I let her know exactly what I think. “Hope he’s gone for good, this time. You let him back after that…” I point at her. “You deserve what you get.”
I slam my bedroom door.
Five minutes later, Willie’s in my room with his blanket. I let him climb in with me and he’s sleeping in less than five minutes. He starts sprawling so I wind up on the floor and I don’t fall back to sleep. Instead, I listen to her crying in her room for almost an hour before things go quiet.
***
A few nights later, I’m woken from a dead sleep on my bedroom floor, Willie again in my bed, and I’m woken by the sound of my own grunt when I take a hoof to the gut. Max kicks me a second time, in the center of my back and the pain is so extreme, I can’t do anything but curl into myself.
My mother is in the doorway crying. Saying nothing. Not a fucking thing. Fucking damaged. Broken. She makes me sick.
“That’s what you get, asshole. From now on mind your own fuckin’ business,” he says and then pushes by her. “He gets in my shit one more time, Brianne, it’s him or me.”
I go to rise but she shakes her head sharply. “Leave it, please, Killy.” She points at me for a split second with warning in her eyes.
Will sits up, rubbing his eyes. “What’s goin’ on?”
I stare at her. She stares back with a trembling lower lip and mouths to me, please, then walks after him, saying nothing.
“Back to sleep, bro,” I tell him.
“M’kay,” he says and closes his eyes.
I lie there, the pain starting to ebb but my anger getting sharper. I wanna go in there and put a knife through his heart. That might be the only way to get rid of that fucker. And then I hear a sound that makes me taste puke in the back of my throat because it’s a banging sound. It’s the sound of her shitty bedframe hitting the wall. And then she’s moaning. She lets him fuck her after he does that to me? Moans like a whore for him?
Sad, broken, trashy bitch.
***
The next morning, she’s there at the stove when I come out, ready to head to school. She’s flipping pancakes, plastering a fake smile on her face.
“You gotta make peace with him, Killy. I love him and I don’t wanna be forced to choose between you.” She points the spatula at me.
She’s got a hangover and she looks like shit. She’s also looking at me like she needs me to get this and cooperate.
I am very fucking ready to be out of here.
“I wanna tell you that you can do better than that,” I start, gesturing toward her bedroom – I can hear the fucker snoring from here – but her body language immediately changes, and I know she doesn’t think she can do better. She slumps. Her eyes point to the floor. And the fact is that we’ve had this conversation before. Too many times.
“But that’s pointless isn’t it?” I finish, tempted to bring up Willie’s dad, a good guy who would’ve given her the world, who wanted to move us to his house, a place with a yard, with a park across the street. The guy made time for us. Taught me about football, took me to a game once, treated me as good as Willie even though I wasn’t his blood.
The problem with him was that he didn’t drink, didn’t party, and that wasn’t what she liked. So she not only ended it, but she also ruined his life and kept him from me and his biological kid by claiming he hurt her so he couldn’t fight for custody of us. She needed us not for the love she had to give us, for the love we wanted to give back. She needed us for the welfare check she gets being a single mom with two kids.
She says nothing. Turns her back to me and lifts the cooked pancakes onto a plate and passes the plate to Will.
“Got any syrup, Mommy?” Willie asks.
“Oh. No, baby. Sorry.”
“Jam?”
“Oops. No. Damn it.”
“Butter?”
We’ve got no butter.
Willie eats his pancakes anyway. Dry-lookin’ misshapen circles from a box that you just add water to. Shitty pancakes from the food bank.
When I get a place for us, I’m gonna make pancakes with chocolate chips in them. With real butter. Maple syrup. As many as my kid brother wants. From scratch.
“Hurry up, Willie. We’re gonna be late,” I say.
“You pickin’ him up today, too, Killy?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
I’ll pick him up. I’ll bring him home. Keep him safe. She’ll do whatever the fuck she wants. She’ll pick Max over me. She’ll pick him over Willie. She’ll pick him over herself, obviously; she’s repeatedly proven that. She’s already chosen him over me.