Anniversaries
Title: Anniversaries
Author: k4writer02, -k4writer02
Rating: !pg13
Summary: The nights before Jenny’s husband didn’t come home. Inspired by the scene in 105 when Jenny talks to the priest.
Characters: jenny, jenny's husband, jimmy, kevin, sean
Pairings: --jenny/jenny's husband
Author's Note: Feedback? Please! :)
Jenny marked it on the calendar, along with their wedding anniversary and his birthday-the anniversary of the day my husband never came home. It was two days after another anniversary, one she didn’t mark on paper-the day Sean Donnelly carried me home, the day Kevin wrapped me up in his own coat, the day Jimmy fed me warm whiskey and cold coffee, the day Tommy doesn’t know about.
It was an important day in Jenny Reilly’s life. Too important to note in ink or pencil; its mark was indelible and invisible.
It started where most of her days did (still do)-in the diner, checking their supplies of eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, ketchup, salt, pepper, bread, muffins, coffee, tea…the things they need to get through the breakfast rush. Jenny hadn’t been eating regularly for months. Stress over money, over her husband’s whereabouts and late-night phone calls, over how ends would ever meet…
She felt acute distress over the way Tommy didn’t talk to her anymore but she buried it. Jenny’s life had contracted to work, bills, broken sleep, and worry about how to do more work and have fewer bills. She’d drifted away from the girls she’d known in high school, and from her few true friends.
Jenny spent hours feeding others, and watching them eat sickened her. Jenny wasn’t hungry. Spending fourteen hours watching strangers slurping, sipping, sucking, crunching, chewing, and swallowing will do that. Disgusting.
She was dropping weight, but it wasn’t making her look prettier. She looked ill-her skin was pallid. Her hair lost its shine; her eyes looked sunken. There were dark purple shadows under her eyes. Hollows grew in her cheeks. If her husband had made love to her, even in the dark, he would’ve noticed the shrinking of her breasts, the sharpness of her ribs, the new stabbing prominence of her hipbones, which ought to have been buried under her flesh.
She’d stopped cooking at home-her husband was rarely hungry, and they were almost never there at the same time. He moved through their apartment like a ghost-if plates and clothes didn’t move, she would’ve thought she lived alone, some days.
She ate because she had to, to stay alive-a spoonful of peanut butter here, a potato baked in the microwave there. The night that Jenny doesn’t mark on the calendar, she hadn’t even done that. She’d eaten half a slice of toast at the diner, because Pop was watching and worrying.
She was sitting with the bills and checkbook-rent, water, trash pickup, electricity, gas, phone, TV, Visa, MasterCard, student loans… She was trying to figure out if there would be money for groceries or clothes when she was done, but Jenny’s stomach was clenched into a hard knot.
Given the person who’d lent her husband the money to get through school (Jenny knows it was Bob the Mouth), the student loans always came first. Rent had to come next, of course, and then the electricity, then the water, then the gas, then the trash and municipal fees. They should probably drop the cable, but all those nights when her husband wasn’t home and Jenny couldn’t sleep, she watched the television. It wasn’t like she paid the company’s rates-she paid a boy who spliced the wire. She’d dropped the health insurance months back, though she kept a little life insurance; at least they didn’t have the expense of a car. Covering those things ate up everything-the interest was mounting on the credit cards and God bless her if she knew how they’d pay it back.
Jenny clenched her teeth, to match the fist squeezing her belly. She thought that marrying a teacher would set her up for life. She though that a regular salary, one that didn’t depend on tips or number of customers or the profits in the business, would give her the security she so badly longed for. But her husband’s paycheck just barely covered his student loan payments. They were living on her tips and the pennies her husband saw fit to throw her way.
Jenny had tried going to her father, but Pop flatly refused, “You stand alone with your husband, Jen. I gave you a job; that’s all I can do.” And Jenny had seen the diner’s books; she knew. Pride was better for her father than admitting he couldn’t help his only daughter.
Her in-laws hadn’t even helped with their son’s college. They’d turned him out when he was sixteen and wild and they hadn’t come to the wedding. There wasn’t anyone to turn to.
She had a little tequila in the freezer (from Jimmy? He’d visited once, and called the place a dump, and she’d gotten mad, but she’d found booze and a twenty after he left. Like a gift, the kind only Jimmy would give). The tequila wasn’t Irish, but it was cheap and it could take the edge off a long day. Jenny considered pouring a measure of it, but it wouldn’t help her figure out the bills. She didn’t want to drink alone, either-it seemed to be a dangerous habit to develop.
She wrote the last check at midnight. Her grocery cuts and extra hours had paid off-they’d scraped through another month. She refused to think about what would happen if rent went up again-in a neighborhood like Hell’s Kitchen, which was gentrifying rapidly, it was harder and harder for people who didn’t work in Midtown to stay in the place their families called home.
