Charm retreats quietly back into the living room and sinks down on the sofa. It’s the same couch they had when Charm moved in. The cushions sag and the blue-and-green plaid fabric is worn and faded. But it’s comfortable and smells like home. She is so tired. So tired of worrying about Gus and school. She lies down on the couch and pulls an afghan over her and closes her eyes. She is only twenty-one and feels ancient, like her bones are brittle, like gray hairs are springing up from her follicles. The phone rings and she’s too tired to rise from the couch. Let the answering machine pick it up, she tells herself, save your strength.
“Just checking in with you.” Her mother’s voice fills the room. She sounds very innocent, very motherly. But over the years Charm has learned that there is nothing innocent in what her mother says or does. Reanne rambles on a bit more about her job and Binks. Remarkably, they are still an item. She signs off with an invitation to dinner the next week. “I’ve got to work the next four nights, but Binks and I are both off on Monday evening. We’d love for you to come over and have dinner with us. Nothing fancy.”
Charm considers picking up the phone before her mother hangs up in order to get the conversation over with, but decides not to. If everything is normal—at least, normal for her family—Reanne won’t call back. But if she has a less than pure motive, she will call back within the next twenty-four hours. Almost instantly the phone rings again. Afraid that the ringing will wake up Gus, Charm picks it up.
“Charmie,” her mother says sweetly.
“Hi, Mom,” she answers, trying to match her enthusiasm.
“I just called and you didn’t pick up the phone.” She sounds wounded.
“I’m sorry, I just got home. I haven’t even had a chance to check the messages.” Charm tries to sound sincere.
“Listen, can you come on over for dinner on Monday night?” Reanne asks.
“Oh, huh,” she says, stalling for time. “Let me just go check my schedule at the hospital. My hours have been crazy there.” Charm sets down the phone, walks over to the refrigerator and pulls out a can of soda. She pops the top, takes a long drink and walks slowly back to the phone. “Mom, hey, I’m sorry. It looks like I’m on at the hospital. I start my rotation on the mental health floor. Maybe another time.” Charm stifles a burp with the back of her hand.
“Check your schedule, what night are you free?” her mother persists.
“I’ve got a pretty busy next few weeks. How about over Thanksgiving?” Charm suggests.
She considers this. “That’s two months away. I was really hoping to see you. It’s been too long. Plus I have some good news to share with you.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, Charm says silently. “What is it?” she says, despite herself.
“No, you’ll just have to wait,” she says tauntingly. “Now tell me a night that works for you, and Binks and I will make it fit our schedules.” See how flexible I’m being and how rigid you are? her tone suggests.
“Okay, then, how about tonight?” Charm throws right back at her.
“Tonight? But that’s such short notice.”
“I’m free tonight, Mom,” Charm tells her patiently. “After then, I’m pretty booked for the next three weeks.”
“Well, all right, then,” she says, annoyed.
“What can I bring?” Charm asks, surprised that her mother truly wants to see her.
“How about dessert? Come by at about seven or so. I’ve got a lot to do to get ready.” She sounds excited, like a little girl preparing for her birthday party.
“Mom, it’s just me. You don’t have to do anything fancy,” Charm tells her.
“Nonsense. I don’t get to see enough of you as it is. I want tonight to be special.”
That’s the thing about her mom, Charm thinks. She says these amazingly simple, sweet things, and you can tell she means them. It throws Charm off every time. Still, she gathers her mother’s words up like smooth, shiny pebbles and tucks them away for later, to be pulled out and admired, mused over.
“Oh, and before I forget,” she says, “your brother called. Did Gus tell you?”
“He mentioned something,” Charm says offhandedly.
“He was talking very strangely. Said he had to tell me something about you. Do you know what he was talking about?”
“No.” It’s all she can manage to say once her heart starts to beat again.
“See you at seven, sweetie.”
Charm stands there, holding the dead phone, trying not to cry, when Gus comes into the room. He looks rested and his skin is almost a healthy pink.
