Cages (14 page)

Kit didn’t think things were that bad. Still, Dorothy did worry a lot and she spent a lot of time trying to smooth out the wrinkles between Kit and Wayne.

“You want to know something funny?” Wayne said. “One reason she married me is because she thought you needed a man in your life. A father. She said little girls always adore their fathers and she wanted you to have that relationship. How’s that for a laugh? If she’d known what a failure I was going to be in the fatherhood department, she would never have said
yes
.”

Kit looked at Wayne in astonishment. She had never heard him admit he was wrong about anything, much less call himself a failure. “I think she wanted to marry you for herself,” she said, “not just for me.”

Wayne stared down at the floor, as if he didn’t hear her. “The worst part of all,” he said, “is that I don’t even know what I did wrong. If we could go back and start all over again, I’d probably make the same mistakes with you that I made the first time. Even if we got a second chance, you’d still end up hating me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Kit said.

“It sure isn’t love,” he said.

A doctor approached them. “It’s acute appendicitis,” he said. “We’re preparing her for surgery.” He handed Wayne a clipboard with some papers on it. “I’ll need your signature on these, Mr. Gillette. They give us permission for the surgery. Read them carefully and, after you’ve signed, give them to one of the nurses.”

Wayne nodded and took the clipboard.

“We’ll have some word for you as soon as we can.” The doctor left, leaving Wayne and Kit alone in the waiting room.

Kit sat down and Wayne sat beside her. Together, they began reading the papers. When Kit got to the part about the risks
of anesthesia, she stopped. “This sounds scary,” she said. “Here, where it says unforeseen conditions may arise.”

“I’ll sign it,” he said. “The hospital has to protect itself but if Dorothy needs surgery, that’s what she’ll get.”

He took a pen from his shirt pocket and signed the papers. Then he got up and took them to one of the nurses.

When he returned, looking frightened, he sat beside Kit and put his head in his hands.

He loves her, too, Kit thought. And he’s afraid he might lose her.

We finally have something in common. Wayne is just as scared as I am.

I
T was a long afternoon. Wayne paced back and forth, unable to sit still for more than a minute at a time. Kit tried to read the
National Geographic
magazines that were in the waiting room but was unable to concentrate.

At 4:30, Tracy rushed in. “What happened?” she cried. “Is your mom OK?”

Glad for the distraction, Kit gave her the details.

“I’ll wait with you,” Tracy said.

“Don’t you have play practice?”

“Miss Fenton excused me.” She sat beside Kit. “Remember that time I broke my arm, and you tried to heal it by saying a magic chant? Something about a lizard tail?”

Kit smiled. Of course she remembered. It had taken her two hours to write that chant. In a low, spooky voice she said:

“Tail of lizard, drops of dew,
Make my mother good as new.”

The word “new” was barely out of her mouth when the doctor appeared. “She’s doing fine,” he said. “We got the appendix before it ruptured and she’ll be good as new in a few days.”

Kit grabbed Tracy and hugged her. Then, impulsively, she hugged Wayne, too. He looked dumbfounded. He didn’t hug her back but he mumbled, “Thanks.”

Tracy, in her most melodramatic Harriet Headline voice, cried, “
DAUGHTER’S MAGIC CHANT SAVES MOTHER! MAYO CLINIC RENAMED HATHAWAY HOSPITAL AFTER DOCTOR REVEALS MEDICAL MIRACLE
!”

The doctor raised one eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?” he said.

Already giddy with relief, Kit shrieked with laughter. Wayne burst out laughing, too. As they guffawed together, Kit thought, maybe there’s hope for us yet.

Kit didn’t visit her mother the next afternoon because it was her day to work at The Humane Society. She was glad. Compared to people, the animals were so uncomplicated. She looked forward to spending two hours with simple creatures who had no pretenses and no secrets. Maybe she would stay late and pet the inhabitants of the cat room today.

That’s where she was, cuddling a fuzzy orange kitten, when she heard the harmonica music start. Smiling, Kit put Puddy back with his sisters and followed the music. She found Mr. Morrison serenading a forlorn-looking bulldog.

“I’ve been thinking about what you told me,” she said, “and I’ve decided you’re partly wrong.”

“Enlighten me,” he said.

“Grownups can free themselves,” Kit said, “but kids can’t.”

“Is that right?” Mr. Morrison stroked his beard.

“I can’t leave home and as long as I’m there, my parents decide everything: if I can have a dog, if I go to college. I’m stuck with their decisions.”

“You needn’t leave home in order to free yourself. You just need to let go of your anger. Don’t you see? Your parents can control whether or not you own a dog, but they can’t keep you from loving the animals. No one can keep you out of college, if you want to go badly enough. When the doors are locked, girl, climb out a window.”

It was nearly dark when she got home and the house was empty. She supposed Wayne had gone to the hospital after work. Her stomach growled as she went to the kitchen. She realized she was spoiled; Dorothy always had dinner started by the time Kit got home.

She was opening a can of stew when she heard Wayne’s car in the driveway. A few moments later, he entered the kitchen.

“Hi, Wayne,” Kit said. “I’m fixing us a bowl of stew. I just got here myself and . . .”

“I’m not hungry,” Wayne said loudly.

Kit froze. She knew that tone of voice too well. Slowly, she turned to look at Wayne.

His eyes were red and he swayed slightly as he stood there.

Not now, Kit thought. Not with Dorothy in the hospital. She emptied the stew into a pan and turned on the burner. From the corner of her eye she watched Wayne open a cupboard, get out a glass and a bottle, and pour himself a drink.

“Are you going to the hospital tonight?” she asked.

“For what?”

“To visit Dorothy. I didn’t go after school. I thought maybe you would go tonight.” Actually, she had thought they would both go but she had no intention of going anywhere with Wayne now, not when he’d been drinking.

