Before he could continue, there was a knock at the door. Tom poked his head around and right behind him stood my father. He must have come straight from teaching his class.
“Hey, Dad. Come in, you guys, but please don’t turn on the lights,” I said quietly, not wanting to break the peace of the moment. I knew Sebastian was on the verge of unloading some pretty heavy stuff, and I hoped that the presence of these two men who meant so much to me wouldn’t stop him. I hoped they would soon come to mean a lot to Sebastian, too. They did leave the door open halfway so they could see where they were going, and the added light dimmed the glow of the stars hanging from the television, but Sebastian seemed okay with it. Dad and Tom dragged the other two chairs in the room around to sit close to us and I returned to sit on the side of the bed. Once I was settled, Sebastian reached for my hand again.
He told us everything he remembered from all those years ago, which wasn’t much. After all, he was only five when his world had been turned upside down. He was playing quietly in his room one afternoon when his mother came in, a gray metal box with a black handle held in one arm, and told him to grab his coat, that they had an errand to run before his dad got home for dinner. He followed her out the door, but instead of going down the main stairway to the first floor, she hurried him along the balcony that ran the length of the apartments to the back stairs at the far end of the row. Just as they reached them, he heard his dad’s voice call out for them to stop.
“My mom nudged me ahead of her, told me to hold onto the rail tightly and go down ahead of her. ‘Eyes on the stairs,’ she always told me.” Sebastian shook his head a little disbelievingly. “I can hear her voice in my head again after all these years of—of nothing, and it’s so vivid. Things she said, phrases she used. It’s crazy.”
Little Sebastian obediently kept his eyes on the concrete stairs as he descended, believing her to be right behind him. He heard the tussle above him, but he still had a few more stairs to go before he could take his eyes off them. When he reached the landing at the bottom, he looked up to see his parents wrestling for possession of the box, his mother clinging to it for dear life as his father began to slap her, then punch her, until finally he wrenched the box from her grip, shoving her away from him hard.
“It was like slow motion, watching her fall, even back then. For a few moments, I thought she’d jumped, that she might be able to fly, that she’d swoop down and grab me, then carry us away together on her magic wings. I can still see it, like it just happened yesterday.” He shuddered visibly, even in the dim light, and I heard my dad grunt low in his throat. “She hit the stairs and it was like she just crumpled, a rag doll tumbling the rest of the way until she collapsed in a heap at my feet. It wasn’t real to me. It didn’t make sense to my five-year-old mind.”
He took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders as though preparing for one last battle, and then continued.
“Then my dad appeared at the top of the stairs, the metal box clutched under his arm. The same one the police found on the coffee table. The one I put that gun in, Mr. Ransome.” Somehow, Sebastian had gone from telling me his story to telling it to my father. I was glad to hand over the weight of that burden to someone I knew had much stronger shoulders than mine. “Like Mom’s voice, I remember it so clearly now. The same gray. The shiny little lock. That black handle. The box they fought over. He charged down the stairs that day, grabbed me by the shoulders, and roared in my face, ‘Look what you did!’ I just started crying. He let go of me, and I dropped to the ground beside my broken mother and cried, unable to figure out what I’d done that had caused such a terrible thing.”
Sebastian still couldn’t remember anything else that happened that day or in the days that immediately followed, and I wondered if he ever would. He ran a hand through his hair, wincing as his fingers brushed against bruises on his scalp. “The next thing I can remember is sitting on a bus with my dad, and playing the invisible game with him. He used to tell me we needed to pretend like we were invisible, because we didn’t want anyone to see us.” He let out a long, shuddering breath then. “And that’s been my life ever since. Trying to be invisible. To the world. To the police. To my old man. Two outta three ain’t bad odds, is it?” He chuckled dryly, and then cleared his throat.
I handed him a glass of water from the table by his bed and he took a long swallow.
“You know, from the time I was old enough to know he wasn’t such a good guy, I swore I’d never be like him. I didn’t talk like him, I refused to be his drinking buddy, I wasn’t interested in the kind of jobs he said he had for me. But I couldn’t get away from him. I’ve had my trunk packed to leave for more than two years now; been carrying around a three-day supply of necessities in my backpack just in case I had to make a run for it without my car. But every time I’d try, he’d drag me back down with him, reminding me of what a monster I was. He said I’d stolen his happiness when I killed my mom. He hit me and I took it without fighting back, because I deserved it. He took my money and I let him, because I owed him.”
He went quiet for several moments, but his fingers worked my hand like a stress ball, squeezing and rubbing, and I knew he was sorting things out. Dad and Tom stayed quiet, waiting.
“I came home from work a little early on Sunday and surprised him going through the few things I had in my room and something inside me just tripped. I started yelling at him and he came at me with fists flying. For the first time, I hit him back. Knocked him out cold. Scared the crap out of me, but I knew I didn’t want to be there when he came to, so I just cleaned up the best I could and came to practice.” He took a deep breath and said quietly, “Slept in my car that night. Too chicken to go home and face the music.”
I glanced over at Dad, wondering what he was thinking, knowing he’d sent Sebastian out the door to such misery. I knew it wasn’t Dad’s fault—Sebastian had refused to stay—but I knew him well enough to know he’d feel terrible anyway.
“I finally worked up the courage to go home after work on Monday, hoping to get my things together enough so when I came up with a solid plan, I’d be ready. When I walked in the apartment, there was that box, sitting on the coffee table, opened up so I could see the contents of it. His cache of weapons, including that billy club. And I knew. I knew it was my old man who’d attacked the guy in the lot. I knew he was responsible for the other muggings in the last year, too. And I knew he was after Foster. I recognized that box like I’d seen it tucked under Mom’s arm yesterday. She must have discovered his stash and intended to turn him in. I remembered everything. After all these years, I’d thought—” He broke off, sucked in air like a drowning man, and what came back out was a terrible keening wail that turned my insides to broken glass. “It wasn’t me. I wasn’t the monster. I’m not… the monster,” he gasped, his words so choked I could barely understand them. “And I’m so tired of being invisible.”
My dad stood suddenly, his movement shoving his chair back a few inches. He took two halting steps toward us and I felt Sebastian tense, his body going rigid. My dad wouldn’t hurt him, but even though I knew that, it was clear Sebastian didn’t. Dad slowly reached out both hands, placed them gently on either side of Sebastian’s battered face, and locked gazes with him. “You are not invisible, son. I see you. I see you. You are not a monster. You are not a killer. You are not unworthy. You are not alone.” He spoke the last words slowly, firmly.
I’m here, my mind echoed. I see you, too.
Tom draped an arm around my shoulders, not in a show of affection, but in a show of unity. I could almost feel his thoughts course through me toward Sebastian. We’re here. You are not alone. We see you.