Allison
I’m so nervous. More nervous than when I took my SATs and more nervous than when I had to wait for the results. I really want to do well in this job. My life is starting over and this is just the beginning.
Though it is only early September, the air is crisp and cold and the leaves on the trees that line the street are just beginning to become edged with vibrant yellows and reds. I arrive too early at the store and wait anxiously outside. Mrs. Kelby waves as she pulls into a parking space.
“Good morning, Allison,” she calls out to me as she climbs from her car. “Are you ready for a great day?”
“I am,” I tell her. “I’m a little nervous,” I admit.
“You’ll do just fine,” Mrs. Kelby assures me. “If you have any questions, just ask.” She unlocks the door, enters the store and flips on the lights. It is beautiful, warm and cozy. I turn in a circle and scan the rows and rows of books that extend from the floor to the ceiling. The library at the prison was inadequate, but while I was there I read everything I could get my hands on, even though the books were dog-eared and stained, some of the pages falling out. But here every book had shiny, gleaming covers and I want to grab one, open it and press my nose into the crisp, clean pages. Mrs. Kelby is watching me, an amused look on her face.
“I know,” she says. “I have to pinch myself every day. Seeing all these books never ceases to amaze me. Come on, I’ll take you on the grand tour.” She leads me around the store, showing me the children’s section with its beanbag chairs and miniature table and chairs set for a tea party.
Brynn and I used to have tea parties when we were little. We would dress up in my mother’s old clothes and jewelry and gather our favorite stuffed animals and dolls, setting them in chairs around the table that was in our playroom. I would always play the hostess and Brynn and the dolls were my guests.
“Please sit,” I would order in a pompous voice that wasn’t much different than how I usually sounded. Brynn would sit, her small, thin body enveloped in a floral Laura Ashley dress, a castaway of my mother. Her brown eyes peeking out from beneath the tattered straw hat she wore.
Once, I smuggled red Kool-Aid and cookies into the playroom, which was expressly forbidden by our mother.
“Tea?” I asked.
“Yes, please,” Brynn answered, trying to mimic my own affected voice.
I poured the Kool-Aid into the teacups and we settled into munching and sipping, pausing once in a while to comment on the weather or gossip about the neighbors as we had seen our mother and her friends do. Brynn reached over to grab another cookie from the plate and her elbow caught the teapot. A stream of red Kool-Aid spilled to the pale carpet below. A look of panic crossed Brynn’s face and she began to cry, knowing how angry our mother would be.
“Shhh, Brynn,” I ordered. “She’ll hear.”
“I’m sorry.” Brynn started crying even harder.
“Stop crying,” I demanded, pulling hard on one of the dark curls of her hair.
“Ow,” she squeaked, but her cries stopped. She didn’t look angry at the yank I gave her, but even sorrier, if possible.
Our mother came into the room and stood looming over us. She was tall, like I would become, and had sleek blond hair that she always wore pulled back. She regarded the Kool-Aid dripping from the table and blooming into a crimson stain across the carpet. Next to me, Brynn started to sniffle.
“I did it,” I said automatically. “It was my fault.”
Wordlessly, my mother grabbed my arm and gave me two quick swats on the behind. It didn’t hurt, but I was embarrassed, my pride wounded. Brynn covered her eyes, not wanting to see. Then my mother turned and did the same to Brynn. The suddenness of it sent Brynn tumbling, her little body not able to maintain balance against the force of the blows.
“But I did it,” I told my mother indignantly. “It was my fault.”
“Your spanking was for lying,” my mother said icily. “And yours,” she said, turning to Brynn, who was still sprawled on the floor, “was for letting your sister take the blame. Clean this up,” she snapped, and left the room.
“Allison,” I hear a voice say. I blink and see Mrs. Kelby looking at me curiously. “Come on, I’ll show you the storage area.”
