“Claire and Joshua had quite a scare, but they’re both fine. Decided to stay home today, of course. Claire has a slight concussion and a sore shoulder but Joshua wasn’t hurt. The little guy called 9-1-1 all by himself.” Virginia shakes her head at the thought of it.
“He did?” Charm asks. “Joshua did that?”
“Yes, he did.” Virginia nods as if she can’t believe it herself. “The robbers told him to hang up the phone, but he wouldn’t. Told the 9-1-1 operator that there were ‘bad guys in the bookstore.’”
“Good for Joshua. When will Claire be back at work?” Charm asks.
“Oh, tomorrow, I imagine. She’s going to hire another part-timer. Doesn’t want any of us working solo anymore. Know anyone who needs a job?”
“I’ll check with the other nursing students and see. Did they get much money? Did the police catch them?”
“A few hundred dollars. And no, no one was caught yet, not so far as I know. Claire and Joshua were going down to the police station today to give their statements,” Virginia says as a customer brings her purchases up to the counter.
“Will you tell Claire I stopped by? Tell her to let me know if she needs anything?”
“I will, Charm, honey.” Virginia stops with a sudden thought. “Why don’t you take the part-time job? Claire would love to have you here. So would Joshua.”
“I wish I had the time, but I don’t. I’ll put the word out, though. Thanks, Virginia.” Charm says goodbye and steps out into the hazy sunshine, imagining what it would be like to work in the bookstore alongside Claire, being able to see them every day. She knows it isn’t practical, isn’t safe. Isn’t the right thing to do.
If I do nothing else in my life, she thinks, I will have played a part in giving a little boy a home that isn’t fractured or incomplete. She basks in the knowledge, takes comfort in the certainty that Joshua will never know the hurt a mother is capable of inflicting.
Brynn
I wake up to hear the phone ringing and I realize that it’s probably Allison again. I sit up. I can still taste the wine coolers I was drinking last night in the back of my throat and smell cigarette smoke on my clothes. I should have never driven home this morning—I was in no condition. I try to focus my eyes on the alarm clock. Nine-thirty. I’ve missed my eight o’clock class. Great. As I make my way to the bathroom, I feel as if I’m moving through sludge. My head still throbs. I expect my grandmother to holler that Allison is on the phone for me, but she doesn’t. Maybe she told her I was still sleeping. Maybe it wasn’t even Allison. But I know that it was. I have some kind of sixth sense about when she’s going to call that makes me feel sick. Maybe I can talk to my grandmother again about getting our telephone number changed. We’ve had this conversation before, but she always says that she can’t shut Allison out of her life, that she is her granddaughter, too. I bend over the toilet just as I begin to dry heave. Loud, wet-sounding barks erupt from my throat but nothing comes out, just the bitter taste of bile tinged with the strawberry wine coolers.
When I was six, my parents took Allison and me to the Minnesota Zoo. I was in heaven, even though my dad pulled me as quickly as he could through all the exhibits so he could get back to the hotel and check his work emails. I dragged my feet, determined to snatch up the image of each animal with my eyes. The zoo had this amazing rain forest ecosystem. One minute we were standing in the middle of the Midwest and then we stepped over a threshold and were smack-dab in the center of a rain forest. The air was steamy and hot and we were surrounded by huge trees and vegetation. A fine mist clung to our skin. We traveled across a swaying suspension bridge and the roar of a huge waterfall filled my ears.
My senses couldn’t take it all in—the smells, the heat, the animals scurrying through the treetops and across the forest floor. At first I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing. Above us, in a thick-limbed synthetic tree, was a spider monkey, with its white-whiskered chin and long, narrow hands. I thought it was holding a small blanket, wrapped around its neck like a superhero’s cape. I pointed and laughed. “Look,” I said to my mother, who had a hand pressed to her nose as if trying to block out the musty smell of the forest. “Look at that monkey.”
She looked and her hand fell from her face and reached for mine. “Don’t look, Brynn,” she said softly. “You don’t want to see that.”
