A Breath Too Late - Rocky Callen Page 0,31

down at me. You had been drinking. I could smell it on you. You blinked and narrowed your eyes at me.

“Hi, Father,” I said quietly.

You rubbed your jaw and gave me a curt nod.

Your eyes didn’t leave mine as you pulled off your shirt and went to sit in the living room.

I shifted my gaze away and looked at the door. The freedom just beyond it.

“Going somewhere, Ellie?” The rumble, the warning.

“No,” I said quickly, looking back at you.

You were bare-chested. You took in a deep breath and then pulled a lighter out of your pocket. I hated that lighter.

While I stood there, between you and the door, I remembered that the first time I had seen your lighter was right after Momma started working, a couple of years before.

She had worked late and dinner hadn’t been ready. You sat at the dining room table. Momma walked in, frazzled and already apologetic. There was a can of gasoline on the floor and she went quiet at the sight of it.

“I wondered if you’d come back, Regina.”

That’s when you pulled out your lighter. It was silver.

Click, open. Click, shut.

“I was thinking, well … if my woman isn’t coming back, then maybe we should just burn the whole house down. You know, purge myself of the memories.”

That’s when Momma noticed me.

“Abel.” Momma’s voice was shaky. “Let’s talk. Let Ellie go upstairs and let’s talk.”

“Oh.” Click, open. Click, shut. “I belted her in. Didn’t want her to miss it.” Momma’s eyes roamed over the leather belt and noticed how it looped around my waist and was buckled through the rungs of the wood chair’s back like a seat belt pulled tight. I was trapped in the chair and eating ice cream. I hadn’t really known to be scared when you did it. You’d said it was a game. You’d said it would be fun.

“There is no reason”—Momma approached slowly, arm outstretched as if she were trying to pet a wild animal—“to involve Ellie in this, Abel. She’s … She’s just a child.”

Click, open. Click, shut. “I don’t like looking at her face.”

Momma blinked at you. “What—why?”

“Because she looks so much like you.”

* * *

I didn’t remember the exact moment when I knew that the lighter was a threat, because on that day when I’d first seen the lighter, I had just been so happy to have peppermint ice cream. But somewhere between that day and the day I stood near the front door and you sat in the living room bare-chested, blocking my path to August, to freedom, I knew that your clicking lighter was a promise of pain.

I wasn’t facing you when you said, “You look so much like your mother.”

I swallowed. Frozen in place. That’s what you had said that day. I knew it was a threat, and I didn’t want to burn.

“She’s taller than me,” I said quickly. I needed something, anything to cast us as different. I looked for more things to say, but you said, “Come here,” and it silenced me.

“Yeah, you look different. Your nose is mine, you’re skinny like me, your face is just a bit wider. I am mixed up in there too. But you look like your mother.”

I was waiting for a belt. For the gas can. For a slap. I clenched my fists.

But instead you sighed and said, “Your mother was beautiful.”

I was so startled that I gasped. You laughed a little. “It’s true. She was singing at this open mic spot back in New Orleans and her voice … mmmm, her voice just felt like velvet. I could feel it when I heard her. But then I looked up and I saw this gorgeous, wild-looking woman. A wild mare.”

Your eyes were far-off, recalling. “I knew then that I had to have her. After her song, I went up to her and she smiled at me and I stayed in town and before long, she was mine.” You smiled then, as if you were tasting chocolate.

I felt uncomfortable even though I liked imagining my momma as wild, as free, as someone who could hypnotize people with her voice. Like she was magic. I tried to remember a time when I had heard Momma sing, and beyond the hum of lullabies from long, long ago, I couldn’t.

“But then your momma got a little restless. She wouldn’t listen.”

Lighter. Click, open. Click, shut. “She wanted to leave.” The far-off-ness of your eyes came back and settled on mine, alert even in their whiskey haze. “And so