✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

120. My Confrontation

There was a doorbell, but the light on it didn't seem to be illuminated, and I didn't hear anything when I pressed it. The house looked dilapidated in general, and I thought there was no way a kid raised here could have avoided going off the rails. I knew that expressions like "the wrong side of the tracks" were no longer considered politically correct, but this house was every inch the stereotype, and passers by must know without asking that the kids would be thugs. I could imagine people walking by on the other side of the street, unless they had to come here to complain to the man of the house about his offspring. And that must be a regular occurrence as well; Mr Torrance would be spending half his time trying to get the kids under control in spite of their circumstances. I could see his life as a continuous uphill struggle. Really it would have been better to have their mother make the rules, but I knew from experience that some types of boys just would not listen to a woman.

I tried the doorbell again, but didn't hear any sounds from inside the house. I had to guess that it wasn't connected. So I rapped on the door, and heard a muffled yell. Someone was home. Maybe it would be the mother; they were working class, so the man of the house would probably be out at work, whatever he did. I wasn't sure if that was helpful or not. I could tell her that her son was causing trouble, but that would be a common report. I needed to be sure that the boy's father would take action; so I might need to exaggerate what he had done a little, just to be sure that the message was passed on. I reassured myself by saying that it wasn't really lying; I knew what a boy like him was likely to do, even if he hadn't gotten that far yet. I was just trying to keep my little safe from someone who only wanted to force her into the role he desired.

I knocked again, wondering why they hadn't come to the door yet, and this time was answered by muffled cursing from the far corner of the house. I took a deep breath, and tried to line up the speech in my mind. It would probably be different depending who answered. If I got to meet Mrs Torrance, I would have to make absolutely sure she knew this was a big enough deal to bring up with her husband. But if Mr Torrance was at home, today was his rest day or whatever, I could be frank with him. Even if we were from different worlds, and he might have an instinctive distrust of a woman with an academic and business background, I was sure that the concern of fellow parents for their children would transcend any cultural boundaries.

I glanced around the yard – it contained too little greenery and too much broken glass for me to consider it a garden – and wondered if there were younger kids here. I thought I might remember Tess mentioning something about Spike's little brother once, but there were no kids' toys in evidence, or anything to hint at the type of family that lived here. It was easy to imagine they might have two or even three kids in a house like this, but it would be pretty crowded. No, I could imagine that they had decided not to have more kids after finding out what a nightmare their first had been. Maybe he would have grown up with a little more respect for women if he'd had a sister to set him straight, but now wasn't the time to be thinking about what might have been.

I was about to try knocking again when the door flew open, and I was faced by a middle-aged woman with bags under her eyes. She looked exhausted, and I wondered what could have drained her so much. I revised my estimate, and decided that there were probably multiple kids here after all. And if the redness around her eyes meant she'd been crying, it was easy to imagine that they were all boys, and just as bad as Spike. I almost felt bad about bothering her, but this was something that needed to be dealt with. I could have let it go if this was just for my benefit, but I reminded myself that I was doing this to protect Tess.

"Yeah, whaddya want?" the lady yelled, at a level that the neighbours would surely have heard. They were probably used to it.

"Sorry to disturb you," I said. "Mrs Torrance? Spike's mother?"