everyone is going to be pissed at me, but I don’t know what else to do.

  “Jordan?” I take another deep breath and it feels like I’m jumping off the roof. “Do you want to come with me?” Then I add, “Until your mom comes back?”

  Jordan lifts his serious face up to me. “Where?”

  That’s the question, really. But when I think about it, there’s only one safe place to go.

  While Jordan goes to get his backpack so I can help him pack some clothes, I stand at the kitchen counter and write a note to my father on a pad of paper with kittens printed across the top. I tell him everything. How I know The Night Before really happened. How I remember what he did to Kevin. And how I know he’s hurting Jordan and that I’m going to tell people about it. Tell everyone. I tell him that he was right. I’m fifteen and that means something. I’m not going to let him hurt us anymore, even if I end up going crazy for real.

  Jordan comes back downstairs just as I see the cell phone sitting on the table.

  “Is this your mom’s?” I pick it up and turn it over, praying that I’ll see a camera lens. I’m not disappointed.

  He nods.

  “Can I take some pictures of your arms?” I ask, holding my breath.

  For a minute I think he’s going to say no, and there’s no way I’m going to force him into anything, even if he’s only seven. But eventually he pushes his sleeves up and starts to hum.

  Damn. I’m never going to hear that song again without my stomach ripping itself to shreds.

  I snap some photos of his bruises. The pictures aren’t up to Sarah’s quality, but I think they’ll do what I need them to do. Then I send a text and the photos to Ms. DeSilva, telling her where I am and about Jordan.

  For the first time in weeks, I feel like everything really is going to be okay.

  And then a car door slams. Jordan tries to pull me up-stairs, but I gesture for him to go without me. I need to end this one way or the other. If it’s his mom, maybe I can talk to her. Maybe she’ll call Ms. DeSilva and get some help. Or maybe it is Ms. DeSilva and we can just walk out of here.

  The front door bursts in. My father couldn’t have known I’m here, but he storms over like he’s not even shocked to see me standing in Jordan’s mom’s living room.

  Before I can say anything, he takes a swing at me, hitting one of the bruises on my side from the rink. The pain makes me slump down, but he grabs at my shirt and holds me up.

  “You crazy little bastard. What do you think you’re doing here?” His eyes are wild, just like they were The Night Before. Looking at him makes my brain feel buzzy, as if I’m about to spin.

  I struggle out of his grasp, pressing my arms close to my side, trying not to pass out. Trying to remember Kevin’s fighting rules again.

  “I’m not going to let you hurt Jordan anymore,” I say, wincing through the pain. Talking hurts. Breathing hurts. “I’m not going to let you hurt any of us again. I have proof now. The police. Ms. DeSilva. Jim. They’re all going to know what you’ve done.”

  In spite of the pain, I’m spring-loaded with adrenaline, ready to hit back, but then I hear shuffling upstairs. Jordan doesn’t need to watch our father kicking the shit out of me.

  So instead I circle around until I’m at the other side of the breakfast bar. Somehow I’m sure that this was on Kevin’s list: When all else fails, put something between you.

  “What makes you think that anyone is going to believe you?” my father sneers. I can smell the smoke on his breath and it makes the buzzing in my head get louder.

  I want to tell him what I’ve done, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. As far as I know there’s no way to unsend something from a phone, but maybe he knows something I don’t.

  “I know I didn’t make up what happened the night before Mom … ” Even now I can’t say it. “I know that really happened.”

  “You don’t know shit,” he yells.

  All I can think about is Jordan upstairs. I don’t want him to hear this, but I have to guess he’s probably already heard worse.

  I glance around the kitchen. There are scissors on the table. A block of knives—not like the huge ones that Kevin uses, but still dangerous. I don’t want my father anywhere near them, so I slowly come around the counter to block him.

  “I know you’re hurting Jordan. That you were. But you can’t anymore.”

  My hands are shaking like crazy. I try to form fists, but I can’t keep them closed. Jordan makes a sound upstairs and my father moves toward the staircase. I reach out for his shirt, but the fabric just slides through my hands.

  When he turns, I brace myself for his next swing, but instead he pushes me away hard. While I’m stumbling back, he reaches into his pocket, takes out a cigarette, and slowly lights up.

  For some reason this is worse than him hitting me. I can take the punch, but I have no idea what he’s planning to do now. I should run. Instead, I’m frozen in place, watching the lit tip of his cigarette.

  It feels like a million years before my father takes a long drag and laughs his ugly laugh. The shuffling from upstairs stops and I hold my breath, which hurts more than it should. “It’s really a shame, Gordie. All your wasted potential,” he says, like he’s really concerned. “Did you know they still do electroshock to kids in those hospitals? I mean, I thought you had more of me in you than your mother. But I guess I was wrong.”

