“I think they’re doing fine and no, I haven’t noticed any bruising. I think your Big Brain just came to a wrong conclusion about Shane hitting Penny,” answered Crystal. Jack didn’t agree with this but he chose to keep that to himself for the moment.
“Do you know if anything else is bothering her?” Crystal froze in mid-fold. Yes, something was bothering Penny and Crystal knew what. She started folding the towel again. “Crystal, what is going on with Penny?”
“She made me promise not to tell,” she said. “Don’t ask me to break that promise.”
As much as Jack wanted to know what was concerning Penny so much it had reignited her anorexia, he abided by his fiancé’s wishes. He busied himself with the chicken and was trimming the Brussels sprouts when Penny emerged from the little ones’ bedroom. She looked emotionally spent. Automatically, he channeled his mother.
“Here, have a little snack,” he said and pulled out the small bowl of quartered tomatoes he had marinating in Italian dressing from the fridge. “Dinner will be a while.” He wanted to say Dinner will be a while and I’m afraid you will pass out on me if you don’t eat a little something. Jack refrained, however. Penny sat on the simple wooden stool at the breakfast bar and stared for several minutes at the bowl of tomatoes and plate and fork he set down in front of her. He continued trimming the Brussels sprouts but watched Penny out of the corner of his eye.
It was agonizing to watch her; it was almost like she was having an internal conversation with herself. After ten minutes, she took the fork and speared one quarter and placed it on the plate. Her hands shook so much it reverberated into his heart. She was not doing well and all Jack wanted to do was address the issue. He was afraid, however.
Penny spent a good three minutes first scraping the dressing off of the tomato and then using a napkin to wipe it. She cut the small quarter up into tiny pieces and then divided the tiny pieces equally into two small piles. Penny ate, very slowly, one of the piles. When she was done, she wiped her mouth and pushed the plate towards him.
“I don’t want to waste anymore of your food,” she said in a small voice. “I’ve eaten enough to last me to dinner. Thank you.” She stood up and had to steady herself by clutching the counter.
“Penny…”
“I’m fine, Jack,” she said quickly, letting go of the counter and walking straight to the bathroom. He tiptoed to the closed door and listened. Over the sound of running water, Jack heard Penny retching.
. . .
After Penny emerged from the bathroom with a forced smile, she excused herself and ran across the street to the grocery store. Jack was beside himself and when he shared what happened with Crystal, even she became a little concerned.
“You’re going to talk to her,” she concluded and slipped her arms around his waist. “Just be careful, Jack. I don’t want her to get angry and run away. She’s my best friend.”
“Same here,” he said although silently he asked a question. If she is your best friend, why have you not said anything? Again, he refrained from actually vocalizing the question.
When Penny returned, Jack was feeding a bottle to Nattie while Crystal decided to take a nap. Penny brought back a bag of sodas and a small bouquet of flowers she took many minutes to arrange in the only vase the Petrov family owned, the vase Jack always used for Crystal’s birthday and ‘just because’ flowers. She set it in the middle of the coffee table – the Petrov’s couldn’t afford an actual dining table – and sat down next to Jack. She leaned over and lightly touched Nattie’s cheek as the baby sucked on the bottle. Nattie’s eyes found Penny and for a slight moment, a tiny grin appeared on her face. Hungry, however, she quickly went back to feeding.
“She’s just so beautiful,” Penny whispered. “All your children are and so is Millie.” She paused and the small non-forced smile that appeared as she gazed upon Nattie vanished. “Make sure you tell all of them that; love them equally even if they make a mistake.” Her voice was full of emotion and before he could say anything, she crawled through the window and up the fire escape.
He wanted to go after her but Nattie was only halfway through her bottle and he didn’t want to disturb Crystal if she was indeed asleep. Danny wouldn’t be back from his job stocking shelves at the grocery store for another hour so Jack was stuck. Nattie must have sensed Jack’s urgency and slowed way down in the sucking department. He closed his eyes and used the comforting feeling of holding and feeding a baby to calm him. Patience, he told himself. Penny is with us for right now; I can watch over her.
