Page 27 of Just Between Us

They both constantly begged me to join them for tea parties and whilst I had better things to do than play with my little sisters as an eleven-year-old boy, Kenny had told me to watch them when he went out earlier. Barbies were not my idea of fun, but at least he was out of the house.

It was noon when I heard the latch of the door downstairs, and I froze. Voices flooded the small hallway, their deep timber reverbing through the thin walls of the flat.

Across me, Zara’s eyes lit up. “Daddy's home!”

I put a finger to my lips. “Yes, but let’s wait for him up here, okay?”

Both Zara and Zoe nodded enthusiastically, their five-year-old brains too unaware to ask me why.

An hour later, I heard heavy feet come up the stairs before the door to my sister’s room swung open. A man I vaguely recognised walked in, dressed in old beat-up Levi’s and a white shirt with a beer stain. Even from where I sat, I could smell the stench of cigarettes and cheap beer.

“Oh, hello girls! It’s me, Uncle Ian.” He walked over to Zoe first, squatting to her height. I froze, watching my sister try for a smile but her shoulders tensed. “Can I join?” Ian continued.

“Please leave,” I said quietly. “We don’t want to play with you.”

His eyes zeroed in on me, full of something I recognised all too well from Kenny—disdain.

“Who the fuck told you that you can speak to me like that?”

“Bad word!” Zara cried. “You shouldn’t say bad words.”

Ian’s face broke out into that smile again. “Oh, I’m sorry girls. I apologise.I’ll leave you to it then.”

He disappeared but I was still stuck in place, listening to him enter the bathroom before going downstairs again.

Later that afternoon, before Mum was back, Kenny cornered me in my room. He was tall, with thinning dirty blond hair and bloodshot blue eyes.

“I’m always so nice to you, Kai but then you disrespect my friend?” he phrased it as a question and before I could answer, I felt a sharp sting on my cheek. There was enough force behind it to knock me over. I looked up at him, his tall body looming over me. A sick grin traced his lips then he kicked me.

Once. Twice. Three times.

I opened my mouth to beg him to stop but nothing would come out. Begging only made it worse.

“Don’t do that again or I tell your mother to send you away,” he spat before turning and leaving my room, slamming the door behind him. That wasn’t the first time, and I knew I’d gotten off light.

Next time, I wouldn’t be so lucky.

***

It’s a Wednesday night and I’m at my mother’s place for our regular dinners. I try to see her as much as I can but with work getting crazier since the year began, we haven’t had much time to catch up.

“Help me chop the carrots?” she asks, handing me a bunch of carrots without looking at me. I smile, it’s so wonderfully normal being here. I need a bit of normal right now.

“So, how is work?” She glances at me, dark brown eyes wide. She is forty-five now and her brown skin is smooth, only marked by a few beauty marks and some crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes but she’s still beautiful, a spitting image of my sisters.

“Work is good. I think the project we’ve been working on will get approved so that’s been exciting. We just need to iron out a few details and present it in a few weeks.”

Her eyes widen a little. I can see the pride in them, and it makes me warm. We’ve always been close but there are things I know I could never tell her. She’s worked too hard to take care of us. I’ve buried that part of our lives deep down even though I know it will come back to collect what I owe one day.

“You make me so proud to be your mother, Kai,” she says, her smile growing. “Always have.”

I lean over to give her a quick kiss on her temple and get back to chopping the carrots.

When dinner is ready, we sit at the table and gossip about Mum’s old friends and family. There’s a divorce, a baby and cheating scandals that are worthy of the kind of reality T.V. Jenna and I would shamelessly binge-watch.

“Anyone special I should know about yet?” she asks after she’s done telling me about a wedding she went to a week ago.

I cough once.

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