Tin Lily (22 page)

I can go, the buzzing says. I can be quiet, check out, disappear for a while. Or forever. I can stop stuffing, let go of all the tethers, the threads, the hollow. Let it all go and float into nothingness.

I take a deep breath. “It’s not what I want.” My voice in the empty apartment is full of something I don’t recognize, something like the energy I felt last night after Hank’s visit. I only know it’s taken a lot for me to say these words, to say there’s something I don’t want. Because not wanting something means the opposite is true too.

I want to live.

First, I make myself stand. Then I take one step. Another. Three steps, another. Binka trots after me, not interested in being on my shoulder when I’m going toward running water. The tub is full almost to the top. I shut the water off and pull the plug out. If I’m going to answer the buzzing, the ringing, I better not be up to my neck in water.

My phone isn’t playing a tune anymore when I get back to my bedroom. It’s quiet on my nightstand. I pick it up and find where Margie’s programmed Dr. Pratchett’s number. He said to call if I need him. If he has a patient, I’ll have to wait. If he’s busy, I’ll feel stupid.

“Call me anytime, Lily. If I don
’
t answer, leave a message and I
’
ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

I push the button that will make my phone call Dr. Pratchett. It’s on the fifth ring and I think he’s not going to answer when he does. “Dr. Pratchett speaking.”

“Hi, Dr. Pratchett, this is Lily… Berkenshire?” My voice, shaky. My soul, here.

“Lily! It’s good to hear from you. How are you?”

“I’m ready to answer the buzzing, but it feels like it has to be today. Now.” I wonder if he’ll remember us talking about the bees.

He’s silent for a moment, then says, “Okay, Lily. Wait just a moment?”

“Okay.”

I hear Dr. Pratchett put down his phone and shuffle around in his office. Pretty soon his soft voice is there again, only far away, not talking to me. I hear, “Have the afternoon open.”

“Bring her now?”

“I’ll tell her.”

“Lily?” Dr. Pratchett says in my ear. “Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Margie can’t get away from work right now, but she’s sending Sam to pick you up. He’ll bring you here. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you in a little while.”

We hang up. I get dressed, tell the bees to knock it off already and pull a brush through my hair. Sam’s here faster than I expect. I shove my feet into shoes, kiss Binka good-bye and lock up the apartment.

Sam drops me off in front of Dr. Pratchett’s big glass building and gives me a loud smack on the cheek. “Go kick some bee ass, Lilykins.”

I grin at Sam and hope I can. For now, the bees are a whisper in the background, waiting and not waiting.

Dr. Pratchett’s inside the big glass doors. We ride up in the elevator together and head right into his office. I decide maybe answering the bees will be easier if I don’t sit in my normal chair. I decide on the couch instead and sink down into leather smooshiness. That Christmas smell is all around me. I don’t feel like a cliché after all.

“I hope you didn’t kick anyone out for me,” I say, worried now that I took another crazy’s time-slot.

“My afternoon is free,” Dr. Pratchett says. He smiles his warm smile.

“Thanks for seeing me.”

He nods, says in a cautious voice, “So, Margie told me about your spell on the bus after you left here last week. Would you like to talk a little about that before we get to the bees?”

“Didn’t Margie tell you already?”

“Yes, but I’d like to hear your version. And I think it will help us understand more about the bees.”

“I checked out for a while. Then I woke up. Then I went home to Margie’s apartment.” I don’t tell Dr. Pratchett about Hank’s picture. Not yet. I think it’s important I answer the buzzing first.

“Does it scare you to be so vulnerable?”

I look down at my lap, at my clasped hands. I think about Hank and his promise to come for me tomorrow. “No room for fear,” I say, but I already know it’s not true anymore. Now there’s Binka, Margie, Sam, Nick. Now there are people and a life I don’t know if I can fit into, but one I don’t feel much like leaving. There’s stuff.

“Still hollow?” Dr. Pratchett asks.

“Yes.”

