Whisper Me This

by Kerry Anne King

  He doesn’t stop. Instead, his fingers tighten more, and he shakes me. “You can’t do this. It’s my baby, too. Just as much my baby as yours. Say yes. Say it.”

  “No.” My voice is small. It’s hard to get my breath. I say it again, louder, using all my strength. “No!”

  He lets me go, and I draw a quaking breath, thinking it’s over. My eyes are closed and I don’t see what’s coming. An explosion of pain jolts my head sideways, lights flashing behind my eyes.

  I hear myself sobbing before I’m aware enough to stop it, to clamp my teeth together and breathe against the pain.

  “You can’t raise a baby by yourself, Maisey. Let’s face it. You’re a ditz. And nobody else is going to want my seconds, so if you think you’re going to find another father for her, you can forget that idea. You’re pretty enough for a small-town girl but not pretty enough to bank on. This is your last chance.”

  “Maisey?”

  Not Greg’s voice. Tony’s.

  I take a breath, and then another. My hand goes to my face, remembering the shape of the bruise that lingered there for weeks, the one I accounted for by my general tendency to walk into doors.

  When I open my eyes, I recognize the expression on Tony’s face. I’ve seen it a hundred times plastered over other sets of features.

  “Don’t,” I say.

  “Don’t what?”

  “You’re about to deliver some sort of lecture or advice or whatever.”

  “Are you a mind reader or something?”

  “I just know that look. Go ahead and tell me. What did I do now? Or fail to do?”

  “You?” Tony looks genuinely befuddled. “You haven’t done anything. I’m just . . . worried. About you and Elle.”

  “Greg isn’t going to fly up here and beat me up. He doesn’t do that.”

  He only hit me once.

  The words flash on my visual screen like one of those LED signs. I cringe, recognizing a phrase I’ve heard on TV, on Facebook, from some of my friends, but never recognized as a resident in my own psyche. I press my back to the door, one knee drawn up on the seat. My arms are folded tight around that ongoing quivering so deep inside me I can’t touch it.

  Tony clears his throat. “Good to know. But I was going to tell you about something else. I asked about your mom and the gun at the shooting range on Tuesday. Owner said she started coming in a few months back. Showed up every day and asked questions about stopping intruders and shooting to kill.”

  “And?” He’s had this info for a couple of days and hasn’t told me.

  “And, put that together with your sister’s hostility—”

  “Marley? You think Mom was scared of Marley? She was cold, I’ll grant you that, but I doubt she’s a mass-murdering psycho.”

  “You talked to her for all of five minutes. How would you know? You said she knew about you. What if she just now found your mom and was coming after her? Don’t you think it’s a little too coincidental that they played a concert here tonight? That band is too good for Northern Ales. They’ve got bigger gigs to play.”

  I can’t think of words to respond to this. The first thing that comes to mind is that Tony is paranoid. What he’s suggesting is something out of a movie script, not the sort of event that happens in a well-ordered, structured life like my mother’s.

  But then, maybe her life wasn’t so well-ordered and structured after all.

  Tony shifts in his seat. “Look. All I’m saying is, be careful, okay? Lock the doors. Sleep with the phone by your bed. If Marley shows up at your door out of the blue, call me before you let her in.”

  “I can pretty safely promise you that, since I’m more likely to get a visit from the pope than from my sister. If either one of them knocks on the door I’ll call you, too.”

  “I’m serious.”

  He is serious. I can see that. He’s wound up tighter than an overtuned guitar string. One more turn and something’s going to snap. His jaw is so tight, the muscle bunches. There’s a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. His breathing has sped up to a rate that almost matches my own.

  This retriggers my memory of Greg and the night he hit me. Whatever possessed me to talk to him the way I did on the phone just now? I’m terrified by my own audacity, and Tony, my safe protector, seems lethal all at once. Too big. Too male. Too full of untapped possibilities. Where on earth are Mia and Elle? Surely they’ve had plenty of time to inspect every carton of ice cream in the store. A group of teenagers spills out of a car, laughing, shoving. The automatic doors at the front of the store open but disgorge only one old man, bent and shuffling, clutching a brown paper bag.

