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“Beck …” She starts to speak, but stops and swallows.

I’m sure she wants to fire out so many questions.

Her hand is still in mine, and I pull her up. “Come on. Let’s go take a walk.”

It’s still pretty cold outside, and I don’t have a coat on over my suit, but I can’t feel much of anything right now. But I do make sure she grabs her coat from the chair.

“Your gloves in your coat?”

She nods, lets go of my hand, and puts on her coat. As we get to the doors, they slide open, and a gust of cold air hits us. I hear Charlie gasp next to me.

“It’s not that bad. We won’t stay out here for long.”

“Beck, what’s going on? Are you, like, breaking up with me again? I’ve been sitting here, losing my mind. I’m so sorry I brought her onto the field with me.” She’s speaking rapidly, showing how nervous she is.

We walk toward an open seating area outside the hotel and sit on one of the benches. There isn’t really anywhere else to go. The hotel is located somewhat close to the stadium, but it seems like they probably use this hotel for conventions or something. We could find a place in the hotel somewhere, but some of the things I need to say, I don’t want anyone to overhear.

“Everything’s okay, Boss.” I squeeze her hand to try to reassure her.

“Beck, I need to know what happened with your mom. I feel like I’m missing a lot of pieces of the puzzle here. What did your dad mean about her parole officer? Was she in prison?” Her eyes widen in question.

“I was four years old the first time I remember my mom hitting me, spanking me, slapping my face. I don’t remember what I had done, but I will never forget that first hit. Brooke was just a baby, and she cried a lot. I remember feeling like my mom wasn’t okay. Because I was so little, the only way I could understand it at the time was that she just wasn’t herself, probably because that’s what she would say to me.” I pause and take a deep breath in and exhale.

“My dad used to travel a lot for work, so he would be gone on long trips. I don’t know if him being away made her mad or what, but she was left with two babies to take care of, mostly on her own.

“Don’t get me wrong; I don’t blame my dad for any of this. He didn’t know what was happening until the end really. When he came home, it was like she was a different person. She was happy and loving to me and Brooke, but when he was gone, we got spanked a lot. She would forget to feed us. She wouldn’t change Brooke’s diapers. I pretty much potty-trained Brooke on my own.

“And then, when I was six, she forgot to pick me up from school one day. Brooke was still in preschool then. After an hour of waiting, I walked myself to the preschool—which was probably about four miles away, thinking about it now. So, for a little kid, that was far.

“When I got there, I had to be buzzed into the building. The director came to the door, and when she saw me, she opened the door, looked around the parking lot, and pulled me inside. She asked where my mom was, and I told her I didn’t know. She took me back to Brooke’s classroom and brought me some juice and a snack. Brooke … she was just fine. She was happy to see me. I saw the director say something to the teacher and walk out. About an hour later, my mom came into the classroom. Her hair was all over the place. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed, and she smelled funny.

“It was the first time I knew that my mom had been drinking. That I understood what that meant. She had probably been drinking before then, too, but I was too little to notice.

“The director came in behind my mom, and I remember she looked upset. My mom got Brooke’s bag together and told me to grab mine. The director drove us home. Again, I was little and didn’t really understand what was going on, but I knew something wasn’t right.

“Of course, I found out later that my mom had been drinking all day and passed out. She didn’t hear the alarm she had set for herself to come get us. The director went to our house when she couldn’t get ahold of my mom or my dad, worried something was wrong. Then she’d brought my mom to the school because she was still too drunk to drive.

“When I was seven, I had been watching Brooke because my mom was asleep. When I went into the kitchen to get us a snack, Brooke fell off a chair. She had stood on the chair to try to reach something off one of the bookshelves and lost her balance. Her arm was broken, so I had to wake my mom up to tell her we needed to go to the hospital. Again, my dad was gone at the time. I have no doubt that when we got there, the doctor and nurses knew she was drunk or had been. She smelled so bad.”

I pause for a minute and look at Charlie. She has tears streaming down her face. I reach over to wipe her cheeks, and she grabs my wrist.

“Beck,” she says on a shaky breath, “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” She shakes her head, and tears start to fall faster.

“When we got home from the hospital that night, my mom was so mad at me for not watching Brooke properly. She tied me to a chair and put me in the closet. She left me in there all night. I hadn’t eaten, and I wet my pants several times throughout the night.

“The next morning, she opened the door, sober, and started crying when she saw me. She apologized over and over again. Begged me not to tell my dad about what had happened. Promised it would never happen again.

“Of course, the spanking and slapping never stopped, and as we got older, the hits got harder. I would try to insert myself in Brooke’s way to protect her. I was bigger and could handle much more than she could.” I lean forward, rest my elbows on my knees, and fold my hands together.

Telling someone I love that all this happened to me … is hard. I’ve never talked about it outside of my family and therapy. Tim and Carol know a little, but I never told them all of this.

“The final incident was when I was eight. My mom was in the kitchen, making something for dinner. I was sitting on the couch in the family room, doing my homework. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV until it was done. I wasn’t paying attention to where Brooke was, but she walked into the kitchen at some point, and I heard my mom scream. When I looked up, my mom had Brooke’s hair wrapped in her fist and was pulling her toward the stove. I jumped up from the couch and ran into the kitchen. I grabbed my mom’s arm and was able to pull her grip from Brooke’s hair.”

I look over at Charlie. Her hands are covering her mouth, and she’s still crying.

“My intention was to get her to stop altogether. Instead, she grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me over to the stove. There was a frying pan with oil in it. She was still screaming at Brooke, who had gotten into my mom’s makeup. Her face was covered in it. To teach her a lesson, she was going to burn her hand. But she burned mine instead. She put my hand right in the oil. I tried to fight her, but she was still too strong for me. At first, the pain from the burn didn’t register. I was kicking her, trying to pull her arm off me with my other hand. Brooke was wrapped around her legs. Nothing was stopping her though. About the time I started to smell the skin burning, I began to feel the pain. We were all screaming at that point. I’m honestly surprised none of the neighbors ever heard us. Screaming was a common occurrence.” I huff out a laugh.

Charlie stands up and squats down in front of me, resting her hands on top of mine. “Beck, I don’t even know what to say right now. I can’t believe this happened to you. To Brooke. How could a mother do something like that to her children? But also, why didn’t you ever tell your dad?”