“They’re all hundreds,” he commented. “There’s so many, they don’t look real.”
“They’re real, believe me,” I told him.
He started to count.
“I thought you said something about ten thousand dollars,” he said. I saw he wasn’t finished yet.
“That’s what I overheard. Why?” I asked, afraid I hadn’t taken enough.
“I’ve already reached ten thousand and there’s more, a lot more, maybe another ten.”
“That’s good for us!” I cried.
“I don’t know,” he said, wavering. The sight of so much money frightened him. “Your father might not want to write off this much.”
“Don’t worry about it, Del.”
“Maybe your parents won’t be as happy to see you gone as you think, Teal.”
“Trust me, they will.”
He continued to count.
“Twenty-two thousand,” he reported, took a deep breath, and put it all back into the envelope.
“That should get us where we want to go and help us get started, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m tired now,” I told him. “You can drive.”
If he was at the wheel, he would think less about it all, I thought. I slowed down and pulled to the side of the road. Cars whizzed by. More people than I thought traveled late at night. Maybe they were all running from something, too.
Del got out, went around the SUV, and got behind the wheel. I slid over to the passenger’s seat. He adjusted the driver’s seat, and we were off again. When we drew closer to Buffalo, Del decided we should pull into a motel.
“It will be daylight soon, and I’ll feel better if we’re off the highway, resting.”
“Sure,” I said. “Whatever you want to do.”
Del wasn’t happy with the first two motels we found off the exit. He thought they were too busy and too close to the highway. He drove on until we found a motel that looked out of business. Its sign had some blown letters, and there were only two other cars parked in front of units. The office was small and very dimly lit.
“I’ll check us in,” he said, taking out one of the hundred-dollar bills from the envelope. “Watch the kids.”
He got out and went into the office. I saw he was standing at the desk for quite a while before a short, bald-headed man in a white undershirt came out of a back room. He scratched his head and looked past Del at the SUV. For a moment I thought there would be a problem, but then Del showed him the money, and he nodded and turned around to fetch a key.
“That’s Norman Bates’s older brother,” Del muttered, getting back in. Norman Bates was the name of the psychotic killer in the movie Psycho. I laughed nervously.
We pulled in front of unit twelve, and Del handed me the unit key.
“Open the door first, and then we’ll bring in the kids,” he said.
Calling Shawn and Patty Girl the kids really made me feel that we were a family now. I hurried to do it and prepare one of the double beds for them. He carried the two of them in his arms, neither really waking up. I took Patty Girl and gently placed her in the bed. He put Shawn in, and we tucked the blanket in around them.
“I wish I could sleep like that,” Del said.
“Me, too.”
“We’ll bring in what we need for them tomorrow,” he said, and went into the bathroom. I fixed the bed for us and took off my sneakers, jeans, and blouse.
“I’m exhausted,” he said, coming out. “I hope they sleep late.”
I went to the bathroom and washed up. When I came out, Del was already asleep. I crawled in beside him, bringing myself as close to his warm body as I could without waking him. Then I closed my eyes and wished that Shawn’s and Patty Girl’s dreams would make their way over to me, even for a few minutes. I underestimated my own fatigue. Moments after I closed my eyes and snuggled up to Del, I was asleep.
The drapes were heavy enough to keep the morning light from jolting us awake. Shawn and Patty Girl were exhausted enough from the emotional trauma and all to sleep late into the morning, too, but when I awoke, I found Del was up. I turned and saw him sitting there, all dressed, staring at me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, grinding the sleep out of my eyes with my small balled fists. He didn’t respond, so I opened them and sat up. “What is it, Del?”
“We can’t do this,” he said. “I don’t know what got into me. I was so angry, so frustrated, I didn’t give it all real thought.”
“Why not? We have so much money. You said so yourself last night.”
“It’s going to take more than money, Teal, a lot more.”
“Why?”
“Why?” He shook his head. “Look at them,” he said, nodding at Shawn and Patty Girl. “We’ve taken on full responsibility for two infants. They have all sorts of needs, Teal, health needs, schooling, everything.”
“But the money…”
“It’s not going to last us forever, and we have to have some legal means, some proof of guardianship. Eventually, the law will catch up with us even if your father and mother are not coming after us. Then what do we do?”
“We can make it work. Somehow, we can, Del,” I pleaded.
He lowered his head.
“I haven’t even attended to her funeral,” he said. “I know I should hate her like crazy, but she’s lying back there in some cold hospital morgue, and there’s no one going to come around to see about her. They’ll dump her in some pauper’s grave, and I won’t even know where it is. Who knows what they’ll do? They might just cremate her and scatter her ashes in a junkyard.”
I stared at him.
“Del,” I said, shaking my head, struggling to come up with more reasons, more hope.
“I’m sorry, Teal. I was too impulsive. I know I got you into more trouble and you have enough of your own. You don’t need to take on ours as well. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t get me into anything I didn’t want to get into myself,” I said petulantly.