Nattie finished off her bottle and Jack burped her, changed her, and quietly tiptoed into his bedroom after rocking her asleep. Jack laid her in the crib, kissed his fingertips and then Nattie’s forehead, and closed the door behind him. When he turned around, Millie was standing in the middle of the cramped living room. She was wide awake.
“You are supposed to be napping,” he said quietly and picked her up. Millie looked very guilty.
“I wasn’t tired so I pretended to go to sleep,” she explained. Jack sat down on the couch with his sister on his lap.
“You will be asleep before the Shabbat candles go out,” he admonished. “It is the one night during the week I let you stay up late.” She looked at him with a worried look on her face. “Sestra, what is wrong?”
“The twins fell asleep right away and I pretended,” she said, her words hesitant. “Penny stayed in our room a long time, Jack. She was crying. Is something wrong with Penny? I don’t like it when she cries.”
“She had a really rough time in school,” Jack said, thinking of an excuse his inquisitive little sister would believe. “You know how I get about my schooling…”
“You get crazy,” Millie said and shook her head in a wacky way.
“Yes, I get crazy. Well, Penny is actually worse than I am so when she did not do so well on her big tests, she became very sad.” Millie frowned.
“How come she didn’t read her books with you like always?”
“We just had different classes this time around,” he explained.
“Jack, don’t do that again. I don’t like it when Penny is sad and crying. You take the same classes as Penny so you can help her and she can help you. Then maybe you wouldn’t be such a putz sometimes.” Millie knew immediately she was in trouble and clamped her hands over her mouth.
“Milena! That is not a nice word. Where did you learn that?”
“From Jonah at shul,” she said without looking at Jack.
“Jonah, huh? The same little boy who has been teaching you all those other naughty Yiddish words?”
“But he always tells me they’re not naughty,” she insisted, finally looking up at him. “I trusted him.”
“You have a beautiful heart, Millie, but I think it is time for you to steer clear of Jonah when you are in Sunday school at shul and I will have a little talk with his parents,” he explained, feeling his ire at the naughty little boy rise.
“I’m sorry, Jack, for calling you a pu… for calling you a bad name,” she apologized. “But you were kind of…” She shook her head crazily again.
“I know and I apologize for that also. I had a lot going on with school and work and the band and you and the new baby and the twins…”
“And now Pretty Penny,” added Millie.
“Yes, and now Pretty Penny,” he said with a sad smile.
“Can you make her better? Please?” Millie looked at him with such innocent eyes.
“I can try,” he said and moved his sister off his lap. “Penny is up on the roof…”
“Oh! Can I go up there?”
“Now, Millie, you know the rules.”
“I know,” she said with
a sigh. “Stay off the fire escape unless there’s a fire and no going up to the roof.”
“That is right,” he said and went over to one of the tall built-in cabinets Millie could not get into. He took out a piece of good drawing paper. “How about you find your crayons? And here is a nice piece of paper. Do you think you could draw Penny a pretty picture that would make her smile?”
“You betcha!” she replied and hopped off the couch.
“Good, now I am going to the roof. You need to stay here in the living room and not go into the kitchen because the oven is cooking our chicken. Pech’ zharko.” Millie rolled her eyes at Jack.
“I know the oven is hot, brat,” she said impatiently.
“I am just checking, sestra,” he replied and booped her nose. He brought the baby monitor over to Millie’s little play table in the corner and he turned it on. “If the twins wake up or you hear the baby cry, you just tell me into the monitor and I will take this part up to the roof with me so I can hear you, okay?”
“Okay,” she said and settled herself down.
