“Hey! Is Mrs. Morrow inside?” I called. I ran for the front door.
“Round back, I think. In the kitchen.”
I jerked the front door open and went in. The hallway led to the back of the house, where I could see windows with cheery yellow curtains, and a white tile floor.
“Mrs. Morrow? Are you here?”
I dashed down the hallway past stacks of boxes. She really was leaving! She was my only hope, and she was leaving because I had lied and gotten her fired.
“Kendra?”
Mrs. Morrow’s voice came from behind me.
I whirled and threw myself at her. I sucked in little breaths, trying to keep my aching side from hurting any worse. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry.”
Mrs. Morrow’s hands touched me gently on the shoulder, petted my hair, and wiped a tear away from my bruised cheek. “Kendra. Tell me.”
“I lied about you, and I didn’t mean to. I don’t know why I do that. I want everything to be different. You are perfect. You have everything. And my life is… My life is… My life - “The sob broke out of my throat.
“Shhh.” She rubbed the sides of my arms. “That’s not what I mean. I mean the bruises, and your little brother’s arm. Who is it?” She peered into my face.
“He’d just doing what his dad did to him. And I provoke him. I’m so stupid. Just like the lying. I’m so stupid. Everything is my fault.”
“Kendra, do you believe that, really believe that?”
“That I’m stupid? Yes.”
“Think again. You make good grades, when you have the time to do the work. You’re not stupid.”
One of the movers hustled into the kitchen with a dolly, stacked up a few boxes, and then wheeled them out. A shiver shook me. How could she just leave?
“What about the other part? That it’s your fault?” she asked
“It IS my fault. I told the lies. I got you fired.”
“Fired? Who told you that?”
“There was a substitute in your class, and when I went to the office…”
“I quit. I’ve taken a job in Smithtown, not far.”
“But you can’t. I need you… need your help,” I stammered.
She peered into my blackened eyes. “Do you think this is your fault?” She touched the bruise on my cheek.
“Sure it is. Because I’m stupid. I provoke him.”
“Kendra, think this through. You’re father is a grown man. He’s bigger than you are, stronger. You think you MADE him do this?”
I chewed my lip. “If I didn’t, then why does he do it? Why does he---HURT---Sam and Mom and me?”
“Even if he is just doing what his dad did, that doesn’t make it right. And deep inside, he knows that.”
I let that thought sink into my brain. Could it be true? Could it really be true that neither my brother nor me, not even my mom, was responsible for Dad’s behavior?
“You mean . . . You mean . . .” I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around it. If I didn’t make him hit me, if it was his choice to hit me . . .Who would choose to hurt their children? Their wife? I’d seen the fairy-tale TV families. Most of those families were as screwed up as mine, but they kept the beatings off camera. And never talked about them. Never.
It occurred to me that maybe there were no beatings happening in those families. Maybe hitting wasn’t the norm, except when people were messed up. Was my dad really messed up? “So, if that’s true, what do I do? How do I get him to stop?”
“He has to decide to stop for himself. But meanwhile, you don’t have to live there. You and Sam can go into foster care.”
“Together? ‘Cause it would have to be together. I can’t be apart from my little brother. He’s too small, and he’s too used to me being there. It would have to be somewhere together. And where would Mom go?”
“That’s up to your mother. If she chooses to stay with your father, there’s nothing anyone can do. She might choose to separate from him, live somewhere else for a while. Maybe this is just what your father needs to help him see that his choice of behaviors is not good for his family.”
The thought overwhelmed me. Mrs. Morrow was telling me that I could choose to live someplace else. And people would help.
I closed my eyes and saw my mother’s face. Her eyes, like a startled dog’s, her head, tucked down into her shoulders like a turtle ready to pull back into its shell. Suddenly I knew that Mom didn’t want Dad to treat us like this either. If she’d leave, maybe the three of us could stay together.
“What if my mom leaves, and takes me and my brother with her?”
“That’s an option. If she’ll leave. Certainly it’s the best option. But someone has to convince her. She’s been living with it for a long time, hasn’t she, Kendra? And she’s never filed a police report.”
I chewed my lip. This was something else I didn’t understand. If my mother could have stopped it, why hadn’t she? My thoughts spun around in my head. Then Sam’s face, as I held him on the way to the hospital with his broken arm, floated out in front of me like a ghost. Maybe I was the only one who could do something.
“Can I make a police report? If Mom won’t, can I?”
Mrs. Morrow nodded. “Yes. You can. But you might have to testify in court. Could you do that?”
I nodded. “Will you help me?”
"If you’re sure this is what you want.”
I looked around her perfect house, and thought about how I’d thought it was impossible for me to ever live some place like this. It wasn’t only other people that I told lies to, I’d been telling them to myself, too. Life didn’t have to be scary, like mine. I didn’t have to be afraid every day, and neither did Sam, and neither did my mother.
“Can we go by the house and get Sam, and then go to the police station?”
Mrs. Morrow nodded, and grabbed her purse. “I’ll drive.”
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“She’s still sleeping,” Sam said.
I hurried down the hallway and opened the door to my parent’s room. My mother looked up at me from the bed, her eyes nearly swollen shut, worse than mine. I rushed to kneel beside the bed.
“Mama, my teacher’s here, Mrs. Morrow. I want you to get dressed so we can go to the police. Daddy just can’t do this anymore. Come with me.”
I helped her get out of bed, and then helped her pull on jeans and a sweat shirt. I brushed her hair. She could hardly walk from the room. In the living room, we found Mrs. Morrow watching television with Sam.
Mrs. Morrow took my mother’s hand. “You’ve got a brave girl, here, Mrs. Campbell. Things are going to be better now.”
My mother cried, and pulled me to her in a gentle hug.
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