Kat's Fall

by Shelley Hrdlitschka

  “Through her interpreter, yes.”

  “Then she doesn’t know what sexual relations are! I’ve never touched her! She’s my sister!”

  “Are you denying the accusations, Darcy?”

  “Of course I am! I’ve never had sex with anyone, and I’m not about to start with my sister or a four-year-old girl. I don’t know what the hell is going on!”

  The cop looks back down at her notes. “Sometimes, Darcy, when brothers and sisters are real close, and then they reach puberty, their relationship becomes physical.”

  “You’re making me sick.”

  “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.”

  “You’re not doing a very good job.”

  “Okay. Then fill me in.”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  She studies me and then shrugs. “Given this information, I’m sure the Kippensteins will want to press charges.”

  “And how do I prove I’m innocent?”

  “You’ll be appointed a lawyer and a social worker.”

  “This isn’t fair!” I yell at the cop. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “You’ll have an opportunity to prove that in court.”

  “NO!”

  I can’t sit here another minute. Back in my room I reach for my knife, but my arm is still too raw from my last cutting session, and besides, there’s a good chance my dad will barge in, so instead I let my rage explode. I kick the door, the walls, the bed. I yank open my drawers and fling my clothes around, screaming every curse word I’ve ever heard, which is quite a repertoire. I stomp on the floor, making as much noise as possible. Eventually, when I find nothing else to toss, I lie face down on my bed, tormented and with no sense of release. The knife would have worked way better. I hear the front door closing and then the sound of the police cruiser pulling away from the curb. I expect Dad to bang through my bedroom door any minute.

  I wait. And wait. Nothing.

  Then I hear the front door slam shut again and another car pulls away. I guess Dad’s decided to confront his anger with a pint of beer. Or three. Maybe he doesn’t want to risk being labeled a child abuser. Mind you, it beats being labeled a sex offender.

  I feel hot tears burning my eyes but I push them away. I lie on my bed and watch the light on the wall change as afternoon turns to evening, and evening turns to night. I force my mind to go blank and to think only about the light.

  I FEEL NOTHING on Monday morning. Complete numbness. Dad’s gone to work and I’m unsure of my status. If I’m to be charged with sexual abuse, can I still walk out the door and go to school? I don’t bother, but go back to bed after eating a piece of toast.

  The phone rings and rings. I can hear the answering machine kicking in but can’t make out the voices. I drift in and out of sleep. Eventually there’s a knock on the front door. I don’t bother to answer it either, but the knocker perseveres. The knocking becomes a banging and I hear Mom calling my name.

  I drag myself off the bed and go to the door.

  “What do you want?”

  “I just came to check up on you. The school is trying to track you down. They got hold of your dad and he phoned me and asked if I’d come and see you.”

  “Well, as you can see, I’m fine. You can leave now.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I heard about the trouble you’re in.”

  “I didn’t do it.” I turn and walk up the stairs. I can hear her following me.

  “I know.” She’s followed me into the kitchen. I open the fridge door and pour myself a glass of milk. She sits at the table, looking around the room. It doesn’t look like she’s planning to leave anytime soon.

  “So how do you know?” I ask, but not really caring. No one would believe her anyway.

  “I just do.”

  “Great. That’s really going to help me.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “This is all your fault.”

  “Why’s that?” She sits up a little straighter. I think maybe I’ve ticked her off. Good.

  “Everyone’s going to think I’ve turned out bad because you’re bad.”

  “I’m not bad, Darcy. I was self-destructive before I went to prison, but I’m not bad.”

  “You tried to kill my sister. That’s not bad?”

  “I didn’t try to kill your sister. It was an accident.” She’s looking at her hands.

  The images that hit me on the sidewalk outside her apartment that day blindside me again. My stomach lurches. We’re not going to discuss that day. Not now. Not ever. Things are bad enough already. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Darcy, we need to talk.”

  I’m already down the hall. “We have nothing to talk about.” I slam the door to my room and flop facedown on the bed.

  The door opens. I become aware of perfume again. Ms. LaRose’s perfume. “Yes, we do,” she says. I hear the chair from my desk slide out and then creak when she sits on it.

  “First of all, Darcy, I want you to know that my years in prison were…were really good in a lot of ways.”

  “Huh?” I have to glance at her. She’s talking crazy now.

  “I had people taking care of me. I was being fed. I was being counseled. It felt like people were concerned about what was going to happen to me. That was a first.”

  “Yeah, well, while you were in prison being cared for, I was on the outside fending for myself and taking care of Kat.” I bury my face in my pillow again.

  The silence lasts so long that I begin to think she may have left. I lift my head and glance over at my desk. She’s still there.

  “The other day,” she says, very quietly, “when you came to visit me, you remembered the…that day, didn’t you.” It’s a statement, not a question.

  “No!” I bury my face again. I won’t go there. I won’t I won’t I won’t.

  “What do you remember, Darcy?”

  “Nothing!”

  “C’mon, Darcy. Talk to me.”

