Free The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories by Kit Reed

The words come so fast that he chooses not to understand them. Ow, it hurts!
    Never mind, nothing he says or does not say will stop her. “Hal hated hislife so he drank, and the more he drank the more he hated it so he drank some more and the more he drank, the madder he got and nothing I could do or say would make him happy. Every little thing I did used to make him mad at me. The madder he got the more he hit me, but he never hit me when I was pregnant. Oh, Happy, do you understand?”
    For another long time, they are both silent.
    A long sigh comes ripping out of her. “You do what you have to, just to keep it from happening again. When anger takes hold like that, it has to come out somewhere. Look.” She holds up a crooked wrist; even from here it looks wrong. She touches a spot on the temple; she doesn’t have to tell Happy about the long white scar under the hair.
    He tried so hard not to remember, but he remembers. On his belly under the crib, Happy watches her over ridged knuckles.
    Again. She says it again. “He never hit me when I was pregnant.” Her breath shudders. “So I had you. I’m so sorry!”
    Happy strains to make out what she’s trying to tell him but there is no way of translating it.
    “I tried. I even named you after him!”
    Frederick, he supposes. He supposes it was on the dogtag, but Brent says his name was on the dogtag, and Happy? Frederick is not his name.
    In the still air of the bedroom, her voice is sad and thin. “My four big boys fought back when he hit them, so I had you. Anything to stop him. But this time.” That sigh. “He didn’t. Forgive me, Happy. I did what you do to make it through. I couldn’t take it!”
    The story she is telling is sad, but it’s only a story. Wolves know that fathers aren’t the only ones that hurt you.
    “You cried. You cried so much. He got so mad. He came at me. He kept coming at me and oh God, oh, Happy. I put you in front of me.”
    Happy flinches.
    “I couldn’t watch. I left him to it.” Relieved, she says in a light voice, “And that was it.” As if it’s all she needs to do.
    Fine. If she is done, then, she’ll leave. As soon as she leaves he’ll get up and lock the door.
    Then, just when he thinks it’s over and he can forget this, she groans. “I’m so sorry, Son.”
    There is another of the long, painful pauses that wolves prefer to using words. Silence is clear, where words are ambiguous.
    She says, “I never knew what he was doing. I didn’t want to know.”
    She says, “I know, I know, I should have left him, but where can a woman gowith four little boys and a baby? I should have kicked him out, but how would I feed my children then?”
    The silence.
    “So you do forgive me, right?”
    Forgive is not a word wolves know.
    “Right?”
    He won’t move or speak. Why should he?”
    “These things happen, son. Things happen when people are stretched too far and their love is stretched too thin. Oh, please try to understand.”
    There is a long silence while she thinks and Happy thinks.
    Just when he’s beginning to hope she’s run out of words forever, she says in a voice so light that it floats far over his head, “Then you got lost. And everything changed. He got himself a nice new wife and moved to Hollywood. After everything I did to make him happy. The others grew up and moved away. Until you came, I didn’t have anything.”
    Happy doesn’t expect to speak, but he does. The words that have been stacked in his head for years pop out like quarters out of a coin return.
    “You didn’t look for me, did you.” It is not a question.
    She sobs. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
    He does.
    After a while she goes away.
    Happy slinks to the door and locks it even before he hears her stumbling downstairs, sobbing.
    “Can I come in?” Her voice is sweet. Just the way he remembers her. Even through the door, Susan is soft and he will always remember that body. He almost forgets himself and answers. Happy is