These Gentle Wounds

by Helene Dunbar

  “Pineapple,” Kevin says, because he knows it’s my favorite right now. His expression dares me to put up a fight.

  While they wait for the pizza, I charge upstairs hoping to find some way to keep the pain in my stomach from crawling up to my brain.

  I try the window in case Kevin left it open, but of course he didn’t. For a very short second, I think about breaking the glass. But Kevin would be pissed, and I don’t want to get Jim mad just when I need him to step in and solve things.

  I grab my backpack and dump my books, a couple of pens, and a half-eaten candy bar onto my bed.

  I used to wonder what I’d grab in case there was a fire and I had to get out of the house. Now that practical list escapes me and, as I toss things into my bag, I realize the stuff I’m packing isn’t the really useful stuff. I mean, clothes might be more important than a book of poetry that used to be my mom’s or a hockey puck, but I don’t care. I’m not worried about useful stuff. I’m worried about escaping; not being here when they come to take me away. I’d rather figure out how to live on my own than live with my father.

  The door to the bedroom opens, then closes. Kevin leans against it with his arms folded.

  It takes a while before he says anything. I’m almost done packing, except for the twenty dollars hidden in my sock drawer.

  “What are you doing?” He sounds tired, like we’re having a conversation we’ve had over and over, just with different words.

  “I’m leaving,” I say. “I thought that was obvious.”

  “No, you aren’t,” he counters. He looks like he wants to laugh, but he bites his lip and holds it in.

  I wonder how far he’d go to stop me. Or how far I’d go to prove it.

  When I reach for my jacket, he comes up behind me and I try to take a swing at him. He grabs my wrists and wraps my arms around me, under his, like my very own damned straitjacket.

  I want to shake him off, but I can’t move my arms at all and kicking backward isn’t getting me anywhere. “Get off me.” I keep struggling, but can’t get any leverage.

  “Nope. Not until you tell me that you aren’t going anywhere,” he says. I know he means it. If I don’t say what he wants, he won’t release me and we’ll stay here all night. I’ve learned the hard way that Kevin is even more stubborn than I am.

  It would be easy enough to say the words and then leave anyhow, but I’ve never really lied to him, not even when we were little. I’m not sure I could.

  “I’m not going with that son of a bitch,” I say. Kevin, of all people, has to understand that.

  “No one said you were.”

  I don’t understand how he can be so certain of this. He doesn’t have any more information than I do.

  “They aren’t going to let me stay here. They’re going to send me back to him. You know that,” I say as I keep struggling against his grasp. “I have to get out of here.”

  Part of me is pissed that he has me physically stopped like this. Still my stomach unknots just a little, knowing that Kevin hasn’t loosened his hold at all. This pretty much sums up our relationship.

  “If you have to run away, we’ll go together. But you aren’t leaving now. Seriously, Ice, get a grip.”

  I didn’t really expect him to say that. That he would go with me.

  “Oh.” My bag falls from my shoulder. The tension drains out of me so quickly that I go limp in his arms as he lowers me to the ground.

  “Say it.” He takes a step back and stands over me with his hands on my shoulders.

  I stay there, exhausted, on my knees, snap snap snapping the leather band.

  Finally, I’m able to force the words out of my mouth. They feel like barbed wire as they work their way around my tongue. “Fine. I won’t leave before we find out what’s going to happen.”

  He lets me go and I sit there, out of breath, twisting and twisting the stretchy leather around my wrist, wondering what it would take to break it.

  Kevin stands in the doorway and I think he’s going to say something else, but then he shakes his head and goes back downstairs.

  I get up and put my backpack into the closet next to the hockey stick, the winter boots, and the memories. And poke at the sore spots on my wrist until I’m sure I’m here to stay.

  Six

  “Don’t even think about it,” Kevin says as we get to school.

  Of course I’m thinking of skipping. Who wouldn’t? I pause in the doorway, halfway between then and now, not knowing what comes next.

  Kevin slaps my shoulder with the back of his hand. “Ice.” His voice is tense and stretched and his teeth are clenched together.

  “I just … ”

  “Nothing,” he says. “You just nothing. Go to class. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing either of us can do until she calls.”

  I don’t get how anyone can go on with their day while we’re waiting to hear back from Ms. DeSilva. How is Jim going to concentrate on work? I’d at least expect Kevin to get it, and it ticks me off that he doesn’t.

  But then I see how he’s flexing his hands, into and out of fists. It makes me realize that he’s more pissed off about my father’s letter than he’s letting on, and I know better than to be on the wrong end of his anger.

  “Fine,” I say. “But … can you try to get home on time? I mean, don’t double your detention or anything.”

  One by one, his muscles relax, his hands stop moving, his shoulders lower. He grabs my arm. “We’ll sort this out, promise.” I’m pretty sure he’s trying to convince himself as much as he is me.

  We stand there, frozen, as kids start shuffling in around us. We’re stuck, neither of us knowing what to say. Or if we should say anything at all.

  “Bryce!” Kevin yells when his friend appears and tugs on his arm. He turns back, looking relieved, and points his finger at me. “I promise.” And then he’s swept off with the tide.

