The Belief in Angels (40 page)

“Where’s your mother?”

I have to tell him.

“She’s on a vacation in the Virgin Islands with Jack.”

He turns. “You’re here alone?” Now he stares at me and my face is feeling hot. “For now. At, at least u … u … until they get back.” I’m hoping he isn’t going to ask the next question.

You have to tell him.

“When’s that?”

“Huh?”

Now he acts like a dog on a scent. He sticks his face in mine and holds my chin between his fingers.

He speaks the question slowly. I can smell Chivas Regal on his breath. The smell of it brings an instant knot to my gut. I realize he’s likely drunk. “When are they getting back?”

“We … well. She left a few days ago to go meet up with him and she wawasn’t real spe-specific about whe-when she might come back.”

I hate this. I hate the stutter he brings out in my speech and the way I cower around him.

I step backwards and out of his grip and he turns away from me and starts pulling the canned food onto the counter.

“Your mother shouldn’t have left you here by yourself. Anything could happen to you. Didn’t she know about the storm coming? I’ll be here to take care of you now. You don’t have to worry about being alone.”

I speak before I can stop myself. “Oh, I’m fine here by myself. I don’t need you to stay with me.”

He ignores me and starts banging the cans on the counter. “All this shit needs to be heated, and we don’t have a stove.” He starts to rant and shove all the cans to the back of the counter.

“I can heat something for you over the fire. What do you want?”

“It’s too dangerous to stick your hands into an open fire. You can’t heat things up without something to hold it into the fire with.”

“I’ve been heating things up with this.” I show him a pot I’ve taped with a long-handled metal serving spoon at the handle. The spoon’s cup rests perfectly into the pot’s slotted handle and allows me to hold it at a safe distance.

Howard scowls at my pot, but he picks out a can of baked beans and holds it out to me. “Show me how it works.”

I heat up the beans and put them in a bowl for him while he hunts around. I can hear him up in Wendy’s room stomping around, and I wonder what he’s doing up there.

“Your beans are ready,” I call up to him.

He comes down the stairs fast, and judging by how quickly he eats the beans he must be hungry. Without saying thanks, he hands me back the bowl. I put it into the sink knowing I’ll be cleaning up after
him
later.

“Yeah. I’m gonna stay here until your mother’s back and make sure you’re all right. You shouldn’t stay here by yourself.”

I nod. I decide not to argue with him, but something inside me starts a slow boil. I know he probably thinks Wendy is gone for a week or so, and I don’t want to tell him otherwise. I’m positive he’ll settle in the entire time she’s gone.

I want him out of there as quickly as possible, but I have absolutely no idea how I can do it. Something tells me a nighttime fish delivery isn’t going to work twice in a lifetime.

Howard tells me he’d like to lie down for a while and sleep and before I can even offer him another sleeping bag or pillow, he lays down on the one I have in front of the fireplace and falls asleep. I sit on the chaise and watch him for a while until he starts to snore. I walk into the kitchen and gather all the liquor bottles out of the cabinet and pour every drop of alcohol down the drain.

Wendy has quite the collection, and I don’t want to contribute to Howard’s habit. He doesn’t do drugs, so I know the pharmacy in her bedroom won’t pose a problem.

I put on my coat, leave using the back exit, and drop the empties into the trash before I make my way over to Timothy’s. Leigh has stopped over there. They tell me they were planning to come over and spend the night. I’m glad to see Leigh and relieved she seems comfortable with us. Her response the other day to our “prom decision” had me worried. I decide she was simply surprised by the idea and isn’t offended in any way. There are bigger issues at hand now anyway.

“Let’s stay here. It’s not a good idea to go to my place. My father’s there.”

Later, Timothy, Leigh, Crikey and I settle upstairs in the privacy of his room, coats on against the chill. His room always makes me feel warm despite the weather. It smells like him. Ivory soap and cedar. The walls are painted a moss green and his bedspread is a tropical jungle with brightly colored parrots. I think his grandmother must have decorated. He’s applied glow-in-the-dark stars to his ceiling, and Leigh and I spend lots of time resting back on his parrot pillows in the dark and letting Timothy teach us the galaxy. When someone has a passion for something, anything in the world can become the most fascinating topic in the world. Stacked in every corner of his room are books about biology, chemistry, and conservation. He plans to study environmental design in college.

