How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things

by A. Wilding Wells

  His eyes are pinned shut as his jaw furiously ticks.

  “And, Matilda Pearl, I’m grateful for the sparkle, shine, and love you have brought to my family’s life. You are, bar none, the most remarkable person I’ve ever met.” I nod then kiss her on the cheek. “Okay, then. Who’s going next?”

  One by one, each person at the table says what they’re grateful for. Some are funny, like the kids, who manage to combine their thoughts, naming every single animal on the farm until they look around the room and name objects at which point I cut them off, then thank them for being such grateful boys. Rowdy is considerate and, as always, a best mate when he says that he’s thankful we found Matilda in the blizzard. Alive. Molly is lovely as she says how thankful she is to have us as family, even though we’re just meeting for the first time. She also gives Everit a peck on his cheek, which he brushes off, making her laugh.

  Everyone at the table has said something except Everit. I may need to strangle some gratefulness out of him if he doesn’t open his mouth pretty damn soon. The turkey is cut and served, side dishes are passed, and wine is poured. The only darkness I see is the sun setting in the sky outside, and the only darkness I feel is Everit Pearl sucking the life out of our gathering. Maybe I was wrong about earlier, maybe a bit too smug that my words would sink in and alter his views. I could have sworn we made some progress. At least a step or two.

  When Matilda comes from the kitchen with the trifle and I pour more wine, things around the table relax. Alfie suggests that we play charades while we have dessert, and Matilda just about jumps on his lap with enthusiasm. Each of us writes a few charade ideas down on scraps of paper that are tossed into Molly’s vegetable-covered hat, which Aesop continues to chow down on by her side. Matilda giggles as she reaches into the hat, her tipsy hiccup not escaping me.

  “Oh…oh yes! Okay.” She claps her hands after she’s crumbled the scrap of paper and tossed it on the table. “What do I get? Thirty seconds? Who’s timing this?” She looks around the table with a mischievous gaze.

  “Thirty sounds fair. I’ll be the clock watcher,” Alfie answers.

  Matilda performs her charade in front of the fireplace, dancing around with swift movements that have us yelling out guesses.

  “Time’s up,” Alfie sings. “My turn!”

  “You guys suck!” Matilda huffs as Alfie high-fives her. “How did you miss that? I was a fireman. Was it that bad?”

  The second Everit clears his throat, a sense of dread smacks the pit of my stomach. As he pushes his chair out, Molly grabs his arm. He shoots her a glance that says back off as he stands and leans over the table, planting his knuckles in a threatening pose.

  “No fucking wonder!” he broadcasts while looking at Matilda.

  The hair on my neck prickles as I prepare to war with him in reminder of our conversation.

  “No wonder what, Dad?” Matilda responds with an engaging smile.

  I wonder if she realizes he’s about to lambast her. Christ, and I thought those nuns breaking chair legs over my back was abusive. This man is a bloodthirsty brute. I guess this means he and I will need some more quality time together.

  He sits back down, and I let out the breath I was holding.

  “No wonder. You… Hell, Matilda. You…”

  I stand up to address Everit. He’ll cast a wide net of criticism for Matilda to get tangled up into, and I’m not about to let him ruin our dinner. She puts her hand on my shoulder, pushing me down as she rises with her chest thrust out and a cocky tilt to her head.

  “Dad.” She lowers her voice. “You don’t need to finish that. I am grateful…” She pauses with a counterfeit grin as her bottom lip quivers.

  I grip the sides of my chair so hard that I might bust the wood off the edge.

  “I am grateful for you, Dad. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if you hadn’t treated me the way you always have. Which I would sum up as: like shit. I have a backbone I’ve earned because of you. I have a life filled with creativity and love and passion that I’ve honed, and mined over the years because I was invisible to you and I sought myself elsewhere. I have the inner strength to deal with all kinds of people from all walks of life. I have an extraordinary love for animals and children. I can even deal pretty damn well with assholes like you.”