  Without Kevin’s constant lectures and advice I’ll be able to hear myself think, and that’s the last thing I want. But right now my head is buzzing like it’s been invaded by a swarm of bees and my thumb won’t stop twitching, which sucks in a whole different way.

  For a fleeting second I think about going to the counselor’s office, but I fought hard to stop seeing him. If I tell him how I’m feeling, he’s just going to drag me back into some stupid therapy sessions and pump me full of the same drugs that never did anything to help in the first place.

  Besides, I know the drill of running through calming techniques and all of that.

  The problem is, the only thing that will calm me down is to hear that I’ll never have to see my father again, that there’s a restraining order against him or some other way of keeping him away from me.

  No one is telling me any of those things.

  I walk to my locker like a reject from some zombie movie. I spin and spin the dial on the lock until I hit the right combination and then watch, transfixed, as something flutters out.

  When it hits the ground, I pick it up and look at the black-and-white image. It isn’t one of the pictures from hockey practice. It isn’t of me, or of hockey at all. Instead, it’s an eagle, wings spread against the sky at sunset.

  It shakes in my hands as I flip it over. One of my favorites, it says. Then, S. Just S.

  It makes me feel like she’s inside my head, which should freak me out. Instead, it makes me feel, for once, like I’m not alone.

  After school, I try to call Jim, but it goes to voicemail. I call again and the same thing happens. I sit there with the phone on redial. I probably call him two hundred times, but he doesn’t pick up. I call until Kevin comes home and grabs the phone away from me with a look on his face that I’m pretty sure means he wants to ram it down my throat.

  “You’ve been sitting here doing this for an hour?” he asks, flipping through the phone’s memory.


  I shrug. Time was the last thing on my mind.

  “Come on. I need your help,” he says, dragging me into the kitchen. He peers into the fridge and takes out a bowl of green stuff that looks frighteningly like that slime we used to play with as kids.

  “What the hell is that?” I’d like to say it’s the first time I’ve asked this question when Kevin’s cooking, but actually, it’s pretty much the opposite.

  “That, little brother, is what, with your help, I’m going to turn into pea balls.”

  I look into the bowl. “I didn’t know that … ”

  “ … peas had balls,” we finish together.

  “Yeah, whatever.” Kevin laughs. Instead of cooking normal things, Kevin is into this weird mix of science and food called molecular gastronomy. It would be cool except that while Kevin is a great cook, he isn’t a great scientist, so I’m pretty much in charge of keeping him from blowing the house up.

  He throws a packet at me. Sodium alginate. It makes things thicken like jelly. At least it isn’t something that will explode. The frosting he used on my birthday cake last year had some sort of super pop rocks in it and Jim made him throw it out before I even tried it.

  “Boil that with water,” he says.

  I get out a pot, fill it, and drop the powder in. I wonder if Kevin thinks this is going to distract me from everything that’s going on. He should know better. But it isn’t even mainly the stuff with Jim and my father that’s preying on my mind right now. There are other thoughts I’m having a hard time shaking off too, and no amount of weird science is going to clear them out of my head.

  I sit and watch the pot, waiting for it to boil, while Kevin pulls a sieve and a handheld blender out of the cupboard.

  “How come you don’t have a girlfriend?” I ask. I’ve wondered about this for a while now. I mean, Kevin is seventeen. Even if he isn’t a brainiac, he works hard in school. He doesn’t even get detention as much as he used to. He’s got the whole bizarre cooking thing going. He has friends.

  Also, I’ve heard girls whispering in the halls about him. They stare as he walks by, then laugh. But I don’t think they’re laughing at him. Sometimes I think they’re trying to get his attention. They don’t realize all the other stuff that’s in his head, like trying to make sure I don’t go over the edge and controlling his temper. I wonder if he could have a normal life if it weren’t for me.

  Kevin puts everything on the table and runs a hand through his shaggy hair. “Why? You know someone?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Well … ” I hear the pause in his voice as he chooses an answer. “First off, none of our parents made relationships look very attractive. I mean, what if all girls turn out to be like Mom?”

  People tell me I should be angry at Mom for what she did, but I’m not. Instead, thinking of her makes me feel empty deep inside, like an important part of me has been removed.

  “So you’re gay?” I ask, wondering why we’ve never talked about it before.

  “No.” He pours in the peas and turns the blender up to high. It’s so noisy I have to wait until he’s done to ask anything else.

  “So what then?” I ask as soon as he hits the off switch.

  “Crap, Ice. It’s not like I really have time. Between school and … you … I mean … ” He doesn’t finish.

  “Well, you have all the time when I’m at practice or a game,” I say.

  He stares at me. “I don’t think it works that way. Not many girls are going to be into a relationship scheduled during my brother’s hockey games.”

  I guess that’s something else I should hate, that he’s given up so much for me. But I don’t. It’s just the way it is. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

  I pull the boiling pot off the stove and Kevin shoves another pot, filled with ice, underneath it.

  “What about you?” he asks.

  The bubbles explode on the surface of the water. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. “What do you mean, ‘what about me?’” I answer, distracted.

  “Ever thought about getting yourself a girlfriend?”

