Nora & Kettle

by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

  When I reach the top, I tip my chin at him. “Father.”

  He smiles sickeningly at me. “I knew you would come crawling back. You’re not strong enough to survive without me.” He looks at his watch, and then back up at me. “You didn’t last much longer than a week.” He sneers.

  I close my mind to his words as they snap at my sides and try to take bites out of me. I am, I am, I am strong enough my heart stutters. I force myself to smile back and not respond to his comment. “I would like to speak with you.”

  He gestures for me to go into his study, lifting his hand to my back as we reach the doorway and pushing me inside, un-gently.

  I resist a little, try to stand on my own feet, but stumble.

  The door closes tightly like the lid of a chest, trapping me inside. No air, except his air. The room is filled with the smell of dusty books, leather and all of me, all the parts of me he took over the years. I pull them in, gather them in my arms, and reclaim them.

  He stalks around me in a circle like a lion, knocking my shoulders as he passes. I don’t move. I won’t move. “I’ve missed you,” he says in a stinging, point-of-a-dagger voice.

  “I find that hard to believe,” I say as he walks to the edge of his desk, folds his arms across his chest, and casually crosses his legs at the ankles. His vest is unbuttoned, his sleeves shoved up to the elbows.

  He ignores my comment and goes for the kill, stabbing me with his words. “Your sister misses you too. Very much.”

  I plant my feet more firmly on the ground. I’m a tree in a storm. He won’t uproot me. “Where is she?”

  He tsks and shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Is she safe?” I whisper, wanting to scream, Why? Why won’t you tell me? What have you done with her? But I’m trying to play his game.

  His mouth twitches, a blanket of frustration whipping across his expression, fast like a bullfighter’s cape. “She is… unharmed,” he mutters, whatever that means. “And now that you are back home, I will consider sending for her.”

  I shake my head slowly. “I’m not back home.”

  The elastic of his skin tightens. His arms bulge as he wraps himself tauter. How many punches are in there? I wonder. How many can I take? My eyes flit to the corners for potential weapons. Golf clubs, umbrella, large, heavy law books that are already stained with my blood.

  A bridge of a few seconds stretches between us, and then he laughs. “Don’t be foolish, Nora, you have nowhere else to go, no money…”

  I’m stuck on this rug, glued down. I pick up my feet, and then plant them again. “I will have money very soon.”

  He lifts from the desk and takes a step toward me. I take a step back. We’re dancing. A horrible dance, a forced partnership I need to break. In his expression, I see fractured bones and purple flesh and then, abruptly, he turns toward his bookshelves and runs his finger along the spines like I’m boring him. He speaks to the letters, gold and black. “You plan to marry then? I can’t imagine anyone would be willing to marry you.”

  I don’t even know what I’m saying. “I do. I will be married by the end of the week. Excuse me for not inviting you, but we wanted to keep the guest list small. Just close family and friends.”

  The corner of his eye twitches, but he doesn’t turn. He pulls out a random book and flicks it open, holding it in one hand as he ruffles the pages. “I’ll never let her go,” he says, snapping the book shut.

  My limbs wobble and try to uncouple. I swallow. “I’ll give you half my inheritance if you tell me where she is. I just want your word that after that, you will leave us alone.”

  This is when he turns. Slow and fast. Made of molten metal and ire. So much anger that he might be on fire. “You are my daughters. My family. You belong to me, and I will never let you go. Never. I don’t want your money. How do you think it would look if my only family ran away from me? Chose to live separate to me? No. I will not allow it. And I will not allow you to marry. I’ll find a way to stop it from happening.” He takes a sharp breath, his fists rolled up and waiting. “You Will. Not. Leave. This. House,” he spits, slamming the book on the floor.

  He shakes his fist as he screams. And I have crumbled. His shadow pins me to my place and I can’t see, can’t find a way out.

  I will not, cannot stay here.

  I step backward, mumbling, “My whole life…”

  He pauses, smoothes his hair down, and stoops to meet my eyes. “Did you speak?” he asks with disgust.

