Tin Lily (12 page)

I look over at Binka washing her whiskers. I want to hold onto my kitten, to the beauty I see in her. I think I understand how I helped Mom—I was her always-tether. I think about Binka’s whiskers. Only her whiskers. They keep me here.

I let the tears drop one by one onto Mom’s beautiful handwriting. The letters smear a little. My tears, her ink, together. No matter what happens with Hank’s promise to come for me, a part of Mom and a part of me will be here. Always. I fold the stationary back up, put it in its envelope and hold it against my chest.

Binka stops bathing and stares at me with huge green eyes. All her fur is straight out from her body and the ends are shining in the filtered sunlight streaming through the window next to us. She tips her head to the side. Her ears are huge and all the way forward. She’s trying to figure me out. Being the spaz she is, she lets out a trill twice her size and launches. She lands on my shoulder, smashes her forehead to my cheek and starts purring in big, looping reverberations. I can feel her whole body, nose to tail, vibrating with the power of those purrs.

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

She trills again and rubs my head with everything she’s got, leaving her tail to twitch up my nose. This makes me laugh so hard the rip widens. Laughing and crying are right there together, so I quiet down quickly, go back into that small space where I don’t lose time, but I can still be. I stay here for Binka and for Margie.

My thread: Binka’s whiskers.

I show Margie the letter and she cries. She cries for a good ten minutes, but they’re not all grief tears.

“Did you read it out loud, like she said?” Margie’s asks in a watery voice.

“No, maybe another time.”

“Your mom was a special woman, Lily. She loved you more than anything.” She stares at me for a minute and I watch the tears in her eyes amplify the gold flecks. “Did you know that?”

“I always knew,” I say, but it’s too much, talking about Mom’s letter. I turn to the bookcase nearest me and pull out a random book. “Why do you have these?”

Margie’s still for another minute, making up her mind to let me stay quiet or push. Finally she looks down at the book’s title and swivels her head to see it better. It’s the one about never being good enough.

“You have a lot of these,” I say, pointing up, down, right, left.

“Yes. Some have helped me cope.”

“I don’t want to pry.”

“You can ask me anything.”

“Grandpa Henry was more than just mean?”

Margie nods. “He was verbally, emotionally and sometimes physically abusive.”

I feel my eyes narrow and the buzzing starts up. Baby bees in my ears. I tell them to wait, please wait.

“He was a cruel man, Lily. He…” She glances around the room. “He never knew when to stop.”

“What about Grandma? Didn’t she protect you?”

“No. She was in the same boat. I was mad at her for a long time because she didn’t take us and leave, but I guess part of me understood why.” Margie smiles sadly. “My father never would have allowed it anyway. He would’ve found us and dragged us back to that old house kicking and screaming, all the while complaining about the miles he had to put on his truck to find us.”

“I guess he hurt Hank too. I mean more than just yelling, more than telling him not to do art.”

Margie nods. “Did you know Hank couldn’t swing a hammer to save his life?”

“Yeah. I believe it.” We were always having to call repair guys to our house because Hank didn’t know you could just restart a pilot light or press the reset button on a garbage disposal. Hank liked to say that his hands were made to hold paint brushes, not tools.

I don’t want these memories. It’s his being a normal dad once that’s the worst.

“Our father, well, he hurt Hank with a hammer once.”

I look up quickly into Margie’s sad eyes. “His crooked finger?”

She nods.

“Grandpa Henry smashed Hank’s finger because he couldn’t hammer a nail?”

“He did.”

I think on this awhile. Hank always said he smashed his own finger, called himself a klutz, blamed the crookedness for not being able to paint the way he wanted. “Do you think maybe if Hank hadn’t gone to work for Grandpa Henry…?”

Margie’s eyes widen a little. “Oh, honey, I don’t know. Your mom said things were bad sometimes, that Hank was drinking more and more, even before my father called.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “After he stopped painting.”

“He stopped believing he had talent.”

“I guess. Aunt Margie?”

She takes my hand and squeezes it tight. “Yes, kiddo?”

