Loving Hart (2 page)

The next morning when Dante came into the back yard, he was
walkin
’
funny.  Damien made him show us why, so Dante took off his shirt and shorts.  Mr.
and
Mrs.
Hart woke him up and beat him with a belt in the middle of the night for calling for help for D
elilah
.

Delilah was in the hospital for two weeks. 
Poor Dominique cried every day, wantin
’
her sister so bad.
   Dante was so upset that she was that sick
,
and no one would take us to see her.  I missed that little girl like crazy too, and I promised myself that I
’d
never let anything happen to the girls ever again.

When she came home she was asleep, and Dante held her for a long, long time, quietly
cryin
’
while Dominique
was curled
up against them both. 
It felt so good when Delilah finally opened her
big blue
eyes
,
reaching
out one hand to me and one hand to Damien
. Neither of us could help
that we cried
,
too.

***

All of
our
parents are in the house having one of their parties.  The
s
e parties
are the worst, and I just want to
puke. 
Last week
,
at another one of the
parties, some old lady started touching Dante
,
and he got real scared
.
Damien started yelling and crying, and then
Mr. Hart
came outside and beat Dante so
bad
that
there was blood everywhere. 
I wish the parties would stop, that someone would make our parents act normal.
I w
ish that my father
wasn't
a monster
,
and that my mom was like the moms of the other kids at school.
 
Timmy's mom brings in cupcakes for
us
,
and Danny's mom reads us stories, but I never even seen any of me and the Hart kids parents at
our
school.  Not
even sure they would know how to get there.
 

I w
ish a lot that they would all just disappear and leave us alone.
Damien says he thinks that every day.  Dante
don't
say much, just always
tryin
’
to keep us all safe. 
Damien and I
try
to
copy
everything Dante does
cause he's bigger and smarter.
 

Both the girls started talking right around the same time,
and their first word was dada.  Normal kids would be
sayin
’
that to their grown up dads,
but
the twins called Dante that
for a while
.
He’s
more of a dad to them than Mr. Hart is
that’s
for sure.  Dante’s got even more serious about the girls
since
the day Delilah went to the hospital, and we catch him
checkin
’
up on them all the time.  Always needs to know
they’re
okay.
 
Damien and I aren’t much better, always lookin
’
at them and makin
’
sure they’re safe.

They are healthy and happy, and Damien says we’re gonna keep them that way, no matter what. 
They’re
smart, too.  We g
ot
paper and crayons
and wrote the alphabet out for them
, and
now
they know almost all their ABCs. 
They're gettin
'
better at talkin
’
now, and they call Dante "Tay", Damien "Dame" and me "Pence."
  Funny girls, always
smilin
’
.

Even on nights like this, when we’re packed together in a shed, the girls are just happy to be with us. 
Damien and I are real
good
at making beds out of lawn chair cushions, but the girls are
a lot of work
to get down.
Neither of them will even lie down until Dante hugs and kisses them and tells them they can sleep tight.
It’s
like they
don’t
believe they can unless he says it. 
Dominique
has to have
‘
Goodnight Moon
’
read to her exactly four times in a row, and only Damie
n
is allowed
to read it to her.

On nights when we all have to sleep in the shed, Delilah does what
she's
done ever since the first day I met her.  She holds my hand and just quietly
stares at me until she falls asleep
.  If I try to move, she flips out, so I've learned to stay real still. 
Weird having her stare at me, like she sees something no one else does.
 
Dante says she loves me, that both of the girls love me. 
I don't think I ever had no one love me but my grandmother, and she died.

I
think both of the twins love me almost as much as they love their brothers.  I love
buildin
’
stuff with Dominique, so I play with her
a lot.  We make buildings out of sticks and mud
,
and stuff we find in the yard.
Now whenever she sees
me she
says, “build Pence!”

Delilah just likes to be cuddled and held.
 
She's
always with me,
holdin
’
my hand.
Follows me wherever I go, always needs to know where I am.  Dante says on nights that I sl
eep at home
she cries and calls my name.

I
'd
never admit it to Damien or Dante, but I feel better
when
she's
holding my hand.
Like someone understands me, even though I know that's silly.
She's
just little.
 