  No Mia. No Elle.

  My breath keeps catching on a sharpness in my throat. Greg’s right about one thing at least—I don’t really know anything about Mia or Tony. I’ve trusted him, partly because of his occupation, partly because up until this minute he’s made me feel safe and protected. But abusive men can be firemen. Stalkers can be policemen. Maybe, for all I know, Tony is the guy my mom was scared of. My hand digs in my purse for my phone and I clutch it, ready to dial 911 if I need to.

  “I’ll sleep with two phones by my bed,” I say out loud, hearing the strain in my voice and hating it. “Cell and landline. I’ll make sure all the doors and windows are locked. I’ll call 911 before I let anybody in.”

  “Good.” He relaxes a little. I watch him do it, one muscle group at a time. Jaw. Shoulders. Hands. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “I get a little intense. It’s just—something about this situation has me all tied up in knots. Your—Greg—ignited the whole mess.”

  “He’s not my Greg. Hasn’t been my Greg since before Elle was born. He’s married.”

  We sit there in a tight, awkward silence, both staring straight ahead. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. I clutch my phone. Two more minutes, then I’m going in looking for Elle.

  At precisely one minute and twenty-five seconds into my countdown, Mia and Elle emerge from the store, each carrying a shopping bag. Elle is laughing. Mia is talking nonstop and is still talking when she opens the car door.

  “So then, George says a bear ran into him. Can you believe it? He didn’t hit the bear. He was just sitting there on his four-wheeler, and the bear came bolting out of the woods and plowed right over the top of him. Never even stopped to look back . . .”

  A cool breeze enters the car with the two of them, a fresh hit of mountain air and trees with undertones of gasoline and exhaust. It clears my head. Grounds me.

  “We’ve got a carton for everybody,” Elle says. “Even for Grandpa and Mia’s mom.”

  I think about the way Tony treats his mother, the way she kissed him on the forehead before he left. The way Mia clearly adores him. He’s done nothing but be helpful. I have no more reason to believe he’s dangerous than I do to believe that Marley is going to show up at my door with intent to kill.

  Leah’s Journal

  The first time that he hit me, I was six months pregnant and already awkward and ungainly. I’d always been light and quick on my feet. Now I felt like a wide-load trailer on a two-lane highway. The doctor explained that I was extra big because of the twins. “Take it easy,” he told me. “Slow down. There are extra risks with twin pregnancies, and the babies usually come early.”

  “No more sex,” he’d said, at the last visit.

  I was relieved by the prohibition. The babies were more than a fantasy now. They moved around inside me like secret subterranean creatures, the three of us forming a world of our own. Sex felt like an intrusion, like we might disturb them, hurt them, sully them somehow.

  Boots did not share my relief. We fought after that visit, his rages growing in intensity. It wasn’t just about the sex. He started pushing me to do other things I’d stopped doing on account of the babies. Smoke a cigarette. Have a drink.

  “It’s one party,” he’d said to me, that night. “We’re going. Can you find something to wear besides that tent? You look like somebody�
��s pregnant granny.”

  His words stung me. He’d been on about my appearance all week. The weight I’d gained. The ugly red marks forming on my growing belly. I agreed with him. My jeans had long since stopped being an option, and I’d started wearing maternity dresses as the easiest thing. I’d been to the Goodwill and brought home what I could find. The dress was hideous. I was hideous.

  I’d always had a sharp tongue in me, something Boots appreciated as long as it wasn’t directed at him. I was hurt, and I retaliated, poking at his weak spots. “Maybe if you’d get a good job instead of lying around all day, I could buy something pretty.”

  “You’ve turned into a nag,” he said. “I don’t like it.” His eyes had gone cold. He was looking at me the way he looked at teachers and police officers.

  I should have taken the warning. Instead, I stood my ground. “Well, I don’t like the way you’re looking at me. It’s not just you and me anymore—”

  Those were the magic words to unlock his fists.

