Page 12 of Atonement

“Playtime is over. My son may have let you get away with this bullshit, but I won’t put up with it. I will break every bone in your body if that’s what it takes to get you to listen to me.”

Just as I was able to take a full breath, he yanked me away from the wall and sent me flying across the room. I slammed into the crib, wooden slats cracking beneath my skull. My lungs were screaming but there was no chance to breathe as I fell to the side, retching from pain. The moment it passed I sucked in a deep breath. What oxygen I was able to breathe in was promptly lost once more as his foot drove into my stomach.

“Call. Her.”

I wheezed, then wasted precious breath to speak. “No.”

He grabbed my shoulders and lifted me, throwing me onto the bed, and grabbed the phone himself. I buried my face in the baby blanket as ringing sounded through the line, first muted and then louder as he put it on speaker.

“I don’t generally do things myself that I’ve asked other people to do, but I’ll make an exception in this case.”

Ring.

“How long has it been since you’ve talked to her,Mads? Will she be glad to hear from you, do you think?”

Ring.

I cowered in on myself, my entire insides aching.

“Or will she let it go to voicemail? I have an idea for the kind of message we can leave her. One she’ll listen to over and over, even if she can’t help it. It’ll be the last thing she hears of your voice.”

My tears came freely now, but I still held out hope that I could get out of this. She didn’t like to answer strange numbers. And maybe her mailbox was full; she always forgot to clear out old messages. Just not today, not today, I couldn’t bear to have her hear me like this.

“Hello?”

My eyes flew open. No. This wasn’t happening. Why did she answer?

“Mom, hang up!” I screamed as I rolled toward him, reaching for the phone, desperate to end the call before she heard any more.

“Mads?” Her voice was higher now, slightly garbled through the speaker on the cheap burner phone. “Mads, what’s wrong?”

“Just hang—”

I tasted Conrad’s skin as he slapped his hand over my mouth, silencing me mid-sentence. “Good afternoon, Eva.”

There was nothing for several long seconds, and I began to hope she had listened to me and ended the call before anything else could happen. Even if he called her back, she’d know not to answer. Maybe she could take it to the police, trace the call somehow? But just as I became convinced that she had done as I said and saved me from the nightmare of having to scream for my mother beneath the hands of the man who abused her, she began to speak again. This time her voice was more level, collected. She knew who she was dealing with.

“Conrad. Why do you have my daughter?”

He laughed, the sound slightly unhinged. “Why wouldn’t I?” He raised his hand off my mouth only to grab the back of my head and push me into Meyer’s baby blanket. My mouth went wide, struggling to breathe against the mattress. “I take what I want, Eva, you certainly know that by now. Or have you forgotten all the lessons I worked so hard to teach you?”

“I thought she was meant for Meyer.” So she knew. Somehow, she knew that Meyer never quite became the man his father had tried to mold him into. She’d held out faith for twenty-two years that he would be a better person than the man she’d left him with. But even though he wasn’t a complete monster, that little boy she’d raised was the one responsible for me being here. The one who’d chosen to let me fall into the hands of the true beast when he should have been protecting me.

“And she’s not any more.”

“Conrad, where is he?” There was real panic in her voice now. Her other child, the one she never got to see grow up, was at just as much risk as I was. I heard the unspoken question behind her words:Is he already dead?

Tears leaked from my eyes as I pushed back against Conrad’s hand, struggling to free myself, but he climbed over my body and held me to the bed with his weight. I groaned into the pillow ensuring my silence, the sound swallowed in the fabric like every other cry for help that had emanated from this room.

“If he knows what’s good for him, he’s at the office working to fix this mess the company is in. Your daughter was proving to be a little too much of a distraction for him, and not in the way I would have liked.”

Why had we thought we could hide from the man who thrived on having complete control over his son’s life? Of course he had seen the change in Meyer, the way he touched me with tenderness instead of malice. Me, leaping onto Conrad’s back to try and prevent him from hurting the man I loved. Meyer, falling on top of my body and taking the blows that were meant for me. Who could have missed it? Without even trying, I had worked my way further into Meyer’s fractured spirit in three weeks than Conrad had managed to in thirty years.

I twisted my hips one way and my shoulders the other, trying to gain some breathing space, and finally succeeded in freeing my head enough to take in a deep breath. Around Meyer, I couldn’t breathe for the affection he inspired in me, the rock that settled in my chest every time I looked at him. Conrad took me away from him, but still cut off my air in another way.

Words reached my ears as oxygen flooded my brain once more. Mom and Conrad were still talking.

“…thought I was some weak little girl, Conrad, but I won’t let this happen. I hoped that she could bring out the better part of Meyer that got buried when I left. But I should have known you wouldn’t let him grow. You want to keep him like he was, a child, under your thumb.”

---