“What?” I asked, wanting to see even more. “What?”
Then I saw. The blanket I thought the monkey was carrying was actually the limp body of a much smaller monkey. The larger monkey—the mother, I figured—gently pulled her lifeless child from her shoulders, laid it on the branch and poked it with one long finger. The monkey didn’t move.
I gasped at what I was seeing. The mother grabbed the infant by one thin arm and swung her onto her back, only to have her slide helplessly down to her side. Still the mother persisted, prodding and lifting and shaking. Even at my young age I knew this mother was in denial, not accepting that her child was dead. “Oh,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Don’t look at it,” my mother said, trying to shield my eyes with one hand and pulling me away with the other. “It’s too sad.” Allison didn’t even bother to look twice. She just wrinkled her nose in disgust and scooted ahead of us across the bridge with my father.
Nine years later, when Allison was sixteen, it was the same thing. I was the one who saw. Saw the baby with its blue lips and limp arms and her head flopping to the side. I’m the one who saw and suffered because my sister didn’t want to face the fact that she’d had a baby. Still I pay for it. Still I see that baby girl, night after night in dreams, her little face pasted on the body of a dead monkey, her arms wrapped around the mother’s neck, flopping uselessly against her back.
I shower and dress, knowing that I’m going to be late for my ten o’clock class. I rush down the stairs, my shoulders damp from my wet hair, pass my grandmother and say a quick goodbye. I reach into my purse for my medication and grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Driving toward the college, I fish out one pill, then another, swallowing them both with one gulp of water, willing the tiny beads of medicine within the capsules to travel to my brain, to carry the images of dead babies—primate and human—away from me.
Allison may have gone to jail, but I’m the one in prison and will never be free.
Allison
I did love Christopher, more than anything, and maybe a part of me still does. He was sweet and handsome and he made me feel like I was the most beautiful girl in the world. He was smart. So smart. Said he was working on his business degree, described how he was a whiz at day trading. He certainly appeared to have the money, always paying for things, flashing large bills, buying me things. After our first week together he gave me a gold bracelet that looked very expensive. As he fastened the bracelet, his fingers brushed against the thin skin on the inside of my wrist and I trembled.
“Just the bracelet,” he murmured in my ear. “I want to see you wearing only the bracelet.” He pulled off all my clothes. “Let me look at you, I just want to see.”
I wasn’t embarrassed, wasn’t ashamed. There was a wildness in his eyes that scared me, but excited me, too. For the first time in my life I wasn’t worrying about school or sports or my parents. I felt free and loved. I felt normal.
It wasn’t until my high school adviser pulled me aside and told me I was losing my place at the top of the class rankings and was in danger of losing scholarships if I didn’t start getting my act together that reality started to creep back into my life.
“Is there something going on at home?” she asked me. I assured her things were the same as they always were. “Is it a boy?”
She raised her eyebrows at my reluctance to answer. “No boy is worth it,” she said sternly. “Do you really want to throw away all you’ve worked so hard for over a boy? Do you really want to end up staying in Linden Falls for the rest of your life?”
I did not.
“Coach Herrick is worried about you, too. Tell the
boy you need to focus on your schoolwork and your sports. Tell him anything, but get your priorities straight. You have a lot riding on the next two years, Allison. Make the right choice.”
The night I broke up with Christopher I told my parents I was at my friend Shauna’s house, studying. Christopher drove me out into the country and we sat looking through the windshield at the stars.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Christopher said, fingering the bracelet on my wrist.
I took a deep breath. “My parents are getting suspicious. If they find out about us there is no way they are going to let me keep seeing you. They’ll say you’re way too old for me.” I looked up at him through the shadows to gauge his reaction. He sat in stony silence. His fingers pulled away from my hand. I went on. “My grades are dropping. My adviser thinks I could lose scholarships if I don’t—”
“What are you trying to say, Allison?” Christopher asked. His voice was cold.
“I think we should…” I paused. I was good at almost everything I’d ever done, but this was hard. “I think we should slow things down a bit. See less of each other.”
