Paper Stones

by Laurie Ray Hill

  And Jell-O! Him and Jenny is right about the same age when there’s a bowl of Jell-O. They mostly don’t eat it. What they want it for is to play with. They’ll bounce their spoons on it. Try sucking it through straws. They’ll stare at what all you can make it do, wrinkle up in little folds and bulge up in mounds. Get rude sucking noises out of it. Red is Dave’s favourite. Jenny likes pineapple. I often made them some on the weekends, and they had a grand old time.

  Our days with Jenny seemed to go by too fast.

  “Time flies like an arrow,” Dave says to her. “Mind you, fruit flies like a banana.”

  She laughed. She got it. She’s real smart.

  Dave goes down to the hardware store one day for sandpaper and comes home with sandpaper and a fish mould thing to make Jell-O in.

  “Look at this here,” he says, and he’s happy, taking it out of the wrapper. He can’t wait to see what Jenny thinks of a pineapple goldfish. He figures we should try it out ahead to make sure it works. Where the tail joins on looks like it might be too skinny and not come out. He don’t want her disappointed. He’s boiling water and mixing up the stuff, hollering in when I’m taking a shower to ask if he should grease the mould. He keeps checking it in the fridge, giving it a wiggle, poking it with his finger to see if it’s set, wondering if he should’ve made it orange like a real goldfish. The next morning it’s set nice. After work he’s playing at it again, getting ready to turn it out. I show him to soak it in warm water first, and it comes out in one piece. It’s smiling up at us off of the blue plate. Nothing will do for Dave but I have to take it to Jenny today when I go over.

  “How am I going to walk six blocks with a plate of Jell-O?”

  I usually walk, eh, for the exercise.

  But he’s out there fixing up a box so it don’t slide around in the back of the truck, and then he drives me over to Shourds Street, slow, not to wreck his fish.

  There’s Jenny standing at the window. Only certain family’s allowed into the foster home. But Dave sits out in the truck and watches. Jenny likes the fish. She waves and waves. He keeps waving back. Her and him, they give each other the thumbs up.

  I seen Dave cry a few times. He’d get thinking about his mother, who died three years before. She had a real rough time with cancer, eh. Went in her mouth and throat. Cruel way to go. It comes over him once in a while. He’ll put his face against me in bed. Then it’s my turn to be the grown person, and he takes a turn getting rocked.

  We talked about Jenny, and we talked about Josie and Brent. We talked about ourselves and the plans we were making. We could talk about anything.

  It was new to me at that time, all this being close to somebody, all this sweetness. I was waiting for it to turn sour some way. But, at least, now, I wasn’t thinking every five minutes that I’m a piece of garbage ripening up in the can, just waiting till Dave gets a whiff. At least I’d quit doing Ken. And it was slowly starting to sink into me that I might have a few good points. Maybe just because he loved me didn’t prove that Dave would have to be altogether crazy.

  I was living like a decent woman now.

  The quiet was weird. Going to work, liking it fine. Coming home, liking it more than fine. Working on personal growth in Group with my friends. Rocking Jenny. Reading to her. Knowing she was at least safe, there with the nice foster people. Colouring with her. Walking down through the park to the beach with Dave in the evenings. Sometimes we’d pack a picnic and eat it by the water, with the birds singing for spring and kids playing in the grass. Dave was working real steady, house building for the landlord’s friend. Dave loves building a new house, eh. So he’s happy. McIlveen’s give me a raise. Everything was working so smooth I couldn’t get used to it.

  I was normally worried about Josie and one or two of the others. But they all had a lull there that spring. Nothing blew up for weeks. It got real quiet.

  Once or twice I almost called my sister Sandra. I’m looking at the phone, itching to call her up and scream. I tried thinking I wanted to set her straight about that Ian creep of hers. I sure as hell did want to, as far as that went. But I knew that nothing I could say was going to help.

  No, I just plain wanted a fight. Never knew myself to want to go looking for a fight before.

