the greater number on the floor remained unfazed by the ping and clatter
of china fragments.
At last Violet turned her head, tilted it back, and looked up at Candy.
Simultaneously with their mistress, the cats on the table turned their
heads to look haughtily at him, too, as if they wished him to understand
what a singular honor they were bestowing upon him simply by granting
him their attention.
That same attitude was apparent in the disdain in Violet’s eyes and in
the faint smirk that curled the edges of her ripe mouth. More than once
he had found her direct gaze withering, and he had turned away from her,
rattled and confused. Certain that he was her superior in every way, he
was perplexed by her unfailing ability to defeat him or force him into a
hasty retreat with just a look.
But this time would be different. He had never been as furious as he
was at that moment, not even seven years ago when he had found his
mother’s bloody, sundered body and had learned the ax had been wielded
by Frank. He was angrier now because that old rage had never subsided;
it had fed on itself all these years, and on the humiliation of
repeatedly failing to get his hands on Frank when the opportunities to
do so arose. Now it was a midnight-black bile that coursed in his veins
and bathed the muscles of his heart and nourished the cells of his brain
where visions of vengeance were spawned in profusion.
Refusing to be cowed by her stare, he seized her thin arm and jerked her
violently to her feet.
Verbina made a soft, woeful sound upon her separation from her sister,
as if they were Siamese twins, for God’s sake, as if tissue had been
torn, bones split.
Shoving his face close to Violet’s, he sprayed her with spittle as he
spoke:
“Our mother had one cat, just one, she liked things clean and neat, she
wouldn’t approve of this mess, this stinking brood of yours.”
“Who cares,” Violet said in a tone of voice that was at once
disinterested and mocking.
“She’s dead.” Grabbing her by both arms, he lifted her off her feet.
The chair behind her fell over as he swung her away from it. He slammed
her up against the pantry door so hard that the sound was like an
explosion, rattling the loose kitchen windows and some dirty silverware
on a nearby Counter. He had the satisfaction of seeing her face contort
with pain and her eyes roll back in her head as she nearly passed out
from the blow. If he had smashed her against the door any harder, her
spine might have cracked. He dug his fingers cruelly into the pale
flesh of her upper arms, pulled her away from the door, and slammed her
into it again, though not as hard as before, just making the point that
it might have been as hard, that it could be as hard the next time if
she displeased him.
Her head had fallen forward, for she was teetering on the edge of
consciousness. Effortlessly, he held her against the door, with her
feet eight inches off the floor, as if she weigh nothing at all, thereby
forcing her to consider his incredible strength. He waited for her to
come around.
She was having difficulty getting her breath, and when at last she
stopped gasping and raised her head to face him, he expected to see a
different Violet. He had never struck her before. A fateful line had
been crossed, one over which he never expected to trespass. With his
promise to his mother in which he had kept his sisters safe from the
often dangerous world out side, provided them with food, kept them warm
in cold weather and cool in the heat, dry when it rained, but year by
year he had performed his brotherly duties with growing frustration,
appalled by their increasingly shameless and mysterious behavior. Now
he realized that disciplining them was a natural part of protecting
them; up in Heaven, his mother had probably despaired over his never
realizing the need for discipline. Thanks to his rage, he had stumbled