* * *
Moran held the door open.“The audio is off, and the camera isn’t recording. This is you and your sister and no one else. Me, your friend, and the lawyer will be right next door. When you’re ready, just wave at the camera, and we’ll come get you.”
“Thank you,” I squeaked and I stepped into the room. The door shut and…
The young woman at the end of the table looked up. I gasped, and put a hand over my mouth.
She was so pretty, and looked so much like our mother, with soft brown curls and clear, green eyes. She really was on the verge of being a grown woman. Her skin was smooth, and cared for. She sat up tall in the chair. Even though I knew she was exhausted, all I saw was my little sister.
“Aaron?” Her voice was soft and scared and surprised.
“Vi…” I took a few steps in and the next thing I knew she was in my arms. I wrapped my own around her in the biggest hug either of us could manage.
“I didn’t think they’d call you. I didn’t even know if they could find you…” she sobbed and hiccoughed and laughed all at the same time.
“They did. They found me. Violet, what happened? Please, tell me. No one is recording this, you can tell me everything and I will not turn against you.”
She sniffled. “I know you won’t. I don’t trust the pro bono lawyer—”
“You have a new one. Courtesy of my boyfriend’s network.”
Looking up, her eyes were filled with tears, but there was hope there. “You have a boyfriend? And you brought me a new lawyer? How? Not the boyfriend part…the lawyer.”
I smirked. “Did you get my last message?”
She burst into tears. “Yes. Fuck, Aaron, Dad heard it. He took my phone and figured out the code and listened to all of your messages. I’ve saved them all. He got into the phone and that…”
“Oh, God, Violet…”
She slapped her hand on my chest. “No, Aaron. He shouldn’t have gone in my phone. You weren’t the only one on there I didn’t want him to hear. My boyfriend is at boot camp, and he would sneak me dirty messages. Dad thought he was gone.”
“What happened?”
She stepped back and dropped into the chair, while I grabbed the other chair and pulled it over in front of her.
“Dad got mad I wasn’t going out with Jimmy. He had apparently told Jimmy I was, and I refused to. Simeon and I are pretty serious about each other, and Dad hates that. Hated…
“So, he took my phone and keys and told me I was going nowhere until I agreed to a date with Jimmy. I just refused and stayed in the house. I did my chores, I cooked, I stayed out of his way.
“He invited Jimmy over to hang out with me. I mean, who does that? But I was polite to him and didn’t make him feel bad. He’s a perfectly nice guy and I think at some point he realized I just wasn’t going to date him. He drove home after dinner, and Dad just lost his shit, screaming and yelling and tell me that I was never going to leave the house, and he’d kill Simeon if he ever came back here. Mom tried to be reasonable, and of course he didn’t listen. Not even close.
“He hit her, hard and knocked her on her ass. And with the worst timing in the world, Simeon called the phone Dad was about to smash. He answered it and told him there was nothing to come back to.
“He got into the voicemail and listened to all the messages. Yours, Simeon’s, even my friend Dana who ran away two months ago. Simeon’s set him off, but when he heard your voice, he turned a shade of red I’d never seen before.
“There was a two by four in the hall and he started wailing on Mom with it. I heard her bones cracking. He was screaming that she encouraged this disobedience, and she encouraged me to keep contact with you. He hit her over and over, yelling that his fag offspring was dead.
“Then, he rounded on me.” She held up her arm and I could see the deep purple bruise on her forearm. “I ran away from him, dodging through the house and then he started chasing me with the gun. I don’t even really remember what happened, we wound up back in the living room, and he pistol whipped me in the back of the head. I tripped and fell over Mom, and she was staring at me. She managed to sit. Dad didn’t like that at all, and he started screaming again. He was screaming at us, me for one thing Mom for another and…
“He was waving the gun around. I don’t remember what he was screaming. I didn’t even really understand why he was so mad. Simeon is a nice guy, good grades, doing well in boot camp. He has ideas of what he wants to do—but Dad lost his shit because I wasn’t interested in dating his friend’s son? It didn’t…make sense. And he was yelling at Mom about her faggot brother and it was her fault that he had to kick you out of the house. How people laughed at him behind his back that his son was a fairy… I was crying, Mom was hysterical, and Dad was just manically waving the gun around.
“Mom stood up and walked toward Dad. She had her hands out, she wanted to calm him down. But he just kept screaming about her brother and I didn’t get it. All of a sudden he just pulled the trigger and shot her in the neck.”
Her lip trembled and she couldn’t get the words out. I pulled her in close, and grabbed her hands. “Breathe, Vi. Breathe.
“Jesus Christ the blood was everywhere!” She flipped her hand over and I could see the drops all up and down her arm. “Everywhere, on everything! On me, on Dad, on Mom’s couches and walls… and the rug…” she gasped and tried to bring herself under control.
“He turned the gun on me. He started screaming that it was my fault. That everything was my fault. That it was my fault he shot her, if I had just listened and not talked to Simeon again. If I had just gone out with Jimmy—and that deteriorated into him screaming about being embarrassed by his own son and how if only he hadn’t married Mom he’d be a better person, and his life would be happier. He didn’t know her brother was gay and—Aaron, I didn’t even know Mom had a brother…”
