Web of Angels (15 page)

The therapist was nodding, making notes. “Go on.”

“It’s more than mood. Her face, her words, her manners change. She is frightened of her father. At first it seemed like the mother was in charge. She has a sharp tongue, but even she backed down when he looked at her. And another odd thing: she said that threatening the children with words was better than a wooden spoon. A spoon is used for cooking or perhaps she meant a spoon used for beating. Why would she think of this? Why would she say this as if it’s something to laugh about? Also this: she told us that she’d sent
her daughter to a top psychiatrist. We found out it was the father’s cousin.”

“He or she might have been the best available.”

“He. Perhaps. Or perhaps if their daughter said anything they didn’t want her to, the cousin would tell her she was imagining things or lying.”

“Did that happen to you?” Brigitte asked, her owl eyes alert.

“Yes.”

“Do you think you might be projecting? This is a gruesome tragedy and close to home. It would be understandable for you to be triggered and for your own history to get entangled with the present reality.”

“We considered this and it’s why we have waited and watched. We don’t know what is going on but all of these things together—they feel wrong. And to the Overseer they feel right.”

“I see.” And Brigitte did.

The change was abrupt. They often closed their eyes when they switched in therapy. Not because they needed to, but for privacy, or while they spoke inside. But on hearing his name, the Overseer had pushed hard. When the Housekeeper had suddenly moved out of his way, he’d been flung forward.

“Who are you?” The voice was harsh, head thrown back, shoulders squared, hands on knees, eyes narrowed and cold, the eyes of war.

“I’m Brigitte. And you are?”

“The Overseer.” Without moving, he took in everything that was here. Things with no names, their functions
unknown to him. And an unfamiliar smell. From inside came a word: lavender. He did not need that word. He did not need the others’ knowledge. This was the world of the weak.

“I’ve heard the others speak of you. I’m the therapist,” Brigitte said calmly. “Do you know what that is?”

He gave the barest nod as he studied her. Watching intently. Listening intently. Wishing for the only world that he knew, where all that mattered took place. His home. Why had the Housekeeper let him out here? “You’re the one they speak to. I don’t know why.”

“It provides relief of pain, anger, fear. Is there something you’d like to tell me? All of you are welcome to speak here.”

“They should not interfere in a house of power,” the Overseer said urgently. The others listened to this therapist, and she must tell them. “Wolves belong to wolves, not sheep. They should forget Cathy’s family. They should tell her not to come to their house anymore, for wolves may eat sheep.”

“You sound worried. Do you think they could get in trouble?”

He thought that her face would not be so calm if she could see the danger. “They must stop therapy.” He raised his voice so that the loudness of it could penetrate where the meaning of words did not. “Things must be restored to the way they were. They do not obey.”

“Rules are important to you,” the woman said as if she understood at last.

For a moment he hoped that she would return the others to their proper place inside, return all of them to where they belonged. “Yes.” On the outside he was contained, on the
inside a furnace. He shifted for a brief moment, allowing his strength to show. She did not flinch or look away.

“I don’t know all of your family’s rules,” she said. “But I do know about families who have those kinds of rules. It’s difficult to grow up in such a family.”

“It’s an honour,” he said. “One they have forgotten. People die for less.”

“You worry that they might get hurt.”

He shook his head no, protesting, for he could not care about the fate of weaklings.

“I would like to ask you something if I may. Would that be all right with you?”

He considered her request. The old woman was respectful and not entirely stupid. “Yes,” he said.

“Would you want your children to go through what you did?” she asked.

“No.” The word came forth quickly, and once spoken, couldn’t be retracted. An image rose before him: a knife, large, sharp, the point on a belly. Then his father’s shadow on the floor, and the hiss of a thousand whispering wings.

There were scattered feathers amid pieces of broken glass catching the light. A voice. The father said,
You shall come to me
. And the child walked, naked, across the broken glass.