  A funny thing started happening to me about that time. It was the next stepping stone, as it turned out. So I’ll tell yous all about it. But, frig, it scared me at the time. Didn’t know what was going on.

  Dave was asleep. I got up to pee and, on the way back, I stood and looked out the window. It was all quiet. Nice spring night. Moon full, sitting up there in a clear sky. And all of a sudden I couldn’t stand it. I was ready to howl. All this frigging peace and quiet! I wanted to put a brick through that happy little bedroom window. I would’ve gave anything to be doing warp speed in Marg’s car on an icy road again, maniac roaring after us. The quiet now was making me crazy! Nothing going on!

  The bedside lamp caught my eye. Fair-sized, black, china lamp, square metal base. Quite the corners to it. The moon was weird bright on it. I got the idea of taking that thing and smashing it over Dave’s head.

  That would stir up some action, wouldn’t it? Then he’d see what I was like. Wouldn’t take me for no good, kind, straightforward person.

  That black lamp with the silver edge of moonlight gleaming at me like an evil eye! Winking at me to do something strange and wild. I could feel my hands wanting to reach out for it. Like desire.

  Had to run out of the room.

  I’m charging up and down in the living room. Couldn’t tell what was wrong with me. Needed something wild, something bad, something to break up the quiet.

  Grabbed a magazine. Twisted it in my hands. Started ripping it. Threw the pieces all over the floor. Went at it with my teeth. Ripped it. Growled. Shook it like a dog.

  Then I cleaned it up and went back to bed. Lay there and thought, now what in the world was that?

  Dave rolled over and put his arm around me. I cuddled my back up against his nice warm belly and fell asleep feeling damn foolish.

  Two nights later, same thing all over again. This time I broke a bottle of mouthwash and poured it on the toilet. Not down the toilet. All over the place, the blue stuff flying around, that mint smell sharp, biting my airways. Splattering the walls. I was berserk in there. I seen my teeth in the mirror. I seen my blood running off my hand. It felt good to be bad. I liked the sting of the cut.

  Afterward, I thought, Jesus, I’m mental!

  Was I ever glad when Tuesday come! Knew enough by then to open my mouth.

  One thing I will say for Meredith. You can’t shock her. She has Heard It All.

  She told me that I probably had an adrenaline addiction.

  What? I wasn’t on nothing.

  “In a crisis, the body produces adrenaline. It floods the entire person. It affects digestion, heart rate, muscles. It affects the functioning of the brain.

  “You’ve had a lot of crises in your life, Rose. You’ve spent a great deal of time with a high level of adrenaline in your system. In the process of healing, as your life quiets down and the adrenaline level comes down, it’s normal to go through a period of craving and withdrawal.”

  I looked at her. “You’re telling me this is normal?”

  “Perfectly,” she says. “It’s a sign of how well you are doing.”

  “I threw Listerine all over the towels, deliberate.”

  “Towels are washable.”

  “I liked the way a cut felt. I bit a People magazine.”

  “There is no law against that.”

  “I’m not going nuts?”

  “You’re going sane. The two things can feel similar.” (She got that out of a book. I come across it myself, long time later.)

  Sally comes up to me in the break. Looks around to see that nobody’s listening and she says to me, she says, “I jumped u
p and down on a laundry hamper. Had to buy a new one. Nobody’d pissed me off. Nothing. I just took it into my head.”

  Marg joined the huddle. Told us that she’d been smashing jam jars with a hammer. Mind you, being Marg, she’s got it all planned out ahead. Only uses empties. Keeps them in the corner cupboard, with the hammer, all neat and ready for when the urge strikes. Stout box so the glass don’t fly around. Wears a snorkel mask.

  Tammy, she heard us hooting. (Just to picture that, eh! Marg, berserk, in a hot polka-dot pink little kids’ snorkel mask!) Tammy told us, with a red face, that she tore up her phone book. Can’t call nobody.

  After break, they all told Meredith.

