Whisper Me This

by Kerry Anne King

  “What’s wrong with me? He didn’t used to look at me like that.”

  I roll toward her and put a hand on her shoulder. She buries her soaking face in my chest and clenches her hands in my shirt. I stroke her back, slow and steady, and rock her, until the weeping eases.

  “Oh, sweetheart. Nothing is wrong with you.”

  Elle pulls away a little to blow her nose, then shoots the crumpled tissue at the waste basket, overhand. It falls short by six inches, a crumpled wad of snot and failure. Not one to accept defeat, she lobs the second tissue, and this time it’s a slam dunk.

  “See? You’re even good at tissue basketball. Perfect in every way.”

  “You’re kinda biased,” she says. She laughs, just the tiniest bit, which makes my heart ache even more when she asks, with a little quaver, “Do I have to go back with him tonight?”

  “You are staying right here with me.”

  As I say the words, a shadow Greg looms up over me, all-knowing, all-powerful. Are you sure you want to play that game with me, Maisey?

  My answer? The thing I didn’t have the guts to say? No. No, Greg, I don’t want to play. But I will. For the sake of this strong, beautiful child, I will do anything. Give anything. Confront any challenge, any obstacle, you set in my path.

  I’m just afraid that all I have will never be enough.

  Leah’s Journal

  Pain is what I remember first. White lights in my head. A deep ache in my eye socket that made me need to vomit, only I was lying on my back and couldn’t move.

  Pinned, I thought, remembering Boots straddling me, only he wasn’t there anymore. The weight was gone. My body didn’t want to respond to my brain.

  I managed to roll to the side, and the blaze of agony from moving set me to heaving. Not much in my stomach—I think I’d missed dinner—but just enough to foul my pillowcase.

  Another task. That was my first conscious thought. Now I would have to do laundry.

  The babies were still crying.

  Boots was nowhere to be seen. His truck was not out front.

  Somehow I managed to get through that night. To feed the twins. To strip the stinking pillowcase and throw it in the laundry.

  The next few days were a blazing hell beyond any conscious thought. His mother, when she came over, didn’t look shocked, just sad. She didn’t even ask what happened to me. She fixed me an ice pack to put over my eye and my cheek. Changed the babies, held them.

  “Steak is good for bruises,” she said, but we both knew neither one of us could afford the luxury of steak, even for eating.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Despite all my best intentions, I’m not much of a warrior woman. I’ll fight it out face-to-face with Greg if I must, but phase one in the plan to keep Elle from flying back with him is to be elsewhere when he shows up to get her. Dad and Elle both being complicit, we vacate the house in the early afternoon, in case Greg comes early.

  Elle and I turn our phones off to minimize the ping of guilt that will arrive with each unanswered text message or voicemail. Dad has never carried a cell phone.

  Staying occupied in Colville isn’t as easy as it would be in the city, but we hit the early movie at Colville’s one and only theater, which fortunately is rated PG, not R. We go for hamburgers at Ronnie D’s. We pick up new socks and T-shirts for Dad at Walmart. And we go to get groceries.

  We’re in the cereal aisle at the Safeway—Dad, me, and Elle—having an argument about what would be acceptable for consumption, when Dad drops the bombshell.

  Elle has gravitated toward the brightly colored, sugar-coated varieties. Dad mutters something about the good old days and oatmeal, and I’m really just staring at boxes and wishing there was a Make a Decision button so I wouldn’t have to think.

  It’s 6:45 p.m., and my mind is thoroughly occupied with film clips of Greg showing up at Dad’s house to find it locked up tight. Ringing the doorbell. Talking to Edna. Maybe he’ll come looking for us and recognize Dad’s car in the parking lot. My eyes are in constant motion, up and down the aisle.

  “This one,” Elle says, thrusting a garish box into my hands. “Look. Whole grain.”

  “And sugar is the first ingredient.”

  “No, it’s the second ingredient. Why can’t sugar be a grain?”

  “Because—”

  “I was wrong. I think we need to go see Marley.” Dad says this as if he’s read the words on the box of Raisin Bran he’s peering at through his bifocals.

