Split (2 page)

chapter 3

t
he next morning,
I’m lying on Christian’s couch in the limbo state between sleep and caffeinated. I’m not dreaming, exactly. I’m remembering. Exactly.

I’m eight years old and wearing a slippery yellow soccer jersey, standing under a low gray sky, looking at the two orange cones that demarcate the goal. We are losing 1–0 to the brown-jerseyed Bears. Coach Polansky has forced me into the goalie box. My dad is standing behind me, talking to me.

“See the whole field,” he says. “Now he’ll cross it to Jimmy. Watch out for Jimmy.”

And Jimmy slams one past me. My dad chest-traps the ball down to his feet and kicks it off to the ref. Jimmy’s second shot bounces off my hands but goes through. Third shot I miss entirely, guessing the wrong side. By the end of the game, I hate my coach, detest soccer, and wish a plague of prissy girls on Jimmy Tuttle. I won’t come next week; I’ll fake the flu, malaria—something.

The game ends, and my dad drives me to Petersen’s for a banana split. When we’re there and my tongue is burning from the too-cold ice cream, he says, “Wow, kiddo. You’ve got a real future in soccer.” No sarcasm. He licks his Rocky Road. “You saw it all coming.”

I stare at my pink and brown soup, pocked with maraschino cherries. “Then how did I lose?”

“Sometimes you’re outmatched. You got beat, sure, but by the best player on the best team in the league. Just you wait. Jimmy’ll outfox everyone this year. You’ll look like a hero compared to other goalies he’ll face.”

A couple of months later, Jimmy Tuttle took his team to a 5–0 win in the championship match. When they were giving out those cheap gold-painted medals for participating, I even clapped for him.

Strange that my father should be the one to teach me about good sportsmanship. The other night, was he outmatched? I wonder what my dad’s face looks like today.

I roll over on my side, close my eyes, and drop into a different memory.

I’m pulling into the driveway at home. The wheels bump on the cement, and the soccer ball on the passenger seat plunks into the footwell. I kill my headlights, taking the curve around the side of my house blind, and stop at the garage door.

The blue window shades are open. No trouble tonight?

Through the kitchen window at the back of my house, I see my mother from her waist up, floating. She cleans the counter, scrubbing out a spot with such diligence that I know she took a hard one. She tosses the rag into the sink, stops, goes to it, and hangs it properly. She turns her back to me, and the freezer door swings open. Out comes the reusable ice pack, and travels down, below my line of sight. I can’t see what she is icing.

She picks up her cup of chamomile tea from the counter—her home cure for insomnia. Even though she has disappeared from view, I know she’s tipping our honey-filled bear upside down and counting out six seconds’ worth. I grab my camera bag, slide out of the car, and edge the door closed. I’d rather get in without a fuss.

I walk the brick path through the backyard. The scent of the Mock Orange blooms in the air. As I push past its cloying twigs, the bush douses me in petals. Through the window, I see the kitchen. Empty.

My mother has cleaned it perfectly, and the countertop feels smooth and slick under my fingers. The kitchen smells of banana bread. I open the breadbox and see the loaf, wrapped in blue Saran Wrap. Putting my bag down, I pull out the bread and cut off a thick slice. I’m a few bites into it when I notice a glass jar filled with Q-tips standing next to the sink. It stops me cold. My trachea clenches so tight it hurts.

He hits her, she cleans. He shoves her down and stomps on her, bootmarks imprinted in the small of her back, she scrubs the floors. He rapes her, she gets out the Q-tips to bleach the grout.

I swipe the glass jar across the counter and watch it shatter. All the white fuzzy barbells spill onto the floor. My father’s tread is coming down the stairs.
Yes, come to me, asshole. I’ve got something for you
. The lights flash on, and I close my eyes, seeing purple inside my lids.

“What the hell, Jace?”

“What the hell, dad?” I say it with a little
d
.

“Don’t backtalk, now. I’ve had a day.”

“And Mom? Did she have a day?” I gesture to the Q-tips and glass shards.

My stomach is starting to flutter because I know what I want to do, and I have stage fright. Fist into his face. Another in his gut. After all, I’ve had a day. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Hit something, hit someone. The moment our fists make contact, we feel better, right, Dad? Let it out. Punish her so she won’t do it again. Right, Dad? Isn’t that the way?

