In the darkness, the skin seem not to burn as much.
Tonight it was an extension cord, and I can feel the welts crawling up my legs.
The extension cord isn’t bad; he picked up a stick of 2×4 for my sister, and she kept getting up. I don’t have anything to cry about, not really.
Keep on crying, and I’ll give you something to cry about!
I’m not crying. And in the bunk above me, my sister is not crying either.
The knob jiggles, and the blind eyes of the dark open a long yellow crack. I stiffen, trying to inhale as my breathing judders to a stop inside my throat. I can taste metallic fear in my mouth as I try and feign sleep. Nobody would be fooled by my quick, shallow breaths, by the fine sheen of perspiration on my body, by the stiffness of my limbs. I lie completely immobile, the perfect image of a child, one lying so still she could be dead.
He stands, silhouetted, searching our darkened room for what? Signs of rebellion? Signs of life?
My treacherous bladder suddenly tightens; I have to pee, and I want to squeeze my legs together. Movement would betray my wakefulness, so I don’t. I tighten inner muscles, will my feet not to twitch, my hands not to clench.
He waits.
“Daddy’s sorry.”
The voice is low and guttural, and I feel goosebumps spring up all over.
He waits, and chasms yawn in the dark silence.
I hate it when he speaks in third person, hate it more than anything.
If he’s really sorry, why can’t he say so? Why can’t he use that elusive pronoun?
“Daddy’s” sorry. Like it was some other person who swung that cord, someone else for whom he humbly apologizes. ‘Daddy’s sorry.’ It sing-songs in my ear, and I feel tension drawing me up, singing electrically through the air. If he doesn’t go soon…
He closes the door.
I used to ask my mother why, but she would look away, her glance flitting toward the door, even though I kept my voice low.
“Shhh,” she would soothe me, hand brushing over my mouth, finding my forehead where it would linger, perhaps testing for some kind of fever which compelled me to speak.
“Why does he do it, Mama? He isn’t sorry. If he was sorry, he wouldn’t do it again. If he was sorry–”
“Hush.” Her voice was firm. “Hush. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
On the back porch at Laura’s house, we scattered peanut shells, while the dog ran around the yard, energetically picking up the shells and tossing them into the air. Jack Russell terriers have way too much energy, but Aladdin is entertainment, and entertaining, and Laura’s yard is a refuge from my own, where my father is a shadowy presence in the shed, banging on something while he sulks. He has been laid off for three weeks now.
“I’m home!” I hear someone yell, and feel myself freeze as Laura’s father pokes his head around the sliding glass door. He is still dressed, full policeman’s blues, gold badge shining. He smiles and nods at me as he unbuttons his top button, revealing a white t-shirt collar.
“Hi, girls,” he says, reaching down his collar for something that turns out to be a snub-nosed Beretta, policeman’s issue.
“Hey, Dad,” Laura says disinterestedly, tossing up a handful of peanuts for Aladdin.
“Laura,” her father says, smacking the gun into his hand, cracking it, and dumping the bullets into his hand, “you’re going to clean up after that dog.”
“Da-ad,” Laura sighs. “I know that.”
My stomach plummets. Laura tosses another handful of peanuts, and Aladdin jumps, a particularly pleased expression in his crazed little eyes as he catches the peanut. He turns it over in his mouth and slobbers, then trots over and delivers it to Laura.
“Eew!” she squeals. She grins at me. “Isn’t that gross?”
I am mesmerized Laura’s father. He has stepped back inside, but I can still see him as he unlocks a large black box, then takes out a smaller black box and unlocks it. Into this he deposits the bullets, and locks it back. Into the larger box goes the gun. He unloads the gun in his side holster as well, then disappears further into the house, taking the locked boxes with him.
Aladdin yips, then growls and I turn to see Laura wrestling a wad of peanut shells from between his clenched teeth.
“The salt’s not really good for him,” she confesses, smiling at me. “Mom said he’s the only dog she knows who eats peanuts whole.”
“Our dog used to eat raisins,” I offer shyly. We had a dog, before Daddy gave him away. We have had lots of dogs, but none of them are quite right. Never quite right for my father.
“What are you girls up to?”
I jerk. Laura’s dad, in jeans with his white t-shirt, has caught me off guard again.
“Just teaching Ali a trick,” Laura says. She tosses up another peanut. “See?”
Laura’s dad nods, then smiles my direction.
“Is your friend always this quiet?”
Laura’s father is a policeman.
Clutching the edges of my cardigan, I stand in the doorway, next to the narrow gas heater set into the wall. If you press your face against the metal slats, you can see through to the next room. I don’t need to see, though. I can hear.
“I’m not stupid!”
The sound of a hand striking flesh.
“I’m not stupid!”
Again.
“I’m still not stupid.” A sob in her voice this time.
“Let’s all just calm down.” My mother.
Her father is a policeman.
I hear footsteps, and turn back into my room. In this family, we don’t see. We don’t talk. We don’t tell.
My sister isn’t crying when she climbs up into her bunk.My sister isn’t crying, but I am, even though I have nothing to cry about.
We take off our clothes. We turn off the lights. We hush, and go to bed.
No picture this week but blankness, and the theme is censoring – in all kinds of ways. Read a few different takes on the word from the usual suspects on Ficktion.ning.com