Jenny was sitting at the table wearing a loose T-shirt and her wedding ring. Her hair had been long (who wanted to pay for a haircut?), but she’d clipped it up, so that her neck was exposed. It was a hot night in September, but she wasn’t about to run the air conditioning. She’d rather smother in the heat than increase the electric bill by another penny. To counteract the stifling hear, she poured a jigger worth of the cold tequila, drank it straight.
Once upon a time, Jenny Reilly couldn’t have drunk straight tequila. Salt and lime-training wheels and fruit salad, Jimmy called it-or icy margarita mix, that was how she liked it. She’d learned, somewhere along the way, to be less fastidious.
She was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark (lights cost money), empty shooter in front of her, mostly empty bottle of tequila to the right, when her husband stumbled in. He banged the door open with a crash, and Jenny winced-what would the neighbors say in the morning?
Her husband stank of alcohol and smoke and piss and puke. He was staggering and slurring his speech, but she couldn’t tell if the piss or puke belonged to him. She couldn’t decide which would be worse.
“Jenny, I solved it.” He grabbed at her. “I solved it all.”
“Let go.” She flinched.
“Dance with me.” He demanded, hands everywhere. “I haven’t seen you…you were waiting. You’re all ready.” He pulled up the shirt, to see that she was wearing a thong under the T-shirt-no bra.
“You’re drunk. You couldn’t even pee straight.” On closer look at his pants, Jenny decided that he dribbled in getting it out or putting it away. “Go to bed. If you still have it figured out in the morning, we’ll talk.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?” She tossed at him, sassy because she was mad and scared but didn’t want him to know he could scare her.
“Don’t avoid me.” His face was angry. “We never fuck anymore.”
“Well maybe if you got here more than four hours before I have to go in for the breakfast shift--” Jenny stopped speaking when his face changed from angry to furious.
“You’re still awake, aren’t you?”
“I’m trying to figure out how we’re going to get through this.” Jenny grabbed the Visa bill off the top of the pile. “We can’t just keep making the minimum payments. We’ll never get out of here.”
Jenny’s husband grabbed the paper and tossed it aside. “That’s all you ever think about anymore. I think you need a distraction.”
He made a terribly clumsy move toward her, which she ducked. “I’m not in the mood. Just…go wash up. I’ll get you some water.”
“No. Tonight, Jenny.” He put on a leer that might have been supposed to charm her, “Remember how good it is?”
Maybe, if he hadn’t stunk of vomit and urine, if he weren’t carrying the residue of smoke and alcohol and bar in his hair and clothes, maybe she would’ve welcomed his touch. But as it was, she was repulsed. “Just go to bed.” She said again.
“You never listen to me.” He grabbed her arm, “You never-,”
“You’re hurting me.” Jenny tried to sound calm. “Let-,”
He stumbled forward, pushed her back against the wall, pressed his mouth to hers. He tasted like beer and bile (so the puke was his too).
Jenny shoved him away-he was off balance enough that he stumbled. She spat, to get the taste of him out of her mouth. “You’re disgusting.” She said, shuddering a little.
“Quit acting like a martyr. Saint Jenny of the…” He hiccupped, “I told you, I’ll take care of it.”
“Oh yeah,” She was angrier, now. “How? I bet you bought a round for the bar, at least once tonight. How much was it? Eighty? Ninety? We don’t have food, and you’re buying strangers drinks.”
“Of course we have food. You work at a restaurant.”
“When was the last time you opened our refrigerator?”
The backhand slap was as unexpected as it was forceful. Jenny landed on the kitchen floor, hard. Blood trickled out of her nose, and, stunned, she hiccupped, a step before tears. He lashed out with his foot. “Why do you ask so many questions?”
Jenny curled to protect herself from the kick, remaining silent. She’d forgotten that he could be an angry drunk. When buzzed, he was just more relaxed, a little more hands on. But drunk? He’d pick a fight with anyone.
Her husband kicked twice more, but the activity seemed to sicken him-he lunged for their bathroom and began gagging.
Teary-eyed, Jenny slipped on shoes by the door and took off. She was bleeding from her nose and she could feel bruises forming from the kicks. She didn’t have her purse; she didn’t have keys. She couldn’t get a cab (where would she go? A hotel? With what money?) She stumbled to the diner, but it was locked, and she didn’t have her keys.
She tried buzzing Pop upstairs but either he didn’t hear or didn’t choose to answer. Jenny slapped the wall and muffled a frustrated moan. Then she sucked it up and walked away. Pop told her to stand alone-he wouldn’t give her money, and she didn’t think he would let her stay the night. And even if he did, it would only disturb him to see her like this, bleeding and sniffling.
She walked with purpose away from the diner. Her hair had straggled out of the clip unevenly. The blood was drying on her upper lip, but her nose was running. Breathing hurt-she could feel where his kicks connected.
But once she got to 10th Ave, Jenny started to lose steam. Her feet hurt-she’d spent thirteen hours on them today alone. Her back hurt too, and she was desperately tired. She was a little drunk from the tequila, and she wasn’t sure if she was dizzy from the slap or because she hadn’t eaten that day.
