Authors: Joann Swanson
I look away from my going-crazy father and touch the couch. Rough under my fingertips. Different. Memories twist here. Scary movies. Prophetic now. A man searching for a dead girl. Hiding our eyes behind spread fingers, protected from the blue veins, the foggy breath. Me and Mom—together, safe.
“Lily, what did I do?” He plucks a silver cat off the mantel, turns it over and over. “Where is your mother?” He looks down at himself, at the red stains on his flannel, at his jeans, at the dry paint on his work boots. He swipes at Mom’s blood, then stares at his fingers. “Rachel?”
His voice, far away.
I shuffle to the kitchen.
9-1-1.
I wait for the ringing to stop.
“Put it down, Beans.” His voice is soft, almost a whisper. He calls me “Beans” because I ate a pound of jelly beans when I was five and made myself sick. There’s no affection in his voice like when I was little, though. Twisted anger instead. Crazy.
“Please come to 2119 Oak Street. My father has killed my mother.”
My voice, dull.
My soul, gone.
I hear the shot and jump. A big hole in the wall. An inch from my shadow head. A chunk of plaster.
Whack!
Another shot. Neat hole in the window over the sink. Cracks spread from the empty place, make the window dance and moan. Once sand, uncountable. Now glass, shattered grains. Fragments barely stick. Weakening.
“Why, Beans? Why’d you do that?”
Two more missed shots. One for the pantry, one for the oven.
He comes close, wraps his arms around me, pulls me to him. His smells fill my nose—mint to try to hide the whiskey, paint to cover his pain. One arm holds me against him. His other hand reaches for a dishtowel and presses it to my back. A pillow for his gun, still damp from Mom doing dishes. “Be over in just a minute, sweetheart.” I turn my cheek, rest it on his shoulder, watch the window’s empty place. I see a mosaic of fear, of rage, of nothing left.
“I love you, Beans. We’ll all be together now. Hold real still, honey.” His breath, warm on my ear, the gun’s barrel pressed to my back. “See you soon.” He pulls the trigger.
Click
.
I push away. His face changes.
Rage to hurt.
Blink.
Hurt to rage.
Rage stays. Lifts the gun. Giant black hole. Small gun. Small man. Small bullet. Hand tremors. Once. Twice. Pulls the trigger.
Click
.
Click
.
He points at the floor. Shakes the gun. Pulls the trigger.
Click
.
He raises the gun. Giant black hole. Pulls the trigger.
Click
.
“Empty. Piece of crap.”
Sirens.
He hears them too and circles toward me. He raises his hand holding the gun like a club, like a hammer.
I step away, dodging the gun by inches.
He swings, aims for my head.
I duck and circle to the other side.
“Stay still, Beans.” His eyes—squinty, unfocused, bloodshot. He staggers, bumps his leg, almost falls.
I circle to the other side.
“Stop moving!” he screams.
Sirens closer. He glances out the window, gauges. Time running out. He nods at empty air, mutters something, opens a drawer, finds a knife, wobbles toward me. “Damn it, Beans, you don’t get to decide. Not you. Not your mother. You stay right there.”
I don’t stay right there.
He stops, takes a breath. He knows he can’t get me, so he weaves to the backdoor. Before he opens it, he turns, raises his hand not holding the empty gun. One finger presses down on empty air. He’s taking an imaginary picture. Like Mom with her camera. It means s
ee you later
, like when I was kid. His eyes are different now, though. The meaning is different, too. The Dad I knew is gone, disappeared into someone else.
The small man goes.
Loud sirens shriek outside. Rotating lights swing in through the windows, showing Mom’s blood on the curtains, on Dad’s painting of me with the torn cheeks. Shadows change my painted eyes to something else—to something empty. Dad’s painting, showing everything he's done.
There are loud knocks at the door.
The door shakes in its frame. The frame is steady.
My focus: only the frame.
I twist the knob.
A fireman dances on rubber tiptoes, swivels around me, runs into the house.
