2
SAM
Coltonsburg, Virginia, USA, July
‘See you tomorrow, Sam,’ Mr Addison said as I propped my broom in the corner and untied my apron, hanging it on the hook beside the door connecting the store to the Addisons’ house. He smiled at me from underneath his moustache. ‘You’ve done a great job today, as always.’
I smiled too, although my back was hurting and I was exhausted just thinking about the walk home. ‘Thanks, Mr Addison.’
‘Wait a moment.’ He went behind the counter and filled a little striped paper bag with hard butterscotch candies – Meggie’s favourite. ‘Here. You take these home for that sister of yours.’
No use wishing it was something that could feed all of us, like a bag of oatmeal or a packet of bacon; I’d never told Mr Addison how bad things really were at home and I wasn’t about to start now. He’d only look at me like my teacher used to when I’d turn up at school in the winter with no coat and holes in the bottoms of my shoes, all sad and sorry, like I was a stray puppy. I thanked him again, dropping the candies into my pocket.
As I turned to leave, the door to the street burst open, setting the bell above it to jangling. Mr Addison’s five-year-old granddaughters, Elsie and Lou, ran in. They were twins, cute as buttons. ‘Grandpa! Grandpa!’ Elsie yelled, flinging herself into her grandfather’s arms. He lifted her in a bear hug and twirled her around, making her braids fly out behind her. Behind them, their mom, Catherine, entered the store at a more sedate pace. She and the girls had come to live here last year after Carl, Mr Addison’s son, was killed fighting in Algeria. She smiled at the sight of Elsie laughing, but her eyes had their usual sad, haunted look, as if part of her had died right along with her husband. It was a look I’d gotten used to seeing around Coltonsburg the last eighteen months or so, since Pearl Harbor got bombed and America entered the war.
Mr Addison reached out a hand. ‘Catherine, you look tired. Go in the house and sit down. I’ll mind the kids for a while until Jean gets back.’ Jean was his wife, a snow-haired woman of sixty-eight who ran several committees in town with ruthless efficiency, including Coltonsburg’s American Red Cross, the soup kitchen and the local branch of the Women’s Bureau.
I slipped outside. As the door closed behind me, the bell jangling again, I felt a pang of sadness. Why couldn’t I have a family like the Addisons? Even with Carl gone they were a tight unit, always looking out for one another. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering what, exactly, decided the hand you got in life. Fate? The universe? God? Who knew. Anyway, I’d stopped believing in God a long time ago.
I walked the two miles back to Kirk’s farm slowly, trying to enjoy the evening sun on my face. It was no good; the closer I got, the tighter my stomach tied itself in knots. If I’m lucky, I told myself, he’ll have already left for town. If I’m really lucky, he’ll get so drunk he won’t come home until tomorrow. And if I’m really, really lucky, the stupid sonofabitch’ll stay away for a couple of days – maybe even get locked up in jail. He did that every now and then, for just long enough for me to start hoping he wasn’t coming back at all.
I walked into the yard, dragging my feet, a familiar sense of gloom settling over me as I looked at the collection of ramshackle sheds, the long-empty chicken coops and pieces of rusted machinery with weeds growing up through them. Even the house looked as if it was on the verge of giving up: the roof sagged in the middle, the porch had collapsed at one end, the windows were filthy and the screen door hung off its top hinge where Kirk had punched it one day. If you turned up uninvited, you’d be forgiven for thinking no one lived here at all – until Kirk started shooting at you, that was.
Everything was quiet. I began to feel hopeful again. Then the peace was shattered by a high-pitched scream.
I crossed the rest of the yard in about three strides, bursting into the kitchen to find Ma cowering in a corner with Meggie cradled in her arms. Kirk was standing over them both with his fists raised, and Ma’s left eye was swelling shut, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. A blackened saucepan lay in the middle of the floor, soup splashed up the wall.
‘There!’ Kirk spat at Ma. ‘See what you made me do, Dolores! You stupid, no-good whore!’
‘You leave her the fuck alone, you bastard!’ The words burst out of me before I could stop them, my voice coming out cracked and high-pitched like it still did sometimes, even though I’d turned seventeen in January.
Kirk turned, his lips curving in a mocking sneer. His overalls were so stiff with dirt they could’ve stood up by themselves – he liked to pretend he was a farmer, even if all he could grow was pigweed and crabgrass – and a hank of greasy hair flopped over one eye. Ma once told me he was handsome when he was younger, but I’d never been able to see it. He looked like what he was: dumb as a sack of rocks, and mean as cottonmouth. The ugliness in him ran right to the bone.
‘Oh yeah? And what’re you gonna do, Sammy boy?’ he said.
When I didn’t answer, he stepped towards me. It took everything I had not to flinch away – the reaction was automatic, even though I was taller than him now. ‘Your ma burned the dinner, again,’ he drawled, the half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lower lip bobbing as he spoke – no matter how little food there was on the table, he could always find money for whisky and smokes. ‘I was educatin’ her so she don’t do it again, that’s all.’
