Paper Stones

by Laurie Ray Hill

  I said, “Do you want to know how his jaw got to be like it is? His father, my grandfather, kicked him in the face when he was seven years old. Shoved him down on the floor and kicked his face in.”

  Oh God. I just wanted it over.

  I moaned to good old Marg all the time. She knew. She’s been through a court case.

  “If only Meredith wasn’t going to be there!”

  “Meredith won’t bite you.”

  “She’s bit me before.”

  Lawyer Frank, he got hold of my sister. Explained things. Asked her, polite, if she would be willing to take part. Told her it was to benefit Jenny. Jenny was not safe while this man was at large. For her sake and for the sake of all other children who might come into contact with him, it was a matter of great importance. There was only one other witness so far. And it might come down to my word against our father’s. Sandra’s evidence was going to be crucial.

  She said to fuck off, so he subpoenaed her.

  I’m in the back room dumping on Marg again one day in the spring. She’s trying to pry out of me what I’m so scared of about Meredith coming.

  I’m pretty near crying. “I don’t know what of!”

  Young Meghan walks in and says, “Aunt Rose,” she says, “sometimes it helps to cut out pictures of the things that can scare us.”

  I look at the kid. The bright eyes on her. Her and Marg take a glance at each other. Meghan grabs a stack of magazines, plunks a pair of scissors on the top of it, holds it out to me.

  Don’t matter how often I do this kind of thing. It always starts out feeling like a dumb waste of time. I always have what the shrinks call Resistance. Feel foolish. Think there’s not going to be, in no magazine, a picture of what I need to look at.

  “Do you need help, Rose?” I could just hear Meredith asking me that.

  No. Dammit. Not your help, I don’t. You pretty near wrecked my frigging life, Meredith.

  Then, of course, there’s the picture that I need. My thumb stops the pages. I open the magazine out flat. Milk ad. Cow. And of course, the page, it just happened to be tore right across. Only word left under that tail-less cow was Good.

  “Seek and ye shall find,” the way Sally puts it. “Knock and the door shall be opened unto you.”

  Cheryl, my First Nations friend, she’ll tell you life’s all about the spirit’s quest. Go looking. Whether you look at the stones under your feet or the clouds over your head. Apparently, the pictures in the magazines, the lines in your hand, will do. Long as you’re looking and seeking with your heart wide open.

  It’s all universe. And Tao, he’ll tell you that the universe is nothing but patterns of meaning.

  (That philosopher dog of Josie’s, eh, he raised his head when Tao come out with that. Got this intelligent look on him. You’d have swore he was getting ready to give his own opinion.)

  Anyways, there I am, cutting out the ripped cow. Good, it says. If I ever seen a frigging omen, that was it.

  Who knows, eh? Maybe something bigger than any of us was leading me by the hand, there, helping me along. Maybe we all got good parents, if we look for them. Look up at the sky and call it our Father. Look at the earth and call it our Mother. Maybe it’s true. Howard I. Know?

  Alls I know is that you’ve got to quit struggling like a drowning person and find a way to trust that you can float.

  46.

  HOTEL WAS DOING FAMOUSLY. Al was over at our place one night and we showed him the books. Good thing he was sitting down. He nearly passed out (Al’s one to faint, eh). Melted right back on the couch cushions.

  Dave was laughing at him. “Never thought you’d see that kind of a number for our bottom line, did you Dad?”

  Al takes a swig of water. Wipes his mouth on his sleeve. He says, “I’d have took that for a long distance phone number.”

  Dave sits and chuckles.

  We still have our same place, eh, that we bought off of old Elmer. Still no hydro. Heat with the wood stove. We stay over at the lodge a lot. But we like to get away and come home here. Specially in nice weather. Be ourselves. Relax. Kind of like having a cottage that you can walk to.

  Jenny’s laying on the floor with her arm around Josie’s dog, both of them, for all I know, reading the future in the fire.

