No Turning Back

Chapter 3: Strategy

Dayna didn’t hear from Tom or Jean until night time. Even then, she only heard the shouts of an argument, along with some random thumps and the familiar sounds of breaking dishes. Kevin just played with toys like he usually did, and Ash paced. Dayna sat on Kevin’s bed, watching thoughtfully, and trying to block out the noise from downstairs.

She was still in shock over the tall girl who had crawled out from under her bed the day before, but somehow felt comfortable around Ash already. Ash looked strong and athletic, like maybe she’d been living as a runaway her whole life, especially since at the moment she still had grass and leaves in her hair. Dayna realized Ash was now the only other person in the world who knew what Dayna and Kevin’s lives were really like.

Kevin pulled his deck of thirty-seven cards out of the toy box. “Come on, let’s play a game!” he said, flopping onto the floor.

Dayna knew her brother was trying to distract everyone from the fight below, so she joined him, grunting because of the pain in her back.

Thumps and crashes resounded downstairs and Dayna groaned. “We’re going to have to clean the house tomorrow.”

“We always have to clean the house.” Kevin tried to shuffle the cards, but he wasn’t very good at it.

“Every time we clean, Tom inspects everything. You’ll need a hiding place, Ash,” Dayna said.

Ash walked to the back window. The rope ladder was still tied to the heating vent below it, but when Ash stuck her head outside, she looked up instead of down. “I bet I could hide on the roof.”

“Okay,” Dayna said. She didn’t know what would happen if Ash got caught hiding out in their room, except it wouldn’t be good.

Ash joined Dayna and Kevin on the floor, biting her lip.

“Hey, we could play Go Fish, or maybe War!” Kevin said.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, so they won’t go to work. But Monday they probably will. We’ll leave then,” Dayna said.

The shouting downstairs got louder and she cringed.

* * * *

After a restless night’s sleep, Dayna awoke to banging on the door.

“Get downstairs!” Tom shouted.

Dayna jumped out of bed. “Okay, Ash,” she said breathlessly. “Don’t make any noise. We’ll keep the bedroom door blocked for now, but we’ll have to unlock the bathroom.” Nausea wrenched her stomach at the thought of seeing Tom.

“If I hear them giving you a hard time I’m coming down there,” Ash said.

Dayna started to protest, but her father shouted again from below.

“If you hear anyone coming upstairs get on the roof,” Kevin said. “It’s okay, we’ll be all right.”

Dayna smiled at her brother. His hair stuck up all over his head and he held his favorite stuffed animal, but at times Dayna thought he acted more mature than most second-graders.

“We’ll be back as soon we can,” she said, hoping she sounded reassuring.

As she trudged downstairs, she reached back and squeezed Kevin’s hand. Jean sat on the couch and sipped coffee. Tom stood red-faced, holding a can of beer. He ran his other hand through his hair, which was dark like Dayna’s, and his brown eyes were narrowed.

“Kids, we left you up there all day yesterday to teach you a lesson for not doing your chores.” He stared down at them as if expecting something.

“We’re sorry,” Dayna said, bowing her head.

“Sorry,” Kevin echoed.

“You didn’t like being stuck up there all day with no food and nothing to do, huh?”

“No.” Dayna exchanged a glance with her brother.

“Get to work. If you do a good job, we’ll let you have something to eat. You’re pretty hungry, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t be so lucky if this ever happens again. Go!”

Dayna walked away and shared one last look with Kevin before he ran back upstairs. Her back felt stiff and the touch of her shirt burned. It took longer than usual to clean everything downstairs. An hour later she walked upstairs, through her parents’ bedroom, through the bathroom, into her bedroom, and laughed. Kevin was running to the bathroom doorway with his arms outstretched, and Ash’s feet were just disappearing from the window. Kevin let out a sigh of relief and he laughed too.

“It’s okay, Ash; it’s Dayna,” he said.

“Wait a minute.” Dayna crossed to the window and looked up.

Ash lay on the roof, peering down with wide eyes.

“Thanks for helping clean up.” Dayna had noticed along the way the upstairs rooms were spotless.

“You’re welcome,” Ash said. She pushed some hair out of her eyes. “Now what?”

“Tom will inspect everything so you might as well stay up there. I’ve got to unblock the bedroom door, but then we’re going down to get him. Where’s your bag?”

Ash pointed behind her. “I threw it up here with me.”

Dayna grinned; Ash had moved fast. “I’m sorry about this. Do you think you’ll be all right up there?”

