The invariable pattern at any school would be that soon the bully would learn that Kit wanted nothing more than to be left alone, and would comply with this wish rather than face this strange, cold newcomer’s fists. If any other student sought his protection, Kit would give it, but always with the warning that he would be gone from the school within weeks. Despite the hero-worship this earned him here and there, the protection was never given with any real offer of friendship. He had learned few lessons as thoroughly as how to make his inevitable leaving-taking as painless as possible.
Like all of the homes Jerome chose, this one was isolated from its neighbors. There were no streetlights this far out of the city. Eventually, the room grew dark, but Kit didn’t want to turn on a light. A light would attract attention. The last thing he wanted right now was to distract his mother and his stepfather.
Serenity and Jerome were excited about something. He wished they were both drunk or high or even having sex. Usually, at any of those times, they ignored him. When they shared this hard, mean-spirited laughter, any number of things might go wrong. They might fight. They might cause the sort of trouble that would then require another move. They might turn on him in one way or another.
His mother, in all his experience of her, was a weak woman, more inclined to aggravate any attack on him than to intercede on his behalf. He could hear the slurring of her words now, between the moments of laughter.
By the time he was eight, Kit had known that Serenity had chosen to give birth to him in order to ward off loneliness. He was certain that she wished she loved him but knew that his guaranteed attachment to her helped her to survive between relationships. She scorned the only other source of stability in her life-a family that would have welcomed her home at any time. But Serenity, most misnamed child, had been a runaway, a drug addict whose wealthy family had not been able to buy any cure that would bring her back to them.
Kit, throughout any part of his childhood he could remember, did whatever he could to take care of her. She would be most tender toward him when he was most needed. He liked being useful, looking out after her, protecting her to whatever extent he could. He was not always successful.
That night, his mind strayed from the French Revolution as Dickens portrayed it. The laughter pierced through his enjoyment of the book. He kept it open only to avoid eye contact with the two at the table.
Kit thought that Serenity already understood that as charming as Jerome could be when he felt it would do him some good, he did not marry her for love. He married her because he needed to master someone, and in her moments of sobriety-always filled with self-recrimination-she seemed to believe his mastery a penance. Kit sensed that somehow this time she had met a man who was worse than all the other men who had dated, slept, lived with her before now. Some had matched his heat. None had matched his ice. There was something in Jerome that enjoyed cruelty in the way her most hotheaded lovers had not.
A temper had its expression and its end. The building toward its release was nearly worse than the release itself. But with Jerome, there was seldom release in a blow. The tension in the household built, and built, and built. Then this brittle laughter would start.
When Jerome and Serenity were first married, Kit had not been living with his mother. Serenity had frequently left him in the care of his grandmother, usually because of an arrest, or a boyfriend who objected to feeding another man’s son. In these months, he would be transported into a world so different from the one he usually lived in, the return was twice as cruel. Eventually, he began to shield himself from these disappointments in much the same way he shielded himself from the pain of parting with school friends-he resisted any deepening of the attachment. Elizabeth bore it patiently, making him both ashamed and unable to resist hoping he could live with her.
“Come here, Worm.”
“Yes, sir.” Kit quickly closed the book and hurried over to his stepfather.
Jerome had not only married Serenity, he had insisted that she collect her son from his despised mother-in-law. What Elizabeth Logan had ever done to him, Kit didn’t know. But he constantly made remarks to Serenity about how much Elizabeth had spoiled his stepson. The nickname “Bookworm” had been shortened for several months now.
“Your mother and I are getting tired of putting up with your nonsense.”
This was a favorite phrase of Jerome’s. He seldom explained what he meant by “nonsense.” It was not a question or a command, though, so Kit knew not to make an answer of any kind. This time, however, the cause of Jerome’s displeasure was soon made clear.
He held up a phone bill.
Kit went pale.
“You know anyone in Malibu, Serenity?”
“No one I give a shit about,” she said.
Jerome smiled. “Well, then. Since I don’t know anyone in Malibu, and you don’t know anyone in Malibu, I guess we know who called from this house.”
After a particularly bad day at Jerome’s hands last month, he had missed Grandmother Elizabeth so much, he had dialed her number. Her answering machine had answered, and he had hung up without leaving a message. At eleven, he was learning how little time is needed to incur a long-distance charge on a phone bill.
“Do you know what worms are good for, Worm?”
Trying not to let his uneasiness show, Kit answered, “No, sir.”
Serenity laughed. He didn’t know what she had taken. Some sort of downer. Jerome was stone cold sober, though.
“They eat dead things, for starters.”
Jerome stood and walked to the back porch. Kit knew better than to move.
When he returned, he held a shovel.
He thrust it toward Kit. “Take it, Worm.”
“Yes, sir.” Kit obeyed. The shovel suddenly seemed larger, heavier.
“Let’s go. Serenity, you come along, too.” Kit followed him into the dark backyard, fear constricting his muscles, so that his movements were awkward. He could hear his mother laughing behind him.
Jerome didn’t seem to notice his clumsiness or his mother’s laughter. He came to a halt near the far fence, in the darkest part of the yard.
“Lie down.”
Trembling, he obeyed.
Above his face, the shovel came down, its sharp edge veering away from him at the last second and piercing the earth so near to the top of his head, dirt sprayed over his face.
“I didn’t hear you say, ‘Yes, sir.’”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be, you little asshole.”
He pulled the shovel free and moved so that he now straddled Kit’s waist. He was smiling. He lifted the shovel, held it just over Kit’s heart, letting it rest against his thin shirt, so that Kit could feel its cold blade against his chest. Jerome was staring down at him. Kit started to cry, and Jerome’s smile widened. “You worm.”
He lifted it high and brought it down-this time, just outside Kit’s right shoulder.
“Damn me, I missed. I’ll have to try a different target.”
Serenity laughed.
Jerome settled the blade on Kit’s throat. “That ought to do. Cut your fucking too-smart head off.”
Again the shovel came up, again furiously down. Just to the left of him.
Jerome moved so that he was over Kit’s knees, and the shovel touched down on the boy’s crotch. He used a little pressure this time, and Kit cried out in pain.