Chapter 5 - The Baseball Bat And The Breaking Point
Mom shoved her chair back.
The legs scraped against the floor hard enough to make James finally look up.
Then Mom turned toward the corner where Dad kept an old baseball bat “for emergencies.”
She reached for it.
For a second, my brain refused to understand what my eyes were seeing.
There are certain things you expect from an argument.
Raised voices.
Cruel words.
Someone walking away.
You do not expect your mother to pick up a baseball bat because you refused to surrender your bedroom to your sister.
“Put that down,” I said, stepping backward.
Mom gripped the bat.
“You will do what I say.”
Then she swung.
The bat clipped my shoulder.
A white-hot shock shot down my arm, and I stumbled sideways.
I remember the pain, but what I remember even more clearly is the disbelief.
My own mother had actually hit me.
Over a bedroom.
Over Mary.
Over their belief that saying something loudly enough somehow made it theirs.
I looked toward my sister.
Mary did not move to stop Mom.
She did not tell her to put the bat down.
She did not ask whether I was okay.
She simply watched.
That image told me more about our relationship than any insult she had thrown at me during dinner.
Mom shoved me toward the hallway.
“Out! That room belongs to your sister now!”
My shoulder burned as I caught myself against the wall.
Dad was still there.
James was still there.
May you like
Mary was still there.
Nobody in that room seemed interested in the fact that an argument about a bedroom had just turned physical.