Later on, Jenny had to give her guardian angel a little bit of credit. Without any conscious direction, her feet led her to 10th and 47th, Hell’s Kitchen park. She knew the Donnellys lived close, but Jenny couldn’t bring herself to walk the two blocks, climb up the steps and ring the buzzer that she’d rung a thousand times before. It was all too much. She was finally close to the last safe place, the only safe place she could think of, but she was too frightened to finish the journey. What if no one was home? What if they sent her away? What if Tommy saw her like this-glassy eyed with tequila, bloody face, runny nose… She felt disgusting. Plus, the T-shirt-Lord, it had once belonged to Tommy, but she stole it after one of their street hockey matches. It brushed the tops of her thighs, but she wasn’t wearing a bra.
Strange, isn’t it, the thoughts that occur to a girl as she sits alone on the curb outside a park in Hell’s Kitchen?
The winos gave Jenny a nod; a bag lady drifted by. Jenny felt paralyzed to act.
That was how Sean and Kevin found her. Sean had dropped out of high school in his senior year, and he had a job through Huey, working for the union his father lived and died for. He was living wild nights with Kevin and his work buddies and occasionally Jimmy and Tommy. Tonight was strange though-Sean hadn’t left with some girl, and Kevin hadn’t lost the shirt off his back (maybe because Sean dragged Kevin out when he broke even).
“Jenny?” That was Kev, the sweetest of the brothers, the loyal one.
“No,” She lifted her face out of her hands. “I…” She couldn’t think of a word to say.
The brothers exchanged a “shit, what do we do??” look. After a few seconds, Sean sat on her left side. Kevin sat on her right. A Jenny sandwich. She had always been surrounded by Donnellys. “Look here.” Kevin prompted.
Jenny turned her head, so that the shadow covered her face.
“Stop that.” Sean took over. “Jenny, look at me.”
She turned into the light, and knew by his face that it was as bad as she thought.
“Who did this to you?” That was Seanie, the gallant defender of women.
“It was an accident.” Jenny faltered.
Kevin shifted, so he could see the damage too.
“Someone accidentally hit you?” Kevin cracked. “Jenny, I been beat before. It’s not an accident.”
“I just didn’t eat much. And I wasn’t even going to come over, but I can’t think where to go. Pop won’t let me come home and there’s no one else.” She was choking on uncried tears.
“Kevin.” Sean prompted.
“What?” He blinked.
“Your jacket.”
“It’s three hundred degrees.” Jenny mumbled, but she was shivering.
“It’s good to have pockets.” Kevin answered, shucking the garment, draping it over her lap.
“We’re taking you home.” Sean declared.
Jenny tried to stand, but she looked about as steady on her feet as a newborn filly-all clumsy legs and confused face. “I…I can’t.”
Sean sighed, “Put your arm around my neck, okay? I’ll carry you if it hurts to walk.”
“No, Sean.” She protested, meaning, I can’t go back. But the youngest Donnelly scooped her up as though she weighed nothing (considering his steelwork and her diet? Close enough).
Jimmy didn’t own the Firecracker yet, and none of the boys had their own apartment. So they went to the Donnellys’ apartment. Luck was with Jenny (or maybe it wasn’t). Helen wasn’t there-she was visiting her sister overnight.
Sean sat Jenny on the bathroom counter and Kevin brought a washcloth. Tommy and Jimmy weren’t home yet-it was Jenny alone with the boys. Kevin wet the washcloth in warm water, gently rinsed the blood and snot off her face. Sean offered her painkillers-half of one of Jimmy’s pills-the real stuff.
After her face was clean, Kevin brought her boxers (clean) and a soft T-shirt. “I’d bring you something of Ma’s…” Sean started.
“But you don’t go in her room. No, it’s okay.” Jenny wished the world were a little more in focus. She wanted to say, ‘What are you going to do with me?’ but she didn’t. She didn’t have the strength.
“Hey, no, no, Jenny, don’t do that.” Kevin patted her cheek. “Don’t go to sleep. You gotta stay awake, Jenny.” His voice went high, a little panicky.
“I’m so tired,” She whispered.
That, of course, was when Jimmy swaggered in. “What the fuck is all of this?” He asked, looking at Jenny, wearing a shirt that still had blood on it, and his two little brothers. “Which one of you little-,”
“We found her like this!” Sean said hastily.
“Jim?” Jenny’s eyes focused a little on the wiry, short blond. “I’ll go, I just don’t know where. Yet.” She intoned her words with the lilt known only to the concussed, the shocked, and the drugged.
“Ah, shit.” Jimmy leaned against the doorframe. “What happened?”
“She said an accident.” Kevin piped up.
“Did I ask you?” His older brother snarled.
“It wasn’t on purpose. I was just-it was so late and he was drunk and I don’t know how we’re going to-well, whatever but I-we got into it a little bit.” Jenny laid her hand on her abdomen. “He hit me. And kicked me. And then I ran. He’ll sleep it off and then I’ll go home and…” Jenny didn’t realize it until it started, but she was crying.
