Tin Lily

Tin Lily

Joann Swanson

Copyright © 2014 by Cranky Owl Books

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at www.crankyowlbooks.com or Joann’s Facebook page.

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For Ben.

With you I’m all wrapped up in love.

And for Mom.

I wish you were here to see this. I miss you.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The first people I would like to thank are you, the readers. I’ve imagined this day for a very long time and I can honestly say it’s one of the biggest thrills of my life to know someone is going to hold this book and read my words. Man oh man, I hope that isn’t hubris.

I am incredibly lucky to have a number of people in my life who are equal parts encouraging and candid. My husband, Ben, is my first reader always because I know he will tell me the truth and kick my butt if I don’t keep going. Thank you for helping me dig deeper and do better. I love you.

Quinlan Lee of Adams Literary was my agent for a number of years and worked so hard to sell Tin Lily. I know it was almost as heartbreaking for her when that sale didn’t come through. Thank you for all you did, Quinlan. I so enjoyed working with you.

JB Lynn, a talented author and amazing friend, did nothing but encourage me from the moment I considered indie publishing. Thank you for believing in me and for all your advice.

My friends, family and coworkers have been so excited and encouraging. How lucky am I to have this many brilliant cheerleaders on my side?

And, finally, I’d like to thank my mom. What I wouldn’t give to share this day with her, to see her hold this book in her hands. I wish we could have had more time together, but I am so grateful for the time we had.

Part I

Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.

– Kahlil Gibran

One

The phone by my bed is ringing. I’m ignoring it, fussing with my iPod knock-off, cranking the volume on my favorite song, tapping out a rhythm on my open history book. Chairman Mao never knew such musicality.

Mom’s voice drifts through my closed door. You going to get that?

I ignore her and mouth the words, sing along in my silent way, thrum the glossy pages harder. The song dips and I hear Mom answer. Hello?

After a stretched moment with nothing more said, she drops the phone in its cradle and squeaks off down the hall.

The upstairs in our rented house has ancient wood floors, so it’s easy to know where someone’s tromping. Right now, Mom’s in her bedroom and she’s cranking her own music. I imagine her there with a pile of laundry—snapping, folding, snapping, smoothing.

The phone rings again. Through my music it sounds like bees in a hive, buzzing their happy song. I lift one hand to pick it up and pop my earbuds out with the other.

"Do not answer that!" Mom hollers, as if she's seen me through the solid door. Super Mom with her crazy X-ray vision.

The phone rings ten more times before I lean over and switch it off. The one in Mom’s bedroom picks up where mine stopped. Twenty more rings until he hangs up. That’s how it is when you don’t have voicemail or an answering machine.

All this separation. The phone that lets us be in different houses. My earbuds that keep out the ringing, the yelling. My bedroom door that filters Mom’s voice. We check out, disconnect. It’s how we deal.

Back to history. I loop my song in my ears and flip forward to where we are now. I’m halfway through Tiananmen Square, reading about that brave guy who stood up to the tanks because he didn’t like what his government was up to when someone starts pounding at the front door. Not knocking politely like the neighbors do when they’re returning something. All-out pounding like there’s a tsunami outside and someone wants in. A tsunami in the desert would make for a decent conversation.

Mom’s footsteps are loud in the hallway outside my room. I’ll get it! she shouts and stomp-squeaks down the stairs. I hear her hit the hollow spot on the switchback and then it’s silence again until she unlatches the front door.

My song’s at its pinnacle for maybe the tenth time today when the yelling starts—muffled with my earbuds in. I shove them deeper and ignore the clenching in my stomach.

Lily!

Cringe.

Lily, come down here right now. It’s time you know the truth about your mother!

He’s yelling up the stairs like I’m on the roof. Like I’m on the moon.

Leave her alone! Mom hollers.

Did you know she’s hiding money? Did you know she’s sleeping with every guy she meets? Did you know you’re poor for no reason? For nothing? Lily? His voice, my father’s voice, is going up and up, not just volume-wise, but pitch-wise too. This one thing alone tells me that pretty soon he’ll be out of control. Pretty soon he’ll be crying on the sofa, begging us to not be separated, saying our being gone is hurting him, trying to get back the control he doesn’t have any more.

My fake iPod cracks loud in my ears and I yank the earbuds out, then tuck them down in the open binding between a picture of Tiananmen Square and a page crammed with margin-to-margin text. I’ve looped my song too many times, made the cheap knock-off angry.

I take a deep breath, plaster a calming smile on my face, get ready to pretend and pacify. This is my mantra. Pretend and Pacify. I take one last look at my history book and long for that awful story about the massacre of protesters in China instead of my drunk father downstairs.

I’m at the top of the stairs, listening for Dad’s yelling, but it’s silence down there. It’s taken me less than a minute to get ready, to get here.

Dad? My voice, shaky.

The silence presses in, makes me feel like I’ve gone deaf, like there are a thousand happenings in the air around me, but I’m stuck in this vacuum.