He always called it educatin’, like he was doing you a favour when he gave you a black eye for closing a door too loud while he slept off a bender, or a punch in the kidneys for looking at him the wrong way. Hell, he’d go after you for breathing wrong if he was in the mood to. He glanced down and his eyes narrowed. I realised I was clenching my hands into fists, my fingernails digging into my palms. Kirk smiled. ‘Come on then, Sammy boy.’ He was almost purring, like a cat. ‘Let’s see you stand up for yerself for once.’
Not for the first time, I wished I had the guts to grab a kitchen knife and drive it through his neck. I’d thought about it many times, what it would feel like to push the blade in, how I’d stand over him and laugh as I watched him writhing at my feet as the blood pumped out of him and his eyes glazed over…
Kirk took another step towards me, his mouth twisting again.
‘Y’all should be grateful to me.’ His voice was real soft now, like he was sharing a secret with me. ‘I feed y’all, I put a roof over y’alls’ heads. And this is the thanks I get?’
His hand whipped out and he grabbed me by the chin, his fingers digging into my jaw as he pushed me back against the table. As always, his wiry strength took me by surprise. ‘Always got somethin’ smart to say, ain’t you, Sammy boy? You’re nothin’ but a dumb kid. That big mouth of yours is gonna get you in trouble someday. Big trouble.’
He was so close I could smell his rotten breath and the stale booze seeping out of his pores. I wondered what he’d do if I threw up over him, but it was hours since I last had anything to eat. My stomach clenched and I gagged, but there was nothing to come up.
‘Kirk! Leave him!’ Ma gasped. ‘Please!’
‘Shut it, you dumb bitch,’ Kirk growled. He held me there a moment longer, staring into my eyes. You fucking creep, I yelled at him inside my head, half scared, half hoping that if I thought it hard enough, he’d be able to hear me. I wish Ma had never met you. I wish you were dead.
I looked away first, like I always did, and Kirk let me go with a hard shove that sent me staggering back, knocking over a chair and sprawling on the floor. As I scrambled to my feet, Ma thrust Meggie at me. ‘Go, Sam! Get her out of here!’
I hustled Meggie out of the house and headed for the old barn on the other side of the pasture, far enough away from the house that Meggie wouldn’t be able to hear Ma screaming when Kirk started educatin’ her again.
‘I – is Ma going to be OK?’ Meggie sobbed, clinging to my neck as I sat down with her on the edge of an old plough that had been left in the barn to rust.
‘Yeah, she’ll be fine.’ The lie rolled automatically off my tongue. ‘Don’t worry about her.’ I rocked my little sister back and forth. Then I remembered the candies in my pocket. ‘Here.’
Her face lit up. ‘Are those for me?’
‘They sure are,’ I said with a cheerfulness I couldn’t have been further from feeling. Meggie was seven, and even though she was only my half-sister I’d have died for her if you’d asked me to. I’d never been able to figure out how it was possible for her to be related to someone like Kirk.
‘Would you like one, Sammy?’ She offered me the bag.
I shook my head. ‘I’m OK, honey. They’re all for you.’
Meggie slid off my knee to sit cross-legged in the dirt, sucking on a candy, her tears forgotten. ‘Will you draw me a picture, Sam?’
I took out the pencil and the little blank book I kept in my back pocket. Last year, Mr Addison had caught me drawing on the backs of some old letter bills when the store was quiet one afternoon. I was worried he’d be mad at me, but he said, ‘You need something to keep all your drawings in, son, so’s you don’t lose them. I’ve got just the thing,’ and gave me the book. It had a red leather cover, gold edges to the pages, and heavy, cream-coloured paper. It was so nice that at first, I’d been scared to use it.
I sketched a page of fantastical scenes and creatures for Meggie – pictures straight out of a storybook. Then I drew her as a giant, a hundred feet tall, stamping and raging amongst the skyscrapers of New York like King Kong. She giggled, her tears all dried up.
I couldn’t put the scene inside the house out of my head so easily. I kept seeing Kirk’s fists landing on Ma’s face, her stomach, her legs, and the bruises they’d leave behind – or maybe something more serious. She’d be laid up for a few days and then, when she’d recovered enough to leave the house, she’d go round telling anyone who’d listen that she walked into a door or fell downstairs, or had an accident in the yard. It made me furious, the way she covered for him. Furious with myself, too, because there I was, angry with Ma for letting Kirk use her as a punching bag and doing nothing to stop him. Why couldn’t I stand up to him? Why did I let him push us around? In my head, it was easy to fight him, but whenever he threatened me, I ran away and hid, just like I was doing now.
Kirk was right. I was nothing but a dumb kid, and there wasn’t one damn thing I could do about it.