Tortured

  By the time I’d scooted all things of an extremely breakable nature back from Keenan’s seat, the others were in the kitchen and settling into their chairs. Lester sat at the head. No one sat at the other head. Ever. It was an unspoken rule. Though I guessed he’d have something to say about it if someone tried.

  Brunch was a silent affair most of the time, a pattern of events I’d memorized years ago. Lester started by serving himself from the main course before passing it around the table, moving on to the next dish. Crew and I praised Margaret for her culinary skills while Lester usually had something to address, whether it was the roast being too rare or like, last month, my rolls having too much salt.

  More eating in silence except for the scrape of forks on china plates. Keenan bouncing in his seat when he got restless. Crew pulling at his tie as he checked his watch. It was a sequence of events that we followed without orchestrating it beforehand.

  “Someone’s got an awful lot of spinach left on their plate,” Margaret observed, peering across the table at Keenan’s plate.

  I sighed to myself. I’d been trying to sneak tiny bites from his plate when no one was looking, but clearly I hadn’t sneaked enough. Keenan ate more vegetables than most kids, but he was still a five-year-old.

  Crew came back to the here and now from whatever escape he’d found. “Keenan”—he pointed his fork at Keenan’s plate—“finish your spinach.”

  Keenan’s mouth turned down with extra flair. “I don’t like spinach,” he said in just a whiny enough voice that I was already bracing myself before Lester cleared his throat.

  “You see? How many times do I need to tell you, Crew?” Lester pushed back his empty plate, shaking his head. “You’re letting that boy run wild, letting him do what he wants, say what he wants. He needs discipline.”

  The mother hackles in me rose with a serious vengeance. I found my body angling in front of Keenan, like I was shielding him from Lester.

  “All of these hippie parents raising their kids with all of this positive discipline bullshit. They’re raising a generation of spineless pussies.” Lester snorted as he leaned back in his chair. “You mark my word. By the time your boy’s a man, Canada will be able to invade our country and take over with the sissies we’re breeding these days. I’ll welcome them to it too.”

  Heat surged through me. Keenan was getting old enough to be affected by what he heard Lester say, and I didn’t want my son growing up under the impression people could say those kinds of things. I didn’t want my son to grow up as Crew had, under the iron fist of a man raising soldiers instead of sons.

  I was just pushing out of my chair to guide Keenan out of the kitchen, consequences be damned, when Crew set down his silverware, his head lifting toward Lester. “I didn’t like spinach when I was his age either. It’s not a big deal.”

  Lester’s gray brow cocked, a look I was familiar with settling into his face. It was the same one his son gave me when I challenged him on something. “Sure. What kid does? But you ate your spinach. And you sure as hell didn’t whine about it at the dinner table.” Lester’s forearms settled on the table on either side of his plate, his gaze unyielding.

  He wasn’t even looking at me and I found myself wanting to shift in my chair. Lester’s size made him intimidating, but it was his demeanor that made him menacing. I’d been scared of him before marrying his son—in the six years since, I’d become even more so.

  Crew’s eyes were the first to break, his posture following. Clearing his throat, he motioned at Keenan’s plate. “Eat your spinach, Keenan.”

  “But—”

  “Eat it!” Crew threw his napkin on the table.

  Keenan wasn’t as used to Crew’s bursts of anger as I was. He did a better job of masking it around Keenan, and I made it a priority to try to shield Keenan from it. You could see from the look on Keenan’s face how hurt he was by Crew’s outburst. He was trying to conceal it, but his eyes betrayed him. The first tear took a moment to fall, but once it did, the rest followed right after.

  “See? Proving my point.” Lester lifted his arm in Keenan’s direction.

  I angled myself more in front of Keenan, feeling my own burst of anger crawl out from deep within me.

  “You did used to cry like that though, Crew. Whenever you got the lightest little tap or smallest scrape.” Lester chuckled in that dark way of his, grabbing a chicken leg from the serving plate. “You and your son actually do have something in common—who would have guessed it?”

