Killing Kate (9 page)

“Ma, they just moved today,” Justin
says.  “They haven’t had much time to decide if they’re glad to be back in the
neighborhood, I’m sure.”

“Hush, Justin.  How was the move? 
Did everything go well?  Do you need more bread, Jenna?” she asks me.  I get
the idea that Louisa loves to ask questions but doesn’t really need to hear the
answers.  Before I can say no, another huge roll is on my plate.  “How’s the
house?  Did your father leave it in good condition?”

Devin manages to answer this one
because my mouth is stuffed full of tastiness.  “It’s in good condition, but it
needs a bit of work,” he replies.  “Jenna wants to gut the bathroom and put in
a fancy shower and I’d like to get new appliances in the kitchen.”

“You kids and your fancy gadgets,”
Louisa says.  “I was just telling Joe about how for fifty years we haven’t
needed a microwave and everyone has a microwave.  Does your kitchen have a
microwave?”

I grin and Devin responds, “Yes, I
believe it does have a microwave.”

“So it’s very up to date!” Louisa
says, clapping her hands.  She sighs and peers over at me, making me slightly
uncomfortable.  “Jenna,” she starts, “you are so beautiful.  I always knew
you’d be gorgeous.”

“Um, thank you,” I say.  I look at
Devin who shrugs and looks down at his plate.  Justin is smiling at me queerly. 
I turn as red as the sauce.

“You take after your mother, I mean
before she…” Louisa trails off and my color fades completely until I’m as white
as the tablecloth.

“Ma!” Justin looks alarmed and I
decide it’d be a good time to pipe up.

“It’s alright, Justin,” I say. 
“Thank you Mrs. Fiero.”

“Louisa, please, dear.”

“Louisa.”  I know what Louisa is
hinting at.  I’d seen enough pictures to know that my mother looked just like
me before she let herself go.  And by letting herself go I mean pretty much the
same path I’m headed down now, where nothing matters except where your next
drink comes from.  Christ, is this dinner going to become a wakeup call?  Am I
in an intervention?  I look at everyone at the table, who seems to be engaging
in their meal and decide I’m being paranoid.

“How is your mother?” she asks. 
“Still with that man?  What was his name?  Fred?”

“Frank,” Devin and I say
simultaneously.  Devin clears his throat and says politely.  “She’s deceased, Mrs.…Louisa.”

Louisa says.  “Oh my, I had no idea. 
How did she…?”

“Food poisoning,” I tell her.  It
had been exactly that, though it probably wouldn’t have killed her so fast had
she not been dehydrated to begin with.  Alcoholism…the Parker family’s leading
killer.

“Oh, how terrible,” Louisa says, though
Devin and I think our parents’ passing is really anything but terrible.  I
personally can’t imagine two more deserving people.  “You two come by my house anytime,
do you understand?  I want you two over every week unless you’re dying on the
side of the road.”

“Yes ma’am,” I say, casting a smile
and glancing at Justin, who looks completely flabbergasted and not half as
amused as I happen to be by his mother’s antics.  I think he’s embarrassed, yet
Louisa is the kind of mother I would be proud to call my own.  People don’t
seem to realize that while everyone finds their parents embarrassing, it’s much
better than finding them revolting or glad they’re dead.

*

I stand on the porch smoking and
Justin is sitting outside keeping me company.  Devin is inside talking to
Louisa about how she makes her tomato sauce and I realize he has found a second
home even before we are completely moved in to ours.  “What are you thinking
about?” I hear Justin say.

“Me?” I ask, which is silly since
no one else is here.  “I’m debating whether if I completely vomited out that
meal if it’d be worth it to start eating that much all over again.”

He laughs.  “Ma can really overdo
it,” he says.  “I’m sorry she asked about…your mom.”

I shrug.  “No reason to be sorry. 
Both of my parents drank themselves to death and I can’t say I’m too upset
about it.”  When she checked into the hospital, they found her blood alcohol
level to be on par with someone who had been seeped into formaldehyde.

“What about Frank?” Justin asks. 
“Your stepfather?”

I think about Frank.  Poor Frank. 
“Heart attack two years ago,” I tell Justin.  “He was a good guy.”  I look at
him and see he’s staring.  “I don’t really like to talk about family, so let’s
not, okay?”

