by Megan Hart
His brother was still staring out at the funnel cloud, closer now, moving no faster but definitely heading right for them. Jeremy pushed past him to get at the motor, which didn’t want to start no matter what he did to it.
“The motor’s fucked,” Jeremy said.
“So, what do we do?” Kelsey asked.
Ty had been with a lot of whiny women, real pains in the ass. Even knowing her in a way his brother didn’t, Jeremy had expected her to get hysterical. At the very least, to look scared. But other than that initial scream, she’d maintained her calm better than Sheila, who was up front freaking out while Duane helped her with the first-aid kit.
“We secure everything as best we can so if that funnel hits us — when it hits us, we can make it through without capsizing. Without the motor, the worst thing that can happen is the mast breaking,” Jeremy said.
Ty shook his head. “The worst thing that could happen would be for the boat to sink, bro.”
“If the mast breaks, we’ll have no way of getting anywhere!”
Kelsey stepped between them, a hand on each of their chests. “Stop fighting and get everything taken care of. We don’t have time. What do you need to do? What can I do to help?”
Ty barked out a series of orders Jeremy could see she didn’t understand. “Just…follow what I do. We’ll start securing everything.”
Kelsey nodded, her expression strained, but again without panic. She started working along side him and Ty while Duane got Sheila under control. They didn’t have time, the funnel was almost upon them. Now there was wind, but too much of it. Spray slashed at them, making everything slippery and swollen and hard to work with. The storm had no distinct shape now. It was all wind and water.
It engulfed them.
22
The wind’s strong enough to rattle the windows, even the ones with the bars on them. Kathy should be comforted by the bars, since it means nothing can get through the glass, no reaching tree fingers like in the movie she wasn’t supposed to watch and wishes she hadn’t. But of course they mean she can’t get out, either.
It’s for safety, Grandma says. So nobody can come in the night and steal from them. The TV, the rings that Grandpa bought her, the diamond earrings. The money she stashes under her mattress for emergencies — Kathy’s not supposed to know about that money, but she does. Somehow knowing it’s there, protected only be a cardboard box, comforts her. She could steal it someday, if she ever was brave enough to run away.
Now Kathy is in her bed, the blankets pulled up to her chin, her toes still cold. She should be sleeping. She has school in the morning. A science test. She studied hard for it, because her teacher, Mrs. Feinstein, told Kathy she has a real talent for science. She should consider being a doctor or something like that. Mrs. Feinstein says Kathy’s smart enough to do anything she wants to. Be anything she wants to. She hopes Kathy will “settle down” and “pay attention” and “make an effort.”
Mrs. Feinstein has no clue.
Still, Kathy studied hard for the test not because she doesn’t want to disappoint her teacher, but because she believes what Mrs. Feinstein said. Kathy can be and do whatever she wants…if she can get away from this house. At twelve, she can’t get a job, and she doesn’t want to live on the streets. Whatever’s out there could be worse than what happens in here. At least here in Grandma’s house, Kathy knows how to play the game.
She listens to the sound of the wind outside. The trees creak. If she closes her eyes, she can pretend she’s on a boat in a stormy sea. It even feels like it’s rocking. Her bed a boat, a cradle, tipped by a loving hand to ease her into sleep. Like long ago her mother must’ve done, or would’ve done if she’d hung around for longer than a few days after Kathy’s birth. Her mother would’ve loved her, Kathy thinks, if only she’d stayed.
Your mother was a no-account whore, Grandma said. She got knocked up and ran off and left you behind, but I took you in because I love you, Kathy. I took care of you because it’s my duty to make sure you’re raised up right.
Kathy pointed out once, and only once, that Grandma had been the one to raise her mother, the no-account whore.
That was two years ago, before Grandpa got so sick, and he took Kathy to the hospital when Grandma hit her so hard everything went black and wouldn’t come into focus. Grandpa said she’d fallen down the stairs, and the doctors seemed to believe him. Two days after Kathy came home, Grandpa was in the hospital. Stroke, they said. He’d never help Kathy again.
