My father went back to his workshop after it was over. Drew turned his back to me and walked over to the hockey goal across the room. He dragged it back into place, the metal frame scraping along the cold concrete floor. Putting it down, he found the stick he wanted and fished a tennis ball out from under one of his goalie chest protectors. After a couple of touches, he shot it, hard. I could feel the slap of the stick striking the ground. The ball fired across the basement and struck the netting, disappearing in a tangle of red nylon.
He wouldn’t look at me, not at first. He moved to the net, tapping his stick on the floor over and over again. The sound made every bruise on my body ache. But all I could do was stare at the athletic tape around his knuckles. The tiny dark speckles on the banded white strips.
At some point, he stopped. Drew turned and looked at me. He watched me as I lay crumpled on the cold floor. I remember his head tilting, just a little. Then he turned and watched the door to my father’s room. Eventually, he walked over and reached out a hand, helping me up.
“It’s okay, bro,” he whispered with a glance back toward the workshop. “Sorry.”
I took his hand, the same hand that had bruised my face and body as my father watched. Everything hurt. My head. My stomach. My arms and legs. Worse than all of that, though, was when I looked up at my brother. I saw the same thin-lipped smile that had been on my father’s face as he stood over me.
When I got to my feet, I let go of his hand. Drew’s eyes narrowed.
“What? You think I wanted to do that? Stop getting him mad. Do what I do. Figure him out. Give him what he wants. And make him think it’s his idea. Stop frowning all the time, too. I can’t protect you forever.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
His laugh cut me off. “It doesn’t matter. Go upstairs before he comes back out.”
On shaking legs, I moved to the stairs. I heard his stick striking the concrete—crack, crack, crack. Each time, I flinched, but he must not have seen that. And I didn’t want him to, so I hurried up the steps.
It had gotten dark and the light was off in the kitchen. I stood at the top of the stairs, catching my breath. Carefully, I touched the side of my face. The skin felt flaming hot and a dull throb ran from my cheek up to my temple.
I don’t know how long I stood there. I could still hear Drew downstairs, but the sound softened by the distance took on a different feel. Instead of vibrating through my head, I found it comforting, safe. As long as I heard it, it meant I knew where he was. That he wasn’t coming upstairs. I also figured that it meant my father was still in his workshop. Still putting together that damn model.
At the same time, I felt that feeling again. Exposed, I guess, but that’s not the word I would have used then. Instead, I built a story around it, like a wall rising inside me, protecting me. I was in a jungle, alone and injured. Something big and terrible was hunting me. If I made a sound, it would find me and devour me piece by piece while I screamed.
I moved through the kitchen, the balls of my bare feet coming down softly on the tile floor. When the floorboard creaked, I froze, listening until I heard the sound of my brother downstairs. Once I did, I took one careful step after another, creeping along the wall and up the carpeted steps to the second floor.
I must have meant to go to my room. I even remember thinking about building a tent behind my bed. I would get my pocketknife from where I hid it under the bottom drawer of my dresser. Maybe a flashlight. With my back against the wall, I could be ready for anything that came for me.
Instead, I passed by my bedroom. And Drew’s. My steps grew even more silent and slow. I approached the door at the end of the hallway like it was the tomb of some long-dead pharaoh, expecting every move to set off a series of horrible and deadly traps.
When my hand touched the doorknob, I thought about turning back. My room was safer. Most likely, no one would look for me. I could be alone. If I went inside, and my father found me there, it would mean trouble. Probably worse than before. But my fingers wrapped around the brass and turned. Though my brain told me to stop, to go back, I opened the door and slipped quietly into my mother’s bedroom.
Her shades were down. The darkness seemed impossible. Hot air blew against my feet from the vent near the door. The carpet under my toes felt unbelievably soft and warm, like a hug. I took a step and stopped, listening. Just over the sound of the forced air, I heard her breathing, a whisper of hypnotizing life. It drew me forward. I inched closer and closer to the bed.
Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the dark. I saw the gentle rise and fall of the fat white duvet. The shadowed peaks of my mother’s hair spread across the light pillow like licking black flames. I wanted to touch it, to know it was real, but I didn’t. But I did climb up onto the raised mattress, curling my legs up and facing my sleeping mother. I held my breath, afraid to wake her, until I just couldn’t anymore. When I finally took in air, that floral scent was there, but something else, too. A sour smell tickled my nose, like a faint wisp of dead flowers left in the rain. I believe it was the first time I noticed it. Maybe not. Maybe it was always there. But I don’t think so. Instead, that night, when it filled my nose, I felt so frightened. Somehow the smell seemed wrong, almost dangerous.
I swallowed my fear, refusing to move. Maybe I just didn’t want to be alone. So I lay in bed beside her, listening to my mother’s breathing, taking in the closeness like a drug. I let it take me away from everything else. I floated above it all, away from them. So much so that when she spoke, it frightened me.
“Liam?”
I held my breath again. I was so afraid that she would wake up and realize I shouldn’t be there. She would kick me out.
“Is that you, baby?” she asked, her voice low and strange.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
She paused. When she spoke, I knew I had heard her words before, but this time, it was different. They seemed to come from someone else’s voice. Like some horrible beast eating my mother from the inside out.
“They’re just doing what they need to do to survive,” she slurred. “That doesn’t make them bad.”