Fractures in Ink

by Helena Hunting

  “Are you sure? Check again.”

  I took another deep breath. “Okay, okay. There are words written on her body, they’re everywhere.”

  Grant cleared his throat. “Yeah. We’ve been trying to get those off, but the permanent marker’s a problem.”

  I tried not to think what that must’ve been like for Dee when it happened. I pressed my shaking fingers against her throat and closed my eyes so I didn’t have to look at her bruises or the words. “I still can’t feel much of anything.”

  “But there’s something?”

  “It’s not regular.

  “Okay. I need you to stay calm, Sarah. Can you do that for me?” There was a waver in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Good girl. Do you know CPR?”

  I reached out and moved Dee’s wet hair away from her face. There was even a bruise on her cheek, faint purple standing out against the gray.

  “Um... I took a course in high school. It’s been a long time.”

  “I’ll walk you through it. I need you to do this for me. I need you to stay calm and help me take care of Dee. Can you do that, Sarah?”

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Let’s not think like that. I’ve already called 9-1-1, and I’m on my way. It won’t take me long to get there.”

  “Okay.”

  I hit speaker, put my phone on a towel, and followed Grant’s instructions—the chest compressions, the breathing. I was horrified by how cold Dee was, and by her lack of response.

  It seemed like an eternity passed while I pushed and breathed and waited for Grant to arrive. Suddenly I could hear him in stereo, the heavy sound of footfalls echoing down the hall until the sounds merged.

  “Motherfucker.” He dropped to his knees, landing in the water that had covered the floor. “I’ll ruin him.”

  He put his fingers to Dee’s throat, checking her pulse. “You’re not allowed to leave me. He’s not allowed to win.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Chris

  Thanks to my shit sleep, I was wide awake at five in the morning. My couch was a great location to pass out watching Cops reruns, but not the best place to spend the entire night. My bed was a king, and the couch wasn’t even quite a single. But Ivy was asleep, which was good. I’d heard her tossing and turning for a while before she finally settled around one.

  Since going back to sleep wasn’t an option, I decided an early morning stop at my mom’s might shed more light on what had happened there last night. I was lucky to have left a basket of clean laundry by the couch, so I didn’t have to wear the same clothes I’d slept in.

  I tried to peek in on Ivy to make sure she was okay before I left, but the door got stuck about two inches in. She’d propped a chair under the knob. I could see her through the narrow slit. She was curled up in a tiny little ball in the center of my bed. Her head was tucked up between two pillows and the sheets and comforter were wrapped around her, cocoon style. She had to be roasting under all that covering, but she was completely cashed, soft snores coming from beneath the blankets.

  I shut the door as gently as possible, hoping not to disturb the chair too much. It pained me that she’d done that. Actions like that were borne out of habit, and that brought to mind a lot of rage-inducing questions.

  I left a set of keys for her on the counter and a note telling her I’d be back before I had to leave for work. I stuck directions to Inked Armor to the fridge with a magnet in case she slept late or wanted to go there. I set out towels in the bathroom, glad Sarah’s shampoo and conditioner were still there for her to use.

  I paused for a second when I saw them, considering how I’d jumped the gun yesterday with the way I’d freaked out over the pills. She’d told me they weren’t hers, and I should’ve believed her. Instead, I’d pushed her on purpose, looking for some kind of retaliation that would make the things I’d said okay. But she hadn’t snapped, and even if she had, I was in the wrong.

  I needed to call her, or better yet, see her, but first I needed to deal with this. Besides, it was too early to stop by her place.

  Nabbing my helmet, I checked for my wallet and keys, and headed out the door. I wished the chain lock was in place, but Ivy would be safe enough in my apartment for now.

  I arrived at my mom’s house just after six. If I was lucky, she’d be home for a while before her shift at the deli. It took her half an hour to get to work by bus. John’s rig wasn’t parked outside, so maybe he was off on another one of his runs. If he did happen to be around, I would happily interrogate the fuckwad as well—with my fist.

  The grass had been partially cut since the last time I was here. The right side was mostly done, but the turned-over mower sat abandoned in the weedy garden bed. Ivy had probably managed to get it running only to have it crap out on her again. Much like everything else in her life.

  I knocked on the door and waited. After a second round of knocking produced no response, I went around the back. The lock on that door had always been sticky, and sometimes it didn’t catch. It opened with a loud creak. The house was quiet apart from all the noise I was making.

  “Mom? You here?” I left my boots on since the floor was dirty again.

  Her bedroom door was shut tight. There were fresh holes in the wall. This time the frustration that ruled my emotions whenever I came here was replaced by a deep-seated hatred I could barely contain. It wasn’t just for John, either. It extended to my mother.

  Reining it in and tamping it down, I knocked on her bedroom door. “You in there, Moms?”

  I put my ear to the panel, listening for sounds of occupancy. I heard the bed creak.

  “Are you alone?” she called meekly.

  “Yeah. It’s just me.”