Guiltily, she tells him about dinner at her mother’s.
“Of course you should go, Charm,” he tells her. “She’s your mother. You should spend time with her.”
“You’re a lot more fun,” Charm assures him. “And nicer.”
“Maybe so,” he says, pressing a handkerchief to his lips and coughing. “But I’m not going to be around forever.”
“Gus,” Charm says warningly.
But he smiles and pats her on the head. “Go and see your mother,” he orders, and Charm feels like she’s ten years old again.
Claire
After Claire’s interview with Allison, the day passes slowly and every time the bell on the door jangles her heart skips a beat. She wonders if she’ll ever feel safe in her own store again, despite the security system and the additional help. Every few minutes she checks the clock, watching the door for Jonathan and Joshua to come running in. She wishes she’d made arrangements for Virginia to work so she could have gone with Jonathan to pick Joshua up from school.
Finally, Jonathan and Joshua breeze through the front door at three-thirty. Jonathan is grinning broadly and Joshua looks exhausted. His fine hair is rumpled, his shirt is untucked; there is a stain on his shorts and his shoelaces are untied.
“Hey, kindergartener!” Claire greets him. “How was your first day?”
“Josh had a great day!” Jonathan exclaims, and Claire feels a rush of relief course through her.
“Of course you did,” she says, pulling Joshua into a tight hug.
“I did,” Joshua says with a ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I got to play with the blocks and I got to swing during both recesses!”
“Jackpot!” Claire matches his enthusiasm. “Did you find out what field trip you’re going on next spring?”
“The zoo!” he shouts. “We get to go to the zoo and see the elephants and monkeys!” Joshua bends down, arms akimbo, and morphs his face into his best monkey impression and chatters, scuttling around the store. Jonathan and Claire look at each other and laugh. After Joshua makes his rounds through the store, he comes back to where they stand at the checkout counter and, as if unloading a deep, dark secret, blurts out, “There were bananas, though.”
“We talked about this, Josh,” Jonathan tells him. “We told you there would be some things at school that you didn’t like. Do you remember what we told you to do?”
“Say ‘no thank you,’” Joshua says sadly. “But it didn’t work. The passer-outer kid still gave me one. I didn’t plug my nose and I almost threw up,” he admits. “But I didn’t—I swallowed it back down.”
“You did fine, Joshua,” Claire tells him. She holds her hand, palm down, at Joshua’s height and he steps directly under her spread fingers. She firmly rubs his head, his hair like satin under her fingertips. She can feel each slope and bump in his skull, has memorized them as she would a map. This area here, just above his left ear, she imagines, was where he stores his love for music. He is very particular about his music, as he is with most things. Nothing loud and pulsing—that agitates him, causing him to cover his ears and retreat either into another room or into himself. He likes soft, soothing music.
She feels the top of his head, just where his cowlick swirls his yellow hair into a stubborn peak. This is where the ideas for his buildings take shape. He can spend hours constructing huge, gravity-defying structures from Legos or Lincol
n Logs. His bedroom is strewn with the nubby pieces and periodically they find the brightly colored plastic amid Truman’s droppings in the backyard.
She moves her fingers slightly south on Joshua’s head to the small bulge just above the tender groove behind his right ear. This is where he has amassed all of his memories from the time before he came to them. Before he was theirs. Here, she thinks, could be where his stockpile of grief and fear lies, stagnant and festering, manifesting itself through Joshua’s shyness, his frequent trips into himself and phobias. Claire kneads that little knob, trying to massage it out of him until he wriggles away from her, saying, “Don’t.” As if admonishing her for trying to take away the only things his first mother had given him. She must have loved him in her own way, Claire thinks, and he is trying to hold on to it as tightly as he can.
“We need to celebrate,” Jonathan announces. “What would you like for supper, Josh?”
