Tin Lily (20 page)

She nods.

“I guess I don’t understand…”

“You don’t understand how Nick can still be okay?”

Nod.

“Well, a lot of it has to do with time, but even more, it has to do with letting the people who love you help.”

“You mean like his other parents?”

“Yes. Sam told me a little about Nick when the two of you were on the patio. I guess he had a very tough time when his mother died. It took about three months before he would talk about it with anyone. Once he did, though, Sam said he started feeling a lot better.”

“I didn’t feel better when I told Nick about Mom.”

“I know. For you it’s a little different. Nick’s mom was sick for a long time and they didn’t expect her to survive. Of course you’re never ready, but Nick and his family had time to prepare.” Margie squeezes my hand. “You’re dealing with a whole lot more, kid. And you’re dealing with it beautifully.”

I look at Margie twice—a double take. “Beautifully? Aunt Margie, I hear bees in my head. I couldn’t even talk to your friends.”

“Uh-huh. And you made a friend within your first few days in Seattle—a cute, very smart boy who wants to take you to a movie. You charmed Sam so much he’s begging me to let him show you the city.” She points at Binka stretched out in the chair by the patio windows. “And you saved a kitten from a dumpster. Point is, you have more strength than you think you do. Remember what your mom said in her letter? Every word is true. It’s hard to fathom now, I know, but I hope someday you’ll see what everyone else does.”

I want to tell Margie about the not-Hanks, to see if she still thinks I have strength and bravery like Mom said. I keep quiet, though, decide my aunt thinking I’m strong is better than the alternative.

She nudges me. “So, you think you’ll go tomorrow?”

Nick and his movie invitation. I think about him sitting on the swing, checking out for hours at a time because he couldn’t be around people, then waking up one day and deciding he could. I guess Nick understands more than I thought and he’s still a good tether. I like being with him, I guess is what it comes down to.

“Yeah, probably,” I say, which makes Margie smile.

I call Nick the next day and say I’ll see the zombie movie with him, which makes Margie happy. I decide to wear some of my new clothes, which makes Sam happy when Margie texts him the news. Everyone is happy.

Me, I’m nervous like last night at the dinner party, but at least I know my voice will work with Nick.

Margie thinks I should spritz some of her expensive perfume on, so I tell her Nick will be here any minute and I’ll wait for him outside. I close the door on Margie laughing, Binka shaking on her shoulder.

I walk down the long path from the apartment to the curb, not thinking about much of anything except how Nick doesn’t think I’m crazy. His believing this has stuck with me and made me wonder if maybe Margie’s right about there being more strength in me than I believe. Dr. Pratchett thinks I should answer the bees, Mom thought I was brave, Margie thinks I’m strong, Sam wants a daughter like me. Maybe there is more in me than nothing. Maybe I can answer the bees and not dissolve. Maybe answering the bees will make the not-Hanks go away. A lot of maybes, stuff to think about.

I stop at the curb and look down at the sneakers Margie bought me. They’re grungy, worn-looking, chocolate brown. Perfect sneakers for a sticky movie theater floor. I hear a squeak and then a car door slam, but I keep watching my new-old sneakers.

Pretty soon paint-splattered work boots stop next to me. I still don’t look up, deciding to ignore what I hope is a not-Hank. There’s no whiskey, no mint, no paint, just the sweet summer air all around me.

“Hello, Beans.”

“Go away.”

“Can’t do it, kiddo.”

I look up at Hank, at his flat mantis eyes, at his mouth twisted into a frown. He doesn’t look angry, just unhappy. “What do you want?”

He smiles and it is worse than the frown. “It’s not what I want that’s important, Beans. What’s important is what
you
want.”

Here’s Hank, my used-to-be father who’s gone crazy, and I don’t know what he expects me to say, so I don’t say anything.

“You want to come back and live with your dad again, don’t you? You never wanted to leave in the first place, isn’t that right, Beans? Your mom forced you.”

I still don’t say anything, my eyes on my feet again.

“I’m giving you a chance to make it right,” Hank says. His voice has changed and I have to look at his face to know why. He’s got his head tilted like he did in the bookstore when he was listening to Grandpa Henry’s voice. His eyes find mine and he smiles again. It’s not a good smile, not a kind or happy smile. A crazy smile. “Mother said I should give you a choice. You remember Grandma Josephine, don’t you, Lil?”

