Chapter 41

 I knew that this moment was eventually going to come, but Charles discovered the missing meat sooner than I expected. Jimmy raised an eyebrow as he looked over at me.

“Tommy made me cook it,” I said.

“This lying needs to end,” Charles said. “Tommy is sick. There is no way that he would have eaten it.”

“He’s not actually sick,” I said. “He’s faking it.”

“I don’t believe so.”

“He is!”

“Do not shout at me.”

Jimmy put his hand on my shoulder. I took a step so that I was behind him.

“Punish her,” Charles told Jimmy.

“What?” Jimmy asked. “I can’t hurt the baby. Plus, you said it was my choice whether or not to punish her.”

“Now she’s not only lying,” he said. “She is now being disrespectful and she ate the remaining bit of meat.”

“I can’t hurt the baby,” Jimmy said.

“Just because she is pregnant is no reason to let her get away with all this,” Charles said. “You don’t have to go near her stomach to teach her a lesson. We are all having to ration the meat, and she goes ahead and eats all of it. We’re the ones doing all of the work and protecting her and she’s abusing that. You have to punish that girl, James.”

“Jimmy,” I started to whine. I did not want to get punished because of Tommy. I was just as hungry as the rest of them.

“Stop it, Juliet!” Charles shouted. I looked past Jimmy’s shoulder to see Charles’ face growing red. “James, get your knife.”

“Dad-” he started to say.

“Hurry up and teach her a lesson!” he said. “You need to punish your girl, so do it.”

Jimmy let out a deep breath and reached into his pocket. I started crying as I watched him pull out his knife. I held my arms against my chest and shook my head. Jimmy turned around and walked toward me with his hand out.

“Julie, stop crying,” he said. His voice was stern and sounded a lot like Charles’.

He grabbed my wrist and held out my arm. He rolled up the sleeve of my sweater. He flipped out the blade of his knife.

“Please,” I dragged out the word.

My knees crumpled underneath me and I fell to the floor. My arm was still in Jimmy’s grasp, and he tightened his grip on my wrist. The cold metal was pressed against the flesh on the inside of my arm. I begged and pleaded for Jimmy to stop, but he did not listen to me.

He pressed the blade down into my skin and I screamed. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the tears continued to roll down my cheeks. He made three deep slashes into my arm.

The pain never seemed to end. I was surprised that Charles was not yelling at me to shut up. He must enjoy watching his son abuse me like this.

Once Jimmy let go of me, I crumpled on the floor. I kept my eyes closed and pulled my arm against my chest. The blood soaked through the front of my sweater. My arm burned as I sobbed in pain.

“Go to the bathroom,” Jimmy said.

I stumbled as I got back onto my feet. My head spun as I hurried into the bathroom.

“Try not to get blood on anything,” Charles said.

The blood was dripping off of my arm and onto the floor. I looked down at the three wounds, and seeing the damage to my flesh made me cry even harder. I opened up the cupboard under the sink and pulled out one of the ragged towels. I pressed it up against the wound and watched the blood stain the green cloth. I took in a sharp breath and sat down on the cold tile floor.

I tried to press the cloth harder against the wound to stop the bleeding, but it was too painful. I was crying so hard that I did not hear Jimmy coming into the bathroom. I jumped when he slid his arm around my waist.

“Shush, it’s okay,” he whispered before pressing his lips against my cheek.

I shook my head and pulled the towel off of my arm. Jimmy opened up the cupboard behind the mirror. He pulled out a bottle and then got another towel. He sat down in front of me and poured the liquid onto the towel.

“This is going to sting,” he said as he pulled out my wounded arm.

“What is it?” I asked.

Jimmy didn’t answer me, and he rubbed the towel against my wounds. I gasped out in pain as it managed to burn even more. I bit on my lip until I tasted blood.

When Jimmy was done, I went to pull my arm back toward my chest, but he snatched my wrist. He wrapped the gauze around my arm. My breath was ragged as I tried to stop myself from crying.

Once he was finished, he picked me up off the floor. He curled me into his body as I continued to sob. He carried me over to the bed, placed me down, and pulled the blankets up over me.

Jimmy sat on the other side of the bed. He threw his arm over my belly and pulled me closer to him. He left his hand open over my stomach.

“You know I love you, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Tell me it.”

“I know you love me.”

“Good girl,” he said. He leaned in and kissed my cheek. He wiped my tears away with his fingers. “You love me?”

“I love you.”

The throbbing pain in my arm kept me awake all night.

—

There was no meat in the fridge, and my belly continued to grow in size. Summer was almost here soon and I wished someone would come onto our property.

Jimmy’s attitude had taken a major turn. He was hungry, and he punished me for everything that he could. If I broke a dish, I got cut. If I was late with dinner, I got cut. If he found a dirty spot in the house, I got cut. My arms were covered in cuts and scabs.

I ran a hand down my stomach. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that I was seven months pregnant. My large belly led the way wherever I went, and I was wearing maternity clothes from the basement.

It was hot, and the air in the house was humid. I was wearing an out-dated sundress. I could feel the beads of sweat roll down the back of my neck.

“Julie, is breakfast almost ready?” Jimmy asked.

They were all sitting around the kitchen table. Charles had a letter in his hands and was reading it out loud. It was from Taylor, and it said that they would be coming down for a visit soon. I was at the stove pouring oatmeal into bowls.

“It’s coming,” I told them.

No one answered me as I gathered the three bowls into my arms. I set them down in front of them before grabbing my own bowl.

“When Taylor comes down, tell him to bring some meat,” Tommy told Charles. “I’m starving.”

I sat down in my chair. Tommy was scarfing down his food at an ungodly pace.

“That’s not funny, Thomas,” Charles said. “But we cannot have Taylor and Emme here with no meat. There’s also a new mouth coming to feed in a few months.”

Charles gestured over to my stomach.

“I need you boys to do things differently,” Charles said. “We can’t keep going on like this. It’s not healthy for anyone. You need to go hunting off of our property. Just until we can get our lives back to normal.”

I looked up to see Tommy had a huge smile on his face. I had not seen a smile that big on his face since the day he threatened to push me down the stairs. I looked over at Jimmy to see him smiling. They were finally going to be happy again, and I would not be punished as much. We would be eating something other than vegetables, potatoes, and eggs.

“Really?” Tommy asked.

“Yes.” Charles nodded his head. “Just do your chores and then you two can go out.”

“Come one, Jim,” Tommy said, tossing his spoon into his empty bowl. “We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”

Jimmy and Tommy both got out of their seats and hurried outside. I could hear Charles chuckle under his breath. He shook his head and got up from the table.

“It’s good to see them excited, but I doubt that anyone will be out there,” Charles said. “I wouldn’t be planning a feast yet if I were you, Juliet.”

I smiled and rubbed my belly.

“I won’t be,” I said.

Charles continued to laugh as he walked out the door. I got up too and started cleaning the kitchen.

I went on with my daily routine and continued to clean the house. I had not heard anything from them outside until I started preparing dinner.

Someone was pounding their fists into the door and was screaming at the top of their lungs.