Father said,
Sit here with me
. The child’s feet stuck out over the edge of the couch as they sat side by side, the father a giant, cheeks bristled with what he called a five o’clock shadow. The child wished for his cheeks to have this shadow, too. The wallpaper was striped. The child knew how many stripes there were. He could count all the way to a hundred.

Father said,
The first rule is obey. You’re my favourite. I know I can depend on you to do your duty
. At this, his hand rested on the child’s head. For a moment, wanted. Beloved. Then the hand withdrew.
The second rule is never talk about our business to strangers. If you do I will know and the punishment will be what you deserve. Remember that there are no second chances. A child is always the father’s. Nature is red in tooth and claw. We are wolves
.

The Overseer returned his gaze to this room. Everything was wrong. The objects, the smell. The wrongness tore at him, ripped at him with claws. This was not the place they were meant to be. “The child belongs to the father. We should not interfere with Cathy’s family.”

“And yours?” Brigitte asked.

“In Sharon’s house the children belong to their father. To the sheep.”

“They belong to you, too. This life is yours.”

He shook his head. If he could not go home, he was nothing. He should be nothing. A spectre haunting a basement. He had been allowed to emerge so that, at last, he’d learn there was no hope for him.

“You have your own house now and you make the rules in it. Look around and see for yourself if what I’m saying is right.” But even as she spoke, he was turning back inside, leaving her words in his wake.

“Hi.” The voice was high, the face rounder.

“Who’s here now?” the lady asked. She didn’t sound like bad peoples. She had lots of fishies. They was all shiny colours.

“Ally.” One time the lady let her hold the cat. The cat was fat, too. He was soft. She wished the lady would let the cat in.
She wished the lady was her real mommy. “I got Echo with me. He hurts. Can you fix him?”

“Could Echo talk to me?”

Ally tried, but she couldn’t get Echo out. “No. He won’t come.”

“Could Echo talk to you and you tell me what he says?”

“Uh huh.”

“Good. Can you tell me where he hurts?”

“Uh uh.” Ally couldn’t say more. It was starting to hurt her too. It hurt a lot.

“Can you show me?”

She pointed to the feet. Tears ran down her face. “It hurts,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry it hurts.” The lady’s face looked sad. Ally wanted to reach up and touch the face, make it not sad anymore. “Can you tell me how the feet got hurt?”

“Cut,” Ally whispered. “All cut. Ugly feet.”

The therapist got up out of her chair, slowly so as not to scare them, watching Ally. She sat very still, watching back.
The lady is nice, the lady is nice
, she said to herself and Echo. The therapist kneeled in front of them. A nice fat lady. She looked funny kneeling on the floor. “May I see the feet?”

Ally reached down, pulling off the shoes and the socks. “See?” she asked, lifting the feet so the bottoms showed.

“Can you tell me how they were hurt?”

“Walkin’ on glass,” Ally said. “The daddy made us.”

“He was a bad father,” the lady said. Ally breathed out. Daddy was bad. He was.

“And he was friends with bad peoples,” Ally said, looking
down at her feet and up at the lady under her eyelids so the lady wouldn’t see her eyes in case that made her mad. Children wasn’t supposed to look.

“Nobody is allowed to hurt children here,” the lady said. Her voice was mad. Was it mad at Ally? Maybe she should run away. But the feet didn’t work good. “I don’t allow it,” the lady said, softer. Ally looked up. She looked through the lady’s eyes and inside her head, cuz if there was mad and bad in there she would know. But there was a lady inside the lady, and she was looking through the eyes at Ally and her face was even nicer than the outside face showed, and for sure she would never be friends with bad peoples.

Their eyes closed and opened. Blink blink. She went in but nobody wanted to come out. Eyes closed. Everybody arguing.
You go, no you go. Uh Uh. Not me no. Somebody gotta get out and take us home. Let’s push out Sharon!
The eyes opened.

