Tin Lily

by Joann Swanson

  It’s like I’m back in the dog food house, going down the stairs, trying to figure out all the quiet. The whole world is moving through molasses, but I’m not. I shove Margie out of the way and stand in front of Hank’s gun. He tries to get around me, but Margie’s on the ground and I’m in his face.

  “Don’t you touch her,” I say.

  Hank looks from Margie to me, back to Margie. Back to me. “What do you think you’re doing, Beans?”

  “I’m leaving with my aunt. I don’t want to go with you.”

  Hank’s whole body twitches and now he moves his gun to point at my head. “What did I tell you?”

  “That I had a choice. I’m not choosing you.”

  This makes Hank hesitate for a second. “What makes you think you have a choice?”

  “You said I had to choose to come back to you. I choose not to.”

  Hank’s breathing fast, hard and his cheeks are reddening past the usual alcoholic blush. My stomach is turning and turning and my hands are shaking and my eyes, I’m pretty sure my eyes can’t get any bigger. I hold Hank’s attention, make him watch me. It’s easy to see he’s been drinking. His gun slowly sinks until it’s pointing at the road.

  I hear a car door slam and raise one hand to stop Sam as he comes around the front of Hank’s SUV. He stops, but Hank’s seen him. He turns, raises his gun again, points it at where Sam’s frozen.

  “Go!” I holler as loud as I can. Sam doesn’t move. “Go!” My voice echoes off the cars around us.

  “Lily…” Sam says in a small voice.

  “Sam, get out of here now.” I don’t holler this time, just say the words so he knows he has to go. Finally, he does.

  “Don’t you touch her, Hank,” Margie says. Her voice cracks on her brother’s name. Her brother who she loved once, maybe still does.

  “I’ll do what I want with her, Marjorie. She’s my daughter.”

  Hank’s words make Margie take a step toward him. He’s raising the gun again when I smack him across the face. “I will not go with you if you hurt my aunt,” I say. “You’ll have to kill us here and that won’t free you of him will it?”

  Hank’s face gets redder, his eyes get wider, his hands start to shake. Pretty soon he’s got his arm around me, but not like at the dog food house, not like when I was a kid and he was giving me a hug after I fell off my bike, not like he’s ever loved me. He wraps his arm around my neck, points the gun at my head and drags me backward until we’re at the open door of Grandpa Henry’s SUV.

  “Don’t worry, Aunt Margie,” I say before he shoves me inside and follows.

  Margie runs to his door and I try to open mine, but he’s locked us in.

  “Child-proofed. If only everything were that easy,” Hank says. He raises the gun and hits me hard on the head. I want to yell from the pain, but darkness comes before I can.

  Four

  I wake up a little at a time and keep my body still so Hank won’t know. I’m slumped against the passenger door, my forehead on the cool glass. My seatbelt’s on and my wrists are taped together. He’s humming to himself, driving fast down a straight road.

  I look out the window without moving my head. It’s nighttime. I’ve been out for hours. We could be anywhere. All I can see is the outline of a forest—not individual trees because it’s too dark, but a jagged wall, a dark shadow against light from stars, from the moon. Every part of me hurts. It’s agony to stay still.

  Hanks stops humming, leans over and tangles his fist in my hair, yanking me upright. “Don’t pretend you’re still out.”

  If staying still was painful, having my hair and body wrenched is pure agony. I press my lips together to keep my scream inside. When I see Hank wipe his hand off on his jeans, I realize my head is wet and sticky, my hair matted.

  “Where are we?”

  Hank backhands me in the mouth. Not hard enough to knock my teeth out, but hard enough. I hit the headrest, rebound back and feel a little blood trickle from my cut lip.

  “You don’t ask any questions. You sit there, quiet.”

  Hank’s never hit me before. He came close once when I spilled my coke on his barcalounger, raised his hand, pulled it back, but ended up yelling at me instead, said I was clumsy, stupid, lazy. His smacks hurt a lot and my head throbs when I twist my neck to see out his window. More forest on that side too.

  Hank’s wrapped the tape so tight around my wrists my fingers are ten fat sausages. I wiggle them, trying to get some feeling back.