Hope she doesn't really understand what's goin
’
on around here.
This is no place for kids.

***

Mrs. Hart killed herself.  She
wasn’t
a happy lady, but I
didn’t
think
she’d
do something like that
;
not that I can say I’m sad about it.  She hit the girls all the time, and at least with her gone they
won’t
have bruises on them
anymore
. 

All us kids
were huddled
up in the shed
‘
cause Mr. Hart was
havin
’
a party. 
He didn’t have no funeral for her or nothin
’
.
  Just announced that she
“killed her
own slutty ass,
” and that was that. 
It’s
only been five days
and
it seems so wrong that Mr. Hart’s
havin
’
a party already.  There were naked people all over the house
doin
’
drugs
,
and
it was just gross.

After we
got
the twins to sleep, we sat
talkin
’
.  Dante and Damien
have both
been real weird this whole week, only acting normal if the girls are awake and paying attention. 

I kept
askin
’
why, and they kept not
tellin
’
me
;
told
me they’d
show me someday soon.
Saddest thing I ever saw was D
ante and Damien both
tryin
’
not to cry
as they held two pieces of paper out to me
.  I thought they were
cryin
’
cause they missed her, that they
were sad
‘
cause she
was gone
.  O
nce I read the letters she left them, I knew they were sad
‘
cause their mom left such mean letters to them,
tellin
’
them to kill themselves
,
too.

I got scared
,
and begged them to promise
me they
would
never do that, never leave me and the girls alone.  Dante hugged me tight, told me not to be scared.  “I would never leave
you
guys
,
Spence. 
But these letters… I’m never getting a girlfriend, never going to love no one but you guys.
Already have the girls, so I
don’t
need any kids.”

Damien nodded his head, agreeing with what Dante said.  “Me either. 
I don’t want no one killin
’
themselves
‘
cause I’m bad to love.
  Never gonna have kids either.”

I threw right down with them.  “Then me either. 
None of us will ever get married or have kids.”

***

“Count to fifty,
and no
peekin
’
Spence
!”

I love Delilah’s silly laugh.  Love that no matter where she hides,
I always know
exactly where she is.  Every game of hide and seek we’ve ever played
,
I’ve always known. 
It drives her nuts, so sometimes I pretend I don’t know
exactly
where she is just to make her feel like she’s
got a shot at stumping me.
 

It’s not like her hiding places are bad.
  They’ve gotten better and better over the years. 
But
I always know where she is.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been able to feel it when
she’s
around.  Damien says we’ve got some weird radar for each other
,
because she always knows where I am too.

Dominique is always harder to find.
  I can spend twenty minutes searching for her
and never find her.  The worst part is
,
she’ll
hide in the most obvious places
,
but
I’ll still miss her.  Delilah’s my secret weapon with that, and when I’m ready to quit
,
she’ll
show me where Dominique’s hiding spot is.

I heard when Delilah left the room to go hide, and I knew
she’d
gone outside.  As usual, I’ve got no clue where Dominique is.  In order to make Delilah feel like
she’s
possibly getting one over on me, I look for Dominique first.  After five minutes, I’ve got no clue.  Heading into the back yard, I stand still for a second before turning and walking to the bushes that line the side of the yard. 
She’s
good
,
and
she’s
blended in pretty well, but I know
she’s
there.

Reaching into the bushes, I tag her. “Gotcha!”

Her squeals and giggles ring through the yard as she flies out of the bushes
, blonde hair flying in front of her face
as she jumped
up onto my back
for
a piggyback ride. 

“How do
you
always know where I am?  When I played with Dante and Damien yesterday it took them
forever
to find me back there.”

I answered the way I always have.  “How do you always know where Dominique and I are?”

“
’
Cause I can feel it silly,” she said with a giggle.

“Well,
that’s
how I know where
you
are too. Wish that worked with Dominique! I
can’t
find that crazy girl anywhere.”

S
he laughs like she always doe
s and then stopped
to think.
Pinching my arm she said
, “Dominique’s in the kitchen.
  Hiding in the cupboard with all the pots, I think.”