My Brother's Keeper

“Odette.”

“Huh?” I look up at my therapist with a blank expression.

I’m sitting in the stuffy office of Doctor Natalie Swanson. The walls are faded purple, and the surfaces have maybe an inch of dust. I never understood why the office was so unkempt, but I never asked the questions.

Doctor Swanson is middle-aged, with brown eyes and long stringy blond hair. She wears oversized sweatshirts and leggings at every meeting and has an odd scent of bleach and sunflowers. She taps her fingers on her clipboard when bored with my explanations and draws doodles in her notebook while I’m staring at the wall.

She knows I’ve zoned off again, and she’s trying to reel me back in. It’s not the first, and most likely not the last time she will catch me looking off into dead space.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks.

She begins to tap her foot on the carpet anxiously.

“Rainbows,” I lie, trying to smile.

She is not amused by my statement and searches through her notes. When I hear the pages crinkling under pressure, I know she’s looking for the right subject.

“Do you want to talk about that night? “she presses as she leans forward, anticipating my following sentence.

It’s been almost five years since my mother’s murder. I remember very little, but she likes to ask.

“No,” I answer firmly.

She was dead, and I knew nothing I could say would bring her back. Just like nothing the therapist said would stop my nightmares.

“What about Lenny’s execution?” she mentions, reaching for a new angle.

I frown. “What about it?”

My mother’s boyfriend, Lenny, had been arrested, charged, and sentenced to death by lethal injection. He would be the first person in Coscoroba to receive the death penalty.

“Have you decided if you’re going?”

I can see her champing at the bit. She wanted just one usable sentence. Four years of sitting on the same couch two days a week had not changed a damn thing. Did she even know what it was like to be that girl?

I survived three days in an apartment with a madman. He’d murdered my mother, chopped her up into little pieces, and in the end, forced me to watch as he tried to put her limbs through the garbage disposal. He learned almost immediately the blades were not sharp enough to cut through the bone. So, he removed the flesh in little chunks. When the process wasn’t going fast enough, he would cut off the pieces and hand them to me to put down the drain. I had done it, afraid he would chop me up next. I didn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, and all I did was stand in front of the mirror in those off moments while he slept on the couch in the living room. I was far too scared to close my eyes, and yet, as each moment passed, the memory of my mother slowly began to filter away.

When the police officers arrived, I was covered in blood and emotionally detached. I spent the next two years locked up in a psychiatric unit with daily therapy and medications galore.

I remember next to nothing about my time at Eider. It was as if they had baked out that part of my memory. Nobody asked about it, and I never tried to recollect any of the disposed memories. If it were worth remembering, I would remember. There were some things I could recall, but half the time, I wondered how much of what I could remember was true.

It took some time to re-acclimate to public school, but everyone knew who I was once I started. My story was a legend. I was the girl who helped chop up her mom. It didn’t matter that Lenny had said he forced me to do what I had done.

Since my victorious return to public education, I have had problems making friends. Nobody wanted to be seen with a murderer.

“No,” I reply.

I pick at the hem of my shirt—one of the many unhealthy habits.

The last thing I remember was Lenny. His blue eyes were dead, his lips were a pale purple, and the way he apologized to me was horrendous.

How does the man who murdered your mother say sorry?

He looks you square in the eyes and, with every lack of emotion available, says - “Sorry, kid.” I couldn’t see myself sitting in the same room with him, let alone watching him die with more dignity than he gave my mother.

“I think it would be therapeutic to put it behind you.” Doctor Swanson reached out and touched my knee. I instantly moved further from her and continued to pick at my shirt.

“I have already come to terms with my mother’s death,” I admit.

It’s true.

I have.

I think.

“Have you?” She gives me this weird look.

I know she doesn’t believe me.

“Yes.”

I can see the wheels turning inside her head, but the timer goes off just as she’s about to speak, implying my time is up.

“Until next time,” she mentions as she stands.

I know that is my cue to leave the room, so I stand, give her a fake smile, and exit.

I’m not sure why it always feels like a walk of shame when I leave my therapist’s office. Maybe because I know what awaits me on the other side of the double doors. My father was going to want an update.

What was therapy supposed to do at seventeen that it didn’t do at thirteen? I think as I pass the long rows of faded inspirational posters.

Nothing! This response is in a darker voice that has lingered in the back of my head since the incident. I don’t talk about her because, frankly, she scares me.

I open the double doors that counteract as a barrier between the sane and insane. My father’s in the corner, his arms on his knees as he stares at the cracking cement floor.

For a man who wasn’t around when I was born, he stepped up to the plate once he found out he had a daughter. I know he has the best intentions, but I’m broken, and fixing me will take a miracle. He probably would be better off if he had just left me at the asylum.

After the incident, I was taken to Eider Asylum. They did a bunch of blood work and began looking for my next of kin once they had my DNA. Part of me wants to believe they did it because they cared, but the logical side says they wanted to get paid for their useless therapies.