  He drives, listening to his music and tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. This is a new Hank, much crazier than the one who came for Mom. I think this Hank is all the way gone, no trace of Dad. Even his face looks different, twisted up with rage and crazy. I keep quiet, hoping I don’t get hit again. Not sure if my head could take another smack. I’m a little dizzy, out of it. Not in a bees sort of way, but a being knocked upside the head with a gun sort of way.

  The whole front seat of Grandpa Henry’s SUV smells like whiskey. One of Hank’s huge bottles is jammed between his legs, another full one on the seat between us. He uncaps the already open one with painted fingers, takes a drink, swerves a little while he does.

  I’m trying to breathe, trying to figure out how Hank went from being my dad to being this crazy when he puts the cap back on his whiskey bottle and drums it with a happy little flourish. He throws back his head, laughs, then turns to me. He’s grinning in a way that, in the dim dashboard lights, makes him look strangely regretful. For just a second I see the man who used to be my dad, the person who hated his jobs but went anyway because we needed money. Then he grins even bigger and he’s Hank again with Grandpa Henry in his head. “Know what I decided while you were at Margie’s?”

  The way Hank’s looking at me now, with his maniacal grin, his glowing eyes, his happy, lifted expression, I decide I don’t care why he’s gone crazy, only that he has. I shake my head a little. He laughs—a long series of whooping giggles that makes me shrink against the door.

  “I decided you don’t get to have nice things when you don’t do what you’re told.” Hank winks at me. “I made it quick, though. Margie and her boyfriend.” He makes a gun with his fingers. “Bang. Bang. Dead.”

  I stop moving all at once. Everything in me gives way. My whole body sinks. Sam had gone back to his car when Hank knocked me out. Hadn’t he? Marge was okay, but she was trying to get into Hank’s SUV I think. Everything’s so murky, like trying to find my memories through a thick fog.

  I’m back at the dog food house, hearing the loud crack I thought was my song getting played too many times, smelling the thick fog of gunpowder in the living room, my nose denying everything until I saw Mom dead on the floor, seeing Hank laughing, him chasing me in his drunk, clumsy way, feeling the emptiness come on in those moments when the truth of it all finally sank in. Hank killed someone he once loved. A sister who left him and a guy he doesn’t know are nothing to him.

  But Hank’s a liar, a crazy liar who would say anything to make this worse. “I don’t believe your lies anymore, Hank.” I say these words in a voice loud enough for him to hear and understand.

  “Don’t you dare call me by my given name.”

  “I can’t call you Dad anymore. My dad’s gone.” Hank looks at me, his face twisted into something like disbelief and rage.

  “Why did you kill my mother?” I say.

  He slams his fist down on my thigh. It hurts so much I have to straighten my leg until the muscles stop spasming.

  “You don’t get to ask the questions.”

  “Why are you like this?” The words slip out and I can’t pull them back in.

  Before Hank can answer or hit me again, my cell phone starts making a ruckus on the seat between us. Hank grabs it and flips it open with one hand.

  “Lilybean’s phone. How may I be of service?” His voice, high-pitched sarcasm.

  I hear Margie screaming at the top of her lungs on the other end of my phone and my whole body breathes out
. Alive. Margie’s alive. Sam too, I just know it. “If you hurt her, Hank, I’ll kill you myself!”

  Hank twists around so he’s looking at me. He smiles and winks. Margie keeps screaming. I can see he’s been torturing her for a while now, probably telling her I’m dead, me not being able to tell her different. I know if I say anything Hank will hit me again. Maybe worse this time. Doesn’t matter. Margie needs to know I’m alive. I wait for a quiet space, then yell as loud as I can. “I’m okay, Aunt Margie!”

  Hank smacks my leg with the phone, then holds it to his ear again. “If she does that again, she won’t be for long,” he says to Margie while he looks at me.

  There’s screaming again, but I can’t make out the words. Hank waits until it’s quiet. “Really, Marjorie. Do you think that’s helping your niece?”

  More screaming. I smile a little at my strong Aunt Margie. If anyone will find me, it’s her. She won’t give up. I send out hope, a wish that Hank won’t turn off the cell phone. He’s never been much on technology, but he watches a lot of TV—those detective shows that say you can be tracked by a cell signal.

