Just a Little Bet (Where There's Smoke)

by Tawna Fenske

  “Not really.” She glanced back at the room. “Nyla’s right, though. You need to keep your strength up. Where’s the cafeteria?”

  “One floor up. Come on.”

  They walked in silence, Tony trailing his hand over the banister. When they got to the top of the stairs, he hesitated. “The birthing center is on this floor. I came here when Joel was born.”

  She tried to recall the age difference. “You must have been three or four?”

  He nodded. “My mom’s sister brought me because my dad was too drunk to make it.” He glanced away, gaze skimming the potted plants in the corner. “My aunt died in a car crash a month later. My dad was gone the next year.”

  “Oh, Tony.” Kayla’s eyes filled with tears, and she leaned in to give the hug she’d been aching to offer for hours. “I’m so sorry.”

  He nodded against her hair and she felt his body relax just the tiniest bit. “I can’t believe it’s reached this point.”

  She drew back and studied his face, choosing her words carefully. “I spent less than ten minutes with Nyla, and I feel like I know more about your family than I learned the whole time you and I have known each other.”

  She didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation. The words lay between them, awkward and incomplete with an unspoken question mark somewhere in the middle.

  Tony’s expression dimmed. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I know I suck at sharing stuff like that. I suppose I owe you some details.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I do.” Shaking his head slowly, he closed his eyes. “I just—some of this stuff has been bottled up so long. I don’t know where to start.”

  She put a hand on his arm, hating the pain in his expression. “We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”

  When he opened his eyes, the pain there twisted a knife in her gut. “There are things you need to know about me,” he said. “That you deserve to know.”

  She looked him in the eye as the bottom dropped out of her stomach. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go find a table.”

  …

  Tony took a deep breath and looked down at his hamburger. It seemed easier addressing things to a slab of meat than the woman he loved.

  And he did love Kayla. So much.

  But he was starting to wonder if he’d spoken too soon back at the hotel.

  “My mom married Bud when I was nine,” he said slowly, gaze still fixed on the burger. “My dad took off when I was five, so we had a few years in there where she dated a long string of losers and jerks.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  The sympathy in Kayla’s voice made his throat tighten, and so did the sight of that bandage on her hand. He had to swallow a few times to keep going. He couldn’t look at her, not without feeling the stupid prick of tears behind his eyelids.

  “Things were okay at first,” he said. “Bud was pretty strict, but our mom kept reminding us that people are different. That he wasn’t used to being around kids. And he did a lot for us. That first year, he bought all-new school clothes for us. We hadn’t had any for years, and I think Mom saw a lifeline in Bud and just grabbed it.”

  Kayla reached across the table and put her hand over his. Something about that small gesture made him look up, and when he did, he knew he was going to lose it.

  Blinking hard, he took another deep breath. “In the beginning, she defended us. He’d yell at Joel for leaving his shoes on the floor or grab me by the back of the neck and shake me for spilling oatmeal on the counter. Stuff like that. Our mom would step in and try to calm Bud down. Remind him we were just kids.”

  “I should hope so,” Kayla said, fingers tightening around his. “You’re her children. I’d hope she’d have your backs.”

  He closed his eyes, hating the ache in his chest. “She did. Until she didn’t.”

  Kayla frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know how it happened. Or why it happened. Maybe he said something to her. All I know is that she stopped defending us. All of a sudden it became ‘don’t provoke him’ or ‘you know how much he does for this family.’ And that just made him meaner.”

  “How?” Her voice was barely a whisper, like she was afraid to hear the answer.

  “He got off on humiliating us in front of our friends. Telling Joel’s buddies how he still wet the bed or making fun of me when I hit puberty and my voice started cracking.”

  Kayla’s jaw twitched as she ground her teeth. “He sounds like an asshole.”

  He loved her even more in that moment.

