Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

Star wiped her eyes. “I’m trying. I’ll be better. I said my affirmations again this morning. I’ll say them every day. I want to do it for you.”

“Do what?”

“I want to be selfless. Selfless acts, Duchess. They’re what make you a good person.”

It was almost midnight when they drove through town, Duchess dying a little when she saw Darke’s Escalade in the driveway.

They drew up, the gate open, Darke would be in the yard, on the porch, waiting, staring out into nothing in that way that scared her, like he could see something in the shadows. She didn’t like him. He was too quiet, too fucking big, stared too fucking much. She’d seen him outside of school, by the fence, just sitting in his car and watching her.

“I thought you were pulling the midnight shift tonight?” Duchess said.

Star had been cleaning offices over in Bitterwater.

“They … I didn’t show last night so they told me not to come back. Don’t worry about it. I can tend bar at Darke’s place, that’s probably why he’s over.”

“I don’t like you working there.”

Star smiled, then held up the business card again like it was proof of something. “Our luck is turning.”

Duchess scooped up her brother. He was light, thin legs and arms, his hair getting long but she could not afford to take him to Joe Rogers on Main, where the other boys went. She was glad he was too small to notice, the other kids too, it would change soon enough, she worried about that.

Their shared bedroom, posters she’d hung, science and planets, he would be the smart one. One book on the shelf, Max all hungry and wild, but the end, that’s what Robin loved, because the supper showed Max was cared for. She borrowed it from the small library in Salinas, renewed it every other week, two miles each way on her bicycle.

Outside she heard talk. Darke owned the house, Star could not afford the rent. Duchess was old enough to know what that meant, young enough to keep from understanding it.

Her mind ran to her schoolwork, the shit she’d be in if she didn’t complete it. She couldn’t get detention, there’d be no one to collect Robin. Star could not be trusted.

She made the decision to doze till sunrise and get on it early. She parted the drapes. The street slept, across was Milton’s house, the porch light burned all night, moths gathered and fluttered. She saw a fox, graceful as it left light for the shadows. And then, by Brandon Rock’s house, she saw a man, and he was watching her window. He could not see her, the way she stood, back just enough. He was tall, not like Darke, but still tall. Cropped hair, stooped shoulders, like pride had slid right from him.

She lay back in her spot.

And then, as her eyes grew heavy, she heard a scream.

Her mother’s scream.

She moved from the room with practiced care, a girl used to the terrors of night, to a mother who courted the worst of men. Behind her she closed the door, he would sleep, even if he got up he would not remember. He never remembered.

She heard Darke’s voice, steady, like always.

“Calm down.”

She watched through the door, the edge, the room cut into a slice of hell, the lamp on its side, throwing shade over her mother, who lay on the rug. Darke watched her intently, like she was a wild creature he’d just sedated. He was too big, too big for the chair and the small house and too big to take down.

Duchess knew what to do, which boards made noise, and she moved along the hallway to the kitchen. She would not call 911, there would be a record. As she dialed Walk’s cell she heard the noise and turned too late, and then Darke took the receiver from her.

She dug her nails into his hand and clawed until she felt him bleed. He guided her from the kitchen, his hand firm on her shoulder. She scrabbled, knocked the side table down, a photo of Robin came to rest by her eyes, his first day of kindergarten.

Above her Darke stood. “I won’t hurt you, so don’t call the cops on me.” Voice so deep it was almost inhuman. She had heard stories about him, just snippets, that a man cut in front of him on Pensacola and Darke pulled him out of his car and stamped his face to mush. And that he did it with a calm that held bystanders mesmerized.

He watched her, like he always did. He studied her face, hair, eyes, mouth. Taking in the detail, making her shiver.

She glared up at him, fierce, small nose twisted into a snarl. “I am the outlaw, Duchess Day Radley, and you are the woman beater, Dickie Darke.”

She scooted back, her head to the door. Above the streetlight fell through the glass, bathing her in orange as she watched her mother scream and yell and run at Darke.

She wouldn’t rise and help, she knew not to do that. Instead she stood when she saw the shape through the glass.

Behind, her mother swung fists, Darke gripped her hands and tried to keep them level.

Duchess made her decision quickly; whatever was outside could be no worse than what was within. She unlatched the door and looked up high into the man’s face. She moved aside and he passed, grabbed hold of Darke and they struggled. He landed one punch, caught Darke on the side of the head.

Darke did not flinch, saw who it was and stopped dead, stared, calm enough as he weighed options. He was much bigger, broader, but the other man looked like he burned with it, that need to fight.

Darke fished keys from his pocket, unhurried, and walked from the house. The man followed him out, Duchess behind.

She watched the Escalade till the lights faded from view.

The man turned and looked at her. And then past her, where Star stood behind, on the old porch, breathless.

“Come on, Duchess.”

Duchess said nothing, just followed her mother into the house, looking back once, where the man stayed, like he’d been sent there to guard her.

In the melee his shirt had been torn, and it was as the moon caught him she saw it. The crisscross of scars that covered him, raised and angry and fresh.

6

THE TIREDNESS RAN OVER HER, uncontended, she let it, labored steps and breaths and burning eyes, ears full of smothered sounds at times so distant she did not react.

She felt the small tug on her hand, the face of her brother, earnest, his night was spent in dreams.

“Are you alright?” he worried.

Duchess carried his bag and hers. A bruise on her forearm, where she’d fallen. In her bag was her paper, half done, her family tree. Her grades were middling, she knew to keep them that way. She did not cut anymore, tried not to get in shit, she could not risk any kind of involvement from Star. Parents’ evenings she would make the excuse, My mother has work, you know how it is . She ate alone, scared in case the other kids saw what she’d made. Sometimes just buttered bread, so stale it could be snapped. Some had it worse, she knew that, just did not wish to join them.

“I slept on your bed, you kept kicking me in the night,” Duchess said.

“Sorry. I thought I heard noises. Maybe I was dreaming.”

She watched him run ahead a little, into the neighbor’s front yard, where he found a long stick and brought it back, like a dog. He held it out and used it as a cane, pretending he was an old man till she laughed.

And then the front door opened. Brandon Rock, he tended his Mustang with the kind of attention Star said he’d have been better showing his ex-wife.

He wore a Letterman jacket, so faded and tight the sleeves stopped mid forearm. He glared at Robin. “You stay away from the car.”

“He didn’t go near it.”

Brandon crossed the grass and stood close to her. “You know what’s under that cover?” He motioned toward the car, the blue tarp wrapped it tight. Each night she watched Brandon put it to bed like a firstborn.