Tin Lily

by Joann Swanson

“That sounds good, Aunt Margie. I could read. You have a lot of books.”

  “That I do. Well, that we do. My books are your books now. We’ll get some shelves in here for your own collection.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  She gauges me for a bit, her eyebrows raised, her mouth crooked and undecided. “Dr. Pratchett’s asked me not to pester you. Bet you’ll be glad of that.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “He wants you to accept what happened in your own time.”

  I don’t know what Margie’s saying.

  “Dr. Pratchett says it’s important to let the memories in. Little by little. The good and the bad. I told him about your spells.”

  “Okay.” I wait a few seconds so she knows I have a question. “Is it okay if I use your washing machine?”

  “Of course.” She leads me to a whole room where she’s got her washer and dryer.

  I spend the next little while doing laundry, getting that dog food smell out of my clothes. Between loads, I go back to the blue and white bedroom and sit on the bed or in a chair by the window. I don’t open the laptop again. I decide Hank’s small bullet is better than Mack and Darcy’s ranch, better than Rick-the-team-member with that strange light in his eyes.

  When there’s no smell left, I go into the living room. Margie’s sitting on the couch. She puts down the book she’s reading and smiles.

  “How will I get there?” I say.

  She squints her eyes and shakes her head. I haven’t used enough words again.

  “How will I get there on Thursdays? To Dr. Paget’s?”

  “Dr. Pratchett’s. I’ll drop you off and pick you up. Tomorrow we’ll go on the bus and I’ll show you the route just in case I get stuck at work one day. Does that sound okay to you?” She looks worried about the bus idea, like just saying it out loud will make it come true.

  “Sounds good.”

  “I have to take classes starting next week so the state knows I can take good care of you. I’ll be gone on Wednesday evenings.”

  “I’m sorry for all the fuss.”

  “No fuss,” Margie says. She crosses to me, brushes my bangs back. “No fuss at all.”

  Three

  The next morning Margie takes me on the bus to Dr. Pratchett’s building. It’s a straightforward route, no transferring. I’ll find it if I need to.

  “This is just in case I get stuck at work, Lil. My plan is to take you every week.”

  “Okay.”

  The building is a big glass one with dancing fountains out front. Yards of concrete lead up to heavy glass doors. There’s a fond smile on Margie’s face. “I saw Dr. Pratchett for awhile after I moved here. He helped me a lot.”

  I figure Margie saw Dr. Pratchett for stuff Grandpa Henry said. Probably he made her light flicker too. There’s no flickering anymore, though. Margie’s light is strong and warm—a happy light I don’t mind being around.

  Margie nudges me. “He’ll help you too. I just know it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Feel like heading to my favorite bookstore?”

  “Yes.”

  Margie looks happy. “Thought that might cheer you up.”

  I think I smile, but by the look on Margie’s face, it’s something else. She puts her arm around me and guides me back to the bus stop. I wonder if I’ve forgotten how to smile, how to feel something besides nothing.

  We ride for a little while before we stop at a bookstore with a neon cat on its sign. I know right off I’m going to like this place. The front picture window holds a big display of books and a tabby cat, orange-and-white striped, stretched out on a cushy bed, watching the world go by. A bell jingles over the door when we open it. The cat raises his head, but doesn’t get up. He’s watching me with yellow eyes and I can’t help but ignore the stacks of books and head right to his perch.

  Pretty soon I’m leaning into the display window, giving the tabby’s head a stroke.

  “His name’s Cheetah.”

  I glance over to see a woman with long white-gray hair and a worn face. Happiness and intelligence dance in her eyes and her smile is easy.

  “He’s sweet,” I say. By now Cheetah’s getting up off his bed so he can have a more thorough pet. He looks ready to jump into my arms.

  “Careful, he’ll decide to go home with you.”

  “That’d be okay, huh, boy?” I give his silky ears a good rub and turn back to Margie.

  Her eyes are full, her mouth turned up. “I think he likes you,” she says, pointing over my shoulder.