  Crew didn’t need me to defend him and I knew he probably didn’t want me to, but I couldn’t help it. “Crew got attacked by a man he was arresting last month. Finished what was left of his shift before realizing he needed to head to the ER for a cut he got in the midst of it. Twenty stitches.”

  Lester’s attention was on me now, his eyes emitting something that resembled amusement. His gaze cast to the man across the table from me, who was giving me a look of his own. One that was the opposite of thankfulness.

  “You have your wife sticking up for you now?” Lester grunted, tearing into the chicken leg. “Need that kind of confirmation that you’re a man or something?”

  Crew didn’t say anything. In word or expression. He just rose from his seat and left the kitchen. In the midst of that, I managed to scoop most of Keenan’s spinach onto my plate without anyone noticing. Well, Keenan noticed, but the smile that tugged at his mouth as he wiped his eyes told me I wasn’t in danger of him telling on me.

  “Keenan has to use the restroom. We’ll be right back,” I said.

  “A boy doesn’t need his mama to escort him to the bathroom, contrary to the popular opinion of the contemporary times,” Lester announced through a mouthful of chicken.

  I pinched the bridge of Keenan’s nose as I gave him a private wink. “I think he’s getting a bloody nose. I don’t want his nice shirt to get stained.”

  Keenan played along, getting up with me and moving out of the kitchen.

  “Probably brought on from all that crying,” Lester muttered before we were out of earshot.

  Crew was nowhere to be found when we passed through the living room on our way to the bathroom. I supposed he could have been halfway back to our house, though I doubted that. Crew was nothing if not predictable. He showed up on the last Sunday of every month, even the time he’d been sick with the flu. He stayed through dessert and coffee, every time, no matter what his father said to him; or on a few occasions, when his father didn’t say anything to him, as in one single word. Not even hello or good-bye.

  We almost ran into Crew as we were turning into the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” The edges of Crew’s face were still damp. He’d been throwing cold water on his face. It was his preferred coping mechanism when he got overwhelmed and a bottle wasn’t accessible.

  My fingers went back to Keenan’s nose. “I think he’s about to get a nosebleed. I didn’t want it to get on anything.”

  Crew slid by us. “Well, hurry back. Mom will be serving dessert soon.”

  “In a jiff,” I replied as I guided Keenan inside the bathroom before closing the door.

  Once I’d turned the lock over, we both let out a breath. Keenan leaned into the wall like he was as exhausted as I was.

  “How are you holding up?”

  Keenan made a face. “Is it time to go yet?”

  “Almost.” I was counting down the minutes myself. No more than sixty, maybe forty if we were lucky.

  He sighed one of those long, full-body ones. “Why is Grandpa so mean?”

  Leaning into the wall across from Keenan, I drudged up a smile. “Because he’s sad, Keenan. Usually the meanest people are the saddest ones.”

  His eyebrows came together. “But you’re sad.”

  My chest seized, not expecting a talk about Lester to involve myself. “I am?”

  Keenan nodded. “But you’re not mean.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.” I pulled at the tie of my sweater.
r />   “So Grandpa’s mad because he’s sad … but why are you sad?”

  “I’m not sad.”

  “Sometimes you are.”

  “Everyone’s sad sometimes.”

  Keenan gave that a moment’s thought. Then his eyes cut through me, like the five-year-old could see straight into me the way his dad could. “But why are you sad?”

  “I’m sad, sometimes, because when you get older, you have to make hard choices. You have to make decisions when you feel like there’s no good solution.” My head turned toward the bathroom window. Another pane of glass to stare through, another barrier confirming my imprisonment. “That’s what makes me sad.”

  Keenan pushed off the wall and came toward me. His hand took mine as I’d taken his so many times. “But I make you happy.”

  That it was purely a statement, no trace of a question, warmed what had frozen inside me after the reminder of the choices I’d had to make. The ones I wasn’t sure I’d made correctly anymore.

