Today's Reading
'Velvet isn't the flavor,' Tim had muttered. 'Red is.'
'Oh, sis,' Doug had said on the line. 'We need help.'
In a beat, the cake all the carrot and chocolate and raspberry cream we'd consumed in service to our future wedding guests had been forgotten and the pulse in my neck throbbed like a stubbed toe. Something had happened. Something was wrong. Was it Mom and Dad? Doug's wife, Josie?
'Tell me,' I'd said as the sickly-sweet icing in my stomach compacted into a leaden brick. I knew bad news; it was my bread and butter really, without which my job and that of my fiancé wouldn't exist. What I struggled with was the anticipation of trouble, the fear that it was on the way. As a child, I'd driven my parents crazy demanding reassurance that they'd come home safely after nights out, that I didn't have a life-threatening disease, that everyone I loved was healthy. Promise? I'd say, ever suspicious, as I thrust a small hooked finger into my mother's face to await the pinky swear that would release the pressure building around my heart. Promise? I'd asked when Tim swore to stick by me no matter what. Some threats I'd escaped. Others, I knew, were only beginning to bubble.
Doug had said, 'I could kill her,' and at once, I'd understood.
When I thought of my niece, I pictured her somewhere around age five, that thick curtain of bangs drawn across her forehead, her rounded belly wobbling when I gave it a playful poke. Make the wind, she'd demand whenever she wanted to see a tornado kick. I was new to martial arts back then, but my sensei gave thorough demonstrations, and I'd been practicing. Hen loved to watch me spin, my leg extending with so much force and speed that my pant leg whipped the air. If I did it right, a rush of wind would hit Hen square in the face and she'd stare open-mouthed at me as if I were a god.
The stories out of Vermont in recent months told of a vastly different child. Henrietta was newly sixteen, but in her last semester of sophomore year at South Burlington High School, she'd stopped turning in assignments and started skipping class instead. It wasn't uncommon for her to instigate screaming matches with her parents or brood in her room for hours. There were other problems as well, many related to Josie's disappearing collection of Sauvignon Blanc. But none of that had been enough to push my brother and his wife over the edge.
'She wrecked my car,' Doug had said with a groan the day he'd called out of the blue. 'Oh, and also the fucking house.'
Apparently, Doug's Jeep needed a whole new bumper, its shape now stamped into his garage door.
'What does her therapist say?' I'd asked, sitting with Tim in the parked car outside the bakery on King Street East. The therapy had been my idea; Hen was seeing a woman in Essex whom I'd researched and vetted myself. I credited my own therapy with helping me overcome PTSD, and the emotional check-ins I continued to conduct with Gil Gasko helped to clear my head.
'She refuses to go back there,' he'd replied, 'which is probably for the best. A hundred bucks a session, and Hen hardly said a word. She thinks therapy is bullshit. That's the word she used. 'Bullshit'.'
I'd glanced at Tim then. My knowledge of his younger brother was limited, but I had a feeling Jean-Christophe's wild phase had nothing on this.
'That's why I'm calling,' Doug had continued. 'I'm terrified, Shay. We both are.'
Shit. My sister-in-law was way more patient than Doug. If even Josie's fortitude had become unglued, things at home must be really bad.
'She's like a different person.' Doug had whispered it urgently into the phone, as if worried Hen might be listening. Like he was afraid. 'The hair, her diet, all these horrible movies she's been watching... I don't even recognize my own kid.'
'Want me to talk to her?' My experience wrangling teens was extremely limited, but I couldn't bear the pain in my brother's voice.
Doug had cleared his throat and said, 'Actually, I was hoping for something else.'
I listened, mouth dry, knees turned to aspic.
'It's what she wants,' Doug had concluded, sounding as helpless as I felt. 'I can't for the life of me figure out why. Of all the places... but maybe, with you and Tim to get her back on track...'
So there it was. Hen was our responsibility now, at least for a little while. Her balled-up T-shirts would take up residence in the corners of her room, tattered sweatshirts pooling on every surface, her luggage lying open like roadkill with an empty, yawning maw. Tim would do his best to avert his eyes when she'd come downstairs in outfits so small they looked like hold-overs from when she was nine.
...