  I look and Cheetah’s stretched as far toward me as he can get, his paw just brushing Mom’s sweater. I crouch down and he climbs onto my bent legs. The lady with the worn face lets out a big laugh. “Well, I guess you’ve been claimed.” She steps behind the front counter and I see now she’s the owner of the shop.

  I sit down on the floor and let Cheetah cuddle in. “You go ahead, Aunt Margie. I’ll stay here a little while.”

  Margie smiles and nods. “Okay, kiddo. I’ll check on you in a few.” She wanders into the shop while I stroke Cheetah, accept his kisses on my cheek. With this orange fur ball on my lap, I feel a little something inside. It’s not a big something, not anything earth-shattering. A quiet something that made Margie smile. Cheetah feels like a tether. He makes me want to ignore the buzzing, to keep out of the quiet place, to stay here for a little while.

  “Never seen him do that with someone so soon. You’ve got the touch,” the store owner says from her spot behind the counter.

  “Okay.”

  Her laugh, loud and good-natured, bounces off the books around me. It’s not like Mom’s soft tinkling laugh, but still nice. She disappears into a room I haven’t noticed until now—her office, I think.

  Cheetah’s busy purring and kneading my leg with sharp claws when I hear the bell over the door jingle. Paint-splattered work boots stop in front of me. Hank. I keep my eyes on Cheetah, remembering not-Hank at the airport, at the dog food house. This will be a not-Hank too, I tell myself.

  “That’s a cute kitty you’ve got there, Beans.”

  I look up slowly. My eyes are his eyes. He’s not wearing flannel, but a black button-down shirt instead, different jeans, no stains, same crazy smile.

  “Leave me alone,” I say. I don’t expect the tremble in my voice or my words. I want him to disappear like the others, disappear because he’s not really here.

  He laughs his soft, mad laugh and slowly lowers himself to the floor. He sits cross-legged like me, our knees almost touching. Today he doesn't smell like anything and I wonder where his whiskey’s gone, where he's stashed the mints he’s always chewing to cover up his boozy breath. “Sorry, kiddo. We’ve got some talking to do.”

  I look around the shop. We’re alone. It doesn't matter. I can’t tell Aunt Margie Hank’s here. If he’s in Seattle, he’ll hurt Margie. If he isn't and I’m crazy, it’s Mack and Darcy’s for me. Or the loony bin.

  “Could we talk later maybe?”

  “Where’s my sister?” He says the word like it tastes bad in his mouth, like Margie being his sister makes him feel sick.

  My neck cracks when I shake my head side-to-side. “Leave Aunt Margie alone.” I plead with my voice, with my eyes.

  Hank laughs again and reaches across to stroke Cheetah’s head. His laugh reminds me of when he would call at night to say bad things about Mom, make fun of us for trying to be on our own. I think about the phone ringing the night he came with his bullets. Sometimes I forget my not answering the phone is why he pounded on the door, came in, took Mom.

  “It was my fault,” I say.

  Hank stops stroking Cheetah’s head and looks at me. “What?”

  “What you did. It was my fault. Because I didn't answer the phone.”

  His head tilts to the side. He studies me and I study him. Finally, his eyes roll like he’s listening to something. I’m wondering if Hank’s hearing bees too when he says, “Not quite time yet.” His hands are on his knees and I notice
little flecks of paint—a spot of red, a lot of white, some silver.

  “Not time for what?” I ask even though I don’t think I want to know.

  His eyes roll to mine again. Hurt to rage. Blink. Rage to hurt. “You know that bastard talks to me more now than when he was alive?” Hank says this like he’s asking what I think of the gray clouds outside. Casual-like, Hank tells me he’s hearing Grandpa Henry’s voice.

  Hank gets up and walks over to the door. His head is bowed, his lips moving and not moving. “When it’s time, we’ll go to my father’s house. We’ll go back to where it started and finish it. That should make the old bastard happy.” He turns to me and smiles in a sad, decided way. His sad, decided smile makes me jump a little inside, makes a bee start knocking around inside my head. “When it’s time I’ll come back for you. You have fun with Margie ‘til then, okay? She was a good sister when we were growing up. Good and kind.” He gives me a look like he wants to say more, then his eyes cloud over and go flat with no light. “Good and kind until she left. Like your mother. Like you.” He nods at me once. “You go ahead and tell Margie about our little chat if you want. Then she can come along with us when it’s time.” He opens the door. “See ya soon, Beans.”

