Protecting Marie: Chapters 10–13

Inside the house, the ornaments and the village from beneath the tree were wrapped in musty tissue paper and boxed.

He patiently brewed a pot of coffee, poured it into his red-and-black-plaid thermos bottle, hooked the most ample mug they owned on his finger, and pecked both Ellen and Fanny on the head.

Somehow—despite the glimmer of hope she had sensed in him—it came as little surprise to Fanny that when Henry burst into the kitchen hours later he was in a black mood. Even when she did anticipate one of his moods, it didn’t make negotiating it any easier.

Fanny had been running in fits and starts, so she was out of breath and her cheeks were ruddy.

Their house was in a constant state of amiable chaos, a steady stream of comings and goings, doors slamming, phones ringing, dogs barking, cats chattering, televisions blabbing, stereos playing, yelling, discussing, kitchen sounds, bathroom sounds, the sounds of a large family.

His love for you has been his secret for years—or at least weeks—but he’s too bashful to tell you, so he follows you around, dreaming of the day he’ll find the courage in his heart to introduce himself and let you know how he really feels about you.

She lifted her mug and swirled the dregs of her hot chocolate, peering at the remains as if they held the answers to every question ever asked.

There is dog hair everywhere. An abundance. Pinches of it like snowflakes. Enough to make a sweater. You know where the vacuum cleaner is kept. After a new snowfall, it's as if the yard were filled with land mines. Here's the trowel.

But just when Fanny would feel relaxed about Dinner’s future with her father, Henry would become more formidable and touchy than ever.

She anticipated the movement of Dinner’s tail, watching Henry’s wineglass on the coffee table before supper the way a new mother watches her infant, lurching forward at even the subtle suggestion of danger.

On the Saturday after school had started again, she noticed wispy bullets of Dinner’s hair on the bricks in the fireplace, and so she cleaned the fireplace entirely.

After it had been sunny for a couple of days, the snow on the roof melted and slender icicles formed along the gutter like the fringe on Henry and Ellen’s bedspread.

Impulsively, she threw the ball one last time. As hard as she could. It hit the chimney with a thud—directly where the chimney met the roof—and then rolled sluggishly into the gutter above the bathroom window.

The photograph, taken on Christmas morning, showed Dinner sporting a loopy green bow from a present, her tongue lolling.

Oh, how she regretted what she had done. What good could possibly have come from sending a silly, impulsive message off by way of a balloon?

Fanny almost thought that she could hear him pondering this, wheels turning and turning in his head, synapses firing.

Bewildered, Timothy Hill was left in the middle of the hallway, holding his hat tightly in both hands.

“Fanny,” he said, “act your age.” He shot her a look that completely diminished her.

In the back of her English notebook she wrote a definition for internity, copying the format of a real dictionary: in-ter-ni-ty\(ĭn-tûr'nĭ-tē)\n [created by Fanny Swann of Madison, WI]: The dismal, endless time of night when one cannot fall asleep.

Henry had been particularly moody all day—early in the morning before Fanny had left for school, in the afternoon when she had returned, and throughout supper, when he seemed distracted to the point of being elusive.

She would be a teenager. That in itself would be an accomplishment. Even the sound of it—thirteen—was exhilarating.

The light from the end table lamp was honey colored, yet pallid, and they sat in the wan apron it cast.

The light from the end table lamp was honey colored, yet pallid, and they sat in the wan apron it cast.

Recently, at the Dibbles’, Joey had leaped onto Dinner’s back, encircling her neck with his arms like a vise and clamping his legs to her belly.

Without a complaint, Dinner endured it all, while miraculously maintaining a look of modest nobility.

Next came the beret. Set at a jaunty slant, it transformed Dinner into Henry.

Now, shaking her head, Fanny realized how frivolous the rainbow incident seemed.

It was incongruous with the rest of the panel, an afterthought.

The lines that described her body were ashen and washy. The rendering of Dinner, in itself, would have been fine, but the mark of a thick, black X had been made over her, blotting her out, canceling her.

It was as if Henry had planned it all as a game, a hunt, similar to the wonderful birthday hunts he had orchestrated when Fanny was a child.

Once, the mysterious directions led to the guest room, which was decorated in a circus motif and jammed with whispering friends anticipating the moment to shout “Happy Birthday!” and throw confetti.

If she wasn’t careful, she was going to cry again. She closed her eyes and willed herself to be stoic.

A dog bayed far, far away and Fanny opened the front door.

He unfurled the roll.

She glanced at them nonchalantly when in fact she wanted to study them carefully.

Throughout supper, Henry was blissful and Ellen was placid.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Dinner, her nightgown stretched tightly over her knees. The taut, shallow valley she had formed was sprinkled with pieces of Marie.

And then, before he even spoke, she felt a strong sensation of déjà vu, as if she had been in this very spot, beside her dog, looking up to her pale-eyed, white-haired father, who sat on her bed with the stature of God.

First, she would have to find the right words to describe how she felt, and then she would have to say them in such a way that they wouldn’t make him hate her, or, worse, cause him to give up on her, ignore her, compel him to leave again, this time for good.

He hoisted himself up off the floor, and just as he reached the threshold, Fanny spoke again.