  But love wasn’t enough to make a difference in this mess. It never had been. “He is an asshole,” Tony agreed. “But hating him didn’t do any good. And we couldn’t hate our mom. We just—she’s our mom, you know?”

  She nodded, but he could tell she didn’t know. Not really. The day after he and Kayla had split, he’d been with her when her own mom called. Even from across the room, he heard her mother’s shouts of encouragement.

  You’re perfect, baby girl. Any man who doesn’t realize that is a—

  “It got worse as we got older,” he said. “Bud would go to our football games, which seems like this great gesture, right? Supportive stepdad and all that.”

  Kayla’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “He wanted to look like this amazing guy, but he’d stand there on the sidelines screaming at us. ‘You’re too slow! Grab the goddamn ball. Come on, you loser!’”

  Kayla’s eyes had started to glitter. “Did your mom hear him?”

  “She pretended not to. It was part of her disappearing into his shadow, just making herself as small as she could. Her whole life became about not upsetting Bud. Be as quiet as possible. Have dinner ready at exactly six. Don’t do anything to make him mad.”

  He sensed her hesitation. Saw her contemplating how to ask the question he knew was coming.

  Kayla bit her lip. “Did he— Was he physically abusive?”

  Tony took a deep breath and looked down at his burger. “That’s the thing. I never saw him hit her. If it happened, he did it behind closed doors, where we couldn’t see. He’d grab her by the arm sometimes or shoulder her out of the way when he got mad. But he didn’t throw punches like you see in movies about abuse. It wasn’t like that.”

  She was quiet so long he had to look up. When he did, he saw her swiping a sleeve across her eyes.

  “That seems just as bad,” she said. “Words can hurt as much as fists.”

  A thick lump balled in his throat, and he nodded, since he couldn’t force words out. He’d always wondered about that. It seemed stupid to get upset about a bunch of name-calling. Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can’t really hurt you. That’s what he’d always heard.

  But the words did hurt. They still fucking hurt.

  “Sometimes, I’d find her crying,” he said softly. “Our mom. She’d try to pretend she wasn’t, but I could tell.”

  “She was trying to be strong for you.”

  Something flared in his chest. “She was trying to protect her livelihood.” The words came out harsher than he meant them to. “The nice house, the nice car—” He stopped himself, knowing no good would come from blaming his mother. She was a victim here, too.

  He tried to remember Joel’s words about how it wasn’t as simple as just packing up and leaving. That there were so many other factors involved. Tony knew that in his brain, but his heart couldn’t quite catch up.

  “Anyway, I tried to talk to her a couple times,” he said. “Told her we should run away together. Me and Joel and her. Just leave and start over.”

  “You were how old?”

  “The first time?” He tried to remember. “Eleven, maybe twelve.” But he’d felt a hundred years old. That’s how much he’d aged after his father lef
t and Bud came into their lives.

  “What did she say?” Kayla asked. “When you asked her to leave.”

  Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “She laughed. This fake, awful, sad laugh I knew wasn’t real. She said, ‘He’s a good man, Tony. He takes care of us, and he doesn’t hit.’”

  “Jesus.” Kayla blinked hard.

  “Right? Like that’s the mark of a good marriage.”

  That had been one of a million signs that his mother had lost her mind. Her marriage to his dad hadn’t been great. He’d sensed that even before his father walked out. Still, she must have known the difference between a good man and…well, Bud.

  Or not. That was his fear. If his mom couldn’t distinguish between healthy and unhealthy relationships, how the fuck could Tony? And how could he possibly give any woman the former instead of the latter if he had no clue what he was doing?

  He took another deep breath and kept going. “As Joel and I got older, we just learned to live with it. How to stay out of the house until we knew Bud would be in bed. How to make dinner plans with friends. We ate with Nyla’s family a lot. Leo’s, too.”

  Kayla nodded. “She mentioned that,” she said. “That you guys spent time there.”

