Elizabeth Finn - Brother’s Keeper

When Ronnie drops Sara and I off later that afternoon, I have a letter waiting for me from the admissions department at the University of Michigan. They need a copy of my social security card for their records, and my guts clench at the realization this will mean a trip back to home sweet trailer park. If Logan were here, he’d kill me for even considering it… But he’s not here, and I have little choice but to go. It is mid afternoon on a Tuesday, so my father should still be at work. There’s no time like the present, and I tell Sara where I’m off to before running out the door.

When I arrive and enter the trailer, I’m taken aback by the state of the place. Not that our trailer was ever anything to write Better Homes and Gardens about, but I have never seen it in this state. There is garbage strewn about from room to room. The stench is overwhelming; many months’ worth of Styrofoam take out containers, fast food bags, and old pizza boxes litter every piece of furniture and every square inch of floor space. Well, if I didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary, the smell of this place was all the motivation to work quickly I would need.

I proceed first to my father’s bedroom closet. And while I find a collection of gratuitous porn magazines that are more terrifying than they are sexy, a hand gun—again frightening given who it belongs to—and a strange collection of old rusty nails, what I don’t find is my social security card.

As I wander back out to the living room, my eyes land on the side table that sits next to my father’s old smelly recliner. It has two drawers, and I’ve seen my father stash many an odd piece of paper in there. It’s as good as any place to look. The trailer is small, and while cluttered all to hell, there simply aren’t that many places that my social security card could be hiding. I approach the side table, and doing my best to touch only what I absolutely must, I start rifling through the contents of the drawer. I find more overdue bills than any grown adult ought to have, numerous scraps of paper with bizarre notes and messages written on them, and a rather large amount of receipts from the nearest liquor store. Again I strike out finding my social security card, and as I slam the drawers shut I unleash a slew of expletives at the poor old side table.

Giving up is sounding like a better idea by the minute. There may not be very many logical places to keep the card, but unfortunately, there are a good deal of obscure and unfathomable places it could be hiding. Being here is unsafe, and I can just imagine Logan laying into me, but the idea of Logan yelling at me for risking my safety just brings on the all too familiar stab of pain … and a bit of resentment. What can I say; anger has become a very effective means of coping with my loss of him. I often find my daydreams of him becoming charged with fury at him, fury at myself, and fury at life in general for pulling us apart from one another. And my fury now compels me onward. Onward, in this case, means the file cabinet in the kitchen that the microwave sits on.

As I enter the kitchen, I find that it is in an even worst state than the remainder of the house. What looks like a city dump in the living room is a full-on explosion of garbage in the kitchen. Every inch of the counter is consumed by dirty dishes and rotting food. The stench is a solid mass that hits like a blanket smothering your face as you plummet into the stench. There are mice feces all over the counters, and I’m suddenly very attuned to the scurrying sounds that surround me. I approach the file cabinet ready to hold my breath and dive into one more disgusting filth pit, but as I tug on the dusty old handle it doesn’t budge. Awesome. Locked. Of course it’s locked. I let go of another inanimate object tirade before completely throwing in the towel, and as I storm back into the living room still cursing, I walk right into the meanest man in the world. He looks more demon than man at the moment, and given the virtually empty whiskey bottle in his hand, I’m guessing he’s beyond the point of any sense and reason.

As I stumble backward into the kitchen, he grabs me with one hand around my throat and virtually throws me back into the living room. I hit the side of the recliner and fall over it to the ground. I’m on the opposite side of the chair from him, but trapped in the living room with no way to skirt around him quick enough to get out the front door. As I pull myself up from the floor, he moves around the recliner and grabs me by the throat once again. He squeezes tight, and I’m suddenly overcome by images of myself being choked to death. The sting of the constricted air passage sets my brain to panic mode, and just when the pulsing vibrations of hypoxia start to take over my brain, he punches me hard on the temple. The very best thing I can say about being punched is that it forces me out of his suffocating death grip.

I fall back, hitting my head hard on a wall shelf behind me, but not hard enough to knock me out completely. I’m almost upset I’m not unconscious at this point. I thought people weren’t supposed to feel pain when their bodies were in fight or flight mode. Instead, I can feel every last ache and throb. My eye feels like it’s outside of my socket, the back of my head feels like it’s going to explode, and my throat is still burning with fire. As I fall to the floor on my knees, grasping the back of my head, his foot makes first contact with my gut, and what little breath I’d regained from being nearly choked to unconsciousness is forced back out of my lungs, leaving me gasping loudly and desperately for air. And before I can regain any use of my lungs, the next kick lands in nearly the same place.

I now crumble to the floor, unable to support my body any longer. As kick after kick lands, I continue to beg my body to take in air, but with every second I’m losing a fighting battle, and what little air I manage to gulp down is horribly expelled from my chest every time his foot makes contact with my abdomen. With every kick, I’m getting further and further away from consciousness. And as my consciousness fades, so, too, does the pain, and I’m only slightly aware of the thudding sound that his foot makes as it meets my body.

