Chapter 92: Katrina II—No Face
Montreal—1986
Things were never as simple as Mommy—Happy and Mommy—Sad. Sometimes that’s how the other children said it. "Mommy is happy and Mommy is sad." It was like hopping on stones across a creek for them and Katrina hated all of them for it. It was easy to hop stones and why were they allowed to when she had to wade barefoot through the muddy stream? So she hated them because mostly, their mommies were happy and they had warm, scented sweaters that they wore as they hugged their children. For Katrina, mommy was always in a weird, gray state between sad and happy. It was all between the stones.
Mommy had told her that it would be better when she went to school. Then at least she would be around other kids her age. She would have friends and a place to escape to during the day. She had no friends. The other girls tried to make friends with her, but Katrina didn’t want them near. They had happy rosy, round fat faces. They had yellow hair or curly hair. And they had Happy.
Katrina’s stomach was always yelling at her when she woke, it yelled at her as her mother dragged her out of the house. It yelled at her as she sat in school. It was for only a half of a day, Mommy would usually have snacks in the car, and Katrina would eat something then. But then they would be home and Katrina would hide in her room, and wait until morning. So Katrina’s cheeks were pale, and she was skinny and her clothes always were falling off.
"Hungry Cat," she heard one of the teachers whisper to the other teacher, "She has eyes like a hungry cat."
Chat! Cat! Chat! Cat! Katrina heard the phrase from both the Yankees and the French. They always talked about her eyes like that. Katrina would stare in the mirror sometimes, staring at her eyes and they didn’t look like a cat’s. They weren’t round with that funny line down the colored part.
"What are you drawing?" Teacher asked her. "Are you finished?"
"My family. Yeah I’m finished," Katrina replied pushing the paper away from her. Teacher picked it up and peered at it then put it down on the table.
"No you’re not," she said.
"I am," Katrina snapped. I hate you too! She thought.
"But you’ve forgotten the head on your father," Teacher said, pointing at the empty space on the shoulders of the man she had drawn.
Katrina sniffed and selecting her black crayon she drew a large circle. "There," she said, wanting her to go away. "There it is."
"But his face!" Teacher persisted.
Katrina wrinkled her nose and looked up at her. "He doesn’t have a face," she said. "I don’t look at him."
What woke Katrina were the warm patters of liquid on her face, and then she heard the low voice of her mother in her ear. "Wake up, darling wake up!"
"I’m hungry," Katrina moaned.
"You can eat later," Mommy said. "Just stay quiet and it will be alright, everything will, you’ll see."
Katrina ran her tongue over her lips and tasted the warm patters. It was blood. And as Mommy carried her into the hallway, Katrina tightened her grip on her Teddy Bear. She could see blood streaming out of Mommy’s nose.
He was there, the man she never called Daddy even though he wanted her too, and Mommy begged her too. He was on the couch, his face turned away from her, his body bulging all over with that muscled hardness, the hardness that pinned Mommy to the wall or the table and pounded her all over until she turned purple. His chest was moving up and down and his neck was all corded and tight. "Mommy," she said, feeling angry. "He doesn’t like it when we leave."
It was always Mom’s fault. She always made him mad, then he would let her have it, and she would hide and not eat again. This was the middle of the night, he would be really mad now.
"He doesn’t know," Mommy said. "He’s sleeping now."
Katrina sighed and pressed Teddy against her face. Already she was glad she thought to grab the bear. He hid her face as Mommy carried her out of the apartment, to the cold parking lot, and into the cold car. As the door slammed shut, she knew she wasn’t coming home ever again. And she hated Mommy; she would have made her leave Teddy behind, wouldn’t she?
Katrina woke up again with her stomach complaining and Mommy had her in her arms again. She could feel the blood dripping onto her hair and it was gross. Teddy was tucked to her body and Katrina’s fingers hurt from gripping him. "Mommy..." she said in English.
"Keep speaking English," Mommy said. "We’ll never speak French again! Well soon we won’t need it."
Katrina closed her eyes again as Mommy banged on the door. "Please! Please! Let us in!"
The door opened and the skinny man was standing there. "Connie?" he said. "What are you doing here?"
"I need your help!" Mommy yelled. "I can’t take it anymore! I can’t let him hit me! My baby can’t be exposed to it anymore!"
The man stood there, blinking and finally he stepped back allowing her to come in. "You’re bleeding," he said.
Mommy started crying. "I’m sorry," she wailed. "But you’ve always seemed so nice... I need someone to help me."
"What is going on?" A woman asked, walking into the room. "My God!"
She grabbed Katrina and the little girl felt relieved to be free of her mother’s trembling and wet tears. "Are you hurt? Patrick, she’s covered in blood!"
"Mommy just bled on me," Katrina snapped. "I’m hungry."
Present Day
"What are you stressing about now?" Katrina sighed in French, pulling open the drapes in the hotel room. "Always with your paperwork."
Pierre grunted in reply, scribbling something on a large, yellow legal notepad. He was slumped over, his large body sitting at a desk. Large and soft, not skinny and feral, or muscled and sculpted, not something that could attack and hurt her. Not something that kissed its own muscles in front of a mirror. He was nothing like those paid dogs that scraped on the ice, snarling at each other.
Katrina walked up behind Pierre and patted her hand on his soft, cashmere sweater. "What is it now?" she asked.
"You shouldn’t worry," he said curtly.
"I will worry if I don’t know what it is," she said with a smile, sitting down on the chair next to him and smoothing her skirt. "Tell me."
"Contracts," Pierre said without looking up from his notepad. "Salaries. I have a defenseman who wants too much."
Katrina nodded. "Is he worth it?"
"No one is worth trouble," Pierre replied. "I like to keep a certain team chemistry and bad contracts spoil it."
"What a science," Katrina said, leaning forward onto the desk. "It’s almost like running a dog kennel, is it not?"
Pierre laughed quietly. "I’ve never heard it described like that."
Katrina yawned. "They’re all dogs."
"Enough of that, you shouldn’t be thinking of these things," Pierre said pushing back from the desk. "Here you go, little one."
Katrina smiled and almost forgot to act surprised when Pierre held out a long, gray velvet gift box to her. She held her hands together when he opened it and showed her the perfect, emerald pendant on a glittering golden chain.
"To match your eyes little kitten," he said.
"Thank you!" she gasped, snatching it into her hands and hopping into his large, soft lap. She hugged him, smelling his expensive cologne, burying her face into his soft sweater, as soft as the fur of a teddy bear. Not like a muscled terror at all...
Michele hadn’t recognized her; Katrina could tell when she first saw her. It was only a ghost of a memory in her brain and she never really thought about her early childhood and was content really, never to think about it. She had been so young, only in Kindergarten that so much of it had bled away from her brain to just sounds and memories of anger and fear. She didn’t care if anyone remembered her at all.
Still, it had surprised Katrina that she remembered Michele. When she had seen Patrick she hadn’t recognized him at all. He wasn’t that skinny young man, he was now one of those muscled brutes. She hadn’t really thought about Michele since that one night and morning when she was five but when she saw her again some of it flooded back to her brain. She remembered her narrowed blue eyes and the soft lilt of her voice. She was a lot older, a lot thinner, a lot blonder, and she looked a lot meaner.
It amused Katrina a bit. To see what had become of that nice lady who had fed her. A rich lady now, married to one of those gladiators that her father used to worship... No, Katrina had no father, she would never acknowledge such a memory... He had no face, he had no head, and he was only a distant presence, a distraction.
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