I gingerly flip over, holding my weight up with my arms so my back doesn’t touch the mattress. Bedraggled and exhausted, I look up at my father, the picture of regret and sympathy. He reaches out to touch my face, and I jerk away. “Don’t,” I whisper.
“I’m sorry,” he says, tears made of poison slipping from his hazel eyes. “You understand, don’t you? I lost control and even though it was partly your fault for keeping the truth from me, I’m the grown up. I should have handled it better…” He leans in, and I lean away. “Nora, it won’t happen again.”
I nod, my hair falling over the cheek that burns from the slap he gave me last night. “I understand,” I answer blankly.
He takes my hair between his fingers and tries to tame it over the bruise. “You’ll keep this between us, won’t you? You know if you tell anyone, it will ruin our family, our reputation. We need to stick together. If not for ourselves, at least for Frances. Her needs are most important.” He’s squeezing my wrist too hard now, the charm on my bracelet digging into my skin.
“I’ll do what I must, Father.” My mouth feels twisted with anger, and his twitches with irritation as he releases my hand.
“Wear your hair how I showed you,” he mutters.
“Yes, Father,” I reply icily.
“So we understand each other?” he asks a little warily, but with anger ready to break the surface tension of his temperament as he steps back from my bed.
I can hear Miss Candace stomping up the stairs. I nod and as he turns his back to me, I whisper just loud enough for him to hear, “As long as I live, I will never understand you.”
I can see his legs pushing into the floor, his anger radiating from his body in sharp, zigzagging lines, but he doesn’t turn. He doesn’t have time to hurt me right now.
I breathe out and take a deep, dragging breath in as he leaves, not realizing I’d been holding it.
I do my hair as I’ve been told, curling it over my cheek as best I can and using my mother’s makeup to cover the rest. I don’t change again. My clothes are stuck to my back, and I can’t bear to pull them from my wounds.
17. GUARDIAN
KETTLE
We wait for the morning bustle to settle before heading home—a large bag of groceries in each arm. I am nervous and excited to get back there. It’s like unwrapping a gift. Sometimes you’re thrilled with what you find, other times you’re disappointed and it’s not what you wanted. I’m the unofficial leader of this group, but it’s a free and easy kind of camp, which is how we like it. It cycles and changes all the time.
A few months ago, I came home and found Keeps had been added to the Kings. Her tiny, undernourished body had been found right in front of the train station. That was more like getting a gift you don’t know what to do with.
I think back to the time when we returned to an empty tunnel and shudder. I’ve lost many family members to the cold, to the sharp reflexes of a beat cop, to hunger. I’ve had many people taken away from me too.
I pat the two packs of Vitamin Donuts in my bag, hoping they’ll give Keep and the others a boost. Shaking my head, I touch my forehead to the top of the box. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Kin strides ahead, his tall shoulders plowing through the crowd that’s pouring out of the ground like a bulldozer made of people. He turns to me with a serious expression, bodies streaming around him like water, and jerks his head to the entrance.
I follow him down. When I see a cop, I keep my head down and my cap low. I’m better at sinking into the crowd than Kin. He’s too proud, too unapologetic about who he is. I grunt as someone hits me in the chest as they’re trying to exit. If I were Kin, the guy would have got a shove.
We pay for once. When there are fewer people, it’s too hard to skip over unnoticed. And satisfyingly, we have money in our pockets today.
The attendant sees me struggling to push the bar across with my arms full and steps out of his glass box. I grip the bags tighter and try not to look guilty, still pressing my legs into the bars that won’t budge. He squashes his hat down over unruly curls, looking like a fat clown and waddling like he’s wearing clown shoes. In one hand, he holds a rolled-up newspaper. The headline brings acid creeping up my throat. “West meets East: JAs Still Struggling to Recover after Relocation.”
A worn voice echoes in my head. If they push us any further away, we will be walking into the sea.
The attendant glances at my burdened arms and reaches out as I try again to push through. “Wait!” he cries out, his voice higher than I would have expected.
I get ready to drop the bags and run.