“Pizza,” Joshua answers immediately. “Pizza at Casanova’s,” he says with finality.
“Pizza, it is. Why don’t you go in the back and get a snack to tide you over until Virginia and Ashley get here.” Claire holds out her arms. Joshua leaps into them for a brief hug and she lowers him to the floor and he trots away, his shoelaces slapping against the hardwood floor.
“Whew,” Claire says to Jonathan after Joshua is out of earshot.
“Whew is right,” Jonathan agrees. “One day down, about two hundred left to go.”
“Maybe everything will be okay,” Claire says hopefully, wrapping her arms around Jonathan’s middle.
“He’ll be just fine. Try not to worry. Listen, I gotta go,” Jonathan tells her, planting a kiss firmly on her lips. “I’ll stop by at five-thirty and we can go to Casanova’s.”
After helping Joshua make peanut butter cracker sandwiches and pouring him a glass of milk from the small refrigerator kept in the storeroom, Claire goes back out front to wait on customers. After the break-in, she doesn’t want anyone to have to work in the store alone. She knows that it will be more expensive having the extra staff, but with the tax breaks provided by the state for employing a parolee, it can be done. She really needs another part-time worker, anyway; with the revitalization of Linden Falls’s downtown area, there has been a surge of foot traffic along Sullivan Street and the other historic streets that run parallel to the Druid. One of the high school students that has worked at the store the past three years is heading off to college. The other, Shelby, is sweet but active in school activities and can only work a few evenings a week. Virginia, the retired woman who works most weekends, will be heading to Florida for the winter.
Claire really hopes that things work out with Allison Glenn. Olene Jurgison didn’t give her the exact details about Allison’s past, but Claire has known Olene for years through the Linden Falls Downtown District Organization. They’ve worked on fundraisers and civic activities together and every once in a while Olene recommends one of the residents from her halfway house. Claire has always said no, until now.
At five Jonathan pulls up in front of Bookends and Joshua and Claire say goodbye to Virginia and Shelby. Casanova’s is only a few blocks from the store and they walk hand in hand down the street. The early September sun is just beginning to soften, the way it does when the summer is fading into autumn.
Jonathan and Claire settle into a booth while Joshua trots off to join a group of children who have gathered to watch pizza dough being rolled out and tossed behind a Plexiglas window. “It doesn’t make sense to me to hire an ex-con as a form of security,” Jonathan comments when Claire tells him about hiring Allison Glenn.
“I know, I know,” Claire concedes. “But Olene highly recommends this girl. Says she’s very bright and has a real future in front of her.”
“What’d she do? I mean, do you really want Joshua hanging around some girl who has been in prison?” he asks.
“I don’t know the specifics,” she admits. “Just that she was convicted of a serious crime, but she was released early for good behavior. Part of the deal is that she gets to have a fresh start, without the baggage of her past. But Olene reassured me that she doesn’t have a history of violence and she’s not considered a threat by the state.” Claire sees the look of doubt on Jonathan’s face. “I know,” she says again. “It doesn’t make sense, but I’ve got a good feeling about her. Joshua would never be in the store unless I was there with him. At least meet her. Please.”
Jonathan sighs. “Okay. I’ll meet her.”
“Thank you,” Claire says, leaning over the table and kissing him on the lips. “It will be just fine. Plus, it’s a good move financially. You’ll see.”
“Mom, Dad,” Joshua calls as he runs back to their booth. “The pizza guy threw pepperonis at the window while we were watching him make it, and they stuck there! Can we have pepperoni pizza?”
“Sure,” Jonathan says. “We’ll make sure to ask them to use the pepperoni that’s stuck to the window on our pizza.”
The excitement of Joshua’s first day of school has exhausted him and by the time Claire and Jonathan get home his eyes are heavy and he’s yawning. Jonathan carries Joshua into the house and upstairs so he can wash his face and brush his teeth.