  When Jenny was going to bed, she said, “Ann Toes? You always say that I’m a good person.”

  “You are.”

  “Well, then, why did I go to the cave?”

  “Good people can do wrong things.”

  (Like me sneaking up the back stairs to that jerk Dirk’s place. The pull of that, eh. Going after the adrenaline rush.)

  “There’s a pull to certain things, Jenny.”

  She says, “Not just for me?”

  “Oh, no. Heck no. Lots of people feel a pull towards all kinds of things that can make their heart thump faster. I’ve been there myself.”

  “And that’s not bad?”

  “Well, feeling the pull ain’t bad. Nobody can help what they feel. Going with it, though, that’s what can lead to trouble. We got a choice about whether or not we do things. Got to use our brains.”

  “But it’s such a strong pull!”

  I says, “Where you went wrong was keeping it secret, not letting nobody help you.”

  “I told you about it.”

  I says, “No, you didn’t. You wouldn’t tell us what was going on or what you were feeling or nothing. You cut us off. You can’t pull back against them bad things all on your own.”

  (I thought of how hard Marg pulled for me that time I had the crush on the carpenter.)

  I says, “Jenny,” I says, “it’s like a tug of war. You get some other people pulling with you, and that’s how you win.”

  “But,” she says, “I was on both sides.”

  She’s so smart.

  She cuddled up to me. I stroked her pretty hair.

  47.

  THE COURT CASE COME ON. Getting dressed to go, I was worked up into a panic. “What are we going to do if we lose? We’ll never get away from him! We’ll be jumping at shadows all our life!”

  Dave’s trying to remember how to tie a tie.

  They had my father sitting there. Poor old bugger. Looked like the rockslide had just brained him. He’s blinking out from under.

  Marg’s on the one side of me and Dave on the other. Al next to him. Sally, with Tao’s grandma, holding hands, in the row beside us (Sally’s long, white fingers and grandma Zhou’s old veiny yellow ones squeezing together there).

  Plus, you know, eh, all of Dave’s aunts and uncles that are retired. Jan was home with the kids, but Tom was there. A good amount of Strone squeezed in at the back. John, the furniture maker. Old Elmer and his buddies. The hardware guy and his partner (Sally used to be in there so much, eh, they’re pretty near family). Josie didn’t seem to want to come. Alls she said was something about a flat tire.

  I looked around and I thought of what me and Jenny were talking about, how it helps to have people pulling for you.

  I hadn’t saw my sister Sandra since the night at the hospital. There she was. Looked about the same. Sitting fiddling with her purse strap. Enough makeup for ten whores, as Al would say. High heels. Tight sweater.

  Hurt my heart to look at her. God, I wished she would get some help! Dig herself out of the rockslide.

  I wondered what she’d say here today. Please God, let her do this one thing for Jenny! Just this once. Let her tell the hard facts. Let her see that’s the only thing that helps. Just face it. Tell her story, plain and true. Put up with the pain.

  I didn’t see Meredith no place.

  I’m in my numb state that I go into, which has its time and place, I’m telling yous. It’s like what they shoot into your jaw at the dentist. I’m like one big fat froze face.

  There’s a Legal Aid lawyer
up there getting paid to say that my father’s an inoffensive senior citizen. Under the freezing, I can feel this lawyer’s talk drilling into me.

  The old man sits and blinks. You have to feel sorry for him, the way he looks.

  They get him up and he tells the court his daughter Rose is a liar. I’m rich and he’s poor. I never lifted a finger to help him. Left him living in a cave. What kind of a daughter is that? And now I just want to get him put away so I don’t have to share nothing with him or look after him in his last years.

  The Legal Aid fellow asks him if I ever invited him into my home or even shared a meal with him.

  “No, she never did. My younger daughter Sandra will have me over for a meal. But Rose, there, she always treated me like a leper.”

