The Boots My Mother Gave Me (35 page)

It was of utmost importance to Kat and me to make our own holidays, especially this one, the best it could be. Tate and Megan, simply beside themselves with plans for decorating, had it all figured out, what they would do with every last strand of lights, and where they would put the big blow-up Santa Claus. Somewhere between the store and home, they became interior decorators. The sun set as we pulled up to Kat’s.

“Here, Tate, you help Megan with this one,” Cassidy said, handing them a bag from the trunk of the car, as they took off running toward the house.

I passed Kat’s car in the drive, my arms filled with bags. Tate held the front door open for me. “Such a gentleman,” I complimented him.

I looked around for Kat, noticing her bedroom door was closed. Setting the bags down on the kitchen table, I hurried down the hallway. “Kat! Come see what we got. You’re going to love it,” my voice dropped as I opened her bedroom door.

Cassidy followed close behind me, while the kids dug into the bags in the living room. Kat sat at her vanity, attempting to apply cover-up to a bruised cheekbone and a split lip.

“I hit him first,” she defended, a makeup brush in her unsteady hand.

“I’ll take the kids to my place,” Cassidy excused herself, rushing the kids out the door.

I breathed in deeply, running my hands through my hair, stopping at the roots, my fists holding pressure against my scalp, as I leaned against the door casing to her bedroom. “He asked me to leave. I didn’t. I just kept pushing,” Kat maintained.

“So, if I went to see Joey, his face would look like yours?” I asked calmly, requiring further explanation, my hands now gripping the back of my neck.

“It’s not his fault. I accused him of seeing someone else,” she began, her eyes diverted to her compact, she would not look at me. “I slapped him, across the face.”

“And then what?”

“He slapped me back.” She looked at me annoyed, as if it was acceptable, to be expected. All the while, on one side of her face her cheekbone was discolored, black and blue, and on the other side her lip looked painful, cut open and swollen.

“When did this happen?”

“Last night.”

“What’s under the turtleneck?”

“It’s winter, Harley. People wear turtlenecks in the winter. Would you please just leave? I don’t feel like being interrogated.” She turned back to the mirror, continuing to apply cover-up to her bruised flesh.

“I remember watching you watch Mom in the mirror,” I said, stepping into her room, sitting down behind her on the bed, as I looked at her through the reflective surface. “When she would put on her makeup. You would watch her so closely, taking mental notes.” I smiled faintly with the memory. “Not everything can be covered up, Kit-Kat.”

“I’m not in the mood for your metaphors, Harley. Please, just leave me alone.”

“Do you want me to leave, or don’t you? One minute you’re throwing it up in my face because I left, walked out on you. And the next, you’re telling me to go.”

What did she want me to do here? What should I do? I wanted to beat Joey Harper’s ass, that’s what I wanted to do, within an inch of his putrid existence.

She pulled the neck down on her sweater, exposing a ring of bruises around her throat, perfectly finger-shaped. “Fine. Is this what you want? Do you feel better now? Poor pitiful Kat, always getting herself into a mess over some guy, always playing the victim,” she said. “You wouldn’t ever do that would you, Harley? All hail strong, capable, independent Harley. We’re not all like you.” She slammed her makeup brush down on the vanity.

I looked at her in the mirror, my sister. Did she know what she was worth? I sat there on the edge of her bed and the waterworks started, a steady stream. She looked at me, perplexed by my actions. I don’t know how long it had been since I cried in front of her.

I didn’t like crying in front of Mom or Kat. How could I be strong for them if I was the one crying? Seeing her there, bruises on her body, I knew I couldn’t protect her, I couldn’t keep her from Joey Harper. And I could not talk myself out of this little downpour, my
almond
unable to deliver.

“I’m sorry,” she immediately apologized, spinning around in her chair, facing me.

“It’s okay,” I assured through a smile. She hugged me. I put my arms around her to hug her back, and she groaned with my contact, pulling away.