I look left, right, up, down at all the boxes Margie’s made. Silver and copper and gold, some dull, some shiny, some square, some rectangle, some round. Not a single box looks the same as another. One is so dark it looks like leather, a pretty crane with some yellow flowers on its lid. One is so light it looks like creamy milk, even shaped like one of those old fashioned milk bottles, only a lot shorter and with a ridged lid. “You have a lot of these metal boxes. I mean, they’re cool, but did you ever think about making something else? You know, like a lamp or some coasters or a sword? Is it like creative constipation or something?”

Margie’s head cocks. “Well lookie there. That’s the Lilybeans I remember.” She jumps up from the couch, grabs the biggest box off the top of the bookcase—the one you could store an old-timey dictionary in. It’s a copper one, looks like it’s made out of this delicate shale my geology teacher showed us once. All flaking, layered metal and uneven surfaces. Margie plucks it off like it weighs nothing. When she hands it to me I expect it to sink to my lap, too heavy to hold since it’s so big. Instead it’s lighter than Binka. I run my fingers along its rough lid, surprised it doesn’t flake off on my fingertips like the shale did in class. I flip it over. Margie’s initials are etched into one corner. The box’s lid doesn’t come off, just a decorative piece to give it symmetry or whatever.

“It’s so light,” I say.

Margie grins and walks to the other side of the room. She scoots a tiny box off a shelf into her cupped hand and comes back to the couch. I put the big box aside and take the small one. It’s heavy, as heavy as I expected the big one to be. I let it sink to my lap, holding it in one hand on my thigh. This one’s silver all the way around, smooth with rounded corners. Instead of a lid it has a leaf on top—a leaf with little raindrops sitting like bubbles on the surface.

“I thought this one would be light. How did you find metal like this?”

“I didn’t find the metal at all. I made it. My own recipe. Behold, the power of metallurgy!” Margie’s grinning big and her eyes are shiny with excitement. She plucks another small box off a nearby shelf. This one’s copper with a nice patina, a working lid that opens to a black velvety inside. She hands it to me. Light as a feather again. “It’s not the size or the shape that determines its weight.” She points to the giant shale box sitting next to me on the couch. “I’ll bet you think that one’s pretty strong because it’s big, huh?”

I nod.

“Of every box here, it’s the most fragile. One good drop and it would shatter into a million pieces.” She smiles a little. “You wouldn’t know it by looking at it, right?”

I’m turning the little silver box over and over in my hands, running my fingers across its bubbled raindrops, its weight comforting.

“That one you’re holding, though, is one of the toughest in the bunch.” Margie plucks Binka off the floor where she’s been washing her face. The kitten looks indignant for about a second before she’s on Margie’s shoulder, shoving her face in Margie’s pixie cut. “Kinda like this little bugger. Tiny on the outside, tough on the inside. I guess that’s why I love my job so much. I get to make surprises.”

I keep my eyes on the box and my voice down. “Hank showed me the tin cry once.”

“He did?”

“Yes.”

Margie reaches out and touches my hand where it’s smoothing the silky metal. “It’s a little freaky, huh?”

“Yeah.” To me it sounded like an animal dying. Six years old and Hank bending a piece of tin, making me listen real close. I didn’t like it and ran away when I heard the screams from the twisting metal.

“Lily?” Dad
’
s outside my bedroom door, knocking softly.
“You okay, kiddo?”

I’m sitting on my bed, hugging my floppy-eared stuffed Pluto to my chest. Dad opens the door slowly and sticks his head in.

I
’
m mad and don
’
t mind letting him see it. He
’
s hurt and doesn
’
t mind letting me see it. Same eyes, different emotions.

“I thought you
’
d like that, Lilybeans.” His voice is low, like when he
’
s talking to Mom about his boss embarrassing him in front of everybody at work.

When I don
’
t say anything, he smiles sadly, backs away and closes the door softly behind him.

“Did the tin break?” Margie’s asking.

“I ran away before it could.”

“It doesn’t always, you know.”

“Break?”

“Right. Sometimes it just ends up in a different shape. The tin cries, sometimes even screams and then becomes something else, often something beautiful.” Margie reaches behind her, grabs another box and hands it to me. This one is dull silver, all one piece, no lid, light as a feather. “Like this little guy. He’s made from a single sheet, gently bent until he became the shape I wanted.”