Suddenly the dull thudding stops, and I can feel myself being pulled by my ponytail across the carpet. The carpet is burning my face, and I’m losing hair in ripping clumps as he pulls me along. But every sense is dulled, and while I know what I should be feeling is excruciating, I’m struggling to feel anything at all at this point. And a very sad and defeated part of my mind is resigned to the fact this likely means the end must be near. Logan’s face comes to the front of my mind, and as my father’s torment continues I focus on Logan. I know now I won’t see him again, and I regret in a way that is nearly unbearable that I ever let him slip away. But relief is coming soon.

Death will take me and end the pain and sadness I feel for my loss, and I’m thankful the suffering will be over soon. I hear the zing of scissor blades as he pulls me by my ponytail upright. I’m hanging limply from my ponytail, the hairs tearing from my scalp as the weight of my body is too much for the thin strands to bear. And as I wait for the stab of the scissors, wondering where he’ll mutilate me and how he’ll kill me, I hear instead the scissors releasing me from the hanging force of my ponytail. Once he’s cut through my ponytail, shearing off my long hair, I collapse back to the floor. In my numb haze, I wonder why he cut my hair off. Perhaps he wants me as ugly and repulsive as possible in my casket.

He throws the scissors against the wall, yelling every awful thing he thinks about me. He then returns to me and pulls me to an awkward sitting position by the remaining hair of my head. My arms are slack at my side, and I can’t even move them. There is a warm burning in the lower part of my diaphragm I’m sure is bad news. And as I gaze foggily up into his monstrous face, I block it out and focus on Logan. His smile. I will miss it above all else. This will be hard on him. I can feel his anguish already. He’ll feel responsible, and I won’t be here to reassure him he’s not. As my father’s face comes back into focus, I hear him call me a particularly ugly string of epithets before backhanding me across the face so hard my head sails into the very same file cabinet I was kicking mere minutes ago.

My vision is blurring with every passing second and darkness is crowding in from the periphery of my sight. I crave the darkness, the end, and I spend the last of my consciousness remembering my favorite parts of life—my mother, meeting Sara, the day I found out about my scholarship, Grand Haven, and every other amazing night I spent with Logan. And as I drift off to the dull incessant thud of my limp body being kicked repeatedly, the pulsing electric buzzing in my brain returns, and my world fades to black.

I’ve been immersed in pre-trial research on a fairly high profile case for the better part of the past few weeks, and it has been a relief to keep busy. My life revolves around work, and I leave no time for anything else because everything else means misery. Work at least gives me something to focus on other than Rowan.

One of the partners has become determined to set me up with her daughter, and while I dodge the question as often as I can, she doesn’t seem to be taking the hint. I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before I’m ready to meet people, date, or even start a relationship. The idea of being with anyone but Rowan right now is offensive and sickening, but at some point that feeling must go away. At some point I have to get past this, don’t I? But not yet. Not even close.

I sit in my office overlooking the skyline of Denver and zone out, thinking about her for a while. Immersion in work only gets you so far. Sometimes she enters my mind, and I’m powerless to do anything but give into it and enjoy the memories—even if only temporarily. But the joy of her memory ends when reality creeps back up on me, and it is then the depression hits the hardest. But this Rowan memory spell is interrupted as my phone rings, jolting me back to reality. I pick up, resenting the asshole on the other end of the line who has interrupted my fantasies.

“Hello.” I fight to keep the irritation from coming through in my voice, but I’m sure it does.

“Hi Logan.” The voice is choked up and emotional—exhausted even. It’s my mom.

“Mom, what’s wrong? Is Sara okay? Where’s dad?”

“Logan, it’s Row. Something’s happened. She’s in intensive care. Yesterday afternoon … I should have called sooner. I’m sorry, it’s just … it’s just been so hectic. It was touch and go last night, and Sara is so upset and won’t leave the hospital. Um…”

My heart is thudding in my chest and my ears are buzzing. I’m ready to pass out, but I have to hear the rest, and I’m too weak to even interrupt her.

“Her father did it. Just … tried to kill her. She’s got a couple of cracked ribs, but the worst of it was the internal bleeding. She has a lacerated liver and spleen, and they had to resect part of her abdominal aorta. She was in surgery for hours last night before they could get the bleeding under control. She had to have a blood transfusion, and they almost lost her a couple of times during the operation before they could control the bleeding. But Logan, she’s going to be okay.”

She’s going to be okay? She has to be okay!

“Now that she’s stable and her blood volume is good, they’re going to take her off sedation later tonight and let her wake up when she’s ready… Did you hear me? The doctors say that she’s going to make it. All of their tests show that the internal bleeding is now under control, and the cracked ribs didn’t shift, so her lungs are fine. She’s going to be hurting for a while though… But she’s going to make a full recovery.”

My mother has barely taken a breath since she started talking and neither have I. I’m holding my breath in stunned silence, my heart screaming in pain. I say the only thing I need to say before hanging up quickly. “I’ll be on the next flight. I’ll let you know when I land.”

And as I hang up, I catch her last comment. “I thought as much. We’ll see you soon.”

I walk hastily and numbly out the building without speaking to anyone. I speed to the airport without stopping at home to pack, and dump my Jeep in long-term parking. I stop at the ticket counter hoping God will cut me some slack. And he does. The next flight out is in an hour and will require only one fairly quick layover in Kansas City. I should be home by mid-evening. And as I slump into my seat on the airplane forty-five minutes later, the first tears start to prick my eyes.