  “My whole life, I’ve been afraid of you. But not anymore.” He’s bent in at strange angles. Frozen by the fact that I’m finally standing up for myself. “Only a cowardly, cruel man hits a child, a mother… an unborn baby.” He cracks, straightens like a puppet being put away for the night. He’s not a real person. He is soulless, empty, and I hate him. I keep walking backward as I talk, “Do you know when the happiest time in my childhood was?” He is quiet and knuckle white, and my words slip from my mouth—venomous but true. “It was when you were MIA, and we thought you might be dead. I remember when we got the yellow letter. As she read it, I didn’t see sadness in her eyes, I saw relief.” There they are. My words. The truth. A tumble of letters on the carpet. We both stare down and back up. Our eyes are the same. Both filled with fury. The difference is what we do with it.

  White turns to red turns to black, black, black.

  I continue. “I will not stay here. And if you won’t accept my offer, then so be it. I’ll find her anyway. I’ll find her, and then you will have nothing,” I shout with my back pressed against the study door. “Nothing but the ghost of a wife who was terrified of you and an empty house!”

  I turn my back to him to open the door. I don’t even care how my words have affected him. I don’t want to look in his furious, hurt, or suffering eyes. I want to go home. Back to the Kings, to Kettle.

  My hand grasps the handle strongly. I think of Kettle and the boys and smile. I’ll find Frankie and I’ll make a life for myself. Then my hand slips from the door, my back inverts, my legs disintegrate, and my face hits the floor.

  50. I DO BELIEVE IN FAIRIES

  KETTLE

  Muffled shouting pounds on the inside of the door.

  “I will not let you go!” a man shouts. A mangled scream follows.

  I’m too late.

  I push on the door, and it opens. Black-and-white tiles shine under a chandelier. A creak to my left pulls my focus and a large woman lingering in a doorway sniffs, her eyes held upwards. “He’s going to kill her,” she says with little emotion. It’s just fact—he will kill her.

  I hear another thump, harder than my heartbeat but not stronger, and I race up the stairs that seem endless and towering. Stretching to the sky.

  There’s some part of me that doesn’t want to go. Doesn’t want to see what’s in that room. I’ve never been so afraid… I think of the beatings, the blood, the shackles and suffering I’ve seen, and still… no. I have never been so afraid in my whole life.

  “Stop! Please,” Nora’s small, wet-sounding voice comes from behind a dark, oily-looking door. Another noise like someone batting dirt from a rug and she screams, though it sounds like a scream beneath a mountain of cloth, like she’s buried.

  I grab the handle, turn and push, finding it hard to get inside because something is blocking the door. “Nora,” I yell through the small gap.

  I glance down and my throat tightens. Tears form, burning rings around my eyes, because the ‘thing’ blocking the door is Nora… and standing over her is a wild, furious man, holding what appears to be a hat rack snapped in half.

  Oh Jesus.

  I don’t have time to be gentle. I shove the door and Nora inward, put my head down and charge at the man. Christopher Deere—defender of civil rights and monster.

  I drive him toward the desk, holding the wrist that’s still clutching the coat rack and smack it down on the tabletop. He won’t let it go, and I have to smack it several times before it cla
tters to the ground.

  “Kettle,” Nora wheezes, pulling herself up to an almost sitting position. She holds her stomach, her face a frighteningly pale, gray color that terrifies me. She coughs, and I’m watching her instead of him. I am rewarded with a book to the side of the head.

  I fall to the side and roll onto the floor, clambering up to my knees, but he’s already got a boot to my stomach. My insides compress, flooding with pain.

  Nora screams, “Leave him alone!” and starts dragging herself toward us.

  I put a hand up to stop her, but he slams his foot down on it. “Is this him?” He laughs. “Oh Nora, you really can pick them,” this cold, dark man with Nora’s eyes shouts as he laughs sardonically.

  There is silence. Air moving in and out of the room like a lung. Something shiny and silver catches the corner of my eye. Another blow hits my ribs and pain flares. I grab at his legs but I can’t gain an advantage from the floor. 
 He grabs my collar and jerks me up so I’m hanging from my clothes, choking.

  A metallic click like a lock sliding into place stops him dead. We hear a sliding sound and turn toward Nora at the same time.