  “I can’t remember anything,” I tell her, trying to convince myself, but the images are coming back, vividly. “NO NO NO!” I shake my head, willing the memories to go away, but they’re flooding my consciousness, forcing me back to that day. I remember a TV documentary…lab-coated guys dropping cats upside down from various heights while filmmakers captured the way they contorted—mid-fall—to land on their feet. The film clips were shown one frame at a time and I’d watched, fascinated, as the cats turned themselves and landed right side up…

  I pull the blankets over my head, but it’s too late.

  I am that little boy again. Now Kat’s little body is falling, falling…I remember every detail of her descent. It happened in slow motion, frame by frame… her arms are flailing, her body twisting…she’s a fluttering leaf, ripped from a tree in a gust of wind…

  A gasp startles me. I look back at Mom from the little patio table I’m perched on. Mom, standing in the doorway, covers her face with her hands. I peer back over the rungs of the railing just in time to see Kat’s tiny body land—flat on her back—in the overgrown shrubs that crowd the sidewalk. For a moment she doesn’t move, but then I see her tiny blonde head turn, and she looks up at us, wide eyed, shocked. Her mouth opens and I hear kitten-like mews…

  Why is she on her back?

  I slam back into the present, crouched on the bed, trembling. “SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO LAND ON HER FEET!” I scream at my mom. “HER NAME IS KAT! ” Mom just stares at me, her face pale.

  “Her name is Kat,” I repeat, quieter now. “Cats land on their feet.”

  I cannot hold the sobs back. I’m choking on them. Years and years of grief pour out. I use my blanket to wipe my eyes, my nose. And then I feel the hand, rubbing soft circles on my back. The next thing I know she’s holding me, and I’m sobbing into her neck. I can’t stop. I can’t. I just cry and cry and cry…

  WE'RE SITTING AT the kitchen table. My hand shakes as I bring a can of pop to my mout
h. I have never felt so completely empty, so spent. But something in my brain begins to tick again. There are questions I need the answers for. “So why did you let them send you to prison?”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “To protect me?”

  I read her silence as a yes.

  “I was just a little kid! They wouldn’t have put me behind bars!”

  Her voice is small, child-like. “I shook her.”

  “The epilepsy?”

  She nods. “I think so.” She sits quietly for another moment. “I take back what I said before. I guess I am bad after all.”

  We sit without saying anything.

  “And you know, Darcy,” she says finally, her voice shaking, “even if I didn’t do it, I needed to do time. I was out of control. And as it turns out, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m clean now.”

  I must look doubtful because she defends herself. “I am. And I’ve grown up. That wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been put away.”

  “But now everyone despises you. For something I did.”

  “Society despised me before.” Her voice is flat, expressionless. “It makes no difference.”

  “I can’t believe I forgot what really happened to Kat that day.”

  “You didn’t.”

  No, I guess not. I take another gulp from my can. “Kat means everything to me.”

  “I know. And you’ve done an awesome job of being a big brother, so now you have to forgive yourself for what happened. Feeling guilty won’t change anything.”

  We sit quietly again. I’m trying to reformat my brain. For so long I’ve hated my mom for trying to murder my sister. Now I find out—remember—that I did it. How am I supposed to feel about her now? How am I supposed to feel about me now?

  “You said you believed me…” I can hardly say it. “About not hurting Kat and Sammy.”

  “That’s right. I do.”

  “Why? They both said I did it.”

  “I know what it feels like to be wrongly accused of something.”

  “That still doesn’t mean I didn’t do it.”

  “That’s true. But I think I’m a good judge of character, and I don’t believe you’d do anything like that.”

  “I dropped my sister off a balcony.”

  “That’s different. You weren’t much more than a baby yourself.”

  Nine

  Yeah. Right. As if that makes any difference.

  Ms. LaRose comes banging on the door before Mom even leaves. They introduce themselves to each other, awkwardly. I’m shocked at the similarities between the two. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Their ages, their appearance, even the way they dress. Mom excuses herself, telling me she’ll be back to see me in the morning.

  “Does that mean you won’t be at school again tomorrow?” The Rose asks once my mom is gone.

  “I don’t know what it means.” I lean against the door, exhausted. I just want to go back to bed.

  “I brought you some homework.”

  “Great. I was hoping you would.” There I go again. I just can’t help myself, but maybe she’ll take the hint and leave.

  Ms. LaRose looks at me intently. “You don’t look well, Darcy.”

  “I don’t feel well.”

  “What’s happening?”

  I look her in the eye. I can’t even find the energy to lie. “I’ve had a crappy couple of days. Like real crappy.”

  She nods. “Sit down.”

  I do. I fold my arms on the table and rest my head on them. I close my eyes. I just want to sleep.

  She sits across the table from me. “So, what’s going on?” she asks gently.

  “Well…” Where should I start? “I sexually assaulted a four-year-old girl,” I tell her, not bothering to lift my head. “The deaf girl I baby-sit. And I also had sexual relations with my sister. Didn’t you hear?” “Cut the crap, Darcy,” she says.

  I look up, startled. She’s never used that tone with me before. “Well that’s what I’ve been accused of.”

  “Okay, so there’s been some kind of terrible mistake. How did it happen?”