Just then Shawn sat up and looked around, confused.
“Hey,” Del said, standing and going over to him.
“Where are we? Where’s Mama?”
“We took a little car ride for fun,” Del told him. “We’ll have breakfast in a restaurant soon, too.”
Shawn looked at me.
“Hi,” I said, and he smiled.
He looked down at Patty Girl and then at Del. Del glanced at me. Shawn wasn’t as young and trusting as I thought, and Del knew it, too.
“Where’s Mama?” he asked.
“We’ll go home,” Del said as an answer, and looked at me with an expression that shouted, “See! See what I mean and why it’s going to be so hard!”
I fell back against my pillow and stared up at the ceiling. Del went out and got Shawn’s and Patty Girl’s clothing. By the time he returned, she was up and I was helping to get them together. Before we had pulled into the motel, we saw a roadside restaurant that looked like an old-fashioned diner. Shawn and Patty Girl were excited about being there and having pancakes.
I was so nervous about them, about how they were going to take the news of their mother’s death, that I didn’t think about my own situation until we were a good half hour on the road back home. We bought Shawn and Patty Girl some coloring books and small toys to amuse them for the trip. Del kept apologizing and blaming himself. I was terribly disappointed but kept my tears behind my lids. They fell inside me.
We didn’t stop for anything but gas. Del got the kids some candy, and we were driving back into Albany proper by two-thirty.
“Where do you want to go first?” I asked him.
“We’ll go home and I’ll get their things back into the house. Then I’ll contact the hospital and see what I have to do.”
“I’ll stay with you as long as I can,” I said.
“Thanks, Teal.”
The look of relief on his face made me sadder still. I was hoping to see that look grow stronger
and brighter as we drove farther and farther away from here, not as we drove back here. Was I being too selfish? Was it true that I’ve always been?
As it turned out, neither Del nor I had much time to ponder these questions. We drove up to his home and got the children out first, but before we reached the front door, car doors slammed around us and we turned to see four men in suits marching toward us, followed by a woman Del recognized.
He groaned.
“Child welfare department,” he muttered. “They must have been staked out and waiting for us.”
“Just hold it right there, son,” one of the men ordered.
Del put up his hand.
“Wait,” he said. They all paused, the woman stepping a little farther forward. Del looked at Shawn and Patty Girl, who were now terrified and holding on to him. “They don’t know anything yet, Mrs. Fromm,” he told the woman.
“Something has to be done for them now,” she insisted.
Del nodded.
“Okay. Just give me a few minutes, please.”
She firmed up her mouth, glanced at me, and then said, “We’ve been here quite a while. Where did you take them? I know you weren’t at the hospital.”
Patty Girl, thinking she had something important to offer, piped up with, “We had pancakes.”
None of them smiled.
“Ten minutes,” Mrs. Fromm told Del, and he turned and took the kids into the house. I started after them.
“Are you Teal Sommers?” I heard, and looked at the man closest to me.
“Yes.”
“Do you know that there is an all points bulletin out on you?”
“There always has been,” I replied, and walked into the house.
I’m not very old, of course, and I have been well protected all my life, but just when I thought I had seen the saddest things I could see, there’s always something sadder, something that wrings your heart more and tears at your very being. The sight of Del sitting Shawn and Patty Girl quietly on the sofa and then kneeling down before them to tell them their mother was dead and gone was something I will never forget.
I suppose when we’re young, as young as the two of them were, we have built-in walls of skepticism to keep us from believing in such a thing as death. The finality of it is not easily understood and accepted when you’re still young enough to believe in fairy tales and magic. Sick people always get better; they always come home out of the hospital.
“Mommy’s not coming home anymore,” Del began. “She was too sick to get better.”
“Why?” Shawn asked quickly.
“Her body became too weak,” he said. “The people out there, Mrs. Fromm, who you know, are worried you and Patty Girl won’t be safe here anymore. I can’t be with you all the time and work. They want to be sure you’re all right, so you will have to go with them to live where people can take care of you for a while. Someday,” he said, “I’ll come for you and we’ll be back together.”
I suppose it did Del no good that I was standing there in the doorway with tears streaming down my face. Oh, why did he get cold feet? I cried. Why didn’t we just go on and on? We would have made it. Anything would have been better than this, wouldn’t it?
Del shook his head as if he could hear my thoughts.
“I don’t want you two to cry about it,” Del told them. “It will just make it harder for everyone, including yourselves. Be a big boy and a big girl. I’ll see you soon. I promise,” he said.
“Will we go to a restaurant again?” Patty Girl asked.
“Absolutely, yes,” he told her.
He took her hand and then he took Shawn’s and they stood up.
“Del.”
“There’s nothing I can do,” he said, close to tears himself.
I lowered my head and stood back so he could walk them out. I was a coward. I didn’t go out with him. I remained in the house and waited. Finally, curious as to why it was taking so long, I opened the door just as Del was waving good-bye to the kids. My body felt like it had turned to stone. He lowered his head and then, instead of returning to the house, he started down the street.