  I take a steadying breath. “Is the Raisin Bran sending out telepathic signals now?”

  Dad ignores me. “We should skip town tonight. Drive to Tri-Cities. Get a hotel. And then we’ll go talk to her in the morning.”

  “All three of us. Just like that.”

  “It would solve the Dad problem,” Elle says.

  The box of cereal in my hands feels extraordinarily heavy. I set it back on the shelf.

  “I need to get out of the house,” Dad says. “What do they call it—a grief holiday?”

  “A what?”

  “I heard it on TV. Oprah. Or something. Your mother was watching it.”

  Elle throws her cereal box into the cart, followed by Dad’s Raisin Bran, and something middle-of-the-road and boring-looking. “We need milk. And plastic bowls. We can eat cereal in the hotel room. But we need road-trip snacks. Come on.”

  She starts pushing the cart down the aisle.

  “Elle . . .”

  She keeps walking. Dad and I roll into motion like a couple of robot toys programmed to stay with the shopping cart.

  Dad has totally perked up. His eyes are clearer than I’ve seen them since I got here, his steps steadier.

  Still.

  Me going to see Marley is one thing. Exposing Dad and Elle—especially Elle—to all that hostility is another.

  “What if it’s not safe?” I ask him. “Mom got a gun after you contacted Marley. We can’t take Elle if it’s dangerous.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” he says. “Ask that guy to come. For protection.”

  “Which guy?”

  “Tony!” Elle throws back over her shoulder. “That’s a great idea. Hey, and can Mia come?”

  “Tony and Mia have jobs, in case anybody is unaware. And most people—adults, anyway—don’t just pile into the car and take off like this.”

  “You’ve never been most adults, Mom,” Elle says. “Please don’t start now.”

  “What does that even mean?” I ask, but my only answer is the uneven thud of the shopping cart wheels and the straight, unbowed spine of my still-powerful daughter leading the way to the potato chips and snack mixes.

  According to Elle, who can’t resist looking at her text messages when we get back to the car, Greg is still parked outside Dad’s, waiting for us to show up. I’ve run out of places for us to hang out. Even if we head for Tri-Cities tonight—I’m still talking in terms of if, even though all three of us know full well we’re going—there are things at the house we need. Dad’s medications, for example. A change of clothes.

  Visiting Mia and Tony offers refuge and a place to hang out until Greg gives up and goes back to his hotel.

  I tell myself we could just go confront him. He won’t physically drag our daughter, kicking and screaming, into the car. I don’t think. But the thought of facing him, planting my heels and telling him no, is daunting.

  “Do you really want to do this?” he will ask me, with that indefinable edge of scorn and derision. He will manage to look lawyerly, to remind me without further words that he has connections and power and will take Elle from me. If he must, of course. For her own good. Not that he would ever want to hurt me.

  My hands make the decision for me, directing the car through the turns that take me to Tony’s. I drove him home the morning of the funeral; I know where he lives. Elle texts Mia to fill her in and let her know we’re coming, and she meets us at the door, hugging all of us in turn once, and then again. There’s no sign of Tony.
/>   Not that I’m looking for him.

  Not that I want to see him.

  Not that my traitorous heart is beating a little faster at the thought of hugging him.

  “Come in,” Mia is saying. “We haven’t had company in, like, days. I so understand you wanting to get out of the house and just get away from everything. What’s this about a trip?” She takes Dad’s hand as if she’s known him forever, and he rewards her with a smile.

  The room she leads us through is all beautiful wood and light. Skylights overhead frame rectangles of blue, letting warm golden light burnish a hardwood floor polished to a shine. The skeleton of the room is exposed, rather than hidden by the drywall; varnished logs serve as posts and pillars and beams. The wood is softened by throw rugs and furnishings in earth tones.

  My feet slow, then stop, of their own volition. I have an impulse to crane my neck so I can look up to the sky, spread my arms, and spin like a child.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mia asks, her voice echoing my wonder. “No matter how long I live here, I always want to stop in a puddle of sunshine and curl up like a cat for a nap. But the deck is awesome, too.”