  The Legal Aid fellow quits jabbering, and our lawyer Frank gets to start. He’s got all them words, same as Meredith. “Incest, childhood sexual abuse, misuse of authority, cruel, violent, inappropriate…”

  He worked up to finish his opening talk with a splash, talking about the long-term impact on the quality of life of these two women present, Albert Underhill’s daughters, Sandra and Rose.

  I see Frank sneak a look at his watch, and I figure he’s thinking, like I am, where the hell is Meredith?

  Well, the thing dragged on. Frank, he tried to trick the old man into letting something slip. “When were you last in contact with your daughter Rose?”

  “She run off with some young buck when she was fifteen. Broke her poor mother’s heart. Since that, I only ever seen her at Sandra’s, the odd time.”

  “And you never attempted to contact her, at any time, until you learned that her father-in-law, Mr. Allan Smith, had won the provincial lottery. Is that correct?”

  “First I heard was I seen it in the paper. I wasn’t even asked to the wedding.”

  “Did the newspaper that you saw publish a picture of your daughter?”

  “No. Her husband’s father. That looks like him over there.”

  “Mr. Underhill, how did you know that the person referred to in the newspaper was in fact your daughter?”

  “Seen her name.”

  “Your daughter now goes by her married name. In an internet search, I discovered over two thousand women by the name of Rose Smith. And I asked myself, Mr. Underhill, how did you know that the Rose Smith referred to in the news was in fact your daughter?”

  Dad said it was just a hunch, but lawyer Frank kept on at him about it.

  He said, “Her picture has not been published, but the life story of the Rose Smith present here today has been widely publicized. It has been reported in the media that the Rose Smith present in this court has a history of severe sexual and physical abuse by her father. Details have been revealed. I believe that you recognized those details. Did you know that story because you were a part of that story? Mr. Underhill, were you, in fact, the villain of that horrific story?”

  I thought Frank was going pretty good there, but the Legal Aid fellow, he stood up and whined some objection. So the old man never had to answer that question.

  Then they get Sandra up.

  “Ms. Underhill, going back to your memories of childhood, would you tell the court what was the nature of your relationship to your father?”

  Sandra, she stands there, eh, blinking, like the old man. She don’t know what to say. Never breathed a word to nobody about the horrible, dirty secret thing of her childhood. Thinks she’ll crumble into dust if she ever does tell that she done it with her father. It’s awful hard to come out with, even when you got lots of support.

  But, in a place like this, with a big judge up there looking down at you, and your sister (who you’re not speaking to), and everybody your sister knows, gawping at you—!

  There’s me, praying again. God Almighty, if you are merciful like Sally claims, let my sister come out with it!

  Frank, he worked on Sandra with a crowbar.

  No. She didn’t remember nothing about her childhood.

  Not a thing. Nope. Sorry.

  Could she call to mind her home life as a teenager?

  No.

  What was the earliest time she was able to recall?

  She didn’t know.

  Could she describe the dwelling place where she lived as a child?

  Old green clapboard house on Ferry Street.

  Did it have a basement?

  Yes.

  Did she have any memories associated with that basement?

  No.

  Her father was a janitor at the public school she and her sister attended. Was that correct?

  Yes.

  Did she have any memories associated with the janitor’s mop closet, in particular, or the boiler room?

  The other lawyer objected. But the judge, he let the question stand.

  But Sandra just lied and said no.

  Did she have any memories associated with school?

  No.

  Did she have any impression as to whether her upbringing had been happy or otherwise?

  None at all. No.

  When was the last time she saw her father?

  Finally my sister told Frank, “Look,” she said, “lots of people has worse problems than what we ever had. If you don’t believe that,” she said, raising her voice, “just go take a look around Sick Kids’ Hospital!”

  I’m thinking, Sandra, if you got a flat tire, you got a flat tire. Nobody says it’s the worst problem in the world. But you better stop and take a look at it. What else are you going to do? Drive on the rim the rest of your life?