There are two paramedics: one for me, one for the dead. Mine crouches and shines a light in my eyes. “Can you count to 10?” he asks, and “Can you tell me your name?”
You should have asked my name first. Now there
’
s only 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-1-2-3-
.
His fingers are warm on my wrist. “Can you hear me?” he says, and “Do you hurt anywhere?”
I hurt. Every inch and every molecule. I am pain.
“No,” I say.
“Good, that’s good, Lily.”
He knows my name. “How?”
“You just told me,” he says. “You’re a little out of it, kiddo. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you.”
There’s static on his walkie-talkie.
“Do you need to go?” I say. “It’s okay.”
He shakes his head and smiles. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be, young lady.”
“Okay. But if you have to go, I understand.” My voice, far away. His face, swimmy.
“Lily? Lily? Are you with me?”
I touch his nametag. “Jim?”
“Yes, it’s Jim.”
We’re in a moving ambulance. “Where are we going?”
Jim sits back. I can’t see him anymore. “To the hospital. We’ll get you checked out and make sure you’re okay.”
I hear static again. Jim talks into something. “Shock, BP dropping –”
“Jim?”
He leans over me again. “Yes, Lily?”
“Where’s my mom?”
His face tightens, lips mash together and go white. “Do you remember what happened tonight, sweetheart?”
“Yes, I remember. Is she with the coroner?”
Jim nods slowly. “Yes. She’s with the coroner.”
“Okay.”
He tries to smile. “I’m going to take your temperature now, okay?” He holds up a white plastic something. I nod. He pokes a thermometer in my ear, beeps my temperature, reminds me of better times, of Mom, of Hank when he was still Dad.
I’m eleven. Mom
’
s pressing the inside of her wrist to my forehead—Mom-style thermometer. “You don
’
t have a fever, Lil. Does your stomach hurt?”
I groan like my life depends on it. “Yes. I
’
ll be okay by myself, though. You should go to work.”
She sits next to me, most of one hip off because my bed
’
s small. She leans over, puts both hands on either side of my head, lowers her nose to mine. Eskimo kiss. “Tell me what
’
s really going on, Lilybeans. Why don
’
t you want to go to school?”
My eyes stretch big, irises so dark they blend seamlessly with my pupils. They’re all black unless you look real close. I have my father
’
s eyes, but they’re bigger than his. Soulful, Mom calls them.
“I see you
’
ve got your deep pools going there, my girl. Now tell me what
’
s wrong.”
“There
’
s a field-trip to the zoo today.”
Mom nods, understands right away. “You don
’
t want to stay in the library with the other kids not going?”
I shake my head. “Please don
’
t make me.
”
She smiles big. “We
’
ll both stay home.”
“But work—”
“That
’
s what sick days are for, sweet pea.”
She leaves to tell my father we
’
re playing hooky and I snuggle under my covers, thinking how lucky I am to have a mom who understands I can
’
t go to a place where they
’
ve put wild animals in small cages. She understands I can
’
t see the defeat in their eyes and not cry for weeks after. She gets it.
There’s soft talking down the hall and then Dad
’
s here. “Don
’
t wanna go to school today, huh, kiddo?”
I shake my head and pull the covers to my chin.
“Well, I guess that
’
s all right then. You and Mom have a good day, yeah?”
Dad doesn
’
t make a fuss because he’s still sorry about all the beers he drank the night before. He
’
s always sorry in the morning. I reach up, touch his name embroidered on his blue uniform shirt: Hank. “
Thanks, Dad.
”
He gives my hair a ruffle, kisses Mom and leaves.
We spend the day making chocolate chip cookies and watching my favorite movie. We snuggle on the couch and talk about everything except the zoo. It is one of the best days of my life.
The night is quiet in this hospital. Someone (cop? social worker? nurse?) sits next to my bed, only looking up from her magazine when I shift. I don’t sleep. I focus on the ceiling tiles and count the holes. My focus: counting. So far 1,039.
I’m at 10,952 and the darkness outside my window is gone when a cop walks in and magazine lady walks out.
