So Much It Hurts (18 page)

Mrs. Karpman bites her lip when she remembers that Nelson's pocket watch is missing too. “He adored that watch. I bought it at Birks. He said it always reminded him that time was precious.” I don't tell her I've already heard the story of the watch and how she bought it for Nelson's fiftieth birthday. “I'd been planning to give the watch to Errol.” Mrs. Karpman's voice breaks. “Have I told you he's coming to Montreal?”

I shake out my arm. The list is getting quite long. “No, you didn't mention it.”

“When I phoned my children to tell them about the break-in, they got very upset. Between you and me, Iris, I think they're just looking for an excuse to move me to an old folks' home. They're sending Errol to check on me.” Mrs. Karpman makes a
harrmphing
sound. “To think how many times I babysat that boy. And now they seem to think
I
need a babysitter! Enjoy your youth, Iris, that's all I can say.”

“When's he coming?”

“When's who coming?”

Now I start to worry that Mrs. Karpman is losing her marbles. “Errol. You told me he's coming to look in on you.”

“Oh yes, Errol. He'll be here in time for dinner. Which reminds me, I need to phone the butcher shop and get them to deliver an extra large grain-fed capon. My Errol eats enough for two people.”

At least the thought of Errol eating her extra large grain-fed capon makes Mrs. Karpman smile.

Mick is standing by the window, stretching, when I get back from Mrs. Karpman's. He turns to look at me. “Where were you?” he asks sleepily.

“Over at Mrs. Karpman's. Her apartment got broken into. She thinks it happened yesterday.”

Mick crosses his arms over his chest. “That's awful. What did they take?”

“Mostly jewelry, I think. I feel terrible about it.” William Shakespeare is brushing his head against my leg, and I lean down to pet him.

Mick walks to the kitchen and puts two slices of whole-wheat bread into the toaster. “Why in the world should you feel terrible about it, Joey?” he asks as he reaches into the pantry for the jam he likes.

“Well, I was supposed to be looking after the apartment. I hope she doesn't think I did it.”

Mick yawns. “That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Sometimes I honestly wonder what's wrong with you, Joey. Why you feel so damned responsible for everything. Come on over here and have some toast, will you?” It's a question, but it doesn't feel like one.

I take a tiny bite of toast. Even if I don't have much of an appetite.

“So tell me exactly what happened at work yesterday,” Mick says.

If I talk about it, I'll have to relive the whole scene. Then again, I might as well get this over with. “Some guy snapped his fingers at me and, well—” I stop to find the right words. “I went kinda crazy…I dumped one of those tubs of dirty dishes over him.”

I watch Mick's face as I tell the story. I want him to laugh, because I'm realizing that though it didn't seem funny when it happened, it makes a good story now. What I really want is for Mick to tell me I did the right thing, but so far he's not reacting. His face is perfectly blank. So I keep talking. “I think I'd had it with that job—with being disrespected.” It's only when I say it that I realize that's exactly why I lost it. “What did you say last night… that the job was beneath me?”

Mick raises his eyebrows. “I said that?” I can't tell if he's being serious or teasing me. “I must've had too much to drink. You made good money at that job, Joey.”

My eyes are glued to Mick's face. For the first time since I met him, I have the weird feeling that I don't really know him. I love him, I'm sure of that, but I don't
really
really
know him. What goes on inside his head? Why does he sometimes get so angry? Are there more secrets he is keeping from me?

I think about Mrs. Karpman's key in Mick's kitchen drawer. I think about what Mick made me do at Forever 21. What I did at Forever 21. I haven't been able to wear any of those clothes, not even the maxi dress I liked so much. Just seeing those clothes in the closet makes my stomach lurch.

“You didn't do it, did you?” I blurt out.

Mick wipes his mouth with the inside of his hand. “What are you talking about, Joey?”

“You didn't rob Mrs. Karpman, did you?”

“How could you ask me that?” Mick's eyes are turning wild again, and I wish I could take back the question. But it's too late. I'm watching his hands, and instinctively I pull back a little from the table.