Jimmy, the hothead, stood up. “I’ll kill him.”
“No.” Jenny protested. “It probably won’t even bruise. See?” She anchored an arm under her breasts and lifted the hem of the bloody T-shirt, inadvertently revealing her pretty blue thong, bare thighs, and prominent ribs.
That was how Tommy’s brothers saw Jenny Reilly’s naked body before Tommy. Not that Tommy ever knew. Not that it was the sight they were all hoping for. Still, all told, it was probably better no one had a camera.
“Hey, Jenny, put that away.” Sean tugged her hands away. The shirt fell back into place “What if we step out and you put these on? You’ll feel better.”
“Seanie, she can’t stand up.” Kevin pointed out. “How’s she gonna put on clothes?”
“She can’t stand?” Jimmy bristled.
“He carried me.” Jenny mumbled. “Like a puppy.”
“Big puppy.” Sean muttered, but he had taken her left hand and begun washing it with the same cloth he’d used to cleanse her face. “You’re too skinny Jenny. All bone.”
She laughed, sharp and unhappy. “I didn’t eat today. I forgot.”
This was more than one day’s skipped meals, they all knew it, but no one said anything.
“Could you hold down…tea?” Sean thought what his mother would do.
“Don’t bother.” Jimmy said. He stumped away, poured coffee from the pot into a mug, didn’t bother to warm it. She drank it, black and cold and bitter, and wasn’t that a metaphor? But while she drank that, Jimmy heated whiskey in a pan.
No one expected it, but Jimmy was actually a decent cook. He had learned from heating his junk in a spoon, but it had somehow turned into a skill that Tommy didn’t have. Jimmy coaxed her into drinking the whiskey to help her sleep. He was gentle with Jenny-now dressed in Kevin’s boxers and the same bloody shirt-but he made her drink every drop. “She needs sleep.” He proclaimed.
Jenny’s eyes had drifted closed again.
“With a concussion?” Kevin was doubtful. He knew a just enough about head injuries to know that you had to stay awake.
“She’s drunk, not hurt.” Jimmy insisted. “Seanie, put her in your bed. Kevin, you’re with me.”
“What about me?” Sean asked.
“Stay here. Make sure she’s still breathing when we get home. And don’t tell Ma. Or Tommy.”
Jenny kept her eyes closed because she didn’t know how to protest any of it.
She woke in the morning in Sean’s bed, with the Donnelly charmer asleep on the floor beside her. He looked, she though, a bit like a golden retriever, lying there to protect her, but really just big and harmless and sweet.
Quick, she took inventory. Her ribs had turned violet in each place where her husband’s foot had connected with her flesh. Her face wasn’t bruised, and without the blood on it, it wasn’t visibly marred. She could go to work today and no one (except her) would be the wiser.
She hoped.
But when she stood, she knew she couldn’t spend a twelve-hour shift on her feet. Her legs and calves felt like stretched-out rubber bands. Her feet might as well have been seared by the grill. And her back? Oh God, she ached all over.
She sagged back into the bed, closed her eyes again, and soaked in the feeling of being safe. She fell back into a sleep that didn’t break for three hours. Sean wasn’t on the floor when she stirred again. She woke to a glass of water, piece of toast, and two Advil. She swallowed it all and slipped back into that sweet dark sleep, for once pretending that Pop would cope without her at the diner, that her husband wouldn’t question her absence. She could hide here for as long as she wanted.
Next time she woke, Kevin was kneeling next to her. “Jenny?” He was saying. “Jenny, you gonna wake up?”
“Yeah.” She sat up, too fast, got light headed, and collapsed back against the mattress. “I’m ‘wake.” She mumbled.
“Shh, you can stay. We kept the door closed and Ma just thinks that maybe Seanie’s hiding a chick.”
She looked her next question at him, and Kevin read her eyes. “Tommy ain’t here. Jimmy’s sleeping still.”
“What’d you do?” She didn’t want to know the answer, but she couldn’t not ask.
“Forget about it.” He said. “Talked to a few people, that’s all. We’ll get you something to eat. Just don’t make too much noise.”
Jenny knew that she should be worried about it, but she slipped into sleep one more time before Sean smuggled her to her own apartment. He tried to convince her to pack and come back with him, but Jenny planted herself firmly. She was reclaiming her home.
Her husband wasn’t there when she got home.
She refused to think about what that might mean, because he came home that night and handed her a wad of bills and a pizza and that was how they spent their last night together.
Eating pizza and avoiding each other’s eyes. When he said he had to go out, she didn’t ask questions.
If she had known it would be the last night, would they still have spent it like that? Would they have gone to bed together, and made love?
She doesn’t know.
But she remembers it anyway. Remembers Sean, who carried her, and Kevin, who washed her and gave her his own coat, and Jimmy who gave her drinks. Remembers feeling safe, inside that haven.
It’s why she can still be disappointed when Jimmy or Kevin screws up, why she just enjoys the show with Sean.