The wind screams soft and low outside the window. It sobs. The sound is so sad, it makes Kathy want to sob too. She curls onto her side, hugging her pillow, trying hard to fall asleep because tomorrow she has school and a test and if she’s too tired she won’t be able to do her best. But it’s so hard to fall asleep when she’s listening to the wind outside the window, and for the sound of footsteps in the hall outside the door, because tonight at dinner Grandma had been silent and frowning, barely speaking. That was never good. It was bad when she laughed, but when she said nothing, that was much worse.
Kathy sleeps.
Kathy dreams.
In her dreams, Kathy is taller, with blonde hair, and her teeth are not gray and broken. In her dreams, Kathy wears pretty dresses and high heels and makeup, and people look at her without making their eyes shift away, their mouths scrunching up in pity. They look at her like they like what they see. In her dreams, Kathy laughs.
Her laughter wakes her, and she stretches in her bed, feeling her joints snap and pop. For a moment, with her eyes still closed, she listens to the still moaning wind and feels residually happy. Then she hears the soft shush of slippers on the hard wood floor, and though she wants to cling to that dream, she knows it’s too late. It’s already over.
It will be worse if she doesn’t open her eyes, but once she does, Grandma will know she’s awake. She opens her eyes. Grandma stands over her with that look on her face that says she’s going to make Kathy do some things.
Some bad things.
“Get up.”
Kathy pushes the covers back with her feet and swings them over the side of the bed. The floor’s cold. The air’s cold. She shivers, hugging herself. The bed is between her and Grandma, and that’s a good thing. It means she’ll have time to brace herself if Grandma tries to hit her. She doesn’t always hit, but when she does it’s always hard and in places that hurt a lot but won’t show bruises to strangers.
“It’s time to clean the basement, Kathy. It’s filthy. And since you’re the filthy girl, you should be the one to clean it. Am I right, Kathy? Am I right?”
“Yes, Grandma.”
Grandma’s voice sounds far away, and she stares like she’s looking far away too. Her hands rub at the front of her housedress. Rub, rub. Her fingers curl like hooks. Like claws. She bunches the fabric in her fists, lifting the hem to show off her bony knees, white flabby thighs with blue veins like spiderwebs.
In the basement, she watches from the wooden stairs as Kathy goes to the bucket of supplies already set out for her. Grandma’s hand rubs on the banister. Her palm makes a scratchy sound.
“Clean it up, Kathy. Clean up the mess. All of it. And don’t think that just because I’m upstairs that I can’t pay attention, that I won’t know if you’re doing a good job or not.”
The stairs creak and groan like the trees outside Kathy’s window when Grandma goes upstairs. The door closes with a click. Then the sound of the lock. At least she didn’t turn off the lights — there’ve been times when she put Kathy down here in the dark, but if she wants Kathy to clean, there has to be light. That’s something to be glad for, anyway.
It feel warmer down here than upstairs. The concrete floor is dry and stained, with large lighter areas where Kathy’s cleaned it in the past. Concrete walls are thick with mold in places where water has come in, but those are never the spots Grandma makes her clean. In one corner is a towering heap of cardboard boxes in all shapes and sizes. Grandma keeps every box from every packa
ge that comes to the house or anything she buys in the store. She says you never know when you’ll need a good box to put something in, but Kathy’s never seen her even once take a box off the pile once it’s been put on it.
Grandma’s laid out the bucket, the mop and scrub brush, the plastic jug of bleach. A stinking puddle of ammonia is already on the floor with the bottle beside it. That’s the mess she expects Kathy to clean. Grandma’s always been very specific. Kathy is to mop up the spill until the floor is as dry as she can make it. Then use the bleach.
Kathy’s learned to cover her mouth and nose with the neck of her nightgown when she pours the bleach onto the wet spot, because as soon as she does, a stinking cloud that burns her throat and lungs and eyes comes up. The first time she did it, she didn’t follow Grandma’s directions as closely as she should. She’d passed out from the gas. She thought Grandma had been disappointed it hadn’t killed her. Since then she’s careful to blot up the ammonia, then mop it up as best she can without being able to use water on it. Then she tips the bleach bottle over and leaps away as fast as she can and waits for it to settle down before mopping again.