  The shop owner comes out of her office, muttering under her breath. She smiles at me and at Cheetah asleep in my lap. “Doing okay?”

  I nod, but keep staring at her. The question is big in me, pushing to get out.

  “You sure?” she asks, her voice all laughter and light.

  “Did you hear the door?” I point to the bell that jingles when someone comes in for all their new and used book needs.

  She looks around. “I didn’t, but I was on the phone. Was someone bothering you? Sometimes we get unusual folk in here.”

  I shake my head right away and focus on Cheetah. “No, it’s okay. I just thought I heard the bell, but then I didn’t see anyone.”

  “Ah. Happens now and then if the wind kicks up,” she says. “Or…” She grins at me, grins big and her eyes sparkle. “Sometimes there’s a ghost likes to wander these dusty cases. What do you think about that?”

  A ghost. “I think you’re right,” I say.

  I put Cheetah back on his perch and stand up, brushing orange and white fur off my clothes. Fine, silky hairs float in the sunshine streaming through the front windows.

  “Are you okay?” The store lady’s come over without me noticing and is standing a few feet away.

  I look into the woman’s kind eyes and hope she doesn’t see how empty I am. “Cheetah is a great cat.”

  She reaches into the window and pats the orange tabby on the head. He’s too busy getting ready for a snooze to notice her. “He’s a special boy. Been here, oh ’bout, five years now.”

  “He lives in the store?”

  “Along with three others.” She cocks a thumb over her shoulder toward the books piled up on tables and in bookcases. “All sleeping the afternoon away if today’s no different than any other. Think they’d snooze right through an earthquake if it was up to them.” She laughs and shakes her head. Her hair tumbles around her, a silver waterfall shining in the overhead lights. Her face is transformed by her smile and I remember Mom again, how her smile was like that—all light and happiness before Hank started installing rain gutters, and then again after we left, how it lit her entire being right up and anyone standing near her.

  Margie’s heading down one of the aisles toward the front of the store. “Please don’t tell my aunt about the ghost, okay?” I roll my eyes. “She had a bad experience and ghosts scare her.” The tremble in my voice is gone, replaced by a casualness I don’t feel. I see I’m going to become a good liar.

  The shop owner stares at me for another few seconds while Margie walks and reads and doesn’t pay attention to where she’s going. “Sure thing.” She doesn’t say anything else, but I see she’ll keep her word.

  “Thank you.”

  I meet Margie at the front counter.

  “How you doing, Lilybeans?”

  “Fine,” I say. “You ready to go?”

  “Anytime you are.” She looks at my empty hands. “Didn’t find anything?”

  “Not this time.”

  The shop lady doesn’t mention ghosts or my weirdness to Margie and I nod at her again before we go—a silent thank you for a silent gift. We leave after I give Cheetah a good-bye pat. He’s wearing a sulky expression when we walk past the front window.

  Hank’s expression isn’t sulky where he’s standing across the street with his cup of steaming coffee. Hank’s expression is stony. Decided. He raises his hand not holding the coffee, thumb and index finger in an L, taking a pretend picture.

  See you later.

  Four

  It’s Thursday and today’s focus is easy: get to Dr. Pratchett’s by one o’clock. Margie’s at work now. She’ll honk out front when she picks me up. I’ll have to listen and be ready.

  All morning I read in a chair Margie’s got arranged next to the patio doors. It’s big enough for two people or for one to fold her legs up, cozy like. The sun warms it every day it’s not cloudy. Today it’s sunny and the chair is toasty. I’m drowsy from the warmth and from not sleeping too well at night. I keep reading, though. I’m getting to the end of The Stand, to the big showdown.

