When I was seven, when I was first brought to Geoff and Kristin’s home, I had never been in the care of anyone but my father. People have asked me why I didn’t report him earlier, and to me, that’s such a bizarre question. How do you report someone for doing something you’ve always been taught is right?
My father wasn’t stupid. I know that now. My first experience with school didn’t happen until I was living with Geoff and Kristin—my father had homeschooled me before that. I sometimes wonder if a teacher would have reported something, but I doubt it. My father had this bizarre charisma that made people love him. He was honored and respected as a man of God. I didn’t realize it at the time, but his church was an offshoot of what people consider organized religion. We followed the Bible, we believed in God, but really, we belonged to my father’s church—and at the time, it was all I knew. Everything I lived was by his interpretation. Everyone who didn’t was a sinner—or worse.
I remember sitting in a pew at the front of the church while he gave a sermon about being a father, how discipline was the truest act of love. An older woman had leaned down and whispered in my ear, “You are so blessed.”
I believed her. No matter what my father did to me, he claimed it would make us closer to God. It was my duty to welcome it.
When my father put my skin to that stove burner and broke my arm, I ran from the house screaming. A neighbor saw me and asked what was going on—and my father almost talked himself out of the situation. I was standing there with my arm twisted and bile on my shirt, and my father was talking about how the flu had made me so disoriented that I’d fallen down the stairs. At some point, the neighbor must not have believed him—or maybe I just looked too pathetic. My memories are hazy, and it’s probably some combination of the pain and the hunger I felt at the time, and my mixed terror over whether someone would take action.
Here’s the thing: At the time, I was ashamed of running. I didn’t want to be taken away.
Then I was. I was taken to a hospital, a place I’d never been. I knew nothing of doctors and nurses and immunizations and X-ray machines. I remember needles and people holding me down. At the time, I would have given anything to be returned to the “safety” of my father. I remember screaming for it. I’m sure they sedated me.
The next morning, a social worker left me with Geoff and Kristin, who could not have been kinder and more welcoming. Kristin almost always smells like pies or cookies, and no one is immune to her warmth.
I was, though. At first. I thought I was in hell. My father had taught me black people worked for the devil. I believed him.
As soon as their backs were turned, I ran.
I ended up in Declan’s house, because the back door was open. His mother had been gardening, her back to me. I slipped through the house, found a bedroom, and hid in the closet behind a massive box of Legos.
I was good at hiding.
Declan found me. I remember the burst of sunlight when he opened his closet door. The panicked fear in my chest. The surprise on his face. We were seven.
Declan said, “Hey! You want to play?”
I had never played with another child. I had never had toys.
“I don’t know how,” I whispered.
“It’s easy. I’ll show you.”
And just like that, he started building.
I find Matthew in his new bedroom, sitting on his crisply made bed. Geoff picked up gray sheets and a navy-blue quilt at Target. A new desk with a lamp sits against the wall beside the bed. Everything smells fresh and clean—not that the room smelled bad before. But now it’s all fabric and furniture instead of baby powder and Desitin.
A book sits on the comforter beside him, but Matthew isn’t reading. He stares out the window at the rain.
I stop in his doorway, but I don’t go farther than that. “Hey.”
He doesn’t look at me, but his body takes on a certain stillness.
I am not Declan. I don’t know how to do this.
I tell myself to stop being such a wuss. “Can I come in?”
He says nothing.
I frown and try to keep an edge out of my voice. “If you don’t want me to, just say so.”
He doesn’t say so. I don’t like to push, but I’m going to have to, or we’ll be forever trapped in this silent discomfort.
I go through the doorway, and he moves just a fraction of an inch. It’s small, but it’s a defensive motion.
The only chair in the room is at the desk, which is right beside the bed. I don’t want to push that hard, so instead, I sit on the floor, against the wall. I’m opposite the door. He can walk out of here if he wants.
I say nothing. He says nothing.
There’s no knife between us, but this feels like the other night. A standoff.
The bruises on his face and neck have started to yellow around the edges, and most of the swelling is down. “Did you really start a fight?” I ask.
Nothing. Rain batters the house, punctuating his silence.
“I don’t think you did,” I say.
That gets his attention. It’s barely a flicker, but his eyes shift to me.
“If you were the type of kid to pick a fight, you’d have started one already.” I pause. “Did someone pin you down and do that to you?”
His expression is completely blank, but I can feel him evaluating me.
I shrug. “Those marks on your neck look a lot like fingerprints.”
His hand goes to his throat.
I keep my voice mild. “Why did you let them think you started it? Kristin said you risked being sent to juvie.”
“Juvie would have been better.” His voice is rough and very soft.
My eyebrows go up. “Better than here?”
He shakes his head, the tiniest movement. He speaks like he’s not sure he wants to be talking. “Better than there.”
We lapse into silence again. Thunder cracks hard outside, and he jumps. The storm rolled in so fast, and the afternoon sun is gone. His arms fold against his stomach.
“Do you want me to get out?” I say.
He doesn’t answer.
In a flash, I think of my father’s e-mails, sitting unanswered in my in-box. I wonder if Matthew doesn’t know how to answer me, the way I don’t know how to answer my father.
Sitting here questioning him suddenly seems like the worst kind of cruelty.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll go.”
He doesn’t stop me. I go down the hall to my bedroom and fall onto my bed.
This has been the most exhausting day, and it’s only the middle of the afternoon. My cell phone lights up on my bedside table, and I can tell it’s an e-mail from the color of the little icon.
I don’t even want to look.
I have to look.
It’s just something for school.
When I put the phone back down, I notice Matthew standing just outside my doorway. He’s clinging to the door frame like a shadow.
I act like this isn’t the weirdest thing ever. “What’s up?”
“Are you the type?”
I hesitate. “The type of what?”
“The type to pick a fight.”
“No.”
He thinks about that for a minute. “Okay.”
Then he turns around and slips back down the hallway.