Free Kat's Fall by Shelley Hrdlitschka Page A

resumes reading, trying to look invisible. There’s a plate of cookies on the coffee table and recent school photos of both Kat and me on top of the TV .
    “Katrina brought them to me,” Mom signs, indicating the pictures. Her signing is slow, but it’s clear.
    I just nod again and sink onto the couch. Kat sits beside me, looking anxious. I guess she’s worried that I’ll do something stupid and shake up this tenuous relationship she has established with her mom; the mom who once tried to kill her. Maybe I should.
    “Would you like a Coke?” Mom asks with her hands. “And help yourself to a cookie. Kat and I baked them while we were waiting for you.”
    I glance at Kat and she nods proudly. How nice. Mom and daughter baking together. A Kodak moment, I’m sure.
    “No, thanks,” I say. I’m not participating in any of this.
    She sits down on a chair facing us. She stubs out her cigarette in an ashtray. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she’s barefoot, wearing only jeans and a pale yellow T-shirt. She looks exactly the way I remember her. An ugly conflict begins to stir inside me. It’s like I’ve been transported back in time, and the feelings I had for her as a little boy are trying to sneak out of the place they’ve been stashed for ten years. The grown-up me roughly pushes them away. Those little boy feelings didn’t know better.
    “Kat’s been telling me that you’re a wonderful big brother.”
    I glance at Kat. “Someone had to take care of her.”
    She nods sadly. “That’s for sure.”
    It isn’t the reaction I was hoping for.
    “I know you’re mad at me, Darcy. You have every right to be.”
    I don’t say anything. What is there to say?
    “I was hoping you’d give me a fresh start,” she continues, using her hands and speaking slowly.
    “Why should I?”
    She shakes her head. “Because I need you to.”
    The phone rings.
    “Hello?”
    I watch Mom’s face pale. She hangs up.
    “Another one?” Kat asks.
    Mom nods.
    The phone rings again. I see the parole officer look up. Mom reaches for it but Kat jumps up. “No!” she says. She picks up the receiver and pushes it under a cushion on the couch.
    Mom laughs. “You’re catching on, Babe,” she signs. Babe? I’m about to barf.
    “Mean people keep phoning and bugging Mom,” Kat tells me.
    She should tell someone who cares.
    “Do you remember much about our life, Darcy? Before…before I went to prison?”
    “Enough.” That’s an understatement, considering the memory that rushed back at me when I got off the elevator.
    “I was a mess, wasn’t I? I can’t believe it was me when I look back on those days. It’s like looking into someone else’s nightmare.” She lights another cigarette.
    Kat tries to lighten the mood. “Mom says I can have a sleepover here next weekend,” she tells me.
    I look at her. “Oh yeah?” God, a whole weekend without her? I’m not ready for it. “What are you going to do with your dog?”
    “You’ll look after the dog, won’t you, Darcy?” Mom asks.
    “But she’s mine,” Kat argues. I see the signs of a puberty moment coming on. I can’t believe she hasn’t thought of this before now. “Dad just got her for me. Her name is Star, and I’ve just started training her to sense when I’m about to have a seizure and to protect me. Especially when Darcy’s not there.”
    I glance at Mom’s pale face. “You remember about the epilepsy, don’t you?” I ask, pointedly.
    I don’t think she catches my meaning. She crosses one leg over the other and her foot begins to twitch nervously.
    Kat glances about her. “I can bring her here, can’t I?” she asks, her own alarm beginning to register on her face.
    “Kat,” Mom says, resting her cigarette on the ashtray so she can sign, “I don’t think I’m allowed to have dogs here. It’s such a small place.”
    Kat slumps a little lower on the couch. I hear the parole officer turn a page in her book.
    “It’s a big