  Hank snaps the phone closed mid-holler, Margie’s voice cut off so fast the silence left behind makes me dizzier. He sets it down on the seat between us again and wags a finger at me while he smiles. “Don’t even think about it, Beans.”

  “You lied about Margie and Sam. You didn’t hurt them.”

  “You don’t quiet down, I’ll turn around right now and kill them all, including that cute little kitten of yours. It’d be your fault, too.”

  My fault. I think about the phone ringing that night, me not answering. “If I’d picked up the phone none of this would be happening,” I say. I don’t think I believe this anymore, but the little bit of hollow left in me wouldn’t mind knowing for sure.

  Hank lifts a hand and I flinch. He lets it hang in the air for a few seconds—a threat while I cower against the door—and finally lowers it slowly back to the steering wheel. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” His voice is all twisted in on itself. Angry doesn’t even touch where he’s coming from now. His hands clench the steering wheel tight and his face, cast green by the instrument panel, is wrinkly with rage.

  I smash myself harder against the door, trying to get as far from him as I can. “When you called that night, I should have answered. I should have listened to you about Mom.”

  Hank glances at me, his eyes squinty. “My father was right the whole time.” He shakes his head and turns back to the road. “I’m surrounded by idiots.”

  Something in me is all fluttery, alive, demanding answers. “Did you call that night?”

  “Why would I call you?” he rages. “I was coming over!” Hank’s shaking his head again, this time with his mouth pursed like he’s tasting something sour. “Soon as I got my hands on Dad’s will, I went over. You two sure weren’t coming back if there wasn’t any money, huh, Beans?”

  I can’t speak, can’t think about Hank’s crazy reasoning. I look from the passing trees to his dark profile. “We loved you,” I say. I know he’ll hit me for it and he does, but it’s not as hard.

  “You left me,” Hank says. “Alone. With him. And then you didn’t come back.”

  I remind Hank of his words. “You said he was right.”

  Hank doesn’t like the tone of my voice and lets me know with the back of his hand again. This one barely hurts.

  “You were my dad,” I say because the words won’t stay inside anymore. “You loved us once, wanted to protect us from Grandpa Henry. You chose us.”

  I’m crying now, the tears slipping down my face, into an open cut on my cheek, making it sting. “I loved it when you painted me.”

  Hank shakes his head, his mouth frowning.

  “I used to complain, but I loved it. The one you cut up was my favorite until the one of me in the meadow. You’re a better painter now.” I’m talking mostly to myself, trying to work out how it went from me and Mom and Dad, mostly happy, to Hank beating me up as we drive down a deserted road. “Remember when I rode a bike for the first time? You holding onto my seat, running next to me, letting me go only when you were sure I’d make it on my own, then running alongside me anyway, just in case I fell?”

  Hank takes a big swig from his bottle.

  “Remember—” My voice hitches and I raise my ten fat sausages to swipe at my cheeks. “Remember when we went to Lagoon and had our picture taken? How happy we were? Remember when we went to the movies on Saturday afternoons and shared popcorn? Remember how you loved me once? Loved Mom?”

  I think about the pictures of Mom and Hank holding me in their arms, loving their baby, imagining all the things I could be.

  “Remember when you gave Mom that camera? How you spent a whole week’s pay on it?” Even if Hank doesn’t remember, I do. It’s one of my best memories, seeing Mom so happy.

  Hank’s sitting in his barcalounger, Mom on his lap. She’s got her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. “Thank you, honey. It’s perfect.”

  Mom’s new camera is still sitting in the box while she hugs Dad. Pretty soon she can’t not play with it, though, and gets up and starts reading the manual. That’s boring, so she fires it up, puts in the memory card because it’s digital and she can take a billion pictures without spending a bunch of money on film.

  “Get in front of the tree, Lilybeans!” Click. Snap.

  Mom nudges Hank. “Join your kid, would ya?” Hank does and pretty soon he’s lifting me up on his shoulders. Click. Snap.

