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Kat nods solemnly, and I’m so shocked, I can barely speak. Kat is perfect the way she is. I love her bigger body that she lives in so freely.
“Your tits are huge and indecent, and they need to be covered up. And your ass has gotten so fat, people stare at it like a bad car accident. Not a good look for a Shaw,” Henry guffaws.
“Henry, for Christ’s sake! What gives you the right?” I admonish him.
Henry looks down his long nose at me and anger flashes in his eyes. “I am her guardian, Heath. I’m trying to do what’s right for her. Who the fuck are you? Some interloper who’s mooched off our family for years and ridden his mother’s death like some kind of gravy train ages past due. Katelyn is a Shaw, and she needs to advertise that. Her body has gotten out of hand. It’s indecent, and I need to reel her back in. Shaw’s aren’t sloppy and fat, they’re lean and neat. Your over-nurturing her got her here in the first place. Telling her she looks beautiful even when she’s stuffing her face. Calling her graceful and free while she clomps around this place like a fat pig!”
Kat chokes on a sob and covers her face.
“Kat is beautiful,” I say in defense. I could kill Henry for speaking to her this way. Kat has insecurities and at times suffers socially for her shyness. This asshole only wants to break her down to make her more dependent on him. “No one asked you, Henry. Kat, don’t listen to anything he says.”
“She’s practically bursting out of her clothes. It’s obscene. I can’t have her leaving a stain on the family reputation,” he says, guzzling more beer.
I can’t take it. I grab his lapel and twist it, yanking him to me so hard and fast that his feet aren’t touching the floor. “Listen here, you tiny dick little incel,” I spit in his face. “She just lost her father, and because she’s not a fucking psychopath like some people, she’s in mourning over the loss of someone she loved dearly!”
Henry whimpers and breathes his beer fumes in my face. He swivels, trying to escape my grip with only his toes touching the kitchen tiles.
“Kat IS beautiful, just the way she was made. Don’t even look at her body, let alone talk about it. It’s none of your fucking business, and if I catch you insulting her again, I’ll fucking castrate you. You got that?” I threaten him.
“Don’t you realize, Heath, son of our servant, that now that dear old Dad’s dead, I can kick you the fuck out of Wainscott Hollow on the slightest whim? I’m the man of the house and you’re nothing. A peon. A slug. A charity case ruse that’s been going on too long. If I want you gone tonight, it can be done!”
“Stop it! Stop it!” Kat screams. She stands between us, her shoulders shaking with sobs as she tries to stop us from flinging hate at one another. “Henry, Heath is our brother. That’s what Dad wanted and we have to honor that. Heath, Henry’s probably right. I could stand to lose some weight, and I’ll start trying to take better care of myself,” she says, trying to convince us with her voice that she’s strong enough to handle the death, the onslaught of criticism, and the bleak road ahead.
“I’m gonna head to bed. I don’t want you two fighting. Can you put it to rest for me? For Dad?” she pleads with us.
Henry slams more beer. I look into Kat’s eyes and nod, move to her side, and wrap her in a hug.
That night, I walk out to the dunes alone. Perhaps it’s my way of saying goodbye to Mr. Shaw, a man who was more of a father to me than my own. I watch the fireflies light up the boardwalk path that cuts down to our beach. I can smell the salt in the air and a hint of wood smoke which makes the scent decidedly Montauk. I watch the waves roll in and crash upon the shore by the light of the moon and wonder what my life would have looked like had Mom and I stayed in the Bronx.
But a life without Kat is one I don’t want to know. I wish I could shelter her from Henry, who’s clearly mentally ill. The man needs to get his head examined and take some meds, or at least go to therapy. He’s out of control with madness, like an old beast trapped in an ancient castle. He seems to have lost any social clout when he graduated high school. and his drinking keeps escalating. He’s a runaway train, an accident waiting to happen.
Wind-whipped and refreshingly calmed, I make my way back to Wainscott Hollow. When I enter the back door by the kitchen, I hear Kat sobbing upstairs as her quarters are at the back of the manor. I figure she’s still beside herself with grief until I hear Henry’s bitter yell, and I run up the stairs like a horse just out of the gate.
