22
What We Whispered and What We Screamed
When I arrived at the peak, Mother was making the Thanksgiving meal. The
large oak table was covered with jars of tincture and vials of essential oil,
which I cleared away. Charles was coming for dinner.
Shawn was in a mood. He sat on a bench at the table, watching me gather
the bottles and hide them. I’d washed Mother’s china, which had never been
used, and I began laying it out, eyeing the distance between each plate and
knife.
Shawn resented my making a fuss. “It’s just Charles,” he said. “His
standards aren’t that high. He’s with you, after all.”
I fetched glasses. When I put one in front of him, Shawn jabbed a finger
into my ribs, digging hard. “Don’t touch me!” I shrieked. Then the room
turned upside down. My feet were knocked out from under me and I was
swept into the living room, just out of Mother’s sight.
Shawn turned me onto my back and sat on my stomach, pinning my arms
at my sides with his knees. The shock of his weight forced the breath from
my chest. He pressed his forearm into my windpipe. I sputtered, trying to
gulp enough air to shout, but the airway was blocked.
“When you act like a child, you force me to treat you like one.”
Shawn said this loudly, he almost shouted it. He was saying it to me, but
he was not saying it for me. He was saying it for Mother, to define the
moment: I was a misbehaving child; he was setting the child right. The
pressure on my windpipe eased and I felt a delicious fullness in my lungs. He
knew I would not call out.
“Knock it off,” Mother hollered from the kitchen, though I wasn’t sure
whether she meant Shawn or me.
“Yelling is rude,” Shawn said, again speaking to the kitchen. “You’ll stay
down until you apologize.” I said I was sorry for yelling at him. A moment
later I was standing.