“I was five when my father’s company split. He spent his summers in Chicago and the rest of the year in Sterling Shore at that time. During the summer, I stayed with my grandfather, because I was already playing every sport I could, including baseball. I was a big five-year-old, so I was playing with the age group ahead of me. But there was one big problem.”
“What?” I prompt when he hesitates.
He doesn’t look at me. “I was a big fucking crybaby.”
My brow furrows. “You were five. Most kids tend to cry a lot at that age.”
“My father has never cried in his life,” he says immediately, then clears his throat. “Anyway, my grandfather doesn’t handle crybabies too well, so every time I got hurt and cried, he punished me.”
My heartbeat speeds up, and I inch down the bed to be closer to him.
“He beat you?” I whisper, practically hearing my heart start to break.
He shakes his head slowly. “Not in a conventional way. If I fell down on the rocks and cried, he would shove me down in the rocks over and over again until my body was scraped to pieces. He wouldn’t stop until I stopped crying.”
I don’t even know what to say about something like that. Working in the hospital, especially when I help in the ER, I’ve seen so many horrible things parents have done to the one precious person—or persons—they’re supposed to protect. I’ve seen grandparents in that scenario too.
“If I was hit with a baseball during a game and cried, he’d throw a ball at me as hard as he could when we got home. And he’d do it until I quit crying.” He absently rubs his side, as though there’s a phantom pain there at the moment. “One time he cracked two ribs from throwing it so hard. When he took me to the hospital, I wasn’t crying. I couldn’t even speak without it hurting. He told them I got in a fight with some kids from school to explain all the bruising. Then said, ‘boys will be boys,’ when the girl offered to call the police.”
My jaw tics as I thread my fingers with his, holding his hand like I can somehow pull him out of the memories.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed for this. But how the hell could your father let you go there knowing he was a monster like that? I mean, there’s no way your grandfather didn’t abuse him if he abused you.”
“Like I said, my dad has never cried. He had a heart attack, and he never cried. In truth, my grandfather was always a little terrified of my father, even though I didn’t realize it early enough to use it against him. My dad was a mean son of a bitch when he was a kid. He’d have pulverized anyone who laid a hand on him. He never had a clue his dad was capable of that.”
/> “But your dad wasn’t like that?” I ask, given the ‘mean son of a bitch’ comment.
“Hell no. He never physically punished me. Dad was more the type to take everything out of my room for three weeks when I was grounded. Then let me earn it back.”
I swallow down the knot in my throat as he blows out another reluctant breath, still staring at our hands as he rubs a circle on the side of my hand with his thumb.
“Anyway, every single summer it got worse. Soon my pain tolerance was so high that I could handle anything that came at me. At some point, I pretty much stopped feeling anything except for surprise contact. My grandfather never snuck up on me. I always saw him coming, so I think that’s why I could feel surprise contact. My guard was lowered.”
“And you never told anyone,” I surmise, letting go of a heavy breath.
The protocol is to always report any and all suspicious activity involving children, but most of those children go along with whatever story their abusers have concocted, because they’re afraid.
“It started so young that I felt like I was being treated like everyone else. It was actually my Uncle Edward who put a stop to it.”
“Tria and Rain’s father?” I ask in surprise, considering he was a major asshole who iced his daughters out.
“Yeah. And I know you’re thinking Edward told Dad when they were kids, but he didn’t. Edward and Dad weren’t that close, considering Dad was older and Edward always kept to himself. What Dad never knew is that my grandfather had done the same thing to Edward for most of his life before he left home.”
He groans like he doesn’t want to tell this, but I don’t say a word.
“Anyway, when I stopped crying, it wasn’t enough. Just a grimace of pain would get me punished. One day, Edward came to the ballpark because Dad asked him to pick me up. My granddad had to drive out of town for a doctor’s appointment, and couldn’t get back in time. I pulled off my shirt because it was full of sweat, and Edward saw the bruises before I could pull on a clean shirt. He took me over to Wren’s house instead of taking me home with him. He told me he’d be back to pick me up later. But he didn’t come back. It was my father who showed up around midnight, and he walked right up to me, pulling off my shirt without saying a word. When he saw the bruises, his eyes watered. He didn’t cry, but I thought he was going to.
“Anyway, that was the last day I saw my grandfather. My uncle told my father all about what had happened to him as a kid, things my father never would have believed if not for the bruises on my body. Dad lost it and nearly went to jail when he beat my grandfather so bad that the old man stayed in the hospital for two weeks. Edward was the only thing that stopped him from killing him. Dad wouldn’t stop until my grandfather was sobbing and begging for mercy. It pretty much got swept under the rug because of the pull the Sterlings have. They were friends with Dad and they felt like the bastard in the hospital belonged in the grave. The adults knew, but they never told their kids in order to give me privacy. And that was that.”
He finally looks up to meet my eyes again, and I quickly wipe away my tears.
“So Edward turned to alcohol and women, and you grew numb because of one man.”
“Edward had it every day instead of just in the summer. And Edward broke mentally in a different way.”
“I never knew. I’m not that close to Tria and Rain, so they’ve never told me about any of that.”
He sits up. “They don’t know about it. Edward never wanted them to know. He made that clear to my father and me.”