Just Fall by Nina Sadowsky Page A

hesitated, but his mother shot him a weak smile, and pressed the sleeve of her silken shirt into her face to absorb the blood. Then she gave a little laugh.
    “It looks worse than it is. Don’t worry, baby.” She gave her husband an imploring look and upon his nod, walked over to Rob, laid a hand on his shoulder, and guided him back toward his bedroom. She tucked him into bed, grabbed a handful of tissues from his night table, and replaced her sleeve with the wad of paper. She turned on his solar system projector, dusting the room with whirling stars and planets, then sat down on the edge of his bed and stroked the hair away from his forehead.
    “It’s okay, honey. He’s right. All grown-ups fight. We just got a little carried away.”
    He tried to protest, tried to ask questions. This made no sense to him and he was frightened. But she just hushed him, tucked his down comforter up around his neck, told him to go to sleep, and promised that this was the first time this had happened, it was all a terrible mistake, and it would never happen again.
    But of course it did. Over and over again.
    The violence was a constant, lurking specter in their otherwise privileged lives. But she didn’t leave him. She didn’t even fight back. There were tears and apologies and ice packs. Emergency room trips cosseted by improbable lies about falls and accidents. And then vacations and jewelry and new cars.
    After each brutal storm passed, the routine was the same. His stepfather buried his face in his mother’s lap and pleaded for forgiveness. She stroked his hair and crooned, “It’s all right, baby, it’s all right,” the same sweet song she had murmured to Rob when he was little and had had a nightmare or a hard fall in the playground. And then the bastard would carry her off to their bedroom, shooting a wink and smirk at the cowering boy. Then the sounds, the grunts and moans that clawed their way into the otherwise silent mansion as Rob struggled to make sense of it all.
    Rob never did make sense of it. It went on for years, that same grotesque cycle. The prick would drink then lose it, he would beat the crap out of her, there would be tears and murmurs and then the animal sounds that Rob learned were the noises of make-up sex. He hated it. Hated how passive his mother was, hated even more the fact that the bastard hit her and then she kissed him, consoled him, fucked him. Hated how the bastard would inflate afterward, proud of himself, that motherfucking cock of the walk, delighted with his dominance and her submission. It twisted Rob’s guts into knots every time.

    When he was fourteen, he tried to talk to her about it. His stepfather was at work. Rob came into the master bedroom as his mother was putting the final touches on her outfit for a lunch at their country club. He watched as she pulled a baby-blue cashmere cardigan over her elegant, sleeveless sheath dress, carefully hiding the latest set of bruises that marred her narrow shoulders and soft upper arms. She gasped when she realized he was standing in the doorway watching her.
    “Do you need something, baby? Some cash?”
    “No. Not cash.”
    And then he launched in; he at least had to try. Surely there were options; surely this merry-go-round of rage, abuse, tears, and reconciliation could be abandoned, along with the creep who perpetuated it. But his mother didn’t see it that way. She sighed. She twisted her fingers. She explained that he was too young to understand, that despite it all, she knew her husband was a good man, a man who worked hard and provided for them both, and if he didn’t always handle his stress so well? She was willing to live with that. She loved him. She knew he didn’t mean it. As she explained that he always, always apologized after, Rob felt disembodied, as though his spirit had risen out of his body and was watching this whole sordid scene from miles away. He tried to get her to see, but her face shut down and she changed the