My mother had failed to mention the existence of a father. This meant it took quite some time for them to dig through old records to find matching DNA. That is how I pieced together that she never told him about me. It was confirmed after our first visit because of the awkward hug and apology. My few memories of my mother were unpleasant, and keeping a secret like this didn’t seem like something she would do to protect me. Anything to have the upper hand.

He took me home when they approved my discharge several years later. It’s been a whirlwind of emotional issues in every sense.

“You ready?” I ask softly, not wanting anyone else to notice me standing in the room. Invisibility was vital when it came to my daily life.

He looked up at me with these huge brown eyes and smiles. I know they are fake, but I understand why he does it. He knows, or maybe rather thinks, that I share all my emotional baggage with the therapist. Little does he know that we have barely scraped the surface of my trauma in the last four years. I didn’t want to talk about it, and it was all she wanted to talk about.

“How was it?” he asks as he stands.

“Enlightening as always,” I reply with a smirk.

My father is five-ten, reasonably built, with brown hair and eyes. He’s young, mid-thirties, fair-complected, and one of the only people I feel safe around. According to him, he was seventeen when he met my mother, which in hindsight, would explain why she had kept her pregnancy a secret.

He wraps his arm over my shoulders, and we leave the office.

The outside of the building is a drab gray, surrounded by a dead landscape. The brown grass complements the naked trees surrounding the building, and the lack of flowers leaves one wondering how brown the world could be.

We hadn’t had rain in years, and our food supply was dwindling, with no imports. Everything we had came from what we could do ourselves. Nobody ever left Coscoroba, yet at the same time, nobody new came in. It was like we were disconnected from the rest of humanity, and as the population began to dwindle, so did the resources.

We entered the parking lot and its cracked concrete before stopping in front of my father’s blue truck. It’s not new and has a few dents, but not everyone has a car here.

“What do you want to do tonight?” he asks as he opens the passenger door.

“Movie marathon?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Okay, but no romance, horror, or teen drama.” He pauses until I’m inside and shuts the door.

“How about an animated movie with talking animals?” I mention once he’s securely behind the wheel.

He looks at me with an intense stare. “What have you done with my daughter?” he teases.

We both laugh for a bit before his cell phone rings. I know who it is and instantly latch my mouth shut.

“Hey, babe,” he says into the phone.

My father’s wife’s name is Karen. They’ve been married for fifteen years and have a son: my brother Pax, or Paxton. Pax is fifteen and stands about six feet, with brown hair and eyes. He loves video games, superhero movies, and mystery books. I love my brother. It’s his mother that makes life difficult.

“Karen wants me to stop by the burger joint for dinner,” he mentions as he puts his phone in the cupholder.

I reply with a smile and turn my head toward the window. My one moment of peace is gone, and I’m lost inside my head again. He tries so hard to keep me engaged. I don’t know what it is about me. I cannot connect. Half the time, I feel as if my brain isn’t mine.

I force my eyes closed. I know what comes next. I know what I see, what I remember. I see my mother as nothing more than a torso propped up on the counter, watching as I toss bits of her body down the drain.

My hands fly to my ears as the echo of the cleaver hitting bone permeates my memory. It’s vivid, as if it’s happening all over again. I can smell, hear, and feel, all of it, as if those three days are still happening in a never-ending cycle.

“Odette.”

I feel my father’s hand on my arm, but it triggers fear, and I lurch toward the car door, knocking my head against the window. He’s trying to comfort me, but I’m too far gone.

Remember what I said about accepting my mother’s death? It’s a lie.

It takes an hour to get from the therapist’s office to the Burger Shack and then home. We live in the Water Valley housing development. It’s older but nice, and the streets are well-kept. It’s one of the better places to live in Coscoroba.

Our house is on Mallard Lane, third on the right, with red brick and white shutters. It’s three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a large study. My stepmother has an unhealthy obsession with anything medieval. The house is decorated as if it was a castle. Every room had some form of royal heirloom, as Karen called it. For a good while, I was convinced she was a princess after finding a crown in her top dresser drawer.

“How was therapy?” Karen asks the moment we walk through the door.

My father hands her the food bag and leans in for a kiss. Of course, she turns her head to the right so my father’s lips land on her cheek.

My stepmother is five foot six inches, with chestnut brown hair and cold blue eyes. Her face is square-shaped, and her lips are thin. Her nails are expertly manicured and always painted red. She doesn’t smile, and she smells like peppermint.

“It was good,” my father says, but she knows him, and it was far from good.

“What happened this time?” she demands. She’s talking to my father and glaring at me.

“It’s fine,” he replies, trying to soothe her.

I didn’t want to stick around for what happened next. I take off up the stairs and into the tiny space they’ve given me. There are no pictures on the wall of my friends, no books on a bookshelf in the corner. I’m not allowed to have a desk with pens, office supplies, or any item that could cause bodily harm. This included belts and necklaces.

You try to kill yourself one time, and suddenly you’re lucky you get to keep the shoelaces from your sneakers.