“Did it cry?”

“Oh yeah,” Margie says. “But look how beautiful it is now. Tin isn’t very interesting just flat. It’s got a lot more character when it’s been stressed and molded. The only way to do that is to bend it until it cries.”

The tin box seems even more delicate than the rough and fragile one on the couch next to me. It feels like one more bend and it could break. I hand it back to Margie, keeping an eye on her hands to make sure she’s not going to make it cry again. She puts it back on its shelf.

“Grandpa Henry bent Hank too much,” I say to my hands. “Broke him.”

Nothing but silence.

Finally, I look up and Margie’s staring at me with big eyes. “All this time and I’d never thought of it like that.” She brushes my arm, keeping me here even with the bees coming on stronger. “I think it’s a little dangerous to blame it all on Grandpa Henry, though.”

“Because you turned out okay.”

“That’s the thing you can’t predict. Some people, they respond to life so differently than others would in the same situation.” She watches me for a minute, then makes a decision. “Hank used to get in fights when we were kids. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“I guess it was his way of dealing with my father’s abuse. He put one kid in the hospital when we were in high school. After our mother died, I suspect it got much worse.”

I watch Aunt Margie for a while and think about Grandpa Henry and Hank, about choices and bendy tin.

“Mom knew Grandpa Henry hurt you and Hank,” I say. “Mom knew Hank hurt other people.” It’s why he had a different uniform shirt every year. Hank couldn’t get along with his coworkers, kept getting in fights, quitting his jobs or getting fired.

“Yes.” Margie anticipates my next question and answers it before I ask. “But she never would have guessed this could happen.”

“Hank hit her once.”

Margie nods. “I know and your mom said he was very sorry afterward.”

“He split her cheek right open. She had to have stitches.”

Margie’s lips are moving, but the buzzing is full force now. It fills my head and my ears, wants to ask its own questions. It wants to ask how Mom could fall in love with Hank, marry him, have a baby. It wants to ask how things got this far, how she ended up a potato bug on our living room floor, how Hank ended up a broken tin man, how I ended up a hollow tin girl.

*   *   *

“Lily?”

“I’m back, Aunt Margie. I’m sorry.”

Margie’s holding both my hands now and Binka’s sitting on my shoulder. She smashes her forehead into my neck when I come to.

“Lily, don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”

“How long this time?”

“Longer.”

I move the curtains aside. It’s dark out. “Hours.”

“Just one. I called Dr. Pratchett. He said to wait a little longer.”

Margie’s eyes are full of fear again. I look away.

“Has anything changed about your quiet place? Is it still nothing?”

I nod and pluck Binka off my shoulder, give her a kiss and put her on my lap. “Yes. Still nothing. Peaceful. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize. Dr. Pratchett will help you. You’ll get better.”

I pet Binka where she’s roar-purring in my lap.

Margie waits a little longer—a pause to let me know she’s not finished, that she has something to say. “It’s been almost a month, kiddo. I’m not supposed to pester you, but I want you to know I’m here. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

Binka stretches when I stroke her belly.

“Lilybeans?”

I look up at my aunt who’s trying so hard. I want to ask her about Hank, if she’s scared, if she’s seen him too. What’s in her eyes is too much already, though. Grandpa Henry, my spells, Hank, fear—all reflected in Margie’s blue and gold.

“Did you hear me?”

Nod.

“I see the pain in you,” she says. “I see what it’s costing to keep it all inside. I remember when I started treatment with Dr. Pratchett. It was the same for me. There was so much grief, so much anger, so many questions. I didn’t know where to begin because I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to stop.”

I’m looking down at Binka, focusing on one black spot. “One black spot,” I say.

“What’s that?” Margie asks.

“Did you ever notice how Binka has this one black spot that’s not like the others?” I touch it with my fingertip and the kitten stretches so hard her tiny claws pop out, smaller than blades of new grass.

Margie leans in and rubs the fur down. “You’re right. Star-shaped.”