  I follow her out through glass doors to a wide deck. Flower baskets hang in profusion above my head. Adirondack chairs are arranged to allow an unrestricted view of the Colville valley—trees, houses, and streets all laid out below, the mountains rising up behind.

  “Let me get you something to drink,” Mia says. “I’ll be right back.”

  She flits back into the house. Dad and Elle settle into chairs, but my restless feet won’t let me sit, and I walk the edge of the deck and then down the steps onto an expanse of grass shaded by large trees. Around the corner, along the side of the house, a giant maple tree offers shade and privacy. Tony leans against the trunk. His face is in shadow, and I can’t see his expression, but I remember the one he wore at the funeral after Greg’s behavior.

  My face heats with shame. I want to pretend I haven’t seen him there, to flee back into the safety of Mia’s chatter and my father’s vagueness, but our eyes meet and it’s too late. He won’t want to talk to me, but I owe him an apology.

  I approach the tree, conscious of the suddenness of the shift from sunlit warmth to the coolness of the spreading shadow cast by its branches.

  “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.”

  “What, my deep, philosophical, life-altering thoughts on the nature of the universe? Come on in. You’ve found my favorite spot.”

  His voice is light, but he keeps his arms folded over his chest, and he doesn’t smile. I feel like an intruder.

  “I won’t stay long. I wanted to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “Drama.”

  “You’re responsible for Greg’s behavior?” There’s an edge to Tony’s voice that unsettles me. I brace myself for a deeper dig that must surely be coming, for recriminations and judgment, but he just shifts his body to lean more comfortably against the tree and reaches up to pluck a leaf, rolling it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. Waiting.

  “No. But I am sorry you got caught in the crossfire.”

  “I hadn’t realized the two of you were still . . . together.” All of Tony’s attention is on the leaf, crushed now between his fingers.

  “We’re not together. He’s Elle’s father, that’s all.”

  “That’s not the way it looks.” And now Tony’s eyes are on me, and I wish they weren’t. Assessing, questioning, probing.

  “Sometimes things aren’t how they look.” My eyes, seeking sanctuary, turn up to the green branches above us and find a house. It is so camouflaged by leaves and branches that it looks almost part of the tree itself. A wooden ladder, stained the same color as the tree bark, leans against the trunk.

  “For nieces and nephews?” I ask. “If Elle sees this, I’ll never get her home.”

  “For me,” Tony says, the tension draining from his voice. He flashes me a smile, half man, half mischievous child. “Although, yes, my sisters’ kids certainly make use of it. You want to see? We can hide from the others for a minute.”

  My child-self dreamed of such a thing. My invisible friend Marley and I inhabited dozens of tent forts, created from an amalgam of my imagination, furniture, and blankets. We imagined some of them were in trees, way up high where nobody else could find us.

  An emotion I recognize from childhood but can’t put a name to creeps over me as I look up, up, into green leaves and the wooden house nestled in branches.

  “Yes, I want to see.”

  “Go on up. Ladies first.” He executes a formal bow.

  I fit my toe on one of the rungs and reach for another with my hands. Each step brings me away from the earth. Up, up, into wonder.

  That’s the word, the label for this feeling like my heart and soul are too big for my mortal body. There is this tree, bark, leaves, a scurrying ant. The ladder. My body, hands, arms, legs, moving up, rung by rung, as if I’ve climbed this way a thousand times before. Up, up, all my worries and responsibilities and even my grief falling away.

  My head pokes through a round opening, and I laugh out loud in sheer delight, looking around me in amazement and wonder. Floor pillows to sit on. A treasure chest, actually painted with a skull and crossbones, and above it a rough map tacked into the wood. I recognize the confluence of the Colville River with Lake Roosevelt and guess that the big white X lies approximately over the location of this treehouse. A stack of paperbacks, waiting to be read. A cardboard box full of snacks.

  A tap on my foot and a voice from below asking, “Are you sightseeing or are you going in?” reminds me that I’ve stopped moving, and I climb on up to make way for Tony.