Justin nods, satiated for now. 
“I’m…glad you’re back in town, Jenna.  I missed having friends around here.”

I smile and I’m charmed by his confession. 
“It’s good to know we have a friend…and family.  Your home is wonderful.  Your
parents are wonderful.  You’re lucky, Justin,” I say.  I feel a bit sad for
saying it, though, and he can tell.

“I hope you come to realize that
it’s your family,” he tells me.  “Seriously, if there’s anything you need,
anything at all, you just come by or call or whatever.”

I nod.  “Sounds good.”  We are
interrupted by Devin coming outside.  He takes my cigarette out of my hand and
takes a drag and tosses it far away into the street.  “I wasn’t finished,” I
say.

“Time to cut back,” he says.  “Say
your goodbyes,” he tells me.  “I’m exhausted and Louisa wants to say goodnight
to you.”

“Okay…” I say, reluctant to leave
the cool night air and go back inside to where I’m reminded of more food.  But
Devin is right, and I’m exhausted as well.  “I’ll be right back.”

I walk into the kitchen and Louisa
is packing up leftovers into Tupperware containers.  She smiles when she sees
me come in.  “I’m packing this for you so you have something to eat until you
settle in.  I hear you don’t drive so if you want I can take you grocery
shopping if Devin is at work and you need food.”

“That’d be nice,” I say.  She is so
nice to me, and I feel a lump in my throat just looking at someone who is
actually a mother.  Not someone who gave birth and had to tolerate children who
are merely related to her, but someone who took the time to nurture and love her
child and make sure they were equipped to survive.

Louisa sighs.  “I’m glad you’re
back, Jenna.  You were just a child when you left to live with your mother, and
while I didn’t know your mother long, I knew enough to know she wasn’t your
salvation from whatever was going on in that house with your father.”  My eyes
are getting wide.  Where is she going with this?  And what the fuck does she
know?  I hold on to the counter, grateful that there is something between
Louisa and me to not conceal that my knees are shaking.  She looks concerned
and pats my hand.  “You can come over anytime, Jenna.” She pushes the bag of
leftovers to me and all I can do is take the bag and wander out of the kitchen,
stunned.

“Let’s go,” I mutter to Devin and
we walk to Justin’s car.  Devin and Justin have been talking on the porch but
they are quiet on the ride home and seem curiously wary of me.  I just want to
get back to the house, and I want to crawl into my bed with Kate and let her
hold me while I cry, but for now I am a stone statue, and don’t let anything
show, because I don’t want anyone to know that I’m broken.

I wake up when the shadow casts
over my face.  Devin is standing there, and he looks pissed.  “What the fuck,
Devin?”

“What the fuck, Jenna?” he retorts
back to me.  I sit up slowly and shake my head and realize what he’s talking
about.  Shit, I think, I guess Kate went out last night.  I can smell the
alcohol fumes emanating from my pores.  I’m dressed in only an oversized
t-shirt, and it’s not mine.  In the mirror tilted against the wall across from
my bed I can see black eye makeup running down to my cheekbones.  Not a pretty
sight.  I bite my red stained lip to keep from sobbing.  Leaving the house as
Kate and being completely unaware of it terrifies me.  Kate doesn’t normally
leave, she just does crazy shit at home.  I wonder if my new living situation
is what brought on her idea to leave the house.  I look at my phone and don’t
see any outgoing calls.  Either she deleted everything or she just went out.

I stand up and make my way for the
bathroom, and Devin grabs my shoulder to stop me.  “Jenna, what can you tell me
about last night?  This is bad.”

“I know it’s bad!” I practically
scream at him, visibly startling him.  “Do you think I fucking like my body
being taken over for whatever purpose she has for the moment?”  He shrinks back
and for a second I feel happy that he feels bad.  He’s making me feel
terrible.  Moving in together was his awful idea, and I decide to make him
realize it.  “Did I fucking ask Jack to use me for his personal kiddie porn sex
slave so I could spend the rest of my adult years trying to figure out how the
fuck to grow up?”