  That’s what I’m saying to all of yous, that have got flat tires, eh. Pull over. Get yourself jacked up. Undo the bolts. Find the leak. Get her patched and pumped up. As Dave says, there’s no use in yapping about somebody else that’s blew a head gasket. That don’t fix your tire.

  The judge, he needs bifocals and won’t admit it yet. Spends his life putting his glasses off and on, sliding them up and down his nose. He don’t look too impressed with nothing he’s heard so far. It was plain to see lawyer Frank wasn’t doing so good now. I could hear Al bitching in Dave’s ear about the money we were paying him to stand up there and accomplish blank all, by the hour.

  So then they got me up. It’s a good thing I’m froze solid. I tell the dirty old story like it’s somebody else’s. None too convincing, likely. I sound like a robot. Can’t help it.

  Did I remember my childhood?

  “Yes, sir.”

  Could I tell the court about it?

  My voice wouldn’t come out very good. “My father there done it to me.”

  “Could you clarify that for the record? What did he do to you?”

  We dragged through the whole nine yards, the stuff that nobody wants to hear. The metal thing he shoved up me.

  What was the metal thing?

  I didn’t know. Round at one end. Shiny.

  I had to tell that room full of my neighbours that, when I was a little girl, it always hurt me to pee. I told about the times I got burnt, what, exactly, he done to Sandra in the cellar. The both of us in the closet. The boiler room.

  When it was done, I sat back down beside Dave. He whispered that I done good. I wasn’t even shaking yet. I was thinking, thank God Meredith wasn’t here. Then I’m thinking, but she should be. We need her.

  Frank, he called a doctor up, and the doctor said yes, she had examined my scars. Yes, it was possible that those in my genital area were caused by the means described in my testimony. It would be difficult to account for them otherwise. No, she could not be certain. Yes, the scars on my back were the result of burns, probably sustained in childhood. Yes, it was reasonable to believe that I could have been thrust and held against an object such as a boiler pipe.

  Thanks very much, doctor.

  Where’s frigging Meredith?

 
Frank’s stalling around, and that’s what he’s thinking, I’m sure. We need Meredith to show up and say what she knows about me and my long-term suffering.

  Otherwise it’s coming down to my word against the old man’s.

  I sit there wondering, like I’ve been wondering over and over all year, how we’re going to be able to keep Jenny safe from him if they don’t put him away. Are we always going to be worried about her like we were last summer? Jumping out of our skin every time she’s out of sight? What are we going to have to do? Sell the hotel and move? Change our name? Hide? Will we be able to hide, the way the papers love us?

  And, even if we can get Jenny away from him, how many other kids has he got time to fuck up before he dies? Plus, I’ll have my work cut out just to keep Dave from murdering him.

  Frank sounds like he’s running out of filler. Meredith better come soon, and, please God, make it good. She’s about the only gleam of hope.

  Finally we hear a little commotion at the back. There’s Meredith. Smaller than I remember. She’s apologizing to the judge for being late. Says she had car trouble.

  Frank calls her, and she’s on the stand.

  She was halfway through her first words, telling the court she had been working with me in her role of psychologist for the Family Services Alliance during the period of—

  She glanced at the people sitting there. And then she seen my father. Well, the colour Meredith turned! Same shade as the tasteless redecorating at that place where Josie and Sally used to work. Sick grey. She leaned forwards, fingers white on the brown wood.

  The court police guy, he come speedwalking.

  Town of Strone quit breathing.

  “Are you unwell, Dr. Debenham?” That’s Frank.

  The judge, he’s chiming in too, asking if an ambulance is needed.

  “That chin!” she says.

  She wasn’t loud, but they heard it in the back row. Some said, afterwards, that what she said was, “That’s him.”

  I don’t know. I heard “chin.” Same difference.

  There was some quick, quiet talking back and forth. Frank, he said the witness was not ill, but he asked for a recess. Something about new evidence. Judge stood up. Everybody stood up. Judge walked out. Whole room bust out in hubbub. Lot of kind hands and faces as we passed through the room.