I spend the day familiarizing myself with the store, the books, the cash register. At noon, Mrs. Kelby runs across the street to a small restaurant and picks up sandwiches for us and we spend half an hour chatting about growing up in Linden Falls. There’s something so beautiful about the way she carries herself. I wish I still had that confidence but somewhere along the way I seem to have lost it. I think I’m really going to like working with Mrs. Kelby. This is going to be a good thing. She is showing me how to use the computer to order books that a customer requests when a blond-haired boy bursts through the door.
“Hey, Josh, come on back here. I want you to meet someone,” Mrs. Kelby calls to him.
“Hi, Mom. Gotta go.” He sweeps past us and dashes into the bathroom.
“He doesn’t like to go to the bathroom at school,” she explains. “The sound of the toilet flushing kind of freaks him out and he tries to hold it.”
“How old is he?” I ask, just to be polite.
“He turned five in July. He’s in kindergarten.” She beams with pride. We return to the computer and she begins keying in a title.
A tall man comes through the door, steps up to the cash register and leans over the counter to give Mrs. Kelby a kiss on the cheek. “Allison, this is my husband, Jonathan.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Kelby.” I reach out to shake his hand, which is rough and calloused.
“Nice to meet you, and call me Jonathan,” he says pleasantly.
“And call me Claire. Enough of this Mrs. Kelby nonsense.”
“Mom,” the little boy says coming up behind us. “I’m thirsty.”
“Did you wash your hands?” Claire asks.
“Yep. Can I have some juice?”
“Come here, first. I want you to meet Allison,” she tells him. I raise my head from the computer screen and turn to greet Claire’s son. “Joshua, this is Allison.” Claire smiles broadly. “And, Allison, this is my son, Joshua.”
The little boy before me has dark brown eyes and an upturned nose set onto a sharp, angled face. But it isn’t until he smiles that all of his features fall into place. I can hear Claire talking, chattering on about Joshua, and I swallow hard, trying to keep any of the emotions that I am feeling from reaching my face. My mind is whirling.
“Excuse me,” I say to Claire and Jonathan. “I just have to use the bathroom.” I try to keep my steps slow and casual but my face feels hot and I try to catch my breath. I lock the bathroom door and lower the lid on the toilet so I can sit down. I close my eyes and it’s Christopher face that beams up at me.
Joshua Kelby is a miniature version of the boy I fell in love with.
Brynn
Even though alcohol is more effective than any antidepressant in helping me forget the night Allison gave birth, I still remember running back toward the house, Allison calling after me. It was pouring down rain by then. Any mud from the river’s edge had been washed away. I felt so strange, my legs heavy and shaky. But still I ran toward the house. Just get to the house, I kept telling myself. I wasn’t sure what I had just seen, didn’t want to know. It was supposed to be over. Done. But I knew it was really just the beginning.
By the time I made it back into our house my clothes were drenched and I couldn’t stop shivering. I looked through the back door toward the yard and through the rain I could see Allison coming my way. Every few seconds she would stop, clutch at her stomach and bend over at the knees. I knew I should go to her, help her back to the house, but at that moment I truly hated my sister. Hated everything about her, hated her for being perfect, and smart and beautiful, for getting pregnant and expecting me to keep it a secret. Beyond Allison and me no one would ever know about that baby girl, no one would know that she ever existed. Mo
st of all I hated her because I was sure she was going to get away with it and would be able to go back to her perfect life without a backward glance. I turned away from her and kicked off my soggy tennis shoes and squelched to the linen closet to get a towel.
I heard the squeak of the screen door and over the sound of rain beating against the windows I heard Allison weakly call out to me. “Brynn, please.”
Don’t go, I told myself. It’s all her fault. Let her clean up her own mess.
“Brynn,” she called again. I could hear the panic in her voice. “Something’s wrong. Please. Help me.”
Ignore her, I ordered myself again. Go up to your room and shut the door. Pretend this never happened. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard the unmistakable sound of someone falling to the ground. Leave her there. She’d do the same to you.
