Wings of Glass

by Gina Holmes

  “Thanks,” I said, “but I’ve got all the wounds I need.”

  She started to say something else, but the sound of a snapping twig stopped her. We both turned to see a woman coming up the side of the building. She stopped a few feet from us, staring at Callie Mae with a hand dug into her plump hip. I recognized her as the woman who interviewed me the first time I’d come there for help. “You were smoking again, weren’t you, Callie? Don’t you dare even try to deny it this time. I can smell it.”

  Callie Mae opened her palm and thrust the wrinkled butt at the woman. “That’s right, Ginny Elizabeth Perfect, I’m smoking. I’m a grown woman. If I want to smoke, I will.”

  The woman shook her head in disapproval, making her double chin jiggle. “Do I need to remind you again we are supposed to be God’s temple?”

  “Yes, we are,” Callie Mae said. “You try to remember that the next time you pile up a third helping at Lovely Palace Buffet.”

  The woman looked at me as if I might step in to defend her from Callie Mae, then looked back to her. “Well, maybe I won’t come out to eat with you anymore if my eating habits offend you.”

  Callie Mae shrugged.

  The woman turned on her heel, stomped up the back steps, and slammed the door behind her.

  “Was that your idea of a faithful wound?” I asked her.

  She pulled another cigarette from her pack and lit it. “As a matter of fact, it was.”

  NINETEEN

  WORK WAS MISERABLE that week. I planned on giving Fatimah the silent treatment for as long as it took to elicit an apology, but that woman was pure stubbornness. It didn’t seem to bother her one iota I wasn’t talking to her. She just hummed church hymns and cleaned as if I weren’t even there.

  It was driving me absolutely crazy. After about day three, I was ready to cave. “So, do you want me to take the upstairs?” I asked.

  She picked up a dining room chair from the rug and moved it to the hardwood floor so she could vacuum. “Am I your mother that you should answer to me?”

  I gave her a dull look. “You don’t need to be rude. I was just asking a simple question.”

  She picked up a second chair and walked around me with it. As she passed, her familiar scent of unfamiliar spices wafted by. She set the chair in the hall under a framed watercolor of James Dean. “I am not rude. I asked you simple question in return. At least I answer you. That is more than you have done.”

  I snatched the broom from against the wall. “I’m supposed to answer the question of whether or not you’re my mother?” I held out my arm next to hers to compare our skin colors. “Um, from the looks of it, I’d say probably not.”

  With a blank expression, she picked up another chair. I was so mad I wanted to spit, Manny. But as much as I wanted the tension between us to be gone, I was not about to give in when she was in the wrong. She’d been talking about your father and me behind our backs. She could have come to me and asked me straight up if he was using me as a punching bag—not that I’d have answered truthfully. But then, as far as I was concerned, it was none of her business.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll take the kitchen.”

  She bent over and plugged the vacuum into the wall socket. “I knew you would.”

  The way she said it was pure ornery. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I am speaking your language, yes? I have not reverted to Arabic, true?”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Just don’t talk to me again until you’re ready to apologize.”

  She stood and worked a kink out of the vacuum cord. “Why should I make apologize to you?”

  My mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? You talk about me behind my back to Callie and accuse my husband of being a wife beater. I think that’s pretty awful.”

  Ignoring me, she hit the on button with the toe of her shoe and pushed the humming machine back and forth slowly over the Oriental rug as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  That kitchen probably had never been so clean as I worked out my aggression with Pine-Sol and elbow grease on every last crevice, mumbling to myself, arguing with what I imagined Fatimah would say if we were speaking.

  I hadn’t realized how long I’d been working until she came in with her cleaning caddy all packed and stood there glaring at me.

  “What do you want?” I finally said.

  She clicked her tongue in irritation. “While you have enjoyed a leisurely cleaning of this one room, I have completed the entire house.”

  I looked at the digital clock on the microwave, shocked to find I’d been at it for nearly two hours. Embarrassment filled me, but I did my best not to give her the satisfaction of knowing it. “Well, at least they can’t say the kitchen isn’t clean.”

  “If it were not for me, that is all that would be clean.”

  That did it. I’d had quite enough of her. “I am so sick of you, Fatimah.”

  She ignored my comment, grabbed the broom with her free hand, and started for the door. I was so furious I grabbed her shoulder to get her attention. She jerked around and looked at me with a ferociousness that paralyzed me.

  I let go.

  “You do not ever touch me again,” she whispered.

  “I was just trying to get you to stop.”

  She pointed the broom handle at me. “You touch me like that again, and you will lose your hand. True.”

  “I’m not scared of you,” I said, but of course, I was.

  When she set the caddy on the floor and the broom against the wall, I thought she was fixing to whoop me.

  My adrenaline started to flow as I watched her, fists at my side ready to defend myself.

  Her eyes were wild as she pointed her finger inches from my face. “I was beaten. I was raped. I was spit on. No one will put their hand on me ever again. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  Manny, in life there is a time and place to stand up for yourself, but always walk away from crazy if you can. That’s just what she was at that moment.

