T.W - implications of past child abuse
When John B got home from school his sister was sitting cross legged in the middle of the yard. She was carefully stacking a pile of sticks together, wriggling her bare feet into the dirt as she worked.
It wasn't unusual for Lu to sit there.
The four year old was often content for hours to just sit on the ground and play in the dirt. But it was a Tuesday and Lu only came over on weekends.
John B rolled his bike closer to her, and glanced around the backyard for any sign of her mother. And while he was thankful that he didn't find her, he did take note of the police station wagon that was pulled up near the front of the Chateau.
"Lu?" He cautiously asked the girl, as if checking if it really was his sister.
Lu's face shot eagerly up from her unstable tower and gave him a giddy gap toothed smile as he approached.
"Heyth Thohnny!" She chirped scrambling to her feet and wobbling slightly when she got upright.
John B paused, his eyebrows furrowing at the peculiar sight of her.
She was smiling like a lunatic and her mouth was full of cotton balls. She was missing several of her teeth that he definitely recalled her having on Sunday. And a deep stretching bruise had bloomed from her swollen lip up to beneath her left eye.
"What the hell happened to you?" He questioned in shock, putting a hand out and gesturing vaguely at her whole face.
Lu began to ramble out some long winded answer as she trotted past her tower towards him. But her words were muffled by the cotton balls and by the end of it John B was more confused than when she'd started. And definitely more concerned since her gums were now bleeding.
Then when she got close enough, Lu threw out her arms and wrapped him in a tight hug.
John B stood frozen in disbelief.
Lu never hugged him.
Lu never even hugged her mom.
"You okay?" He murmured truly disturbed now, carefully cradling her head against his stomach with one hand and holding his bike upright with the other.
Before she could respond with any more muffled nonsense their dad's voice rang out from the porch.
"Red!" He called out, his tone tense.
"She's out here!" John B hollered back.
"Bring her over here to say goodbye to the Deputy."
The Deputy?
"Come on Luey." He pressed a strong kiss to the top of her head and then extracted himself from her hold.
Lu hummed happily and stumbled amiably behind him as he lead her by the hand round to the front of the porch.
Deputy Peterkin was standing on the first step her arms crossed and her dark features etched in concern. Their dad was standing on the landing, he was running his hands harshly over his face like he wanted to wipe off his beard.
When he finally withdrew his hands from his now red face John B could tell he had been crying.
"Come up here Bird," He waved him over, arms open for a hug. Not one to question an open offer of affection John B skipped eagerly up the stairs and into his fathers arms.
"Red's gonna stay with us for a while okay?" His dad mumbled down to him, voice rough. And the way he held him in that moment would haunt John B for years to come. Like he precious and fading all at the same time. Like he was the treasure that kept slipping through his fathers fingers.
"What? For like a week?" John B asked, fingers tangling themselves in his dad's shirt.
His dad sniffed harshly, and then he pulled him back by the shoulders to stand by his side. The two of them watched Peterkin as she crouched in front of Lu, talking to her in a hushed tone and with a fiercely kind smile.
"For a while." Was all he said.
***
John B had never liked Katherine Bennett.
She always pinched him too roughly on the cheek whenever she saw him and she had this tsking sound she would always make whenever he swore.
John B didn't like Katherine Bennett before she knocked three of his sisters teeth out and he definitely didn't like her afterwards.
But God didn't care what John B liked. He just did whatever the fuck he wanted.
Like drop the most gorgeous girl on the planet in John B's arms and then push him off a wooden tower during a thunderstorm. Like give him the most loyal and loving group of friends and then sink his dad like a heavy stone in the ocean.
The 'Good' Lord really just gave and took whatever he wanted, all the fucking time, and it was giving John B a severe case of vertigo.
He had just been... adopted? By the richest man on the island? While his sister. His sweet, timid, twitchy little sister who he adored so much was probably rotting away in some ghettoass crack house in the deepest pit of the Cut.
And it was for the sake of said sister that John B was looking so far down his million dollar gift horse's throat he could practically see the lobster Ward Cameron ate for dinner last night.
"Listen I know its a lot to ask-" John B started but was cut off by an oblivious Ward who continued to grumble on like some kind of weary detective in a gritty crime series.
"You're lucky kid, fall any other way you don't hit that sand?" He mused in his deep gravelly voice, brows furrowed, the picture of fatherly concern. "You could've broken both your legs and your back."
"Yeah, yeah I'm super lucky," John B acknowledged briefly, thoughts still on Lu, "Thanks for sticking up to the DCS for me and all, but you see my siste-"
"Don't even worry about it, happy to do it." Ward cut him off smoothly, smiling charitably.
For fucks sake, the Good Lord was testing him again. He couldn't really be that thick.
