Page 1 of Fear Me, Love Me

PARTI

NOW

1

Vivienne

“Who’s my best boy? Who’s the loveliest little man in the world?” I bounce Barlow on my hip, and he laughs in the joyous way of a sixteen-month-old without a care in the world. I smile along with him and rub the tip of my nose against his while asking him silly baby talk questions. His fingers find the fine gold chain around my neck, and he plays with it while I pepper his chubby hands with kisses.

Samantha, my stepmom, is glancing between me and the clock on the kitchen wall like she’s measuring the seconds I’m spending with my half-brother and begrudging every single one of them. For the moment, Samantha is busy cooking dinner, so I soak up as many toddler cuddles as I can.

“Where are the measuring spoons?” Samantha sighs in exasperation, opening and closing drawers and cabinet doors.

I turn around and open a drawer. “They’re right…oh.” What used to be the baking utensil drawer is now full of placemats.

“I moved everything around months ago,” my stepmother says peevishly, her tone telling me that I’m annoying her for trying to help. She fishes inside a cabinet and comes out with a set of plastic spoons on a ring. “Here they are.”

This is the house I grew up in, but since I moved out to attend Henson University last year, it’s turned against me. Things are never where I expect them to be, the walls are painted different colors, and my bedroom has become a storage area for Samantha’s photography equipment and Dad’s golf gear. Sometimes I sleep in there on the holidays, but getting to my bed feels like running an obstacle course. When I’m lying in the dark, all Dad’s and Samantha’s things loom over me, resenting and judging my presence. Samantha tries to pretend I’m still welcome. Dad rarely bothers.

As if thinking about him has summoned him home, the front door opens and there are footsteps in the hall.

“It’s me,” Dad calls in a cheery voice.

Samantha hurries forward and takes Barlow from me. Her smile is strained and her little laugh is forced as she says, “Quickly, give him to me. You’ll wind him up too much before bedtime.”

I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s not even four o’clock, and I know that Barlow isn’t put to bed until six. I’m left with an empty ache in my arms where my half-brother used to be, and I watch wistfully as Samantha places him into his high chair and turns away to greet Dad. The temperature of the room drops, and it’s not only because I’m no longer cuddling Barlow. I like Samantha, and she used to like me. Emphasis on theused to. After what happened last year, I’m rarely allowed to spend time with Barlow, and I’m never asked to babysit anymore.

Dad comes into the kitchen carrying bags from the local hardware store, and rage erupts in his face when he sees me standing there. “What are you doing here?”

I gesture helplessly at Barlow. “I was just…”

Dad glances at Samantha and his jaw flexes. With exaggerated patience, he places the shopping bags on the kitchen table as he turns to his son with genuine affection. “Hello, buddy. Did you have a good afternoon? Were you good for Mom?” He smiles and kisses the boy, tickling his cheek.

I swallow around a lump in my throat. Of course Barlow deserves it, but what I wouldn’t give for one-tenth of the same affection.

Dad and Samantha talk about the errand he just ran, and then he can’t ignore his daughter any longer. “I’d ask if you’ve been behaving yourself at that school of yours, but I know better than to expect anything but lies from you.”

The pain of his words flays my ribs. I nearly reach up with both hands to hold on to my secret and make the aching stop. Instead, I breathe through the pain.

I’m not a liar.

I’mnot.

“It’s going fine,” I whisper, fiddling with the lace cuffs of my shirt. It’s one I made myself from vintage lace I found in a thrift shop, adorned with flowers bursting with petals. The day I was happily showing it off for the first time, Dad laughed in a nasty way and said, “Who wants to go around wearing an old curtain?”

Me. I do. This lace probably once hung in some frail old lady’s living room, and when she died her daughter or granddaughter washed it, folded it, and donated it to charity. Long before that, the old woman was a young woman, and she was in love with someone; she must have been to buy such romantic lace. She thought of the person she loved while she sewed the curtains and peeked hopefully through them, waiting for her beloved to call on her. She admired the lace flowers against Henson’s gloomy sky. I’m dressed in her happiness and her heartbreak. I’m dressed in her hope. There’s so little of it around lately that I’m desperate for every scrap I can get my hands on.

Dad and I stare at each other. There’s so much that he wants to say, but I can feel him holding the words in. I don’t know if he’s not saying them because he doesn’t want to, or if he’s waiting for the right moment. Once he crosses that line there’s no going back.

He abruptly turns away from me, and I quietly let out the breath that was burning in my lungs. I’m desperate to keep the peace so that he will allow me to spend a few minutes a week with Barlow. Being around my brother is all I want. There’s nothing so important as family, and Barlow is the only one left who truly loves me. How much longer that’s going to continue while he’s being raised by two people who hate my guts, I don’t know.

Dad slams around the kitchen, opening and closing the cupboard and refrigerator as he gets a glass of water and drinks it. Then he puts the glass down so hard it nearly shatters.

“You must have so much work to do, Vivienne.” Samantha glances desperately at my satchel laying on the counter. She thinks she’s being subtle, but I understand what she wants as clearly as if she were yelling,Get out of my house, through a megaphone.

“Yes, lots,” I say, reluctantly picking up my bag. “Tonight I think I’m going to sketch the stone angels in the grave—”

Samantha gives me a brief smile and immediately turns away. “Well, won’t that be nice. Owen, tonight after dinner, we must go over the credit card statements…”

---