If These Wings Could Fly - Kyrie McCauley Page 0,83

pushing us toward the stairs.

He stops what he’s doing. His eyes are dark. They scare me. It’s like he’s not even in there.

“Don’t push me tonight.” He moves upstairs, I presume to make sure the second floor is freezing, too. Mom follows, closing the windows behind him as she goes.

Barely a moment passes, and we hear a strangled cry from upstairs.

I run, hurling myself around the banister. He has her at the top of the stairs, bent over the railing backward, his hands on her throat. I’m on him in moments, shoving into him as hard as I can to get him off her. I push him into the bathroom door, and he swears at me. He charges at me, and shoves, and I slam into the banister. I hear something crack, and for a moment I’m not sure if it’s something in me.

The wood beneath me splinters, and shards stick up at every angle, jagged and broken. I try to suck in air, but the wind’s been knocked out of me, and it hurts.

A moment passes. Two. Three.

I gasp a breath.

Campbell runs across the hallway and swings her fist. It connects with the side of his head. There’s no way it hurt him much, but it doesn’t matter. He’s out of control, and he turns on her next. He reaches for her, and I scream. It’s a noise I’ve never made before in my life, and I’m on him like a wild thing, scratching anything I can reach. He releases Campbell, and I grab her and a sobbing Juniper, pulling them into my bedroom. I usher them into the armoire, and hear the sound of him pulling Mom back downstairs, and all I can think is how he’s taking her closer to his gun, it’s right there on the fridge, it would only take a moment, one second, and he could destroy our entire world.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tap.

A cracking noise from the other side of my room, at the window, and when I get to it, there’s the flash of feathers in the dark as a crow flies away.

And something else.

A gift dropped onto my windowsill outside. I push open my window and reach for it, confused. Grateful.

It’s Dad’s cell phone.

Auburn, Pennsylvania

December 25

CROW POPULATION:

78,460

Chapter Sixty-Four

RED AND BLUE LIGHTS FLASH ON the worn, once-white siding of the house. Red, blue, and gray.

A different kind of American dream.

It’s cold outside, and each of my hands is wrapped around a smaller one. Our flannel pajamas aren’t holding up against the wind.

Officer Bill DiMarco is the first to arrive. When I see him, I feel that thing trapped in my chest panicking. Will he just let him go again?

But he doesn’t. He puts him in handcuffs. He acts like he doesn’t even know him.

Another officer arrives and calls a judge at home, waking him to request an emergency protection order.

The second officer pulls Mom aside, but I can hear them. He explains that because of the holidays, a real hearing will take some time, but we can extend the temporary order until we get into a courtroom, probably after the new year. If he’s released before that, the order bars him from the house and any of us.

And according to the order, he has twenty-four hours upon release to surrender his firearm.

Officer DiMarco walks over after putting our father in the back of his car. I wonder if they said anything to each other.

He shifts back and forth on his feet. He looks so uncomfortable. I imagine he’d rather be anywhere else but here responding to this call tonight.

“I read the essay, Leighton. I’m sorry. I, uh—I’m just sorry. That was really hard to read.”

“It was really hard to live in.” I’m exhausted. And freezing. I’m not in the mood for any more of the halfhearted atonements of grown men.

Officer DiMarco just nods once and turns to Mom, promising her that he’ll personally deliver a physical copy of the temporary protection order later in the day.

Mom never wavers.

I don’t think about tomorrow. I don’t think about the possibility that she could change her mind again. Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I feel like we’ve been heard. I feel like maybe we are safe.

And it feels so damn good.

Auburn, Pennsylvania

December 31

CROW POPULATION:

84,784

Chapter Sixty-Five

WE GET READY AT MY HOUSE, for once. Sofia has been here before, but rarely. We stand in my room, each tugging on an extra layer of tights because it’s freezing outside. The black dress is as fantastic as