In Her Shoes

In Her Shoes

“Where’d you find it?”

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“I would. Seriously, where?”

Lily taps her beautiful, strong white front teeth, with the stir stick from her drink, “In one of Grandma’s boots. Those rubber zip-up overshoes she wore.”

Jack laughs, “You’re kidding!”

“I said you wouldn’t believe me,” Lily smirks.

“But why do YOU have them? And what in the hell made you search them?” Jacks asks, shaking his head.

Lily looks over her brother’s head, across the restaurant, through the window decorated with gaudy Christmas décor, to watch the tiny snowflakes swirl around the Howard Street streetlight. “A year ago, I brought several boxes down from Auntie Akadiya’s. She had them since Grandma died, like fifteen years ago? I thought I should take them off her hands. I slid them under my bed and didn’t give them another thought.”

“That’s right. I remember you bringing them down to Chicago.”

Lily adds, “But now the grad student housing floors are being re-done. I had to move my bed last night and found those boxes with those overshoes. They brought back so many memories…walking with Grandma to Hanke’s Grocery,” Lily takes a sip, holding it in her mouth for several seconds before swallowing, “She’d slip them over her shoes, zip ‘em up, button up that long wool coat, put her hat on, and check her reflection in the mirror. Remember, that mirror next to doorway?” Lily pauses, “Of course she never smiled into it. She just checked to make sure her hat was straight, and every hair was in place. You know…”

“Yeah, I remember,” Jack nods, “You miss her, don’t you?”

Lily looks up, “Of course. We didn’t agree about a lot, but…of course I do. Don’t you?”

“Yeah. She loved us, in her own way. Mom, too. We just lost both too early.”

Lily continues reminiscing, “I remember the crunch of those rubber overshoes on the sidewalk, on the snow. I’ve always remembered that sound. It’s a weird, both, flinty, and squeaky sound, at the same time,” Lily smiles again, “And that fur trim at the top, around the ankles. Those boots are tattooed on my brain.”

Jack puts a cold, limp fry in his mouth, and chews, “So, now what?”

“I’m not keeping the cash. It’s all there. Twenty thousand, to the dollar, stuffed inside Star’s little Moleskine black notebook.”

Jack says, “You could use the cash, you know.”

“Not THAT cash,” Lily says. “Star was worth more than that. Grandma said returning it wouldn’t bring Star back. But evidently, she didn’t spend it, either.”

“It’d cover a semester of grad school. Despite my legendary rep down at the Exchange, on LaSalle, you refuse to take my money,” Jack smiles, nods and “Groucho Marx’s” his eyebrows, all at the same time.

Lily sighs, “You’re adorable. Look, my TA-ship is enough. I’m not taking that hush money. I’d rather use it to place a full-page ad about Perry Halvorssen in the Shawano Daily Herald.”

“You wouldn’t,” Jack frowns.

“Why not?”

Jack says, “But why?”

Lily leans back in her chair, her arms crossed tightly, across her middle. Her lips are now tight and thin, and the tiny crease between her eyebrows has become more pronounced. “Perry Halvorssen, and people like him, need to learn they don’t have Carte Blanche over the world. I know he’s older now, and maybe not still raping, but...”

Jack winces at the word “raping,” as if struck.

Lily says, “Jack, grow up. That’s what it’s called.”

Jack leans back from the table, as well, and sighs, “Don’t you get tired of being angry?”

“Nope,” Lily says, “I get tired of people like Perry still living, when Star isn’t. I get tired of explaining that she didn’t always drink. I get tired of people dismissing what Star became, as if it were inevitable. We’re Indian. We’re all drunks. THAT, is what I’m tired of.”

“Does fighting everyone make you feel any better, though?” Jack asks.

Lily inhales deeply, exhales, and then leans forward, her elbows on the table. “I remember that night. Star was fifteen, so you must have been twelve, right? I was eight. You weren’t home that night, but you must remember the next few days. And weeks.”

“Yeah, it sucked. But it’s in the past. It’s done.”

“I remember it very clearly,” Lily shakes her head, “It was right before Thanksgiving. It was late. I woke up when I heard Star crying. She walked home from the high school, where the bus dropped everyone off after the girls’ basketball away game. Everyone else had a ride. Star had to walk. I got out of bed when I heard them in the kitchen. Grandma was hugging Star, and I couldn’t see Star’s face, but I could see she was hurt. Her sweatpants were all wet, and bloody, and dirty. The zipper of her letter jacket was broken, and her jacket was a mess. And you remember how she loved that jacket.”

Jack nods, “Yeah, she said she felt…White…when she wore it.”

Lily continues, “And she was missing a shoe. I was afraid to go into the kitchen, so I just listened, from the hallway.”

“I know, Lily. We’ve talked about this. But it was a different place. And time. The 1990s in Wittenberg, Wisconsin. It’s like fucking Brigadoon. There’s no going back. It’s done and gone.”

“Jack, I love you. You’re the best brother in the world. I’m lucky to have you. But what happened to Star wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t unavoidable. Imagine if Grandma had reported it. Imagine how Star might have felt. Supported? Believed? Worthy?”

Jack cocks his head, “Do you really think it would have made a difference? You think her survival depended on him being publicly accused?”