  “Just because your husband puts his hands on you does not allow you permission to put yours on me.”

  “Why do you think that?” I asked, partly to de-escalate the situation, partly just really wanting to know how she had come to the conclusion I was a battered wife.

  “I do not think it. I know it.”

  “You don’t know anything,” I said. “You shouldn’t have said that to Callie.”

  The wild look in her eyes left as quickly as it had come. “I do not know many things, Peeny. I am without education, but I can read the fear of a wife whose husband beats her. He hits you, yes. But the bruises that cannot be seen are the most painful of all. True?”

  I couldn’t breathe. Why was it now when things were improving with Trent I should be called out? He was doing better. I didn’t want to talk about it now. The abuse was history. A history I didn’t want to relive. “You’re wrong, Fatimah.”

  She grabbed the handle of her caddy. “Your husband is blind, but I am not.”

  I grabbed the broom, pushed past her, and got into the car. I sat staring out the window at a half-dead willow tree that looked as defeated as I felt. Expressionless, Fatimah put the cleaning supplies into the backseat and slid behind the wheel.

  “We have one house more only. It is a good thing, too. It is the giant house that ate all the other houses on the street.”

  “Why are you talking to me?” I asked, still staring out the window. A robin disappeared behind the crumbling brown-and-green curtain of willow leaves.

  She turned the ignition and backed out of the driveway. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  I gave her an annoyed look. “Are you for real?”

  “I am real,” she said as if my hypothetical question really needed an answer. “Are you?”

  I whipped my head back toward the window and watched houses and cars blur by. The neighborhood we were driving to was a good twenty-minute ride. Fifteen minutes in, I broke. “You’re wrong.
”

  “About the house?”

  “About Trent.”

  “No.” She pulled off the ramp onto the next main road. When a traffic light blinked from green to yellow, she slammed on the brakes. I threw my palm onto the dashboard to catch myself. Apparently no one told her a yellow light meant gun it, not come to a screeching stop.

  “He did hit me—you’re right about that. But he doesn’t do it anymore.”

  She gave me a dull look. “When does he stop?”

  I tried to mentally form my answer so it didn’t sound so pathetic when it came out of my mouth.

  “I will have guess.” She tapped a rhythm against the steering wheel with her thumbs. “When he lost his eyes.”

  The truth of what she said struck me. “So what? He’s changing. That’s what matters.”

  The light flashed green, and Fatimah punched the gas, pushing me back into my seat. “If he never lost his sight, he would still hit on you.”

  I didn’t want to believe she was right. After all, his eyes were improving each day. What if his vision came back completely? I shuddered to consider it. “But he did, and he doesn’t.”

  “Heart do not begin to see just because eyes no longer can.”

  I was so sick of her philosophical mumbo jumbo. “You don’t know everything. Why can’t you admit you don’t know Trent’s heart? Only God does.”

  “God give me discernment, and I see him for who he is. You are his wife. You see too, even if you will not make admit.”

  I turned my head so she couldn’t see the tears filling my eyes.

  “You cry because I am honest. It is not your fault, Peeny. It was not my fault my father beat me. It was not my fault I was raped. The shame was theirs, not for mine. The shame is your husband’s. Not yours.”

  “He’s better now,” I said around sniffles. “People can change. He’s changed.”

  She pulled along the shoulder of the road and rolled to a stop in front of a black mailbox affixed to a splintered piece of timber. A bald man watched us from his porch swing.

  Fatimah just looked at me for the longest time. Finally, she said, “I do not know how many times your husband has beats you. I only know no man hits a woman just once.”

  TWENTY

  I COULDN’T WAIT to get home to your father, lie with him on the couch, and forget about my awful day. Of course I wasn’t about to discuss with him what Fatimah accused him of. I didn’t want to listen to him curse her out and guilt me into quitting the job. Lying beside him would have to be comfort enough. As it turned out, even that was too much to ask.

  The smell of booze and a cloud of marijuana and cigarette smoke hit me as soon as I opened the door. Trent sat on the couch beside that black-haired woman from the hospital. A dozen empty beer cans littered the cocktail table and carpet, and a mound of cigarette butts overflowed the ashtray. Some were smoked down to the filter, while others had been lit and forgotten—nothing but a long gray ash.

  Trent and Norma were laughing so hard they didn’t even hear me come in.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Through slit eyes, they clamped their mouths and looked at me . . . then started laughing again.

  I’m not proud to admit it, but I felt one chuckle away from ripping that woman’s straggly hair right out of her head. Lucky for both of us, she shut her mouth real quick and looked at your father. Funny how I used to blame all the wrong people for my troubles. Guess it felt safer that way.

  He fought to catch his breath through the laughter. “Penny, you remember Norma from work.”

  My mouth said nothing. My eyes, I hoped, said all that needed saying.

  Tripping all over herself trying to get to me, she put a hand out for me to shake. Her long nails wore a coat of chipped fire-engine red. I just looked down at her hand until she withdrew it. “I’m sorry, Penny. I know how this must look, but believe me we were just—”

  “Oh, shut up, Norma.” Trent took a gulp from the beer in his hand, then crushed the can between his palms and dropped it to the floor. It clinked against another empty. “Penny, don’t be rude. Norma here brought us good news. Very good news, as a matter of fact. We’re just celebrating. Come have a beer with us.”