  “You make me very happy.”

  “And Dad? He makes you happy?”

  My free hand lifted to Keenan’s face. “Yes. Your dad makes me happy too.” Moving toward the door, I kept his hand in mine. “Ready?”

  “I guess,” he muttered.

  “The sooner we eat dessert, the sooner we can get out of here. I’ll take you to the park later, okay? We can stay as long as you want.”

  His eyes went round. “As long as I want?”

  “As long as we come home before bedtime.” I ruffled his hair before stepping out into the hallway.

  We both sucked in a breath before turning into the living room. Crew was the only one in it, slowly pacing behind the couch and looking like he was waiting for his sentence to be read.

  “Are they still finishing?” I asked.

  Crew was about to answer when a crash came from the kitchen. From the sounds of it, something had broken. It was a sound I was familiar with from my own household. Crew went back to his pacing while I started for the kitchen.

  “Stay here, please,” I told Keenan when he started to follow me. If there was broken glass, I didn’t want him around it.

  As I was about to enter the kitchen, Lester was leaving it. He barely took a second glance at me as he stretched his arms and continued into the living room. “The damn chicken was dried out again. Every single time.”

  When I made it into the kitchen, I found Margaret on the floor, looking like she was curled over.

  “Margaret?” I rushed toward her. When her arm blew behind her back, her hand raised, I slowed, but I didn’t stop. “What happened?”

  Crouching beside her, I found that she was curled over the plate she’d served the chicken on. It must have been what I’d heard break. She was picking up each piece carefully, placing them into her lap.

  When I moved to help, she threw her hand out to stop mine. “I’ve got it.”

  “Let me help.”

  “I don’t need your help. You need to take your help and direct it toward your family. If I neglected mine the way you neglect yours …” She left the rest unsaid, though it was perfectly explained with the look she gave me. “I warned Crew when he married you. Having no mother figure around growing up. What can a man expect when he marries a girl who didn’t have an example of what a mother should be?”

  I stopped trying to help her with the mess scattered on the floor. She clearly didn’t want it. Leaning in so she was forced to look at me, I noticed the red mark stretching across her cheek. Her eyes weren’t red from crying or shiny from fighting back tears. They looked just as hard and calloused as ever. I doubted she’d always been this way. I guessed there’d once been a gentleness to her in some capacity, a vulnerability, a reason to smile. She hadn’t been born this way; she’d been created this way.

  For one moment, I saw myself reflected back in her dark eyes. I saw myself in the hard, empty woman kneeling beside me, picking up the damaged pieces of a platter. She’d become this because of circumstance. Because she’d chosen to stay with a man who abused her in more ways than one. She became hard because that was the only option in this kind of a life.

  Rising above her, I finally gave her my reply. “Lucky for me, I’ve had your example to watch. And I’ve learned everything I need to know about being a wife and a mother from watching you.”

  After that, I couldn’t get out of the kitchen fast enough. Seeing her like that, getting a glimpse of what my life could look like in thirty years, it was too much harsh reality for one Sunday.

  Crew and Lester were in the living room, settled into chairs set diagonally from one another, while Keenan had gotten back to playing with his action figures, this time hiding behind the couch. He was a smart kid; out of sight, out of mind was the policy to follow in this household.

  “How’s that POW friend of yours?” Lester cracked his knuckles, his big legs stretched out in front of him.

  I wanted to march up to him and hit him right across the face like he’d hit her. I wanted him to see how it felt to be taken by surprise like that—how much it messed with a person’s sense of security. How being hit by a human being who was supposed to love them made a person feel worthless … and hopeless … and less.

  Less of the person they’d been. Less of the person they were meant to be. Less of a person at all.

  “He was my friend. Isn’t anymore.” Crew looked toward the kitchen, probably hoping Margaret would be emerging with dessert so we could get out of here.