“Something Margie said tells me a different story.”

I look up, trying to guess what Dr. Pratchett’s talking about. Maybe he sees I’m not sure about there being no room for fear. “What do you mean?”

“She said you comforted her. You held her when she was afraid.”

“My spell on the bus wasn’t her fault.”

“No, of course not. But she thought it was.”

“Yes.” I’m so confused my head is spinning.

“Lily, when a person is truly hollowed out, when someone has no room in here”—Dr. Pratchett pats his chest where his heart is—“when you don’t feel anything for yourself—like fear—you don’t feel things for other people.”

“Okay.”

“You felt empathy for Margie.”

“Empathy’s easy.”

Dr. Pratchett smiles. “Not for everyone. Do you know, not everyone would have taken Binka out of that dumpster? Many people would have just walked right by.”

“I know. We’re separate. Disconnected.”

“Tell me what you mean.”

“Everything’s filtered through something. Phones. Doors. Cameras. People feel separate, so they don’t help.”

Dr. Pratchett’s nodding. “Do you think that’s why someone else would have left Binka?”

Nod.

“And yet you jumped in. Margie said you didn’t hesitate for a second.”

“No.”

“Lily, someone who doesn’t have room inside for feelings doesn’t do these things. Someone who sees the separation you were just talking about can’t
not
feel. You see things many people never do.” Nick’s words in Dr. Prachett’s throat.

“Okay.”

“Do you remember our first visit, when you told me you didn’t have room for anything but emptiness? No room for love or happiness or anything but that sense of being tin?”

“Yes.”

“I believe you have room for it all.”

I watch Dr. Pratchett for a little while. I get what he’s saying. “Maybe, if I make room, if I answer the buzzing, I might not have any more spells?”

“Yes.”

“Can you help me?”

“I hope so. Let’s start with what you believe the buzzing represents.”

“I said already.”

“Yes, the phone in your old house.” Dr. Pratchett pauses and shifts in his scrunchy leather chair. “The bees precede a dissociative spell.”

“Yes.”

“The pattern is like a ringing telephone.”

“Yes.”

“Your father used to call you on the phone when he was drunk.”

“Yes.”

“What would he say?”

“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?”

I shake my head, not ready to say the words out loud, deciding I need to ask Dr. Pratchett a question about Mom first. I couldn’t hear it in our last session, but I think I can now. “Could you tell me first what Hank said to my mom when he would call her at work?”

Dr. Pratchett looks unsure, then leans forward. “Apparently he wanted you both back home. He made promises your mother didn’t believe.”

“Promises?”

“He said he would stop working for his father if the two of you rejoined him.”

“And she didn’t believe him?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because when she suggested he stop working for his father first and they move slowly toward reconciliation, he became enraged.”

“He told her she had no right to call the shots, to say what we would do.”

Dr. Pratchett’s quiet for a minute, then leans back in his chair. “That’s right, Lily.”

“It’s the same thing he said when we were at home. Mom was right not to believe him.”

“So it would appear. Would you like to discuss what Hank said to you on the phone now?”

I look around the room, at the books on Dr. Pratchett’s shelves, smell the spicy and the leather. I feel safe. I can say the words here, let some of it out. “He said, ‘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?’” The words are like a chant in my head, a terrible poem that won’t let go.

“How did Hank’s words make you feel?”

I take a breath and grab a tissue out of the box on the coffee table in front of me. “I hated when he said those things, but they also made me doubt, you know?”

“You wondered if the words were true.”

“Yeah, even though deep down I knew they weren’t.”

“Did your father say similar things about you?”

“Different. That I was stupid mostly.”

“Just in those last years or always?”

I think about Hank before he started working for Grandpa Henry. “Mostly in those last years, but sometimes before.”

“When he’d been drinking?”

“Yes.” I look at the clock on Dr. Pratchett’s desk. “Am I making you late?”

He doesn’t look at the clock, keeps focused on me. “No, Lily. We’re fine. I have the whole afternoon, remember?”

