Life Before by Michele Bacon Read Free Book Online Page A

when a car tears down the street and screeches to a halt. A moment later, someone pounds on our flimsy front screen.
    “Where is fucking Alexander?”
    Gary. I freeze.
    Ours is a split-entry house, so he can see right up to the kitchen from the front door.
    “It’s just me in the kitchen!” Mom sounds carefree. How has she shed her fear of him while I hold onto mine with every atom of my being?
    The front screen slams and Gary’s voice is closer. “You’re lying, Helen. Where is that motherfucking kid? I’m gonna send his head through plaster.”
    I tug on Jill’s earbud cord and cover her mouth before she can protest. “Gary’s here.”
    Silently, we move off the glider and tuck ourselves under the kitchen window where there’s a blind spot that will hide us. Toe to toe, our hips right up against the vinyl siding, we rest our heads on the house. Jill hugs her knees.
    Gary yells, “You put him up to it, didn’t you, Helen? I’m gonna take care of you both at once. Where is that little fucker?”
    Mom is only slightly flustered. “It’s graduation weekend. He could be just about anywhere.”
    I learned my lawyer’s answers from her, clearly.
    A thud rattles the house and I wonder whether our kitchen has a new hole in the wall.
    Mom is cool. “Get out. Of my. House.”
    Gary’s not cool. “You poisoned his mind. I am so tired of you people fucking with my life.”
    “Well, you fucked with ours for years.” Swearing means Mom is either really pissed or really scared. Her voice, at least, is nonchalant. “I guess payback is a bitch, Gary. Now get out.”
    The funny thing about a punch is that it sounds remarkably like any old thud. I’ve heard enough punches in my life to know that Mom just got one. Gary curses and I can hear them wrestling. The commotion wakes a hurt deep within me, and my wounds start to throb. The back of my head, where Gary first shoved me into plaster, pulses. My left arm, long since healed, throbs just like on that day six years ago, when I cradled it until Mom came home and took me to the emergency room. All the pain returns to my body as though this beating, too, is on me.
    I hold my shins tighter and push my closed eyes into my knees so hard that I see white spots. I’m five years old again. I can’t control my breathing.
    I can’t believe this is happening.
    Gary’s timing is freaking impeccable. Mom is going to be all bruised at graduation. She’ll be back in long sleeves, for sure, and it will take months for her to be as happy and whole as she was last night at dinner. I am so tired of my parents’ shit. Let them duke it out.
    Why does this keep happening to us? Why can’t we have a normal life?
    Gary bangs the wall and snarls. “I have had enough of your bullshit and that kid’s bullshit and I swear to god I will kill him for this. He has fucked with my life one too many times. I deserve to be happy.”
    Mom makes a squeaky sort of sound and something pounds furiously against the wall.
    “Do you hear me? Do you have anything to say, Helen? I am going to wipe him off the face of the earth. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be happy. ”
    Mom is probably curled up on the floor at this point. The best defense is making Gary believe he’s won.
    “Oh, goddammit,” Gary says, and the house is quiet.
    Jill stares at my hands, which grip hers so tightly my knuckles are white.
    I am not in the mood to clean up my mother’s wounds today. I am not in the mood for drama when I am meant to be graduating and moving—
    Jill presses herself to the back of the house, wide-eyed.
    I hear it, too: Gary’s breathing is so heavy and close that I hold my own breath. He’s looking out onto the deck, just a few feet above our heads. I look up and see only my mom’s window boxes, the poppies’ petals spilling over the edge.
    Please don’t see us. Please.
    Jill’s book lays fanned open in full sun. She cries silently and I mouth the words, “I’m sorry.”
    “Me, too,” she