He holds out his free hand and plucks one bag from my arms. “Let me help you, young man.” He takes the other bag, rests it on the stall, and uses a key to unjam the arm. When I get through, he hands the bags back to me.
I make the mistake of looking up into his eyes as he says, “Have a nice day…?” His tone rises at the end so it sounds like a question. Surprise registers on his face, and he glances down at the paper in his hand for a brief moment. Is he embarrassed? Scared? I can hardly tell, but he’s definitely uncomfortable.
“Thank you, sir,” I mumble as I quicken my pace.
Kin’s waiting for me at the platform, his dark eyes shrouded in concern. “What happened up there?” he asks, covering his mouth as he speaks.
“Nothing that hasn’t happened a thousand times before,” I snap, thinking of all the curious looks and then the ones of unmasked hatred that have been thrown my way since I came here.
“It’s because you look so guilty all the time, like you’re ashamed of your face, your heritage…” he starts, and I kick him sharply in the shins.
“Not. Now.” For once, he actually shuts his smirking mouth as we wait for the next train. He doesn’t get it. I’m not like him. My only heritage is being passed, unwanted, from one place to another.
***
We count to three again. I’m not sure why we do it. Maybe we’re steeling ourselves, taking a breath before we’re crushed by needy arms and surrounded by curious, hungry faces. My eyes sweep left to right. The platform is deserted. We step through the door.
The familiar lap of dirty water around my ankles is comforting. I listen for other sounds—the giggles of the younger ones and the swearing and sighing from the older boys, but I can only hear Kin as he stomps loudly through the tunnel ahead of me.
We walk in silence until we’re closer to the next door. Soft murmurs drip through the wooden panels, and I sigh with relief. Then I hear a sound I really don’t want to—a wet cough.
Kin and I exchange a worried glance. His lips harden in anticipation. I transfer the bags to one arm, awkwardly balancing one on my uplifted knee, and knock the secret knock. Scuffling and voices pulse through the door, and I hear Krow say, “Keeps, they’re here. It’s going to be okay now.”
More coughing followed by wheezing, gasping breaths. My heart backs away from my ribs. She’s sick. She can’t be sick.
***
Black braids sprout from under a pile of blankets. They jiggle slightly with her breathing. Kin drops his bags and calls the others away. He doesn’t check on her. He’s scared. He’s avoiding.
I bend down near her head and watch. Her tiny, normally copper-toned face is a pale, sickly cream color. Her eyes are closed and she shivers in little bursts like someone’s prodding her with a bare wire. I reach out and put the back of my hand to her forehead. It’s a memory of something someone did to me long ago. She is burning hot.
Suddenly, she moans and brings her knees to her chest, slowly rolling back and forth. I stand and make eye contact with Kin, shaking my head. He frowns.
“Krow, how long has she been like this?” I ask, standing over the lanky, fourteen-year-old boy with crumbs stuck to his jaw.
“Bout a day. We did like you said. Cleaned ourselves up and been scarce. She’s been coughing since you left, but she wouldn’t wake up yesterday. Well, not propply anyway.”
He shoves more food in his mouth and chews noisily, his eyes vaguely concerned. I don’t blame him. These kids are used to impermanence, illness, and death.
I scan the other boys, trying to think back to the desert, to the towers and red kits with white crosses on them. “Is anyone else feeling unwell?” I ask, scanning the faces. They all vehemently shake their heads. One holds up the box of vitamin donuts and it makes me feel like an idiot. What we have here doesn’t work if we get sick.
I squat down and gently shake her shoulder. “Keeps, can you tell me what’s wrong? Tell me what hurts?”
She opens one eye a slit and lifts her head from her pillow. A dark stain lies under her head. She whispers through dry lips at the same time as I say, “Your ear?”
“My ear.”
I try to force her to drink some water, of which she splutters and swallows about a teaspoon. She grips her pillow like an anchor, her eyes rolling around in dizziness.
I run a hand through my hair and gesture for Kin to come over. “What do we do?” I ask. It’s obvious she’s really sick, too sick for us to handle on our own.
