“No.”
She touches my cheek again. “You feel hot. Are you sick?” I shake my head, feeling her soft fingers—not a mom thermometer because Margie’s never been a mom, but still nice.
“I was out on the patio too long.”
“No food and too much sun. Lily, do we need to have a talk about this?”
“No, it’s okay. Tomorrow I’ll remember. I can make dinner tonight. Can we eat early?”
“Actually, I thought we’d walk up the road and grab something. You up for getting out?”
I look around the apartment that’s getting harder to leave every day. Margie’s antsy, like she wants to go. She’s probably not used to being at home so much.
“Okay,” I say. “Sounds good.”
Nine
We sit outside at a small café and eat cold turkey sandwiches and pasta salad. We’re in those cheap plastic chairs that perch on tiptoes and threaten to fold in on themselves when you try to move closer to the table or scoot back. They remind me of the stripy chaises and Mom. My focus: pasta salad. I eat half my meal, which is more than I’ve eaten in awhile.
“You’ve lost more weight,” Margie says. Her voice is all worry.
“A few pounds,” I agree.
“No more, okay? You’re thin enough.”
“Okay.” I sit carefully back in my wobbly chair, trying to keep it on all four legs.
“I spoke with Dr. Pratchett,” Margie says, then waits for me to respond.
“He said you might,” I say, hoping these are the right words. I’m not sure what Margie wants.
“Does it bother you that I might know what you’re talking about with Dr. Pratchett?”
“No.”
“Because I want you to be able to talk to him openly. But to help you at home, I need to understand more than you’re willing to share with me right now. Make sense?”
“Sure. It doesn’t bother me.”
She nods. “I’m glad.” I can see she is, too. “Shall we head back?” She’s paid the bill and the waitress has wrapped my sandwich up in an earth-friendly paper box. You won’t find Styrofoam in Queen Anne.
“Sure.” I get up from the table, holding onto my chair so it doesn’t go flying off.
“Let’s go a different way and look at some of the big houses. Sound good?”
“Okay.”
Margie links her arm through mine and we walk up Queen Anne Hill and look at the mansions. I wonder if any of the people living in them are as happy as me and Mom were in our dog food house. I wonder if the kids slice pineapple for barbecues and string popcorn for Christmas. I wonder if the dads bring guns into the living room and turn people into potato bugs.
My thread’s growing too big. I focus on my feet taking one step after another. Right-left-right-left. I think about Margie’s arm through mine. I use her as a tether, a touchstone.
Pretty soon I think the bees have changed their sound when I hear a loud meeeeeewwwww and then another. We’re close to a string of expensive neighborhood boutiques with no one else around. Now I wonder if I’m going crazy. Crazier. “Do you hear that?”
Margie’s looking left and right, back to left. “Where’s it coming from?”
I walk faster than I have in awhile, so fast Margie barely keeps up. I follow the meeewwwws to a row of dumpsters and lift the lid on the one that’s meowing.
“Oh my god,” Margie says.
I boost myself up, swing my legs over cowboy-style and land in coffee grounds and banana peels and earth-friendly takeaway boxes. The kitten, not more than six weeks old, is sitting on an overturned coffee can, her mouth open wide, her pink tongue vibrating with the force of her meows. Her black and white fur is gray with dirt. She looks like she’s stuck a paw in an electrical socket. I see right away she’s a spaz.
I pick her up and her tiny body is all fierce shaking and loud purrs. She goes immediately to my shoulder and sticks her nose in my ear. I laugh. Right out loud, I laugh. It’s an odd sound, not like it was before. Not like Mom’s. No tinkle, no music. Instead it’s muffled, flat.
Margie takes the kitten and hugs her to her chest while I climb out of the dumpster. She looks at me and smiles. “You laughed,” she says. “I love your laugh, Lilybeans.” I guess she didn’t hear the muffled weirdness, or maybe she thought it was the acoustics of the big metal dumpster. My laughing made Margie happy anyway and that counts for something.
