08/04/2025
After my sister sprayed perfume in my son’s eyes, mom laughed, “if he’s bli:nd now, maybe he won’t realize he’s a bur:den.” dad said, “at least he smells good now.” they didn’t see what was coming next.
The scent hit me before the scream. In that house, my seven-year-old son, Jesse, had learned that silence was a shield. But that shield shattered with a high, terrified wail. “Mommy, my eyes!”
I dropped the plate and ran. He was on the floor, curled up, red-tinged tears dripping through his fingers.
And then my sister, Mara, spoke. She stood in the doorway, holding a glittery bottle of her luxury perfume, her voice bored, as if she were describing a spilled drink. “He looked at me for too long,” she said. “It freaked me out. So, I gave him a little lesson in boundaries.”
I snatched the bottle and threw it. And then I heard it.
Laughter.
From the couch, my mother, a bowl of chips in her lap, chuckled. “Well,” she said to my father, “at least he smells better now.”
My father didn’t even look up from his newspaper. “Should have taught him not to stare. Boys like him always grow up pervy.”
I froze. It wasn't just an attack. It was a consensus. They had all agreed that my son's pain was acceptable. Trivial. A joke.
I scooped Jesse into my arms and locked us in the bathroom, flushing his eyes again and again. The next morning, my mother knocked. “Are you going to come out of there and stop this ridiculous performance? You always have to be the center of attention, don't you? It's exhausting.”
I opened the door, packed Jesse’s things, and walked toward the exit. “You’re not leaving,” my mother snapped. “You’ve got rent due, and we feed you and that… thing.”
“That thing is my son.”
“He’s a burden,” she spat.
We left anyway. I walked the four miles to the nearest urgent care. “What happened?” the nurse asked.
“He was attacked,” I said.
“By who?”
“Family.”
That night, we slept on an old mattress in a coworker’s garage. As Jesse drifted off, he whispered, “Is she coming back? The mean lady?”
“No, baby,” I p