“I’ll be fine. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

Dayna shook her head.

“Okay, see you after a while.” Ash moved out of sight.

“All right, Kevin, let’s get this over with,” Dayna said with a sigh. “Put the rope ladder under my mattress.”

“We were so scared when we heard you coming,” Kevin said as she struggled to pull a dresser from the door. “I started running around in a circle and Ash jumped right over to the window; she was really good. I’m glad it was you, though.”

“The look on your face was pretty funny,” she said. After she moved the furniture away from the door, she and Kevin walked downstairs again, more confidently than before.

“We’re done!” Kevin yelled.

Tom slapped him in the face.

Dayna was one step behind her brother and she got slapped, too. She looked up in confusion and Kevin held a hand to his cheek. Then she noticed Tom held a red plastic cup. That meant he and Jean were drinking whiskey, and it was even more important to stay out of their way.

“We’ll see how much you really got done up there. Come on,” Tom said.

“I don’t think they’ve learned their lesson,” Jean said.

It was the longest sentence Dayna had heard her mother speak in days, besides the screaming.

“I’ll find out if they deserve to eat. Go on, kids.” Tom followed Dayna and Kevin upstairs and inspected the rooms. He walked to their open bedroom window and looked outside.

Dayna choked back a gasp and looked at Kevin with wide eyes.

“Well, you’ve done all right up here, Kev,” Tom said as he turned back to face them. “You’re more like a girl than a boy, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you like to clean.”

Kevin’s face turned crimson.

“I told you kids if you did a good job you’d get something to eat, right?” Tom asked.

They nodded.

“I think you need another day to think about things. Stay up here and don’t make any noise. Your mom and I are having some friends over, and we need you to stay out of the way.”

“Great,” Kevin said.

“Shut up. Stay here.” Tom walked out of the room and slammed the door.

Dayna rolled her eyes and flopped down on her bed, glad it was over. “Oh, no, we don’t have to see them for the rest of the day; what a punishment.”

Kevin, still red-faced, sidled over to her. “Am I really more like a girl than a boy?”

Dayna spoke in a much softer voice. “Of course not. Tom’s just a jerk.”

He grinned.

A large blue bag flew into the back window and landed with a thump. Next a pair of feet emerged, followed by two legs. Ash’s toes touched the sill. The rest of her followed inch by inch, and finally she jumped into the room. Her hair was wind-blown and freckles stood out against her pale face. “I hate your dad.”

“Yeah, he thinks we’re starving,” Kevin said with a laugh. Then his expression turned serious. “I’m glad we met you. If we hadn’t, we really would be hungry.”

Dayna nodded. Without Ash, they wouldn’t have had anything to eat since their free lunch at school on Friday.

“Doesn’t your mom ever do anything about all this?” Ash asked.

Dayna shrugged. “Like what?” She began shoving a dresser up against the bedroom door again. Ash helped. They moved everything in less than half the time it took Dayna to do the job alone. Her back throbbed and she curled up on her bed when they were finished: the bed Ash had slept on last night. Weird.

“Has it always been like this?” Ash asked, sitting on Kevin’s bed. “Has your dad always been so mean and your mom just…”

“Just lets him?” Kevin said while picking through the toy box.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“It wasn’t always this bad,” Dayna said. Remembering those times was like watching another person’s life. “At first our parents were all right. We lived in an apartment in town for a long time. They still drank, but they seemed happier. And then…little by little things got worse. I don’t know why. They started drinking more. They do other drugs sometimes, too.”

“They started punishing us worse,” Kevin said.

“Yeah. I think they just want us out of the way so they can do whatever they want,” Dayna said. “After they got called to the school because of our black eyes we moved here; this used to be our grandma’s house. We have to stay in our room all the time, and now we’re not even supposed to go to school at all.”

“If they hate kids so much, I wonder why they even had us.”

Dayna shook her head. “I don’t know. And now Tom…well, Tom’s a jerk.” She stretched and her cuts stung. “They’re different people now. That’s why I can’t call them Mom and Dad anymore.”

Kevin grabbed an old toy car and rolled it across the floor.

“Well, your parents still didn’t win,” Ash said. She picked up her bag. “You want something to eat?”

“Yeah!” Kevin shouted.

“Shut up!” Tom yelled from downstairs.

Kevin smashed his car into the wall. Tom cursed and Dayna groaned. Then she heard the sound of a car rolling up the driveway. She put a finger to her lips and widened her eyes. They were about to be saved.

