Calmly, Carefully, Completely (The Reed Brothers 3)

Her dad’s brow arches, and he looks almost…amused?

She nods at me, blushing a little as she looks at her dad from beneath lowered lashes.

I start off toward the ring of chairs in the middle of the counselors’ cabins. Phil stands up and gets a chair for me, putting me across from him on the other side of the ring. “How’s the wrist?” he asks as I settle down and lean forward, dangling my hands between my knees.

“Just strained,” I say. I don’t like that all the attention is suddenly on me.

He grins and winks at me. “Since you just got punched in the face by a girl—” He lets his gaze rake over the group. “—we were just talking about how many of the young men in the program come from homes where domestic violence is the norm.”

“Okay…” I say slowly. I don’t know what he wants me to contribute.

“Would you like to know how many?” he asks. He smiles at me in encouragement.

“I’d love to know,” I reply, because I assume it’s what he wants to hear.

Phil commands the group, “Please raise your hand if you experienced domestic violence in your home.” Six out of ten hands go up. “That might include violence against your mother, your father, your siblings. Or even your grandparents or foster parents.”

Another hand goes up. These boys didn’t have families like mine. Far from it. I was steeped in love and compassion, and they were baked in turmoil and anger. “Wow,” I say. “That’s more than I expected.” I don’t know what Phil wants me to do. So, I just ask questions. “Do your friends know about your situations? Or do you keep them away from your house?”

One of the boys blows out a breath. “I wouldn’t let my friends within a hundred yards of my apartment.”

“Do you go to their houses instead?” I ask.

He nods. “Some. There are others who have families like mine, so we hang out at the park a lot.”

“You do have friends with normal families, right?” I ask.

Tic Tac scoffs. “Fighting is normal,” he says. “If I went to a house and there was no fighting, I’d probably run away scared.”

The boys laugh at him, but I can tell by the way they avoid my gaze that this is true. The problems are their “normal.”

“How many of you want to be different when you grow up?” Four of them raise their hands. “How about when you have kids of your own?” I ask. “Would you want to provide a better life for your kids?” This time, an additional four hands go up.

Phil asks, “So you think that your kids deserve better than you got?” He takes in the group. “What can you do to make sure that happens?”

“Don’t get a bitch pregnant so you have to marry her,” one of them throws out.

“That’s a word you use to describe women?” I ask. I glare at him. I shouldn’t. But he has to know this is not all right.

He shrugs. “That’s what they are.”

“Your mother is a bitch?”

He shrugs again and avoids my eyes.

“Your daughter is going to be a bitch?”

He sits up this time. He’s getting defensive, I can tell. I hold up my hand to stop him.

“Every woman is someone’s daughter. Someone at home loves her. And you devalue her and every other female by referring to women as bitches and hos.” I’m from the neighborhood. I could spout off a lot coarser words than they could probably imagine. But they get the idea. “The girl you’re with is someone’s daughter. You have to remember that when you treat a woman poorly.”

The same boy shakes his head. “Some b—” He stops and corrects himself. “Some women don’t want to be treated like somebody’s daughter,” he says. “If their dads ain’t so good, they don’t know no better.”

I nod my head. “When a woman grows up, she accepts the love she thinks she deserves. Do you think that’s fair? Is that what you want for your own daughters?” I look around.

One of the boys leans forward. I have his attention, I think. He looks me directly in the eye as he says, “I will treat my daughter like a princess. Because if I don’t, she’ll latch on to the first man who does, even if he’s no good. My grandma told me that.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a picture. “That’s my girl,” he says. He beams with pride.

I lean close so I can smile at his picture. Then I reach out and shake his hand. “Your daughter thanks you. And so will the man she marries someday.”

“You got a girlfriend?” one of them asks. I am suddenly the center of their attention.

I shake my head. “No. I just got out of prison a couple of days ago.”

“He ain’t had time to go hit dat, yet,” one boy says, and another high-fives him.

“I’ve done my share of hitting that.” I draw air quotes around the last two words. “Hitting that’s not enough for me. I want a relationship. I want somebody to share my life. I want someone to take care of me and who will let me take care of her. But even before all that, I want to better myself so that I’m worthy of her.”

“Shit,” one of them grunts. “You don’t even know who she is and you’re already trying to change yourself for her. Fuck that.” He throws his hands down like he wants to brush away my thoughts.

I shake my head. “I want to be better for me. But I have no doubt that whoever I end up marrying will be better for it.” I start to tick items off on my fingers. “I want to go to college. I want to get a good job. I want a house. It may be a humble home, but it will be mine.” I pat my chest. “I want kids to run up and down the hallways. I want to go to soccer practice and coach Little League and I want to hold a little girl’s hand while she dances on her toes in a tutu. I want to watch my kids make it to college and watch them do better than me.” I look at Phil. “Those are my plans.”