Her moans traveled from the kitchen to the stairwell and I sat down on the steps. I covered my ears with my hands and began rocking back and forth. Don’t go down there, don’t do it, I told myself over and over. Leave her there. She’s not your sister, she’s a monster.
The moans suddenly stopped and all I could hear was the nonstop drum of rain on the roof. I strained to hear any sound, any movement, from the kitchen. Silence. Then the truth came to me, like the rain tapping against the window. Striking sharply, over and over and over. Who’s the monster? Who’s the monster? I stood quickly, knocking a photo of Allison standing with my parents and accepting some award from the wall. I watched as it tumbled down the steps and landed facedown at the bottom.
“Allison,” I hollered. “Allison!” I skittered down the steps and into the kitchen and found her lying on the tiled floor trying to peel her pants from her legs. Her face was white and she could barely lift her head. Please, her eyes begged me. She had no voice left, couldn’t even cry out in pain. She’s going to die, I thought to myself. Our parents would find us there, in the kitchen. Allison, dead, blue, half-naked and bloodied. And me, just sitting next to her, doing nothing.
“It’s the placenta,” Allison managed to squeak. An immediate sense of relief came over me. It was going to be okay. She wasn’t going to die. It was almost over.
Allison gave one puny grunt. I could see something begin to slide out from within her and I reached out with my damp towel to catch it. “It’s okay, Allison,” I said through my tears. “I’m here.”
Allison
After I had given birth to the little girl, after Brynn gathered up all the bloody sheets and went downstairs to throw them away, after the trip to the river, I started to feel the contractions pull at my stomach again. I was expecting a purplish mass to emerge from between my legs, but the placenta wasn’t what surfaced. I blinked twice and tried to wipe the sweat from eyes. I glanced at the clock on the microwave and saw that it was nearly nine-fifteen. No, I told myself. No way. It was all just too crazy. If what I was seeing didn’t convince me, the strong squawk that came from what was supposed to be the afterbirth did. A baby. A tiny baby boy with a pointy chin and an upturned nose, just like Christopher’s. Brynn, kneeling before me, caught the baby as it slid from inside of me and cried out in disbelief.
I reached out one trembling hand toward him and at the same time he seemed to reach out for mine. Our fingers grazed each other’s and for the first time in a very long while I smiled.
Brynn
I stared at Allison in disbelief. She had this odd smile on her face, not really one of happiness, but of amazement. But it quickly fell away.
“No. Please,” she whimpered, and she looked away from the red-faced baby that I held with shaking hands. “Please, we have to get him out of here.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, looking down at the crying child.
“It’s a baby,” she said acidly. Seeing my eyes fill with tears, she apologized. “I’m sorry, Brynn. But Mom and Dad will be home in a few hours. We’ve got to hurry.”
“They look the same,” I said softly, thinking of the little girl, dead now. Gone.
“It’s a boy,” Allison croaked, her face full of anguish. “Come on. We have to get rid of it.”
Allison
Somehow I force myself to leave the bathroom and return to the front of the store. I attempt to say a cheerful goodbye to Claire’s husband and Joshua, who are on their way out the door. Though I don’t have actual evidence, I know that Claire’s little boy is my son.
I’m sure Claire is going to notice that something is wrong just by looking at me, and I’m right. After working side by side in near silence for almost two hours, Claire turns to me, a concerned look on her face.
“Allison,” she says. “You’re awfully quiet. You’re not worried about how you did today, are you?”
“A little bit, I guess,” I answer, grateful for an excuse for my behavior.
“Well, don’t be. You did a great job,” Claire reassures me. “So what do you think? You going to give this place another chance tomorrow?”
I almost tell her no, but I stop myself. If I quit, there’s no way I’ll ever find proof that Joshua is my son. “I’d really like to come back, if you want me,” I tell her, not quite able to meet her eyes.