She still doesn’t note that day on the calendar.
Author: k4writer02, -k4writer02
Rating: !pg13
Summary: The nights before Jenny’s husband didn’t come home. Inspired by the scene in 105 when Jenny talks to the priest.
Characters: jenny, jenny's husband, jimmy, kevin, sean
Pairings: --jenny/jenny's husband
Author's Note: Feedback? Please! :)
Jenny marked it on the calendar, along with their wedding anniversary and his birthday-the anniversary of the day my husband never came home. It was two days after another anniversary, one she didn’t mark on paper-the day Sean Donnelly carried me home, the day Kevin wrapped me up in his own coat, the day Jimmy fed me warm whiskey and cold coffee, the day Tommy doesn’t know about.
It was an important day in Jenny Reilly’s life. Too important to note in ink or pencil; its mark was indelible and invisible.
It started where most of her days did (still do)-in the diner, checking their supplies of eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, ketchup, salt, pepper, bread, muffins, coffee, tea…the things they need to get through the breakfast rush. Jenny hadn’t been eating regularly for months. Stress over money, over her husband’s whereabouts and late-night phone calls, over how ends would ever meet…
She felt acute distress over the way Tommy didn’t talk to her anymore but she buried it. Jenny’s life had contracted to work, bills, broken sleep, and worry about how to do more work and have fewer bills. She’d drifted away from the girls she’d known in high school, and from her few true friends.
Jenny spent hours feeding others, and watching them eat sickened her. Jenny wasn’t hungry. Spending fourteen hours watching strangers slurping, sipping, sucking, crunching, chewing, and swallowing will do that. Disgusting.
She was dropping weight, but it wasn’t making her look prettier. She looked ill-her skin was pallid. Her hair lost its shine; her eyes looked sunken. There were dark purple shadows under her eyes. Hollows grew in her cheeks. If her husband had made love to her, even in the dark, he would’ve noticed the shrinking of her breasts, the sharpness of her ribs, the new stabbing prominence of her hipbones, which ought to have been buried under her flesh.
She’d stopped cooking at home-her husband was rarely hungry, and they were almost never there at the same time. He moved through their apartment like a ghost-if plates and clothes didn’t move, she would’ve thought she lived alone, some days.
She ate because she had to, to stay alive-a spoonful of peanut butter here, a potato baked in the microwave there. The night that Jenny doesn’t mark on the calendar, she hadn’t even done that. She’d eaten half a slice of toast at the diner, because Pop was watching and worrying.
She was sitting with the bills and checkbook-rent, water, trash pickup, electricity, gas, phone, TV, Visa, MasterCard, student loans… She was trying to figure out if there would be money for groceries or clothes when she was done, but Jenny’s stomach was clenched into a hard knot.
Given the person who’d lent her husband the money to get through school (Jenny knows it was Bob the Mouth), the student loans always came first. Rent had to come next, of course, and then the electricity, then the water, then the gas, then the trash and municipal fees. They should probably drop the cable, but all those nights when her husband wasn’t home and Jenny couldn’t sleep, she watched the television. It wasn’t like she paid the company’s rates-she paid a boy who spliced the wire. She’d dropped the health insurance months back, though she kept a little life insurance; at least they didn’t have the expense of a car. Covering those things ate up everything-the interest was mounting on the credit cards and God bless her if she knew how they’d pay it back.
Jenny clenched her teeth, to match the fist squeezing her belly. She thought that marrying a teacher would set her up for life. She though that a regular salary, one that didn’t depend on tips or number of customers or the profits in the business, would give her the security she so badly longed for. But her husband’s paycheck just barely covered his student loan payments. They were living on her tips and the pennies her husband saw fit to throw her way.
Jenny had tried going to her father, but Pop flatly refused, “You stand alone with your husband, Jen. I gave you a job; that’s all I can do.” And Jenny had seen the diner’s books; she knew. Pride was better for her father than admitting he couldn’t help his only daughter.
Her in-laws hadn’t even helped with their son’s college. They’d turned him out when he was sixteen and wild and they hadn’t come to the wedding. There wasn’t anyone to turn to.
She had a little tequila in the freezer (from Jimmy? He’d visited once, and called the place a dump, and she’d gotten mad, but she’d found booze and a twenty after he left. Like a gift, the kind only Jimmy would give). The tequila wasn’t Irish, but it was cheap and it could take the edge off a long day. Jenny considered pouring a measure of it, but it wouldn’t help her figure out the bills. She didn’t want to drink alone, either-it seemed to be a dangerous habit to develop.
She wrote the last check at midnight. Her grocery cuts and extra hours had paid off-they’d scraped through another month. She refused to think about what would happen if rent went up again-in a neighborhood like Hell’s Kitchen, which was gentrifying rapidly, it was harder and harder for people who didn’t work in Midtown to stay in the place their families called home.