Ward paused for long enough for the room to gain and awkward air and John B was about to inject again, when he started up again.
"And don't worry about your sister," He placated, raising a hand and patting the air as if he were smothering out John B's fears, "If you want I can pull some strings for a visit, but until then I'm sure her mama's gonna take good care of her."
John B made a strangled scoff of protest at the back of his throat and roughly wiped his hand over his mouth.
"Sir if you just hear me-" John B began to explain, unsure of where his sentence would end. And he would never have to find out, because Ward was off again.
"One more thing," Ward's fatherly concern slipped easily from his face as a calculated casualness took its place. What ever he was about to say John B could tell it was what he had wanted to say from the moment he sent Sarah out of the room. "Last night Sarah was in my office, and she was getting a map and she said it was for you and..."
Shit.
He was onto him.
"I'm sorry but I just have to ask," Ward pressed, John B stared with interest at the perfectly varnished floorboards beneath him. Completely unsuspiciously.
Please don't.
"You're not chasin' after pots of gold like your old man, are you John B?"
Here John B was counting this man as one of his blessings. A gift from God. And with one sentence any ounce of trust or reliance he had once placed on Ward Cameron faded in an instant.
For a moment all that was screaming throughout John B's head was, 'He's after my fucking gold.'
And then out of the depths of his stomach, the heart of his gut, that organ lodged deep inside of him the one that produced his instinct, came his second thought.
Lie.
And so he lied.
"Look, Mr.C uhh..." Though he didn't do it very well, "Sarah just told me you guys had some cool old maps? I'm kind of a history buff myself, and uhh."
God, he felt sick. He was lost out at sea. He could taste saltwater at the back of his throat.
"That I guess I got from my dad so.."
They both allowed another uncomfortable pause. John B's thoughts tracked back to his gold.
"That makes sense." Ward broke the silence, his paternal facade melting back onto his face as he made his way out of the room, "Anyway, take it easy the next couple days all right?"
"Absolutely, yeah." John B lied again.
"You've been through a lot." Well at least that was true.
***
There were three toys in her mothers house.
A yellow post van the length of Lu's palm. It was missing two wheels and a door.
A pink cat that played 'You Are My Sunshine' whenever Lu pulled its tail.
And a Rubix cube.
Her mama had bought them for her at a second hand store on their way home from the hospital that morning. She put them in a cardboard box in the corner of her living area and told Lu to sit down.
So Lu sat.
She rolled the yellow van across the floor the wooden board loose and creaky. While her mother and the police man she didn't like talked in hushed voices in the other room.
She wondered, as she flicked row after row of the Rubix cube experimentally, if Johnny was okay. If he had woken up yet. If the blonde girl from last night was still with him. If he was coming to get her soon.
Lu put the cube back in the box and picked up the pink cat. She held it in her arms and stroked it like it was one of her chickens. She wondered if they were okay. If the foxes had gotten to them. If they had enough to eat. If they missed her as much as she missed them.
The police man walked into the living room.
Lu didn't need to look at his face to know it was him. Just his feet. They were loud. And he was tracking mud into her mothers ugly green rug.
"You having fun over there kiddo?" He said in his stupid voice.
Lu shrugged.
"How about we use our words, okay?"
Lu didn't respond.
"You're in a bit of a mood huh? I get it." He went on, still not saying much of anything. "But you be on your best behavior for your mama okay? The Sheriff and your social worker Cheryl will show up in a day or two to check up on you both but until then..."
Lu picked up the yellow van and spun its remaining wheels with the tips of her fingers.
"Play nice." Lu could hear the forced smile in his voice. The end of his sentence hissing slightly through his teeth as he drew out his last word.
He waited a moment, as if expecting a response.
As if he deserved a response.
Lu gripped the van tightly in her fist, feeling the cheap plastic dig into her palm.
The police man sighed and stood up loudly. Did he really have to do everything so loudly? It made him so much more difficult to ignore. He was halfway through stomping back across the rug when Lu felt the first words she'd spoken since last night tumble out of her mouth.
"Is John B okay?"
"So now she speaks!" He laughs, as if he was funny.
Lu looked up from the yellow van and glared at the stupid man.
"Is he okay?" She forced out, her throat sore and her voice croaky. She'd caught some sort of fever from her evening in the mud beneath the docks.
"Okay?" The police man chortled, unfazed by her stare, "Kid, your brother could star in an original 'Rags to Riches' series, he could probably fund it too."
Lu's forehead creased in bewilderment. What was this guy on about?
"The luckiest bastard in the Cut." He spoke in a strange voice like he was reciting the tagline of a reality show, and then chuckled to himself as he went on, "Trust me sweetie your brother's more than okay."
Then before Lu could say a word he was already out the door and stomping his big feet all the way back to his stupid car.
