Tin Lily (24 page)

Binka follows me back to the closet where Margie’s stored the big box of pictures, paintings and sculptures from the dog food house. I haven’t looked in the box since we came to Seattle, couldn’t handle seeing Mom’s pictures, her love. But now I pull out two of Hank’s paintings, the one where he sliced my cheeks, another from when I was younger. I set them up next to the new paintings. Compared to the meadow, Margie and her liquid fire, me and Nick on the bench, Hank’s old stuff looks like it was painted by someone just starting out.

I’m looking at the meadow painting, trying to figure Hank out when I hear Margie dialing her phone. She’s talking to a detective, telling him Hank’s been in the apartment. After she hangs up she says we have to go. Fast.

Margie disappears into where our bedrooms are, then comes back into the living room a few minutes later, a suitcase that has clothes sticking out of it in one hand, her laptop in the other. “I grabbed some of your things too, Lily. We’ll buy whatever else we need.”

Margie puts the suitcase by the front door and starts digging in her purse.

“Aunt Margie?” She looks at me and I see her eyes are frantic, scared. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Hank being here.”

She nods and starts digging again. “We need to go, Lily.”

I cross the room and take one of Margie’s little heavy boxes down from a bookshelf so I can have a touchstone, turn it around and around in my hands, feel its weight in my palm. There’s no lid on this one, just a solid box of pretty silver, perfectly square, etched with symbols I don’t recognize. One looks like a house, one a backward five, one a fence with a bird on it. I know my mind is making pictures of these characters, that it’s really a different language. Chinese, I think.

“Know what that means?” Sam asks.

“Does it mean ‘strong box that looks weak’ ?”

He grins and brushes one finger over the letters. “It means
Always Remember
.”

“That’s in Margie’s photo album, too.”

Sam nods and glances at Margie where she’s standing near the entryway. She comes over to the bookcase where Sam and I are studying her Always Remember box. “The only way I could let go of my father’s cruelty was to always remember what he did to us.”

Now that I’ve answered the bees, I understand Margie’s words. “If we forget, we might do the same things,” I say. “If we remember, we can work hard to be something different.”

Margie nods and wraps her arms around me. I wrap mine around her and lay my head on her shoulder. “I love you, Aunt Margie.”

She goes tense, then pulls me tighter. “I love you too, Lilybeans.”

We leave the apartment after our big hug is finished, take Margie’s bulging suitcase, her laptop, the silver box that means Always Remember. Sam takes Binka in her carrier and promises to spoil her rotten so when we get her back she’s an even bigger monster. It’s hard saying good-bye to Binka.

Sam waits for us to get to Margie’s car, then waves when I wave, smiles when I smile. His eyes are lit up like usual, but worried too. I wish I’d told Margie about Hank being in Seattle now. My silence has made it so Hank could hunt me, hunt us all.

“We cannot control the choices other people make.”
Dr. Pratchett’s words in my head, reminding me that Hank’s the one who came with his gun and made his choice that changed me into a quiet girl.

Hank drives up while Margie’s getting the bulging suitcase into the trunk.

The whole world slows down and I see things I didn’t when Hank was here before. His license plates have been switched from Utah to Washington and the paint he used to cover up the Berkenshire Metalworks logo is flaking off, like he used the wrong kind. He stops the big SUV so he’s blocking Sam from seeing us and blocking us from leaving. Margie doesn’t notice him right away. He jumps out, all spindly legs and arms, a gun raised at Margie. A bigger one with more bullets.

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.

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.”