  “When it’s happening,” Meredith says, “just hang on to the idea that this is normal and that it won’t last. It’s a shift. Something’s moving.”

  I made a stepping stone about it. I wrote, I don’t need to live in fire and flood. Wrote it on a green piece of paper. Tore it up once, in one of my times and threw it out of the mud room window. But I made it again. Soft green for calm and quiet. I can live in peace.

  I would’ve never thought that peace and quiet would be such a job to get used to!

  One day I looked at Dave. He had the window open, feet up on the windowsill, reading one of his books, and I’m telling you I needed so bad to rip that book out of his hands, hit him over the head with it, throw it out that window. I needed to hit him.

  Now, I could say it was for different reasons. His pyjamas was on the floor. Flies were getting in the window. Time was, I would’ve yelled the first thing that come handy. But I stand there, eh, and I know it’s this thing I’m going through. Nothing to do with Dave. I know that and I try to hold on, like Meredith said.

  Okay, this is normal. It ain’t going to last.

  Dave raises his head. Stands up. Takes a step towards me.

  I yell, “No!”

  He stops. I’ve told him all about this. He takes a pillow off the couch and tosses it to me, looking me in the eye like he’s a lion tamer.

  I caught that pillow, and then I let go like a stick of dynamite. Threw it down. Pounded it with both fists. Screamed at it every foul word I ever heard of. Bashed my head into it. Over and over. I was on my knees just beating on that thing, yelling that it had pretty near wrecked my fucking life.

  “You’re not my whole life! There is more to me. I’m going to have a decent life. I’m going to have a good life just to spite you!” Whack. Whack. Punch. Pound.

  By the time I got that out of me, and I’m laying there with my face on the floor, listening to the neighbour, Bertie, yelling up from downstairs, I knew this was another new step. Something had shifted again. That pillow had became my father.

  So of course, I’m over there, Tuesday, telling them that I found out I got this red-hot fury in me at my father. I could’ve frigging killed him. Bastard! Treating me the way he done when I was a helpless little kid!

  Meredith reminded me how I used to say he was just a poor old man who I ought to forgive now. “This is a major step forward, Rose. You’ve really made a shift. You’re in touch with your anger at your father.”

  “You’re sure this is going forwards? Wouldn’t I be farther ahead to forgive him?”

  “The time for that may come. But we’re not there yet. You see, Rose, as long as you were not able to feel angry at him for what happened when you were young, the anger inside you had to go somewhere else.”

  “I don’t know that I was mad at anybody, back then.”

  “You may not have been aware of it. But when people are being wronged, there is anger. If we are not allowed to express that anger to the person who is causing it, we divert the anger. We blame someone else. Where do you think your anger has been directed? Whom have you blamed all your life, Rose?”

  That was my Question to Think About.

  I said, “Smacking that pillow, I seen my father’s lump that he has in his jaw. His chin stuck out on one side of it. It was right in that pillow. I was pounding his face in.”

  Meredith got a look I couldn’t read.

  Frances looked at me steady, encouraging.

  Everybody waited.

  You could hear yourself breathe in that room.

  Not that it was going to be news to nobody. They all knew my dad was the one screwed me up. But I hadn’t came out with no details yet. That’s hard, eh. Saying them gross details.

  Okay. I figure I’m ready.

  Started fooling with me in the tub when I was a tiny little girl, pushing things up me, playing dirty with me. He had this metal thing. Couldn’t even tell yous what it was. Some silver-coloured thing he used to shove up me. Too big for me. He said it was to open me up. He said he was doing me a favour for when I got married. “There’d be nothing worse,” he used to say, “than if you got married and you didn’t know what to do on your wedding night.”

  I could tell I was different than other kids.

  When I said that, agreement sounds come out of most of them girls. There was heads nodded.

  That was them too, in the corner of their schoolyard, standing by themself against the fence. Not knowing that another person alive ever had to do that with their dad. Not knowing another soul ever felt so dirty and ashamed.

