My Brother's Keeper

Whack!

The sound echoes through my ears, a constant reminder of what I saw that day.

I remember getting out of bed and walking down the hallway toward the kitchen. I can even recall turning the corner from the dining room and stopping dead in my tracks.

There was so much blood.

So.

Much.

Blood.

Whack!

Lenny’s arm comes back as he slams a cleaver through my mother’s chest. Blood spurts from the wound and onto his arms. He seemed unphased by the atrocity he was committing, his hands moving methodically over the skin, his eyes never wavering from her face. Yet there I stood, barefoot in the kitchen, my eyes watering, too afraid to cry out. He didn’t know I was there. He had no clue I was watching, frozen in place.

I’m thirteen, scared to death, afraid to run.

Whack!

He tosses an arm to the side and begins on the other.

I try to focus on her face, but her eyes are open and staring at me as if pleading for me to save her. How can I save a mother I didn’t know? How can I when I know she’s gone?

I feel my lip quiver as I watch his arm return for another blow. I close my eyes as a splatter of my mother’s blood collides with my face. Only then did Lenny pull his eyes away from the body and turn to face me.