Kit's Law (19 page)

“You oughtn’t stare at a man like that,” he whispered.

My face grew hot and I felt the hardness of his body pressing against mine. Giving a little laugh, I struggled harder to get away, but his arms tightened around me, his breath caressing my cheek, and it felt as if I were suffocating.

“It ain’t no man that bawls and sits home with his mother all the time,” I hurtled. It was Margaret’s words, spoken without my even knowing they were there, and were meaningless to all but Margaret and her best friends. And on this day, Sid. His smile uncurled itself and he let go of me.

“Is that what you believe?” he asked, coldly. “That I’m a mommy’s boy?”

Spinning on his heel, he strolled back up the beach while I stood there, staring after him, willing my tongue to untie itself and call out to him. It was frozen. I followed meekly, not wanting to catch up, but not wanting to lose sight of him, either. Finally, he was at the top of the gully, heading up over the bank for the road.

“I didn’t mean it,” I called out. But my words, thundering inside my head, sounded no louder than the chirp of a baby chick. He never looked around, just kept on walking with his head down and arms swinging. He kept pace till he disappeared down the road, never looking back. Kicking myself in the leg, I sat down on the chopping block and wrapped my arms miserably around myself.

“Damn!” I yelled. “Damn! Damn!”

“What’s that you say, Kit?” asked Aunt Drucie, shuffling onto the door stoop, smoothing down her apron.

“Nothin’,” I mumbled.

“You be scowlin’ awful hard over nothin’. Is Sid gone, then?” she asked after I never spoke.

I nodded.

She come over to where I was sitting.

“Had a fight, did ye?” she near whispered, leaning her mouth down close to my ear.

“No. Yeah! Boys are stupid.”

“Aye. And they gets worse with age. But, don’t let it bother you none, ’tis the way of lovers to fight.”

“Damn it, Aunt Drucie, I ain’t Sid’s lover!” I exclaimed, shocked upright on my feet.

“It’s just a sayin’, Kit, it’s just a sayin’,” Aunt Drucie said quickly, a touch of merriment in her rheumy old eyes as she took hold of my arm and tried to lead me towards the house. “Heh, you were quick to jump on that one.”

“Just don’t go sayin’ things like that,” I said, still tensed with shock. “I don’t want people talkin’ about me.”

“There’s no one to speak wrong about you as long as I’m around,” said Aunt Drucie, tugging me forward. “’Cuz I thinks of you as me own, I do, you and your poor mother. It’s a good turn God give me by havin’ me come out here and take care of ye, for it gets lonely livin’ by meself, and Lizzy was always one to drop by for a cup of tea. Here, you sit in her rocker,” she said, after she had led me inside the house. “I makes you a glass of syrup, like I use to do for her when she come for a visit on hot days. Oh my, I misses her, I do, but it helps me heart to know I’m takin’ care of her girls. But I worries about you not goin’ to church, Kit.”

“It ain’t only in church that we finds God, Aunt Drucie.”

“They’d be damned in Perpy’s Cove if that was the case,” said Aunt Drucie. “But Lizzy always liked bringin’ you to church.”

“I says my prayers.”

“Then that’ll take care of it. We gets along, hey, Kit?”

I nodded and smiled when she handed me the glass of syrup.

“And Josie?” asked Aunt Drucie. “She don’t mind me comin’, do she?”

“She likes you comin’,” I said. Then, “And I likes you comin’, too. We couldn’t live here, if it wouldn’t for you, Aunt Drucie.”

“Aye, that’s something about the whole lot of ye,” Aunt Drucie said, curling up on the daybed and tucking her legs up in under her. “Ye can’t stand being around people any more than I can meself, do you, Kit, you and your poor mother?”

I shook my head, sipping the syrup.

“They thinks I gets lonely, they do,” she went on, “livin’ on top of Fox Point by meself, but I wouldn’t live in Haire’s Hollow for a year’s grub. Everybody nosin’ into your thoughts. I keeps me own counsel, me and Lizzy both, exceptin’ with each other. And there we had a right to poke, in case one of us started gettin’ addled. For sure nobody else’d know it, for they thinks we were part-addled anyway, for wantin’ to live up in the hills amongst the crows.”

I nodded as Aunt Drucie went into a yawn, and shifted the rocker so’s I could see out the window, down over the gully.

“What do you say, Kit?”

