14
Corned Beef and Cabbage
When I enter the kitchen, Jimmy is eating his way through a giant bag of pretzels. I don’t know where it all goes, the great mounds of food that he eats. When I eat well, my belly expands. But I don’t think Jimmy has an ounce of fat on him. He does not have muscles like Father, and he is softer looking. Yet he holds no extra padding either.
When the bag of pretzels is empty, Jimmy hunts around the kitchen, opening cabinet doors, searching for something. He finally pulls a large frying pan out from under the sink and sets it on the stove. After finding a stick of butter in the refrigerator, he cuts off a glob and melts it until I hear a sizzle. Finally, he pulls a large, yellow box out from a low shelf and pours little, lightweight O’s into the pan. He turns them over with a spatula. My mouth waters when I smell the butter browning.
Mary enters and stands over the pan, taking in a deep breath. “Ahhhh,” she breathes out, enjoying it like I am.
Jimmy promises he will split the food with her, and she seems content. But when they finally sit at the table, each with their own bowl, Mary looks around the kitchen with disgust. I see her looking at the dirty dishes. I know she is thinking the same thing I am, that Mother kept this house extremely clean. And now it is always a mess.
Mary picks through her bowl, selecting the perfect O with two fingers and placing it between her lips.
I think Mary eats like a bird more than a human sometimes.
They eat in silence for a minute. “Where’s Dad?” Mary asks.
Jimmy explains that he’s upstairs with Finn.
Mary nods and reaches up to adjust her hairband, which is starting to slide forward on her head. Mary’s hair is silky and slippery. Sometimes I’ll sit behind her on the couch and gnaw on a golden strand, if I can catch it in my paw.
“Remember when Ma used to make popcorn in that frying pan?” Mary asks out of the blue.
Jimmy says he does. He talks about the time there was popcorn all over the floor. The popcorn exploded, and Mother shouted in surprise, trying to cover the popcorn with foil. Jimmy gets excited as he recounts this story, and Mary starts to smile.
I remember that day, chasing the popcorn all around the corners of the kitchen floor. We had fun, fun, fun.
I listen extra-carefully, my ears twitching, because I want to hear these memories of Mother. I miss her so.
Many times in the past when the teenagers talked to each other, I had no interest. But now I feel closer to them, and I strain to learn what I can. It is important to me that I understand.
Mary tells stories about all of the wonderful food Mother used to cook. I start to purr, and I feel my eyes closing in satisfaction as I lie on the kitchen floor listening to the happy tone in her voice.
Jimmy tells her he remembers. He begs Mary to stop because she’s making him hungry.
Mary looks at her brother. “Wait—is that your dinner? Pretzels and fried cereal?”
Clutching his bowl with both hands, Mary and I both notice at the same time that Jimmy’s eyes are red. To me, he looks very weary for someone so young.
“Remember . . . remember when Ma made you that banana cream pie for your birthday when you turned twelve?”
Now Jimmy nods, and laughs.
Mary tells a story about how Mother took her out for hours and hours shopping for Jimmy’s birthday. Jimmy sits with a grin, listening. He is usually the one who tells the stories around here, and I think he enjoys hearing Mary talk for a change.
Jimmy remembers aloud that Father didn’t know where Mother had gone with Mary, and he was very angry. I don’t remember this at all. I must have been very little then. My kitten days are all a bit fuzzy.
“It was worth it though,” Jimmy says. “I loved walking in and seeing the pie with all the banana slices on top . . .”
“And the yellow tablecloth. And yellow balloons attached to your chair.”
“Everything yellow, God help her. If there’s one thing you can say about Ma, it’s that she’s organized.”
“Super organized.” Mary eats another O, and then two more, and then a handful, her appetite increasing as she talks. “And coordinated. And driven. A perfectionist.”
“The kitchen was clean,” Jimmy admits with a shrug.
“We had good food.”
“Remember when she made that corned beef and cabbage last Saint Patrick’s Day? With the mustard and cinnamon in it?”
“Oh my God,” Mary says, “Pops was so happy. He went on and on about how good it was.”
“Me too. I had three helpings. And then one more around midnight.” Jimmy’s mouth curls into a twisted smile. “Dad was upset there were no leftovers the next day, because I ate them.”
