skeletons in closets

(Trigger Warnings: substance abuse/alcohol mentions, abuse/domestic violence)

after

None of us liked Ted. My little brother Bip used to say he looked more like a weasel than a man. I never agreed out loud, but I had to inwardly. His eyes were like a rat’s, beady and black and close together. It made his nose look too big and his ears too small.

Not even Savie liked Ted. And she was the one dating him.

“We need the money, he has the money.” That’s what she would say. At the time, ten-year-old me had no idea what my big sister was having to do for said money. I was too young to understand any of it. Especially when she said things like, “It’s not his fault, it’s mine.” and, “Don’t tell anyone about these bruises, Cady. You never saw them, you understand?” I didn’t understand.

I do now.

june, before

Summertime had never been a pleasant few months for me. When I thought about it, all I pictured was sticky sweat, melting ice cream that stained Savie’s pleated skirts, and my parents leaving. That I remember most of all, even though the memory was fuzzy. But I remember Savie explaining it to me. How Bip was a newborn, and I was only six. How Savie was only two days shy of eighteen. How she was grateful her birthday was so close because that was the reason she didn’t lose us to foster care.

Christmas was what I loved. It reminded me of candy canes and snowball fights and vanilla perfume, Savie’s vanilla perfume. She always made Christmas magical, even when we had nothing.

When Ted came into our lives, he smelled of cigarettes and summer. But he had everything. The flashy car, the money, the bulky chain around his throat. He moved us into a giant house, but we only stayed there for a month. Savie never told me why we moved. Ted never told me why we moved. But he was angry about something then. And that’s when Savie started making me lie about the bruises. To child services, to the cops that showed up every couple of weeks to take Ted away in their lightning cars.

Every time they drove away, Savie would cry, and Bip would cry because that’s what he did when someone else cried. But I didn’t cry. I would just wish for Ted to never come back.

But he always did.

He was back now.

The door opened, and I caught a waft of vodka. I was eleven in two weeks, and I could already detect the scent of a dozen different alcohols. I never told Savie that.

He stopped, his heavy boots breaking my unanswered prayers about his return. “Still here, eh?” His voice sounded like a bear’s, gruff and angry and mean. I would have preferred an actual bear.

“I live here.” I said, picking up the yellow crayon to draw the sun into the happy picture I was coloring. My school counselor asked me to draw my family. When I told Savie about the request, she told me exactly what to do. So there we were: Savie, Ted, me, and Bip. Holding hands like a family from the internet. Big black, scrawling smiles plastered over our orange-toned skin. I’d lost most of my crayons so orange had been a substitute.

Ted never responded to my snip, he only observed the picture, grunted, and stomped to the kitchen, where Savie was baking cupcakes. I could smell the caramel extract now. The taste of it had turned metallic, like blood, years ago. After dozens of caramel cupcakes, Ted’s favorite, I’d lost all stomach for baked goods. But Savie still insisted we eat them, and neither Bip or I wanted to disappoint her. That’s what Ted was for.

“You’re back!” Savie didn’t sound happy, not really. She tried to, but it wasn’t like how she greeted Bip after the caretaker brought him home, or after I got home from school. She would hug us and kiss our hair and we would breath in her vanilla scent. I was sure she was hugging Ted now, but he wouldn’t appreciate her perfume, or kiss her head. His arms wouldn’t even try and hold her back. They’d be reaching for a beer right about…

Now. The refrigerator door opened.

I set down my crayon.

It hadn't always been this bad. At first, he knew exactly how to get her back into his good graces. He’d sweet talk her, kiss her; making a show of it. Bip would put his hands over his eyes, but I would watch. Savie’s lips would turn up, her Christmas green nails, chipped and broken, already threaded in his hair. She would be happy again, thinking everything was okay. Then, not even a day later, Ted would be back to his regular self. Angry, violent, and careless.

“Bip, Cady, time for lunch!”

I stood up, pulling my Hello Kitty skirt back into place. Bip emerged from the hallway. Tears were already streaming down his face. He cried every time Ted came back. He cried for the both of us.

I put my arm around him, wiping his tears away gently with my other hand. “It’s okay,” I said. “You can sleep in my bed tonight. Ted won’t come in anymore.”

My brother only nodded, nuzzling close to me as we faced the storm together.

Savie’s eyes were tired. She was putting the burgers on the table, and I noticed her hands were shaking. I didn’t miss her tears either. Ted never noticed. At least, he never did anything about them.

The devil himself was sitting at the head of the table, an absent hand balancing an open beer on his knee. He was staring down at us with those cold eyes. “What are you crying for, boy?” He never said Bip’s name. Said it sounded like a dog’s name. I thought Ted sounded like a curse word, the ones Savie wouldn’t let us say.

“He’s tired.” I said, staring back. I was terrified of Ted, but I had stopped letting him see it.

“So am I, and you don’t see me crying, now do ya?”

Bip shook his head. He was too young to do anything but agree with Ted. It made me angry. It made Savie angry too, but she never stopped it. No matter what, I couldn’t find myself blaming her.

“Sit!” Savie said, her voice strained. She took off her apron, hanging it on a hook that was dangling precariously from one nail. I remember the night it was broken. Ted had been especially angry, and the blue around Savie’s eye hadn’t faded for weeks. The hook was never righted.

I let Bip choose the chair the furthest from Ted, and took the one nearest to him. Savie sat between us, and I hoped he wouldn’t notice. If he did, he never acknowledged it. We ate in strained silence, momentarily filled by Bip sniffling, Savie clearing her throat, ot Ted slurping away at his first, then second, then third beer. I didn’t make a sound. I learned it was better that way. If I didn’t speak, there was no way he could get angry.

I was certain he would find a way to prove me wrong again, but it was all I could do. All any of us could do. Our best.

Ted wasn’t the first crack in the glass, but he was the reason the window shattered. And Savie, Bip, and I all ended up with it embedded in our skin.

But I was the only one who lived long enough to bleed.