“For sure they thinks we are,” I said.

“Aye, for sure they thinks we are. Nothin’ wrong with livin’ with the crows, what do you say, Kit?”

“Nothin’ wrong with crows, Aunt Drucie,” I said, rocking and watching, rocking and watching.

B
ROKEN
B
IRDS

I
T WAS LATE EVENING WHEN
J
OSIE CAME HOME.
Thankfully, Aunt Drucie had gone home for the day, and I was still sitting in the rocking chair, watching and waiting. She was drunk, so drunk that she couldn’t take two steps without falling down. I met her at the door and, putting my arm round her shoulders, helped her to her room. I was surprised to see that we were about the same height now, and that beneath her clothes, she was all skin and bones, much like how the little robin felt through its feathers and down. I helped her take off her clothes and after she fell across the bed, I pushed open her window to let in some fresh air. She whimpered, snuggling her face into her pillow and reminding me of a baby groping for its mother’s tit. Remembering Sid’s words that she was just a big kid, I laid a quietening hand on her shoulder before leaving her room. The next morning drew hot and muggy. Josie was so sick that she just lay across her bed, sticking her head out the window to puke, then resting her cheek tiredly on the windowsill to catch the faint breeze.

The smell of vomit sweltered through the house and, along with it, blue arse fish flies that came in through her window and buzzed around the kitchen like bullets. Scared of what Aunt Drucie would think, and even more scared that May Eveleigh or one of the other women might show up, I lugged the shovel out back to where her room window was and, digging up some black ground from alongside the rotting picket fence, slung it over her vomit. Squatting in the sparse shade of an old spruce, I closed my eyes and waited as she stuck her head out and started retching again. After she had done, I dug the spade deeper and shovelled another layer of dirt over the steaming puke.

It was Doctor Hodgins who showed up, just a few minutes after Aunt Drucie.

“She got stomach upset,” I said. “I had the same, but I’m better, now. Want some tea, Doctor? Aunt Drucie?”

“Glass of water will be fine, Kit. I’ll go have a look at Josie,” Doctor Hodgins said.

“Heh, I’ll have a cup of tea, maid, after I checks on Josie,” Aunt Drucie said, creeping down the hall behind Doctor Hodgins. They were both back in a minute, Aunt Drucie tutting and shaking her head and Doctor Hodgins with a look akin to pity as his eyes met mine.

“She got it bad,” Aunt Drucie said. “The summer flu! Herm Gale was in bed for a week, comin’ out of him from both ends, and one as watery as the other.”

“Keep giving her water, Drucie,” Doctor Hodgins said. “Kit, come with me.”

Putting his arm around my shoulder, he walked me up to the road besides where his car was parked.

“She’s as hung over as Mope after a two-week binge,” he said abruptly, coming to a stop and leaning back against the car door. “When did she start drinking? Or,” he tweaked my chin with a sympathetic sigh, “should I ask, when did she start running off, again?”

“It’s her first time,” I said.

“First time getting drunk? Or first time running off?”

I thought for a minute.

“She ran off once before. Two months ago. Don’t sound like it’s much of a problem.”

Doctor Hodgins groaned, wiping at the sweat on his brow with the back of his hand.

“It doesn’t have to be much for the good reverend to get involved,” he said. “What about Sid? Has he seen anything?”

I shook my head.

“Good. He’s a good lad. I wouldn’t fear him too much.”

“Doctor Hodgins, I’m almost fifteen. Soon, I won’t be needin’ anyone to live with me.”

“There’s truth to that.” He looked at me a little sadly, then gently patted my shoulder. “You know, Kittens, there’s more to growing up than crossing off years. Friends, fun. Have you ever had fun, Kit? A best friend?”

Not liking the seriousness in his tone and the troubled look playing over his face, I gave a big smile and started talking like Margaret Eveleigh whenever she was walking and talking with her best friends.

“I talks with Melissa and everybody in school all the time. And I plays with Josie now.”

His crinkly grey eyes smiled and he folded his arms.

“Breathe easy, Kit. I’m not hauling you out of your precious gully.”

“It’s not a gully, it’s my home,” I said with a startling sharpness.

His eyes sobered.

“You’re right, it is your home,” he said finally. “And you’ve a right to it. But there are other things you’ve a right to—things you ought to be giving more thought to.”

“I think about her,” I said, glancing towards the house.