  There’s not room to stand upright without bumping my head on the ceiling, so I sit on one of the pillows, looking out a window into leaf-green light and a wisp of blue. Tony enters on hands and knees, crawling over to the other pillow and settling himself with a satisfied little grunt.

  “Getting too old for this,” he says, though he’s clearly not too old at all.

  “What’s in the treasure chest?” I ask him.

  “Arrr, if I told ye that, the pirate ghosts would come for me, sure and certain.” He laughs and opens the lid, revealing more books, a length of neatly coiled rope, a radio, and a row of bottled water.

  “Thirsty?”

  “I am.”

  The water he hands me is warm, but no drink ever tasted better.

  For some reason, the dim light, the slight sway, the whispering of wind in leaves all around us, relieves me of the pressure to make small talk, and we sit in silence, him cross-legged, me with my knees drawn up to my chest.

  My water is gone, and so is Tony’s, before either of us says a word. He’s the one who breaks the silence.

  “So, you and Greg.”

  “We’re not together.”

  “Does he know that?” he asks, and that edge is back in his voice. “Not that it’s my business.”

  I clasp my knees tighter against my chest, clinging to the fragile sense of safety the treehouse gives me. Tony doesn’t hate me, at least, or he’d never have brought me up here. The treehouse lends itself to secrets, but still I’m quaking inside when I whisper, “I’ve only just realized how—things are between us. Like at the funeral. He’s married to somebody else, but if he thinks I like somebody, he still pops up like a malevolent genie.”

  “Try asshole on for size. Genie sounds too Disney and Robin Williams.”

  A dry laugh turns to dust in my throat, and I cough instead. My body is damp with cold sweat, a reaction to speaking my thoughts aloud.

  “Seriously, Maisey. I don’t know you well, but why do you put up with a guy like that?”

  “I don’t. Usually. I mean, I try not to.”

  Tony’s silence speaks for him, and I fumble my own defense.

  “I only talk to him when I have to. About Elle. I didn’t even know he was coming to the funeral. I certainly didn’t expect him to be sitting
in Mrs. Carlton’s living room.”

  Tony shifts his weight and brings his eyes to focus on me, instead of the wall. A minute ago I wanted this. Now I squirm beneath his scrutiny, and it takes all my will to keep my chin up and meet the challenge of his gaze.

  “He thinks he owns you.”

  “He does,” I whisper, realizing. My throat constricts, an invisible chain tightening, tightening. “He does own me.”

  “I’m so confused.” Tony leans back against the wall, and I take a deep breath as he releases me from that intense observation. “Don’t take that as criticism,” he quickly amends. “I get it. My mom was abused until—” The stop is as abrupt and as violent as a collision. Glass shattering, metal screeching.

  When the dust settles, he starts over. “My mom was abused. She couldn’t make decisions about what to do because he was mind-controlling her all the time. It’s hard to make that break.”

  “Greg’s not exactly abusive—”

  It’s my turn to crash into what I’m about to say. To stop. To feel the new reality strengthen around me.

  Greg hit me. He slapped our daughter. He puts me down, controls my decisions, and chases away men who are interested in me.

  “It’s Elle,” I say, very low. “I’m afraid if I stand up to him, he’ll take her from me. She’s the best thing in my life, and she’s also my cage.”

  “I’m sorry.” He means it. I’m not sure what he’s sorry for, or if maybe he’s just offering up general sympathy. It sounds more like commiseration than pity, and so it’s okay. Especially when he adds, a moment later, “I’ve got my own cage, I suppose. My mother. My sisters.”

  It’s my turn to put on X-ray-vision glasses and try to see through him. His turn to flush and avert his eyes.

  “How?” I ask. “They’re all grown up.”

  “I was the only boy,” he answers, as if that explains everything when it’s not an answer at all.

  When I say nothing, he adds, “He beat them all. My mom, my sisters. So now I’m forever making it up to them, I guess. It . . . interferes.”

  Math has never been my friend, but even for me something doesn’t add up. “They’re all older than you,” I say, thinking out loud. “Except for Mia. Weren’t you a child? Didn’t he hit you, too?”