“Del!” I cried after him. He did not turn back. He kept walking.
I started after him, but when I reached the sidewalk, a police car pulled up and two patrolmen and Tomkins stepped out. Tomkins, without so much as glancing at me, went directly to the SUV and got in.
“Teal Sommers?” the policeman who had been driving asked.
Tomkins started the SUV and drove off.
“I said, Teal Sommers?” the policeman repeated with annoyance.
Here we go again, I thought.
“What if I say no?” I asked. “Will you leave me alone?”
“Believe me, young lady, we have a great deal more important things to do than chase after a spoiled brat. Get in the car,” he ordered.
I looked down the street.
Del turned the corner and was gone.
I didn’t know it then, but as far as I was concerned, he was gone forever.
11
The Court of Last Resort
Ao my surprise, the police did not take me to the police station this time. They took me directly home. Now I understood what the driver meant when he said they had more important things to do than chase after a spoiled brat. Daddy had used his political influence to arrange all this.
I saw the SUV parked in front, but no sign of Tomkins. It was only then that I remembered the manila envelope containing all the money had been between the driver’s and passenger’s front seats. I wondered if it was still there. If it was, I might be able to get it back in his safe and have my father believe I had done nothing wrong, but only taken the car without his permission again.
Carson opened the front door for us as we stepped up to it.
“My father wanted me to thank you for him,” he told the policemen without looking at me. It was almost as if I wasn’t there.
“No problem,” the driver said. He glanced at me, and then the two of them returned to their car.
“Just go to Dad’s office,” Carson ordered. He stood back for me to enter.
“Where’s Mommy?” I asked.
“Just go to Dad’s office,” he repeated.
“Thanks, Carson,” I muttered, and walked down the corridor.
I noticed that the maids weren’t working. I heard no vacuum cleaner going, no dishes being washed, no sounds of anyone in any of the rooms. Daddy’s den door was opened slightly. I hesitated, took a deep breath, set my mind on how I would act and plead, and then entered.
He was sitting with his back to the door, gazing out the window.
“Daddy?” I said.
At first I thought he wasn’t going to turn around at all, but finally, he did, very slowly. He looked at me for the longest time without speaking. His face was oddly complacent, calm. His eyes did not have their usual red rage shining on me.
“When you were little and you misbehaved, we told ourselves it was normal growing pains, adjustments. My and your mother’s only real experience with children had been with Carson. He has an entirely different personality, different nature, some of that because he is a male, I suppose.
“Other people, friends, used to tell me all the time that little girls were harder to bring up than little boys. In stories, movies, little boys are always made out to be the ruffians, miscreants, handfuls of trouble. Girls were supposed to be dainty, fragile; but in reality, everyone assured me, that was simply not so.
“And so, we accepted you as you were and tried to teach you, contain you every which way we knew, and even people who were supposed experts knew.
“When you were older, a preteen and then a teen, and you got into trouble, it clearly became more serious. Your mother, mainly, decided we should turn to child psychologists and even a psychiatrist. We sent you to the people we were told were the best, but there wasn’t the dramatic turnaround we were expecting, hoping, to see.
“I took a more forceful position, especially after
the more recent episodes. I thought okay, you’re self-centered. Eventually you’ll realize you can’t do well for yourself and enjoy yourself if you continue to get in trouble and do poorly in school and you’ll change solely to make yourself happier, but that didn’t happen, either.
“Your mother—once again, more than me—hoped that if you were placed in a more controlled, richer, more advantageous environment where you would get more individualized attention, you would come around, but you didn’t.
“In my heart I hoped you would care about this family, care about us at least enough not to really do us harm. That would be sort of the bottom of the barrel, the last straw, so to speak, wouldn’t it?
“Then, you did this,” he said, and held up the manila envelope. “You knew what this was, didn’t you, Teal? You must have, because you knew where it was. You must have spied on me or something, right?”
I didn’t care to answer. The truth was, I was having trouble forming words. My throat was closing up tightly. I looked away.
“Actually, I’m glad you’re not speaking. All I’d get from you right now are lies, fabrications, excuses. Don’t say anything.”
He sat back.
“I’m going to do one more thing for you. You will realize that it’s the last thing I’ll do, I’m sure. I have, through some influential friends, been introduced to what we can call the court of last resort when it comes to you and kids your age who are like you.”
I looked up. What was he talking about now?
“I’m sending you to another school. This one is away from home, Teal, so you won’t have to answer to me for a while.”
“What school?”
“The name doesn’t matter. What it can do for you is all that matters. If you fail there… well, you fail. At least I will know that we did the best we could for you.”
“I don’t want to go to any new school,” I said.
“What you want and what you don’t want have no bearing on the matter anymore. It never should have had any bearing. That might have been one of my mistakes—caring about what you wanted.”