  My eyes fall closed. It’s finally come to this. What if the photos never got sent? What if Ms. DeSilva doesn’t believe me? What if I screw this up and get sent to some stupid hospital?

  “And really,” he continues, “what could I do when I came in to find you hurting my son, my little Jordan?”

  “What?” I stumble from the shock of his words and back up until I’m against the wall.

  “I had to defend him from you,” he says, as casually as if he’s talking about the weather.

  “No,” I gasp, grabbing at my hand to keep it from spasming. Every time it moves, it pulls something in my side that hurts like hell. “I’d never hurt Jordan.”

  His eyes narrow. “You’re sick. Dangerous. You don’t even remember the things you do.” He moves to the phone on the wall and rests a hand on it befo
re breaking into a wide vulture smile. “In fact, I think I’m going to call the police now. To protect my little boy.”

  My thoughts tangle. I’m screwed. They’re never, ever going to believe me. I sink down to the floor. I want to check out and just let go. Maybe he’s right after all. Maybe I’m just too fucked up to help anyone.

  And then the sirens start.

  Twenty-Nine

  Everything happens at once. The police come in and Kevin is only two steps behind them and I’m scanning the room for Jordan and it’s loud. The dog is barking in the yard and my father is screaming and Kevin is screaming and I hear my father say, “Of course you were behind this” and Kevin says something about a knife, and all I can do is put my arms over my ears and try to block it out before my freaking head explodes.

  One of the officers yells, “We can sort this out here or at the station,” so loudly that the whole room goes quiet. At first I think I’ve gone deaf, but then she offers me a hand up and tells me to sit on the couch next to Jordan while two other officers pull my father and Kevin apart.

  Jordan is just staring at everything and I’m trying to catch my breath. Kevin is clenching his fists like he’s about to blow. I’m glad not to see a knife or anything near him. My father just looks annoyed.

  “Are you Gordie?” the lady officer asks, and I nod.

  “Did you email some pictures to a … ?” She looks toward another officer who says, “Amy DeSilva.”

  I nod again and take a deep breath. “Of Jordan. My little brother.” I glance at him and see him smile when I say that. “I know I’m supposed to be in school, but I had to help him before—”

  Kevin jumps in and finishes my sentence. “Before that son of a bitch beat the crap out of him.” He points at my father and takes a step in his direction, which makes the cop standing closest to him put an arm in front of my brother’s chest to stop him.

  “Yeah,” I say, fighting hard to unknot all of the twisted sentences in my head. “And I’m supposed to be staying with him, but I can’t stay in that house and I couldn’t let him hurt Jordan anymore. He’s the crazy one.”

  My father rushes around the officers, over to where I’m sitting, and puts his hand around my throat before I even know it. “You’re even worse than your mother,” he sneers.

  He squeezes his hand and for a moment I can’t breathe, but then everyone starts moving again and the police pull him off me and drag him outside while Kevin flies over and kneels down in front of me.

  “It’s okay, Gordie. It’s okay now.” He looks up at the officer and asks, “Right? It’s okay. This is done, right? Right?” He starts crying and punching the cushions of the couch, and I’m scared they’ll arrest him, but all the officer does is put her hand on his back and hold him there.

  My neck is hot where my father’s hand was, but I can still swallow, so that’s good. One officer is talking to Kevin and another one is talking to Jordan, so I get up and walk over to the window. I pull back the curtains. The blue and red lights are still whirling on the cop cars and I snap my band hard, trying not to let the lights send me into a spin like they sometimes do.

  Everything behind me has gotten soft and quiet and I catch my father’s narrow eyes through the dirty glass of the police car window. They look far away, and trapped.

  Maybe like my eyes looked when the car went into the river.

  I let the curtains fall back and exhale.

  “What were you doing there anyhow?” I ask Kevin as he holds a bag of frozen peas against my neck. Jim says it will help stop the bruising.

  Kevin steps back and sighs. “Saving your ass as usual.” He says it like a joke, but he isn’t smiling.

  “I didn’t need you to … ” I start, but it’s a lie and we both know it so I go for the truth. “I’m glad you were there.”

  Half of his mouth twitches and he puts the peas on the other side of my neck. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that bad?” he asks.

  I want to tell him that I did and he didn’t listen, but that doesn’t matter anymore. “I was hoping his mom would do something, I guess.”

  Kevin gives me a complicated look and sits down next to me. “I don’t mean with Jordan, Ice. I mean, why didn’t you tell me it was so bad with you? With your dad?”

  I stare at the floor. There’s an ant that keeps trying to crawl up a piece of bread that someone dropped, but he’s struggling. I guess when you’re an ant, even a piece of bread can seem like a huge mountain.

