Nine:

NINE:

Punishment

Jack on his parents’ bed from where he’d been thrown, face down, eyes closed. He waited for the unbuckling belt, a signal that his punishment was about to be enforced. And waited. Was his dad doing it slowly to prolong the torture? Or maybe he meant for it to be quiet—the element of surprise being the feature that distinguished this lashing from the others in the past.

Nothing. In the distance, his cousin’s cries.

Jack opened his eyes.

The bulge of his father’s stomach through the apron he wore. In his hands, he held the blood-streaked scissors Jack used to slit open Charles’s hands and fingers.

“What you doing, Dad?”

“Don’t speak, boy.”

“What?”

“Don’t you say a bloody word, you hear?”

Jack bit his tongue and pinched his lips together.

“Now,” his father began, “you’re going to learn a lesson. And it’s a lesson I don’t much like teaching. But I’s got to do what I think’s fair.”

Jack was frightened. He breathed hot air into the blanket. The fabric itched agai