  A flash of white light.

  I wait for the loud bang, for him to fall…

  And then I am released.

  He grunts. All his anger is pooled at the tip of a sharp, silver letter opener in his hand, poised ready to run me through. It drops to the floor, and I scramble away. I look up at Nora, who’s holding a large Polaroid camera to her chest. It seems to terrify her father.

  “Kettle,” she manages in a crushed-to-pieces voice. “Run.” He takes a threatening step toward her and she bolts, with me following behind but slower as I try to block his path.

  “Nora, stop!” he thunders, but she doesn’t listen. She grips the camera like it’s the most precious thing in the world and runs down the stairs.

  Breathless, she shouts, “How will it look for you, Father?” as she takes the steps two, three at a time, a giddy, hysterical edge to her words as she laughs. “The great Christopher Deere caught beating one of the very people he’s been trying to defend.”

  She skids on the carpeted stairs, grips the banister, and turns her face upward. Slow down, I think.

  “Tell me where Frankie is or I’ll give this photo to every paper in the city,” she threatens, holding the heavy camera up to the light. She cracks open the back and peels the photo out, her eyes lighting up when she sees it. Swinging the camera back, she lobs it onto the landing. Her father jumps back as it smashes, the flashbulb sending splinters of glass everywhere.

  She starts moving again. I’m a few steps away from her, but she’s moving too fast. Her father stays at the top, his face rippling with fear, glass dusting his expensive shoes.

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Yes I would!” she yells, stomps her foot, sways, and then loses her balance. And I think, now. Now I have never been so afraid in my entire life.

  NORA

  This seems almost funny. I must be bouncing around inside a shell. Because I hear the cracks, the sharp shattering of things, and I think, This has all happened before and it can’t be me.

  It’s fast. The fastest. My face is split black and white by the cool tiles seeping into my skin. I breathe out and try to decide whether I should breathe back in because it would be easier to sink. Join her down there.

  KETTLE

  I run, doing the same stupid thing that she just did, taking two steps at a time, not holding on. Bounding, breaking, my heart is breaking. Why doesn’t she move? Why does she hug the floor like she wants to disappear beneath it?

  I launch from the last step and skid to a halt beside her body, falling to my knees. Carefully, I run a hand down one of her arms. She doesn’t move. Move.

  Her father hasn’t moved either. He’s frozen in some sort of branched-out horror, his hands clenching the banister, his face giving away nothing. No expression at all. If he cared that he’s killed her, he doesn’t show it.

  The large woman still stands in the doorway. She has taken to moaning and swaying back and forth in the space, like she’s trapped there. I eye her and then look up at Mr. Deere. “Don’t you move a goddamn inch!” I shout, my hand up. He says nothing. He is stone and soon, I forget he’s there. “Oh, Nora. Nora. Nora. Get up. You can’t stay here. Please don’t be dead,” I whisper, moving closer to where her face lies cheek to cheek with the tiles. “You have to come home. You have to come home with me.” My hands are shaking as I brush her hair from her ear. This can’t be happening.

  So many feet, marching, turning, and kicking up splinters on the whitewashed floor.

  “He’s under the bed,” the gruff voice I’ve learned how to avoid grunts. “He’s always hidin’ under the bed. I always find him though.”

  Upside down, brown eyes blink at me. “This is Hiro Jackson? He’s only a little kid. How old is he?”

  “Yessir, that’s him. Bout five, I think.”

  Is that my name? Thick hands grab around my middle and drag me out like a possum under the porch. I kick and scratch like one too.

  I’m scared. I’m always scared.

  I don’t know what’s happening, but I give up quickly. Wherever they’re taking me, maybe it’s better than here. I relax in the large arms.

  “Here’s the order,” the soldier holding me to his hip says, showing a piece of paper with black writing on it that starts off big and gets smaller and smaller like an eye test.

  The man who’s been looking after me for two years peers at it for a second, tracing his finger along the larger words. Then his hands drop and he looks away from the paper and from me. “Don’t care. Just take him.”

  Down the stairs, past the staring eyes of the other children.

  I don’t get to say goodbye.