Jenny was sitting at the table wearing a loose T-shirt and her wedding ring. Her hair had been long (who wanted to pay for a haircut?), but she’d clipped it up, so that her neck was exposed. It was a hot night in September, but she wasn’t about to run the air conditioning. She’d rather smother in the heat than increase the electric bill by another penny. To counteract the stifling hear, she poured a jigger worth of the cold tequila, drank it straight.
Once upon a time, Jenny Reilly couldn’t have drunk straight tequila. Salt and lime-training wheels and fruit salad, Jimmy called it-or icy margarita mix, that was how she liked it. She’d learned, somewhere along the way, to be less fastidious.
She was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark (lights cost money), empty shooter in front of her, mostly empty bottle of tequila to the right, when her husband stumbled in. He banged the door open with a crash, and Jenny winced-what would the neighbors say in the morning?
Her husband stank of alcohol and smoke and piss and puke. He was staggering and slurring his speech, but she couldn’t tell if the piss or puke belonged to him. She couldn’t decide which would be worse.
“Jenny, I solved it.” He grabbed at her. “I solved it all.”
“Let go.” She flinched.
“Dance with me.” He demanded, hands everywhere. “I haven’t seen you…you were waiting. You’re all ready.” He pulled up the shirt, to see that she was wearing a thong under the T-shirt-no bra.
“You’re drunk. You couldn’t even pee straight.” On closer look at his pants, Jenny decided that he dribbled in getting it out or putting it away. “Go to bed. If you still have it figured out in the morning, we’ll talk.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?” She tossed at him, sassy because she was mad and scared but didn’t want him to know he could scare her.
“Don’t avoid me.” His face was angry. “We never fuck anymore.”
“Well maybe if you got here more than four hours before I have to go in for the breakfast shift--” Jenny stopped speaking when his face changed from angry to furious.
“You’re still awake, aren’t you?”
“I’m trying to figure out how we’re going to get through this.” Jenny grabbed the Visa bill off the top of the pile. “We can’t just keep making the minimum payments. We’ll never get out of here.”
Jenny’s husband grabbed the paper and tossed it aside. “That’s all you ever think about anymore. I think you need a distraction.”
He made a terribly clumsy move toward her, which she ducked. “I’m not in the mood. Just…go wash up. I’ll get you some water.”
“No. Tonight, Jenny.” He put on a leer that might have been supposed to charm her, “Remember how good it is?”
Maybe, if he hadn’t stunk of vomit and urine, if he weren’t carrying the residue of smoke and alcohol and bar in his hair and clothes, maybe she would’ve welcomed his touch. But as it was, she was repulsed. “Just go to bed.” She said again.
“You never listen to me.” He grabbed her arm, “You never-,”
“You’re hurting me.” Jenny tried to sound calm. “Let-,”
He stumbled forward, pushed her back against the wall, pressed his mouth to hers. He tasted like beer and bile (so the puke was his too).
Jenny shoved him away-he was off balance enough that he stumbled. She spat, to get the taste of him out of her mouth. “You’re disgusting.” She said, shuddering a little.
“Quit acting like a martyr. Saint Jenny of the…” He hiccupped, “I told you, I’ll take care of it.”
“Oh yeah,” She was angrier, now. “How? I bet you bought a round for the bar, at least once tonight. How much was it? Eighty? Ninety? We don’t have food, and you’re buying strangers drinks.”
“Of course we have food. You work at a restaurant.”
“When was the last time you opened our refrigerator?”
The backhand slap was as unexpected as it was forceful. Jenny landed on the kitchen floor, hard. Blood trickled out of her nose, and, stunned, she hiccupped, a step before tears. He lashed out with his foot. “Why do you ask so many questions?”
Jenny curled to protect herself from the kick, remaining silent. She’d forgotten that he could be an angry drunk. When buzzed, he was just more relaxed, a little more hands on. But drunk? He’d pick a fight with anyone.
Her husband kicked twice more, but the activity seemed to sicken him-he lunged for their bathroom and began gagging.
Teary-eyed, Jenny slipped on shoes by the door and took off. She was bleeding from her nose and she could feel bruises forming from the kicks. She didn’t have her purse; she didn’t have keys. She couldn’t get a cab (where would she go? A hotel? With what money?) She stumbled to the diner, but it was locked, and she didn’t have her keys.
She tried buzzing Pop upstairs but either he didn’t hear or didn’t choose to answer. Jenny slapped the wall and muffled a frustrated moan. Then she sucked it up and walked away. Pop told her to stand alone-he wouldn’t give her money, and she didn’t think he would let her stay the night. And even if he did, it would only disturb him to see her like this, bleeding and sniffling.
She walked with purpose away from the diner. Her hair had straggled out of the clip unevenly. The blood was drying on her upper lip, but her nose was running. Breathing hurt-she could feel where his kicks connected.
But once she got to 10th Ave, Jenny started to lose steam. Her feet hurt-she’d spent thirteen hours on them today alone. Her back hurt too, and she was desperately tired. She was a little drunk from the tequila, and she wasn’t sure if she was dizzy from the slap or because she hadn’t eaten that day.