  No slapping for Boots. It was a straight-up right hook to my cheekbone. Dropped me to the floor. I was heavy, and the fall wrenched my back. My head hit the floor, and there were lights flashing. He stood above me, looking down, breathing hard through his nose.

  “Maybe you’ll be good for something again someday,” he said, but with scorn. “I’m going to the party. You can stay here.”

  And then he kicked me in the belly. It wasn’t even a vicious kick. At that point, I wasn’t worth the energy that would have taken. It was a gesture of disdain, the way someone might kick aside a bit of garbage on the road. But those beautiful, shiny, cowboy boots had pointy toes, and my skin was stretched tight like a drum.

  It was my soul and my heart that hurt worst. Something broke in me right then that has been broken since. All these years with you, my Walter, you’d think it might have been put right. But some things, I guess, can’t be mended.

  I was afraid more for the babies than I was for myself. What if that kick had broken something inside me? Harmed them? If it had been just me I’d like to think I’d have either stood up to him again or walked out. But I was young and frightened and so very pregnant. Where would I go? What would I do?

  I had learned my lesson. When he came home, drunk, blubbering his apologies and begging my forgiveness, I held him and swore over and over that I would never leave him, that it would always be the two of us against the world, that even the babies would never come between us.

  All of it lies.

  I knew, right then, that I would figure out a plan to leave him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When we pull up in the driveway of my parents’ house, all the lights are on. My fear sensors start blaring like a fire alarm. Dad should be in bed. He should be sleeping. Surely Tony’s mom wouldn’t let him start burning things again, but what do I really know about her?

  I am out of the car before it comes to a full stop. No evidence of smoke or fire, thank God, but I still cross the space between me and the door in a series of giant leaps, superwoman without a cape.

  Dad and Mrs. Medina are as comfy as can be at the kitchen table, both nursing mugs of hot tea. She is a plump, comfortable-looking woman, with the same blue eyes as Mia and Tony, but her hair is lighter, a mousy-brown color, streaked with gray. She sits close beside Dad, one hand resting on his shoulder. His eyes are red and swollen, as if he’s been crying.

  Relief that he’s okay gives way to a sucker punch of guilt.

  My mother is being buried tomorrow, and the stranger I’ve left Dad with is doing a better job than I have of comforting him.

  He tries to smile at me, though. “There’s my girl,” he says. “Hannah told me you were fine and not to worry. But I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “We brought ice cream.” Elle breezes in and plunks her bag up on the kitchen counter, beginning to unpack. “I hope you like chocolate, Grandpa. We didn’t know what you would want, so we went simple. If you don’t, though, you can have some of my cookies and cream.”

  Mia joins her at the counter, the two of them setting out a row of ice cream cartons and pulling out spoons and bowls and digging through Mom’s spotlessly organized silverware drawers for an ice cream scoop.

  Ignoring the ice cream, I drag a chair to where I can look directly into Dad’s eyes. He’s sad and lost, and I should leave him alone, but my need for answers is stronger than my better self.

  “We went to a concert, Dad. To hear my sister, Marley, and her band. She was too pissed to talk to me. I can’t say I blame her.”

  Dad’s body jerks like I’ve shocked him with a Taser. Tea sloshes over the edge of his mug and onto the table as he draws his hands back and puts them in his lap.

  “I’ve made a mess,” he says.

  “No worries, I’ve got it.” Mrs. Medina bustles over to the counter for paper towels, but I don’t think the tea is what he’s talking about.

  “You burned papers. You shredded documents. You said you’d forgotten something. What do you know that you’re not telling me?”

  He just shakes his head, avoiding my eyes.

  In my peripheral vision, I’m aware that the ice cream preparation has stopped. Everybody is staring at us, waiting. I feel like a bully, an interrogator, but I can’t stop. I have to know.

  “I found the birth certificates. I found the pink blankets. I found the part of the list that tells you to shred all the papers. I found the first page of Mom’s journal. Did you burn that, too?”

  He draws in a tremulous breath. “Leave it at that, Maisey.”

