Free The Birth of Bane by Richard Heredia

were around me in
less than a second, hugging me fiercely. Her exhalations were warm
against my chest. “I forgot what it was like, Jer,” she sobbed into
me. “I forgot what it was like.”
    What could I
say? I agreed. It had been a wonderful time without my father
around. We’d moved into a new house, a big home, hoping to turn
over a new leaf, and maybe we had. Maybe that was why it felt like
we were taking two steps back the moment my dad had come home. He
was pulling us back into the morass of egocentricity, his warped
sense of the world, his animosity. How could I have forgotten so
quickly?
    My arms came up
and I held my sister like I hadn’t for more than eight years,
feeling my own eyes well. Why did he have to be such a dick?
Why couldn’t he be a normal dad, like those so many of my friends
had? Why did we get stuck with him? How was it fair, to any of us,
especially my mother? Didn’t we – she – us – deserve something
better? Didn’t we?!?
    I guided Valerie
over to the edge of my bed and together we sat, her head still on
my shoulder.
    “ I hate him,”
she muttered pitifully.
    “ So do I, Val.
So do I.”
    Suddenly there
was an escalation of noise reverberating through the walls,
screaming and wailing at a much higher pitch than I was used to
hearing issue forth from my father. My body must’ve gone rigid,
because Valerie pulled away from me, her eyes quizzical.
    It wasn’t my
father yelling anymore.
    It was my
mother, and she was furious.
    We heard
crashing and thudding. We were certain huge items were being thrown
about. The entire house was shaking.
    All at once, a
sick feeling lurched in my gut. I tasted sour bile at the back of
my throat.
    Where was
Eli?
    I breathed. My
heart threatened to break through my ribcage.
    “ Valerie,
Elijah’s in his room, right?”
    She stared back,
uncertainty and dread filling her eyes as if a levy had broken
behind them. “I d-d-don’t know.”
    I stood in one
swift motion. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Was he downstairs
with you or not?” I knew my tone was too harsh, but I wasn’t
thinking about her feelings at the moment.
    “ I don’t know,
Jerry!” She had replied just as fiercely, but I could tell she knew
where I was going with this. “You don’t think…?” she began to ask,
but her voice strangled into silence.
    This had
happened before.
    “ I don’t ‘think’ , Val. I know .”
    “ Fuck!” It was a
vehement burst of the word.
    I made for the
door, but never made it.
    Eli came in
holding his cheek, crying bitterly.
    Even from where
I stood, I could tell my father had slapped him hard across the
face. There was a hand print the size of mine poking out on all
sides, underneath his six-year-old palm.
    “ Did that
sonofabitch hit you, Elijah?” asked my sister, leaping from my bed,
scooting around me to hold him by the shoulders.
    He
nodded.
    “ Why?” she
asked.
    It was a moot
question. It had happened before.
    “ Because mommy
made him mad,” he retorted in a small voice, though he didn’t have
to.
    Then, he did
something I never would’ve expected him to do at a time like this.
He smiled.
    “ But, she made
him leave.”
    “ What?”
    Whether it was
me or Valerie, neither of us would never know.
    Our amazement
was blinding. My mother had never ever stood up to him before. What
had changed? What was so different now?
    My baby brother
had been nodding the entire time. “She threw everything at
him.”
    Who or what had
lit a fire under my mom’s ass?
    We brought Eli
to my bed and the three us sat, holding hands, sharing half-smiles
drenched in comfort. It was the first time we were able to express
our love for one another without speaking.
    It was
incredible.
    And yet, what
had changed?
    It was almost an
hour later. After my mother had cleaned up and had come up to
“check on us”, she said.
    But, I knew she
was there to make sure Eli was ok.
    She smiled
uneasily, like testing new waters. “He’s gone,” she