  A bell dings softly in the apartment. I’ve drowsed off, my book on the floor now, pages folded, mashed under the weight of a thousand brethren. I pick it up and put it on the table next to me, then blink hard to clear my foggy brain. Margie’s set an alarm for me to get ready for Dr. Pratchett’s. I have thirty minutes until she’s supposed to honk. Margie said this morning it might be a good idea I pull a brush through my hair before I go.

  The bell is a timer on the oven. I click it off and head back to the blue and white bedroom.

  I stop too fast in the hallway, feet skidding on the hardwood floor. Hank’s on the bed where Mom sat cross-legged to braid my hair. Everything in me jumps and I want to grab him and make him move from where Mom sat. He’s busy infecting this place with his whiskey and paint, his mints, busy polluting the air and twisting memories.

  We stare at each other and pretty soon the bees start up, buzzing their broken pattern in my brain. Hank’s eyes are glassy with their flat light, his gaze steady on me. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, just sits cross-legged like he did at the bookstore, only now he’s wearing his flannel again and his jeans with their dark stains.

  “What do you want?”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  I’m watching my feet now, how they shuffle back and forth, how they don’t want to run from Hank-the-murderer. They’re content right where they are, my feet. I think they know more than my head, so I listen to them instead of the bees starting to knock around inside my skull. Buzz-buzz-buzz, making me believe the quiet place will be better than Hank sitting in this blue and white bedroom. This room where Mom and I, we talked about the way things were at home, how Hank had already driven away everyone we knew.

  “What ever happened to your friend Heather?”

  I’m relaxed, sleepy from how good Mom’s fingers feel braiding my hair, so I don’t think before I speak. “Dad told her she was too fat to be my friend.”

  Mom’s fingers still and then pull too hard.

  “Ouch!”

  She’s gentle again, apologizing for all the yanking. “And Tara?”

  I don’t say anything, don’t want to get my hair pulled again.

  “Tell me, Lilybeans.”

  “Dad said she was too lazy.”

  “Wasn’t she on the girl’s basketball team?”

  “And volleyball and soccer.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

  I shrug, not wanting to put more stress on Mom than she already has. She’s finishing up the braid, though, and pretty soon she’ll be turning me around so she can see what’s in my eyes. I might as well tell her and get it all out. “Because you had enough with him changing so much, say
ing all those things about you. Yelling like you were on the moon.”

  Mom finishes my hair without saying anything else and pulls me up to sit next to her on the blue and white bed. “From now on, you tell me everything, okay? Everything.”

  I nod.

  She tucks a stray hair behind my ear and kisses my cheek. “I’m sorry this last year has been so hard.”

  I run my fingers along the silky bedspread. I was never a super chatty kid, but in the last year, I haven’t been able to string ten words together at a time. All my friends have been driven away by Hank’s drinking and his meanness. Mom and me, our lives about school and work and home and nothing else. Hank with his suffocating control, his crazy belief we were doing bad things. Mom and me, our lives about nothing but Hank’s growing rage.

  With Hank sitting on the blue and white bed and these memories about Mom, the bees get so loud I can’t ignore them anymore. I go where it’s quiet.

  * * *

  The cell phone Margie gave me is playing a tune from where I left it in the living room. Hank’s gone, vanished from the bedroom. I’m still in the hall, my smart feet tired from standing. I get to the cell phone and pick it up in time.

  “Hello?” I say.

  “Hi, Lily. Are you okay?” Margie says.

  “I’m okay.”

  “This is my third time trying you. Whatcha up to?”

  “Looking out the window. Waiting for your honk.”

  “How are you? Did you eat?”

  “I fell asleep.”

  “Sleep is good, but you have to eat too.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll get you something on the way home. I’m a few minutes away.”

  “Okay.”

  “See you in a bit.”

  “Okay.”

  I don’t mention Hank with his whiskey smell, his being in the blue and white bedroom and then disappearing, not leaving so much as a wrinkle on the bedspread. A not-Hank after all is what I think. A not-Hank with his silence, his clothes that show what he did to Mom, his smelling like he did that night. I think about him at the bookstore, in the blue and white bedroom, wonder if they’re all not-Hanks and I’m maybe closer to the loony bin than I thought.