Tin Lily by Joann Swanson Read Free Book Online

black box, scratched and shiny, old and new all at the same time—a box trying to be a conundrum; and my favorite, a red box with a bird etched into its lid. There’s a box for every shelf on every bookcase. A bazillion touchstones.
    Margie’s playing with a business card, her thumb bending and unbending one corner. She holds it up against the spine of a thick book. I see “Mack and Darcy Langhorn” with a Utah number underneath. There’s nothing else on it but a red/brown fingerprint in one corner—the corner she’s bending and unbending. I think Officer Archie must have given her the card. It’s a just-in-case card that lets Margie send me away if I’m too much trouble.
    “Not talking much, no.” Margie pauses, waits for the other person to speak. “There’s something wrong. Like she’s broken inside. Her eyes are so distant and she’s not the Lilybeans I knew. She was always a quiet kid, but she had this light inside that’s not there anymore. And she has these spells where she goes completely silent—” Another pause.
    “No, she doesn't do anything. Just freezes. You can’t wake her up. It’s eerie.”
    Margie waits, nods at the phone, bends the card, unbends the card.
    I turn to go.
    I hear “Dissociation?” in Margie’s scared voice before I’m back in the blue and white room.
    I pull out Mom’s old laptop. It takes a long time to wake up. I find an open wireless connection and search “Mack and Darcy Langhorn Utah." I guess it won’t hurt to know more since if Margie can’t take care of me, it’s where I’m going anyway.
    Langhorn Ranch: Where All Your Beef And Lamb Needs Are Met With 100% Guar-OWN-teed Satisfaction! Mack and Darcy’s pictures are cut out and poking above a wide-angled shot of green pastures—a homemade job with ragged edges around their heads and hands. Mack-Hank’s eyes are cold with no understanding. Darcy’s eyes are vacant, tired, her hands old before they should be. I click “About Us." It’s the same picture, only not cut out. They’re in the pasture now and behind them are nestled-down sheep, fluffy white cotton balls with no thought to dying because someone’s hungry for lamb stew.
    At the bottom of the page there’s “click here for Rick’s page!” I “click here," get redirected to a page with some random guy leaning against a rickety fence, grinning with a feathery stalk of something sticking out from between yellow teeth—teeth that look like they’ve been shuffled and rearranged like a deck of cards. He’s got one thumb hooked in the front pocket of his jeans. His other arm stretches over the top of the fence. It’s not his thumb or his arm or his teeth I care about, though. It’s his smile. It's his eyes. He’s another Hank. It’s more than coldness and not understanding. It’s something I don’t want to know about. Rick Mirely—member of the Langhorn team, the caption under his picture says.
    I close the laptop, decide not to think about Rick-the-team-member, his eyes telling me all about what’s inside him, or about Mack-Hank and how at the hospital he had no understanding or patience.
    Mostly I decide not to think about the nature shows Hank forced me to watch after his light went out, how he said watching animals die on TV would make me stronger, help me face my fears. How he’d change the channel quick when Mom came home and pretend I was crying for a different reason. But Mom knew. Before we left, my light starting going out too. Mine and Mom’s, busy flickering because of Hank’s choices and Grandpa Henry’s poison. We left barely in time and then it didn’t matter anyway.
    Margie pokes her head in.
    “How you doing in here, kiddo?”
    “Waiting.”
    “For me?”
    “Yes. I went looking for you, heard you on the phone.”
    She looks surprised. “I’m sorry, Lily. I hope that didn’t hurt your feelings.”
    “No.”
    “I was talking with your new therapist. He wanted to know how you were