  Silence stretched out as I waited for her to open the door so I didn’t have to talk to her through a barrier. I took a couple of steps down the hall and peeked inside Ivy’s room. It was an absolute wreck. Worse than the last time. All of her clothes were ripped from their hangers and strewn across the floor. Her desk was turned upside down, the ancient computer smashed.

  The single mattress had been sliced down the middle and gutted, her dresser drawers pulled out, with girly underwear scattered all over the place. Most of it was simple stuff, the same kind Sarah usually wore, but a few pairs stood out. I looked away, not wanting to see that my baby sister wasn’t a baby anymore.

  Fury took hold, adrenaline ripping through my veins, making my heart feel like it was about to explode in my chest. “Mom, you need to come out here and take a look at this.”

  The sound of furniture scraping across the floor was followed by the turn of the doorknob. Her face appeared in the narrow opening, her wide, fearful eyes scanning the space beyond me.

  I raised my hands to show her I wasn’t here to do any more damage. It took a few more long seconds before she opened the door wider and stepped out into the hall. She wore her work uniform. It was huge on her, and there were buttons missing at the very bottom and the top. She crossed her arms over her chest and hunched over like she was looking to protect herself from a blow—verbal or physical, I wasn’t sure.

  “What happened last night?”

  “Is Ivy here? She can tell you better than me.”

  “Ivy’s at my place. She’ll be staying with me for a while.” As long as I could convince her that was best.

  “I don’t think John will like that. He doesn’t think you’re a good influence on Ivy.”

  There was no room left in me for patience or tolerance, and that’s not what came out when I opened my mouth.

  “Do you even hear yourself? Look around you.” I gestured to the holes in the wall beside her. “You think you’re a better role model? You think this is a better place for her to be?”

  “Of course I do; I’m her mother.” There was no conviction in her words.

  “And what does that mean exactly? How are you taking care of her? What are you doing to ensure her safety here?”

  “D
-don’t yell at me.” Cowering, she took a step back, toward her bedroom.

  I hadn’t even realized I’d raised my voice. My hands went up in a show of contrition, however semi-authentic it was. I understood that she would run if she felt I was a danger to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.” She was like a beaten dog. Her terror was a real, living, breathing thing, threatening to choke the life out of her.

  If she locked herself in her bedroom again, I’d never get anything out of her, and Ivy had already said as much as she was going to.

  “John was in a bad way last night.”

  “Yeah. I got that much.” I pointed at the fresh holes in the drywall. “These from his fists?”

  “He was upset about the money Ivy’s been hiding from him.”

  “You mean the money she gave you?”

  “She shouldn’t have been holding it back.”

  “Have you seen her room, or have you been locked in yours all night?” I already knew the answer.

  “He was angrier than I’d ever seen him ’afore, and he had these men with him. I didn’t know who they were. I think John may have gotten himself into a situation.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. She’d been in there for a long time—too afraid to leave in case John was sitting out here, waiting for her.

  He would kill her eventually. Whether with his own hands or because she was so neglected was the only question. She’d surely get sick again, and it could turn into pneumonia and finally take her down. I knew now I likely couldn’t save her from herself, but I wouldn’t let the same thing happen to my sister.

  “You need to look at this.” I took her by the elbow, gently but firmly, and steered her to Ivy’s room.

  She brought her fist to her mouth, knuckles pressing hard against her chapped lips. “I don’t know why she didn’t tell them where the money was. They wouldn’t have done this if she’d just told them—”

  “She gave the money to you,” I said pointedly.

  “But if she was giving some to me, John said she was surely holding some back for herself, too. He needed it.”

  “For fucking what? His gambling problem? His cigarettes? A case of beer? Look at what he did! Look!” I swept my hand over the destroyed room. Everything was ruined. The bedframe had completely crumpled.

  “It’s bad enough she’s gotten herself a private bank account, thanks to you, but then she was holding back the money, and with John having issues—”

  “Stop.” I put up a hand. “I can’t hear this shit anymore. Let me tell you something you might not know: as a mother it’s your goddamn duty to protect your children. Locking yourself in your room while John and his goons ripped apart hers doesn’t fucking qualify.”

  “She put herself in that position—”

  “Are you kidding me with this? Do you hear the crap you spew? She’s a nineteen-year-old girl, for Christ’s sake. She should be going to college, having fun with her friends, not working full time to support her asshole, abusive father.”

  “John’s not—”

  I cut her off. “Did you know they frisked her? Checked her over to make sure she didn’t have the money on her?”

  She blinked.

  “They put their hands on her. While you were hiding, those goons put their damn hands on my sister, and that dickhead father of hers stood by and let it happen. So I gotta ask you, is there anything else I should know?”

  “I-I don’t know—”

  “Did they hurt her?”

  “I’m n-not sure.”

  I wasn’t going to get anything out of her this way. I’d seen it a million times—watched her pull into herself like this on countless occasions when I was a kid and John would come after me. At first she’d tried to fight him for me, but he’d always pushed her off and dragged me to my room so he could smack me around in peace. Ivy had been a baby. After a while, when it had become part of the routine, Mom had scooped her up and whisked her out the front door as soon as it started, so neither of them had to witness anything. Just before she walked out, her eyes would always go dead, like she was shutting out the memories. It had been survival for her. I’d been the sacrifice.