  I shut my eyes. Hot tears. I was seeing us poor little kids so plain. The coat too short or too long. Wet mitts. Nose running. Shoulders hunched. I seen us all clumping along in our schooldays rubber boots, trudging footsore, lonesome little girls on our long, long way to this table.

  Marg was sitting on one side of me and Josie on the other. I felt for Josie’s hand.

  The old shame took a twist inside me like a cramp. I twisted sideways towards Marg. With her nice baby powder smell. Her arm went around my shoulders. Josie gripped, firm, on my right hand.

  I said, “As soon as Dad could fit it in, he done that. It hurt. I wasn’t big enough. Ripped me. I was always bleeding. I never knew till I was grown up that it’s not supposed to hurt when you pee, let alone when you…. But if I tried to get away—”

  I choked. Marg’s arm got tighter.

  I says, “If I tried to get away…. In the boiler room. He got my sister Sandra if I wouldn’t. He used to make me help, to teach me not to run away. I had to hold her hands from scratching and cover her mouth from biting him. I helped him.”

  The way it hurt to come out with them words! Like I swallowed a fishhook. This was ripping it back up my throat. I must have been crushing Josie’s hand, but she never flinched away.

  I needed to come out with some more words. I hadn’t said it all yet. Like when you know you’re not done up-chucking.

  I hear Marg’s voice, “Did your mom know?”

  I let out a gasp from her touching on that sore spot.

  “Yeah.”

  After that was just Kleenex and Meredith’s questions.

  “Did I understand you to say that your mother was aware of what was taking place?”

  I says, “Yes. She was aware.”

  “And do you feel angry with her for not having protected you?”

  “Oh, no. My mom was real nice. I always felt guilty.”

  “What did you feel guilty for?”

  “Being a slut. Doing it with her husband.” I hung my head and mumbled that.

  “But,” Meredith says, “that was not your doing, Rose. You were a tiny child when your father started to condition you to abuse. Do you believe that it was your responsibility to look after your mother in that situation?”

  See? Bass ackwards again.

  Why was I so mixed up? Where did I ever get the idea that I was to blame because I didn’t take better care of my mother? How come I never once thought about the idea that she could’ve took better care of me?

  Meredith said that’s a normal type of confusion. Because it’s far too frightening for a little child to blame
the mom and dad.

  I tried to put myself in the place of a kid and think it through. What if your own mommy is crazy? And your dad’s twisted? Jesus, what would you do? They’re in charge. You can’t get away. It give me a whiff of a nightmare panic feeling in my chest just to think of it. So apparently, kids always choose to blame theirself.

  “Blaming one’s self is extremely painful but it’s not so terrifying as the alternative,” Meredith said. “Considering one’s parents evil or insane is too frightening. No young child will ever do that.

  “Learning to see them in that light and to put the blame where it’s due,” she said, “is a major shift, a giant step toward a mature perspective.”

  I walked home in a haze. Lot to think about.

  I was still thinking about it when I was sitting at the table in the foster home, two days later, doing a puzzle with Jenny.

  She’s saying, “No. It needs to have some of the bear’s ear. Mommy is good at doing puzzles.”

  “Yeah,” I says, “she always was.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, your mom’s my sister, eh. When we were little girls, we done things like this together.”

  “Do you love my mommy?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You don’t play with her now.”

  “Well, I’m mad at her right now, but that don’t mean I don’t love her.”

  “Why are you mad at my mommy?”

  Jenny’s got the same knack as Meredith for putting her finger on the Question of the Week. Jenny sits there looking at me with her clear eyes. Her pigtails make me think of two big question marks, like as if you could see the questions popping out the sides of her head.

  “Why am I mad at your mommy? Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I don’t believe you should have to live here, sweetheart. I think your mommy should make it so you can live with her.”

  “Mommy says you made me come here.”

  “She does, eh?”

  “But I told her Mrs. B. made me.”

  That’s the social worker on Jenny’s case.