“How would that work, Amber?” he asked me gently. “If my dad went to jail, what would we live on? Mom doesn’t work; I only make so much cutting lawns. I mean, how would we survive?”
“We could help you,” I offered. I had no idea if my parents would be open to the idea, but I could ask. They loved Spence, so maybe they would be willing to help his family make ends meet.
He laid his forehead against mine and sighed sadly. “There’s no way I’d do that to your parents,” he said. “And no way my mom would ever take charity. You know how she is.”
I did know how Mrs. Spencer was. From the moment I’d met her there’d been tension between us. Secretly, I disliked her only slightly less than I disliked her husband.
“But what if someday he hits your mom?” I said to Spence, knowing how loyal he was to her. “Or your sister?”
“He won’t,” he told me, and it hurt so much to think that he believed that. He really believed that as long as he was there to take his father’s physical abuse, Mr. Spencer wouldn’t harm his wife or his daughter.
“But, Spence, what if after you go away to college, he does hit your mom or Stacey? What if without you there to take the punishment, he moves on to the next convenient target?”
Spence hugged me tightly again. “I’d have to kill him,” he said.
A chill went through me. I knew when Spence was kidding, and when he’d said that, he wasn’t.
I started to cry, because the whole situation seemed so hopeless. “What about talking to Mr. White?” I asked him, desperate to find a better way to deal with what was happening at Spence’s house.
“The new school counselor?”
“Yeah. I met with him last week about Britt and—”
“What’s up with Britt?” he interrupted.
I shook my head impatiently, annoyed that he was trying to divert me. “She’s not eating, and she keeps saying she thinks she’s fat. Anyway, the point is Mr. White seemed really nice, and he didn’t try to pull Britt out of school or anything dramatic. He just set up a couple of meetings with her, and I swear she’s better. I mean, she ate most of her lunch today. And that was just after a couple of meetings with him.”
Spence rocked me back and forth in his arms. It was so soothing. “I don’t know what meeting with him would do, Amber. I mean, I’ve been eating all my lunch every day.”
I pushed against his chest again, my temper back. “Why are you making fun of this?”
“I’m not, babe, I’m not,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “It’s just…this is bigger than a school counselor, okay? I know it. I do. But it’s either put up with my dad’s bullshit for another year and a half, or send him to jail and we’re out on the street.”
“But what if it keeps getting worse?” I asked him, pulling back to look at the bruises on his face. Spence told anyone who asked that he’d been learning how to box. During football season no one even mentioned his occasional black eye or bruised jaw, but I could always tell the difference between a mark he got on the football field and one he got at home.
“It won’t,” he said without conviction.
Again I thought about going home and telling my parents to call the police. What I didn’t know was if Spence would ever forgive me for it, which was the only thing that was keeping me from making that call.
Then Spence was shifting me off his lap and helping me to my feet. “Come on,” he said. “It’s getting late. I’ll walk you home.”
We made our way off the field and began walking toward my house, which was only a mile from the school. Spence held my hand and we were mostly silent, each lost in our own turbulent thoughts. About five minutes later, the quiet of the Sunday afternoon was shattered by the high-pitched squealing of tires and a thunderous noise.
“What the hell?” Spence said.
And then, just above the tree line, we saw the curling rise of black smoke. In the distance, a woman screamed and that was followed by more cries of alarm. Spence took off running, and I ran after him. He was much, much faster than me, and within moments I’d lost sight of him, but I kept going. It was an agonizing two-block run, by the end of which I was completely out of breath, but I finally made it to the street where a crowd had gathered.
A station wagon had plowed into a telephone pole and erupted in flames. I searched the crowd for Spence, but couldn’t see him anywhere. The sound of sirens grew loud enough for me to cringe, and I stepped onto the sidewalk as the fire trucks roared past. At last I reached the crowd and called out for Spence, but I couldn’t find him. My heart began to race, and I felt so panicked and afraid. I kept my eyes averted from the car and the blackened form inside; it was all too horrible a scene to take in.
“Spence!” I cried as an intuitive fear mounted. “Spence!”
And then, someone, I’m not even sure who, took me by the arm and pointed me to the front of the crowd where a small commotion was taking place. I pushed my way forward and found Spence wrestling with two firemen, his hands badly burned and his hair singed.