  “I’m going to ask you one more question, and I need you to answer it honestly. Is John’s fist connecting with anything other than the walls?”

  “I talked to him about that—”

  “It’s a yes-or-no question.”

  Her silence was a scream.

  “Is it just you, or is he putting his hands on Ivy, too?”

  “Everything was fine until you came around again.”

  “You’re welcome to blame me for your problems, but I need an answer to my question.” I tried not to let it hurt, but her next statement was a sledgehammer to the chest.

  “If I hadn’t had you, my life would’ve been different. It would’ve been better.”

  “Wow.” I took a deep breath, letting the sharp ache settle. “Pretty sure it would’ve been better for me, too.”

  “I was doing my best!”

  “Bullshit!”

  She was everything that was wrong with me. This woman who should’ve kept me safe had offered me up as a punching bag so she wouldn’t have to be. I’d been her shield, and now I worried Ivy had been, too. My mother was more of a manipulator than John.

  I pointed at her, my fury uncontained. “You made me like this. How I turned out? That’s on you. You’re the one who let that fucker beat the shit out of me. You’re the one who let him walk all over you, and then you did it all over again with your goddamn daughter. You pretend to be the martyr, but what you did was sacrifice both of your kids.”

  She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, as if they could protect her from the truth.

  “I’m going to do everything in my power to keep Ivy out of this house. It’s toxic. You’re toxic. If you call her and try to guilt her into coming back to this hell, I will tell her everything you let John do to me.”

  Her eyes widened with a fear I’d never seen before. “But I’ll be alone.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll have John.”

  I turned to walk away, but she grabbed my arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  I shook her off. “Yes, you did. And if I find out you let him do the same things to Ivy, I will end him.”

  I walked out the front door, wondering if I’d just signed my own mother’s death certificate.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Chris

  The knot in my stomach tightened further as I got on my bike and started the engine. A huge part of me wanted to go back in that house and find a way to make my mother see that she needed to get out. But it never worked. I knew how hard it was to walk away from abuse, because that’s what I had chosen to do now. And it was shredding up my insides.

  All these years I’d been blaming myself for the way things had turned out for her. But she’d been the one to make a mess of her own life—and she’d had a pretty big part in making a mess of mine. I didn’t want her to have that kind of power over me anymore, and that meant owning the choices I’d been making recently, as hard as that might be.

  Having already had one difficult conversation this morning, I figured it’d be a good idea to stop in at Sarah’s and see if she was awake and up for hearing an apology.

  Before I went to Sarah’s, though, I decided to check on Ivy. I picked up some bagels, pastries, and a couple of coffees from a bakery not too far away, uncertain what kind of fresh food I had in my apartment these days. I was already feeling the effects of too little sleep and a morning full of stress, so the coffee was a necessity.

  Ivy was in the shower when I returned. She came out of the bathroom, fully dressed, with a towel wrapped around her head and an armload of dirty clothes. She screamed when she saw me hanging out on the couch.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.” I held out a coffee as a peace offering, but her arms were full. I nodded to the laundry basket beside the coffee table. “Just drop it on the floor. I’ll do a coup
le loads tomorrow or something.”

  “When’d you get back?” She took the coffee cup and curled up on the right side of the couch. She wore a short-sleeved shirt, showcasing the fresh bruises dotting her arms.

  “About five minutes ago. I have to head out again in a few, but I wanted to check in with you first, see how you’re doing.” I glanced at the purple marks on her biceps that looked like fingers.

  “I’m okay.” She followed my gaze and self-consciously covered the bruises with her palm.

  “Are those from last night?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  I sighed. “I went to Mom’s.”

  She sat up straighter. “Is she okay?”

  “As okay as she ever is. We need to talk about you not going back there.”

  Ivy took a sip of coffee. “Leaving her there alone—”

  “—isn’t going to be easy, but she can’t keep using you as a shield against John.”

  I let that sit for a minute while she took another sip of her coffee, and I rooted through the bag of carbs for a Danish.

  “I never thought about it like that,” she said eventually. “For so long it was us against him, and then she hung me out to dry. Or maybe she’s been doing that all along, and I’m just seeing it now.”

  Her last comment came out a question. I scrubbed my hand over my face. It was hard to watch her come to that realization. The woman who’d shared her misery and uncertainty had been the driving force behind it.

  My mom had kept Ivy bound to her by guilt. And she’d done the same with me. I got that now. The occasional phone calls that came a few weeks before a birthday or around a holiday—as if she were checking up on me—always circled back to her needing something. There was no unconditional love with my mother. The price of her attention was steep.

  “People do bad things when they feel unsafe,” I told her. “They make sacrifices they shouldn’t.”

  “What do I do when she calls and asks me to come home? How do I say no?”