  I capture Matilda’s fingers, which are trembling against the tablecloth. She looks down to her hand then to my face. Her eyes are strained and glossed, her soft, peach lids normally popped wide with animation appear lead-like.

  “I can stand up to jerks and tell them I have everything I need without them because I have my own family. Balthazar, whom I love with all my heart, and Jax and Jinx, who I adore and cherish, who know they will always be loved by me. Because”—she inhales a sharp breath—“I will be sure to let them know how uniquely special they are. Lavinia is gone, Dad. So is Mom. And not even that trust fund you keep holding over my head can measure up to the love Balthazar is giving me. So you can take that money and this farm and anything else you think you have over me and you can shove it up your cancer-riddled ass and rot in hell for all I care. You are getting eaten from the inside out, and I’m not going to do a damn thing to help you, unless you change. And only if you change. You don’t deserve to have me in your life. Not that you’d notice me anyway. Not that you ever fucking have. You want forgiveness. Prove it!”

  Matilda takes possession of the glass trifle bowl in one hand and her champagne glass in the other. I’m guessing she’s heading upstairs for the night. I don’t blame her. I would imagine what she just said to her father was years in the making. Slivers will get pushed out of wounds eventually.

  “Oh, and one more thing. You might want to try this dessert, because I happen to kick ass in the kitchen.” She saunters around the table to Everit’s side. Then, in a swift one-two, she dumps the trifle on his head before dousing him with what’s left in her champagne glass.

  My stomach sinks, she may have just fucked everything up. On one hand, I’m proud as hell that she stood up to him, but hell, he’s got balls to match. Amazingly, Everit, who’s wiping the trifle off his face and licking his fingers is smiling, which immediately turns into a gut-busting laugh. He laughs and laughs and laughs, as does everyone else around the table. Then he seizes the champagne bottle and refills the empty glass Matilda just set in front of him.

  Matilda laughs through tears, with her head bowed. “I know you’re sick,” she says, nodding. “I know you want to be forgiven, anyway, that’s what Molly says. But you will not treat me like a secondhand daughter. You will not call me a slut. I won’t stand for your crap anymore. You can stay here, but things will need to change.”

  She turns, taking long strides to leave the dining room.

  “Matilda,” Everit barks, his mouth twisted in a cynical grin. She spins to face him. “You’re hard not to notice, after that performance. I might not deserve to have you in my life, but I’ll stay here if I want to. I highly doubt either of you wants to lose the farm or your trust, regardless of your dramatic speech. I’m a risk taker, but you’re walking a fine line girl. Not sure I’d gamble all that based on everything Balthazar shared earlier. Congratulations on finding your backbone, let’s put that thing to the test. See if you can use it to forgive me for being who I am. An asshole and jerk according to you.”

  27

  Matilda

  Each morning, I appear

  To lie at your feet.

  All day, I will follow

  No matter how fast you run.

  Yet I nearly perish

  In the midday sun.

  A Shadow

  November transitions into early December as Dad settles into our day to day. We’re sort of like one of those toys he recently bought for the twins: a solid lump of gritty sand that you chip away little by little, finding treasures and land mines as you go. It takes patience and care not to hammer too hard while seeking the treasures or moving around the explosive parts. You could destroy the lump in one blow
. It also takes time. Will we have enough time to get to all the buried treasure?

  “Jax, you’re cheating, you can’t jump that many spots. Let’s count together, one, two, three, four,” Dad says as he holds Jax’s pudgy fingers in his while hopping along the Candy Land path.

  I draw a card and move my piece forward three spots. Dad snatches a card from the pile and moves his piece.

  “Matilda, you need to work with the boys more closely on numbers. I know that’s not your thing since you stink at math but you can at least handle the one to one hundred stuff, can’t you?”

  I freeze in place as my ears get hot. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t pretend you’re any sort of genius.” He chuckles. “I’m just saying it like it is.”

  “Every time I think you’re being nice, you throw some stupid comment like that at me. Did you know you told me I couldn’t be a veterinarian because of my math grades? I would have loved working with animals. I still might!”