She looked at me, shrugging her shoulders as she began to explain. “After I slapped him, he hit me twice.” She pointed to her cheek, and her lip. “We were in the kitchen. He had me up against the refrigerator...my neck,” she abbreviated. “I grabbed the closest thing to me...a broom. I hit him with it, and he let me go. I fought back, Harley.” She smiled faintly.

“I ran toward the upstairs bathroom, the one with a lock. But he caught me on the stairs. He had the broom in his hand,” she said so calmly as if she replayed it in her mind, to the point it didn’t even faze her anymore. She lifted the back of her shirt, displaying welts and bruise marks the full length of her back from the broom handle. I put my hand to my mouth, stifling the desire to yell out, wail, something, anything to let go of the nauseating feeling rushing over me. I ran to the bathroom, instantly sick to my stomach.

The next morning in the Emergency Room at St. Mary’s hospital, Kat was delivered back to her room from the radiology department. I talked her into getting checked out and filing a report, leaving a paper trail.

“The doctor will be in momentarily with the results of her scans,” the nurse said, leaving the room, acknowledging the police officer standing outside the doorway.

She, Officer Julie Ayers, took the report from Kat late last night. She returned, awaiting the final medical documentation from the hospital to accompany her file. We had been there for hours, since midnight at least. The reports and testing required to document everything appropriately proved time-consuming. But we had no other option. If it took all week, we would go through the correct channels. We hid everything in our childhood. We were through hiding things, covering up abuse.

Kat finally rested. I pulled the covers snugly up over her shoulders, kissing her on the forehead as she lay there, peaceful. Watching her, I thought of all the times I peeked through the railings of her crib after Mom first brought her home from the hospital. It seemed like all she did was sleep. I remember standing there, my three-year-old self watching, waiting for her to move, to get up and play with me. At first, I thought Mom had brought home a baby doll, one of those that slept, ate, cried, and pooped, because it seemed like that’s all she did for months. Eventually, she started moving, and cooing, and crawling. I thought she was the coolest thing, a little sister.

“Twenty-seven-year-old male, possible frostbite to the extremities, generalized hypothermia,” I heard a commotion outside Kat’s room.

The paramedics brought in another patient. They came quite regularly throughout the night and into the morning. I happened to look out through the curtain, and there he was, Joey Harper, lying on the stretcher. I walked outside Kat’s room, standing beside Officer Ayers, making sure my eyes did not play tricks on me. It was Joey, all right, covered in blankets, his body nearly the color of a Smurf.

“The local Sheriff found him this morning, handcuffed to the flagpole in front of the city hall building over in Georgia, in the freezing cold,” the paramedic continued reporting to the admitting nurse. “Said he drew quite the crowd. He was in his underwear. And in black marker across his back read,
I LIKE TO BEAT WOMEN.
The crowd wasn’t any too pleased with him. The Sheriff had to reprimand a few people for throwing snowballs at the guy.”

“We’ll take him in room twelve,” the nurse replied, leading the way.

“That wouldn’t be my guy, would it Ms. LeBeau?” Officer Ayers asked curiously, surely too good to be true, his falling into her lap.

“Absolutely your guy, Joey Harper.”

“Sometimes the universe is too kind. Now, I don’t have to worry with you putting something in his IV solution, or finding him smothered under a pillow, do I?” she casually warned me to keep my distance. I shook my head. “I’ll be back to check on you ladies in bit.” She walked away toward room twelve.

That evening, after I took Kat home, I continued on to Jeremiah’s. As I pulled up to his place, his Jeep sat in the drive. The house dim, only the flicker of candles glowing in the living room window. I stepped onto the porch, my breath visible in the cold winter temperatures, as an all too familiar sound came from inside, my voice:

Jeremiah Johnson,

He was my neighbor.

We shared our childhood dreams,

He was my favorite.

I debated whether I should go inside or turn around and leave:

I grew up a tomboy,

In a house with stone walls.

Jeremiah gave me,

A soft place to fall.