I sit in a red bean bag chair. Crikey plops himself next to me and lays his head across my knee. I tell them about my unwelcome guest.

“Yeah. He showed up pretending he was concerned about me. He ran out of firewood at my Aunt Doreen’s, and I think he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I didn’t tell him how long Wendy’s going to be gone. He probably thinks it’s going to be a week or something. Maybe he’ll go before he thinks she’ll show up. I could pretend she’s coming back early or something.”

“What if he waits until she comes home?” Leigh asks.

I don’t think he’ll wait around, considering how much they fight, but I’m not sure.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think of something. Any ideas?”

“Is it bad with him there?” Timothy asks.

Crikey looks up at me. I scratch his head and stall Timothy off.

I’m sure he thinks I’m being a jerk about my father. His father is kind and thoughtful. It’s hard for a person like Timothy to understand how mean a person like Howard can be to their own kids.

As much as I don’t want to, I know I’ll have to introduce Howard for him to understand. The idea frightens me, in a way. I’ve spent considerable effort trying to isolate my invitations to times when Wendy isn’t there, and Howard is a whole other story. His behavior is embarrassing on a completely different level. Drunken rants, coarse language, generally hostile behavior …

“Why don’t I stay with you? With me there and my family here, around the corner, he can’t use the excuse that you’re alone, and maybe he won’t want to stick around if he knows your friends are going to be around too.”

Leigh thinks it’s a great idea, and they convince me it will work. We decide to put the plan into action. First, Timothy has to ask his family if it will be all right. They’re totally supportive, and his grandmother tells me it makes her feel a lot better about things to know I’m not alone. I’m relieved, since I know Howard might call here to check on our story.

“I wish we had room for you here, Jules,” Timothy’s grandmother says.

“It’s fine. It’s better somebody’s in the house to make sure pipes don’t burst and stuff.”

We walk back through the snowdrifts on Withensea Avenue. By this time the grayness of the late afternoon has gradually darkened into dusk. The snow reflects a smoky purple-gray that turns our skin the same shade. We are purple-gray shadows moving through the landscape.

Snow covers everything. Cars, trees, homes, roads, street signs. The exposed rocky cliffs are the only spots of landscape sticking out in their own deeper, coal-gray-shadowed silhouettes. Their darker colors create an ominous backdrop to the neon blue shock of our Victorian peeking through the ice and snow cover. I stop on the stoop and draw a breath before I turn the key. As I turn it, the door opens.

Howard waits inside. He glowers. “Where’ve you been?” he demands.

“We were over at my friend’s. Thi … this is Timothy,” I say, gesturing to him. “This is Leigh.”

I force a calm voice and attitude, hoping it will work to tame his temper a bit. We all step into the entryway.

“Who told you it was okay to leave?” he shouts.

I’m stunned. It’s been a very, very long time since someone has placed any rule or restriction on me for coming or going from my own house. I answer calmly and honestly. “I don’t have any rules about leaving. I mean, we haven’t had those kinds of rules here. We were hanging out at Timothy’s …” I stop, unsure what to say next to him.

“Well, guess what? Those days are over. You’ve got rules now. I’m here, and your mother’s not. You’re going have to play by
my
rules now. Do you understand that?”

His mouth actually froths.

Timothy and Leigh stand beside me. Timothy’s face holds a restrained but palpable anger. I know I have to find a way to end the conversation quickly and without more irritation for everyone.

“Yes,” I say. “I understand. I’ll let you know where I’m going from n … now on.”

“Yeah you will, and you’ll
ask
me before you go anywhere. This isn’t going to be the wild animal farm your mother runs. You’re going to learn discipline and respect for your elders … for your father.”

He walks toward the kitchen. Then he turns around. “Your friends,” he says with a scowl at Timothy and in a tone that tells me he has doubts about the nature of our friendship, “need to go home now. You’ve got work to do and it’s late for visitors.” He stomps away.

