Monday Pancakes

TW: domestic abuse

Prompt: Write a story in which a character justifies an argument with “because I said so.”

As I opened my eyes and saw the rays of light beaming through the blinds, I rubbed the crust away. All of the tears from the night before had coagulated into gross goop in the corners near my nose. Pulling the thick comforter away, I noticed the shades of blue and brown smattered across my thighs, felt the pain in my head and neck, and then dissociated back to the hell from just the night before. 

“Put him down!”

“Leave him the fuck alone!”

“He didn’t do anything!”

"Goddammit, David! What the hell is wrong with you!? He is just a kid!"

Mom and Poppy played tug-of-war against him using my tiny frame as the rope. Poppy handed my right leg to my mom, ran up to him, and began beating and scratching his chest - anything to get him to let go of me. 

So he did. 

The top half of my body collapsed onto the hardwood floor and my head bounced back up like a basketball, momentarily knocking me unconscious. I opened my eyes back up to the sound of a loud clap and Poppy’s glasses shattering on the floor just inches from my face. A few moments later, between the Poppy’s cries and my Mom telling the dispatcher our address, the back door slammed shut and rattled the figurines in the old green glass hutch. 

Everything around me was fuzzy and colors shifted as I regained my composure. I was largely too confused and angry to cry at this point. My grandmother, broken glasses in-hand, cried softly as the hand-shaped red spot on her face began to deepen in color. My mom held me and apologized and promised it would never happen again. She instructed me to go and grab some clothes, tell my brother and sister to do the same, and let them know we were going to a friend’s house for a little while. We had to go somewhere - anywhere - that wasn't this place because it wreaked of contempt and pandemonium; a mix of sulphur, sweat, and decomposing woods.

Suddenly, I found myself back in my own bed, crying again, trying to wrap my head around why he would make a rag doll out of my body. We were all upset Kelsey had been run over but why was it my fault? I didn’t even let the dog outside. Out in coal country, Kelsey often trotted around the fields in-between hills and bounced her way up to the pond. But that morning, she trotted for the last time down onto Route 23 and right in front of one of the countless big trucks that carried lumps of carbon across the country. And, for some reason, he blamed me, a 9 year old kid. 

I wiped away the wet sadness and got out of bed to the sound of Mom yelling from down the hallway, telling me to get ready to go grab some breakfast. I put on my usual jeans and a gray t-shirt emblazoned with the words “I don’t lie. I just exaggerate, exaggerate, exaggerate” across the chest. I dragged my feet towards the living room, and stopped when I saw the hardwood floors of the kitchen. Staring blankly at them, Mom yelled from the front porch that the rest of the family was already in the car and that I should get my shoes on and come out to the car when I’m ready. 

I latched the door behind me and started thinking about the Bob Evans pancakes. Of course pancakes would make me feel a little better, right? 

The car door creaked as I hopped into the back seat of the ’98 Oldsmobile and buckled my seatbelt next to my brother and sister who were all smiles that morning. Luckily, they had been spared the day before. They had raced each other on Mario Kart at the direction of Poppy, who had successfully kept them out of the warpath. 

Feigning excitement, I started to ask;

“Are we going to go to Bob E……”

There he was. In the passenger seat. Staring out the window. Same smug, maniacal face he always had with a furrowed brow and the corners of his mouth turned downward, trying to feign guilt though in reality his feigning was only an indictment of his wrong-doing.

The last time I had seen him was when he was being escorted into a Pike County Sheriff’s Office car at gunpoint. I hadn’t even had time to relish in the daydream that maybe this was the last time - that maybe they were going to throw the book at him and I’d only ever have to see him through never-thick-enough glass at a state penitentiary ever again. 

Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My throat closed up and my damn eyes started watering again. Why was he sitting right there? How did he get out of jail so quickly!?

The car remained silent and my mom’s hands rested on the steering wheel before she turned to him.

“Well, don’t you have anything to say?”

He scoffed.

His head turned to the left, never bothering to look directly at me. I never figured out if it was because he felt I didn’t deserve the respect or if it was because he was afraid to look at the aftermath of his havoc. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Good, and what do you say, Matt?”

“What?”

“He apologized so now what do you say?”

“I have nothing to say to him.”

“No, you need to accept his apology. Now say it.”

“But why? He doesn’t even mean it!”

“Because I’m your mother and I said so!”

“Fine, you’re forgiven! Are you both happy? Can we just go please?”

“Great, thank you. Now let’s go get some breakfast.”

The pancakes were way too dry that morning but I don’t think they would have made me any better anyways. Pancakes just don’t fix concussions or abuse, unfortunately.