guys i was so excited to upload so i just decided to upload a surprise chapter :) >>>> there's Grace :) i hope you like it!! :D ENJOY <3
I quietly walked into my house and closed the front door behind me. It was still the early afternoon, so I doubted my dad was home right now. Brandon showed up in the doorway of the kitchen. I dropped my bag and walked over to hug him. He was a junior in high school right now, yet he was taller than I was with very broad shoulders.
“How have you been?” I asked, pulling back and putting my hands on his arms. “Oh my god,” I noticed his black eye. “What happened?”
“I took it too far with Dad one night,” he replied with a sigh. My jaw dropped. I lightly touched it but he pushed my hand away. “I’m fine, Grace.”
“He punched you?” I asked, tilting my head.
“Yeah, basically,” he replied. “That was it, though. Just a punch. I ran upstairs after that.”
I exhaled and shook my head. I walked into the kitchen.
“Where have you been? School?”
“No, I was at my boyfriend’s house. He invited me to stay, so I’m going to go back after Christmas.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Brandon asked.
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Well because you never used to talk to boys.”
“I used to talk to boys,” I mumbled, looking into the refrigerator and grabbed the bottle of orange juice. I poured myself a glass. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. What’s been going on? I need details. Who were these people?”
“All they said was that someone called the police on our dad. They don’t know who yet, they’re trying to trace the phone call. They said that they’d be back this afternoon.”
“When was the last time they came?” I asked.
“Yesterday afternoon. Dad was at work still.” Brandon looked at the clock. “We still have time before he gets home.”
“I saw Mom,” I told him, “she came to my school around a month ago. She offered to take me on vacation with her, but I told her no.”
“Why’d you say no?” Brandon asked, widening his eyes.
“Brandon, she left us. She can’t just come back and think I’ll go running into her arms like nothing happened. There was no way in hell I was getting on a plane with a woman who I barely even know.”
My brother exhaled and leaned back against the counter.
“Who do you think called the police?” I asked, boosting myself up onto the counter.
“I have no idea. But they don’t have solid evidence for whatever they’re accusing him of doing.”
“Brandon, we alone have enough evidence to get him arrested for the rest of his life. Remember the grits?”
“He still has them,” Brandon said.
“He does not,” I replied in disbelief. Brandon opened an all too familiar cabinet door and reached into the back for the old, worn out cardboard box of grits. I shivered, thinking back to the many memories…
~Flashback~
“Dad, I’m sorry!” I exclaimed, hysterically crying as he pushed me into the kitchen. He kept a grip on the back of my shirt as he opened the cabinet next to the sink. Tears fell freely down my cheeks as he brought down the box of grits.
“When I tell you not to do something, you don’t fucking do it!” he yelled, enraged. I cried even harder as he let go of me and made two piles of the grits on the floor.
“Daddy,” I whimpered, trying to back away.
“Ten minutes on your knees Grace,” he said. I knew I wasn’t getting out of this now. He leaned back against the counter as I cautiously kneeled down on the two piles of grits. I hissed as I felt the grains cut into my skin like glass. No eight year old girl should have to go through this. Silent tears fell down my face as the seconds ticked by. This was his punishment for my brother and me when we didn’t listen to him. It was even worse when he was drunk – he’d make us kneel on them for up to an hour. If we ever tried to move off of them, he’d make two more piles and make us put our fists in them.
“Five minutes,” he told me after what felt like hours ticked by. I could feel my knees becoming numb from the pain. I’d learned that the more you moved your knees while you were kneeling, the worse they hurt, so it was always a challenge to be completely still.
My dad was from Georgia, and this was how his father punished him when he was young, so he carried on the tradition with his own children. It was horrible, creeping into the kitchen to find my younger brother in the same position I was in now.
“Okay,” my dad said finally. I couldn’t get off those damned grits fast enough. I took off running upstairs and straight into the bathroom. I already knew my knees were bleeding – they always did after kneeling on grits. Those grits cut your skin like a hundred tiny little knives. I turned on the water for the tub and let it fill up as I sat on the closed toilet seat, gingerly picking the individual grits out of my skin. I winced as I tried brushing them off my now broken and sensitive skin.