Tonight, the puddle of ammonia’s so close to the box tower that when Kathy leaps away, she bumps into a teetering pile. Lungs burning, eyes tearing, she manages to keep them from falling into the spill, which would be horrible. Blindly, she slaps her hands against the cardboard. She moves around the side of the box tower and sinks to a squat, protected a bit from the gas by the wall. Taking short, shallow breaths through the scant protection of the flannel, she lets her eyes tear to rinse themselves.
But she’s not crying. No. There’d be no point in that.
Upstairs, the floor creaks under Grandma’s pacing feet. If Kathy strains, she might hear the squeak of Grandpa’s wheelchair, but for now she’s content to squat with her face pressed to her knees and wait for it to be safe to finish the job. She turns her face to the side to let the flannel absorb more of the tears running down her cheek.
There’s a box there, revealed by the shift in the tower. Not a cardboard box, but one of wood. Carved wood. It smells of cedar and has the name of an amusement park on it. Kathy’s never been to the park, but kids at school have talked about it. She’s never been on a roller coaster or a merry-go-round. She thinks she might like one or the other, but not both.
The box is in her hand before she’s quite aware of grabbing it. It leaves a hollow among the other boxes, like that game kids play at school with the stacks of rectangular blocks, each player taking a turn at pulling one out while trying not to topple the tower. The wood is smooth on the sides. She traces the carvings with her fingertips. She lifts the lid.
Letters.
They’re addressed to Kathy, all of them with the same name but different return addresses in the upper left corner. The letters aren’t in any order, and the mailing dates range from just after Kathy was born to a couple years ago. Every single one’s been slit opened with the precision she recognizes. Grandma uses a special letter opener engraved with her initials. Grandma’s read these letters.
They’re from Kathy’s mother.
She did not abandon Kathy and run off, at least not without ever trying to care for her again. It’s hard to tell, but from what her mother wrote it would seem that Grandma has kept her up to date with made up stories about Kathy’s health, her grades, how many friends she has. The Kathy in these letters is popular and pretty and not a lick of trouble. And, according to Grandma’s letters, she doesn’t want to see her mother at all. Her mother sent her love, over and over, pleading to see her daughter but “understanding” that the “time wasn’t right.”
Kathy’s hands shake.
She folds the letters and puts them back into their envelopes. She can’t be sure Grandma won’t notice something’s different, and normally that would scare her. Kathy doesn’t feel scared. She doesn’t feel much of anything.
The stain on the floor is lighter than the rest of the concrete and still damp, but she doesn’t finish mopping it up. She takes the bucket and fills it with the rest of the ammonia in the bottle. She takes the bucket by the metal handle. She takes the jug of bleach.
She goes upstairs.
In the kitchen, Grandma is feeding Grandpa from a jar of baby food. Something orange. Peaches or carrots. It dribbles over his chin and onto the bib, and she scrapes the spoon along his chin to catch it. She looks up when the door opens. She stares at Kathy in the doorway, and her eyes gleam. She frowns.
“What are you doing up here? You’re not finished already.”
Kathy puts the bucket on the table across from Grandma. It makes a clunk. It’s the first time Kathy’s ever seen Grandma look confused, and maybe a little scared.
“I’m not finished,” Kathy says. “Some things are still filthy.”
Then she pours the bleach into the bucket.
23
When Tyler was six, his great-uncle Vic died, and they all had to go to the funeral. Ty had been excited to see the coffin and Uncle Vic inside. He wanted to know if Uncle Vic was like a vampire, all pale with red lips and his hands folded on his chest. He wondered if maybe Uncle Vic would open his eyes and sit up during the funeral and scare the poop out of everyone, because Uncle Vic always liked to play jokes like that on everyone. At Halloween every year he always sat on his porch in a scarecrow outfit and when the little kids came up to ring the bell, he’d jump up and make them pee their pants. He was going to let Ty help him by dressing up as a pumpkin head, but instead, Uncle Vic had eaten too much for dinner one night and gone to bed with heartburn and didn’t wake up.