“Is this what you want?” His hands were resting on the steering wheel, shoulders slumped, head down.
“I’m sorry,” I said, tears burning my eyes.
“Get out,” Christopher whispered.
“What?” I asked, thinking I couldn’t have heard him right.
“Get out of the car,” he said forcefully.
“What? You’re just going to leave me here?” I asked with a nervous laugh.
He reached over my lap and pushed open the door. “Get out,” he ordered.
“Christopher…”
“Out!” He gave me a shove—not hard, but still a shove. I scrambled from the car into the cold November night and he pulled the door shut with a slam and drove away.
I cried for a week and had to force myself not to call Christopher, but I quickly pulled my grades back to where they belonged. Studied harder, worked out more, became more intent on graduating at the top of my class. My teachers stopped worrying, my parents stopped worrying. It was going to be okay.
Sometimes I had to really concentrate to remember what Christopher looked like. I could picture only parts of him, his brown eyes, his upturned nose, his long, slim fingers, the way his foot would tap nervously, always in motion. I couldn’t bring to mind his entire being and sometimes I wondered if he was even real, if we had ever happened.
I should have known I was pregnant. And if I’m perfectly honest with myself, the idea crossed my mind a few times in the months leading up to when I gave birth. But I didn’t want to be pregnant, so the best thing for me to do—the only thing for me to do—was to ignore it. Otherwise, I had turned into one of those girls. One of those moronic, stupid girls, and as a result I had completely screwed up my entire life. I could have just killed myself and I would have, if that wouldn’t have sealed my fate as becoming one of them—a helpless, weak nothing. I’d seen them walking the halls of my high school, beautifully dressed and perfectly made up. Those were the girls who spent more time picking out their outfits and putting on their makeup than doing their algebra. These girls weren’t even in algebra, they took basic math and giggled up at their teacher, Mr. Dorning, who they thought was so hot.
But come on, it’s pathetic, really. It took me seven months to figure it all out. The upset stomach, the bloating, the unending fatigue. I fell in love with a boy and look where it got me—a prison cell in Cravenville, and now to a halfway house.
I can’t change the past. I can’t undo what’s been done, I can’t bring back that baby girl, but I can be a good daughter again. I can be a good sister.
Claire
As the three of them approach the playground of Joshua’s new school, Claire presses her fingers against the side of her head, finding the tender spot where her skull struck the floor after she fell off the ladder. It’s been a week since the robbery and Joshua has awakened each night calling out for her. Though Jonathan goes to him, tries to comfort him, it’s not enough. He has to see his mother, makes his father walk with him to the bedroom where his mother lies. He has to crawl into their bed, bringing his face close to hers. “You’re here,” he says, his sweet breath filling her nose. He says this as if it’s a surprise, as if he was certain that the two thieves from the bookstore had stolen her away during the night. During the day he is fearful of having his mother out of his sight and stays near, a shadow following her about.
“Don’t worry,” Claire tells him, but Claire herself is apprehensive. She hasn’t been able to bring herself to return to the bookstore since the robbery, relying on Virginia to keep it open for part of the day.
Jonathan pulls open the doors of the old redbrick building and a stifling heat greets them, reminding Claire of her own school days in an almost identical building just a few miles from here.
“Who’s going to protect you?” Joshua asks, looking anxiously up at his mother, his eyes tired and red from another restless night. Claire and Jonathan glance at each other with worry. They’ve discussed taking Joshua to see someone, a doctor, a counselor. Someone who can help him with his fears.
“I’m hiring another worker for the bookstore, Joshua,” Claire tells him, trying to keep her voice light. “That way I will never be alone while I am working.”
“You still got hurt and I was there,” he reminds them.
“We put in an alarm, Josh,” Jonathan tells him. “If bad guys come, the alarm will scare the bejeezus out of them and then the police will come.”
Joshua nods, his face serious. He has to think about this for a while. “What’s the name of this place?” he asks for the third time this morning as they walk through the empty, quiet halls of Woodrow Wilson Elementary School.
