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“We’re doing everything in our power to stay healthy,” Luke said. “It’s important to both of us.”
Was that true?
In fact, I had been very muchnotdoing everything in my power to stay healthy up until quite recently, and even with Luke I’d wanted to do risky things, to push the envelope of what was careful.
I drank his piss, for fuck’s sake.
That wasn’t exactly sanitary. Or was it? Hadn’t I learned in one of my Bio classes that pisswasthe most sanitary byproduct of the body?
As I pondered that, my eyes slid toward the wall of photos my mom added to and subtracted from constantly. It covered the stretch that led to the short hallway and the bedrooms. I tilted my head. She’d changed them up again. I took in each difference from the last time I’d visited.
There was one of me as a fifth grader wearing a princess crown and holding a wand.
Another new one that showed me at my most surly—fifteen and still dressing in boy drag to save my skin.
A third new one…
My stomach plummeted.
“That’s good to know,” Mama said softly. “I’m glad to hear it. Keeping safe is all I ask of you both.” She picked up the card, tearing into it. “All right. Let’s see what you’ve brought your moth—”
“Stop,” I said, standing up and taking the card from her hand. My heart roared as I approached the wall of photos. My mouth was dry. I felt like the breakfast I’d eaten that morning was going to come up and spray all over the green shag carpet.
“Is this—Did you…” I grabbed a framed photo from the wall and shook it at her. My voice quavered. “Why? Why would you—?”
Words failed me. The shape and sound of them couldn’t hold the feeling rising in me. Hot and cold, loud and quiet, soft and rough. I was tumbled by it.
“Well, I was thinking…” she said in a small voice. Her blue eyes were wide, and her pale, blonde hair shook lightly with her head. “That was a good day, Mitchell. Remember? All of us had so much fun. Just because there was so much bad, do we have to give up the good? Marlene says her therapist told her to embrace the good parts of the past so she can move past the bad.”
I gritted my teeth. “Fuck Marlene.” If this was her idea, Daniel’s mother could go hang herself.
I couldn’t even look at the picture again, though the image on it was seared into my mind’s eye anyway.
Me, age seven, sitting on my father’s lap. I wore cut-off blue jean shorts and a Captain Kangaroo t-shirt. My hair was so blond it was like a halo of light on my head. Mama, looking so young and beautiful, squatted next to us on the ground. Behind us, a rushing waterfall roared, and before us, on the picnic blanket, was a half-eaten chocolate cake. It’d been a trip to Abrams Falls in the Smoky Mountains for my dad’s birthday. We’d used the timer on his new fancy camera to take the family shot.
The truth was…ithadbeen a good day. One of the best days our little family had ever shared. And I’d loved this picture when I was younger. It was taken before I recognized what I was, and before I started to express that side of myself, before I knew my father was drunk more often than not, and before I had any idea of the way he used his fists to convince Mama to smile or shut the hell up, and before—
Before.
I sucked in a soundless breath.
Luke rose and crossed to me, taking the frame from my hand. If he looked at it, I didn’t see his reaction because my eyes were glued to Mama’s.
“He’s always gonna be your father, Mitchell,” she whispered. “He was my husband, and—”
“Herapedme,” I gritted out, pointing toward the stain. “On that couch. And that? That mark? That’s my fucking blood.”
Mama’s eyes darted to the dark spot, and then she rose too,coming closer to me. “No, it’s not, sugarbaby. It’s just a stain.”
Luke hovered, as if he didn’t know how to protect me—should he keep my mama from touching me? Or let her offer the hug?
I snatched the frame from him again and when Mama reached me, I thrust it into her hands. “Burn it. I never want to see his face again. Ineverwant—I never—” I swallowed a sob. “Never.”
“Sugarbaby, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Please understand. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just wanted to keep a token of the good times. It wasn’t always bad, remember?”
I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyelids, like by blocking out the sight of her, I could block out her words too.
She touched my arm. “He wasn’t always a bad man.”
