A Girl Named Callie

<Jasper> A Boy Who Will Try Anything to Feel Better

Chapter 26

<Jasper Coven>

It's still pouring when I wake up on Wednesday morning, the pattering on the roof leaking into my bedroom and waking me long before my hungover brain wants to get up. I rub my temples as I slip out of my pajamas and into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. On my way out of the room, I pass the mirror on the open door of my closet. The same dark circles and sunken cheeks stare back at me. With a sigh, I push my hair out of my eyes and head downstairs to scrounge up a breakfast.

I settle on a piece of dry toast and a banana, the only two foods in the kitchen that don't make me nauseous. Sitting alone at the table, my eyes scan the emptiness of the house. It's quiet, every footstep, every breath, every gust of wind echo off the bare walls and reminds me that it's just me and the ghosts living in the house.

It's been five years and I can still see my dad's recliner sitting next to the fireplace. The fireplace didn't have a fire burning in it for most of the year. Usually, it was filled with broken bottles and cigarette butts. During winter, when Charlie and I were young, my mom would light a fire and let us roast marshmallows. When she'd first light the wood in the fireplace, a gust of dust and ash from the last time would spew out at us, causing a fit of coughing and laughter. Once she got the fire going, we would begin roasting, both of us getting more enjoyment out of watching the marshmallows burn and slip from our sticks than eating them.

Those fireplace moments happened long before my dad went off the deep-end. It was before he let the heroin and the alcohol control him, before he stopped leaving his chair and letting my mom handle all the farm work, before he decided to start beating his family as a solution to problems they had no idea about. The last fireplace I remember was when I was five-years old. My dad had left his chair, supposedly, to go get a Christmas tree from town. Even at five-years old, I knew that meant he was going to the bar, but I was happy to have him out of the house. He had been angrier than usual, and I was glad he wasn't around to ruin my favorite family tradition.

Charlie and I had found the perfect sticks on our afternoon walk and my mom had sprung for the extra-large bag of marshmallows. She had the chocolate and graham crackers laid out on a platter and the fire was roaring in the fireplace when we got back from our walk. She helped us slip out of our coats and boots before the three of us headed for the living room. Charlie and I snuggled up under a knitted blanket my grandmother had sent us before she died. My mom sat in my dad's recliner, her feet tucked up under her knees as she watched us impale our marshmallows and shove them directly into the flames.

We were about three or four marshmallows in when my dad came stumbling in. I saw my mom tense as she stared at the hallway, my dad's heavy footsteps and yelling growing closer with every second. His eyes locked on her and his yelling intensified. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was enough for my mom to tell us to go to the kitchen, not that we needed much prodding. I followed Charlie to the kitchen, and we sat at the table. He poured us each a glass of milk and got down the box of graham crackers. We ate in silence as the fight raged on in the other room.

Soon enough, the fighting turned into beating. I shuddered every time I heard a hand slam onto skin, the sound of my mom's wailing stinging my ears. Charlie and I just looked at each other, unsure of what to do. The slapping stopped a few seconds later and I heard my mother let out a scream that still haunts my nightmares. Five-year old me couldn't stand it anymore and I ran back out into the living room.

My dad was standing over my mom with a fire poker and she was laying on the floor, writhing in pain. There was a massive hole in her jeans, an angry red burn covering part of her thigh. I ran to her, tears streaming down my face. She embraced me, holding me tight to her breast; almost as if she was daring my father to burn her again with me in her arms. All I could see of my father was his boots, the dirty, untied laces that reminded me of his scraggly hair and beard. The fire poker was still sizzling in his hand, the bottom part stained with some of my mom's flesh. I was too afraid to look into his eyes, too afraid to find him smiling at what he'd just done, too afraid that he'd do it to me too.