Dad?” I whisper again and again.
He wriggles and shakes, trying to reach the knife. The stain on his shirt grows, spreading vines down his back, droplets slipping off the edge of the stool, splattering on the red concrete.
The chair tumbles behind him. He turns and his fear fills my mouth with bitterness. He tries to speak but instead he shrieks in pain. Or rage. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I want to take it back. Turn back time. Instead, or maybe because, I lurch forward, my fingers wrapping around the handle of the knife. His hands slap at it but can’t reach as I yank the blade free of his body. Blood sprays through the air.
“Oh, shit,” my brother says behind me.
My father calls out to his son, the one who doesn’t embarrass him.
“Help me. Do something . . .”
Drew doesn’t move. I can hear him breathing behind me. My father’s voice rises in panic.
“He did this to me . . . Goddamn it, do something.”
Drew’s laughter is so cold.
“Drew,” my father moans. “Do something. Stop him.”
“You have to finish it now,” Drew says in my ear. “If you don’t, he will.”
“Drew . . .” His word ends in a wet, drowning sound.
Maybe that moment is the first time I truly see my father. He has towered over my life, a suffocating force. But standing before me, cursing me and pleading with my brother, he looks so fragile. I feel so confused. How could I have been so afraid of this man for so long?
“Do it,” my brother says. “Do it.”
“I can’t,” I whisper.