Once I carefully sat myself in the steaming bath, my knees stung and I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain to pass like I knew it would. I’d been through this enough times before to know that it did, eventually. Then the rare calmness sunk in.
~End of Flashback~
“You should throw them out,” I said.
“Do you want to try? Go right ahead, I’m sure he’ll find out,” Brandon said, handing me the box. I clenched my jaw and grabbed them, opening the garbage, and throwing them hard into the bottom of it.
I exhaled. “How’s school? You’re going right?”
“Failing two classes, but yes, I am.”
“Brandon…” I said, disappointedly.
“Come on, you can’t expect me to understand math and physics,” he replied, rolling his eyes.
“Go get your things, I’ll help you,” I said and Brandon slumped out of the kitchen.
There was a knock at the door while I was trying to explain some physics concepts to my brother. We looked at each other and I could see the fear in his eyes. “It’s just the police,” I said reassuringly. I walked over to the front door and opened it to find two police officers standing there.
“Hello ma’am,” they said politely. “Is this the Price household?”
I nodded. “It is.”
I heard Brandon walk up slowly behind me.
“Ah, there’s the boy who we spoke with yesterday,” one of the officers said, offering his hand. Brandon shook it. “Can we have a couple words?”
“Of course,” I answered, holding the door wider open for the officers to step inside. I brought them into the kitchen and offered them water. They accepted as they sat down at the island.
“I’m Officer Morris and this here is Officer Ward,” the first officer introduced. “We got a call the other day reporting an abusive father.”
Brandon looked down to hide his black eye.
“Right,” I nodded and felt my mouth going dry.
“Is this correct?” Ward asked.
“It is,” I answered nervously. I could feel myself shaking.
“How long has this been going on?” Morris asked, taking a notepad out of his jacket pocket. He clicked open a pen and looked up at me. I looked over at my brother. I swallowed hard.
“Thirteen years,” I answered truthfully.
Both officers looked completely shocked. They didn’t say anything for a minute – they just looked between the two of us.
“Son, lift your head,” Morris said to Brandon. He slowly brought his head up. “That’s some shiner you’ve got there. You didn’t have that when we came by yesterday.”
“I got it last night,” he answered shyly.
“From who?” Ward asked somewhat demandingly.
Brandon looked at me for help. I nodded for him to tell them. “My dad.”
“What exactly happened? I need details for evidence against the suspect.”
Brandon took a couple minutes to explain to the officers what happened. I then jumped in to show them the scars on my knees from countless minutes on the grits when I was younger. My brother showed his too and then lifted the sleeve of his shirt to show the scar on his forearm that he’d gotten one night when our dad broke a beer bottle.
“Kids, why didn’t this come to the police sooner?” Morris asked after we’d shown him many of the permanent reminders etched into our bodies.
“Where is your mother?” Ward asked additionally.
“Our mother left when we were little,” I answered slowly. The officers went quiet as Morris scribbled down on his paper what I was saying. “We lived in Georgia in the United States and she left our dad. We moved to England a year later and we’ve lived in this house ever since.”
“Have you seen her since?”
I looked at Brandon who looked back at me. I swallowed hard. “No,” I answered, looking the officers in the eye. “We haven’t. I probably wouldn’t recognize her if I saw her.”
They nodded and scribbled some more things on his piece of paper. “What state of mind is your father in when he lashes out?” Ward asked.
“Most of the time he’s drunk,” Brandon replied from the end of the island. “Other times he’s not.”
“Where does he work?”
“At a rubber factory,” I answered, lacing my fingers together. “He comes home at around eight and drinks until he passes out.”
“Oh god…” Ward put his head in his hand.
“What’s your name young lady?” Morris asked, flipping back to the first page in his yellow notepad.
“Grace May,” I answered.
“And yours?” he asked my brother.
“Brandon.”
“Why didn’t you call the police sooner?” he asked, looking at us hardly.
I looked at my brother who stared down at the counter. I swallowed hard again. “We didn’t have any place else to live. We don’t have any relatives here.”
“How old are you Grace?” Ward asked.
“Nineteen.”
“And Brandon?”
“Seventeen,” he answered.
“You’re a legal adult Grace. You and your brother can live in this house by yourselves.” Morris looked at me, shaking his head with a sympathetic look in his eyes.