His eyes followed my glance and rested there for some time before coming back to me.

“For sure it would seem that she’s been left to you. But perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps she’s been left to all of us. Think, Kit, is it sacrifice that keeps you here? Or fear?”

The noonday sun was getting hotter.

“It’s a tough question, Kittens. What say we leave it for your fifteenth birthday?” His eyes were back to smiling again, and laying both hands on either side of my cheeks, he kissed me on the forehead, then said a little gruffly, “You’re a good girl. Keep me in touch with what Josie’s up to. That’s important, Kit. It’s the only way I can help you. Do you understand me? I need to know.” A breeze stirred the nearby aspen and I felt the trembling of each solitary leaf right down to the quick. I nodded again, scarcely able to meet his eyes for fear that he would see how much I needed to talk to him right then, about how the reverend had made me smell like rotting dogberries, and how Josie was screwing Shine. But something held me back, something to do with his look of pity, and his sudden concern for what he felt was missing in my life, as well as what God had already provided.

“I’m going down Chouse Brook, fishing with Old Joe for a day,” he said, climbing into his car. “I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow evening.”

“Old Joe turnin’ you into a fisherman, is he?” I asked, trying to make light.

“It’s his yarns I like more than the fishing,” Doctor Hodgins said, giving me a wink before he shut his door. “But, we won’t tell him that, will we?”

I grinned and waved as he started up his car and turned it around to head back into Haire’s Hollow. I watched him as he drove out of sight, then sauntered down to the grassy spot behind the house, thinking about what he had said about living somewhere else. But, it was an impossible thought. I couldn’t think of a day without the gully and its running brook, and the burning red worlds amongst the rocks at Crooked Feeder. Nor could Pirate live anywhere else, I thought, with his need to never be touched, and his want of the meadow and the woods. And what of Nan—and her ongoing sounds? Could she ever find me someplace else? And what of Sid?

Sid. If he ever came back again. And even if he never, there was Josie. Since the minute I had put my arms around her shoulders last evening and helped her stagger to her room, I thought of her as the wounded bird Pirate had brought home as an offering that day. And this time I had to keep it from flying to its death.

The sun moved around, flushing me out of the shade, and I went inside. Aunt Drucie was napping on the daybed, her head propped up close to the window to catch the scattered breeze. Peeking into Josie’s room, I saw that she was lying awake on her pillow, her hair damp from the heat and sticking to her face. I made her a cup of ice tea and took it to her, along with a slice of buttered bread. Sitting on the edge of her bed, I watched as she supped back the tea and carefully chewed the bread, dropping crumbs all over the bedclothes and smearing butter on her chin. She watched me as she ate and, when finally she was finished, passed me back the cup. We stared at each other. I tried to think of what to say, and stared absently out the window.

“It’s Shine that makes you sick,” I said abruptly, thinking back on how Doctor Hodgins had gotten her to wash her hair.

She stared at me, her eyes flat green.

“He’s bad,” I said fervently. “That’s why Nan shot him with the gun, because he’s bad. Because he makes you sick.”

I laid my hand on her shoulder as she closed her eyes and turned away from me.

“You have to stay away from him. You have to run from him, so’s he won’t make you sick agin. Will you do that? Will you stay away from Shine?”

She turned to stare at me again and I tried to think of something more to say. My foot hit on something beneath her bed, and looking down, I saw the corner of her box sticking out, the box that she had run with from May Eveleigh.

“I’ll be right back,” I said quickly. Rising from her bedside, I ran into my room and pulled out the box of coloured glass from beneath my bed. Bringing it back, I laid it on the bed besides her. She watched as I lifted off the cover and, taking out the biggest piece, the yellow, held it over my eyes. I smiled as the sky outside her window turned golden, then passed the piece to her. She stared at it for a second, then mustered up the energy to take it and hold it before her eyes. Turning to see out the window, she gave a satisfied bark. I took out a piece of blue.

“This is my favourite,” I said.

She took it and held it to an eye, smiling at the sky outside.

“You can have it if you want.”

She nodded, smiling a little more, still squinting through the blue glass. I reached down to lift up her box. It was my thought that she might want to put her piece of glass inside, like I had with my pieces and the little robin’s feathers. It was a thought that never got said. The second my fingers touched the box, she brought the broad of her hand slamming across my face, knocking me sideways off the bed, yelping in pain.