Free Three Rivers by Tiffany Quay Tyson Page A

me. I can’t live like this.” He steered her to the living room, where Liam slumped over a toy truck. He pushed the truck back and forth, but not as if he cared about it. “Look at your son.”
    â€œOur son,” Eileen said.
    â€œOur son. Look at him. He’s not even dressed. He was sitting here in a filthy, stinking diaper when I came home. He was screaming.”
    Eileen shoved her hands against his chest. “That’s all he does.” She spoke through clenched teeth. “He pisses and he shits himself all day long. And he screams. That’s it. He doesn’t do anything else. Why should I bother putting clothes on someone who is just going to piss and shit all over himself? Answer me that.”
    â€œHe’s a baby,” Obi said.
    â€œHe’s a year old!” Eileen yelled. “He doesn’t talk and he doesn’t care about using the toilet and he still isn’t walking. When does he stop being a baby and turn into a goddamned human being? You’re never here and you don’t know what it’s like to live with an animal all day long.”
    Obi slapped her. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time he’d put any force behind it. Eileen balled up her fists and punched his bare chest. The towel around Obi’s waist slipped to the floor and he stood there, naked, fighting with his wife in front of his son. He flung her away. “You make me sick.”
    Eileen fell, her knee coming down hard on Liam’s left arm. Obi heard the crack of the bone as it snapped in half. Liam looked at him, his pink, moist mouth a gaping question and then, suddenly, a scream.
    â€œLook what you’ve done!” Eileen yelled at him. “This is your fault.”
    Obi pushed Eileen away and knelt beside his son. Liam’s arm hung limp and at an unnatural angle.
    At the hospital, the doctor glared at him when he took Liam off to X-ray and set his arm. A plump woman with weary eyes asked a lot of questions. She made notes on a clipboard and said she would send someone to their home to make sure it was a safe place for a child. “Standard procedure.” It didn’t feel standard.
    Eileen left them. Obi didn’t know where she had gone. He didn’t look for her. The social worker visited once and then showed up a few weeks later, unannounced. That was the beginning. A terrible beginning, but perhaps a necessary one.
    *   *   *
    â€œYou need to get rid of your truck,” Pisa said. “I have a car you can take. It’s old, but it runs and the plates are current.”
    â€œI need a truck,” Obi said. “We have so much stuff to carry.”
    â€œIt’s a big car. Most of it will fit. Decide what’s important and leave the rest. I’ll have someone drive the truck into a lake. They won’t find it for months or years, and by the time they do, it’ll be rusted and untraceable.”
    â€œCan’t we just let it sit? Maybe I can come back for it when this blows over.” The truck was solid and reliable. Obi knew how to fix what needed fixing. He knew just what kind of terrain the truck would handle. Liam slept on the vinyl bench seat on rainy nights. The bed of the truck was his workbench and their card table.
    â€œDon’t hang on to things that don’t matter, son. I’ve tried to teach you that your whole life.”
    â€œI can’t believe this is happening,” Obi said. “The boy came at me with a knife. Liam was right there. I had to do something.”
    â€œThe boys are guilty of crimes,” Pisa said. “I can see that. They have done bad things, but that won’t change what you did.”
    â€œIs he dead?” Obi asked. “Did I kill him?”
    Pisa closed her eyes and bowed her head as if she were praying. She rocked back and forth and was silent for so long that Obi wondered if she had drifted to sleep. Finally, she spoke.