Kin hovers a few feet back. “We can’t do anything.” His voice wavers, not quite able to remain emotionless.
“She needs medicine or a doctor or something. I don’t know. This is serious, man. She could die if we don’t help her.” My words spill out fast and frightened. I’m not doing a good job of staying calm, and the other kids are picking up on my panic. One of the younger ones, Kelpie, shuffles closer to me and wraps his arms around my waist.
“S’ok, Keeper, s’ok,” he whispers, leaning down to pat her head.
I flinch. “Get away from her,” I snap, my heart racing, my brain frantically searching through options. He whimpers, and I think he might cry. “I’m sorry, Kelpie. I just don’t want you to get sick too.” I pat his head and push him back to the opposite corner of the tunnel where Kin has the others penned in.
I lean down and whisper into Keep’s good ear, the one that’s not leaking a mixture of blood and pus. “I’ll be right back,” I say. “You rest.” She nods her head and closes her eyes tightly, as if she could retreat to a dream world. A place where horrible things didn’t happen to sweet little girls whose only crime was being born to the wrong mother at the wrong time in history.
I walk toward the wall at the back end of the tunnel like it might open up for me. The tumbledown bricks are dusty and sewn together with cobwebs. My shadow grows in front of candlelight until it’s broken up over the blocked end of this cave like it’s not even attached to my body. Leaning down, I quickly place the comb from my shirt pocket in the small, wooden box by my bed. I jump up and snap the box shut when Kin’s hand touches my back.
“We have to take her back,” he says sadly. “She can’t stay here.”
I laugh bitterly, placing a kettle on our small gas burner. “She’s not a broken toaster, Kin. She can’t go back. There’s no back to take her to. You’re telling me to dump her in the street. Just say it.”
I can’t do it.
Kin flops onto my pile of cushions, a week’s worth of dust pluming up around his legs. He’s trying to meet my eyes, but I won’t look at him.
“I can’t do it, Kin. I’m sorry,” I say, pouring the water into a bowl. Keep’s coughing bounces off the walls as I quickly wash my face and arms. I move behind the curtain and change.
“You’ll get caught,” he warns darkly, resignedly, because he knows me. He knows I won’t leave her to die.
I poke my head out from behind the curtain, buttoning my shirt as I talk. “She’s just a kid. She deserves a chance to grow up.”
Kin shrugs.
I pull a clean shirt, my best pants, and good shoes from an old suitcase and lay them on top. “I’ll take her to a doctor downtown in the morning. It’ll be fine. You can handle things on your own until I get back, can’t you?”
His head is in his hands and he sighs deeply. “Sure. Sure thing, Kettle… until you get back.”
***
In the middle of the night, Kelpie howls with fear. I light a match and touch it to the wick of my candle. Faces alight. Wide, tired eyes hone in on Kelpie and his terrified shrieking as he points at Keeps, whose body is rigid one second and flapping about uncontrollably the next.
I don’t stall; I don’t think. I just jump from my bed, scoop her up, and run.
18. THE START OF A FIRE
NORA
It’s not hard to remember the first time. The moment my world turned clear upside down and was nailed to the floor is burned into my mind forever.
My mother was pregnant at the time. Frankie was a star in the sky, a twinkle of light that hadn’t been brought to earth yet.
I was eight, I think. Eight years old and safe.
Hands seemed softer. They were used for sweeping sawdust or running through hair, filling in paperwork.
My father as a junior lawyer was a very different creature, but ambition drew a shadow out of him that lived with us from the moment he gained his cause.
“Let me help you, Christopher. Can I fill in some of these for you?” my mother asked softly.
A fist hit the desk. “You can’t! You’re just a housewife. You wouldn’t even know what you were reading,” my father snapped, his tone unusually frustrated.
I crept toward the study door, curiosity spurring me forward. My mother cleared her throat, her voice holding a bemused tone. “You forget where we met. I’m an educated woman. You shouldn’t underestimate me, Christopher. I may surprise you.”