His nametag says Newbold, but he wants to be called Officer Archie.
“Do you remember me, kiddo?”
There’s nothing in me that wants to answer, so I don’t.
“I was there last night. I understand if you don’t remember.”
He sits in a chair next to this hospital bed. Not my bed. My bed doesn’t have a switch to make it raise up, or a blue blanket with a million little waffle patterns, or a worn-out button with the picture of a nurse.
Officer Archie wants to know what happened, but I don’t have the words to say.
He smiles and pats my arm. “How about I say what we suspect happened and you let me know if we’ve got it right?”
Nod.
Officer Archie opens a little notebook, flips a few pages over and gets down to business. “Now, as far as we can tell, Henry Berkenshire, 38, came to 2119 Oak Street—the house where you reside with your mother, Rachel Berkenshire, also 38—at approximately 6:45 PM last night.” He looks up at me. “Is this correct, Lily?”
I stare at him awhile. I keep quiet.
He looks back down. “It appears your mother let your father in.” He glances at me again, but doesn't ask me to say if he’s right. His voice doesn’t accuse, doesn’t say it was Mom’s fault. Just the facts, ma’am. “Your father then entered the residence, fired off four shots in the kitchen area, presumably chasing Mrs. Berkenshire, finally ending his pursuit in the living room, where he shot—”
I flinch.
Officer Archie doesn’t finish his sentence, doesn’t need to. He closes his notebook and sits back with his arms crossed. His mouth is hard. His eyes are soft.
They don’t know Hank’s kitchen bullets were for me.
“Is this what happened, Lily?”
I decide it is and nod.
“Okay, thank you, young lady.” Officer Archie takes a deep breath and leans forward. In his eyes I see he’s done this a lot, this recounting of the worst kind of awful. There’s weariness and sadness and awkwardness. “I understand your parents were separated.”
Nod.
“And your father is an alcoholic?”
I watch Officer Archie closely, wonder how he knows.
“We’ve been in touch with your mother’s friends. At her place of work.”
I don’t say anything.
“The friends are incorrect? About your father’s alcoholism?”
Shake.
“Was he drunk last night?”
Nod.
Officer Archie thinks on this awhile, then leans back and says, “Do you have any other family in Utah?”
Shake.
“Any other family at all?”
Nod.
“Someone who would come if we called?”
Nod.
“I’ll need his or her name, kiddo.” Officer Archie flips his notebook to another fresh page, clips his pen to it, hands it over.
I write down “Margie Hadden,” but I don’t know her phone number. I write down “Seattle,” but I don’t know her address. I write down “aunt,” but I barely know her at all.
“We’ll find her,” Officer Archie says. “It might take a little time if she’s unlisted.”
Nod.
“We have a foster home lined up in the meantime. A social worker’ll be by a little later, let you meet Mack and Darcy. Sound good?”
I don’t feel anything inside, so I don’t nod or shake or speak.
I count.
10,953.
“Lily, this is Mack and Darcy Langhorn.” Officer Archie stretches an arm toward two people standing behind him. With the flat light of his eyes, with the straight set of his mouth, with the deep crease of his brow, Mack reminds me of Hank after his light went out. After he went to work for Grandpa Henry. After he decided drinking was better than painting and sculpting. Darcy doesn’t remind me of anyone.
“Hello, Lily,” Darcy Langhorn says. “It’s sure nice to meet ya and we’re sure sorry ‘bout what happened to your mama.”
Nod.
“Don’t she talk?”
A hospital social worker—magazine-reading lady—stands at my side and touches her cold fingertips to my arm. “She’s still in shock.”
“She gonna snap out of it?” Mack-Hank asks.
“It’s been a day,” Officer Archie says. His voice holds a warning.
But Officer Archie’s wrong. It’s been twenty-three hours and nineteen minutes. Forty-one minutes shy of a day. I don’t say this.
“Lily, Mack and Darcy are foster parents who own a sheep and cattle ranch down by Kanab. They’re ready to take you in until we can find your aunt.”