  “Leo’s mom was like a second mother to me.” A better mother, though Tony would never say that out loud. Felt like an asshole for even thinking it. “Leo lost his father, too, so it was something we had in common. His mom probably wondered why I never wanted to go home.”

  “Did you say anything? Try to tell an adult about the abuse?”

  Tony shook his head, not sure if that was his answer or just frustration making his head jerk. “That’s the thing—he didn’t throw punches. He’d get in our faces and shout about how we were stupid, good-for-nothing, undisciplined, ungrateful little assholes.”

  Kayla flinched, and Tony realized his voice had risen above the soft tones of a hospital cafeteria. He glanced around, aware of people staring. They probably thought he was yelling at his girlfriend, making her feel the way he’d felt when Bud used to yell.

  Tony closed his eyes as a wave of shame sloshed through him. He took a deep breath and started again. “Bud didn’t hit us.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Hitting’s not required for it to be abuse. There’s verbal abuse. Psychological abuse. All of it’s horribly damaging.”

  “Yeah, but only the physical stuff counts. That’s what the law says, anyway.”

  “That’s so messed up.”

  “It is.” He took another deep breath. “Things finally came to a head. It was our mom’s birthday, and she said all she wanted was for her men to all be together for a home-cooked meal. That’s what she called us—her men.”

  Glancing down, he realized he was rubbing his arm. He couldn’t help it—the thought of being grouped with Bud made his skin crawl. Kayla noticed, too. Letting go of his hand, she touched his arm with long, soothing strokes. It was enough to keep him going.

  “Joel went to reach for the salt or something. I forget what it was. He bumped a glass of Coke, and the whole thing went flooding into Bud’s lap.”

  Kayla gasped. “Oh, no.”

  “It was bad. Joel jumped up to find a towel, but Bud got to him first. Grabbed him by the throat and pinned him up against the wall and started screaming in his face.”

  “Oh my God.” She drew her hands to her face, eyes filled with horror. “What did you do?”

  “I grabbed Bud’s arm and tried to pull him off, but he shoved me back. I was sixteen then, pretty strong. But Bud was stronger. And I was too fucking scared to fight him.”

  “You were a kid,” Kayla said, pressing her palms to the table. “He was your parent. You can’t blame yourself for being in shock.”

  He shook his head, not willing to accept that excuse. “Our mom was crying and begging Bud to stop. That’s when I snapped out of it and grabbed the phone to call 911.”

  “Good for you.” She reached out again to wrap her hand around his. “That was really brave.”

  He snorted. “For all the good it did. The cops got there and started questioning everyone. Me, Bud, Joel, Mom. I could hear her in the other room using her Calm Mom voice. ‘Just a misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘You know how it is when teenagers start mouthing off.’”

  “Jesus.” Tears glittered in her eyes, but this time, she didn’t pull her hands away to wipe them.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Bud told some version of the same story. ‘Just a family dispute. A man’s got a right to discipline his kids.’”

  “But he choked him.”

  “That’s not the legal term.” Tony leaned back in his seat, hating that he knew this level of detail. That he’d learned it the hard way. “Choking’s what happens when you get a piece of food stuck in your throat. Strangulation is the legal term, and he would have had to cut off Joel’s airway for a certain length of time for that to count.”

  “And he didn’t?”

  “Nope.” Tony shook his head. “Sometimes, I wish he had. I wish the cops had been able to arrest him that night. Maybe our mom would have snapped out of it. I don’t know.”

  Kayla shook her head. “I can’t wrap my mind around it. The second he laid a hand on her child, I would have thought—”

  “I know.” Tony squeezed his eyes closed, remembering when he’d believed the same thing. That it was as simple as asking his mother to pack a bag and go.

  He’d understood nothing about joint accounts and bills and the ways adult lives got tangled together. He hadn’t grasped how an abuser could break down someone’s self-esteem to the point they felt worthless, small, completely convinced there’s no way out.