  Us. To my ears, the word sounded like fingernails scraping across a chalkboard. “What news?” I asked coldly, eyeing the woman. With her beak of a nose and beady black eyes, she looked like a crow, but she had curves where I didn’t. Trent always said I had the body of a tomboy. The way he said it made it clear he wouldn’t mind more. And once again, he had it.

  He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a check, then snapped it. “I’m back on the payroll, baby. Our money worries are slam-bam over.”

  “What are you talking about?” I watched her watch him.

  Norma stood in the middle of our living room in her painted-on jeans and spiked heels, high as a weather balloon, fidgeting with her hands as if she couldn’t figure out what to do with them. “I talked Ralph into putting Trent back on the payroll until his disability goes through.”

  “That right?” I asked, wondering why it was okay for him to take charity, but not me.

  “Turns out all she had to do was tell him I’d been talking to a lawyer,” he said.

  “Stanford Gourdfest.” They both vomited the name at the same time and started laughing again like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

  Trent caught his breath. “She couldn’t make up a name like John Smith, no—” he gave her a side glance—“she had to come up with Stanford Pumpkin-Party.”

  She feigned an indignant look. “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

  I searched her and Trent for signs they’d been together. Their clothes weren’t disheveled. Their hair didn’t look a mess. I started to relax . . . until I noticed a smear of pink grease by Trent’s left ear—the same shade as Norma’s faded lipstick.

  My stomach bottomed out as I fought to keep my voice steady. “You’ve got lipstick on your face.”

  He rubbed at the wrong cheek with his knuckles. “There you go, jumping to conclusions again. She kissed my cheek; so what? Your mama never kissed your cheek? Was it sexual?”

  I pushed my purse up and crossed my arms. “I want her out of here, right now.”

  Norma’s bloodshot gaze ping-ponged between us.

  “Now you wait just a minute,” Trent started to say, but she cut him off.

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve got to go. I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t like to come home and find some strange woman in my house with my husband.”

  When his jaw clenched, an idea came to me. He was as jealous as they came, so I decided to test their relationship.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Norma, is it? Thanks for doing that for us. You’re a godsend. I just had a bad day, is all. I shouldn’t take it out on you. Please stay and have another beer.”

  She looked at Trent, unsure, then picked up her purse—a zebra print that had started to turn the same shade of yellow as our walls. “I really have to get home.”

  “I’ll bet a pretty woman like you has got some kind of man to go home to,” I forced out.

  No crinkles formed around her eyes as she smiled.

  I watched Trent’s face turn shades of red.

  “What’s your husband do?” I asked.

  She looked at him as if needing permission to answer. “He’s a welder, like Trent.”

  I set my bag on the entry table, but hung on to the car keys, just in case. “Oh, so he works with you?”

  She shifted from one foot to the other. “He has in the past. Now he mostly don’t work nowhere.”

  I faked a look of pity. “Why is that?”

  “He says he’s too pretty to work.”

  My laughter sounded as phony as it felt. “With a gorgeous woman like you, I bet he is,” I practically choked on the compliment, all the while watching your father from my periphery.

  “Penny, stop giving her the inquisition,” he growled.

  �
��I’m just being friendly. Sheesh. You tell me not to be rude, and then not to talk nice. Can’t have it both ways, darling.” My boldness was uncharacteristic for me. My counselor likes to say a person only changes when their belly finally gets full, and I think that night mine had begun to.

  “Nothing wrong with having a pretty man,” I said, relishing the flush in Trent’s neck and the squirm in Norma’s stance.

  I imagined that this woman had a very definite type—good-looking, lazy alcoholics.

  “Well, Penny, it was nice to see you again, but I really ought to get home.” She started for the door and turned around to look at Trent. “I hope that helps. I’ll make sure those checks keep coming until your disability rolls in, okay?”

  “Whatever. Run on home now to your pretty husband.” His icy words answered every question I had. Although I wasn’t surprised, I still managed to feel devastated.

  “You know you shouldn’t be driving in your condition,” I said as her hand reached for the doorknob. I wasn’t worried about her as much as the unsuspecting people she might come in contact with. “Why don’t you call your husband to come get you?”

  She waved her hand in dismissal. “Shoot. I drive better this way. It’s the only time I’m too afraid not to do the speed limit.”

  Lovely, I thought. Silently, I asked God to keep her from hurting anyone and wished I had it in me to pray for her too. You know, Manny, I still find myself thinking about that opportunity I missed to pray for her protection, and I can’t help but wonder if that one prayer might have changed everything. Guess even now, I like to take the guilt of the world on my shoulders, as if anyone besides Jesus could bear that weight.

  When Norma finally left, I went to the window and watched her crawl into the beat-up Honda across the street.

  “What was that?” he demanded.

  “What was what?” I tried my best to sound indifferent, but inside I was full of hatred. I left him standing there with his jealousy and walked to the kitchen.