Jack checked on the sleepers of the home and found them all still zonked out. He crawled onto the fire escape and up the iron flight of stairs to the roof. The day had been abnormally hot for late May but there were thunderheads on the horizon and the next day was due to be a whopping 40 degrees cooler. With the black roof soaking up the hot sunlight, the air on the roof was oppressive. It reminded Jack of the day almost three years earlier when he met Penny. This time, however, there wasn’t a gloomy rain. The gloom was coming from the situation Jack needed to address.
Penny was sitting on a small square of concrete next to the roof access door. The space was directly in the sun and as he approached, he could see she was drenched in sweat. He turned around, went back to the apartment and kitchen, and filled a plastic tumbler with ice and cold water.
“Here you go,” he said, handing her the glass and sitting down next to her. There was a heavy breeze that helped a little but Jack still started sweating. The apartment, on the east side of the building, had remained pleasant despite the heat of the day.
“Spasibo,” Penny said and took the glass. She sipped for several silent minutes before setting the glass down and pulling out her ponytail holder and shaking her hair loose. It was one of the few times he had seen her chestnut brown hair unbound. “I have a hair headache,” she noted and started massaging her scalp. Her hair covered her face but after a few moments, she contained it into a loose braid and secured the end of it.
“You are my closest friend, my luchshiy drug,” he said. “And I am worried about you.” Penny’s gaze was far away. “Your anorexia is back, no?”
Penny was silent. Over the baby monitor came the light sound of Millie singing. It was an old Russian folk tune Jack taught her, just as their mother had taught him in the gray flat in Siberia.
“Yes,” Penny finally said.
“Will you help me understand? I read everything I could but the books do not speak clearly about how the anorexia hurts a person’s soul. I can see it in your pretty eyes your soul is in pain.” Penny looked at him for the first time since he sat down. There was a touch of confusion to her face.
“I don’t even know where to begin, Ivan,” she said in a pained voice.
“How about, as they say, from the beginning,” he suggested. She leaned her head back against the wall. She looked defeated.
“I will tell you some. I know you will ask questions but if I choose not to answer, please accept that,” she requested. “I know it will be hard for your Big Brain.”
“I will be okay,” he replied. “I just want to understand so I can try to help you.” She nodded and took a long drink of the ice water. Penny then took a deep breath.
“I was thirteen the first time I made myself throw up after eating. I had… gained a little weight over the previous months. Not much but I wasn’t as skinny as my half-sister, Amanda. It was just a couple months after I started to live with my dad and his wife.”
“Your parents were divorced?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “They never married but my mom…” Penny paused and she looked very uncomfortable. “My mom had to go to prison and I had to live with my dad and his family.”
“Why did your mother go to prison?” Jack asked. His heart was racing. Penny was talking about the period in her life she said she would never talk about. This was big.
“I won’t answer that,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I went to live with my dad. Amanda, his daughter with his wife, was so perfect. Skinny, long golden hair, so pretty. I felt ugly next to her especially with the weight I had gained. They were having a backyard barbecue just before school started and Amanda and I were dressed up. Dad said how beautiful Amanda was but then turned to me and said…,” Penny paused. Clearly, she was troubled by the memory. “He said I might be beautiful one day when I wasn’t so fat. After I ate dinner that night, I snuck down to the basement bathroom, stuck my finger down my throat and threw up everything I ate. And that’s when I heard it.”
“Heard what?”
“The Terrible Voice. It told me something I had never heard before by anyone. It told me It was proud of me for making myself sick. When I heard those words… Well, that’s all it took. I started losing weight in the hopes of my dad noticing. I wanted to hear him tell me I was beautiful. I’m still waiting for that.” She looked down at her hands. Jack felt for her so much.
“Did your father say something to you this semester to make your anorexia worse?”
“No. It’s grown more complicated since it began. Many things make it worse such as stress.”
“Like during our first finals week, no?” he noted and she nodded.
“Da.”
“But you are even thinner now, Penelope. This could not have just happened this week with our exams. Plus, you said you had a bad semester.” Again, she nodded.
