Authors: Joann Swanson
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 breath 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.
I hear a
click-snap
behind me. It’s not like Mom’s camera. It’s not a
click-snap
that says I’m loved. It’s a
click-snap
that says Hank’s got his gun pointed at my back. “You stay right there, Beans. This isn’t how it’s gonna be.”
I decide Hank’s right. This isn’t how it’s going to be. I launch myself into the air, commence the running and the rolling and the face-planting.
I’m making such a ruckus sliding down this hill. The rocks spinning up around me sound like big hailstones on the tin roof of some random shed. Now I’m the Tasmanian Devil. I add a laugh to my rock hail. Right out loud, I laugh. It's not flat, not odd. It's normal—tinkling, even. Alive.
Thanks to the moon lighting things up now and then, I catch glimpses of the landscape around me—the rock embankment I’m sliding down, the massive fields with their crops of whatever, the black forest we passed out of awhile back. I don’t see a single light. There are no houses out here, not even a farm.
My body is scratched, beaten, tired. The soul I thought was gone, the heart I thought had disappeared, they’re with me. They’re aching to stay alive, to see my spastic four-legged star, to see Nick, Margie, Sam and Dr. Pratchett again. I’m filled right up the brim with wanting to live.
I land on my back at the bottom of the hill and look up at the sky. I make a promise to the stars and the moon that I’ll live a whole new life if I get through this. I’ll stay away from the quiet place. I’ll let the people I love in. I’ll find a way to fit and I won’t let the emptiness come again. I’ll face it all.
In my mind, Mom’s words come and tell me what she meant, what she knew for sure.
It
’
s important you listen to me now.
Pretend I
’
m with you.
Hear my voice.
You are the best person I
’
ve ever known.
I wish so much I could hold a mirror up and show you what I see.
You are brave.
She is my courage.
I stay frozen at the bottom of the hill, listening closely. The wind sneaks under my T-shirt and tries to make it billow out. It bends whatever’s out in the field, rustles the far-off trees of the black forest.
I lay there, thinking of Nick, feeling his necklace under my shirt, against my beating heart. Once sand, uncountable. Now glass, shattered grains. Fragments held together. Strengthening.
Rocks dig into my back, my butt, my legs. So many bruises, so much pain. But I feel it, fully feel it. There’s no numb or buzzing or hollow—just pure, unfiltered pain.
I wait and it’s a little like that night all over again. I listen for Hank’s drunk rage, but it’s silence out here. There’s no vacuum, though. I’m fully alive, every nerve ending singing, every heartbeat felt, every scrape and bruise alive with their own complaining.
“Lily, don’t do this. We’ll be with your mother again. Don’t you miss her?”
Oh god, how I miss her. The missing has been my whole life since that night. But she doesn’t want me dead. Mom wants me alive and fighting.
I can’t trust my ears with my heart pounding this loud. His soft whisper might be a scream or it might mean he’s just above me. I know he’s close when the rocks he’s knocking down the embankment smack up against my legs. There’s a loud clang, another shower of rocks and then he’s hollering, “No!” and “Where is it?”
I don’t wait to find out what he’s mad about (besides me just kicking his ass). I grab a fist-sized rock nearby and scoot into the field, hoping for a good place to hide. It’s wheat, I think. The only way I’m staying out of sight is to keep on my belly. I flatten myself down, close my fist tight around my rock and wiggle my way farther in.
“This isn’t how it’s going to be, Beans.” I have no idea where he is until I see a flashlight beam a few feet to my right. He’s come prepared.
I wiggle farther to my left, watching Hank’s flashlight bob fast toward something in the opposite direction. He must’ve heard a sound. Birds in the field or something. I take a chance and sit up, praying the rock I’m holding is sharp enough. I don’t look down at what I’m doing, can’t take my eyes off Hank’s sweeping flashlight beam.
With my numb, fat fingers, I use the rock to stab at the tape squeezing my wrists together, then nearly scream when I get my arm instead. I make myself look down then and use the moonlight to find a good spot. I do and make a hole big enough to tear the tape and pull my hands apart. I’m flexing my fingers when I see Hank’s flashlight bobbing this way again.
I drop to my belly and start wiggling fast toward the forest. It’s a long way to go on my belly, but I don’t have a choice now. Hank’s bullet for me is gigantic. I wriggle, feeling the scrapes and scratches from the hard ground through my thin T-shirt. I stop after a bit so I can listen to the night and try to figure out where Hank’s gone. I flip on my back and lift my head above the wheat just enough.
“Olly olly oxen free!” he hollers as his flashlight beam gets bigger. He’s figured out I’m not on the other side, that I’m not birds spooked by his crazy searching.
I send out hope the wheat field will hide me and get on my hands and knees to make better time. I hear Hank behind me. His flashlight beam switches direction, lands a few inches in front of me. “There you are,” he says. “You stay right there, Beans.”
I don’t stay right there. I get to my feet and run, pump my legs like I’ve been a track star my whole life. Right through the wheat field I run, trampling stalks some farmer took a lot of time to plant. I’m stuck in this one motion—running—and everything else gets pushed out. It’s my whole life, running through this wheat field.
I’m halfway across when light surrounds me—Hank’s unsteady flashlight beam, bopping up and down in time to his own running. I know the brighter the beam gets, the closer he is. I steal a glance back just in time to see him trip, see him fall on his face in the dust and wheat.