I didn’t answer right away. I stroked Tulip’s silky brown ears. “Mother,” I said finally. “Munchausen’s by proxy.”
First time I’d said the words out loud. Aunt Nancy and I had never discussed it. And I’d never told Randi or Jackie. Never even mentioned my mother to them, or where I’d lived before the mountains or any of the days, weeks, months that had existed before I became my aunt’s niece instead of my mother’s daughter.
But I told J. T. Dillon, because physically hitting someone is like that. It forms a bond. Sex, violence, death. All intimate in their own way. Another thing I hadn’t known until the past year.
“You didn’t defend yourself,” J.T. said curtly. “You didn’t fight for you.”
“Eventually I did.”
“No. I kicked your dog. You fought for your dog.”
“She’s a good dog.”
He stared at me. “You gotta get her out of your head,” he said abruptly.
I stiffened, still stroking Tulip’s ears, but feeling myself pull away.
“Mean it,” J.T. said. “You gotta hit for you. You gotta take that rage and shame and silence, and turn it into a weapon. You gotta know, Charlie, you gotta well and truly know it’s not okay to be hurt. You don’t deserve to be punished. Someone attacks you, stop accepting, start fighting back.”
“I’m trying.”
“Bullshit! You hesitate. You go to some place in your head where you’re conditioned to hang out until the punishment stops. Look, I can train you to shoot. Dick can train you to hit. But neither one of us can untrain you to stop playing victim in your own life. You gotta do that. You gotta care.”
I flushed, felt like a little girl chastised for not doing my homework. I didn’t want to be passive. I wanted to be a badass. And yet, when his hands had closed around my throat…When he’d attacked me from behind…
I’d felt like I deserved it. I’d been bad and I deserved my punishment. Conditioned response of abused children everywhere. We all grew up, but none of us ever got away.
“Dying for someone is easy,” J.T. murmured now, as if reading my mind. “Living for yourself, that’s hard. But you gotta do it, Charlie. Honor yourself. Defend yourself. Fight for yourself.”
I nodded finally, tucking Tulip closer to my body to help keep her warm.
“Are we going shooting now?” I asked.
“In a minute.”
He was opening my bag, withdrawing my Taurus. The. 22 looked tiny in his large callused palm, his long fingers better suited for his explosive. 45 than my peashooter. He sniffed at it, looked at me.
“Never put away a gun dirty,” he said.
“Figured I’d clean it after our session.”
“Never put away a gun dirty.”
“Okay.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Good, ’cause I don’t want to know.”
He handed me the Taurus. We both rose to standing.
“She gonna be okay walking?” He gestured to Tulip.
“If we keep her moving. She needs a coat. Maybe later today.”
“Do that. Dog that’s worth fighting for deserves a sweater.”
J.T. started walking; Tulip and I fell in step beside him. It was a mile and a half to his house, tucked away on three acres of land. Perfect for a man with a shooting range in his backyard. Perfect for a man—and his wife—who didn’t much care for company.
“She still alive?” he asked as he walked.