  “If I knew that…”

  She becomes quiet for a moment. “Right,” she says finally. “Let’s start with the little girl you baby-sit. What’s her name?”

  I sit up, but close my eyes for a moment. I don’t want to deal with this now, not after what I’ve just been through with Mom.

  I’m so tired.

  I wish she’d leave.

  “Samantha,” I say, slumping down in my chair and crossing my arms. “But we call her Sammy or Sam for short.”

  “And she said you sexually assaulted her?”

  She’s not going to let up. I try to steel myself for the onslaught of questions that I sense is coming. “Apparently.”

  “Can you think of anything, any little thing,” she says with emphasis, “that you may have done that could be misconstrued and considered sexual abuse?” I can only shake my head. “I’ve been wondering about that for three whole days now.”

  “Does she dress herself?”

  “I feel like there should be a light shining in my eyes, blinding me, the way they do it on TV interrogations.”

  “Just answer my questions, Darcy.”

  “What was the question?”

  “Does she dress herself?”

  “Mostly. Sometimes she needs help with buttons or figuring out which is the front and which is the back.”

  “How about baths? Are you responsible for them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “I run the water. She takes off her clothes and climbs in. We play with bath toys together, but that’s about it.”

  “Do you wash her?”

  “No. She washes herself, but I shampoo her hair sometimes.”

  “You never…touch her anywhere you shouldn’t?”

  “Fuck you!” I bury my face in my arms again, shocked at myself. I didn’t mean to say that.

  “Darcy,” she says gently. “if you go to court the prosecutor is going to ask you these same questions, but not with the intention of helping you. I am trying to help you. I just want us to figure out how Samantha could have mistaken your actions for sexual abuse.”

  “I don’t believe she did. We’re buddies.”

  “But her parents are convinced you did some-thing?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She sighs. “Okay, let’s talk about your sister, then.”

  “Have you been hired as my lawyer or social worker or something?”

  “No,” she says quietly. “I’m just here as your friend. Someone who cares about you.”

  I hate it when people are nice to me. Now I feel the tears welling up in my eyes again. Where have they come from? I’ve always been able to push them away before, and besides, there should be none left after that scene with my mom. I cover my face with my hands. This is too embarrassing.

  “Darcy,” Ms. LaRose says sadly, “if it weren’t considered so inappropriate, I’d be sitting beside you right now, hugging you. You know that, right?”

  God, how I wish she was.

  Neither of us says anything for a moment. By pressing my fingers into my eyes I manage to hold back the tears.

  “Why do you believe me?” I ask eventually. How ironic that I asked my mom that same question about an hour ago.

  “I don’t know,” she says finally. “I’ve worked with lots of kids over the years and you learn to see through the outward behavior after a while. I guess it’s just the way I read you. You wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m such a sweet, loveable kind of guy.”

  “Sweet? No. Loveable? Yeah, I think so.” I glance at her just long enough to see she’s smiling at me. “I can read through that tough exterior of yours, Darcy. I know you’ve erected a solid rock wall to protect yourself, but you’re not someone who would ever hurt little girls. That’s very clear to me.”

 
Rock walls? That quote was for my benefit. I suspected as much. “Then how come it isn’t clear to everyone else? Like my dad, for example? He’s lived with me all these years and he assumes I’m guilty.”

  “I don’t know your dad, Darcy,” she says, “but maybe he’s not particularly sensitive.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “So,” she says, “back to your little sister. Did she say you had sex with her?”

  My little sister. The little sister I tried to kill.

  “Darcy?”

  “Huh?”

  “She said you had sex with her?”

  “Apparently, but I don’t believe she’d say that.”

  “It is strange, isn’t it, that both girls have come forward and said these things at the same time?”

  “They didn’t actually ‘come forward’,” I tell her. “Sammy was acting weird. She was fixated on…on male body parts.” I can’t look Ms. LaRose in the eyes and say that. “So her mom questioned her about what was going on. Apparently that’s when she said I did something.”

  I glance at Ms. LaRose. She just sits quietly.

  “So then the cop had an interpreter question my sister, and that’s when she supposedly said we’d had sex, or ‘sexual relations,’ as the cop put it.”

  Ms. LaRose is nodding, but I can’t read the expression on her face. “Darcy,” she says, “how would you feel about a face-to-face meeting with the girls, the interpreter and the police officer?”

  “I’d feel great! Then I could find out why they said those things.”

  She nods. “That’s what I thought. Someone guilty of sexually abusing little girls probably wouldn’t agree to a meeting like that.”

  “I just don’t know if the Kippensteins would agree to it, or if the cop will even let me see my sister.”

  “That’s true. She may feel the girls will be too intimidated by your presence to talk freely.”

  “Sign freely, you mean.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “But they won’t be. You’ll see.” I feel my energy start to surge back. But then I hear the front door swing open, and Dad thumps up the stairs. He stops abruptly on the top step when he sees The Rose sitting at the kitchen table.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demands. I see his eyes take in the huge hoop earrings and mass of cornrow braids that’s she’s been wearing lately. I can’t wait to see his face when he notices her short skirt and leather boots.