Rising by Lisa Swallow
Dedication
For all the Blue Phoenix groupies.
Thanks for making 2014 a year to remember!
Prologue
Fifteen Years Ago
Jem
The front door slams. Twelve-sixteen a.m. He’s late. When he’s late, everything is worse.
The shouting starts and the TV volume rises, too, but this never drowns the argument. The neighbours in our row of terraced houses must hear but nobody ever speaks. No one gets involved.
The shouting is okay. I can deal with that. The quiet afterwards is what turns my stomach and leaves me torn between creeping downstairs to see her, and hiding in my bedroom.
I’m a coward. She’s my mum. I should be there to help.
I tried once, last month, and Alan belted me for interfering. The next morning, Mum screamed at me, blamed me for making things worse. I made things worse. Mum worried because the bruises were on the side of my face; she can hide her bruises under her clothes. I’ve seen them; she doesn’t think I have. Questions were asked at school but Alan was careful to make sure those and the bruises in the following weeks weren’t visible, so I could hide them. Mum said they’d take me away if somebody knew, and I don’t want to lose her completely.
Tonight, I grab my headphones and turn up the sound, drowning the fear and anger with the sound of Metallica. I lie back and stare at the ceiling, allowing the guitar and screaming vocals to take over, to numb myself, and stop the need to run downstairs and help. I’ll get the crap kicked out of me if I do. Instead, I close my eyes and watch the red and black colours of the music dancing through my mind, obliterating thoughts.
One day I won’t be a kid. One day I can look after her. If I can look after my mum, she wouldn’t leave me alone. She’d need me instead of the men who come into our life, who tear our world apart and leave again. I’ll be a teenager in two years, almost a man. I can do their job. If I’m not enough, and Mum doesn’t want me, I’ll be big enough to take care of myself when she leaves me again.
Now I’m older, when she goes away, I can already look after myself. I’m not scared any more like I was a few years ago, when I’d sleep with a cricket bat by my bed in case somebody came into the house. Now I’m bigger, I’m not such a baby about these things; it’s just my life. Mum always comes back, even if she doesn’t tell me when she’s going away or why. Sometimes she’s gone for a couple of days. That’s okay. If the time stretches into weeks, I worry in case she’s hurt or lost.
I never tell anybody.
The thoughts edge through the music:
If I was older and I could look after Mum, she’d be safer.
I wouldn’t be alone, if I was a good enough son for her.
What is it I do wrong that makes her go away?
What if one day my mum goes away and never comes back?