Growing colder, I turned the knob on the front door, pushing it open, allowing myself in, as the song played on:

I’d sneak in his window,

He’d put his arms around me tight.

Softly wipe away my tears,

Tell me, girl everything will be all right.

Jeremiah sat in his recliner, every light in the house off, two candles burning beside him in the window. I looked at him apprehensively, leaning my back against the front door:

I left him there in Georgia,

Bittersweet escape.

I wonder, does he think of me?

Does he even know I still call out his name?

I taught him how to drive a stick,

In an old flatbed Ford.

He taught me how to kiss,

A feeling I’d never felt before.

He simply stared at me, holding my gaze while I remained at the door, immobile, as he continued listening intently to the truths of my heart:

I never thought he saw me,

He always dated the pretty girls.

Graduation came, my time had come,

To set out and see the world.

Boy, did I get the eye on that one, insinuating he never saw me, as if he were offended or something:

Jeremiah Johnson,

His dad left him that day.

I told him, come and go with me,

We got no reason to stay.

We said our goodbyes that night,

Under the stars, skin to skin.

Our bodies full of emotions,

Our young minds could not comprehend.

His chest rose and fell heavily, more quickly over the length of the song, the words bringing back memories, affecting him, as the chorus finished one last time:

I left him there in Georgia,

Bittersweet escape.

I wonder, does he think of me?

Does he even know I still call out his name?

Jeremiah Johnson,

I wonder, do you ever think of me?

The music tapered off, ending the song. “I thought I heard everything you ever wrote. Cassidy brought this over today, your CD. Seems I never got one. Didn’t know there was one. You’d think if I inspired a song, I’d at least get to hear it.”

“Maybe I know another Jeremiah Johnson,” I said, my voice low, slightly embarrassed. I had been found out.

“Maybe,” he agreed. He sat there, still, staring at me, no particular emotion, just looking at me, through me, somewhere in my general line of sight.

“You wouldn’t know anything about Joey Harper tied to the flagpole in front of city hall, would you?” I changed the subject, unable to keep my lips from smirking. The thought of it pleased me.

“Nope.”

“They brought him in this morning, to the ER, with frostbite and hypothermia.”

“I had frostbite once...in Afghanistan. You wouldn’t think it gets cold there, being the desert and all, but up in the mountains it gets real cold. I cried like a baby, thawing out. He’s a
tough-guy
though. I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he said, the contempt in his voice clearly audible. “How is she?”

“Okay. She’s home asleep.” I took my coat and gloves off, as I sat on the couch, catty-corner to his chair on the other side of the room.

“So, you’re planning on staying a while?” he gathered from my gesture.

“I don’t need to. If you’ve got plans or something.” I reached for my coat.

“No. I don’t have any plans.” He got up from his chair, walking to the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open, glass bottles clinking. “You want a beer?”

“No thanks.”

He returned from the kitchen, two beers in hand, and a chair in the other. He put the chair down across from me at the coffee table, the only thing separating his chair from the couch, where I sat. He placed a beer in front of him, and one in front of me. “Just in case you change your mind,” he said. “Have you ever heard of the truth table?” I looked at him, befuddled. I had no idea what he talked about, and I didn’t like his attitude, either, very nonchalant, but purposefully so. “It’s used in mathematics, to measure logic.”

“That would explain why I’ve never heard of it. I’m not a big math fan. Completely right-brained, I am. I should get going, anyway.” I reached for my coat. He was up to something, sitting across from me, directly across from me, challengingly. If I felt like telling the
truth,
I would, on my own terms.

He grabbed my coat from under my hand, tossing it into the recliner across the room. “You don’t have to be a math fan to use the truth table.” He took a drink. I watched him, suspicious, beginning to feel agitated, as he smiled at me provokingly. “This is a table,” he pointed out the obvious, tapping his hands on the coffee table between us. “We’ll keep it simple, no variables or coefficients. I ask you a question, you tell me the truth.”

“I don’t think I want to play this game. How about Scrabble, Monopoly? Ya got anything like that?” I asked condescendingly.