I’m out of banana peels and on clean concrete again. I reach for the kitten and bunch up my sweater so she can nestle down in it. She’s too interested in my ear, though, and climbs back to my shoulder, sticking her nose in again. I’m getting grimy, but I don’t mind. Everything Mom made is washable, practical.
“There’s no use making something if you have to leave it on a hanger to enjoy it, Lilybeans. Stuff is meant to be used. We’re not here long enough to let things sit around and collect dust.”
“We should take her home, get some food in her,” I say.
Margie nods. “We can keep her if you want.”
“Okay, I’d like that.”
I feel something in me and I don’t mind the feeling—a lightness that’s more air than tin, not so hollow. Like with Cheetah. I think this kitten will be a good tether. I steady the black and white spaz on my shoulder as we walk down the hill toward Margie’s apartment. She’s busy purring and nuzzling. Pretty soon she wants to climb down in my arms and when she does, she flops on her back and lets me carry her like a baby.
“She loves you already,” Margie says.
“Who throws away a kitten?” I ask. But I know. Mack-Hanks throw away kittens. Mack-Hanks do all kinds of things to cause pain. The lightness in me spreads a little. I think I’m glad because I have a kitten no one else wanted.
Margie shakes her head. “Someone with no idea how precious life is.” She strokes the kitten’s head with one finger. “Someone with a hole in their chest where their heart should be.”
We keep walking.
Ten
I name my kitten Binka after a black and white cat on a British cartoon I watched once. My first impression of her was right. She’s a spaz. She walks around the apartment on tiptoes and her fur stands straight out from her body, like she’s rubbed up against a balloon from head to foot and worked up some static electricity. She’s ambitious too, trying to climb Margie’s bookcases. I’m guessing when she’s older she’ll make it to the top. For now she’s picked out her favorite three boxes, all on bottom shelves: one too small for her tiny butt, one so big she can stretch out head to tail without touching the ends and a shiny copper one that reminds me of an old-timey bathtub with a lid. This one she bathes on. Of course.
I’m curled up in my favorite chair and the sun’s shining on both of us now. It’s toasty warm. Binka’s asleep in my lap, stretched out like she’s on the Serengeti, a lioness in the shade of some random tree, resting after a big gazelle meal. I stroke her swollen belly and she stretches her little legs out as far as she can. She’s kept me here all day—a good tether.
I’ve finished the Stephen King and moved onto a Cormac McCarthy. It’s an end-of-the-world one too. He uses a lot fewer words than King, but I feel the horror of it more, the loss, the desperation. No room for a final stand. No hope. Just what is and what could have been. It’s too close to how things are right now, so I set it aside and decide to take a break.
I look around at the books closest to me and pull one off. Toxic Parents, the title reads. Pretty soon I’m lost in the stories of adults who were abused as children, but sometimes thought their parents were only strict. I’m halfway finished with chapter three and it occurs to me Grandpa Henry was maybe worse than I thought if Margie had to read these books. Maybe more than poison. I start looking at other titles and realize she’s got a pretty big collection on the subject. There’s one about emotional blackmail and another about never being good enough, a workbook about life after trauma. I don’t touch that one because I think Margie’s probably written in it.
A photo album sits on the bottom shelf. The spine has a strange label: “Always Remember.” I set Binka on the chair, where she curls up with her nose tucked into her bushy tail, and then pull the album onto my lap. There’s a Post-it note inside the cover. The handwriting is Margie’s. The note says the same thing as the spine—“always remember.” I know I’m snooping now, that I should ask Margie first. But something in me needs to know about the books, about this album, about why Hank was sometimes nice, sometimes mean.
I flip a heavy piece of paper over and stare down at three pictures on the first page—Hank and Margie as kids in the first one. They’re still little, Margie maybe seven, Hank five. They’re standing in front of Grandpa Henry’s house, Hank with a little toy truck, Margie with a ratty teddy bear hugged to her chest, a balloon that says “Happy Birthday” tied around her wrist. She’s got a little chocolate or something smeared on her cheek.