I could do it. I’m close enough. Right hook. Let
him
explain away a shiner. Like I’ve had to.
Soccer
, I’ve said,
Fight
, I’ve said,
Hockey, basketball, croquet
.

If I throw this punch, I’m out. He won’t tolerate me for one second in his house, and he won’t chase after me, hunt me, like he did when Christian ran. It will be over, and all I have to do is give in.

I curl my fingers into a fist and grip hard. I pull back and slam my fist into his eye.

And it
is
satisfying. A roller-coaster rush. God help me.

Even better, though, is the look of surprise on his face: his thin lips rounded into an O for a second before it tightens into an uncompromising line. And I know he never thought any of us would fight back.

He grabs my wrist, throws his first punch right into my lip, launching me against the fridge. My head strikes the stainless steel door. I’m seeing black, nothing else, when I hear the shade being pulled down. He will kill me now, I’m sure of it. He’ll get the hammer from the garage or just wrap his hands around my neck.

I grasp at consciousness, trying to force my eyes to focus. Everything is a blur, but I duck fast enough, and his fist goes slamming into the chrome of the fridge. He cries out, and I see my advantage. I grab his arm and get it behind his back. My knee, my fist into his kidneys. Yes, fuck him. I want my mom to come over and take a shot too, but she stands there with her hands over her mouth. He’s groaning, but I’m greedy; contact and contact and contact.

I don’t see his shot coming. I don’t even understand how; I’m just reeling backward, my jaw throbbing. When I fall against the stove, my head snaps back and I see grease stains no one has ever thought to clean on the underside of the hood. He’s on me, and I’m taking a punch to the face. When I lift my arms to block it, I get another in the gut.
I’m getting beat, man. Do something, do anything
. His fingers dig into my shoulders, and he whips me forward. Which is when my forehead slams into the corner of the kitchen island, and I go down.

When I wake up, I’m lying on my back, looking at my parents’ legs. They are sitting at the table. My father’s brown pajamas with the frayed cuff, and my mother’s calves poking out from under her nightgown. Her feet are bare, her ankles crossed.

My mom is pleading, please let him stay, he’s your son, flesh and blood. Whatever. I know I’m out; I’ve done the unthinkable—I fought back. Next time, I might win.

I put my hand to my head and feel the stick of blood. I try not to groan, but the sound escapes.

“I’ll go,” I say. My voice is clear.

He grabs my elbow and hauls me to my feet. The ceiling lights slide down the walls and blur on the table. Where is the floor? I grab the counter and try to let my stomach catch up. I blink. He shoves something into my hands—my camera bag.

“Walter, no. He can barely stand.”

He grabs my arm again and pulls me toward the front door, through the dining room—my last look at our glass table; through the living room—last look at the big couch that I liked to nap on; through the foyer, where I yank away from him so I can walk out under my own power.

“I need my keys,” I say.

“Get out.”

“Keys, Dad. Keys.”

When he starts to reach for me again, I step over the threshold on my own. The September air immediately makes my skin break out in goose bumps.

“Mom! Need my keys!” I yell around him before he slams the door.

Forehead cuts are gushers. The blood, which flowed down the side of my head into my hair when I was on the floor, has rerouted its course, and I have to brush it off my eyebrow. I walk around the side of the house to my car.

The car door is locked.

I cross my arms, rub them, and stand, stumped, until I remember the extra set of keys in my camera bag. My mom insisted on it. And that almost undoes me, that little gesture. I want to cradle my head in my hands and sit down and bawl, but my dad has already gotten enough out of me. I dig my keys out and start the car.

The blue dashboard lights glow contentedly, as if nothing has changed, as if tomorrow I would wake up here, go back to my school, see Lauren, and shoot soccer balls with Edward. A door slams, and my mother hurries to the car. She stands on the passenger side in the circle of light under the streetlamp. I can’t see a mark on her from earlier tonight. My dad’s that good.

I roll down the passenger window. She leans in and hands me an envelope and my keys.

I put my keys on the seat and find a stack of bills—ones and fives—in the envelope.

“Did he give you this?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I keep some hidden in a tampons box in our bathroom.”