What? What the fuck? What was that? What did any of that even mean?
"Lucy," Her mother called from the other room, "Baby, can you come in here please?"
Lu stood up and was walking out of her play corner before she even had the good sense to be scared.
Her mothers house was not the same as it used to be. As in it was different. It was a different house. Lu didn't know how she knew that.
She followed her mothers voice, and the sound of a kettle bubbling.
When Lu made it to the kitchen she stood still in the doorway. She stared down at her feet.
She was wearing new shoes. They were knew to her at least. Her mother bought them from the second hand store that morning. The left one flashed pink if she stepped hard enough.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" Her mother asked, but it didn't sound like a question.
Lu had never had tea before.
The sound of her mothers bare feet sticking to the cheap linoleum floor of the kitchen caused LU to glance up from her shoes and study her.
She wasn't very tall, but she had this willowy look about her. All long limbs and grace. A navy blue sundress hemmed with cherry blossoms floated about her bare ankles as she padded from cabinet to cupboard to stove top.
Gone was the desperate stumbling woman from the police station. And as Lu watched this woman, her mother, the murky monster that used to haunt her day and her nights grew ever more murky.
Maybe Katherine Bennett wasn't sick anymore.
"Lucy." Her mother tsked slightly impatiently, as she waited by an open cabinet full of mugs, "Would you like some tea?"
It may not have been a question but her mother had expected an answer. Lu's hands shook. She'd taken too long to reply. She had been impolite. She felt sick.
"Yes." She found herself blurting out. "Please."
"Very good." Her mother hummed in approval and reached up into the cabinet for the cups. Lu watched as her hands shook too. "Take a seat darling."
Lu took a seat.
Her mother had a nice way of saying 'darling'. She dropped the 'r' and the 'ling' chimed high and sweet. The endearment fell from her lips so smoothly and with such fondness.
Lu didn't understand what was going on.
From her seat at the kitchen bench Lu could watch as boiling water was poured into two separate tea bagged mugs. One looked homemade. Cream and coffee colored with nicks in the handle. One was in the shape of Big Birds face.
Her mother walked around the counter and took a seat on the hard wooden stool beside her. Big Birds steaming head was slid in front of Lu.
"Thankyou." Lu murmured, and she let her hands hover over the sides of the mug the warmth seeping into her bones.
A silver spoon full of sugar appeared over the depths of her tea and was gently sifted in. The brown of the sugar melted into the black of the tea. Lu nodded her head slightly in approval.
They sat together for a while. Side by side. Both quiet.
After a minute or two a small pitcher of milk appeared over Lu's tea and she watched intently as the white of the milk bled into the black of the tea. She then allowed her eyes to follow the pitcher, to the mild tremor of the fingers that held it, to the face of this stranger who was staring at her.
The stranger smiled sadly as she placed the milk on the counter.
"You look like your dad." She said.
You don't look like anyone. Lu thought. Who are you?
"But you have my mamma's eyes." She seemed to become even sadder at that. Then the stranger began to stretch out her hand. Her slender brown fingers reaching cautiously out to Lu's face.
Lu closed her eyes tight. She didn't have anyone's eyes but her own.
"Listen baby," Her mother sighed, and Lu could practically hear her hand retreat, "the way it used to be with us..."
Lu kept her eyes closed. She ran her tongue over her front teeth.
"It's not going to be like that anymore." She promised.
She's not the person that she once was. Peterkin's voice played like a static recording at the forefront of Lu's frozen mind.
Where was Peterkin?
"I'm not going to be like that anymore." She pleaded.
Sick in a way that is difficult for a kid to understand.
"Cause you're better now?" Lu whispered.
Somewhere, in the depths of Lu's heart, in the veins of her soul, in the ache of her teeth, she wished that her mother would say 'yes, I am better'. And that she would mean it.
Lu wanted it her to be different. Lu wanted everything to be different. Different to the way it used to be. Different to the way it was with her dad. Different to the way it was with John B.
Lu wanted to live in a world without treasure. Without hunts and running and sickness. She wanted to live in a world with her chickens and her couch.
But she didn't want to live there alone. Lu wanted to look out at her little kingdom for there to be someone there.
Anyone.
But her mother didn't say yes. She didn't say that she'd be better soon or that she was better than she was. She didn't even she was sorry.
God why couldn't anyone say they were sorry?
"Drink your tea." The sad stranger said.
Lu drank it.
It was warm and sweet. And like everything else in her mothers house, it made her feel sick.
***
That night in the well of an old woman's basement, John Booker Routledge found his treasure. And Lucy-Red Routledge underneath the loose floorboard in her play corner found the fourth toy in her mothers house.
A gun.
shitttt. i dont know where im going with this