“I never met her.”

Hank’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Course you did.”

“She died before I was born.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down at the sidewalk. “Can that be right?”

“You’re all mixed up. What you did to Mom, it changed you. I think you need to turn yourself in.” My words surprise me and I think maybe Margie was right after all about there being strength in me. “If you don’t, I’m going to tell Margie you’re here.”

Hank raises his eyes slowly until he’s looking at me again. I can’t help but flinch away from him. There’s no confusion in his face now. “What did I tell you about that?” he says.

I back slowly away, down the sidewalk, looking around, but there’s no one out here and Margie’s apartment is too far away for her to hear us. I think about running, but everything inside me feels weak and trembly. A bee is starting up in my ear, promising silence and peace. I try to push it away and think about Binka’s whiskers to keep me here.

“I’ll make this simple for you, Lily,” Hanks says. “Two days. You wrap things up here and then I want you to come back to me.” He leans toward me, his finger pointing at my chest. “
You
come back to
me
, got it? You and your mother never should’ve left in the first place. Only you can make this right now. Understand?”

Nick’s Mustang is coming down the block. The last thing I want is for Hank to see him. “Okay,” I say quickly. “See you in a couple days then.”

Hank stares at me for a few seconds, then backs off toward the black SUV he drove when he worked for Grandpa Henry. The passenger side door where Berkenshire Metalworks used to be is painted over. He gets in and drives off down the road as Nick parks across the street.

“Who was that guy?” Nick says when he steps up on the curb next to me.

“A neighbor.”

“He looked pretty pissed off. Was he bugging you?”

I try to control my spinning thoughts. “He thought I had a cat who used his flowerpot as a litter box. I told him Binka doesn’t even go outside.”

Nick looks down the road where Hank is disappearing around a curve. “What a jerk,” he says.

“Yeah, that’s one word for him.” Everything in me is leaping and thrumming—energy I don’t know what to do with. There are no bees right now, just this big something I don’t recognize. A ball of energy lighting me up.

“You ready to go?” Nick asks.

I open my mouth to tell him I can’t, that I have to stay home now, keep watch, stay tethered, figure out what to do. But then I think about how much I’ve been doing exactly that, how I’ve squeezed my life into a tiny box just like Hank did with me and Mom, and I decide I will go with Nick. Hank’s coming for me and to keep Margie safe I’m going to have to go with him. One date with Nick. One date and then I’ll go. A final good-bye because I know when Hank comes, it won’t be for me to go live with him. It will be for me to go die with him.

“I’m ready,” I say.

When I get into Nick’s car, I’m surprised it looks so new inside. “I thought this was an old car?”

“Yup. Dad and I restored it.”

“A Mustang, right?”

Nick nods. “Sixty-four and a half.”

“You couldn’t spring for a sixty-five?”

He grins, shaking his head. “Don’t tell you me don’t know the significance of the sixty-four and half Mustang.”

“Sorry, useless trivia isn’t really my thing,” I say.

Nick’s mouth pops open and then he’s shaking his head in mock horror. “April 17, 1964, the day the Mustang was introduced to the world. At New York’s World Fair, since you’re asking.”

“I don’t think I asked. But, wow, that’s fascinating.” I’m surprised by the light sarcasm in my voice, this new energy inside my body. I feel relaxed and ready to have my date with Nick. I think maybe it’s Hank finally coming along, telling me his plans. Now at least I know what’s going to happen and I don’t have to try to guess.

Maybe knowing I’m going to die has freed me to live.

Nick looks at me, still shaking his head and grinning. “Sacrilege.” He starts the car up, pulls away from the curb and zooms down the road like he’s been driving his whole life.

We’re quiet for a little while, I think because Nick doesn’t know what questions to ask, which ones are safe and which ones would bring on the quiet. It doesn’t feel great, being high maintenance, so I get us started.

“Margie found your webpage. At your school?”

Nick nods and his hair dips forward and back. “They made me put that up.”

“They’re proud of you there.”

“I guess.”

“So you get to choose what school you go to?”