“Right before Christmas, I found out my mom’s sentence would be up and she’d be released. I’ve been worried about seeing her again plus my course load was heavy and Shane and I have been having problems. When my grades started dipping, I worried about what Dad would say. The Terrible Voice started talking to me again.” Penny’s voice broke for a moment and she looked away. Jack wondered if she was going to start crying. This would be a first for them; she had never spilled her tears in front of him. For several moments she fought against her emotions and appeared to have won. “This time, It’s so loud. I can’t ignore It.”
“You need to,” Jack said and picked up Penny’s bony hand. “Your health is being hampered.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ve passed out twice in the last week. That angers the Terrible Voice and It punishes me further by not letting me eat and making me run more. If I do eat, because I know I have to, the Terrible Voice makes me throw up and run even more. I can’t stop myself.”
“You need medical help, Penny,” he said.
“I know but I’m on my Dad’s health insurance and after he sees my grades from this semester, there’s no way he’ll help me. The Terrible Voice won’t even let me ask.”
Strashnyi golos. It was the closest he could come to in Russian for Terrible Voice.
“Your father will understand,” Jack insisted. “You are his daughter and you need help. He cannot deny you that.” Penny looked at Jack with such a forlorn look on her face.
“I don’t want to disappoint him again.”
“I cannot imagine you disappointing anyone.” Penny’s sad face became even more prominent.
. . .
Dinner was ready and it was time to light the Shabbat candles. They gathered around the breakfast bar. Crystal held Nattie
, Penny held Ellie, and Danny held Sasha. Millie was kneeling on the stool while Jack lit the match. She put her hand on his as he lit first one candle and then the next one. Millie carefully made three circles and covered her eyes. Penny helped Ellie do the same thing. Jack said the blessing slowly so Millie could clumsily say it with him. She was learning.
“Baruch ata Adonai Elohenu melech haolam asher kideeshanu bimitzvotav vitzivanoo lihadleek ner shel Shabbat,” they said. Jack kissed her on the top of her head.
“You are getting so good, Miriam,” he exclaimed. On Shabbat, Jack used his children’s Hebrew names. He went to each child, put his hand on each of their heads, and wished them God’s blessing. He did the same to Crystal and also to Penny. Millie and Jack moved on to the blessing over the challah and the wine before they gathered around the coffee table. Penny gave Elisheva (Ellie) to Jack as he preferred to feed her since she was still struggling with solid food and would also need to receive her nutritional shake through her tummy button. Techiya (Nattie) was still asleep so Crystal put her back in the crib and sat on the couch next to Daniel (Danny). Yitzhak (Jack) sat on the floor opposite Crystal with Penny next to him. Miriam (Millie) sat on one end of the table and Adam (Sasha) on the other. It was crowded but homey.
Jack kept a close eye on Penny. She was clearly struggling with the food and he exchanged several worried glances with Crystal. Penny had taken a small piece of the baked chicken, three Brussels sprouts, two tomato quarters, and a skinny piece of challah. With the exception of the challah, she cut the rest of her food up in small pieces, just as she had done earlier, and divided each item into two piles. Then, she put her fork and knife down. She looked dejected. Jack wanted to say something but didn’t want to bring attention to the situation with the kids around. Thankfully, they were too focused on the food to notice Penny’s strange behavior.
He focused for a few minutes on Ellie. He had also cut a small plate of food up for her and she was slowly picking up the pieces with her hand and putting them in her mouth. Jack picked up her baby fork and held it out to her. She took it, looked at it with interest, then chucked it across the room. Patience, he told himself. He looked at Millie and Sasha and they were both withholding their laughs. Jack had been teaching them not to react to some of the things Ellie did including throwing her fork and spoon. He wanted Ellie to understand her utensils were for eating and not for making other people laugh. It was a struggle but since she was doing well with feeding herself with her fingers for the moment, he counted that as a win.
Aftermath (The Deceptions Trilogy Book 2) Page 11