  He laughs and nods with a puffed out chest. “You need to be good at math, then. It’s a little late for that.”

  “You are insufferable!” I push away from the table as Balthazar stomps down the stairs shirtless, with wet hair from his shower.

  “What’s going on down here? You two need a ref?”

  “Nah, just a little disagreement,” Dad says, tapping his fingers on the tabletop.

  “Apologize!” I yell through a clenched jaw. I’m trying to deal with him. Trying to forgive him. I had no idea how damn hard forgiveness could be. It’s one thing for me to be working on forgiveness of Lavinia, the dead can be easier to deal with than those right in front of you. But Dad is a tough cookie to like. It’s as if he has no regulator on the nasty parts of his brain. How did my mother ever stand him? What did she see in him that I am not? Is love this blind?

  “For what?” he snaps back.

  “For humiliating me. I’m not stupid! Stop making me feel like I am! So what if I sucked in school!”

  “I said you stink at math. Sorry. Christ, you can be spineless. You should never have bragged about that backbone you claim to have worked so hard for,” he says, getting up from the table and strolling to the sink with his half-eaten dessert plate in hand.

  I shoot out of my chair and pace in a circle as I pick at my cuticles. “Maybe you ought to consider living out in the studio or what about a place in town?” Guilt seeps into every pore as I scratch my neck furiously.

  “I’m here to get to know you,” he says with a frown. “Now you want me gone? Isn’t it enough that I’ll be dead in a few months?”

  “Good, Dad, use the guilt card. I’m going to bed.”

  Balthazar tilts his head and scowls at me when our eyes meet.

  “Sweet dreams,” Dad mutters as I trudge up the steps. I dig my nails into my arm as I hear him muttering to Balthazar about how thin-skinned I am.

  I will not let him do this to me, will not, I think as I walk back down the steps. Balthazar smiles at me as he takes a bite of pie. Avoiding eye contact with Dad, I stroll to the sink for a glass of water. His dirty dish and fork stare up at me. And I’m his maid as well?

  “Stop talking behind my back, just…this is impossible.” Words leap out of my mouth. “You are impossible to be around, to live with. And do your own damn dishes, all right?”

  “I’ll do them,” Balthazar says as I stomp toward him. “Don’t fret over a few dishes, love.”

  “Don’t tell me how to act or what to do,” I whisper at his neck. “My dad already owns that role. And don’t tell me I’m being sensitive either.”

  I blow out a breath and adjust my shirt as I head up the stairs. Balthazar clutches my elbow as I hit step three. “I don’t need a fucking ref!” I spit out as my pulse quickens in agitation.

  “No? You could’ve fooled me. You two have some really lovely moments, but you also happen to be more alike than seems possible. You’re both stubborn. Let me talk to him. I’m only offering to help, okay? I’m the guy in love with you, remember?”

  “Thanks, but sometimes it feels like you’re the guy that’s on his side.”

  “You need me on both sides.”

  I finger my collarbone. “Sorry, yeah. Maybe I need a little break from him now and again. I’m trying to make this work, it’s not as easy as I was hoping it would be.”

  “You’re doing fine. I have an idea I’m going to toss out to him tonight, just trust me on this, all right?”

  Two days later we put his brilliant plan to work.

  “You think he’ll be happy living in this thing?” Balthazar asks as we mosey along the country roads, heading back to the farm from the Airstream dealership.

  Peeking over my shoulder at the massive space my dad will soon be calling home, I smile, knowing he’ll be pleased. Yes, a camper in our driveway. “This is perfect! It’s getting a little tight and hot under that roof in the farmhouse.”

  “Tight and hot?” Balthazar waggles his eyebrows, one hand reaching to grip my thigh.

  I double over, snorting and peeling his fingers back. “Stop! Fucking uncle! Stop already!”

  He lets my thigh go then steals the bag of chips from my lap.

  “Wouldn’t it be a blast to go cross-country in this thing with the boys?” I say, imagining us stopping at cool spots here and there as we traverse the country.