I feel confused. All this talking, all this answering the bees. It’s a lot.

Dr. Pratchett breathes and I breathe and pretty soon he asks another question. “Can you tell me what prompted you to answer the buzzing now?”

“I started the workbook and made a list of my soothing thingies?”

“Yes.”

“One was a bubble bath. Margie has the same bubbles Mom gave me.”

“I see. So the smell triggered the bees?”

“Yes.”

“Did you dissociate?”

“No. I decided not to.”

Dr. Pratchett’s quiet, working something out. “Lily, do you trust me?”

I don’t even have to think. “Yes.”

“What I’m going to ask you to do will be difficult, but I believe you’re ready. You stopped a dissociative spell, which tells me you’re beginning to accept what happened. You understand?”

“I have more control now.”

“Exactly. Here’s what I’d like you to do. I want you to pretend Hank is sitting in that empty chair over there.” Dr. Pratchett’s pointing to the chair I sat in during my other sessions, the one I chose because I didn’t want to be a cliché. “Think you can do that?”

I think I can do that because already I’m smelling whiskey, even a little mint, definitely paint mixed in with the Christmas spice. Pretty soon not-Hank is sitting in the empty chair, his hands resting on his knees, his dull eyes watching me.

“I can do that,” I say.

“Good.” Dr. Pratchett pauses, breathes, says, “I’d like you to talk about how you were affected the night your mother died. Say it like you’re telling Hank.”

I suck in my breath. Can I speak these words? The words that say what happened? A few bees start knocking around in my head, buzzing their promise song. It’s the quiet place or it’s answer them. Dr. Pratchett’s watching me closely, his afternoon for me because I want to answer the bees. It’s time to say the words. Out loud. I stop thinking, start talking. Not to Dr. Pratchett, but to not-Hank.

“When you came that night with your gun, when you killed my mother.” I tap my chest, showing not-Hank where he made me hollow. “I disappeared that day. You changed me. I don’t remember how I was before. I only know there was more and that you made me hollow. You emptied me out with your bullets, with your killing Mom. When you took her, you took me.”

Not-Hank’s whispered words coil around me, in me, try to bring on the bees.

“Your fault, Beans. You should have answered the phone.”

“You
’
re too stupid to do that.”

“You don
’
t call the shots, little girl.”

“Sometimes I wonder if she
’
s really my daughter.”

“Two peas in a pod, you and your mother. Stupid, lazy, useless.”

“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?”

“One year into two. Two years into nothing.”

“You
’
re the only one who can make this right now, Beans.”

I push his words past me, don’t let them sink in. I think I understand. The ringing, the buzzing, it’s the lies he told, all the things he tried to make me believe—about myself, about Mom. It’s his drunk voice and his anger and his belief that he knew what was best for us. It’s Mom’s voice too, trying to undo the damage. It’s her happies and the year we were alone together, making a new life. It’s everything. My whole life right there in the ringing of a telephone.

And the hollow. I get it now. This empty space inside me can get filled up with acceptance and moving forward, like Margie, or it can get filled up with rage and craziness, like Hank. It’s my choice what I fill it with. Looking at not-Hank, I know it would be easy to let the insanity in, to let my heart shrivel for good. That way, there’s no pain. Just rage. Or quiet.

The knocking-around bees start buzzing louder. The quiet place is tugging even though I’m answering. It’s on the other side of this breath—a promise of forever peace. So what if he lied? I believed him even though I knew. He was my father, the man who said he loved me, the man who taught me about how much people can hurt other people. Maybe it’s easier just to go, to fade away into quiet, peace, to dissolve and become a speck in a world full of specks.

Margie’s face is in my mind. Her smiling, sparkling eyes as she hands me the tin box she made cry.

“Tin isn
’
t very interesting just flat. It
’
s got a lot more character when it
’
s been stressed and molded. The only way to do that is to bend it until it cries.”