By Lynne Weche

            All was quiet except for the blowing of the wind. In the houses on the street, lights were off except in one house at the very end. This wasn’t abnormal. The family was pretty unusual; the kids kept to themselves, only leaving the house when they had to. Every once in a while, screams would be heard emanating from the house; but in the culture we live in, we mind our own business. Something, however, was different today. You could feel it in the air that something was going to happen—nothing good. 

At one o’clock that night, a loud scream rent the air.

Immediately after that, more screams joined in, becoming a loud wail. The first screams were a woman’s, the mother’s; and the ones after were her children’s, scared because their mommy was scared. The eldest, as frightened as he was, wanted to protect his mother from the monster; but he knew even at the young age of nine that he couldn’t do that. All he could do was protect his little sister from the full effects of the horror.  Calling the police didn’t seem of much use; nobody had ever come to his rescue. All his neighbors pretended that the daily screams didn’t happen, and that the woman walking around with new bruises each day just kept falling down the stairs.

He ran to his sister’s room and held her close while whispering soothing words to a child who couldn’t comprehend what was going on. She was crying and turning to him with questions for which he had no answers. In the next room, their mother continued crying. A man’s angry voice joined the melee, increasing in pitch until it practically reverberated through the whole house. As if also scared of the man, even the wind quieted down.

“Why is Daddy shouting at Mommy?” the little girl asked tearfully.

This left the boy at a dilemma—should he lie to protect her or come up with some version of the truth? He settled for neither. “Shush, it’s all going to be okay.”

“I want to see Mommy. I want to see Mommy now!”

The wails could still be heard. The woman tried muffling them, but that only made matters worse. The girl broke out from her brother’s embrace and ran to her parents’ room. She only got as far as the door before stopping dead in her tracks. Her mother was cowering in a corner, bleeding, her pretty face bruised. Her father held a whip in his hand and was sweating from exerting himself.

“Go back to bed, honey,” she said to her daughter. “Mommy and Daddy need to talk in private.”

“Now see what you’ve done,” he said. “The kids are up!” He raised his hand to whip her again and she cried out in anticipation of the pain. The daughter screamed and ran to her mother.

The boy, acting out of pure instinct, rushed to stand in front of his mother and sister. “No, Dad, stop!” he cried out but was too late. He felt the whip slash across his chest and pain dropped him to his knees. Tears stung his eyes.

His mother hurried to him and cradled him in her arms, all the time sobbing heavily. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she kept whispering to him as she rocked him.

The dad was in shock. What had he done to his little boy? It was one thing to knock around his wife for the fun of it, but his son was another matter. Instead of being remorseful and checking to see whether his son was okay or not, he turned to wife and yelled, “Stupid woman, why couldn’t you just keep quiet? This is all your fault!”

“Shut up!” she responded. “Can’t you see you hurt him? He needs a doctor!”

“He’s a man. He’ll survive.”

By now the neighbors were thoroughly annoyed at the disturbance. A few were out of their houses in their pajamas, concentrated in small groups, discussing what was going on.

“Why doesn’t she just leave him and take the kids?” one neighbor remarked. “It would be so much easier for everyone. We can’t be waking up in the middle of the night every other day just because they’re having a dispute.”

“Well, you know she doesn’t have a job,” another replied. “How would she provide for herself and the kids? You know that husband of hers is a no-good jerk.”

They spent about ten minutes dissecting the situation from the outside before someone actually rang the doorbell to check if everything was all right. The husband opened the door, looking angry and menacing, towering above the man who rang the doorbell.

“We would appreciate it if you would keep it down in there,” the man said. “We are trying to sleep, but it’s very hard to do that when a woman keeps screaming.”

“Fine, we’ll try to keep it down. Is that all?”

“Actually,” said a woman from the crowd of bystanders, “I heard the kids. Are they okay?”

“That’s none of your business!” the man snarled and slammed the door shut.

There was a stunned silence, but then the neighbors started filing out in groups, all shaking their heads at the man’s savageness.

“Well, at least we tried,” they said to one another, satisfied that they had performed their neighborly duty.

The boy had been right in thinking that no one would help him but himself. None of the neighbors thought of calling the police. His mother obviously wasn’t going to do it. He was all alone. His mother applied some ointment on his chest and massaged him until the pain was marginally better. She stayed with him and his sister until they both fell asleep.

Before he completed dozed off, the boy asked his mother, “Why does Dad beat you like that, Mom? Why do you let him do it?”

“Oh sweetie, sometimes married people have problems; but it’ll soon be okay. Don’t worry.” She attempted a wobbly smile.

He didn’t believe her, but he was too tired to pursue it any further. He slept fitfully that night; and when he woke up, the previous night’s events were still fresh in his mind, although his parents acted as if nothing had happened. Both he and his sister didn’t go to school that day. When nighttime came, he was scared it would start all over again and that he would be powerless to stop it.

Nighttime was his absolute worst time. Not because he feared the bogeyman like most of his classmates, but because when the sun fell, his dad—whom he loved—turned into a monster.

Lynne Weche is an undergraduate student from Kenya studying at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.