“He loved her cooking. He . . .” Mary hesitates. “He loves her so much,” she whispers. “Poor Dad. Ugh.”
“Don’t—don’t even go there, Mare. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sorry.”
I walk over and brush my face against Mary’s leg. She picks me up and plops me in her lap. I continue purring, as loud as I can. I like the way her jeans feel under my paws, rough and warm. “Good Boo. Sweet Boo.”
I am surprised when Mary starts talking about the day they picked me out at the animal shelter. I’ve heard them talk about this before. I don’t remember much about my life before the day they came to take me home. Now, Mary says that Mother wanted to take my two sisters home too.
I am shocked. Two sisters? It occurs to me for the first time that I might have had another kind of family before I found my humans. I wonder where my cat sisters are now. And do I have a cat mother? It’s all very hard to imagine.
“Pops would not have liked that.” Mary smiles, remembering. “Good thing we talked her out of it. She is such an animal lover. I think she liked animals more than people sometimes.”
That’s what I thought! I blink up at Mary in agreement.
Jimmy just smiles. He takes an O and rolls it between his fingers before smashing it and letting the crumbs fall back into his bowl.
“What kind of cake do you think she’ll make for Finn, on his first birthday?”
“. . . What?” Jimmy asks, as if coming out of a trance.
“His birthday. Finn’s first birthday, next July.” There is a scratching sound as Mary swirls the dry cereal pieces around in the bowl with her fingers. “Do you remember that Batman cake she made you one year? A blue cake with blue frosting. And the Bat-Signal on top. I remember the blue and black balloons, and the sparklers we had out in the backyard.”
“Sure.” Jimmy grins. “That was a good one. I loved that.”
“But who’s going to make Finn a cake?” I feel Mary squeeze my middle, her fingers sliding through my silky fur. “Who’s going to throw his party? Finn is going to need a cake.”
Jimmy reaches to the napkin holder but finds it empty. He looks around for a moment before finally getting up, washing his hands at the sink with the dish soap, and reaching into the cabinet below for a paper towel to dry his hands. He looks at his little sister. “I’ll tell ya what, Mare. Let’s agree that just in case Ma doesn’t bring a cake over, we’ll go to the bakery downtown.”
Now I feel Mary’s hands petting me heavily, from head to tail. It feels really good. But I can tell, from the way she firmly runs her hands down my back, that she is distressed. Mary shakes her head. “A cake from a bakery wouldn’t be the same.”
Jimmy tells her it would be fine.
“No, it wouldn’t.” Mary is getting a whiny tone in her voice. I can feel the vibration as I press up against her stomach. “It’s not fair. Finn deserves a cake. I’m going to be so mad at Ma if she doesn’t bring one over here.”
Jimmy leans on the counter behind him. He looks down at the floor, as if examining the tile.
“Get over it,” he warns, an edge in his voice. “It’s just a cake.” Mary and I both look up, because we realize at the same time that Jimmy is getting angry. “For Dad’s sake,” he continues, “you’ve got to knock it off with that stuff. He’s stressed out enough without you making it worse. Haven’t you noticed he’s a little tense? Do you want him to have a stroke?”
Mary starts talking fast, launching into a long list of complaints about Father. She talks about his bad moods, his sharp words, and his inability to keep the house tidy.
She’s right, I must admit. But I don’t like her tone.
Jimmy glares at her. He takes a deep breath.
Pivoting right around, so his back is to Mary, Jimmy turns on the water. He lets it run and sticks two fingers under the water periodically to test it. When steam starts to rise from the sink, he picks up a glass and rinses it in the water. Grabbing a bright green sponge, he squirts dish soap on it and wipes it around the outside of the glass, and then the inside.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
Mary watches Jimmy for a minute. Then she lifts me up and kisses me on the face, mushing her face right into my whiskers. She wipes her cheek on mine, knowing that this is how I put my scent on humans.
Mary is an observant girl. She’s smart, like Mother.
“I’ll dry,” Mary offers, putting me on the floor as she gets up and grabs a towel.
“You don’t have to.”
“No, I will. It’s okay.” She takes the glass that Jimmy hands her, runs the rough towel over the glass, and puts it away. They work for a few minutes in silence.
