I had seven questions, and I wrote them on the back of Jesse's notebook, because she insisted. She tore out a page, handed me the pencil and said, "If you're going to cross-examine our father, JJ, you must do it properly."
"I don't want to cross-examine him."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want to ask things."
"That's what cross-examination is."
I did not have a good reply to that. So I wrote.
The dining hall had changed. Somebody had lit a second lamp. My mother had made tea, in a big blue pot that had not been used since Christmas, and Steven, who could not bear to be useless, was handing out cups with the frantic efficiency of a man who has found something to do with his hands. Danny, still under the table, was now sharing a biscuit with Derrick, who had slipped down beside him without a word.
My uncle sat quietly, with his tea untouched. He said, when I looked at him, "This is yours, JJ. I will keep still."
I nodded.
I stood up. It seemed right. I put my page on the table. I looked at my father.
"Question one," I said.
* * *
"Do you know my favourite colour?"
He blinked.
It was not what he had expected. I saw it go across his face, a kind of bewildered flinch, like a man who has braced for a punch and been handed a flower.
"I—" He stopped. "No."
"It's green," I said. "The green of the pawpaw leaves in the rain. I've never told anyone, because nobody asked. I just thought you should know there's a thing I like."
His mouth moved.
"Question two. What is my best subject?"
"I… I don't know."
"It's mathematics. I'm second in the class. Mrs. Johnson thinks I could be first, if I had a proper desk." I looked down at my page. "Question three. Do you know that I can make a bridge out of drinking straws that holds five bricks?"
"No."
"Do you know that I have forty-one objects in a glass cabinet at school?"
"No."
"Do you know I've been late every day for two years because it's an hour's walk, and I do not own shoes?"
"JJ." My mother's voice was a sob.
"I'm not saying it to hurt," I said. I was shaking now. I could feel it in my wrists. "I only want to ask. I want to know whether you knew."
My father was crying. It came quietly, as it had before, down the creases of his big face, in two long wet tracks.
"I didn't," he said. "I didn't know any of it. I never asked."
"Why not?"
"Because I was afraid that if I knew you," said my father, "I would never be able to let you go."
I stared at him.
I had not expected that.
I had expected excuses. I had expected, I think, a speech. But he had said it in a tiny, cracked, incredibly honest voice, and for a moment the anger in my stomach seemed to catch, like a wheel on a stone.
He's afraid of me, I thought. All this time.
It was an absurd idea. And it was true.
* * *
"Question four," I said. My voice had steadied. "Why did you hit me?"
"Because I was a coward."
"That isn't an answer."
"It is the only one I have."
"I'd like a better one."
"There isn't one." He lifted his head. His eyes were red, but they were steady. "I hit you because I was angry at myself, and you were the closest thing to hit. Because you had my brother's face. Because I couldn't hit Cassius. Because it made the fear stop for ten minutes." He took a breath. "It was wrong. It was wrong, JJ. I would give my hands to have never done it."
I looked at them. They lay on the table, large and scarred, with thick fingers and dirty nails.
I said, slowly, "I don't think I want your hands."
He closed his eyes.
"I think I want you to stop," I said. "That's all. I don't want a speech. I don't want a hundred apologies. I want you to stop hitting people, and stop drinking until you can't see, and be somebody who asks what my favourite colour is."
"I will try."
"Don't try." I heard my own voice go sharp. "I'm sick of try. Everyone in this house tries. Mum tries, and Derrick tries, and I try. We have all been trying for twelve years, and look where it got us. I want you to do."
There was a very still pause.
Then, in a small, humbled, immensely careful voice, my father said: "Yes. I will do."
I let out a long breath.
It was not forgiveness. I want to be clear about that. I would not give it to him yet. It was not mine to give so cheaply, and I think he knew that. But I heard something in his voice, a kind of small, hard, determined note, like a nail being driven into wood.
It was enough for the moment.
* * *
"Question five," I said, "is for Derrick."
My brother, under the table, looked up with a start.
"Me?"
"Come out."
He crawled out, very slowly, dusting off his knees. He stood in front of me, white and tidy and rigid, with his hands pressed to his sides. He looked, for all the world, like a boy about to be sentenced.