“It’s Wilson School,” Jonathan tells him, and tries to take his hand. Joshua pulls away and slides his fingers into Claire’s sweaty palm.
“It’s so big,” he says, looking around, his brown eyes woeful.
“Don’t look so sad,” Jonathan tells him. “You’re going to love it.”
“I’m not going to school,” he says with a finality that Claire has come to know too well.
The Kelbys missed the school’s scheduled registration day, which was held three days ago. They intended to go, had gotten in the car, had driven the five blocks, had pulled up in front of the school building. But it was all too overwhelming for Joshua. Streams of excited, rambunctious children of all ages and their families were entering and leaving the school. Josh tearfully clung to his booster seat and refused to exit the car. They left, went straight home, Joshua checking to make sure the doors were locked behind them after they went inside.
A little boy shouldn’t have to think about locking doors, Claire thinks as they stop in front of a classroom. A child shouldn’t have to worry about keeping his mother safe.
“You must be Joshua!” a woman coming to the doorway says in a loud but friendly tone, and Claire feels Joshua flinch beside her. “I’m Mrs. Lovelace.” She holds out a hand for Joshua to shake that he shrinks shyly away from and Jonathan reaches for it instead.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Jonathan and Claire say in turn. Mrs. Lovelace looks to be in her fifties, which Claire takes to mean that she is a seasoned teacher. She has short no-nonsense steel-wool-gray hair and sharp blue eyes that appear to miss little. Claire searches Mrs. Lovelace’s face for any indication that she might have a soft spot for timid, anxious children like Joshua who need a little more help navigating their way through the precarious world of kindergarten. “Joshua is nervous about starting school,” Claire explains, resting her hand on Joshua’s shoulder.
“We’ll figure things out together, won’t we, Joshua?” Mrs. Lovelace bends down to his level to speak to him and Joshua scurries behind Claire and presses his face into the small of her back.
“Joshua,” Claire says, trying to keep her voice soft and patient, “Mrs. Lovelace is speaking to you.” He wanders away from th
em and into the classroom toward a set of cardboard blocks, designed to look like bricks.
“Go ahead and build something, Joshua,” Mrs. Lovelace tells him. “I’ll visit with your mom and dad for a few minutes.” Joshua looks hesitant, but after an encouraging nod from Mrs. Lovelace, he begins to methodically place the bricks side by side, one on top of the other, building a rust-red wall around him.
“Oh, Joshua, did you bring a baby picture to add to the bulletin board?” Mrs. Lovelace calls to him.
Joshua is so completely engrossed with building his wall that he doesn’t seem to hear Mrs. Lovelace and Claire bites her lip with worry. “Here you go.” Claire holds out a copy of the first photo she had taken of Joshua after they brought him home from the hospital. Grinning broadly, Jonathan was holding Joshua, who was staring, eyes wide and watery from a bout of crying. His bottom lip curled in an adorable pout.
“Oh, what a nice picture, Joshua,” Mrs. Lovelace exclaims, walking over to Joshua’s wall. “Who do you look like? Your mother or your father?”
“I’m buhdopted,” Joshua says, peeking out from behind the red bricks.
Mrs. Lovelace doesn’t miss a beat. “And your mom and dad picked you! How lucky they are.” She steps more closely to the cardboard fortress and asks in her soothing voice, like milk being poured into a glass, “May I join you, Joshua?”
Joshua considers, and Claire sees for a fleeting moment the possibility, a faint light in his dark eyes, but it is quickly doused out and replaced with doubt.
“No, thank you,” he finishes politely, placing another brick on top of his wall, completely blocking off his face from view.
Mrs. Lovelace tries again. “I see you like to build things, Joshua. I’d really like to help you.” She takes away the top brick so she can see his face again.
Joshua startles and accidentally knocks down several bricks, causing the structure to collapse in a heap around him. “Oh, no!” He moans in despair at the pile in front of him.