Chapter 5
Aunt Laura’s house felt like my mother.
Not completely.
Nothing did.
But pieces of her were everywhere.
A blue ceramic bowl on the kitchen counter.
A quilt over the couch.
A framed picture of Mom and Laura at the beach when they were teenagers, laughing with their hair blowing across their faces.
I stood in the hallway staring at that photo.
Mom looked alive in it.
Not hospital-thin.
Not tired.
Not fading.
Alive.
Aunt Laura came behind me.
“She loved that picture,” she said.
“I haven’t seen it before.”
“I know.”
Her voice tightened.
“Karen didn’t like me bringing old photos over.”
I looked down.
“She said it made Dad sad.”
Laura exhaled.
“Maybe it did. But sadness is not dangerous, Ethan. Hiding it can be.”
Dad heard that from the kitchen.
He didn’t speak.
That night, Aunt Laura made grilled cheese and tomato soup.
My favorite when I was little.
I sat at her table and ate slowly.
Dad barely touched his food.
Laura noticed.
“Eat, Michael.”
He blinked.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat anyway. You are no good to Ethan collapsing from guilt.”
He picked up the sandwich.
I almost smiled.
Aunt Laura didn’t move like Karen.
Karen filled rooms with tension.
Laura filled them with instructions.
Somehow that felt safer.
After dinner, Dad called a locksmith.
Then a lawyer.
Then my school counselor.
Then Dr. Elaine Morris.
I sat on the couch pretending not to listen.
When he called Dr. Morris, his voice changed.
“I need copies of Ethan’s records,” he said. “And I need to know if Karen Miller contacted you separately.”
A pause.
Then Dad’s face hardened.
“She did?”
I sat up.
Another pause.
“How many times?”
My stomach twisted.
Dad looked at me.
Not with anger.
With horror.
“I understand,” he said. “Please send everything to the detective and to my attorney.”
He hung up slowly.
Aunt Laura stood in the doorway.
“What?”
Dad swallowed.
“Karen emailed Dr. Morris before Ethan’s sessions. She described behaviors Ethan never had. She asked Dr. Morris to evaluate him for aggression.”
My hands went cold.
Laura’s voice dropped.
“She was building a record.”
Dad nodded.
“Against a child.”
Against me.
I remembered sitting in that office while Dr. Morris asked if I ever wanted to hurt Karen.
I had been confused.
I said no.
Karen later told Dad I lied well.
Dad looked sick.
“There’s more,” he said.
I didn’t want more.
More kept coming anyway.
“Dr. Morris said Karen requested a recommendation for a residential behavioral program last month.”
The room stopped.
Aunt Laura whispered, “For Ethan?”
Dad nodded.
My ears rang.
Residential program.
Karen had said once, after I forgot to make my bed, “Some boys need to be sent somewhere with real discipline.”
I thought she was just being mean.
She had been planning.
Aunt Laura sat beside me.
“She can’t send you anywhere.”
I nodded, but my body didn’t believe it.
Dad knelt in front of me.
“Ethan, I didn’t know.”
I looked at him.
“You should have.”
The words came out small.
They still hit hard.
Dad closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
He didn’t defend himself.
That helped.
A little.
Later, when Aunt Laura made up the couch for Dad, I slept in her guest room.
She gave me one of Mom’s old blankets.
It was soft yellow and smelled like cedar.
I held the broken glove under the blanket with me.
At 1:13 a.m., I woke to yelling.
Not in the house.
Outside.
I sat up fast.
Dad’s voice came from the living room.
“Do not open the door.”
Aunt Laura said, “I wasn’t planning to.”
I crept into the hallway.
Through the front window, I saw headlights.
Karen stood on the porch in the rain.
Her hair was wet.
Her makeup ran down her face.
But her voice was sharp as glass.
“Michael, bring Ethan out here!”
Dad stood behind the locked door.
“No.”
“You cannot keep my son from me!”
I froze.
My son.
Aunt Laura saw my face and snapped, “He is not your son.”
Karen pounded on the door.
“He attacked me! He needs help!”
Dad’s voice shook, but held.
“You sabotaged his glove and slapped him.”
“He lied to you.”
“I saw the video.”
“He manipulated you.”
“He is twelve.”
“He is sick like his mother was sick.”
The house went cold.
Dad’s face changed.
Aunt Laura stepped toward the door like she might tear it off.
Karen shouted, “Sarah made him weak. She spoiled him. She left you with a broken child and everyone expects me to fix him!”
I stopped breathing.
Dad opened the door.
Just enough for the chain to catch.
His face was white with rage.
“Say my wife’s name again like that,” he said quietly, “and I will forget every reason I was raised not to hate people.”
Karen stared at him.
For once, she looked afraid.
Then she saw me in the hallway.
Her face twisted.
“There he is,” she hissed. “Look at him hiding behind dead women.”
Aunt Laura called 911.
Dad closed the door.
Karen screamed until police arrived.
They made her leave.
But before she got in her car, she looked straight at the window where I stood.
She smiled.
May you like
Then she mouthed two words.
Not over.