Later on, Jenny had to give her guardian angel a little bit of credit. Without any conscious direction, her feet led her to 10th and 47th, Hell’s Kitchen park. She knew the Donnellys lived close, but Jenny couldn’t bring herself to walk the two blocks, climb up the steps and ring the buzzer that she’d rung a thousand times before. It was all too much. She was finally close to the last safe place, the only safe place she could think of, but she was too frightened to finish the journey. What if no one was home? What if they sent her away? What if Tommy saw her like this-glassy eyed with tequila, bloody face, runny nose… She felt disgusting. Plus, the T-shirt-Lord, it had once belonged to Tommy, but she stole it after one of their street hockey matches. It brushed the tops of her thighs, but she wasn’t wearing a bra.
Strange, isn’t it, the thoughts that occur to a girl as she sits alone on the curb outside a park in Hell’s Kitchen?
The winos gave Jenny a nod; a bag lady drifted by. Jenny felt paralyzed to act.
That was how Sean and Kevin found her. Sean had dropped out of high school in his senior year, and he had a job through Huey, working for the union his father lived and died for. He was living wild nights with Kevin and his work buddies and occasionally Jimmy and Tommy. Tonight was strange though-Sean hadn’t left with some girl, and Kevin hadn’t lost the shirt off his back (maybe because Sean dragged Kevin out when he broke even).
“Jenny?” That was Kev, the sweetest of the brothers, the loyal one.
“No,” She lifted her face out of her hands. “I…” She couldn’t think of a word to say.
The brothers exchanged a “shit, what do we do??” look. After a few seconds, Sean sat on her left side. Kevin sat on her right. A Jenny sandwich. She had always been surrounded by Donnellys. “Look here.” Kevin prompted.
Jenny turned her head, so that the shadow covered her face.
“Stop that.” Sean took over. “Jenny, look at me.”
She turned into the light, and knew by his face that it was as bad as she thought.
“Who did this to you?” That was Seanie, the gallant defender of women.
“It was an accident.” Jenny faltered.
Kevin shifted, so he could see the damage too.
“Someone accidentally hit you?” Kevin cracked. “Jenny, I been beat before. It’s not an accident.”
“I just didn’t eat much. And I wasn’t even going to come over, but I can’t think where to go. Pop won’t let me come home and there’s no one else.” She was choking on uncried tears.
“Kevin.” Sean prompted.
“What?” He blinked.
“Your jacket.”
“It’s three hundred degrees.” Jenny mumbled, but she was shivering.
“It’s good to have pockets.” Kevin answered, shucking the garment, draping it over her lap.
“We’re taking you home.” Sean declared.
Jenny tried to stand, but she looked about as steady on her feet as a newborn filly-all clumsy legs and confused face. “I…I can’t.”
Sean sighed, “Put your arm around my neck, okay? I’ll carry you if it hurts to walk.”
“No, Sean.” She protested, meaning, I can’t go back. But the youngest Donnelly scooped her up as though she weighed nothing (considering his steelwork and her diet? Close enough).
Jimmy didn’t own the Firecracker yet, and none of the boys had their own apartment. So they went to the Donnellys’ apartment. Luck was with Jenny (or maybe it wasn’t). Helen wasn’t there-she was visiting her sister overnight.
Sean sat Jenny on the bathroom counter and Kevin brought a washcloth. Tommy and Jimmy weren’t home yet-it was Jenny alone with the boys. Kevin wet the washcloth in warm water, gently rinsed the blood and snot off her face. Sean offered her painkillers-half of one of Jimmy’s pills-the real stuff.
After her face was clean, Kevin brought her boxers (clean) and a soft T-shirt. “I’d bring you something of Ma’s…” Sean started.
“But you don’t go in her room. No, it’s okay.” Jenny wished the world were a little more in focus. She wanted to say, ‘What are you going to do with me?’ but she didn’t. She didn’t have the strength.
“Hey, no, no, Jenny, don’t do that.” Kevin patted her cheek. “Don’t go to sleep. You gotta stay awake, Jenny.” His voice went high, a little panicky.
“I’m so tired,” She whispered.
That, of course, was when Jimmy swaggered in. “What the fuck is all of this?” He asked, looking at Jenny, wearing a shirt that still had blood on it, and his two little brothers. “Which one of you little-,”
“We found her like this!” Sean said hastily.
“Jim?” Jenny’s eyes focused a little on the wiry, short blond. “I’ll go, I just don’t know where. Yet.” She intoned her words with the lilt known only to the concussed, the shocked, and the drugged.
“Ah, shit.” Jimmy leaned against the doorframe. “What happened?”
“She said an accident.” Kevin piped up.
“Did I ask you?” His older brother snarled.
“It wasn’t on purpose. I was just-it was so late and he was drunk and I don’t know how we’re going to-well, whatever but I-we got into it a little bit.” Jenny laid her hand on her abdomen. “He hit me. And kicked me. And then I ran. He’ll sleep it off and then I’ll go home and…” Jenny didn’t realize it until it started, but she was crying.