I make my bare feet step down to the first riser. I make them do it again and again until I reach the landing—the hollow-sounding switchback—where I’ll have to turn a hundred and eighty degrees to get to the next set of steps. My hand is on the banister, just barely brushing the silky wood.

Dad? I say again. I crouch down and look through the railing into the living room. A hunkered form, something I’ve taken for a piece of furniture, stands up. I see him now. The light is bright above his waist. Below, nothing but shadows.

Is everything okay? I whisper.

There’s nothing left. I’m sorry, my father mutters to himself. Hank Berkenshire: alcoholic, used-to-be artist, harasses us on the phone now that we’re on our own.

His words don’t make sense. I keep going. One riser at a time. My mind is foggy, isn’t getting what so much quiet means. I’m stuck in this one motion—going down the stairs—and everything else gets pushed out. It’s my whole life, going down these stairs.

Finally, I reach the bottom and dip my toe into the living room like I’m testing river water. I’m behind a long couch Mom bought secondhand last year. It faces the fireplace, where there’s what you might call a shrine. Mom loves photography and she loves me, and when Dad gave her a fancy camera, she combined the two and now there’re at least a bazillion photographs of yours truly, and not just on the mantel either. They’re hung around the room, around the house, each frame different because she’s all about the sale bins and blue-light specials. She makes it work, though. Our house is cozy, warm. It might smell like dog food because of the factory next door, but rented or not, it’s ours.

Now Dad’s standing in front of the fireplace. Lily, everything’s gone. You, Rachel, Dad. The company. All gone. I don’t understand his words, wonder if maybe he’s come to tell us he’s sorry, to say we can go back to the way things were before Grandpa Henry. Before Dad decided he liked drinking more than he liked us. Before life got so bad we had to leave.

I glimpse facedown frames all over the mantel, all over the hearth. I wonder how I didn’t hear them crash.

I wonder how I didn’t hear anything that matters.

Shattered glass crunches when he sways. He’s breathing fast, hard and his face is reddening past the usual alcoholic blush. The capillaries on his nose are bright, pulsing. I follow the line of them down to the tip, down to his moving, now silent mouth, down to his flannel shirt that hides his booze belly, down to his jeans with dark stains I don’t think about, down to his paint-splattered work boots, down to the hearth, down to the coffee table, down to my mom.

She’s facing away from me, a curled up potato bug that’s gone dry and pulled in all its legs. I know she’s dead. I know because of what’s spreading around her head. Like a million little kids stomped on a million little ketchup packets.

Dad’s now waving a gun around the living room, pointing it at random photos Mom had taken and framed, at the paintings he let us bring to the dog food house when we left, at the tiny metal sculptures he made for me when I was a kid.

She hated us, Lily, he says. She thought we were failures.

Pictures on the walls tell a different story.

I’m five. Gap-toothed and grinning at Mom holding the shabby camera she used before Dad gave her the fancy one. Brown polyester pants. White blouse, bell-shaped sleeves. Daisy buttons. Strawberry-blond hair.

She didn’t care about either of us. She was so selfish.

I’m fourteen. First day in the dog food house. Khaki shorts. Blue T-shirt, sleeveless. Sitting cross-legged on the rug Mom made me. Boxes all around. Sticking out my tongue. Long red hair now, almost to my waist. Happy.

She knew I needed her. Knew I couldn’t handle him without her. One year into two. Two years into nothing.

I’m eight. All three of us. Pioneer Village at Lagoon. Old West clothing. Sitting on fake barstools. Dad’s soft smile. Watching Mom watching me. His hand holding a tin gun. Mom’s arm loose around my shoulders. Her smile bright.

He points at the couch with his gun. She hid money. Points at it like right there between the threadbare cushions is a pot of gold Mom’s been hoarding. You’re poor for nothing.

He giggles—a dark sound in this house of silence. Grandpa Henry died, Lil. About time, huh? Guess what else? He waits for me to answer. I don’t. He lied. He died and he lied and he left us nothing. He picks up a sliver of glass, stumbles to the other side of the hearth, to a canvas set up on a miniature easel. What? he says, looking at the threadbare couch from under droopy eyelids. What did you say? He nods, turns back to the canvas, slices my painted cheek wide. We don’t paint. Grandpa Henry’s voice comes out of Dad’s throat. We don’t paint. We are men. We work hard and we don’t paint. He slices the other cheek and jabs the glass shard at the empty couch. Happy now? He listens, shakes his head, face pinched with pain and rage.

I look away from my going-crazy father and touch the couch. Rough under my fingertips. Different. Memories twist here. Scary movies. Prophetic now. A man searching for a dead girl. Hiding our eyes behind spread fingers, protected from the blue veins, the foggy breath. Me and Mom—together, safe.

Lily, what did I do? He plucks a silver cat off the mantel, turns it over and over. Where is your mother? He looks down at himself, at the red stains on his flannel, at his jeans, at the dry paint on his work boots. He swipes at Mom’s blood, then stares at his fingers. Rachel?

His voice, far away.

I shuffle to the kitchen.

9-1-1.

I wait for the ringing to stop.