Devin grabs my arms and gives me a
shake.  “Calm down, Jenna.  Let’s talk this out.”  He turns his head away from
me.  Oh god, is he crying?  No, no, no.

“I need a shower,” I say and shrug
his hands off of my arms.  “I stink.”  He backs away and nods.  Just like I’m a
child, he leads me into the bathroom, and I don’t say anything.  For us, this
is slightly routine, though we’re out of practice.  He sits me down on the
toilet and turns on the shower.  Just like old times.  Except now he leaves the
room.  We’re not kids anymore.

“Shower,” he tells me.  “And brush
your teeth.  Then come to the front room and talk to me.  I’ll make you an omelet,
okay?”  He sounds much calmer now, but I know he’s coddling me.  I don’t really
care, I just want to get clean and assess the damage without Devin breathing
down my neck.  He closes the door behind him and I pull my shirt off and step
in to the shower.  I turn the water all the way on hot.

There are bite marks on my thighs, which
I also note are sticky with semen, much to my dismay.  My breasts are raw and
scratched, and there is a thumb print bruise on the side of my hip.  Wonderful,
I think.  Guess I’ll have to hold off on that interview at Polekatz.  I’m only
partially being sarcastic.  I’m also familiarly sore in certain places that I
know Devin shouldn’t know about, so I’m grateful he stepped out so he doesn’t
hear my sharp intake of breath when I put soap somewhere that stings.

Once I am scrubbed and clean and
donned in a fluffy grey bathrobe I paddle off in fuzzy purple slippers to the
kitchen and sit at the counter.  Immediately a fluffy golden omelet shows up in
front of me and I add salt and pick up my fork and begin to devour it.  Devin
stands on the other side of the counter, waiting for me to finish so he can
lecture me.  I watch as he stares straight ahead toward me but not looking at
me.  I know Kate bothers him, but I think it bothers him more that he can’t
blame or shout at anyone presently in the room.  It’s not his immature sister
being stupid, it’s his psychotic sister possessed by her promiscuous self. 
Part of me has always secretly felt like Devin truly believes Kate is my fault,
but he has never said so, and I’m afraid to ask.

“How bad?” is the first thing he
asks me.  I know he wants to hear everything I just discovered in the bathroom,
but I can’t risk him taking me to a doctor or emergency room and getting
admitted when they hear about how I’m crazy and off my meds and a potential
harm to myself.  I know he wants to hold me and stop me from letting Kate do
anything else to me.  I know he wants to lock me up in the psychiatric ward of
Cook County hospital.  But of course, all I can do is lie and say is “Not too
bad.”

“What happened last night?” he
wants to know.  I go over the details in my mind first and Devin says, “Stop,
Jenna.  Say it out loud before you plan out a different story that won’t piss
me off.”

“Stop yelling.”

He sighs.  “I’m not yelling.  I’m
talking to you in a normal tone.”

“You’re mad at me!” I blurt out.

Devin’s jaw begins to clench.  “No,
Jenna, I’m not mad at you.  I’m mad, yes.  I’m fucking pissed as hell, okay? 
You have to let me be that.  You know I’m pissed, but it’s not at you.”

“Right now I’m the reason you’re
pissed and it makes me feel like shit,” I tell him.  “I feel like shit because
I have no control.  Even when I’m myself I have no control.  People say things
and do things, Devin, and I can’t stop them.”

“You were different last night when
you came out of Justin’s house after talking to his mom,” Devin says.  “What
happened?”

“Nothing,” I tell him.  He looks
like he doesn’t believe me.  “I don’t know.  I talked to Louisa,” I say finally. 
“She mentioned Jack.”

“So?” he says, his eyebrows
touching together in confusion.  “She mentioned Jack during dinner and you were
fine.”

“I mean she mentioned something
about…what Jack was like.”

Devin sighs.  “Okay,” he says. 
“But how did that trigger Kate?  You were fine until we got home.  You were
fine when we went to bed.”

“I wasn’t fine, Devin,” I tell
him.  “I was holding back.  When I fell asleep I guess I lost control.”  I can
see is the look on Louisa’s face when she said to me “whatever was going on in
that house with your father”.  She knew more than she was saying, and I was
truly uncomfortable with that.  If people knew what was happening, why didn’t
they stop it?