“Of course I do. Now go on home and get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow at nine.” Claire walks me to the door. “Do you need a ride home?” she asks, looking out the front window at the gathering rain clouds.
“No, I like the fresh air,” I explain. “Thanks again, Claire. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As I walk back to Gertrude House, the sun is completely swallowed up by gray clouds and my mind is swirling with the possibility that Claire’s son could be the boy I gave birth to five years earlier, could be Christopher’s son, could be the brother of the little girl I was convicted of killing.
I need to tell someone. I could call Devin and ask her what I should do, but I know what the right thing to do is. I should tell Claire that things just aren’t working out for me at the bookstore. Then I need to find a way to get out of Linden Falls.
I never wanted to see the boy I gave away before. I felt like I had done my duty by giving his father a chance to raise him. That obviously hadn’t happened. I know I should run away from the Kelby family as fast as I can, but I can’t. I have too many questions. I want to know what kind of people adopted Joshua, want to know the kind of person I gave birth to. How did Joshua end up here and what happened to Christopher?
When I arrive at Gertrude House, I open the door and meet Olene. “How was your first day?” she asks.
“It was good,” I say, not making eye contact. I’m afraid to say more. Feeling Olene’s curious stare on my back, I rush up the stairs and into my room where I find Bea sitting on the upper bunk bed.
“Hey,” she says, her eyes never leaving the pages of her magazine. “How was work?”
I kick off my shoes and flop down on the lower bunk. “Good,” I say. Then I add, “Weird.”
“I know what you mean,” Bea says from above me. “It’s like you catch yourself in these moments and you think, This is normal. This is a something a normal person would do.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” I lie. “I don’t know if I want to go back there,” I admit.
Bea is quiet for a minute. Then I see her legs swing over the side of her bunk. She is barefoot and the bottom of her feet are scarred and calloused. She leaps lightly to the ground and bends down to look at me. Up close I realize she’s not as old as I first thought she was—maybe thirty—but already her forehead is creased with grooves, and lines as fine as spider webs frame her eyes. “Olene set up that job for you.”
“Yes,” I say.
“She goes to a lot of trouble to find us places to work. Puts her good name and reputation on the line.” There is no accusation or judgment in Bea’s voice, just stating the facts.
“I’ll go back,” I say in a small voice.
Bea smiles and holds out a hand to me and for the first time I notice a tattoo on the inside of her forearm, a beautiful bird with the initi
als O.V. dangling from its beak like an olive branch. I want to ask her what it means but I don’t want her to think I’m being nosy. “Come on,” she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me up. “It’s spa night.”
“Spa night?” I ask.
“Yeah, Flora’s going to beauty school and likes to practice on us once in a while.”
“Oh, no,” I say, and pull away. “Flora still looks at me like she’d like to murder me in my bed. There’s no way she’s going to get her hands on me.”
“Come on,” Bea says, and it comes out like an order. “You can just watch. Flora’s not that bad, just a little nervous around new people. She’s been through a lot.”
I give a little grunt. “Haven’t we all?”
“I suppose so,” Bea allows. “But you should give her a chance. You don’t know her story.”
“You know,” I say with irritation. “I’ll give her a chance once she gives me one. I know she’s the one behind all the damn dolls that keep showing up. She doesn’t even know me but her mind’s already made up.” I sit back down on my bed. “You go on without me. I want to try and call my sister.”
“Suit yourself,” Bea says, “but we’re getting pedicures tonight.” She looks down at her feet and wiggles her toes. “I’ve never had a pedicure.”
The person I want to tell about finding Joshua is Brynn. Maybe it would help her to see that something good came of the terrible night I gave birth. But once again, I can’t get ahold of Brynn. My grandmother tells me she is out somewhere. I feel a pang of jealousy. I should be away at college, spending time with my friends. Then my envy is replaced by guilt. Brynn deserves all the fun she can possibly get. I know she had to deal with the fallout from my arrest, that she was bullied and made fun of because of what I had done. That she almost ended her life over it.