Page 24 of Forever Christmas
Chapter 9: Corabelle
Gavin’s death grip on my hand in the car tells me his state of mind. He doesn’t want to see his father. He expects it to end badly.
I chatter for a while about the changes along our route, but eventually we all fall silent.
I admit I’m not sure how this will go. My memories of Mr. Mays aren’t the best, even though he always acted with self-controlaround me. I spent a fair number of Saturday mornings at their house, when he would expect Gavin to help him with chores. If I didn’t come, things often didn’t go well.
There was one time I thought Mr. Mays would lose it even with me as a witness. We were around twelve, and Gavin was purposefully tweaking his father to anger him more and more. I warned him against this. It was bad enough whenhe accidentally incited his father to hit him. There was no good in goading him into it.
But Gavin had gotten fed up long before then. And his sister was still quite small, just a toddler. He feared that his father would one day raise a hand to her too. He had it in his head that he could make his father do something bad enough that he’d be put in jail, and the rest of them could live their livesin peace.
That Saturday, they were working on one of the cars as usual, something involving hoses.
Every time Mr. Mays would go around the car, the raised hood blocking his view of the engine, Gavin would pop the hose back off its position.
I sat on the ground with a book of Mad Libs, filling in the nouns and verbs and adjectives, sometimes asking Gavin for one. I remember writing in the marginsof the page “This might be bad.”
Three times Mr. Mays went to start the car or sort through the toolbox, and three times Gavin unhooked the hose. The first time, his father brushed it off as a mistake. The second time, he gave him a side glance and grumbled about crappy clamps.
But the third time, Gavin couldn’t control his smile, and Mr. Mays figured it out.
“Boy,” he says. “What the hellyou think is funny about a fifteen-minute job taking half the morning?”
His voice had this edge, like someone had roughed it up with sandpaper. It sent a chill through me, and I pulled my knees up to my chest.
Gavin didn’t feel like backing down. “Took you long enough to notice,” he said.
I winced. What was he doing?
When Mr. Mays lost his patience, I could almost hear it, like a bubble popping.He lifted his right arm, a wrench in his hand.
For a moment, I was shocked silent, picturing that cold metal landing on Gavin’s head. I had never felt more scared.
Everything moved in slow motion as Gavin’s gaze rose to the raised hand, noticing for himself the tool his father wielded in his fist. This would be it. If he hit Gavin with that and caused enough damage, Gavin would get what he wanted.Police. Arrest. Someone to notice.
But at what cost?
I managed to find my voice and cry, “Don’t do it!”
Mr. Mays hesitated, turning as if he had forgotten I was there.
I’m sure I looked pathetic and small, huddling with my book. But it stopped him. He lowered his arm.
“You’re useless,” he said to Gavin. “Get out of my sight.”
Gavin stood his ground, but I wasn’t going to let this go on anotherminute. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed Gavin’s arm.
“Come on,” I said and started dragging him away.
He resisted, maintaining eye contact with his dad. But I eventually got him to go.
We never told my parents the full extent of what Gavin’s father did to him. Maybe they knew. There was evidence. Bruises where bruises shouldn’t really be. His reluctance to go home.
Driving down the highway,I wondered — why was that? Why did everyone sit around silent while a man hurt his boy?
“He hit Gavin,” I say before my brain can kick in to stop me. “He hit him lots of times.”
Gavin lets go of my arm. “Corabelle,” he says, a warning note in his voice.