One of Mick's hands is moving in slow motion. Or maybe it's not that his hand is moving slowly but that my brain is slowing the moment down, splitting it into separate frames.

I watch as the back of Mick's hand sweeps the dishes off the table. Our two plates, our teacups, the sugar bowl and the jam jar too.

“Stop it!” I raise my voice so he'll hear me over the sound of the clattering dishes. When I look down at the floor, I see that the plates have not broken, but the sugar bowl has shattered into a thousand pieces and there is sugar everywhere. I get up to find the dustpan and a wet cloth. If I don't clean this mess up right away, the whole floor will get sticky. I don't ever want to walk on another sticky floor.

“Why should I stop it?” Mick yells. “What do you think I am? Who do you think I am? Do you honestly think I'd rob an old woman?”

I know I shouldn't fight. I know I should let Mick do whatever he has to do to spend his anger. But it's getting harder for me to just stand by and do nothing. “I know you'd rob a clothing store. Or make me rob one,” I say.

“That's different,” Mick says. “Completely different.”

“No, it's not. It's not different at all!” I'm yelling now too. I know I shouldn't. That yelling will only make things worse. But I can't help it. The dustpan flies out of my hands.

He punches me again. Same spot. On the right side of my face. Why does he always aim for the same spot? It's weird the things you think about when something terrible is happening. He punches me so hard I can feel my teeth breaking through the soft skin inside my mouth. So hard I taste blood. The taste is flat, like metal, but somehow not unpleasant.

Why is everything happening in slow motion again? It's as if I'm watching my life on the screen, or in a play. As if it's all happening to someone else. A girl who happens to be named Iris Wagner, a girl I hardly know anymore.

I've dropped to my knees. I'm too winded to stand. Mick is glaring at me. Why is he looking at me as if I'm the one who's done something wrong? “Maybe you shouldn't have quit that job,” he mutters.

It hurts to talk. But there's something else I want to say. And I don't care if it makes him angrier. “I found the restraining order—and that poem,” I tell him, looking straight into his eyes. “The one you said you wrote for me.”

Mick shakes his head. I'm sure he's going to punch me again, but I don't care. I feel like I have nothing more to lose. Let him punch me.

CHAPTER 24

“How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!”
—HAMLET
, ACT 1, SCENE 2

A
fterward.

I am sitting hunched on the closet floor, rocking back and forth, hugging myself.

Every inch of me aches. My arms, my legs and especially the skin around my nose and cheek. I lift one finger to my cheekbone, but at the last second I pull my hand away. The skin is too tender to touch, and it's so hot I can feel the heat even without touching it.

There's a ringing in my skull that feels like it will never stop. Boom, boom, boom. Like an angry church bell.

Even though it's over now and my heart isn't thumping triple-time the way it was before, I can't stop picturing his fingers. Long thin fingers balled into a tight fist, coming at me like a cannon. And the rage in his eyes. Why, I wonder for the first time, don't I ever fight back? What is it about me that makes me feel so helpless, so paralyzed, when Mick loses it?

Cartoonists draw stars around someone who gets punched. The funny thing is, when you get punched in real life, you actually see stars. Silver and gold stars ricocheting off each other like fireworks. That's what it's like for me anyway. I wonder how the cartoonists figured it out. Did they all get punched in the head too?

I want to cry. I want to let everything out—my sorrow, my disappointment in myself, in Mick, in us, how lost and overwhelmed and small I feel—but I have no tears left. Not one. There's a desert in my head.

I hear Mick moving around the apartment, making normal sounds. I strain my ears to hear better. He's taking something out of a drawer, clearing his throat, closing the drawer, opening up his laptop, humming. How can he be humming? He knows where I am. Besides the bathroom, this closet is the only place to hide.

But I don't expect him to come and talk to me now or say he's sorry. He's regrouping. The way I am doing in the closet. It's what we do after a terrible fight—and there's no question, this one was a terrible fight, not a squabble.

When I'm ready, I'll come out. I'll go to the bathroom and assess the damage the way a mechanic would after a car wreck. I'll make another cold compress and hold it over the achy spots. If the skin is broken, I'll put on Polysporin. In a strange way, I am getting good at this.