Put it down, Beans. His voice is soft, almost a whisper. He calls me Beans because I ate a pound of jelly beans when I was five and made myself sick. There’s no affection in his voice like when I was little, though. Twisted anger instead. Crazy.

Please come to 2119 Oak Street. My father has killed my mother.

My voice, dull.

My soul, gone.

I hear the shot and jump. A big hole in the wall. An inch from my shadow head. A chunk of plaster. Whack!

Another shot. Neat hole in the window over the sink. Cracks spread from the empty place, make the window dance and moan. Once sand, uncountable. Now glass, shattered grains. Fragments barely stick. Weakening.

Why, Beans? Why’d you do that?

Two more missed shots. One for the pantry, one for the oven.

He comes close, wraps his arms around me, pulls me to him. His smells fill my nose—mint to try to hide the whiskey, paint to cover his pain. One arm holds me against him. His other hand reaches for a dishtowel and presses it to my back. A pillow for his gun, still damp from Mom doing dishes. Be over in just a minute, sweetheart. I turn my cheek, rest it on his shoulder, watch the window’s empty place. I see a mosaic of fear, of rage, of nothing left.

I love you, Beans. We’ll all be together now. Hold real still, honey. His breath, warm on my ear, the gun’s barrel pressed to my back. See you soon. He pulls the trigger.

Click.

I push away. His face changes.

Rage to hurt.

Blink.

Hurt to rage.

Rage stays. Lifts the gun. Giant black hole. Small gun. Small man. Small bullet. Hand tremors. Once. Twice. Pulls the trigger. Click. Click.

He points at the floor. Shakes the gun. Pulls the trigger. Click.

He raises the gun. Giant black hole. Pulls the trigger. Click.

Empty. Piece of crap.

Sirens.

He hears them too and circles toward me. He raises his hand holding the gun like a club, like a hammer.

I step away, dodging the gun by inches.

He swings, aims for my head.

I duck and circle to the other side.

Stay still, Beans. His eyes—squinty, unfocused, bloodshot. He staggers, bumps his leg, almost falls.

I circle to the other side.

Stop moving! he screams.

Sirens closer. He glances out the window, gauges. Time running out. He nods at empty air, mutters something, opens a drawer, finds a knife, wobbles toward me. Damn it, Beans, you don’t get to decide. Not you. Not your mother. You stay right there.

I don’t stay right there.

He stops, takes a breath. He knows he can’t get me, so he weaves to the backdoor. Before he opens it, he turns, raises his hand not holding the empty gun. One finger presses down on empty air. He’s taking an imaginary picture. Like Mom with her camera. It means see you later, like when I was kid. His eyes are different now, though. The meaning is different, too. The Dad I knew is gone, disappeared into someone else.

The small man goes.

Two

Loud sirens shriek outside. Rotating lights swing in through the windows, showing Mom’s blood on the curtains, on Dad’s painting of me with the torn cheeks. Shadows change my painted eyes to something else—to something empty. Dad’s painting, showing everything he's done.

There are loud knocks at the door.

The door shakes in its frame. The frame is steady.

My focus: only the frame.

I twist the knob.

A fireman dances on rubber tiptoes, swivels around me, runs into the house.

There are two paramedics: one for me, one for the dead. Mine crouches and shines a light in my eyes. Can you count to 10? he asks, and Can you tell me your name?

You should have asked my name first. Now there’s only 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-1-2-3-.

His fingers are warm on my wrist. Can you hear me? he says, and Do you hurt anywhere?

I hurt. Every inch and every molecule. I am pain.

No, I say.

Good, that’s good, Lily.

He knows my name. How?

You just told me, he says. You’re a little out of it, kiddo. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you.

There’s static on his walkie-talkie.

Do you need to go? I say. It’s okay.

He shakes his head and smiles. I’m right where I’m supposed to be, young lady.

Okay. But if you have to go, I understand. My voice, far away. His face, swimmy.

Lily? Lily? Are you with me?

I touch his nametag. Jim?

Yes, it’s Jim.

We’re in a moving ambulance. Where are we going?

Jim sits back. I can’t see him anymore. To the hospital. We’ll get you checked out and make sure you’re okay.

I hear static again. Jim talks into something. Shock, BP dropping –

Jim?

He leans over me again. Yes, Lily?

Where’s my mom?

His face tightens, lips mash together and go white. Do you remember what happened tonight, sweetheart?

Yes, I remember. Is she with the coroner?

Jim nods slowly. Yes. She’s with the coroner.

Okay.

He tries to smile. I’m going to take your temperature now, okay? He holds up a white plastic something. I nod. He pokes a thermometer in my ear, beeps my temperature, reminds me of better times, of Mom, of Hank when he was still Dad.

I’m eleven. Mom’s pressing the inside of her wrist to my forehead—Mom-style thermometer. You don’t have a fever, Lil. Does your stomach hurt?

I groan like my life depends on it. Yes. I’ll be okay by myself, though. You should go to work.

She sits next to me, most of one hip off because my bed’s small. She leans over, puts both hands on either side of