Chapter 172: Mimi XXII—Do You Remember?
Jonathan, lanky boy that he was turning out to be, had practically rolled Michele off the bed and commandeered the bed covers by morning. Michele yawned and squinted as she peeked through the curtains of his window to see the darkness of the predawn hours framing the shocking whiteness of the snow covering the neighborhood. She wrinkled her nose and saw the mounds of branches lining the yards. She had awoke hearing loud cracks in her brain and now she knew the reason.
Gigi whined and jumped off the bed and Michele looked back at the puppy, and she slid out of bed as well. She was yawning some more as she let the puppy outside and she tried to remember why she would have been in Jonathan’s bed. As the puppy ran back into the house, panting and sliding over the kitchen floor, Michele remembered. His hand on her face, shoving, not hitting her, but he might as well have.
She shook her head. Her anger was like a dry tinderbox sometimes, and so was his. Did they ever get jealous? She didn’t really know but they did feel some sort of rage. She remembered times that were much worse than a separate bed spat such as last night. There had been the mini-separations, the hours of glares and silence and the long extended breathless shouts at each other that bled into frantic tumblings on bed sheets. There had been no children then, or otherwise they had been too small to remember. In recent memory, they had never…
Michele blushed as she walked slowly up the stairs, watching the puppy’s fluffy butt as she scampered up ahead. In recent memory of course they had, of course. The broken vases had lined the carpet, the broken dishes had sprawled on the kitchen and those doors. Michele looked at the bedroom doors, perfect replicas of the mangled, shattered ones that had convinced the police to do it. A little too much to drink is the devil, no? Someone had said that to her before, she couldn’t quite remember who.
They couldn’t see that. They were lucky last night. She would be damned if the children should be witness to such an atrocity again. It was her fault just as much as it was his. She had to be responsible. Before, however, they had both attributed too much alcohol to the entire “affair” as it was politely called. There had been no alcohol last night. That was worrisome.
He didn’t hit me. But is that what counts? Is that the only thing to be looked at?
“Heheheehehe, Daddy it tickles!”
“Hold still princess, I missed a spot.”
Michele peeked through the doorway of the bathroom in their bedroom and was greeted with the sight of Jana, sitting on the bathroom counter in pajamas, face covered in shaving cream and her eyes tightly shut. Patrick was leaning over her, his scruffy hair falling all around his face as he seemed to be concentrating intently on running a pale pink ladies shaving razor with safety cap on the blade over the little girls face. He was scraping off the cream and tossing it into the sink.
“Almost done?” Jana asked. “I’m tired of not seeing.”
“Done,” Patrick said and with a flourish he flipped the last dollop of shaving cream into the sink.
Jana’s bright blue eyes opened and she narrowed them as she giggled. “See now I’m just like you SHAVED!”
Patrick laughed quietly, “Of course,” he said, “Of course.” He ran a wash cloth under the water and wiped off the rest of the cream. Michele felt a sigh within herself. “There you go mouse.”
“Nah uh!” Jana squeaked. “You didn’t use the After Shave! No fair I put it on you!”
Michele raised her eyebrows, not liking the idea of her daughter smelling like men’s aftershave all day.
“Bon, bon,” Patrick said in that dulcet voice that never ceased to hypnotize Michele and she leaned in the doorway, amazed that the two still hadn’t noticed her. Instead of grabbing the aftershave, Patrick picked up a container of a powdery scented after bath spritzer and squirted some onto his hands and patted them gently over Jana’s tiny face. “There you go.”
Jana sneezed and giggled. “Merci!” she said, kissed Patrick quickly and hugged him.
Michele smiled and blushed at the same time and she turned away from the doorway, suddenly not knowing where to go. She leaned against the wall and listened to them giggling and talking in French. It was so good to hear the little girl using French she always refused to when Michele talked with her. She had begun to fear in recent months that Jana was forgetting it.
“Go watch cartoons kitten,” Patrick said, “Go on.”
Jana came skipping out of the bathroom and she stopped when she saw Michele, blinking and looking slightly peeved. “You took my spot in Jonathan’s bed,” she said in an accusing tone.
“And you took my spot in the bathroom,” Michele said, crossing her arms and looking just as intensely at the girl, trying not to smile.
Jana nodded, pursing her lips. “Fair enough,” she said.
Michele smiled, she couldn’t help it. “Do you remember French?” she asked.
Jana shook her head, blinking with more than convincing innocence. “No Mommy I swear I don’t remember any French!”
Michele rolled her eyes and sent the little go out of the room. She glanced briefly at a mangled lamp on the carpet and then she leaned into the bathroom where Patrick was leaning against the counter, looking at her as if he had been expecting her. She smiled at him and he didn’t return it. She felt the smile slide off her face but she didn’t look away.
“I didn’t hit you,” he said.
“I know,” Michele replied.
“I wasn’t jealous either,” he added.
“I know.”
Patrick looked away and sighed. “Then what do we do?”
“What can we do? What should we do?” Michele answered and she walked into the bathroom, Patrick was looking at her now. She reached out to him and ran her fingers through his increasingly appalling hair. “There’s nothing to do, unless you want to discuss it more with the furniture.”
Patrick narrowed his eyes. Michele wrapped her arms around him and pressed against his body, and he returned the hug.
She was the
wife of the equipment manager in
Didn’t she have a daughter? With green eyes like her?