  Mom takes our picture out in the snow, at the kitchen table, more in front of the tree, me in a bubble bath with foam covering me from head to toe. We go for a walk and she takes pictures of icicles, the neighbor’s barking dog, an old house that half burned down a few months before. Click. Snap. Click. Snap. Click. Snap.

  Hank straightens up and shakes his head. “The only thing I remember is the two of you leaving me and not coming back.”

  “You were hurting us. We couldn’t live with you anymore. You chose us once, but then you chose Grandpa Henry. You hurt Mom. You hit her.”

  Hank takes a long drink from his whiskey bottle, then another. He swerves, almost driving us off the road.

  “Why did you let me be with Margie all this time? Why didn’t you kill me earlier?”

  Hank raises his fist, but it’s shaking now. He doesn’t hit me, just lets it hang there until he puts it around the neck of his whiskey bottle again. His mouth hangs open a little, his eyes half-lidded. Pretty soon he’s swerving all over, the SUV hitching from one side of the road to another. If there were other cars, we’d be banging into them. “All you need to know, Beans, is that we’ll be together again real soon.” His voice is soft, his words slipping around each other, like the night he killed Mom. Hank’s decided and he’s crazy and there’s nothing I can do now but get away from him.

  I look out my window and try to get a sense of where we are. We’re driving slowly down a long stretch of empty road, open fields on both sides now. The moon is bright, lighting everything up as much as it can. There’re no houses, no streetlights, no other cars, and I can’t see if whatever’s growing out in the fields is tall enough to hide me. If I even make it that far. I don’t dare turn around to see how long ago we left the forest.

  I focus on Hank, letting my body fill with my own kind of rage. This man, this crazy man who made his choices, killed my mother. He changed me so much I almost went quiet for good. Not my fault. Hank’s fault. “You are a worthless piece of trash, just like Grandpa Henry said. It’s probably good he smashed your finger with that hammer. At least you had an excuse for why your paintings sucked.” These words twist my stomach into knots.

  Hank wrenches the steering wheel hard and pulls over to the side of the road. He throws Grandpa Henry’s SUV into park, leans over, screams in my face. “Don’t you dare, little girl!”

  I lean closer until we’re almost touching noses. I take a big breath, fill my lungs with his whiskey br
eath and remind myself the dad I once knew is gone. “Your father was a moron. You’re a moron.” Hank’s fury is big, bigger than I’ve ever seen it. “Mom and me, we were smart for leaving you. We were never the stupid ones. We weren’t worthless or lazy or anything else you tried to make us believe. Maybe we were poor, but who cares? Poor isn’t the worst thing.” One more deep breath. “Hank.”

  It’s my using his name again that makes his eyes widen, makes him lean down to pull the gun from under his seat. He raises it up, wants to smash me in the head again, make me unconscious until he can get where he’s going. I’m ready. I twist my arms around and make my numb fingers click the seatbelt lock. The belt retracts fast and I bring my foot up, kicking him in the face as hard as I can. His whiskey bottle shoots to the floor and lands on its side. The whole cab fills up with the overwhelming stench. Hank looks surprised for a second and then automatic reflexes kick in. He leans over to get his whiskey before it all spills out. That’s when I start kicking. Hard.

  I’m watching myself kick Hank as hard as I can—on the arm, in the stomach, my heel coming down on his thigh. Everything the hollow is filled with—the anger, the relief, the love, the acceptance, the missing Mom—they’re kicking Hank’s ass until he has no choice but to open his door and get away before I kick him right through his window. Who knew I had so much gumption?

  “Son of a bitch!” Hank says when he stumbles out of the car and into the road. He’ll be unsteady on his feet, but his fury will help keep him just sober enough. I figure I’ve got seconds. I scramble across the seat and fly out of Grandpa Henry’s SUV like my tail is on fire.

  I hear, “Shit!” before I’m running across the empty road and right to the edge of the big field that’s growing I-don’t-know-what. I hope for corn, but when the moon drifts out from behind some clouds, I see it’s something shorter. Wheat or barley or whatever they grow in big empty spaces. The field doesn’t come up to the road like I thought and there’s a steep embankment covered in weeds and sharp-looking rocks I’m going to have to run down. Or roll down. Or face-plant down.