  “Hey,” Kevin says, but I don’t look up.

  “You would have done something,” I say. All the horrible things Kevin could have done scroll through my mind. He might have actually killed my dad, or even just called the cops before I had the chance to see Jordan, and who knows what would have happened then. “Look, I just needed to help my little brother,” I admit. “The way you’ve always helped me.”

  I feel Kevin lean closer, and out of the corner of my eye I can see that he’s hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his hands knotted together. “I took it for you, you know,” he says quietly. “When we were kids. I figured if he was hitting me, he’d leave you alone.” He pauses and I know what’s coming, and it’s enough to make my hand start up. “And Mom. I wanted him to leave Mom alone. But not like that really worked out.”

  I guess I always knew all of this, but it’s different hearing him say it out loud. I don’t know what to say back. “Thank you” doesn’t seem to cut it. “I’m sorry” seems better, but still wrong.

  So I rub my hand and try to guess what Kevin might need to hear. And I think about what Ms. DeSilva said to me. And I tell Kevin the truth. “Mom used to say you were the bravest kid she’d ever met.”

  Kevin makes an odd strangled sound, but then he looks at me, really looks at me, and I know that he believes me. And that, for once, I got it right.

  Thirty

  Jim lets me skip school the next day because I need to get checked out by the doctor and because the police want to talk to me and Kevin about everything that happened with my father. Everything that ever happened. Even the stuff before That Day.

  And I guess Kevin told them everything, too, because Jim’s eyes were red when they came out of the meeting and it was a while before Kevin would even look straight at me.

  Ms. DeSilva is waiting for us at the house when we get there. Kevin goes right up to our room and Jim tells me to give him space, so I curl up on the couch with my bag of peas and just kind of let myself drift off.

  Every once in a while, some bit of Jim and Ms. DeSilva’s conversation floats over to me. I hear terms like “preponderance of evidence,” which has something to do with whether they think my father is likely to hit me or Jordan again, and she talks about a bunch of petitions she’s filed to keep him away from both of us.

  I try to ignore them as much as possible, but when she starts talking about termination of parental rights, I can’t help but listen.

  I guess that means more petitions, because she says Jordan is in foster care and a ward of the court until they can find his mom, but they don’t want that to happen with me so they have to move quickly.

  I’ve already decided that if they force me to go back to the old house or anywhere with my father, I’m going to tell Sarah I’ll leave with her. We’ll go to Finland, or California, or wherever she wants.

  Their muted voices mumble on for a while, and then they both come over to the couch.

  I sit up and bite the inside of my lip. I hate this crap.

  Ms. DeSilva sits on the edge of the coffee table, and I have to stifle a laugh because Jim always gets ticked when Kevin sits there.

  “It’s good to see some color in your cheeks,” she says, which sounds positive, but I hold my breath anyhow because I wish they’d just take care of all this legal stuff and leave me out of it.

  “I know you’ve had a hard couple of days, but
there’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you about before I file these papers tomorrow,” she says.

  I look at Jim and he smiles a little, but this is still bugging me out.

  Jim takes a deep breath and says, “Yeah, um. So, one of the petitions. I mean we have to … ” He looks at Ms. DeSilva to help him out.

  “Gordie, Jim would like to petition to formally adopt you.”

  Jim looks at me long enough that I’m scared he’s going to change his mind. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice breaks. He clears his throat. “I mean, yes. If that’s what Gordie wants.”

  The words I want to say are sticky in my brain, trapped inside me. I think I’m going to be sick if I don’t get them out once and for all.

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  Jim leans over and rests his hand on my hair. It feels good. Not in the same way as when Sarah does it, but nice anyhow.

  “I guess I deserved that,” he says with a sigh. “But yeah, kid. If you’ll have me, I’d like you to stay.”

  I look at him in disbelief. I think it’s the first time anyone aside from Sarah has chosen to be with me. I mean, since Kevin is stuck with me as his brother and all.

  “I’d like that,” I say. My voice has holes in it, though. It’s like it can’t contain everything I’m feeling, and I worry they won’t understand this is what I want almost more than anything.

  Ms. DeSilva leans over and hugs me. I think I should try to figure out what this all means, but of course there’s one more question knocking around my head.

  “What happens now? I mean, is he back at the house? I don’t have to go back there, right?”

  “No, Gordie, I already have court approval for you to stay here,” she tells me. “And what happens now is that I’ve got to go back to my office and tell my assistant I need her to work late with me tonight on all of this.” She points to the stack of papers on the table. “We’ll need to have a meeting with a mediator, and I’ll let Jim know when that is. You don’t need to worry about any of it, okay, Gordie?”