Their faces should be smiling, should be happy since it’s a birthday, but they’re not. What I see in their eyes is what I see in mine now. Hollow.
Grandpa Henry stands away from Grandma Josephine, Margie and Hank. He’s staring at the camera, his mouth frowning, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his workpants. He’s wearing a hard hat, like he came home for some lunch and got his picture taken instead.
I don’t know what the picture means. I only know Margie and Hank and Grandma Josephine are huddled together while Grandpa Henry stands away from them.
The other two pictures look like they’re from the same day, only Hank’s crying his eyes out in one and Grandpa Henry’s moved closer to them, his hand half-raised. Margie’s got one arm around Grandma Josephine’s leg, one around Hank’s shoulders, her teddy bear dropped in the dust at her feet, her Happy Birthday balloon still floating from her wrist. Her face is turned up to Grandpa Henry now. This one shows more than the hollow, the misery. This one shows her eyes narrowed, her tiny lips pressed together. This expression I know. It’s the same one she wore when she told me about leaving Hank behind with Grandpa Henry.
I’m thinking about looking at more pictures when a door opens behind me. I smell whiskey. It’s not long before there’s mint and paint too. My back’s to Margie’s living room, one big goose bump. I look over at Binka sleeping in the sunshine and wonder if she smells him too.
“What do you want?”
He doesn’t answer.
I slowly put the album back on the shelf and tell the bees to knock it off already. If Hank’s here, even if he’s a not-Hank, I have to stay around. Binka needs me. I reach for her, touch my fingertips to her spaz fur, smile a little when she stretches and purrs.
With my touchstone, the bees are manageable. Even with the smell I stay. When I finally face him, he’s over by the front door. He’s wearing the same flannel, same jeans with dark stains, same work boots and there’s the same flat light in his eyes. Memories I don’t want from that night come back. Memories I don’t want from just before we left come along with them. I keep my fingertips on Binka to make myself not disappear.
“Be over in just a minute, sweetheart… I love you, Beans… We’ll all be together now… Hold real still, honey… See you soon.”
The room twists around me and I’m back at the house where we lived with Hank.
“Where’s Mom?”
Dad looks at me from where he’s reclined in his barcalounger. “What business is it of yours where your mother is?”
I back out of the room, careful to keep my eyes on my shoes. “Sorry.”
I go fast, silent to my room, hoping he stays where he is, hoping he forgets all about me. I should’ve known better with the half-empty bottle of whiskey shoved between his legs. I hear the squeak and thump of the recliner and heavy, staggering footsteps across the shabby living room, down the shabby hall, outside my chipped and faded bedroom door.
“If this door is locked, you’re grounded for a month.” His words slip around each other, a slurred mess too heavy for his tongue.
The knob twists. I watch it move from where I’m sitting on my bed. It rotates slowly and then the door swings open. The hinges are squeaky, like the sound they use in horror movies.
“Do you ever do anything on your own?”
I lift the book I’m reading. “I read.”
He steps into the room, looking around with one hand on his hip, the other holding the neck of the bottle that lets him be someone else. “Don’t be smart with me, Lily. Don’t ever talk back to me.” He’s had too much whiskey to be Dad anymore, past the point of reason, beyond talking normal to. When I look at Dad with his half-empty bottle of whiskey, I think we’ll be here forever. The Dad I knew is dead and buried and never coming back. Even if we leave this place, these moments will always be. I can’t get out of them.
“Sorry.” I open my book again and pretend to read, hoping he’ll get bored.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you.”
I keep my head down while I roll my eyes to his. Almost the same, our eyes. His, dark with rage. Mine, dark with hurt. Same color, but so different.
“You rely too much on your mother. You know that?”
I stay focused so it will be over faster.
“You need to be more independent. You understand me? There’s no room in this family for spoiled brats.” He raises his finger and stabs the air. “Grow up, Lily.”