The walls are white, the dresser is a two-drawer filing cabinet in the corner, and the bed is a futon they picked up when they decided I could come live with them. It’s nothing like my brother’s room. Then again, I was an unexpected addition to a once-thriving family.

Pax has the solar system on his ceiling, a mural of the Avengers on one wall, and a wide variety of books stacked on the desk our dad had made him for his twelfth birthday. His bedsheets are dark blue with a matching comforter. I was lucky if my clothes matched, let alone a clean matching bedding set.

I sit down on the edge of the futon and rub my hands through my brown hair. I can hear them talking. Dad’s trying to avoid telling her I had another incident, but she’s smart. She can already tell something happened. Karen has a way of sniffing out my baggage. She never wanted to talk about it, but she always blamed my traumatic past on my witch of a mother—her words, not mine.

“Donald, maybe we should look into some outside help.” I hear Karen suggest.

It’s her go-to solution. Trust me; it’s not the last time she will mention this.

When I was found in the girl’s bathroom at school after Macy Pinkerton punched me, Karen suggested I attend anger management. All because Macy claimed I had attacked her when it was she who struck me. I never laid a finger on her, and while the blood on my shirt was still wet, they failed to believe I was not at fault. After that, I stopped being passive. Any time they pushed, I pushed back. It took only a short time before they left me alone, mostly. I still have the straggling bully, but they get tired of me sooner or later and move on.

“She needs stability,” he replies. “She doesn’t need another doctor telling her it’s all in her head. She’s not crazy.”

“But she is, Donald. You’ll wake up one day and realize she’s dangerous,” Karen snaps.

“How can she be dangerous? She’s a seventeen-year-old girl.”

I envision him raising both his hands and throwing his head back.

I hear the door click and realize they’ve moved their conversation to Dad’s office. The only place in the entire house that’s soundproof.

Yes, it’s one of those nights. At least I know my dad has my back. A girl could have only so many therapists, psychologists, and specialists. I’m on more medication than anyone else I know from the ward. I have physical, mental, and social issues. One of the many reasons I have no friends.

“Odette?”

Pax places his hand on my back as he sits next to me.

“Hey, little brother,” I mumble.

I do not want him to see me post-episode.

“Are you doing okay?” he asks.

Pax and I get along great for being two years apart. He’s a high school sophomore, and I’m barely a senior. My grades are far from excellent, but I passed my classes to move on to the following year. While the other seniors talked about life after high school, I was trying to figure out if I would make it to the next day.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It was a rough session.” I lie.

“You want to talk about it?” Pax asks.

I turn my head in his direction and force a smile. I can tell he doesn’t buy it.

“Nope, I’ll be okay.”

It’s another lie.

He knows it. I know it. The entire world knows I will not be okay. In my heart, I felt it should be me facing execution right alongside Lenny Porter. I may not have killed her, but my part in the disposal of her body haunts me.

I shut my eyes for a moment to push the image aside. I refuse to let Pax see me at my most vulnerable. I am supposed to protect him from all the evils I have faced.

What evils are those? I push the thought to the side and try to put a bright smile on my face. I know I’m failing, but at least I’m trying.

“Want to watch some television in my room? Your room depresses me.” He looks around my drab living space with blank walls and bare shelves.

I playfully glare at him before standing. I want to be a good big sister to Pax, but he takes care of me better than I do him.

We opt for a documentary on aquatic birds. There isn’t a lot to watch that we haven’t already seen. Halfway through the documentary, his phone goes off. He looks down, and his face pales.

“What’s wrong?” I instantly ask. I’m in worried sister mode.

“Nothing,” he replies as he paints on a smile.

I want to push for an explanation, but he’s clenching his fists, and his knuckles are white from the pressure.

Ten minutes after that, Karen calls him down to set the table. He leaves his phone on the bed, and I grab it in a moment of curiosity, hoping to find what had taken my brother’s happiness away. What I discover is a string of messages from a boy at school.

You should be ashamed to be her brother.

If my sister were as crazy as yours, I would have killed her and myself by now.

It would be best if you did us all that favor.

Nobody likes you anyway.

There are many more, and most of them are worse than these. Several photos, videos, and animations depicting suicide fill the screen. My heart jumps into my throat, and I do everything not to cry. If I had known my living with Pax’s family caused this many issues, I would have stayed at the asylum. I had already gone fifteen years without a father. What was the rest of my life?

“What are you doing?” Pax demands, and I find my brother standing in the doorway. His hands are shaking, and I can see the anger in his eyes.

I put his phone back on the mattress and left his room. I know what I had done wasn’t right, but I’d wanted to know. I’m the big sister, and I’m supposed to protect him from assholes like that.

“I’m sorry,” I stammer, pushing past him.

Back in my room, I lay on the futon and put the pillow over my face. What I did was wrong. I knew I had invaded my brother’s privacy.

“Odette, I’m sorry.” Pax’s voice comes from my doorway, and I pull the pillow from my face to look at him.

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

I can’t help but notice the pain on his face.

How long has it been there? Why have I never seen it before?