All Due Respect Issue #1 by Mike Miner, Chris F. Holm, Todd Robinson, Renee Asher Pickup, Paul D. Brazill, Travis Richardson, Walter Conley Read Free Book Online

and pay the bills. Sometimes, he still crawled into bed with me at night, curled into a ball, and pressed his back against my side. Amanda was fine. Amanda was always going to be fine.
    When she was six, she started wetting her pants at school. It happened three times. At home, she would be sitting, quietly doing her homework or playing with her Barbie dolls, then suddenly, she would jump up and run to the toilet, face twisted up, eyes squinting.
    “Amanda,” I said, tucking her under her pink comforter and brushing her wild brown hair away from her forehead. “What’s going on? Why do you wait so long to pee?”
    Her lower lip pushed out, and she sucked a ragged breath in. “I don’t know.”
    “Do you know when you have to go? Do you hold it?”
    She closed her eyes, and nodded, tears coming now.
    “Then why don’t you go?”
    A sob twice as big as she was came up out of her chest and she wailed. “I don’t like to go pee! It hurts!”
    I knew.
    I pulled her up out of her bed and held her tiny body to me.
    “Who touched you there?”
    “Barbie.” She said, her little body shaking in my arms.
    “Who was playing Barbies with you when it happened?”
    She sobbed, and tightened her arms around my neck. I couldn’t tell if my breathing was ragged, or if her shaking was rattling my chest, or if it was every part of me cracking from the inside out.
    “Tell me who, Manda. Tell me. I won’t let them hurt you.”
    She nuzzled her face into my neck and whispered, “Corey.”
    The world went out of focus and I squeezed her so hard I thought I might hurt her. The room spun around us and my throat closed up, holding the screams tight in my lungs. I heard her whimper in my ear and things slowed down, back to real time.
    I took three long breaths and put her back into her little pink bed and walked out of the room. I felt my hands shake, my arms dead weight. I closed the door behind me and fell to the floor, biting down on my lower lip to keep from screaming. That night, I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, swallowing rocks. The door to my bedroom creaked open, and Corey lifted the blanket. For a moment, I hated him.
    “What did you do?” I asked him. He froze. One leg on the bed, the other dangling off, the blanket still lifted in his hand.
    “ANSWER ME. What did you do to your sister?”
    He stayed like that, half in the bed, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. I reached out and smacked his face as hard as I could. I felt the shock all the way up my arm. My hand stung. Corey’s head hit the pillow and he yelled out in pain.
    “TELL ME WHAT YOU DID, COREY!”
    “I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I’m sorry I didn’t know it would hurt her! Please don’t put me in jail like Daddy!”
    All the strength went out of my body. All the anger flushed down some rusty drainpipe inside me. I reached out for my baby boy and pulled him to me. I said, “It’s going to be alright, Corey. You’re not going anywhere.”
    No one played alone in the house anymore. Amanda stayed away from Corey, her dark eyes grew wide when he got too close. She spent more time in her room. Corey stayed with me. But Amanda was fine, really. She was always going to be fine. She still smiled and played with the neighborhood kids. Her schoolwork was excellent. She stopped wetting herself.
    At bedtime, I talked to Corey. I told him, “You never touch someone on their butt or their privates. You never go alone with your sister. You never hurt someone the way you were hurt.” Tears would fill his blue eyes and he would tell me he understood.
    I went to Amanda’s room. Pink and soft and happy. She lay in her bed with a fluffy white stuffed cat pulled tight to her chest. I tucked her in and said, “You tell me if your brother comes in your room. If he comes in your room while you’re asleep you scream. You never take your bottoms off for anyone, only by yourself. You never go alone with boys. You never ever touch anyone the way your brother touched