He lifts the bottle and takes a swig, pulling his lips back in a grimace. I wonder for the millionth time why he drinks something that obviously tastes so bad.
For a second, between the whiskey burning his throat and burning his belly, Dad is Dad again. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes smooth out, his lips tremble. I can see him fighting to stay, fighting the war against Grandpa Henry’s voice. The person I love, my father, is trying to hold onto himself. But the Hank inside him, his father’s son, is too strong. Hatred. Venom fed from the bottles he clutches like life-preservers. I want to tell him he’s more than nothing, that there is life, love, hope in him, but the second passes and his eyes are flat again with no light. These moments of seeing my father are almost done.
He turns to go. “God, you’re pathetic.” His words are soft like his mouth, like his thinning brown hair. The softness is what makes it true. If he screamed it, if he got in my face and yelled, it would be easy to shut out his meaning.
Binka pounces to my shoulder and twitches her tail across my cheek. I ignore the headache coming on and remind myself she’s kept me here, kept the bees away. When I don’t see the not-Hank anymore, I think maybe she’s made him go too. I reach up and scratch her neck. “Binka the magic kitten,” I whisper.
She sticks her nose in my ear.
Eleven
I’m trying to remember where Margie keeps her aspirin when the doorbell rings. Everything inside me bubbles at once because I know who’s on the other side of that front door. It doesn’t matter if he’s Hank or a not-Hank. What matters is the three or four bees buzzing their peace song. I want to go, can’t go. I want to fight him, can’t fight. I want to find a thread, can’t focus. The chain on the door bounces and rattles when he knocks. My smart feet are ready to walk on over. They know a not-Hank wouldn’t knock, that he doesn’t need a key to get in, that whoever’s out there is someone different.
Binka’s already trotted over, is sitting in front of the door, peering up at the peephole like she knows that’s where you look to see who’s knocking. I half expect her to walk right up the door and twist the knob.
The bell ding-dongs again. “Delivery for Lilliana Berkenshire!” someone shouts through the door.
The bubble pops and I feel my whole body breathe. Not Hank. My legs shake underneath me when I stand and walk toward the door.
Binka’s got her head twisted around. She’s looking at me with her whiskers bunched up. You’re taking too long, her expression says. There are new
people on the other side of that door to worship me and say I’m pretty. Hurry up, strange human.
I look through the peephole. It’s a Fed Ex delivery guy. I’ve been waiting and not waiting for Mom’s letter, trying not to think about it.
I open the door.
“Good afternoon,” he says. “I was beginning to think no one was home.” He gives me a big smile when Binka scales me and sits on my shoulder.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Oh, no worries.” He nods at Binka. “Cute kitten.”
“Thanks.” I’m looking at the flat orange and white cardboard in the guy’s hand. I’m watching it like it’s going to disappear if I don’t keep total focus.
“Are you Lilliana Berkenshire?” he asks after he takes a peek at his electronic clipboard.
I nod because I can’t take my eyes off the bright parcel, can’t get a word out. Mom’s last letter is in there. Mom’s letter to me.
I’m reaching for the clipboard and signing my name. The letters don’t look like letters, but he seems satisfied, pushes a few buttons and turns to go.
“Have a nice day,” he says.
I grunt something, close the door, lock up, latch the chain.
I reach up to steady Binka as we head back to our sun chair. She hops off my shoulder when I sit down, then runs sideways with her tail arched and electrified. She disappears into our bedroom while I sit by myself and commence staring at the thin cardboard in my hands. I stare so hard at the part that says “pull here,” complete with arrows just in case you don’t know which way to go with the pulling, that my eyes start to burn a little. I flip the cardboard over and stare at my name in Officer Archie’s all-caps handwriting. Binka scratching in her litter box and meowing quietly to herself wakes me up a little. I need to blink and when I do there are tears.
I “pull here” and the package opens. I’m left with a curled strip of cardboard I set aside for Binka. She’ll go full spaz when she sees it, probably hide it behind a bookcase like she does her kibble.
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