He glances over at me and is eyebrows are scrunched together in the middle. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You don’t seem happy about it.”

“Have you ever had three people trying to decide your fate, all the choices ones you wouldn’t make for yourself?”

“Nope,” I say. “I never had three people who cared that much.”

Nick looks sorry he complained.

“It’s okay. My mom loved me a lot. When I was a kid, Hank did too. It was enough.” The words come easier than I expect.

“I’m glad,” Nick says. “What was she like, your mom?”

I start to shake my head, ready to tell Nick I can’t talk about Mom yet. But there are words in me to tell about the good times. “She was the best, you know? She always took time to answer my questions, no matter how stupid they were. When I was little I was curious about color, I think because Hank painted.” I glance at Nick to make sure he’s not falling asleep. He’s nodding and I think he gets what I’m saying. “I didn’t care about why the sky was blue, though. I wanted to know why blue and red made purple, why yellow and blue made green. This sort of led to a talk about how babies are made. That stopped my questions for awhile.”

Nick laughs. “You went from mixing paint colors to making babies in the same conversation?”

“I was a nosy kid, I guess you could say. I had a lot of questions.”

“And made some pretty impressive connections.”

“I guess. Anyway, Mom turned bright red when I asked how she and Hank got mixed up to make me.”

Nick’s laugher is all around us in his old-new car. I join him and don’t feel even a little like I’m going to rip open.

After a bit we quiet down and I watch the scenery go by outside my window. We’re crossing a different bridge this time, heading to a theater Nick says is close to the university.

“So you’ll be a junior next year, right?” Nick says.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I haven’t thought much about going back to school.”

“What was your last school like?”

The answer to Nick’s question bounces around inside me for a while. It feels like a lifetime ago, my sophomore year. A brand new school. Not one familiar face. Not one friendly one either. Each day a fight to stay invisible, each class torture until the bell rang. The first flutters I ever felt were last year, until the boy I had a crush on announced in English class that, by the smell of me, I was going for the hi-pro glow. I remember a group of girls pinching their noses closed and fake barfing when I walked into the cafeteria, remember eating my lunch in dark corners of empty classrooms after that, remember even the outcasts casting me out.

“It was okay,” I finally say.

Nick glances over at me. “You’ve never had it easy, have you?”

“It’s not a right.”

“What?”

“To have things easy. It’s not a right.”

“I know, but it seems like the best people go through the worst kind of hell.”

I let his words sink into the hollow place inside me, let them knock around in there like the bees do. With all that Hank said to me over the last two years, all I believed to be true, with my not answering the phone the night he came with his gun, I don’t feel like one of the best. But I don’t say so. I don’t mind Nick thinking I’m good.

We get to the movie theater and Nick has to drive around for a little while before he finds a parking space. We drive past Twice Told Tales where Cheetah-the-cat gave me kisses on my cheek and where Hank sat on the floor with me.

I stay quiet, trying to ignore this new feeling in my stomach, the not-flutters because there’s no room. We finally park and Nick tells me to stay where I am. When I see him coming around the car, I understand. He sweeps my door open, holding out a hand. I let him fold my small, cold hand into his big, warm one, let him give me a little tug out of the car. I take mine right back, though, and rub my arms. I feel bare and cold without Mom’s sweater even though the night’s a warm one.

We walk up the road a little ways to the movie theater. It’s a busy night, a lot of kids our age hanging around out front—some smoking, taking drinks from bottles inside paper sacks, talking and laughing in big and small groups.

My stomach sinks, a shiver goes through me and all the new energy in my body leaves as fast as it came along. I pause in front of a little shop just before the theater and pretend to look in the window.

“Are you okay?” Nick asks.

“There are a lot of people here.”

“Yes.”

I look at Nick, need him to see how turned inside-out I am. He puts his arm around my shoulders. “It’s just me and you,” he says. His eyes let me know he understands. I let his arm stay so I can absorb some of his strength. His words and his sureness settle into me and I feel better after a bit. We finish our walk and get to the theater, stand in line and wait to buy our tickets. It’s not a minute or two before a group of boys starts shoving around behind us. Nick drops his arm from my shoulders when one bumps me hard. He turns around.