Jimmy hands her the last plate, and Mary stacks it away in the cabinet. She wraps her hands up in the gray towel, looking defeated. Pulling her arms up to cross them over her chest, I notice the way she clutches the old towel way too tight. “Why did Dad want that baby so much? Why did he want it?”
“It doesn’t matter, Mare.” Jimmy sighs. “Maybe he thought it would fix things. Maybe he just wanted to feel normal, like maybe he thought he could start over. Try again. I don’t know.”
“Try again? Look at what she did to you. Look at all the shit he let her get away with. He wanted to put another kid through that?” Mary reaches out and grabs Jimmy’s arm in a quick movement, right where the scar is, that big, crooked X. She knows exactly where the scar is.
Jimmy freezes, and the blood drains from his face. He looks down at her, wide-eyed, as if frightened for a moment. It’s the same way Father sometimes pales in fear before Mary.
She is just a fourteen-year-old girl. But she is a strong, smart girl.
I see Mary flex her fingers, gripping her brother’s arm tightly. As if she’s afraid he’ll move away.
For the first time, I wonder if that scar still hurts. I don’t know much about how the human body heals.
I assume it hurt a lot the first time, when Mother made the Xs with a kitchen knife on Jimmy. I heard Father talk about it once, to Mary, when Mother was pregnant with Finn.
It happened years ago, when Jimmy was old enough to walk and talk but too young to stop his Mother. Father told Mary he wanted her to know what happened, in case Mother had similar ideas about the new baby.
Father told Mary that it was not punishment, that Mother was not angry with Jimmy when she did it. Rather, Mother was afraid that other humans were going to come into the house and take Jimmy away from her, and she wanted to know how to identify him again, her precious firstborn son. It was what Father called a “delusion,” but I’m still not sure what that word means. He told Mary they could not blame Mother for what she did because she had been sick at the time.
I don’t always understand everything that humans do. At the time Father explained it, I thought Mother’s idea was a good one. An action taken out of love. And fear. And concern.
I heard Father tell Mary that he fixed Jimmy’s cuts with soap and Band-Aids. He did not call the doctor, or anyone else. So maybe it wasn’t so bad.
Or maybe he felt he needed to hide it from the world.
But now, looking at the way Jimmy’s eyes are tearing up, I think perhaps Mother’s actions weren’t necessary. Maybe Mother hurt him more than I realized. Is it possible the scars still hurt to this day? Maybe Mother was wrong to do it.
Jimmy closes his eyes for a quick moment and looks incredibly sad when he finally opens them. “No. No, Mare. She didn’t mean to . . .” He stops, swallows, and then starts anew. “I think Pops had hope. Maybe he thought Finn would make Ma happy again and she’d stay, or he could be a better dad the third time around. I’m not going to fault him for that.” Jimmy presses his lips together, and then takes in a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing as he breathes out again. “I’m glad we have Finn. But parents are idiots sometimes.”
Mary agrees, nodding quickly, and lets go of his arm.
Mary is still wringing the dirty towel, and Jimmy now takes it from Mary’s hands. It reminds me of when he recently took the scissors out of her hands. “I can help you make a cake. All we need is cake mix and a few ingredients, right? We’ll read the box. We can do it.”
Mary’s face lights up with hope. “How about banana bread in the shape of a cake? Finn loves bananas, just like you. We could put cream cheese frosting and banana slices on top. Doesn’t that sound good?”
Jimmy scratches his head. “Sure, Mare. That sounds great.” Jimmy breaks into a crooked smile. “Maybe Aruna will help. I think we can even outdo Ma. If we put our minds to it.”
When they leave the kitchen, it’s very quiet. I listen to the grandfather clock chime in the dining room. I cannot follow my siblings. I feel heavy, like I can’t heave myself up off the floor.
I feel terrible, like I have done something wrong. Felt something wrong.
If Mother was wrong to make the Xs on Jimmy, then maybe she was wrong the time I saw her hitting him too. Perhaps on that day when Mother was so angry, I could have meowed to distract her. I could have hissed, or knocked over a vase. I could have done something!
I miss my siblings, now that they have gone upstairs.
Later, Father and I will lie in bed and feel miserable together. We both have so much to think about.
He and I will remember. We will remember who we failed to protect. And we’ll both remember what we’ve lost.