  The soldier places me gently in the backseat of a large, black car. I shiver and pull my legs up to my chest and he sighs, giving me his jacket.

  “Yeah, this one must be a spy,” he says, laughing. The other men laugh too, only for a second, and then they are quiet.

  “All right, Hiro Jackson, time to take you to your new home.”

  The car pulls away from the gray shingle house and I look out the window, thinking of clouds, and where she is, and why my name is Jackson.

  “Nora. You have to come home with me.”

  I’m so close to her face that my lips brush hers, scratched and perfect. A puff of warm air reaches my skin, and I shudder with relief. She’s alive.

  NORA

  Tiny splinters of words reach my ears.

  A ghost of a kiss.

  “Nor… rah… Nor… rah,” they whisper. Gentle fingers press into my shoulders and shake, nudging me to life. Reminding me to live. “Kite,” he whispers. I pull my legs up. I could be a kite. Wind punching me through, colors and shredded tails. I could fly away. Live in the sky…

  Reel me in.

  The sharp corner of the Polaroid digs into my chest. Words scrape my lips like sand. “Tell me where she is,” I whisper, hoping someone can hear me.

  Kettle reaches under me, his hands bumping things he shouldn’t be touching, but it doesn’t matter now. He rolls me over, sits me up, holds my face in his hands, and tilts it from side to side. Those dark blue eyes hold me together. I see an emotion I don’t recognize in them, a feeling I want to learn.

  He takes the photo still pressed to my chest, stares at it, and then shouts up to my father, who is spilled concrete, splattered all over the landing. Unable to move. Kettle’s voice rumbles and fills the space. “Where is Frankie?” He waves the photo back and forth in the air and then stills. The image is a scar on paper. Christopher Deere about to stab a Japanese boy with a letter opener. It’s clear. My hands were so steady in that moment. I could almost laugh, if my ribs weren’t pinching my lungs.

  A number and a street name tumble from the sky, slide under my flattened body and lift me up.

  I will get up.

  I’m a mira
cle about to happen. I’m a star that refuses to die.

  Leaning heavily on Kettle, I get to my feet, slipping on the splash of red marking the pristine tiles.

  I glare up at my father. “If the address doesn’t check out, you’ll regret it,” I say firmly, my bones made of steel, my leg dripping blood.

  He nods. Nothing else. He doesn’t try to stop me. Doesn’t threaten me.

  It’s over.

  Kettle’s arm wraps around my waist as he half drags me across the threshold, across the common area, and into the cool, autumn air, the sun hitting us with pale gold light. I stop on the step, straighten my clothes, and smile.

  “I’m okay, Kettle,” I say, turning to his warm, copper-colored face.

  He looks down at my leg and then back to my face. I’m radiating something new. I’m a solar flare. I’m heat and determination. He releases me, a hand hovering at my back, just in case.

  “You’re better than okay,” he says, smiling, pushing my heart in at funny angles until it hurts to breathe. “You’re a King.”

  I’m a King.

  I wear his crown. Wear the blue of his eyes, the kindness in his voice. I want more. More words, more time, more light shining on dark places. I want him.

  It should, but this change growing between us doesn’t throw me off balance. It doesn’t take up space that should be Frankie’s. It opens me up and anchors me. It sinks roots to the ground and stretches up to reach the sun. It is good. Nourishing and pure. It is things I never thought I could have.

  I take his hand, hold it tight, and together, we step down and away from the brownstone. I picture my father standing, static on the landing just once, and then he becomes fire-cracked clay, an ornament easily broken. In my mind, he will be frozen that way forever and my brain flicks his image to the side, toppling his wooden likeness as if he were the chess piece. All the power he had over me… gone.

  My bones crack, my skin splits, my leg drags behind me, but the pain seems to shatter and shed from my body the further away we get and the closer we become, until it evaporates into the clouds. I look up and watch the bad parts of me shrinking to dots in the wide blue.

  We’re going home.

  Together, we write words across the sky in giant, messy script, full of mistakes and crossed-out letters. And I am filled with hope as I watch them dance and clash and poke at my fears, because although I know I can do this on my own, now I am sure I don’t have to.