Jimmy, the hothead, stood up. “I’ll kill him.”
“No.” Jenny protested. “It probably won’t even bruise. See?” She anchored an arm under her breasts and lifted the hem of the bloody T-shirt, inadvertently revealing her pretty blue thong, bare thighs, and prominent ribs.
That was how Tommy’s brothers saw Jenny Reilly’s naked body before Tommy. Not that Tommy ever knew. Not that it was the sight they were all hoping for. Still, all told, it was probably better no one had a camera.
“Hey, Jenny, put that away.” Sean tugged her hands away. The shirt fell back into place “What if we step out and you put these on? You’ll feel better.”
“Seanie, she can’t stand up.” Kevin pointed out. “How’s she gonna put on clothes?”
“She can’t stand?” Jimmy bristled.
“He carried me.” Jenny mumbled. “Like a puppy.”
“Big puppy.” Sean muttered, but he had taken her left hand and begun washing it with the same cloth he’d used to cleanse her face. “You’re too skinny Jenny. All bone.”
She laughed, sharp and unhappy. “I didn’t eat today. I forgot.”
This was more than one day’s skipped meals, they all knew it, but no one said anything.
“Could you hold down…tea?” Sean thought what his mother would do.
“Don’t bother.” Jimmy said. He stumped away, poured coffee from the pot into a mug, didn’t bother to warm it. She drank it, black and cold and bitter, and wasn’t that a metaphor? But while she drank that, Jimmy heated whiskey in a pan.
No one expected it, but Jimmy was actually a decent cook. He had learned from heating his junk in a spoon, but it had somehow turned into a skill that Tommy didn’t have. Jimmy coaxed her into drinking the whiskey to help her sleep. He was gentle with Jenny-now dressed in Kevin’s boxers and the same bloody shirt-but he made her drink every drop. “She needs sleep.” He proclaimed.
Jenny’s eyes had drifted closed again.
“With a concussion?” Kevin was doubtful. He knew a just enough about head injuries to know that you had to stay awake.
“She’s drunk, not hurt.” Jimmy insisted. “Seanie, put her in your bed. Kevin, you’re with me.”
“What about me?” Sean asked.
“Stay here. Make sure she’s still breathing when we get home. And don’t tell Ma. Or Tommy.”
Jenny kept her eyes closed because she didn’t know how to protest any of it.
She woke in the morning in Sean’s bed, with the Donnelly charmer asleep on the floor beside her. He looked, she though, a bit like a golden retriever, lying there to protect her, but really just big and harmless and sweet.
Quick, she took inventory. Her ribs had turned violet in each place where her husband’s foot had connected with her flesh. Her face wasn’t bruised, and without the blood on it, it wasn’t visibly marred. She could go to work today and no one (except her) would be the wiser.
She hoped.
But when she stood, she knew she couldn’t spend a twelve-hour shift on her feet. Her legs and calves felt like stretched-out rubber bands. Her feet might as well have been seared by the grill. And her back? Oh God, she ached all over.
She sagged back into the bed, closed her eyes again, and soaked in the feeling of being safe. She fell back into a sleep that didn’t break for three hours. Sean wasn’t on the floor when she stirred again. She woke to a glass of water, piece of toast, and two Advil. She swallowed it all and slipped back into that sweet dark sleep, for once pretending that Pop would cope without her at the diner, that her husband wouldn’t question her absence. She could hide here for as long as she wanted.
Next time she woke, Kevin was kneeling next to her. “Jenny?” He was saying. “Jenny, you gonna wake up?”
“Yeah.” She sat up, too fast, got light headed, and collapsed back against the mattress. “I’m ‘wake.” She mumbled.
“Shh, you can stay. We kept the door closed and Ma just thinks that maybe Seanie’s hiding a chick.”
She looked her next question at him, and Kevin read her eyes. “Tommy ain’t here. Jimmy’s sleeping still.”
“What’d you do?” She didn’t want to know the answer, but she couldn’t not ask.
“Forget about it.” He said. “Talked to a few people, that’s all. We’ll get you something to eat. Just don’t make too much noise.”
Jenny knew that she should be worried about it, but she slipped into sleep one more time before Sean smuggled her to her own apartment. He tried to convince her to pack and come back with him, but Jenny planted herself firmly. She was reclaiming her home.
Her husband wasn’t there when she got home.
She refused to think about what that might mean, because he came home that night and handed her a wad of bills and a pizza and that was how they spent their last night together.
Eating pizza and avoiding each other’s eyes. When he said he had to go out, she didn’t ask questions.
If she had known it would be the last night, would they still have spent it like that? Would they have gone to bed together, and made love?
She doesn’t know.
But she remembers it anyway. Remembers Sean, who carried her, and Kevin, who washed her and gave her his own coat, and Jimmy who gave her drinks. Remembers feeling safe, inside that haven.
It’s why she can still be disappointed when Jimmy or Kevin screws up, why she just enjoys the show with Sean.
She still doesn’t note that day on the calendar.