Left Drowning(100)

It’s just pain.

All he has to do is breathe through it.

Chris is going to get them all out. He and his brothers and sister are unfairly alone in this, so Chris will protect them until they all leave for college. No one would believe them about what goes on in this house because his father is so f*cking idolized around here. The hugely successful artist who bravely soldiered on after his wife’s death and raised four children on his own? The man who is routinely hailed for his dedication to his volunteer work? Who makes large donations to his church? He couldn’t possibly be such a f*cking crazy *.

A number of years ago when he was in middle school, Chris made an attempt to get help after one particularly awful night. The night that his father seated them all at the dining room table and demanded that Chris lay his hand flat on the table. His father spent the next hour alternately holding a heavy rubber mallet two feet above Chris’s hand and then pacing the room, laughing and talking about building strength of character, teaching them to feel no fear. He talked about the respect that he deserved after all of his success. Chris only heard pieces of it, never really made sense of the words, because the sound of fear that ran through his own head masked whatever crazy stuff his father was preaching. Chris tried hard not to flinch when his father pretended that he was going to slam the mallet down on his hand. He didn’t want to scare Estelle, Eric, and Sabin more than they already were. He wanted to be strong for them, and he tried to reason that his father often enjoyed delivering hours of terrifying threats that usually didn’t pan out. For him, instilling fear was sometimes enough.

Still, Chris’s determination to hold still faltered. He couldn’t help it. After one of the fake swings when his father landed the mallet two inches from his hand and Chris automatically pulled away, Estelle and Eric both screamed and ran from the table. They were caught on the second floor of the house, where their father spent twenty minutes tying the twins to the banister rungs where they had an eagle-eye view of the table. Chris can still see the wire being formed into intricate twists and knots, like samples of their father’s sculpture, but perversely showcased around their wrists and their necks. Leaving was not an option and shutting their eyes was not allowed. Sabin and Chris never broke eye contact while Sabin’s hands were bound behind him, securing him to his chair. Sabin’s expression was worse than the twins’ tears, Chris thought. The look of heartbreaking sympathy for how much more Chris endured cut the deepest. Sabin didn’t get half of what Chris did, mostly because Chris needed him to keep the twins away from harm, and it was usually easy enough to get his father to direct all of his attention to Chris. He was the oldest; he could take it better. Keeping their father away from Eric and Estelle was often doable. Chris just had to bait him by saying something along the lines of, “You’re going to work the little kids over? What? You can’t deal with me? I’m the one you want.” He couldn’t always protect Sabin, but he tried because Sabe was more fragile than he was.

So that night wore on.

The threat of the mallet continued until Chris finally yelled, “Just do it!” knowing what this would earn him, but also knowing that his shout would end this episode. It would be the grand finale. It was the type of climax their father fed off, and delivering it would at least make the torture stop. “Do it!” Chris screamed again.

And his father did, pounding the mallet onto Chris’s hand, then tossing it aside and retreating to his expansive studio on the opposite side of the house. The pain was shocking, but as soon as his father was gone, Chris got up from the table. It took a while to find something to cut the wire and free the others, and he assured them repeatedly that he was okay. Yes, his knuckle was probably broken, but he would be fine. Sabin wrapped up his hand tightly with a bandage and homemade splint and got him two bags of ice to try to cut through the pain and swelling.

The next Sunday, Chris took Estelle to church as he always did. They got there early so Chris could talk to the priest. He showed the man his hand, tried to explain. It backfired. At that day’s sermon, the priest lectured the congregation on lying and sinning in general, and made a point to say that lying—especially about one’s father—was most certainly a sin. Chris understood what the priest was saying: After everything their father had done to support the church financially, this was how his children were repaying him? With lies because they were ungrateful troublemakers? Chris realized that nobody was going to save them. There were rarely physical marks to show, anyway, this broken hand being one of the exceptions. In this small town, there were few ways, if any, to combat their father’s public image.

After the church episode, Chris and Sabin talked it over and agreed: they shouldn’t try for help. Besides, even if help came, it would mean they would be split up. Who would take four children? And older children at that? No one. That’s who.

And they refused to be separated. That would be worse than this life. Together they could stand, divided they would fall.

Now that Chris is well past middle school, and fully grown, he has more self-control than he did during that episode with the mallet years ago. That self-control is what allows him to absorb his father’s blow without comment when a second hard hit lands on the side of his head. It’s not as blinding as the first. The repeated direct physical hits are unusual. And scary. Chris recovers quickly and continues moving the concrete and stone blocks from one side of the studio to the other. The underside of his hands is red and raw, and his legs and back hurt, but he is going to be fine. The lashes on the back of his legs sting something awful, but that’s what happens when you stumble, crack the corner of a stone block that could have been used as part of a multimedia art piece, and then get lashed with a piece of plastic cord. Who knew plastic could hurt so f*cking much? It’s like that rubber mallet. It was just rubber, right? But his middle knuckle still shows the effects.