Halfway through the service, the smell of lilies had started making Ty feel sick. Super sick, like he was going to blow chunks. The room was too hot, with too many people in it, and his mom had made him wear a suit. The tie was choking him. His mom and Gramma were both crying into their hankies, and when he said he needed to go get a drink of water, his mom got mad and told him just to sit. She wouldn’t tell him how long it would be before he could go up and look in the casket, either. He just had to sit and wait. For the first time he envied Jerm for getting to stay home, where he could watch TV and eat saltine crackers, because he had the stomach bug.
By the time the preacher stopped talking and people started lining up, the smell of lilies was so thick in Ty’s nose and throat he thought it might kill him. Actually, killing him would’ve been better, because as it was his stomach was already crawling up his throat. He tugged his mom’s sleeve, but she hissed at him to be quiet. Stand still, wait your turn in line. For God’s Sake, Tyler, be respectful!
By the time they got up to see Uncle Vic, the room had started spinning. The lilies with their drooping white and red petals looked like some kind of monster plant from outer space. The smell had become like some solid thing, suffocating him. Just as it was their turn to get to the kneeler, Ty bent forward and heaved everything he’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours into the pot of lilies. He drew in a choked breath, and the smell made him puke all over again.
It was that smell now. It covered him. Wind, rain, water, all of it was gone and nothing but that stink remained. It drove him to his knees. Jerm was screaming something about the mast, about getting the boat under control, and in the back of his brain Ty knew he needed to get on his feet again or they were going to capsize. He couldn’t move.
His girl was screaming something at him, but he couldn’t hear her. She slipped on the deck and caught herself. Her knees were raw, bleeding, her hair a tangled and sodden mess. Her bikini top had come undone, and despite everything else, he still found it within himself to admire her tits. Kelsey had an amazing rack.
She turned to his brother, both of them shouting, Jerm waving his hands. Bastard had to be checking out her boobs, and a slow rise of anger forced Ty halfway to his feet before the smell sent him back to a crouch. On his hands and knees, he pressed his forehead to the deck and felt the boat rolling under them. The cooler slid past him, hit the railing and tipped int
o the sea, leaving behind only a couple bottles that broke and sprayed glass everywhere.
Kelsey’s foot came down on one big piece. There was blood, red against the white deck and then pink as the water washed it away. If she screamed, he still didn’t hear her. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t get up. Could do nothing but cling to the rolling, rocking deck and wonder if he was going to die from the stink of lilies.
And then…just like that…it was gone.
The wind, the water, the smell. Ty managed to lift his head. The boat rocked but quickly calmed. In front of him, Kelsey was sitting with her foot cradled in Jerm’s lap. He was probing at the cut and plucked out a piece of glass while Ty watched. Her blood stained everything. Before Ty could even get up, his brother had pulled his t-shirt off and pressed it against her foot.
Neither of them seemed to notice she was still bare-breasted. Ty pulled his own shirt off and took it to her. “Put this on.”
She looked up at him with wide eyes, her face wet but not, at least not that he could see, from tears. She blinked rapidly and winced as Jerm did something to her foot. She reached for Ty’s hand.
“Are you okay?”
He felt like a shit. She’d been injured. The boat, double shit, not capsized but definitely put out of commission. And what had he done? Gone down like a pussy, and why? Because of a smell?
Even thinking of it now his stomach lurched. His throat burned with bile. He coughed, hard, turning his head to the side and leaning over the railing when the coughing didn’t ease and he thought he might actually puke. He felt her hand on the back of his neck and straightened to see her looking at him with concern, her hurt foot lifted off the deck.
“What the hell happened?” Ty shrugged off her touch, thinking of how tenderly his brother had held her foot. How casually Jerm had ignored her tits, like he’d seen them a dozen times already.
From the front of the boat came screaming, hoarse and desperate. His brother pushed past him, and Kelsey made to follow but Ty reached out to grab her arm. He pulled a little too hard, because she had to put her foot down to keep her balance. It hurt her, he could see that, but she didn’t cry out.