I nod. All this time, she’s been squirreling away change, small bills that would go unmissed; she has learned from her mistake, from the last time we tried to leave and she made that large withdrawal that brought him home before we got out.

“Go. He will help you.”

For a second, I think that she’s referring to the Almighty, but her eyes are fixed on the envelope. I push it toward the light and see an address, but no name. I look at her, confused.

“Christian,” she whispers.

I stop breathing. “Where did you get this?”

“He sent it to me,” she says, and flushes. “Go to him.”

“Come with me,” I say. “Come on. Get in.”

I reach across the seats and pull the latch so the door opens. She leans against the door, pushing it closed. Her eyes brighten with tears. She blinks them out, and they go shining down her face.

“Go,” she says, “and I’ll come to you.”

I want to ask her when—before he takes her to Orchestra Hall, before they spend a dinner at Russian Tea Time and a weekend at the Drake, or after the next beating, when the cycle starts over again. I know my dad’s fuse is only two months long, at best. So as I’m about to say “within the month,” my dad comes out of the house, his bathrobe tied tight around his hips.

He slams the door, then glances over his shoulder at the light in Professor Coe’s study next door. Paranoid-at-all-hours Prof Coe moves to the window and opens it. Everything slows down and changes: my dad is sauntering, not storming; his grimace upgrades into a casual smile. He bumps my mother out of the way with his hip and leans into the car.

“Come back, and I’ll kill her.” His tone is controlled—taut and calm. Except for his grip on the door, he could have been saying “Drive safely.”

The blood runs out of my face. My breathing shallows, and I glance at my mother. Her eyes are shocked wide. This is my dad at his most dangerous. I’ve only seen him like this one other time, the time she tried to leave him before.

You wouldn’t have the guts to kill her. You wouldn’t last one day without a whipping post. You’re too weak
.

Now, as I lie on Christian’s couch, my brain jolts all the way awake.
Oh God, did I say that?
After a lifetime of tiptoeing on ice, did I just split it wide open and leave her to drown? A statement like that, just one, and he’d take it out on her over and over again, trying to invalidate it.

I bolt upright.

No, no, I didn’t say it. Just thought it
. I twist the blanket Christian must have thrown over me around my hand and pull it tight.
It’s okay
, I repeat in my head until I can function again. My fingers turn red, purple, blue. I unwrap the blanket.

I tilt my chin back to stretch my neck and scan Christian’s apartment as I roll my head: a white ceiling; a desk with paperclips snug in their own place; a computer screen with a restless line drawing fading shapes; the mauve carpet (good taste, these landlords, eh?); compressed wood coffee table that looks light enough to juggle; the “dining room set” comprised of four metal chairs with glitter-speckled white seats, right out of a fifties diner, and a white laminate table with tri-dimpled chrome edging. Crappy place with garage-sale furniture. The couch has sunk at the back and one of the cushions is thicker than the other. This is living.

Seriously, my bedroom at home was probably bigger than this apartment.

Christian is sitting at the dining room table, stranded outside the too-small kitchen. He’s wearing green doctor’s scrubs and watching me. A blue teapot, a nearly empty bowl of cereal, and a mug sit on the table.

He asks if I’m hungry. Do I want tea? It’s oolong.

“Yeah, I’ll try it.” I walk over to the table and reach for his mug.

He looks at my outstretched hand and clutches his tea to him. “I’ll make you a cup.”

My mom says families are no place for boundaries; we share everything: germs, money, blood, and all. Maybe someday, Christian and I will be sitting in front of a World Cup game, and our root beer bottles will get confused, and he won’t care. He’ll just swig and drain it.

“Nah, that’s okay,” I say, sitting down.

“So.” He crosses his legs and takes one more sip of tea. “Where are you headed?”

He’s sitting there, swirling his teacup in midair as if it were brandy, just casually talking—might as well be about the weather.

I take a big breath. “Here. I was headed here.”

The tea stops its merry-go-round, and his eyes widen. My hand clenches into a fist.

“Or,” I say, “maybe I could try the south of France, set up in a nice little villa, and study at the Sorbonne.”

I stand up and kick the chair back into place. I walk out of the room, finding only two options: his bedroom or the bathroom. I opt for the bathroom.