"I'm sorry," he blurted. "I'm so sorry. I know I was horrible. The notes on the mirror. The tap. I know. I just—" He swallowed. "I thought if I was the clean one, if I was good, if I never did anything wrong, then they wouldn't—he wouldn't—" His voice broke. "I thought if I stayed perfect, he wouldn't hit me, too."
I stared at him.
For two years, I had hated that note.
I had hated his folded towel and his scrubbed floor and his neat, narrow, unforgiving face. I had thought, he enjoys it. He enjoys watching me get beaten. He's the favourite. I had never once stopped to ask what it cost him to be the favourite.
He was scared too.
I thought of the foot that had nudged mine under the table. Just once. So slight I'd nearly missed it.
"Derrick," I said.
"Yes?"
"Question five is: do you want a hug?"
His mouth fell open.
"I'm not sure it's allowed," he said, rather faintly.
"I'm twelve. I make the rules."
"You're twelve and a half, actually, in six weeks—"
"Derrick."
"Yes."
"Come here."
He did.
It was a very bad hug. It was all elbows and knees. He was stiff as a plank, and I was shorter, and my chin dug into his collarbone. But he put his arms round me, and he held on, and after a moment I felt him start to shake. And I thought, Oh. So this is how you do it. You just keep holding on, until the other person lets go.
From the table, Jesse said, without looking up from her notebook: "I would like it noted that I am not crying."
"Noted," said my uncle, gravely.
"There is dust."
"There is a lot of dust."
"I'd also like it noted," said Jesse, in a thick voice, "that I was always going to be on JJ's side."
"Always?"
"From the drain."
* * *
Question six was for my mother.
I did not ask it aloud. I only crossed the room, and put my arms round her, and hid my face in her neck. She smelled of tea and soap and warm cloth, and she held me so tightly that I could hardly breathe.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, my love. For all of it."
"You said I'd be somebody great."
"I did."
"You knew."
"I knew you were somebody." Her voice shook. "I only didn't know what kind. I didn't care, JJ. I just wanted you to be alive, and to be kind, and to be yourself. And you were. You always were."
"I'm very dirty."
"I know."
"I'll try to be cleaner."
"Don't you dare," said my mother, laughing into my hair. "I'll have a neat son. It would be horrible."
I laughed too. I could not help it. It came out wet and cracked, and it turned, halfway, into something else, and for a long time we stood there rocking, in the middle of the dining hall, like two people in a very small boat.
* * *
I looked up at last.
My uncle was watching us, from his chair, with an expression I could not read. His face was quite still. But on the table in front of him, his big hands were gripping each other so tightly that the knuckles had gone white.
I walked across the floor.
I stood in front of him. I was not nervous. That surprised me. I had thought I would be.
"Question seven," I said.
"Yes, JJ?"
"Are you the one who's going to take me away?"
There was a silence.
I saw him flinch. It was only a slight movement, the tiniest tightening of the eyes. But I saw it, and understood that I had asked the right question, and that he had been dreading it.
"No," said my uncle. "I will not take you anywhere."
"But there is a place."
"Yes."
"With a council."
"Yes."
"And a man called Cassius."
"Yes." His voice was very low. "He will find out, JJ. It is only a matter of days. I have people who will talk. There is a leak in my own office, and I have not yet found it. Cassius will come, one way or another. And I would rather you were not here when he does."
I considered this.
I looked at the table, at my father's bowed head, at my mother's wet face, at the lamp and the cup and the folded towel on the sideboard. I looked at Danny, who had crept out from under the table and was chewing with his eyes fixed on me, round and anxious. I looked at Jesse's pencil, and Derrick's trembling mouth.
"I'll come," I said.
My uncle let out a breath.
"But I have conditions," I said.
"I would expect nothing less."
"I'm not going anywhere until every person in this room has eaten a proper meal. A hot one. With meat."
"Done."
"And Danny's coming."
"What?" said Danny.
"And Seller has to be paid for the dishes."
"Of course."
"And," I said, with great dignity, "I am bringing the goat."