“Hehehehe,” Jana giggled from the hallway outside. “Shhhh, Mommy’s having a MASSAGE we can’t bother her, she doesn’t even want to hear you sneeeezing.”
“Oh. Does your daughter have an imaginary friend?”
Michele sighed and lifted her head up from Katrina’s portable massage table. She yawned. “Yes, like any little girl does. A sneezing bear.”
Katrina let go of her calf and lifted the sheet as Michele rolled over onto her back, pulling up the sheet over her body. Pale skin, ebony, glistening hair almost like the hair of an Asian girl, those brilliant green eyes. Michele couldn’t believe that she hadn’t immediately remembered the girl. It was Patrick who had prompted her memory.
“Think that’s smart?” Katrina asked in a blunt, straightforward voice as she took hold of Michele’s forearm and began to rub her fingers into the tight muscles there. Shots of blissful pain shot up her nerves and Michele sighed.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Imaginary friends, stuffed toys,” Katrina said. “They can break a kid’s heart you know, worse than any real person can.”
Michele opened her eyes remembering the tiny little girl, trembling and half starved but still with the balls to glare with intense hate. “I doubt her heart will be broken,” Michele replied.
They met gazes for a moment, it was impossible not to see the similarities between Katrina and Cecile. How could she have not immediately noticed that.
Katrina was almost all the way up her arm, “There,” she said. “Loosened up that one. You know I like working on you wives more than the players, less bulk to deal with.”
“And less wandering hands, yes?” Michele said with a giggle.
Katrina stopped, and looked at her with a sideways, wary glance, jet black ebony eyebrows in a straight line. “Not really,” Katrina said slowly.
Michele smiled and sat up, holding the sheet against herself as Katrina walked around the table. “Oh don’t be shy,” Michele replied. “We know what those boys are like, yes? Is not a big secret.”
Katrina took her other arm, kneading on that. Michele closed her eyes, letting the girl do her work. “I don’t know who is worse.” Katrina finally said, “Peter or a male dog humping your leg.”
Michele laughed. “Of course. But Patrick he is no trouble to you?”
Katrina again looked at her with that wary cat gaze and she slowly shook her head. “No, nothing I can’t handle.”
Once a small little girl, standing on her toes to kiss Larry on the cheek. Glaring at him from the corner of her eye.
Michele smiled again. “Do you remember me?” she asked in French.
Katrina’s fingers stopped moving for a moment, there was a pause.
“Yes,” Katrina said. “A little bit.”
“What do you remember?” Michele asked, and seeing the glistening, trembling light to her eyes, she added. “If it isn’t too painful of course.”
Katrina shook her head and clasped her hands together. “No it’s not… I mean that much is in the past. I remember the sounds, how he hit her, his voice. I remember her crying and I remember…” she laughed briefly and with a half smile. “I remember the bubble bath. I remember the pancakes, and… not too much else.”
“It’s probably best that way, not to remember the more painful things. It’s one of the blessings about being a child,” Michele said, amazed at how such a grumpy, malnourished child could have retained such beauty. She remembered the girl’s horror at seeing her mutilated teddy bear. A deadly assault to a child’s well being if there ever was one.
Katrina raised her eyebrows. “I can’t remember what he looks like, isn’t that weird? I can remember you, and I spent what? Hours in your presence and my father, nothing. I don’t remember his face. I just remember his feet, his voice.”
“And how lovely you are,” Michele said, as the young woman slid her hands back under the sheet, pressing into her thigh muscles. “I wouldn’t have imagined you turning out so well, nice job, pretty face, is nice then for you?”
Katrina laughed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Right.”
“Ooo,” Michele said. “Don’t be modest, you’ve done well for yourself, such pretty jewelry on your wrist.” She gestured at the emerald and diamond tennis bracelet around Katrina’s small wrist. A woman would always notice an expensive treasure like that on another.
The young woman’s cheeks reddened and she glanced at the bracelet. “I couldn’t afford that by myself.”
Michele nodded. “I know, but the right man eh? Is nice?”
Katrina smiled. “I get by.”
“It’s instinct for us,” Michele whispered. “I’m glad for you. Where did you go? How is your mother? Is she doing as well?”
Katrina shook her head. “No she’s not.”
“I’m sorry,” Michele said.
Katrina
grimaced. “She died when I was sixteen…We moved to
Michele felt almost accused by her emerald gaze.
“Some people are like that you know,” Katrina continued. “Women especially. They get damaged and they repeat the same fucking pattern over and over again. You try helping them and they just slam their faces back through the glass. I can’t say I like women too much, weak, sniveling creatures all of us. And when there’s children involved. You think she would have had a clue, kids in the path of this but no, she only cares for herself for her own insecurities. And we sit and watch and get hurt as well. There’s no excuse for harming your own kids like that, you know?”
Michele closed her eyes, remembering the boys accusing glare at his father, the broken glass everywhere… yes she felt it, the guilt. It wasn’t all his fault, how could she explain that? “We?” Michele said looking back at Katrina, there seemed to be no pain in those emerald eyes, only anger. “We sit and watch? There was more children?”
Katrina shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, forget about it. When Mom died I got out of that house. Fuck Clinton Parfet, I was gone. I never looked back.”
“And you shouldn’t have to look back,” Michele replied, feeling a tremble in her throat. “Why should any of us have to?”
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