  His question freezes my brain like when you eat ice cream too quickly. He’s got to be joking. I mean, really? If he’s using Mom as a reason not to let any girl get close, what the hell does he think is going through my head?

  “You’re out of your mind,” I say.

  “Maybe you should. Maybe it’s just what you need.” Then he gives me that know-it-all look that makes me wonder if he’s heard me getting off in the middle of the night. “Maybe that’s why you’re asking me.”

  My stomach twists at the direction the conversation is going and suddenly the kitchen is way too small for us and this vat of green gloop. I look at the door, wondering how pissed he’d be if I just left. I wonder how long the house would be standing if I did.

  “So what’s her name?” he asks.

  I consider pretending I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I brought this up. At some level I must want to talk about it, right? That’s what the counselors at school would say, not that they really understand anything about me. But Kevin does. He can see through me like I’m made of tissue paper.

  “It’s not like that,” I say. Do I believe it? I don’t even know. I twist and untwist the band on my wrist a million times.

  “Then what’s it like?” He’s baiting me, and I can see by the glint in his eye that he’s enjoying watching me squirm.

  I sigh. Now I wish I hadn’t brought it up at all. “Nothing, it’s stupid. There’s just this girl. In English.”

  He pulls out the bowl of green stuff from the refrigerator and mixes it with the stuff I boiled earlier. Then he pulls out another bowl from the fridge. This one is filled with calcium chloride, which is the stuff that comes in packets to dry things out. It’s also the thing that guarantees I’m not going near this latest experiment. I don’t care how well he thinks he can wash the stuff off—I’m not eating it.

  I sit down and run my thumb over the peeling Formica on the table. I should have known better than to think that Kevin wouldn’t push this conversation. I guess I sit there a while, because when I look up I recognize his impatient expression. It means that he’s been talking to me and I have absolutely no idea what he’s said.

  Instead of asking him to repeat it and admitting I haven’t been paying attention, I throw him a bone. “Sarah. Her name is Sarah. She’s a photographer. She was the one taking pictures at the games last summer.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. She just got put in my English class.”

  “And you like her, don’t you?”

  “Never mind,” I say. I don’t even know the answer to that question. I don’t know her. I don’t …

  “Too late.” He’s stopped dropping the green balls into the calcium bath and is actually smiling now in a way that’s making my heart race.

  I push the edge of the Formica under my nail until I can feel it, sharp against my skin. “She’s … ” I look down, hoping the table will tell me what she is. Annoying? Mysterious? Crazy?

  I know that Kevin doesn’t need to see my face to know there’s something up. “Is she pretty?” he asks.

  My right hand clenches, and unclenches, and clenches again. I get the whole snapping a band thing, but I really wish I had a pen. I look around, but all I see are sharp kitchen things and chemicals.

  “Come on, Ice. Describe her.”

  “I don’t know. She has really dark hair and eyes. Happy?” The words explode out of me. I get up and stand in the doorway, which makes me feel a little less penned in.

  Kevin sets a timer and heads toward me.

  “If you’re so interested, I’ll introduce you,” I say, remembering that I need to work myself up to calling her.

  “I’m not the one she’s been taking pictures of,” he says, squeezing my shoulder.<
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  I pull away. “This is what it’s like for everyone else, right? I mean, this is how brothers act when there’s nothing else to talk about?”

  Kevin just laughs. “I’ve never been anyone else. But if you’re worried about being too normal, I wouldn’t stress out about it.”

  Jim’s car pulls into the drive and by the time he comes in, we’re waiting by the door like two hyperactive puppies who haven’t been let out all day.

  He looks tired, like he wishes he could turn back the clock and never meet Mom, and never have Kevin, and definitely never get saddled with me.

  “What’s that smell?” he asks Kevin.

  “Pea balls,” my brother answers. Jim shakes his head, like his son’s weird cooking is one more cross he has to bear.

  “Can I get ten minutes to myself before we do whatever we’re going to do here?” Jim asks. I can hear the hope in his voice, but I can’t wait any longer.

  “No,” I say.

  Jim looks at Kevin to save him, so I look at Kevin ten times harder. I’m going to blow if I have to just wait here.

  Kevin wrenches his eyes away from mine like it takes a lot of effort. “Dad … ”

  Jim takes one look at me and sighs. We all move into the living room. Jim and Kevin arrange themselves on various chairs while I stalk back and forth behind them, waiting to hear what’s going on.

  “Ice,” Kevin demands. “Sit.”

  I glare at him, but I do as he says. It isn’t worth the fight.

  “I know you boys want something definitive, but I don’t have it. Ms. DeSilva says she’ll review the papers. But it sounds like your dad … ” Jim winces. “By law he’s entitled to see you.”

  “No. No he isn’t. He can’t be.” I launch up again. I’m sure Jim must have misheard her, or maybe she’s wrong, or … Kevin comes up to try to stop my pacing, but I wrench away.

  “Dad?” he says. “There must be something—”

  “She’s going to get in touch with his lawyer and get back to me.” Jim cuts him off. And then he’s right in front of me with his big hands on my shoulders, stopping me. “And you, just stay out of trouble and let us handle this. Do you hear me?”