Lily says, “What do you think, Jack? Imagine it was you. I know you’re a man, but please, don’t get all testosteroney on me. Just feel, for a minute. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Feel.”

Jack closes his eyes.

Lily continues, “You’re fifteen. You’re walking home, in the dark. You’re alone. You hear someone behind you. You turn around, but don’t see anyone. You keep walking. You want to get home, so you take a shortcut. You’re not dressed for a winter night. You’re dressed for a basketball game. You hear someone behind you again, closer this time, so you walk faster. You’re afraid, but not sure of what. Then you hear pounding, running footsteps, crunching in the snow, behind you. You half turn and see someone coming at you. You’re terrified, and still don’t even know exactly why, but you run. The treads of your cheap rubber soled gym shoes have frozen in the cold and they’re hard and slippery. Suddenly, you’re down and someone much bigger is on top of you. You get a glimpse and realize you know him. He’s a few years older than you, one of the rich families. They own most of the real estate in the area, they’re on the school board, in county government, everything. So, for just a quick second, you think you’re safe. He’s a ‘good guy’. So why are you face down in the snow, a knee on the back of one of your legs?”

Lily notices that Jack’s breath has quickened, and he isn’t as relaxed as he was thirty seconds earlier.

“And a hand is in the middle of your back, pushing down on you. You can’t get a breath, so you can’t scream or yell. Your sweats are yanked down to your knees, and something you don’t want, never wanted, is happening. It hurts. You hear your attacker grunting. It feels like your insides are made of glass and you’re praying that nothing inside breaks. When he finishes, he gets up and leaves you. You’re hurt. You get up and limp home, to the only person you can depend on, to the person who’s taken care of you since your mother died. You see her, and you cry, and you say, ‘I’m hurt. I’m scared. Help me.’ Instead, you’re told not to make a big deal of it. You’ll be fine. Girls should expect this.”

Jack’s eyes are still closed, his long black lashes against his beautiful brown skin. His black hair, cut closely on the sides, is slightly longer on top. His face shines with health, virility and manhood. But his expression says something else, fleetingly. Before he opens his eyes and erases it, Jack’s face, very briefly, bears the look of a frightened, hurt, helpless child.

Lily lets him pull himself together, and then says, “See? Would having someone believe you, and care, make a difference?”

Jack stands up and puts money for their check on the table, clears his throat, and says, “Come on. Let me walk you back to campus.”

Outside, he punches her arm lightly, “Thanks, I guess. I hadn’t ever processed it like that. I get it.”

Their feet make a flinty, scratching sound on the dry, cold sidewalk. Lily asks, “So, what now? We’ve got Star’s diary, that little black Moleskine that she got for her birthday. It was supposed to capture her journey. Her adventures and hopes, during her spring foreign exchange semester in Germany. Not to chronicle such pain. And we’ve got the Halvorssen’s money, that Perry’s granddad gave to Grandma, afterwards. Plus, Grandma wrote a note. An apology,” Lily cranes her head to look up at Jack, “Did you ever hear Grandma apologize for anything?”

Jack shakes his head, “Hell, no. What does her note say, exactly?”

“You can read it. You know she never said anything personal, right? But she wrote that, if she had had the courage to confront Perry’s grandfather forty years earlier, that things might have been different. Perry might have become a man. Star might have lived.”

Jack stops, and grabs Lily’s elbow, “You’re kidding.”

“This is why it’s important. It isn’t just Perry, as disgusting as he is. Who, by the way, I happen to know is married with kids, living in Shawano.”

They begin walking again, in the crisp December Chicago air, “Entitlement,” Jack sighs.

Lily nods, “Yup. Kind of the core problem, overall. Entitled white men screw everything up.”

“You know, entitlement is a ‘spectrum disorder’,” Jack uses air quotes around spectrum disorder.

“How so?”

Jack shrugs, “You feel overentitled; you take what you want. You feel under entitled; you think you deserve whatever shit gets heaped on you. Star felt under entitled. So did Grandma, evidently.”

Wordlessly, they walk toward Northwestern University, each deep in thought about their own participation in the “Entitlement” game.

On a Sunday morning three months later, Jack and Lily meet at Evanston’s favorite brunch spot, the Peckish Pig. Jacks pulls out his tablet and slides it across the table to Lily. It’s open to a bookmarked Shawano Daily Herald article, about an anonymously funded program for Shawano County schools. The In Her Shoes program receives matching funds from the Halvorssen family. It’s a unique, cultural program with a Sex-Ed component to help young men understand the limitations of what their gender and race entitle them to. The goal of the girls’ component is to help young women understand that they’re not less than their y-chromosome counterparts. They are entitled to equal pay, education opportunities, and non-violence.

Lily’s eyes move rapidly from left to right, her right index finger swiping to scroll through the article.

Jack smiles, “It’s also featured in the Green Bay Star Gazette, touted as a model program. They may roll it out, statewide.”

“How’d you get the matching funds?”

Jack looks a little abashed, “I may have sent Perry a copy of some pages from Star’s diary. And included that note that Grandma wrote, about his grandfather.”

“Thank you, Jack,” Lucy murmurs.

Not meeting Lily’s eyes, Jack says, “I didn’t do it for you. Or for Star. This, I did for me. And maybe Perry’s grandkids.”