“Paul and Steph are here,” Jean called from below. “Forget about them.”

“Don’t make any noise or I’ll come up there and knock you out!” Tom shouted.

Dayna sighed.

“I’m sorry,” Kevin whispered. “He just makes me so mad sometimes.”

“I know,” Dayna said.

“Ash, do you think I act like a girl?”

“Uh, no.”

“Our dad always says Kevin acts like a girl,” Dayna said, clenching her fists. “He tells us we’re stupid, or lazy, or worthless. I don’t know, he’s just—”

“A drunk loser,” Ash said.

“And you know what else he says?” Kevin piped up. “He says Dayna probably has lots of boyfriends and he told her she was a—”

“Kevin!” Dayna snapped. Her breath caught in her throat. They never, ever talked about it.

Kevin ducked his head and Ash dropped her bag.

Two more cars pulled into the driveway.

“Oh, they’re going to have a big party tonight,” Dayna said. She needed to talk about something else, anything else, to get Ash to stop looking at her that way. “It won’t matter if we make noise; they’ll never notice.”

Classic rock blared from downstairs.

“I thought the radio was broken,” Kevin said.

“Maybe Paul and Steph brought one over,” Dayna said sarcastically.

Ash hadn’t moved. “Dayna,” she whispered.

Dayna avoided her gaze.

Kevin grabbed Ash’s wrist and looked at her watch. “It’s eleven-thirty in the morning and they’re already having a party. Is today a holiday?”

“Maybe there’s a race,” Dayna said. “I’m hungry.”

Ash seemed to come to herself and picked up her bag again. “I’ve got plenty of food.” She sat on one of the beds and pulled out bread, peanut butter, a bag of plastic silverware, and chips.

As the afternoon passed, the music stopped, replaced by the sounds of adults cheering and cursing. Dayna suggested they take advantage of the noise to take showers. There were clean towels in the upstairs bathroom since she was forced to do all of the laundry, but Ash had to supply soap and shampoo. After they showered, it seemed to Dayna like the noise downstairs was deafening.

“It sure sounds like they’re having a lot of fun,” Kevin said. He crashed his car into the wall again.

Dayna sat on the bed cross-legged and put her chin in her hand. She knew she shouldn’t let her parents get her down, but it happened all the time. She couldn’t wait to leave. Her back still hurt, and that made her feel even worse.

“Let’s make a list of things you and Kevin need to pack,” Ash said, sitting beside her with a pen and notebook.

“What do we need besides clothes?” Dayna asked.

“Do you think we could get some more food from the kitchen?”

“We can try. There’s usually not much down there.”

Kevin stopped crashing his car. “There’s a little cooler in the garage we could use.”

“Yeah, that would be great,” Dayna said.

“But our sandwiches won’t be the same if the bread isn’t smashed,” Ash said.

Dayna looked at Ash out of the corner of her eye, smirked, and then chuckled. Kevin retrieved his car from the corner and rolled it again.

“I have some money,” Ash said.

“Really? How much?” Dayna asked. She never had any money.

“Two hundred dollars. I did have a little more, but I bought a couple things after I left.”

“How did you get all that?”

Ash shrugged. “It’s really not much. I babysat and did odd jobs. We’ll be able to buy food with that, but we have to make it last. We’ll walk through fields and trees as much as possible and stay out of towns, so we won’t have a lot of chances to go to the store.”

Dayna hesitated as she took the pen, realizing she and Kevin were really making plans to run away with a girl they’d just met. Maybe she should reconsider.

But she couldn’t think because of the noise downstairs. Her back burned. She looked at Kevin’s black eye and multiple bruises and remembered what had happened the night before.

They had no choice.

A few minutes later, her list was complete. “Kevin, do you have any more ideas?”

cooler

food

medicine

2 blankets

clothes

towels and wash cloths

“That looks good,” he said.

“You should bring an extra pair of shoes,” Ash said.

Dayna started to add that to the list but Kevin held her arm.

“We don’t have an extra pair of shoes.”

“You do.”

“They don’t fit anymore, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Ash looked at her watch. “It’s almost midnight.”

“I can’t believe they’re still having their party,” Kevin said.

“Well, we should try and get some sleep anyway,” Ash said. “We need all the rest we can get for tomorrow.”

“You’re right.” Dayna handed Ash her notebook. “The sooner morning gets here, the sooner we can leave. You can sleep on my bed again. Kevin and I are used to sharing.”

She turned out the light and lay beside her brother. Despite the music and laughter below, she drifted off to sleep.