One Day You'll Be Mine(37)

My boss was concerned. I did my best to cover the bruises around my neck with concealer, but they were still somewhat on display. And even though the dark circles under my eyes weren’t as bad as they were before, you could see that I was going through something. Nevertheless, she accepted my explanation when I told her there were some family issues that needed to be taken care of, and agreed to let one of the more part time employees enjoy the extra hours.

Being at work again was refreshing. Not in the sense that I was able to fulfill my life’s desires and feel in alignment with the Universe (something Ro would say), but in the sense that I was able to escape my stress in the menial labor of my work tasks. Putting books back in their proper order according to the Dewey Decimal system, sending collection notices and emails for overdue books, and helping patrons find specific titles kept me from dwelling on the irritated pit in my stomach that had been growing by the day.

I spent as much time with Jordan as I could. Labor Day weekend was coming up, and school would start at the beginning of next week, but I wouldn’t be there to take him. With each day he was more and more excited to go back to school. He was getting ready to enter third grade, and he couldn’t wait.

I took him out for pizza Thursday evening. That’s when I finally dropped the bomb. Hollis, as usual, didn’t come home until well after eleven, when he knew we’d be sleep. He’d shower and retreat to the living room, sleeping on the couch until it was time to wake up and head to work.

“Jordan, I want to talk to you about something.” He looked at me through bites of pepperoni, sauce splotched on the side of his lip.

“Yeah, mom?”

There was no easy way to say this. “I’m going to visit your Aunt Rose for a little while.”

“Aunt Rose? She lives far. I thought you said you were going to take me.” He paused. “You can’t take me when school’s starting.”

“I know, honey. You’re not going. I’m going to go… alone.”

His eyes widened. “Why aren’t you taking me? You can’t wait? I want to see Aunt Rose and Uncle Ellis too.” He had already forgotten that Uncle Ellis was in Iraq.

I smiled weakly, the look of disdain from the unfairness of it all shadowing his handsome features. “I know Jordy. But your uncle’s in Iraq fighting the bad guys, remember? It’s just going to be Aunt Ro. She’s going to talk about girly stuff all day long. You don’t want to deal with that, do you?”

“No,” he spoke flatly. “But I want to go with you so I can protect you.”

“Protect me from who?”

“Dad or any man that tries to hit you.”

My heart began to swell with both love and pain for my son. I never spoke about what happened to him since that day. I simply did my best to minimize the situation and move on.

“I know you’re leaving because you don’t want Dad to hit you,” he said. His eyes were stone serious. “I won’t let him hit you if you stay. I promise.”

My eyes began to mist, and I fought back tears threatening to come forward. This was not the conversation any mother wants to have with her son. Witnessing the impact Hollis and I had on Jordan tore me apart.

“Your daddy is not the reason I’m leaving,” I said. “I just need to visit your auntie Rose because she’s lonely without Uncle Ellis.” And because your father is a lying, cheating son of a bitch.

“Joey’s mom left him after his dad hit her. Now she lives in Florida. Are you going to live in Florida?” My heart raced. I didn’t know how to respond to that. How did they even get on that topic in daycare? “He told me that happened to his mom when his dad hit her last month.”

“Jordan,” I asked, calmly. “You told Joey what happened?”

He nodded, slowly. Fear took over his eyes as he realized the shift in my tone of voice. “Who else did you tell?”

“Nobody, mom, I swear.”

I gave him a look. “I won’t be mad, Jordan. It’s okay. You can be honest with me, and I promise not to be upset.”

He looked down at his hands. “Mrs. K heard us talking, and she pulled me into Mrs. B’s office, and they asked me if Dad hits you.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I lied. I told them that I made it up, because I didn’t want to get you or Dad in trouble.” His face began to turn red, and he looked like he was ready to cry. “They put me in time out for lying and told me that lying about things like that aren’t good.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “No, Jordan, it’s not okay to lie. But you shouldn’t tell people what happens sometimes, because when you involve too many people, it can cause trouble.” He started sobbing. “Come here.” I wrapped my arms around him as he walked around the table and began sobbing even harder.