Uniting the Souls (Souls of Chicago #6)(63)
“She swallowed an entire bottle of pills while we were at school and Dad was at work. By the time we got home, my mom was long gone. I’ve always wondered if there was something I could’ve done to try and help her, to stop her before she took her own life,” I whispered sadly.
“You were only ten years old, just a child. There was nothing you could’ve done,” Hudson told me. I looked at him, wanting to believe that, but I wasn’t sure I could.
“Neither of my parents had sisters or brothers and both were estranged from my grandparents who hadn’t approved of them getting married right out of high school. They never really made any friends outside of work so there was no one around to see my father falling apart after Mom died or to help us when he became someone we no longer recognized,” I said bitterly.
“Us?” Hudson asked.
“Me and my brother, Zane,” I answered. I felt a sharp pain in my chest when I spoke my brother’s name out loud for the first time in years. “Zane was a year older than me and I worshiped the ground he walked on. He was funny, played all kinds of sports, and had tons of friends. He was big and strong and everything I wasn’t, but he always let me tag along wherever he went.
“Things started to change right after the funeral. Dad went to bed that afternoon and didn’t come back out of his room for over a week. Zane and I took turns bringing him food and trying to get him to come out of his room, but he refused to eat and he wouldn’t say anything; he just lay there, staring at the ceiling. We were young boys who had just lost our mother, it would’ve been nice to be able to lean on our dad during that time, but we ended up having to take care of him instead and so we leaned on each other.” A cold chill went up my spine as I pictured what happened next.
“A little over a week after we buried our mother, Zane and I were in the kitchen, eating cereal for dinner. We were running out of food and we were talking about how we would need to go to the store if Dad didn’t come out of his room soon. I told Zane that I was hungry for mashed potatoes and he said that he would get the stuff and try to make me some, but he knew they wouldn’t be as good as Mom’s. We didn’t know that Dad had come out and was standing in the hall listening. When he heard Zane say Mom’s name, it must’ve set something off in him because he flew into a rage. Dad came storming into the room and slapped Zane across the face, hard enough to leave a handprint. He told us that we were never to speak our mother’s name again.” Matt squeezed me tighter and Hudson tightened his grip on my hand.
“We couldn’t understand what was happening; Dad had never raised a hand to us before. I’d heard him fighting with Mom several times, but he’d always been a pretty good dad to us. It was as if he’d gone into his room as one person and come out a totally different one,” I explained.
“It sounds like he had a complete mental breakdown. If that were the case then he really wasn’t himself anymore,” Hudson murmured.
“Yeah, we basically lost both of our parents on the same day,” I whispered. “Dad was never the same after that. He started drinking all the time and the more he drank, the meaner he got. We tried to avoid him as much as possible when he was like that, but the smallest things would set him off and eventually we were getting hit nearly every day. Zane was bigger than me and he would always try to protect me, often taking the brunt of our dad’s anger.” I winced at the memory of all the bruises and broken bones my brother had endured so that I wouldn’t have to.
“It went on that way for years, but despite everything going on at home, Zane continued to excel at sports. He pushed me to keep my grades up, telling me that if I did that, that maybe we both would get scholarships and could go to college and get away from Dad. We kept that as our goal and both of us worked hard to reach it. Zane was my best friend, he was the only one who knew the ugly truth of what was happening inside our home. The only thing he didn’t know was that I was gay.”
“You didn’t think he’d understand?” Matt asked gently. I shook my head vigorously.
“It wasn’t that. I knew Zane loved me no matter what and he wouldn’t have cared if his little brother was gay. The problem once again was our father. Like I said, he was mean all the time after Mom died, but especially when he was drunk. He loved to call us names while he beat us, anything he could think of to belittle us and try to break our spirits. His favorite name to call us was faggot and he said it with so much loathing and disgust that when I was fourteen and started to realize I was gay, I knew I would have to keep it hidden or he’d kill me. I didn’t tell Zane for two reasons; I couldn’t risk Dad overhearing me talking about it, and we had so many secrets we were already carrying, I didn’t want to add one more to Zane’s load.”
“Still, it had to be so hard to hide such a huge part of who you were,” Hudson said, sounding sad.
“It wasn’t all that hard,” I told him with a shrug. “I didn’t have a normal life so it wasn’t like I was bringing anyone home or going out on dates. I was required to come home every day straight after school so there were no opportunities for me to meet anyone. Zane was only permitted to continue sports because the athletic director called and begged Dad and, of course, my father agreed because he couldn’t very well let on that he wanted his kids home so he could pound on them.” I had trouble holding back the anger in my tone.