I turn to Timothy and Leigh. The shock of his anger has worn off. The rough way he acts is unfamiliar and unsettling at first, but then my memory places it and an old anger resurfaces in me. I’m certain Howard’s rules are going to be broken. I’m equally certain I’ll have to play along a bit longer in order to gain my freedom.

“You guys better go,” I say, realizing after the words are out how wooden they sound. I brighten my tone to reassure them. They look stricken by Howard’s words and actions. “I’ll be fine.”

“Will we see you tomorrow?” Timothy asks.

“We could hang out at my place tomorrow, Jules,” Leigh offers.

“That sounds good. I’ll see what my father says.”

They stand glued in the doorway with worried faces.

“I’ll be fine,” I say again.

“See what he says about what we decided earlier,” Timothy says. “I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Okay. See you,” Leigh says and grabs Timothy’s arm. He moves away reluctantly.

“See you,” he says, and they’re gone into the night, which has turned from slate blue into a thick black curtain.

Jules, 16 years | February, 1978

INSIDE OUT IN THE COLD

HOWARD APPEARS BESIDE me as soon as I close the door behind Timothy and Leigh.

“That kid your boyfriend? What did he mean, ‘What you decided’? What did you decide?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You’ve got rules now, and they include asking permission to go out, to bring your boyfriend here, or to go see him. Well?”

“Well,” I begin. I debate whether to be completely honest with him or to give him the idea in doses. “Timothy is a friend. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

He smiles suspiciously. I realize our idea won’t fly in a million years with the level of paranoia Howard has about our relationship. I decide to try a different tack.

“We were thinking Leigh could stay here with me. Her mom is close, and that way I wouldn’t have to be alone here. I mean, you wouldn’t have stay here for my sake. I can take care of myself, and if something comes up, we can ask Ms. Westerfield to help out.”

I hold my breath and wait for him to reply.

He grows quiet and actually seems like he might consider my suggestion. I become hopeful. Then I hear the answer I expected.

“Do you think you can get rid of me that easily? You think you can set up the
place as a party zone for you and your friends and your
boyfriend?
Don’t tell me he’s not your boyfriend. Girls your age don’t have male
friends”

“Are you two having sex?” he asks me, his face about two inches from mine.

I stare back at him, not entirely containing my anger, which erases my fear. “Timothy is a friend, not a boyfriend. We’re not having sex. I’m not having sex with anyone, not that it’s any of your business,” I add. “And I have no intention of having parties here. If I’d wanted to have parties, don’t you think I would have before you showed up? I’ve been on my own for a few days now. Look, no parties!” At this I gesture around at the house. There is no stutter in my speech, which I hope convinces him I’m telling the truth.

He blinks, digesting my words.

“Well, you’re either a good liar, or …”

Good liar,
it appears, marks the boundary of his imagination.

I wait for him to finish, and maintain eye contact while he continues making his assessment of my sexual status, or whatever he’s doing.

“Well, whatever the kid is—boyfriend, friend—he’s not allowed over here unless I’m here. That goes for anyone. No visitors unless I’m here. No visits to your friends, either, unless their parents are home. You’re gonna have to start learning discipline. This place is a mess. Starting tomorrow I want you to do a thorough cleaning of each and every room. Everything clean, floor to ceiling. There are cobwebs on the cobwebs in this place. How can you live in this filth?”

He’s exaggerating, for sure, but it’s true that the house, with the exception of my room, is not what I would call truly clean. Wendy never cleans, and I try to avoid doing what I can most of the time. I do keep it tidy, however.

“All right. I’ll clean up tomorrow. I’m gonna head upstairs and study now.”

The temperature hovers somewhere around freezing in my room, but I decide it’s better to be cold than have to deal with him.

“Not so fast. First, you need to whip up another one of those fireplace meals for dinner. Do you know where your mother keeps the booze around here? I couldn’t find anything in the cupboard.”

“Yeah, there isn’t any in the house,” I answer, perhaps a bit too definitively.

“What? I’m gonna have to go to the packie. There’s no way I’m stuck in a blizzard without something to drink. Is the market down the hill still open?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been out until today and I didn’t make it too far.”