“I’m going to university at the moment. I couldn’t be home.”
“Brandon, why didn’t you?”
He only shrugged.
“Come on son, why didn’t you call the police?” Ward pressed.
“I don’t know,” Brandon answered feebly. “I never really considered it. I was afraid of what my dad would do.”
“Your dad has no power over the police. I’m sure he doesn’t have anything to back himself up with now that we have all this evidence against him.”
“Are you going to arrest him?” I asked, sounding somewhat hopeful.
“He’ll be put on trial, yes. We’ll come back later tonight. When do you think he’ll be home?”
I looked at my brother. “Around eight.”
Morris nodded and closed the notepad. “Okay, that’s all we need for now.”
“Did you ever find who made the phone call?” I asked as the officers stood up.
“Oh, yes,” Ward said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He went through his messages. “It was made at a pay phone. It was a woman by the name of Dawn Wellington. Does that name ring a bell?”
My jaw dropped and I looked over at Brandon who was just as shocked as I was. “So it does?”
“Our mom’s name is Dawn,” I explained, “but I don’t know what her new last name is.”
Morris nodded. “We’ll look into it more before tonight. Alright kids?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. The two officers walked to the front door and we said goodbye to them as they walked back to the single police car.
I swear my heart stopped beating later that evening when I heard the front door slam closed. I looked at Brandon who stood up with me at the island. I heard heavy footsteps near the kitchen, then stop. I stared at the doorway and my dad sauntered in.
“God damn Brandon I didn’t even punch you hard,” he said, noticing my brother’s black eye. Brandon said nothing. Then my dad spotted me. “You’re back?”
“Hi Dad.”
“Why aren’t you at college? I’m paying a lot of money for you to go there and you’re not even there.” He went into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer. He easily popped open the top.
My dad was pretty gross actually. Over the years he’d grown a beer belly and had disgusting gray stubble on his jawbone. He used to be thin and fit when he was married. He just looked old right now.
“You’re actually not paying for me at all. I am.”
He huffed, “Whatever.”
“I came home for Christmas,” I explained, looking at my brother.
“How long are you staying for?” my dad asked before taking a long drink from the bottle.
“I’m leaving on Monday.”
“Alright,” he nodded. He looked down at the counter. “How old are you again?”
“Nineteen,” I answered softly.
“What?” he asked louder.
“Nineteen,” I repeated myself. I realized how much I really didn’t miss him while I was gone. Brandon had always been shy and reserved. I think it was mostly because of our dad. It had to be. My brother was handsome for his age, he was tall and in shape from running and soccer. I knew he had friends at school, though. He was just the quiet one of his group.
I glanced at the clock that read 8:43. The police should be here soon.
As soon as that thought crossed my mind, there was a knock at the front door. I looked at Brandon who stood up to go answer it. I bit my lip nervously, my heart racing faster than it ever had before. I heard hushed whispers and my dad stood up straighter. Then three policemen walked into the kitchen. My dad looked confused.
“What are you doing in my house?” he demanded. They walked around the counter. Morris and Ward were two of the three with a new third officer.
“You’re under arrest for child abuse,” Morris said as the others grabbed my dad and forced his arms behind his back. He started yelling obscenities and I swear I saw his eyes glare straight into mine with pure hatred. Brandon stood at the kitchen door, quiet. My dad yelled at him as well as they pulled him out of the house. One officer stayed while the other two brought him out to the police car.
“So thirteen years of child abuse?” the unknown officer asked us. We both nodded. “He’s going to be put on trial tomorrow afternoon. He’ll be held in a holding cell for tonight. You both will be expected to attend. Two o’ clock sharp.”
I nodded and looked up at my brother who looked terrified. The officer smiled reassuringly at us.
“It’s okay, son try getting some sleep. Everything will be fine. He won’t be a problem anymore.”
“Thanks officer,” I said appreciatively. I walked him to the front door. He got a call through the handheld radio. He said some things into it and put it back on his belt.
“Two o’ clock tomorrow. Be dressed appropriately.”
I nodded and he smiled one last time before he walked out and out to his police car. I looked to Brandon who was staring into space. I hugged him. “What a great first day of you being back,” he said with a chuckle. I smiled.
“You’ve got that right.”
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