  Hell, he still didn’t get it. Didn’t know how he’d lost the mom who would do anything to protect her children.

  “Love blinded her, I guess,” he said. “She said something to that effect. ‘Someday, when you’re married, you’ll understand.’”

  Kayla blinked. “Understand what?”

  “What it means to stand by your spouse no matter what. That’s what she told me—what marriage is all about.”

  He could still feel her hand on his back, the low murmur of her voice so Bud wouldn’t hear.

  For better or worse, Tony. She’d traced her palm in circles on his back, soothing him the way she had when he was little. He’d been almost a man, but he was still starved for motherly affection. That’s what you promise when you get married. You don’t leave just because things aren’t perfect.

  He cleared his throat and placed his hand over Kayla’s, sandwiching it between both of his. “Bud’s version of the story was that Joel was a troubled kid. That he’d been mouthing off and needed someone to take a strong hand with him.”

  “And your mom backed him up?”

  “Yeah.” His jaw clenched. “Seemed to, anyway.”

  He’d wondered about that sometimes. Did she really believe it, or was it easier just to pretend to? Once, he’d tried to ask her about it. She’d feigned ignorance, assuring him she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Hell, maybe she didn’t. Maybe she really did believe Bud’s version of the story. That was Tony’s biggest fear. That love—or whatever the fuck existed between his mom and Bud—made people so blind, so brainwashed—

  “Gaslighting.” Kayla’s fingers clenched around his. “I’ve read about it.”

  He frowned. “My brother used that word. I meant to look it up.”

  “It’s a form of psychological manipulation. You get someone to doubt their own version of a story to the point that they don’t remember what really happened.”

  Tony wished he’d had the forethought to ask Jaylin about it. She’d know all about gaslighting and stuff like that. “I don’t get it,” he said to Kayla.

  “I don’t, either, but I read about it.” Kayla bit her lip. “A master manipulator spends mon
ths, maybe years, convincing you you’re crazy. That something didn’t happen the way you know it did. Maybe you even saw it with your own eyes, but they wear you down to the point that you start to believe in this alternate reality. It’s more common than you’d think.”

  “Huh.” That sounded accurate enough. “I don’t know; maybe that’s it.” He shrugged, trying to recall where he’d left off in the story. “Anyway, this social worker came to the house after Bud grabbed Joel. Started asking questions.”

  Kayla nodded. “I think police are required to report domestic violence to the Department of Social and Health Services.”

  “Right, that was it—DSHS. Anyway, Mom and Bud just sat there on the couch, holding hands.”

  His mom had brought out her best oatmeal raisin cookies for the pretty young social worker, who looked tired and nervous and barely older than Tony. “Bud was playing it up hard,” he continued. “Admitted he’d grabbed Joel, that he’d been angry at the time. But he was so calm explaining how sometimes it’s tough to discipline a troubled teen. That’s what he said—‘troubled teen.’”

  Saying the words out loud fanned the flames of fury in Tony’s chest. He swallowed back his anger, determined to get through the story. “Joel was a straight-A student. He played two varsity sports as a freshman. He wouldn’t hurt a soul. He volunteered at the Humane Society, walking dogs.”

  Tony had driven him there every week. Joel was fourteen; too young to drive but old enough to ask questions Tony had never been brave enough to ask on his own.

  Why does he hate us so much?

  What makes him so angry?

  Why doesn’t Mom leave?

  Tony had no answers for any of it, but he did have one for his brother’s most important question.

  Do you think they know I’m gay?

  Because yeah, Tony had known by then. And he’d been scared shitless what Bud might do when he figured it out.

  Taking a deep breath, Tony returned his focus to Kayla. “The thing is, I think Mom really believed Bud’s version of the story. That Joel had been the one to provoke things. That Joel was just a troubled kid. I sat there watching her on the couch with the social worker and I…I just didn’t understand how her reality got so turned around. How she couldn’t see the way out.”