  “Of course not.” Lester clucked his tongue. “He made something of himself. That’s a man this country needs. Six years in a damn Iraqi torture camp and they couldn’t break him.” He clapped, his stare unyielding on Crew. “Now that’s a son who makes his father proud. Damn fucking proud.”

  I glanced behind the couch. Keenan was oblivious.

  “Connolly barely knew his dad. Bailed on him as a kid.” Crew shifted on his chair, taking another check of the kitchen.

  “And look at how he turned out. The whole nation knows his name and won’t ever forget it either. Just think what a boy who grew up with an actual father could do if he put his mind to it and applied some discipline in his life.” Lester’s mouth lifted as Crew shifted again. “So what’s that hero of a neighbor been up to? He’s your new neighbor, right? Maybe some of that greatness will rub off.”

  Crew’s hand slid down his thigh, his jaw working beneath the skin. “He keeps to himself. He’s messed up. Probably going to lose it one day.”

  Lester tsked, waving off Crew’s worry. “You should invite him over. Get to be friends again. Take notes.”

  “I’d rather not have a mentally unstable man sitting at the dinner table with my family when he has a sudden flashback.”

  “If that boy’s head was breakable, those fucking terrorists would have cracked it years ago. That boy’s head’s made of steel. Balls of the same stuff.”

  Crew’s knuckles were white. “Whatever you say.”

  “Didn’t you and Hero have a pretty hot and long-running relationship, Camryn?”

  When I didn’t answer, Lester’s gaze shifted toward me. When Crew saw me standing in the living room, it looked like he’d only just realized I was there. He was waiting for my answer too, but not with the same look of anticipation.

  “For a while. A long time ago.”

  Lester cracked another knuckle. “Planning on marrying him, weren’t you?”

  Swallowing, I wandered up behind Crew’s chair and laid my hand on his shoulder. His hand found mine. “But then I married Crew.”

  Lester laughed a sharp note. “Well, honey, if nothing else, you have firsthand experience of what it’s like to go from a hero to a zero.”

  Crew’s shoulders stiffened. Lester never had a kind word to say about his son, but he didn’t usually have so many cruel ones to serve.

  My protective streak rose to the surface. “Crew’s not a zero.”

  That only made Lester laugh again. “Well, he fucking sure ain’t no her
o, is he?” He leaned forward in his chair, waiting for my response.

  Crew’s hand tightened around mine, wringing out whatever fight I had in me to argue this topic any longer. I slid my hand free and stepped away.

  Margaret carried in the dessert and coffee a few minutes later. The pie I’d brought from the freezer section instead of the bakery was precisely sliced and served on the same china plates we ate off every month. Coffee was served black, without even the option of adding milk or sugar. This was a house one expected to drink black coffee in.

  Margaret had just cleared our dishes and we were making our good-byes, heading toward the door, when Lester decided he wasn’t quite done with us yet.

  “Any plans to expand that nest of yours?” he asked, looking at my stomach before his son.

  Crew lifted a shoulder, reaching for the door handle. “We’re trying.”

  “It’s been five years.” Lester gave a crooked grin. “Try harder.”

  This conversation was making me more uncomfortable than the ones before. I reached for the door handle too.

  “I knocked your mom up plenty,” Lester continued, waving at the kitchen dismissively, “but the only one she was able to carry to full term was you.” No hiding how he felt about that.

  Keenan turned in front of me, his eyes bright. “Are you going to have another baby, Mom?”

  Giving an internal sigh, I found a smile. Lester and Margaret had asked us plenty of times about future family plans, but Keenan had either been too little or too preoccupied to notice. “I don’t know.”

  “I want a brother or sister. All of my friends have them.”

  The door couldn’t have opened at a better time. “Say good-bye to your grandparents, Keenan.”

  “Good-bye.” He took my hand as I led him out the door.

  “And what—”

  “Thank you,” he said instantly, waving.

  Crew and his father exchanged their usual formal good-bye while Keenan and I headed down the walkway. We both sucked in a breath, taking in the fresh air as though we’d been deprived of it for days.