Then Mick and I will be able to start over fresh. I'll say I'm sorry I got so upset, that I should never have accused him of robbing Mrs. Karpman, that the restraining order and the poem—the one he said he wrote for me but that he wrote for Millicent—don't mean anything. They're no big deal. Millicent is crazy. I know she is. And the poem— well, it was just a silly poem. I'll explain to Mick how I'm
PMS
ing big time and how I'll try to be better. And not upset him so much. Especially now, when he is under so much pressure from the lawyer and the new play in Quebec City. No wonder he keeps losing it. Artists are sensitive people. They feel things for the rest of us. That's why they're so important to society. I need to find a way to support Mick better. If I'm better, he'll be better. I know it.

How could I have ever even thought he'd rob Mrs. Karpman? The business at Forever 21 was different. Forever
21
is a huge corporation. We were being like Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest. Robbing the rich. Even if we weren't exactly helping the poor. No, Mick would never rob Mrs. Karpman. He knows what good friends she and I have become.

Thinking about
later
helps. Thinking about
now
… well…it hurts too much to think about. I've never felt so lonely. Even lonelier than when I've been completely, totally alone with no one to talk to and nothing to do. More lonely than when I was little and I'd let myself into the empty house before Mom got back from organizing other people's lives.

There's a meow outside the closet door. William Shakespeare is pushing his soft marmalade body against the folding door. I lean forward and open the door just a little so he can come inside. The cat nudges his head against my shin and meows again. He wants me to pet him. At first, I don't. I can't. But when he meows again, I do. The feel of his soft, warm fur makes me feel a little better. Creature comfort.

William Shakespeare has been a witness to almost every one of our arguments. He must have noticed I'm trembling, because now he's trembling too. In sympathy, I'll bet. Which makes me feel sorry for upsetting him. “It's okay, don't worry,” I whisper. “Everything'll be okay. I promise.” I need to make things better. Not just for me, but for William Shakespeare too. The little cat depends on me.

It's the feel of William Shakespeare's fur brushing against me and the sound of his steady purring when I stroke the spot between his eyes that make me cry. But I cover my mouth with one hand to muffle the sound. Still hunched, I keep rocking my body back and forth. I'm so lost and so little. I don't know how I will ever find my way again.

Shhh
, I tell myself.
If Mick hears you cry, he'll only get
angry all over again
.

William Shakespeare and I are still in the closet when I hear Mick getting ready to leave. He pauses for a few seconds outside the closet door—he knows we're in here— and I think maybe he's going to say something. That he's going to break the terrible, tense silence hanging in the air like a sour smell.

Maybe this time things will be different, and he'll apologize. My heart lifts a little at the thought. “Joey,” he'll say, and I imagine him getting down on his knees, his eyes welling up with tears, “I can't believe what I just did—how I hurt you. I'm so sorry. So deeply, deeply sorry. Can you forgive me, Joey? I swear it will never ever happen again. I've been such a fool!” I'll wipe his tears away. Comfort him. Tell him that yes, of course I forgive him. That I could forgive him anything. That's what love is, isn't it?

I know he can hear me breathing and William Shakespeare purring (stroking the cat is making me feel a little better), but Mick doesn't say anything. Not a word. Nothing. The air smells even more sour.

When Mick leaves, he slams the door behind him. So hard the folding closet door rattles.

I could leave the closet now, but I'm still not ready. It feels safer to keep hugging myself and crying in here. Even though Mick has left—where has he gone, and who was he with last night?—I'm careful not to sob too loudly. What if Mrs. Karpman goes to drop her garbage down the chute and hears me from the hallway?

I don't know how much later it is when I finally get up and go to the bathroom. It could be minutes, it could be an hour. Time has contracted or expanded. I don't know which. I don't care which.

I should have started icing my face right away. I look worse than god-awful. No makeup job will hide the damage this time. The skin around my right eye is so swollen, I can't even open it all the way. I trudge to the freezer for ice, then wrap the cubes inside a washcloth and make an extra-strength, extra-cold compress. I press it to my cheek until I can't bear the sting any longer.