I remember the first time our father beat Jeffrey. We had been asleep in Jeffrey's bed because I was afraid to sleep by myself that night. We were only five years old. I woke up to our father yelling at Jeffrey and pulling him out of bed, and by the look on Jeffrey’s face, he had no idea why he was in trouble. My father told Jeffrey to pull his pajamas down and bend over one of the big chairs and that what he was about to do would stop his soldier from standing at attention and keep him from playing with it. I remembered that part because all I could think of was that I hadn’t seen Jeffrey bring any toys into the bed with him.

My father looked at me before he started beating Jeffrey and he told me that he wanted me to watch so that I would learn the lesson too, and that if I looked away or even blinked that I would get what Jeffrey got, only worse. He did come after me more than once throughout my childhood, but for some reason it was Jeffrey that took the majority of the abuse. I would watch in horror as my father beat Jeffrey until he was screaming, then he would walk out of the room and leave him there on the chair. After he was gone I would run up to Jeffrey and put my arms around him until we both stopped crying, then we would get back into bed and lay there, staring at the door for the rest of the night. We were both terrified that he was going to come back in and beat one of us again.

Throughout all that time, through all of the years of the beatings and the torture and the things he did to Jeffrey that I was forced to watch, the most horrifying thing of all was seeing him standing in the doorway to one of our rooms, because we never knew what was coming. But we knew it was going to be bad.

That feeling came rushing back to me when I saw Jeffrey standing in the doorway of the library that Abby and I had just snuck through. We were approaching the staircase that led to the third floor when the door in front of us flew open and there he was, smiling at us just like our father used to.

I never understood why our father smiled when he was beating and torturing Jeffrey. In the beginning, it made me think that maybe what was going on wasn’t so bad, that we deserved what we were getting, even though I knew by the way my stomach felt that it was all very, very wrong. Then, I thought for a while that maybe he was smiling because he believed what he was doing was right, but eventually, sometime around when Jeffrey and I were ten, I knew that our father was just completely insane.

That’s what I’d wondered about Jeffrey these last few weeks, and it scared the hell out of me. I had that same feeling in my stomach as I had when I watched my father beat him, and it was like I was experiencing it all over again. It’s this house, and the memories and the guilt of never having done anything to stop it before. Maybe, as much as we want them to, things just don’t really ever change.

Jeffrey came towards us and I pushed Abby behind me. I would die before I let him get his hands on her again.

“Oh come on, Jacob, you’re not actually going to do something, are you? You’ve never done a goddamned courageous thing in your life, with your limp dick and your fucking tears,” Jeffrey said with a smirk.

“If I were you I’d just dive over that railing there, Abby. This hotshot isn’t going to save you. All he’s capable of doing is watching. And if you’re lucky he’ll get a hard-on after you hit the floor and break your neck.”

Then everything became a blur, with Jeffrey ranting like a lunatic and threatening both of us as we tried to reason with him. But the more I heard, the angrier I got until I just ran at Jeffrey with my hands aimed at his eyes. I wanted to claw them out and shove them down his throat so that I never had to see them or hear his voice again. For years I had to listen to him insult me and berate me and tell me that I owed him for everything he went through, all the beatings and torture he took from our father. There never seemed to be anything I could do or say, no amount of anything I could give of myself to him that would make up for what was taken away by our father.

I lunged at him, but before I got a grip Jeffrey had already moved toward me and tackled me, knocking me onto my back. Then he was on top of me, smiling that insidious, soulless smile of our father’s with his hands wrapped around my throat.

“I’m going to kill you now, Jake. You’re going to be sorry you didn’t finish what you started back there.”

“Jeffrey…please don’t do this…I love you…” I whispered, gasping for the air that wasn’t coming through my windpipe anymore.

Jeffrey's hands tightened around my throat and his eyes went completely dead. I had known this day was coming, even though I was never sure if he actually had it in him to kill a second time. But by the look in his eyes, he wasn’t even the same kid he was 20 years ago and it looked like I was next.

My vision of Jeffrey's face hovering over mine was fading as I started to lose consciousness, but just before I blacked out the pressure around my neck was released. I turned on my side and coughed, pulling in as much air as I could, and when I opened my eyes again I watched in shock as Jeffrey fell backwards down the staircase.