  “I can’t. Don’t you see? You knew. All along you knew Marley was real. You let Mom convince me I made her up. That I was imagining things. She dragged me to counseling, made me think I was crazy.”

  He makes a small choking sound in his throat and drops his head into his hands.

  “I don’t blame you for any of it; I know how she was. She made you promise something, but she’s not here now. You can tell me. You’ve been fantastic at being my dad. I know she made you do it. I know how she is—was—”

  “Stop.” His head comes up. His eyes focus on me, laser clear.

  “I’m not going to stop. She lied to me. She controlled you. She—”

  “I said, stop!” Dad slams his hand on the table. His mug rattles. My stomach makes an elevator trip up into my throat. He has never raised his voice to me. Never slammed a door or made a threatening gesture. I freeze, like a terrified bunny.

  “You don’t know anything about your mother, Maisey. I won’t hear it. I won’t talk about her. I won’t talk about this. Not tonight. Not ever. What’s done is done and stays done. Do you hear me?”

  I stare at him in shock. We all do. Tony looks like he’s carved from stone. Mrs. Medina puts an arm around Mia and pulls her in close. Elle the irrepressible actually has her mouth open.

  As for me, I want to simultaneously collapse into a bubbling little heap of apology and grab Dad’s shoulders and shake them.

  “Just tell me this. Are we in danger? Mom had a gun. What was she afraid of? You have to tell me that at least.”

  He blinks and rubs his eyes, looking at the faces in the kitchen as if he’s never seen them before.

  “Are we having a party? I’m very tired. Would it be rude if I just go to bed?” Without waiting for an answer, he shoves back his chair and starts to get up.

  He only clears the chair by a couple of inches before falling back, heavily.

  “I’ve turned old, Maisey,” he says, gently, as if he hadn’t just been shouting at me. “Help an old man to bed?”

  And so I do. I give him both my hands, and he grips them, tightly enough to squeeze my bones against each other. Using my weight, I lean back as he leans forward and drag him to his feet. He sways a little, and I see Tony moving in my peripheral vision, ready to catch him if he falls, but then the swaying stops.

  Red-rimmed eyes look down into mine, and Dad sighs, deeply. He plants a kiss on
my forehead. “You’re a good girl, Maisey. You always have been.” And then he starts shuffling across the kitchen, and I move with him, holding his hand.

  All my childhood selves move with us, across the kitchen, down the familiar hall, into my parents’ room. How many thousands of times have we walked this way, hand in hand? Only then he was the strong and comforting anchor in my life. The man with the answers. The calm to my mother’s passion.

  Now he is frail and I am strong, and if he is the man with answers, he’s not about to share them with me.

  He sinks down onto the bed, fully clothed. “I’m too tired to undress,” he says. “Will it matter?”

  “It won’t matter, Daddy. So long as you’re comfortable.”

  I pull off his shoes, and he collapses back onto the bed, rolling over into my mother’s spot once again. “I keep thinking she’s coming back,” he says. “I keep waiting.”

  “She’s not coming back, Daddy.”

  “I know.” He starts to cry then, and I lie down on the bed beside him and put my head on his chest. I have no more tears of my own, not tonight, only a deep and abiding ache in my chest that seems like it’s always been there and will never go away.

  I lie there until he stops crying. Until his breathing eases and slows and turns into a soft snore. He’s fallen asleep on top of the covers, so I fetch a spare blanket from Mom’s cedar chest and tuck it around him. I kiss him on the cheek and turn out the light.

  Out in the kitchen, Mia is washing bowls and spoons in a sink of soapy water and Elle is drying. Mrs. Medina and Tony sit at the table. Nobody is talking. The energy in the room feels more like the aftermath of a bombing than an ice cream party.

  All the eyes turned on me seem accusing and judging.

  “Is he okay?” Elle asks.

  “He’s asleep.”

  “Maybe we should check his blood sugar,” Tony says. “In case it’s gone off again.”

  “I think we should let him sleep.” I sound downright bossy. I don’t care. The energy for pretending anything I don’t feel right now is missing in action.