Claire tucks Joshua into bed, arranging his bedcovers just so around him so there are no lumps. The soft light peeking in his drawn shades casts a dim halo about his head and brushes purple shadows beneath his eyes. “Do you think you’re going to like school, Josh?” Claire asks him as he methodically strokes the head of his stuffed bulldog, the once-furry toy now nearly rubbed bald. Joshua considers the question and then shrugs. “Do you like Mrs. Lovelace?” she asks.
“Yes,” he responds, but there is that familiar cadence to his voice that means “yes, but…” Claire sits, waiting him out. “It’s loud. The kids are really loud.” He finally adds.
“There are a lot of kids in your class. I imagine it does get very noisy,” Claire says, smoothing the hair from his forehead, and he brushes her hand away in irritation.
“I miss you.” He glances up at Claire to gauge her reaction, his hand rubbing the stuffed dog in more frenetic circles. “It makes me want to leave.”
Claire takes a breath before answering. “Josh, I miss you, too. But I’ve got my job at the bookstore and your job is to go to school.” He doesn’t answer. “Right, Joshua?”
Joshua doesn’t say anything but nods. His lower lip pokes out and his chin quivers.
“Josh,” Jonathan says tenderly. “You can’t just leave school. You’re in kindergarten now, the big leagues.”
“I know,” Joshua mewls, plump tears sprouting in his eyes.
“What’s the matter, Josh?” Jonathan asks, but Claire already knows the answer.
“I’m scared. I want to sleep with you.”
“Josh, you need to sleep in your own bed. You’ll get a better night’s sleep,” Claire says, knowing that Joshua will crawl into their bed in the wee hours of the night.
“Where do think those bad guys are?” he asks.
“They’re far, far away, Joshua,” Claire assures him, and looks to Jonathan for help.
“They don’t dare come back,” Jonathan says. “They know the police are looking for them and they know there is a brave little boy who made them run away.”
“I was the brave boy,” Joshua informs them, as if they didn’t know this already.
“Yes, you were, Joshua. You were very brave,” Claire tells him. “But you don’t need to worry anymore, remember? We’ve got the alarm at the bookstore now.”
“And the new girl is coming,” he pipes up. “What’s her name?”
“Her name is Allison. And yes, we will have Allison, too. You’ll get to meet her tomorrow. So don’t worry.”
“We have Truman, too,” he murmurs sleepily, and snuggles more deeply under the covers.
“We’ll keep you safe, Josh,” Jonathan whispers. “Don’t worry.”
Brynn
I wake up to my grandmother lean
ing over me, gently shaking my shoulder.
“Brynn, wake up,” she is saying over and over. “It’s eight-thirty. You’ve been sleeping for so long, are you sick?”
I jump out of bed in a panic, wondering if I slept through the whole day and night, missing class again. The room sways and I have to grab on to my grandmother to keep from falling over.
“The flu,” I manage to say before lurching out of my room and into the bathroom where I vomit into the toilet. When I finally open the door and step shakily into the hall, my grandmother is there, a look of concern on her face.
“I was getting worried,” she says, taking me by the elbow and guiding me back to my bed. “I tried to wake you up for ten minutes. You were out cold.”
“The flu,” I mumble again, not able to look her in the eye. I get back under the covers and see the glass on my nightstand. A small amount of wine sits at the bottom. If my grandmother noticed, she doesn’t let on.
“Can I make you toast or some soup?” she asks as she sits down next to me.
“No,” I say, burrowing my head underneath the covers so I don’t have to look at her. “I just want to sleep.”
She sits in silence for a long time. All I want her to do is leave, to go away and leave me alone. Finally, she speaks. “Brynn, are you okay? Did something happen?”
“No,” I say from beneath my quilt. I can smell my breath, stale and sour. “I’m sick.”
“Are you taking your medication?” she asks carefully, as if she’ll offend me for asking.
“Yes, Grandma,” I say impatiently. “Please, I just want to sleep. I don’t feel good.”