Something like a growl emitted from the door. I peeked around the corner to see my father hunched over his desk and my mother standing behind him, her hands on his shoulders, her round belly an obstacle between her and the back of his chair. “Rebecca, leave me alone,” my father groaned, his fingers absently rubbing the rim of a half glass of whiskey.
She moved her hand to his head, smoothing his hair down gently. The moment her fingers touched his hair, he flinched, jerkily throwing his shoulders back and spinning to face her. She stepped back, over balanced, but managed to catch her hand on the shelves to her left before she actually fell.
Composing herself, she said calmly, “Clearly, you’re overwhelmed at the moment. But there’s no need to behave like a child.”
My own thoughts: No child behaves this way.
I watched him shudder, his whole body rippling with anger as he suddenly stood and came at her. She held firm, her own temper growing.
I scurried back, my back hitting the balustrade, my mouth open wide in fear. My father grasped at her cardigan with both hands, scrunching it in his fists and pulling her to him. She gasped, her feet bending over.
“Don’t you ever…” he spat and threw her against the bookcase, several books falling to the ground around her. She made this horrible, hollow thudding sound, and her hand went straight for her stomach.
I wrapped my little fingers around the dark wooden posts behind me, and I screamed in shock at what I was seeing.
My mother’s hand reached for me, and then she shook her head. “Nora, no,” she whispered. Her words breathless, her face scrunched in pain. But I couldn’t stop. He hurt her. She was still hurting. I could see on her face how worried she was for her baby. His head snapped to me, where I was wailing and thrashing like a bird caught in a net.
It was so fast. And I remember thinking it felt just like when he used to throw me over his shoulder and spin me round, laughing and tickling me. But it was stripped of those emotions. Sunlight turned to dark. Bare anger and terror held me now.
He charged, scooped me up, and ran with my limbs jangling and kicking to my bedroom, my mother’s weak challenge melting in the air as we moved further away. He squeezed my wrist tightly, his breath coming in bursts like a bull. I just kept screaming, not understanding what he wanted me to do. Not really capable of understanding.
“Be quiet, child,” he warned as he stormed down the hall. When I continued to shrie
k, he stopped walking, pulled me from his shoulder, and held me in front of him, gripping under my arms and shaking me while my legs dangled in the air. “For God’s sake, will you shut up?”
I gulped, wearing a mask of tears. I quieted down as he shook me again. My lower lip between my teeth.
When he was satisfied I wouldn’t scream any longer, he placed me down on the ground. My feet hit the rug, and my anger bloomed out from under me. I could see my mother dragging herself to the door, her eyes so sad.
He put his hands on his hips and stood over me. “Right. Are you going to stop being hysterical now?”
I glared up at him, doing everything wrong, doing all the things I’ve learned not to do since that day. “You hurt Mommy,” I chastised. My mouth had barely closed over my words when his hand came at me, open palmed, a slap so hard I flew into the balustrade.
And that was the end of my childhood, the end of my safety.
I remember thinking that it wasn’t happening. That the hot pain that spread from my ear to my mouth wasn’t real. Because the trust I put in this man was supposed to be unbreakable. He loved me. He loved my mother. Yet he had just shattered everything with his furious hand.
I was silenced, my eyes darting to my mother, who didn’t say a word. Her head dropped down in shame, and she wouldn’t look at me. Shock stole any words, any tears I had left in me. He turned away from where I sat, legs sprawled like Raggedy Ann, one hand to my cheek like I could scrub it from my face.
The fury subsided as quickly as it had risen. He approached my mother and offered her a hand, which she took. Those joined hands burned a path for me I’ve been trying not to follow, but it still pulls me in.
There were ‘I’m sorrys’ and the phrase ‘it will never happen again’ and then, too quickly, acceptance. Promises that were just chalk scribbled over deep, deep scars. Promises he was incapable of keeping. But she wanted to believe him. She loved him.
Things happened that day that we weren’t allowed to talk about ever again. But I’ll never forget how tiny he was. How he didn’t cry, but my mother made up for his silence with sobs of grief that seemed to want to explode from her chest. She broke. My mother cracked open like a china doll that toppled to the floor. Parts of her never recovered, growing dust under the hallway dresser.