As for my mother, I saw her sweetness every day. She protected me from him as best she could. She played middle man to the constant hate my father and I had for each other. Somehow, even through his abuse, she remained stoically loyal to him and to me. Maybe he really did love her and that’s why he never went after me, knowing that I was my mother’s only weakness in her love for him.
“Aubrey, how was school?” he asked, back to trying to have the white picket fence and perfect family that he forced upon us.
“Most students were excited it was Friday, Father. Everyone was happy and ...”
“Everyone was acting like animals,” he growled.
I started to protest. My mother cut me off. “Your studies are going well still, Brey?”
“Her name is Aubrey. There is a reason we named her that.”
My mother’s head dropped again. Her long dark hair curtained around her face, hiding her disapproval. Mother always called me Brey when he wasn’t around. Just like I called her Mom when he wasn’t around. “Just a little secret,'' she would say with a smile.
So, silence took over our meal, enveloping me in the security that without sound or improper movement, my father couldn’t find fault in our actions.
Both my mother and I mirrored each other perfectly. She held her fork in her right hand just an inch into the chicken as she cut into the meat with the knife in her left hand. The knife was never to touch the plate and it didn’t after I accidentally did so one night. My mother had stood up for me, saying I was too young to never have an accident. My father turned his anger on her, as he always did. Now, I copied my mother’s motions, making sure each slice of chicken was never too large for a woman to properly bite into.
The phone ringing jerked me from my daydream.
“Excuse me,” my father said as if we would have objected to him getting up in the first place.
He answered the phone as both my mother and I looked on. The calls to the house were either the Stonewoods or my father’s job. My mother didn’t have any friends or family left.
“She is eating dinner,” he said into the phone. “She will call you back tomorrow.”
Silence.
“No. She cannot go out tonight or any night for that matter.”
Fear seeped through me. I’d forgotten to tell Jay and Jax not to tell my dad about going out last weekend. My dad had been away and my mother had finally given me permission to go to a party and then sleep at their house.
I didn’t drive. I didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t do anything other than go over to the Stonewoods every now and then for an hour or two. When I begged my mother, she finally agreed with a warning that my father could never find out.
“What do you mean she did last weekend?”
My mother’s eyes snapped up to meet mine. We mirrored each other again. Both of us stared in fear at the other. We sat as still and as straight as possible.
“Well, not tonight,” he said, turning slowly to look at my mother. I hated that my eyes were the same color as his. The way his lit up with rage made me wish at night that God would just wipe away every genetic trace of him in me.
“I will have her call you tomorrow.” I flinched as he slammed the receiver down on the cradle.
He stared at my mom, waiting.
I watched the clock in the kitchen like seeing the time pass by would help, maybe diffuse the situation.
Tick, tock.
She didn’t speak at first.
Tick, tock.
I thought of what I could say.
Tick, tock.
My mom trusted me.
Tick, tock.