Wayne was silent. Surely, Kit thought, he remembers that she’s in the hospital. He can’t be that drunk, can he?

Finally, he answered. “I’m staying home,” he said.

Just as well, Kit thought. He shouldn’t be driving and he would only embarrass Dorothy if he showed up at the hospital this way. She would call her mother and explain. Dorothy wouldn’t like it but she would agree it was better for Wayne to stay home.

Kit stirred the stew and opened a box of crackers.

“I need another drink,” Wayne said. He held his glass toward Kit, as if he thought she would refill it for him.

She pretended she didn’t see him. She ladled some stew into a bowl. “Sure you don’t want some stew?” she said. “There’s plenty.”

“I said, I need another drink.”

“So, get one.”

“You get it for me.”

“I’m not your waitress.” She opened a drawer and took out a spoon.

“Get it for me.”

“What happened to our agreement?” Kit said. “Yesterday you promised to be a better father. You said you wanted to get along with me, for Dorothy’s sake.”

Wayne blinked at her, scowling as if she were speaking French or German.

“If you really want to get along with me,” Kit said, “you’d better not have another drink.”

“Are you telling me I’ve had too much to drink?”

Kit hesitated. She knew how Wayne would react if she said
yes
but she was sick of lying. Wayne had a drinking problem. Maybe he wouldn’t admit it but that didn’t mean she had to pretend. She stepped toward him. “Yes,” she said. “You’ve had too much to drink. Instead of getting you another one, I’ll make you a pot of coffee.”

Wayne pounded his fist on the table and bellowed. “Who do you think you are, telling me I’ve had too much?”

Kit knew there was no point saying anything else. She picked up her bowl of stew and carried it out of the kitchen. If he was going to sit there and drink, she certainly wasn’t going to watch him.

She clicked on the television in the living room. She would eat her stew while she watched the six o’clock news. She’d had only two bites when Wayne appeared in front of the TV screen.

“You’re acting too smart for your own good,” he said.

“Wayne, please. I don’t want to argue with you. Let’s make a deal: I’ll leave you alone and you leave me alone. How about it?” Kit forced herself to smile at him, hoping she could cajole him into a better mood.

“You’ve always acted too smart,” he said. “Like you were the genius and I was the stupid one. Well, I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were.”

“I can tell what you’re thinking. Just because you get As on your report cards, you think other people are stupid.”

Kit ate another spoonful of stew. “Why do you like to drink?” she asked.

The question caught Wayne off guard. “Huh?” he said.

“Why do you drink? Does it make you feel happy?”

He stared at her, his mouth hanging slightly open.

“I’m just curious,” Kit went on. “You never seem happy when you’re drinking so I just wondered why you do it.”

“It makes me forget my problems.”

“It doesn’t make them go away, though. When you sober up, the problems are still there, big as ever. Maybe bigger.”

Wayne pointed a finger at her. Kit saw that his hand was shaking. “There,” he said. “That’s what I mean. You always talk so smart and make me seem stupid.”

Why did he keep insisting that she thought he was stupid? She had never said that, to him or anyone else. She wondered if he thought of himself that way. Maybe that was the real problem. And maybe the time had come for her to tell him exactly what she thought. He was angry at her anyway. Maybe it was time to bring everything out in the open.

“Wayne,” she said, “you are an alcoholic.”

“No, I’m not. I can handle my . . .”

“Yes, you are,” she said firmly. “But you can change, if you want to. Lots of people have a drinking problem. And do you know what they do? If they’re smart, they admit it. They admit it and then they join Alcoholics Anonymous or they go to a treatment center. They get help. They change.”

Wayne turned and walked away from her, back to the kitchen.

Kit followed him. “I know you don’t want to hear this,” she said, “but I have to say it. The main reason I’ve never felt close to you, and never wanted you to be my father, is because of how you act when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk!”

“Denying the truth won’t change it. I’ve seen you this way too many times.”

“You . . .”

Kit rushed on, the words racing forward like a forest fire out of control. “When you aren’t drinking, we get along OK. At the hospital yesterday, when we were waiting, I felt real close to you. Why do you have to spoil it all by getting drunk again?”

“I’m not drunk. Quit saying that.”

“Why can’t you just admit the truth? Instead, you always pretend you aren’t drunk and Dorothy pretends, too. Well, I’m sorry but I can’t go along with your lie any longer.”

“Listen to the little thief talk about honesty!”

The word
thief
was cold water on the flame of Kit’s outrage. She slumped against the refrigerator.

Wayne glared at her. “You think you know all about it,” he said. “Well, you don’t know anything. You hear me? You don’t know anything.” He took a step toward her, swaying slightly. He spoke deliberately, as if choosing each word from a thesaurus. “You—are—nothing—but—an—animal.”

Always in the past when he had called her an animal, it had infuriated her. This time, when she heard the word animal, she thought of all the animals she had worked with at The Humane Society. She thought of wagging tails and purring kittens, of caged puppies who licked her fingers, delighted to see her. She thought of Lady, with the love light shining in her eyes.

“You’re an animal,” Wayne repeated.

“Thank you,” Kit said.

Wayne looked astonished. “I called you an animal.”

“I know. It’s the nicest compliment you could give me.” She smiled sweetly at him. For the first time in her life, Kit felt in charge when Wayne was drinking. She couldn’t make him stop but she would control her own reactions. He had lost his power over her.

“But . . . you . . .” Wayne sputtered.

She went to the phone and dialed Tracy’s number. “Could I stay with you tonight?” she said.

Kit packed quickly. When she came downstairs, Wayne still stood exactly where she had left him. As she opened the front door, Kit almost felt sorry for him. “Goodnight,” she said. “I’ll be at Tracy’s house.”

Wayne did not respond.