  “Someday, let’s do that. We can drive all the way to California. Just the four of us.” He nods, then adds while rolling his eyes, “Maybe Aesop too.”

  “Someday, when Dad’s…” I look out the window, my eyes sting. That tingle has started to feel way too familiar. This is why I need to try harder to connect, at some point time will run out. “Whatever.”

  “Hey, love. Listen. Your dad seems happy right now. Sure, he snaps now and again, but look at him. The things he’s done with the boys. Ice fishing. Reading them books every day. Playing Candy Land. That Candy Land game alone makes me want to put my head through a wall, and he’s fucking giddy playing it with them. He’s transformed himself from a killjoy to an okay guy. I actually like him now and again.”

  “You guys get along just fine. He and I have a long way to go, maybe this camper will help us. Funny, isn’t it?” I whisper as my throat tightens. “All of us on this farm, in this godforsaken cold-as-fuck winter…living side by side. We’re a family. A dysfunctional one, but still…a family.”

  When we arrive back at the farm, we’re welcomed by our lit-up home, thousands of lights canvassing every surface. It seems, these days, everything I do is driven by emotion, couched in the fact that my dad is running out of time. Which means I’m running out of time to get to know him. I figured every damn light we slammed up would be one more bit of bright hope and happiness for him. And me. Maybe that’s crazy thinking, or maybe that’s just my way of dealing with one love leaving and one growing.

  28

  Balthazar

  As a whole, I am both safe and secure.

  Behead me, and I become a place of meeting.

  Behead me again, and I am the partner of ready.

  Restore me, and I become the domain of beasts.

  What am I?

  Stable

  As Christmas nears we skate on the newly plowed ice rink we made this morning on the lake. I can’t help but try to read into the coming months, though I can’t imagine what’ll happen when Everit does pass. Oddly, he seems so damn healthy it surprises me that he’s sick. Healthy enough to spar with Matilda on a regular basis, and part of why I’m surprising her with a little weekend away. Matilda is strong in all sorts of beautiful ways, but I know this thing with her dad is chewing at her. Tears come easily to her these days, and the holidays are surely adding a layer of melancholy. I just want her to be happy, just want her to stay on the farm. I know I can’t pressure her with the stress she’s dealing with, but damn if I’m not going to do everything in my power to show her what she means to me.

  “I can still skate backward, klutzy or not!” Matilda cheers as she
spins, nearly falling onto the ice. She collects herself and continues skating away from me.

  All I see is a sore ass in her future. She’s giggling as she shuffles awkwardly on the bumpy ice. I chuckle when her arms flail and her skirt flips up, revealing her patterned tights. Her leg warmers stop just over her knees, making me want to lay her down fireside to explore everything above them.

  “You’re a gorgeous klutz, but, love…graceful you are not.” I laugh quietly as I skate past her, pecking her cheek with a kiss. “The stairs alone!”

  “My nemesis. That damned staircase.” She growls as she spins. “Although I did receive a rather nice first kiss after one particularly nasty trip down.”

  “Indeed you did.” I skate to her then throw my arm over her shoulder. “So, listen. Speaking of trips, I’d like to take you to Chicago this coming weekend.”

  Her face lights up. “A weekend? Nice. To what do I owe this honor?”

  “I just got word that one of my plays was sold to a theater in Chicago. I’m looking for some arm candy to celebrate it with. Plus a break from your dad for a weekend might be good for both of you. Hell and the best part, it’s an excuse to mess up some sheets with you.”

  “Oh my gosh! That’s amazing!” She glides under the branches of a willow tree, grabbing an armful of them to hold on to. “Congratulations! That sounds like a fun weekend! Arm candy and collaborator of all things dirty and sexy? Hell yes! I can fit that bill.”

  “You’re adorable.” I take hold of her waist. “It makes me want to flip that skirt of yours up and take care of you right now.” Our lips meet for a kiss. “Okay, then. Our first trip!” I say, pulling away.