Back to You(25)

Michael laughed softly as he stood from the bed. “He has a nice life up in heaven. But he still watches over you. From all the way up there,” he said, pointing up to the ceiling. “He protects you when I’m not around.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead before he ushered her under the covers and stood, turning on her night-light.
“Did he protect you when you were little too?”
Michael stopped and closed his eyes.
Always, he thought, but instead he said, “Yes, baby girl. Sweet dreams.”
And then he walked out of her room, turning off the light and closing the door, thankful he was able to get out before she could see the look in his eyes.

March 1989
Michael sat on his knees at the dinner table, pushing his green beans around on his plate with the hopes of making it look like he’d eaten some.
“Is it time for birthday cake yet?” he asked, thinking of the triple chocolate cake his mother had baked for him.
“Not until those green be his combination locka, glancing up at himans are gone,” his mother called from the kitchen where she was loading the dishwasher.
“Come on buddy, a couple of bites,” his father said from behind him, rubbing his hand over the back of Michael’s head before he walked around the table and sat down next to Aaron.
“Are you excited for your party this weekend?” his brother asked, and Michael grinned and nodded. It was the first party he’d be having with his friends from school, and his mother had booked Jumpin’ Beans gymnasium. It had been the talk of his class for the past few weeks.
“You should be. You’re a big man now. Five years old is a whole hand.” Aaron held up his hand, and Michael leaned forward to slap him high five. Aaron laughed, and Michael grinned proudly as he ate another one of his green beans. Nothing made him happier than when his brother thought he was cool.
“Okay, so what are you working on?” their father asked as he looked over Aaron’s shoulder to see the homework assignment.
“Science, but I don’t know if I’m doing this right.”
“Well, I’ll do my best, but seventh-grade science might be beyond my scope of memory,” he said with a laugh, turning the notebook on the table so he could get a better look. “Oh, hey wait, I think I remember this stuff. Punting Squares, right?”
Aaron laughed. “Punnett Squares.”
“Same difference,” his dad said, playfully punching him on the shoulder, and Michael forced another green bean into his mouth as he watched them.
“We’re doing eye color,” Aaron said. “I have to figure out the possible offspring of two hybrids and two purebreds.”
“Yeah, I remember this,” his father said with a nod. “The dominant gene is represented by a capital letter, and the recessive is lowercase, right?”
“I think,” Aaron said, squinting at his notebook.
“Here,” his father said. “Let’s do the purebred. We’ll use two blue-eyed people. So put two lowercase b’s there, and two more over there,” he added, pointing to the square on Aaron’s page. “Right. Now cross them, and see what you get.”
“Are you done with those green beans yet?” Michael’s mother called from the kitchen.
“Almost,” Michael lied, looking down as he pushed a few more around his plate.
“There, you did it,” his dad said.
“Yeah, but that can’t be right.”
“Why not?”
“‘Cause it says that two blue-eyed people can’t have a brown-eyed baby.”
“Right,” his father said.
“But you and Mom have blue eyes, and look at Michael.”
The sudden silence was what Michael remembered the most. It was so abrupt that he looked up from his plate, because to him it seemed like everyone in the room suddenly disappeared.
And then he saw his brother’s face, and he was suddenly afraid without understanding why. It was the same face Aaron wore when he’d accidentally ridden his bike too close to their mother’s new car in the driveway and scratched the side: a pathetic mixture of fear and guilt.
Michael only remembered bits and pieces after that, partly because he’d blocked it out, and partly because he didn’t understand how the p, and he smiled his trademark grin., leieces fit together.
He remembered Aaron dragging him upstairs when the yelling started. The voices were so loud and strained that he didn’t even recognize them as his parents’. He remembered hearing words he knew were bad even though he didn’t know what some of them meant. And he remembered the shrill sound of his mother crying.
But above all, he remembered hearing his name over and over, interspersed with sorry and please. His mother kept saying, “He meant nothing,” and Michael wondered if she was talking about him.