Free Shelter by Tara Shuler

was livid. He and my mother got into a big fight, and in the process, he admitted he had been having an affair with Mrs. Walker for more than two years. In other words, he was sleeping with Kai’s mother while my mother was pregnant with me.
    My father stormed over to the Walkers’ house in the middle of the night and broke down their front door. It never occurred to him that he’d been cheating on my mother. He felt he could do anything he pleased. But he was furious that she’d dare cheat on him.
    Mrs. Walker thought he’d come to confess his undying love for her and take her away, and she ran to him – prepared to leave with him. She was deeply in love with my father. In that moment, her husband realized she had been cheating on him with my father as he’d had an affair with my mother, and Mr. Walker became enraged. He and my father got into a physical altercation.
    My mother had rushed to the Walkers’ house and walked inside. She watched in horror as her husband and her lover fought. She knew her husband could tear her lover to pieces in an instant, and she feared it would happen at any moment.
    Instead, a small child toddled down the hallway to see what had woken him up in the middle of the night. His teddy bear dangled from one small hand as he rubbed his eyes with the other.
    Seeing his father being thrown about the room by another man scared him, and he screamed, “Daddy!”
    At that moment, my father was distracted. Mr. Walker pushed him hard against the display case behind him, and the glass shattered. A huge shard pierced my father’s back, lodging deep within his heart. My mother and Mrs. Walker both screamed in agony and ran to my father.
    Realizing what he’d done, Mr. Walker called nine-one-one and turned himself in. He was sent to prison for second-degree murder in the accidental death of my father. They couldn’t prove he had any intention to kill my father, so the charges were reduced from first degree, and Mr. Walker was sentenced to fifteen years in a federal penitentiary. He was murdered in prison by another violent offender when Kai was five, and for some reason his mother had always blamed him for his father’s death as well as the death of my father.
    “Oh, Mother!” I gasped. “How can she blame him? He was only a little kid!”
    “She refuses to accept any responsibility, and she loved your father too much to blame him,” my mother said gently. “Kai is the only one left she can blame.”
    “Oh, poor Kai,” I lamented. “He’s so gentle and kind, and he loves his mother so much.”
    “I know,” my mother agreed, stroking my hair. “It’s not fair, but it’s the truth about the situation.”
    “Did she always drink so much?” I asked my mother.
    “Kai’s mother?” she answered. “No, she never drank at all until Roger was killed in prison, as far as I know.”
    I hung my head in sorrow. It was all so tragic. I couldn’t believe my own family was embroiled in such a scandal, and more than that I couldn’t believe everything poor Kai had been forced to endure. Could he really think his father’s death was his fault?
    I had to see him. I went to my brother’s room and roused him from what appeared to be a peaceful slumber.
    “I need to see Kai,” I pleaded.
    He glared at his alarm clock through bleary eyes. “At three-forty-five in the morning?”
    “Yes, Will,” I said somberly.
    He sighed and groaned, “Fine.”
    I went to my room and quickly changed into jeans and a t-shirt. I checked my email, and I had a new message from Kai.
    “You should get some sleep. I will see you as soon as I can, I promise.
    I love you,
    Kai”
    I grabbed my phone and headed out to the car to wait for my brother. While he was getting dressed, I tapped out a text message to Kai.
    “Coming over. Meet me in the shed?”
    I waited for his reply. We were over halfway to his house before he replied.
    “Mom passed out. I’ll meet you there.”
    I was relieved. At least she was asleep.