Read Online These Gentle Wounds by Helene Dunbar - Free Book Online Page A

reads my favorite poem in her soft voice, describing all the animals living under the water and how they’re moving in the fading light.
    I feel myself floating along with them. Bobbing in the warm water like I do in the tub. It’s warm and safe, and I like that I can be weightless in my head.
    Time jerks me forward, and I’m in the water looking for those twirling eels and minnows. I’m angry at Mom because she lied. They aren’t here. All I see is garbage, and algae, and an old sneaker. The car sinks lower and lower and I have to get out.
    There’s no air. There’s just … Wet. Cold. No …
    I gasp, my heart pounding faster than I thought it possibly could, my hands clenched around the blanket as I lie on the bed. Everything looks like a ghost when I’m coming out of a spin. The past superimposed over the present like an old photo that’s been messed up when they developed it.
    Screw Mom for reading Sylvia Plath to a five-year-old.
    â€œBreathe,” Kevin says from his desk. The computer keyboard makes a sound like he’s hitting the same single letter over and over.
    It takes a minute for the spin to totally fade and for that minute all I feel is anger and a crushing loss. I miss my mom. I miss her poetry voice and her arm wrapped around me. I want this all to stop.
    My eyes refocus on Kevin, sitting at his desk and attacking the keys like he wants to hurt them.
    â€œIs he gone?”
    â€œYeah, he’s gone,” Kevin says, spinning around in his chair. My father being gone should make him happy, but he definitely doesn’t look happy. It’s also painfully obvious that he isn’t saying anything else. In fact I start to make a list in my head of everything he isn’t saying while he gets up and moves over to the bed.
    He isn’t saying, “Don’t worry.”
    He isn’t saying, “He’s never coming back.”
    He isn’t saying, “He’ll never hurt us again.”
    When he does speak, it’s to say, “Get up. Let’s go for a walk.”
    I glance at the clock. It’s six. I’m not sure how long I’ve been out of it, but there’s something knocking at the back of my brain. Something I need to do, but don’t remember. It isn’t like I have to be anywhere. I don’t have a game until next week.
    The house is quiet as we head downstairs. It’s Saturday night so Jim must have gone to play poker with his buddies. Kevin is as quiet as the house. It’s never good when Kevin is quiet.
    He ducks into the kitchen and takes something out of the freezer, and we stand there waiting like two gunfighters in an old western to see who makes the first move. Kevin pulls a chair out and sits in it, leaning his elbows on the table.
    Then he says, straight-out, for the first time in five years, “Look, I get it about Mom … I mean, what she did. And yeah, he used to use me as a punching bag. But—”
    â€œKev,” I beg, shaking my head slowly. I lean against the counter for support.
    He looks at me, tired and washed out against the fading and peeling wallpaper.
    My legs start to shake. I’m praying that he’s going to stop. I don’t even want to hear the question he’s about to ask, because I know what the general gist is.
    â€œBut he never hit you. So why are you so afraid of your dad?”
    There are things I’ve never told Jim, or the counselors at school, or anyone. I’ve never told them how disappointed I was that life underwater wasn’t what I’d been promised. And I’ve never really told them about the spins. I know it would get me put back on their drugs, or worse.
    But most of all, I’ve never told them about The Night Before. I’ve never told anyone, not even Kevin. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to start now.
    I charge out the front door and focus on how the cool evening air feels on my face. A couple of