Nothing Was the Same

She sleeps through the first part, but when mother cries out in the night Kayla shoots up from her bed. Her older brother, Gavin, springs upright too and they blink while mother keens; the sound, vaulted piercing, rises like a tide from a tall and frantic silhouette. Father has entered and his breathing is heavy laden, a bucket full of sloshing water that spills. He touches mother, caressing her, almost, embracing her Kayla thinks. But they scuffle and things shift, and what appeared to be lovers morphs into predator and prey.

Soft as linen, mother is crushed and tossed to the ground like a soiled garment. The night, muggy and close, squeezes the breath out of Kayla. Every time father hits the percussive grunts from mother mark the blow, a base beat keeping time. Gavin, moving, pushes father off his balance and mother becomes a curled, crawling thing. Two dark bodies, one a mirror of the other, thrash as mother crawls quickly away.

Kayla is up and pushing too, but a slap to the face means she’s down and on the floor. Mother still on her belly in the way of wounded animals hauls herself to her feet and dashes out the door. From the floor the smack of fist on skin that Kayla hears is similar to the sound of clapping. Gavin, punched, doubles over, panting, bowing in response to the applause.

“Big people business,” father says, and makes a move toward Gavin who is now clenched and crouched and waiting. A groan from old pipes hard to fix rumbles storm-like through the apartment. Three heads turns in unison toward the warning sound let off: mother is in the bathroom. Father heads in that direction and Gavin follows quickly and Kayla is hot on their heels. Her eyes smart, as if they’ve been stung, in the light but adjust soon enough. And there is mother hunched over the tub as father rings her neck. The force his hands use in his task make his veins bloom like blossoms from his skin. Kayla tastes salt and understands she’s crying, but not at mother’s distress. Instead her mother’s face is the reason. Framed in father’s hands like some ancient, ruined sculpture the skin is scalded and raw and pink. Earlier, it had been flawless, a lovely brown free from interruptions.

The bathroom door slams in Kayla’s face and she hears mother say, “Please, Ken!” Then mother’s voice is gone and there is only water. Gavin bangs and shouts and Kayla runs to their room for bobby pins: father recently taught her how to pick locks. When she returns Gavin has had a better idea, and lifting his foot he kicks at the cheap door. The bathroom door cracks and everything splinters and Gavin rushes in, jumping on father who is on top of mother.

One, two, three, four of us, Kayla counts; she counts again. Where is her little brother Troy? Her parents’ room is empty, so back to her room where she does not search long for him. There he is in her bed with his little bottom wedged against the wall. She takes the book he loves, where the reader picks the ending, from the grasp of his small fingers.

When father put Troy in her bed earlier, she had thought it was a dream. And maybe it was, maybe when she returns the bathroom will be empty. But the scene in the small room tells the same awful story: Gavin claws at her father, hitting hard and wherever he can and the salt from the tears seem to want to come back, because mother’s face is still gruesome.

Gavin’s feet gain purchase on the toilet’s base and the extra help means father is off of mother. A sickening kick and Gavin drags him into the hall. Quick as can be Gavin is back and kneeling beside their mother and Kayla guards the broken door. Gavin examines mother gently. He tilts mother’s chin, looking directly at skin that seems flayed. Mother cries in small gusty heaves...