She emphasised each word with a prod in my chest, and I realised she was furious, her eyes flashing like emeralds in firelight, and I was suddenly just a little afraid of her. She sensed this, and patted my knee, drawing herself closer so she could rest her head on my shoulder.
“Frankie, what happened to Sally? Was it what I think? Did someone hurt her… you know… like that?”
I looked at her, unable to bring myself to say it, to tell my kid sister what I knew, why I’d done what I’d done. I saw tears gather in her eyes, concern and horror, anger, fear and outrage all flitting across her face.
“No, Frankie, no, please say no, not… not Sally, oh God, who? Who could have done that to her? Why? She never hurt anyone…” she whispered.
Two big tears rolled down her cheeks, compassion for her big sister flooding out of her. Suddenly she looked up at me, her eyes sharp and accusatory.
“You know who did it, don’t you? That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” she demanded, holding up my bandaged hand, “You know who did that to my sister, don’t you?”
My look told her everything she needed to know, and she turned away, her shoulders shaking. I put my arm around her, and she collapsed against me, crying as though her little heart was breaking. I tended to forget that for all her sharp wits and smart mouth, Kat was still only 13, still just a little kid, and this was too much for her to try and deal with. I let her cry until she’d cried herself out, doing my best to mop her tears, finally letting her blow her nose and calm herself down again. When she’d finished she looked closely at me.
“Did you hurt him bad?” she asked, and I hedged, not wanting to admit anything to her, but she asked me again.
“I said, did you hurt him bad? Answer me, Frankie, and you better say ‘yes’!”
I mumbled something about giving him a beating but he walked away, but Kat wouldn’t let it go.
“Who was it, Frankie? Who would do something like that to Sally?”
She pinned me with her eyes, and I caved in, just like I always did when it came to Kat, and I told her, seeing the shock and outrage and disgust grow in her eyes, and wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut. I made her promise, on my life, that she’d never let Sarah know that we knew, making sure she understood that Sarah felt soiled and ashamed enough, even though it wasn’t her fault, without having to know that we knew as well.
Kat promised solemnly to keep it secret and between us to her dying day, and as Kat had never broken a promise to me in her life, I was content she’d do the same this time too. As she stood up to clear away the dressings and gauze, she kissed me on top of the head.
I looked at her in surprise.
“What was that for baby? And she smiled back at me.
“For being Sally’s knight in shining armour and avenging her honor! She can’t thank you, so I will! Thank you Frankie, I’m so proud of you, it was an honor to fix up your hands for you!”
I had to grin; my baby sister was so funny sometimes!
Next day the whole town was buzzing about how Steven Dolan, the richest kid in town, had been jumped by 5 guys who’d tried to mug him, but he’d bravely beaten them off, getting a little knocked about in the process, but he’d handed them all a beating and run them off. He was a hero, a genuine example to the town, with battle-scars to prove it; there was even talk of the college making a presentation to him, and how the Mayor was going to give him a special Citizenship Award…
Now you know what kind of town I grew up in.
*
A few weeks after all this, mom called Kat and me into the sitting room and asked us to sit down; she had something she wanted to tell us. We were both mystified; mom looked solemn, and angry, and sad, a welter of emotions flitting across her face. I had a sudden premonition what this was all about, and hoped it wasn’t true.
Mom dithered for a while, clearly looking for a way to begin, so I helped her a little.
“Mom, what’s wrong? Is this to do with Sally, with whatever it was that happened last month?”
Mom looked ready to cry, spooking Caitlin, who huddled closer to me, her knuckles white with the way she was clutching my hand.
She looked at me half gratefully and half in anger that I’d broached the subject, but she nodded and turned away to look out the window.
“Kids, Sally… your big sister Sarah is… she’s… Sarah is going to have a baby in the spring. We know who the… father is, your father is going to speak to him and find out what he’s going… his plans… if he’s going to accept responsibility for his child, this baby Sarah’s having… in the spring…” she trailed off, looking off into the distance, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Kat looked at me in incomprehension, then suddenly she realised how this must have come about, her eyes popping as she almost burst with the effort of not blurting it out. I slipped my hand over her mouth to quiet her, but mom never even noticed, still staring vaguely off into the distance. I pulled Kat away, signalling that we should go talk somewhere, and as we left the room, mom spoke.
