Page 343 of Wicked Brutal

“Did it work?”

“No.” This time I do let the corner of my mouth move. Barely. “It made him look small. He came to school to remind everyone he owned me, and instead everyone watched a grown man lose to a bunch of teenagers who wouldn’t flinch.”

“What happened after school?”

Ally’s face closes again, the brief lightness gone like it was never there. “I went home.”

“Was your father there?”

“Eventually.”

Arthur gives her the space to gather herself. She takes it. Her hand flattens against the baby, and I watch her decide to keep going.

“Tell the court what happened that night.”

“Dad was already angry when he got home. About the videos, about Victor, about the whole day.” She shifts in the chair. “Tobias got upset about something small. He started crying. Dad told him to stop, and he couldn’t — he’s six, and he was scared, and you can’t just stop when you’re six and scared. So Dad grabbed him.” Her fingers press into her own palm hard enough to leave marks of her own. “I told him to let go of him.”

“What did your father do?”

“He shoved Tobias down.” Mom makes a tiny sound. I stare at Ally, and my whole body is one held breath. “Tobias hit the floor. I went for him, and Dad grabbed me before I got there, and I fought him, because all I could think about was getting to my brother.” Her breathing changes, going shallow and quick. “And he hit me. More than once. I ended up on the floor next to Tobias.”

She has to stop. She makes herself keep going anyway, and I have never been more terrified of or more in love with anyone in my life. “And that’s when Mom tried to stop him. She got between us. Between him and me.”

“What happened to Jane?”

“Dad shoved her.” Ally wipes under one eye with the back of her hand, quick, like she’s annoyed at the tears for being there. “She hit the kitchen island. Then he grabbed her again.” Her voice shrinks, goes small and young. “That was the first time I ever saw him hurt her. With my own eyes. In front of me.”

Arthur waits until she looks back at him. “What did you understand, in that moment?”

“That it wasn’t the first time.”

“How did you understand that?”

“Because of how she reacted.” The tears come now, and Ally doesn’t fight them, doesn’t wipe them, just lets them fall while she says the worst thing she’s ever had to say about her mother. “She knew how to cover her head. She knew how to turn her face away so it wouldn’t catch the worst of it. She knew when to stop talking so it wouldn’t get worse.” Her mouth trembles. “You don’t know those things unless somebody’s taught them to you. She knew. She’d always known. And I never let myself see it.”

Mom is crying openly beside me now, Dad’s arm tight around her. I don’t realize I’m crying too until Dad, without a word, presses a folded tissue into my free hand. I want to be too proud to use it. I use it. My girl is thirty feet away turning herself inside out in front of the man who did all of it, and I can’t do a single thing but sit here and leak like a fucking faucet and hold my mother’s hand.

“What happened after your father left the room?”

“Mom took care of us. Tobias was crying, I was hurt, she was hurt worse than either of us, and she still—“ Ally’s voice catches. “She still took care of us first. That’s what she always did.” She wipes her cheek. “And while she was helping me, my shirt shifted, and she saw.”

“Saw what?”

“That I was pregnant.”

“Had you told her?”

“No. I’d been hiding it from everyone. But she saw enough to know, and she asked me straight out, and I—“ Ally’s hand comes to rest over the baby again, and this time it stays. “I told her the truth.”

“Did you tell her who the father was?”

“Yes.”

Arthur doesn’t make her say my name again just to make everyone hear it. He asks the thing that matters. “What was Jane’s reaction?”

“She cried.” Ally is crying too now, quiet and steady. “She wasn’t angry. I thought she’d be angry, or scared of what Dad would do, and she was scared — but not the way I expected. She kept saying we had to get out. Me and Tobias. That we couldn’t wait anymore.”

“What did you tell her?”