Sharon sat quite still, her eyes on the therapist’s print of water lilies at dusk. Upstairs the cat mewed in loud round
ow’s
, wanting to be with his person. Or maybe eat the fish in her aquarium. That was the instinct for life, so strong that most people would endure almost any pain to get a little more of it. Did animals ever know that they could end their own pain? Or did they, too, wait it out because they loved their children more?

“I don’t understand how Heather could do it,” she said. “We were talking about baby clothes and the high chair and next thing you know, she shot herself.”

“It does sound like there is more to the situation than meets the eye when you consider everything they said.”

“They! There is no ‘they’!” Sharon snapped.

“I see that denial is rearing its head, again,” Brigitte said. “So can you tell me why your feet hurt so badly when there isn’t a mark on them?”

“I’m a bored, crazy housewife imagining crap that nobody could believe.” Sharon pulled on her socks. Why ever did she buy yellow socks with duckies on them? She put on her sneakers, tying the laces clumsily with hands that were cold and sweaty.

“This is hard work, Sharon. I’m not surprised that you’d want some distance from it. And that’s all right as long as it’s temporary.” Brigitte eyed the clock. “We’re about out of time, but we’ll talk more about this next week. If anything comes up, remember you can call.”

“Fine.” Sharon unsnapped her bag with such venom that everything fell out in a heap and she blushed as she gathered it up, writing a cheque for the session, thinking that therapy really was a waste of time and money. No wonder she felt queasy, shelling out a fortune for nothing. It was all ridiculous, fantastical, revolting nonsense with no foundation whatsoever. Except that the soles of her feet still hurt. There was that.

The washing machine was spinning, 1200 rotations per minute, the floor under her feet trembling. The first load was done and in the laundry basket. One of Dan’s shirts lay on the ironing board, the collar pressed. It must be the endless laundry and ironing that had spurred her imagination. Cathy switching? What an idea!

F
our kinds of popsicles somehow ended up in the grocery cart on Saturday. There was a list, Dan put it on the fridge, but Sharon didn’t take it. Best Foods was right across the road from Magee’s. Walking up and down the aisles, Sharon realized that she was nearly out of shampoo, you can’t ever have too much toilet paper or tampons, stir fry would be good for supper, maybe a turkey for tomorrow, there was a sale on potted plants. And suddenly the store had become, not the usual eight aisles, baking items in number seven, meat at the back, eggs and cheese across from the ice cream freezers, but an entrancing mystery of stuff. Even the ceiling. Balloons! Wow! A Dora balloon and a Spider-Man balloon. She looked up sideways, eyelids shielding her childish glance while, on the inside, Alec was right behind her, ready to move out if she needed help. So many treats! A table of bunnies, chickies, and chocolate. Boxes and boxes and boxes of chocolate. Humungous chocolate eggs. A basket with a bunny. It had a button so she pressed it and the bunny sang a song. That was funny! Oh look at the teeny chickie all fuzzy and yellow.
It was so little even littler than her hand and she could put it in her pocket but no you aren’t allowed you have to put it in the cart and pay for it. A lady said, “Excuse me.” She had a little boy sitting up in her grocery cart. The boy had a ice cream cone.

A mischievous grin appeared on her face, her gait slightly pigeon toed as she pushed the grocery cart. Nobody knowed that a kid was out cuz she was big! Hahahahaha. She pushed the cart some more, leaning on it and sliding. Fairies can fly. What do they do when it rains? Maybe they have fairy umbrellas. Ohhhhh. Pretty flowers over there. Smelly ones. They made her sneeze. And right next to the flowers was the freezers. Look at ALL the popsicles. There must be a gazillion kinds. Banana for her and grape for Echo. Why was a chocolate one called a Fudgesicle? She put a box in the cart. Everybody liked chocolate. And Creamsicles, next time she’d eat the orange outside first and the vanilla last. Echo was missing everything. He was scared of Easter stuff so he was hiding.