Didn’t he finally deserve his own with everything he went through when he was Michael? Didn’t Saylor deserve hers after everything she went through when she was Sarah?
The kitchen was empty. Quiet except for the ticking of the clock above the sink.
The counters were perfectly clean. Not a dirty dish in the sink. The dish towel hung perfectly straight in its place.
At first glance, you’d think the kitchen was never used. That the table was never sat at. When he knew for a fact Michael had sat at it more times than he could remember.
They couldn’t eat until his father came home from work. Starting at the scheduled dinner time, which was six, he and Sarah would have to sit quietly at the table, waiting.
Waiting to hear the front door open, waiting to hear his footsteps coming down the narrow hallway.
Waiting for their father to kiss their mother on the cheek before settling into his spot at the head of the table.
And with all that waiting, especially when his father was late, his stomach would growl and twist in pain as he stared at the cooling food on his plate.
Sometimes he was so hungry he couldn’t resist taking a bite before his father blessed the food and thanked God for providing it. When Michael would reach out, his father would slap his hand away from his plate and send him to bed without dinner.
If that was his only punishment for that infraction, he didn’t care. He went willingly to his room. Because buried deep within his closet he had hidden a shoebox full of snacks that he’d stolen from the store in town.
Every time he was sent there on his bike with a few dollars to pick up an item for his mother, he’d pocket something. A candy bar, a granola bar, a pack of cheese crackers, anything that would fill his stomach. If he could, he’d take two. One for him, one for Sarah.
Rev moved through the kitchen and, instead of going directly to the sitting room, he moved up the back steps. The narrow stairway was designed for the hired help when the house was originally built in the mid-1800s.
The Schmidts never had hired help since they couldn’t afford it. Even if they could, his father didn’t want strangers in his house. The only people allowed in their home were family and the members of their religious order. People with the same beliefs.
It was easier that way. Safer.
No questions asked. No comments made.
The steps creaked slightly as he moved up them slowly, carefully. The narrow walls closing in on him the higher he climbed. To prevent himself from a full-blown panic attack, he focused on the door at the top of the steps and, once he got there without stumbling, he opened it and stepped out at the end of the upstairs hallway.
He sucked in air and hesitated for only a second while his vision restored. Then, instinctively, he headed to the first room on the left. The door was closed but not locked.
When he opened it, the disturbed dust and the stale air filled his nostrils. He struggled not to sneeze.
The curtains were drawn but he didn’t need light to see what he expected.
Sarah’s bedroom remained unchanged. It was exactly as he remembered. Almost as if they expected her to come home at any time and step directly back into her youth, prior to that first time she was sent to the detention center.
He stared at the single bed. The bed he had curled up on with his sister too many nights to count, holding her and trying to soothe her when all she could do was cry.
He always had left before morning.
All except that one time when he made the mistake of falling asleep. When what he was doing wasn’t seen as something good, but something bad instead.
A worn spot on the wood floor by Sarah’s bed caught his attention. She knelt in that exact spot to say her prayers before bed. After doing it night after night and year after year, it had worn away the paint on the wood.
The bed was crisply made. No items left out. Sterile and neat. Nothing to indicate it was a little girl’s room. No dolls. No toys. No hair bows or barrettes. No pinks. No purples. No bright colors at all. All muted whites. The color of purity.
He stepped back out and closed the door behind him, then walked the few steps farther to his room. Again, the door was closed.
He held his breath as he slowly opened it with his heart trying to escape his chest.
The air in his old room wasn’t dusty or stale. This room was currently used. It was not waiting for him to return home.
Nothing was the same except for the spot in the middle of the room where he, too, had knelt every night. Where he, too, had settled his elbows on his mattress and pressed his palms together. Where he bowed his head, closed his eyes and mouthed the words that were expected.
Words that were hollow.
Unlike his sister’s old room, his did not remain frozen in time. Proof that they never expected or even wanted him to return. Most likely relieved he left.
His mother had turned his old bedroom into a sewing room. A sewing machine was now stationed in front of the only window. The room was also full of neatly organized bolts of fabric and all the other shit needed to sew clothes, quilts and what-fucking-ever else she made from scratch.
Unlike his friends from school, his bedroom never had a television or even a radio. He wasn’t allowed to listen to music or watch a sitcom. Comic books were forbidden. So were cell phones and the internet.
Nothing secular was allowed in this house. They did their best to prevent their children from becoming wayward.
Though, they tried so hard that it caused them to fail.
He stepped farther into the room and opened the closet to see if his hidden goodies were still there. The closet no longer held the clothes Michael left behind but more miscellaneous sewing supplies.
Every evidence of Michael’s existence was now gone.
His shoebox of snacks had been discovered and probably thrown away. Or maybe Sarah had found them and hidden them for herself. If she had, Saylor never mentioned anything to him.
If they would’ve been found, his father would have seen that as another offense and would’ve taken Michael out to the backyard, made him choose his own switch and then tied him to the post where anyone walking or driving by could witness his punishment. If they were paying attention.
He wondered how many people saw it happening and decided to look the other way. Decided it was none of their business. Decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of becoming involved.
Reilly only survived Warren almost beating her to death because of her neighbors getting involved. If they hadn’t…
Rev sucked in a slow breath, beating back the anger beginning to bubble up from his gut.
It wasn’t only from what happened to Reilly, it was from his memory of how differently their father punished his son and his daughter.
His father never took Sarah outside. It would happen in her bedroom. With the door closed.
Sometimes he would use a belt, sometimes his hand, but never a switch. He didn’t want to risk breaking Sarah’s skin like he sometimes did with Michael’s. Most likely he was afraid of scarring her and those scars eventually reducing the chance of Sarah finding the right husband.
A girl who had to be whipped often wasn’t an obedient one. And if she wasn’t obedient, she wouldn’t make a good wife.
It was the way.
Michael could hear everything in the next room because the walls were thin. He could hear the strikes of the leather or his father’s palm. He could hear Sarah crying.
But then those cries would become muffled when a large hand covered her mouth and a different kind of punishment commenced.