“Sally’s going to need both of you to help her now, you know that don’t you? She’s in no condition to go back to college, and I need both of you to be patient with her, help her, just be there when she needs you. The… boy who did this is no good; your father’s wasting his time, that whole family are no good, so Sally’s going to be alone, and she’s going to be a mother, and there’ll be times when she’s going to be angry for what happened, and she might snarl and snap and lash out at you; when she does, just remember she’s your big sister and she loves both of you more than anything in the world, and she’s only doing it you because she can’t do it to the one who deserves it, okay?”
We both murmured assent, Kat doing so because I did, I think, not because she understood what mom meant, but I got it. Kat took me by the arm and towed me upstairs to my room, where she sat down on my bed while I paced around, digesting what mom had told us. I only had a vague idea of the implications of what mom had told us, the main fact, that Sarah was pregnant, beating most insistently in my brain. Now I wanted to find Steven Dolan and rip his arms and legs off, beat him into an unrecognisable mess, and show the town what their ‘hero’ was really made of.
Kat watched me quizzically for a while as I paced around muttering and cracking my knuckles, eventually calling out my name, and repeating it until I broke out of my reverie to look at her in surprise; I’d forgotten she was there.
“Frankie, Frankie, FRANKIE! Have you finished talking to yourself yet?” she demanded, “Talk to me!”
I sat on the floor next to the bed while she sprawled on her tummy on the bed, her head level with mine.
“Frankie, what’s Sally gonna do now? She wanted to graduate, now she’s gonna have to stay home and have a baby, is she having a baby because of… what happened to her, you know…?”
I leaned back, eyes closed, not really wanting to answer. Caitlin waited for a few seconds for my answer, then, growing impatient, clonked me on the back of the head with her fist.
“I said…!” she began, cocking her fist to give me another one, but I grabbed her wrist.
“If you do that again I’m going to shove your head in the toilet and flush it! Now quit that, you don’t hit people! Remember what dad’s always saying, Kat, and try and be a little lady once in a while!”
Kat pouted, looking cute as all get out, and I had to grin; even at that age I couldn’t stay mad at her, no matter how much she deserved a good swift kick in the pants.
“Look, Kat, Sally needs us now; that piece of crap and his dirt-bag family are gonna walk away from this, because people like them don’t think people like us matter. Mom’s right; dad’s wasting his time, Sally’s never gonna get any kind of help from them. We just have to make sure we’re there when she needs us; we’re all she’s got. I think I can safely say Joe’s gonna run a million miles when he finds out about this, he’s not gonna want anything to do with Sally, and I think that’s gonna hurt her the most. So this is your heads-up, okay? No more talking about Joe, no more mooning over him, or blushing when his name gets mentioned, okay? Sally feels alone enough without us rubbing it in, so just leave it alone, got that?”
Kat’s eyes had been getting progressively larger as I talked, and she just nodded, the seriousness of my tone getting through to her immediately. She really was too quick on the uptake sometimes, more so than I would expect from a 13 year old girl, but this was our sister, the one person in the world we adored more than any other, and all we wanted to do was make the hurt go away, or at least not let her hurt alone.
I got up and headed for the door.
“Where you going, Frankie?” she asked, and I paused to look at her.
“I need to talk to dad, and no, you can’t come, just give mom some story or the other if she asks where I am, I don’t care what, okay? You got that?”
Kat looked rebellious, obviously wanting to come with me, but knowing I wasn’t kidding this time, so she let it drop; like I said, she was a smart kid…
*
When dad came out of the factory gates, he saw me waiting on the sidewalk, so he pulled over and wound down his window.
“Frank, what are you doing here, son? You can’t catch a ride, I’m not going home yet, just go home and I’ll see you later. Go on now!”
I opened the door and climbed in, turning to face him.
“I know where you’re going, I’m coming with you. Sally’s my family too, and I want to see what those scum Dolan’s are going to do about what happened to her!”
Dad’s expression changed, his face going very still.
“You… know? About Sally … and…?
I nodded.
“Everything, everything that creep did, how he set her up, the whole story. Where do you think our ‘Town Hero’ got his brand-new face?”
Dad looked down, shaking his head.
“That was you? Oh Frankie, didn’t I tell you enough times to think with your head and not your fists? You shouldn’t have done that.”
He leaned back in his seat and rubbed at his eyebrows, something he did when he was thinking.