Beyond Summer (28 page)

“It is different.” I couldn’t help thinking about my dad and Barbie, and the last two in vitros, which she had arranged largely on her own. He didn’t want more kids. He didn’t even really want the twins. It was all about what Barbie decided she needed, what she wanted. It wasn’t about the children and what was best for them. “Kids deserve to have two parents who want them.”

Shasta’s eyes met mine, looked deep inside, and I knew she understood. “I think about that.” Her voice was hoarse, ragged. “I’m afraid if Cody doesn’t want this baby . . . if he blames the baby for what I did . . . I’d never want that for my kids, you know?”

I did know. I understood.

Something collided with the inside of the car windshield, then slid down and landed on the dash. A McDonald’s toy. The Four wouldn’t last much longer before mass destruction set in. They were tired. They needed baths, a story, and bedtime before things got out of hand. Across the street, the house was dark, except for the television flickering in the living room. Aunt Lute was probably already in bed, sound asleep with her earplugs in, as usual. For whatever reason, she always turned off the lights but left the TV playing a DVD.

Shasta reached out and hugged me. We clung to each other in the dim carport light until finally something heavier hit the car window. “You better go,” she whispered. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. No lunch at the Summer Kitchen. Want to take the kids down to the bookstore?”

“Sure. See you in the morning.”

We parted ways, and I backed the Escalade across the street and into our driveway. The sibs were surprisingly docile getting out of the car and entering the house through the garage door. They followed me through the kitchen, no pushing or shoving as we threaded our way around fallen toys and stacks of boxes. On the other side of the wall, a DVD was playing on the TV, the sound blaring so loudly it was hard to believe Aunt Lute could be asleep, even in the back bedroom with earplugs in. As we rounded the corner into the dining room, the boys put their hands over their ears and Jewel twisted in my arms, trying to locate the source of the noise.

Through the doorway, I could see Barbie on the sofa—home early, for a change. Actually sitting up, rather than splayed across the sofa cushions, sleeping off her latest trip to the clubs on Lower Greenville with Fawn. She was wearing a slinky black minidress, skin-tight, but in an upscale way. Her shoes and purse lay scattered on the floor beside her, as if she’d dropped them in a hurry.

Daniel’s foot caught one of the dining chairs, producing a loud scraping noise, audible even over the TV. Barbie’s head snapped toward us, and before we’d crossed the threshold, she was through the living room, yanking Jewel out of my arms. Her eyes were wide, circled with black, her cheeks stained with tinted tears.

Fear shot through me, whipping the relaxed weariness of the evening into an ominous rush of adrenaline. “Barbara, what’s the matter?”

Eyes flaring, she grabbed the boys with clumsy, aggressive movements, pulling them by their arms or their shirts, dragging them, stumbling, into the living room and backing them against the sofa. “You can’t just
take
them,” she growled, her voice low, guttural, unfocused, so that it was hard to tell whether she was talking to me, or just babbling incoherently. I could smell alcohol from across the room. “You can’t just
go
.”

“Barbara, what are you talking about? What’s the matter? Is Aunt Lute all right?” Sidestepping, I checked the hall. The bedroom door was closed, the light turned off. Had Aunt Lute locked herself in her room to get away from Barbie?

On the sofa, the sibs sat wide-eyed, unmoving, their faces pinched, slowly turning pale. Landon’s eyes welled, small blue pools reflecting the colored light of the TV.

“You guys go on back to your bedroom.” I took a step toward Barbie, and she moved in front of me, spinning around so fast that Jewel’s torso whipped outward, then back in, colliding with Barbie’s breast. The baby’s lips puckered and trembled. She turned a frightened expression toward me.

“Barbara, you’re scaring her.” I reached for Jewel, but Barbie yanked her away, twisting so that her shoulder was between the baby and me. “Stop it!” I yelled. “What’s wrong with you?”

Jewel whimpered, and Barbie faced me with her teeth clenched and her eyes narrow slits under strings of hair that had lost their curl during another evening out. “You can’t just
take off
with my
kids
!” she screamed. “You can’t just
take off
with them!”

I stepped back, blindsided. “Wha . . . take off . . . what are you talking about? We went down to the church on the corner.”

Barbie’s fist shot toward me, the index finger pointed, stabbing my purse. “I called. I called over and over and over. No one answered. No one picked up.” Her voice rose to a shriek, eclipsing the TV, piercing the air with sharp arrows of sound. On the sofa, the boys scooted backward, wedged themselves against the cushions. Landon pushed closer to Mark, and Mark wrapped slim arms around his brothers, a colored paper fish from craft time still clutched in his hand.

I blinked, trying to find a reality in which Barbie made sense. For weeks now, she’d been walking through the house in a fog, acting as if the kids didn’t exist, as if they were anyone’s responsibility but hers. Now she was accusing me of taking them without permission? Anger rose in me, boiled, spewed over, hot and bitter.

Daniel slid off the sofa and ran past Barbie, collided with me and held on, his arms locked around my waist. Barbie snatched at his T-shirt, and I moved him away. “Stop it, Barbie. Leave him alone!”

“They’re mine. They’re my kids!” She lunged at Daniel again, and my arm came up out of reflex, knocking her off balance so that she stumbled backward and collided with the coffee table. For a brief, horrifying moment, she was spinning sideways, falling, the baby’s arms flailing in the air, her head snapping backward, then hitting Barbie’s chest. Barbie gasped, caught herself on the sofa arm, stopped her fall, and clung to Jewel.

The baby wailed.

My heart hitched in my chest. “Stop it! Cut it out!” The words bounced around the room, crashing against objects like a bird trapped indoors, madly seeking escape. Everything, all the feelings I’d been tucking in silent corners, rushed to the surface. I wanted to hurt someone, anyone—Barbie, my father, my mother. “You’re right, Barbie. They
are
your kids.
You’re
their
mother
. Why don’t you try taking care of them for a change? Why don’t you get out of bed and stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop running off with Fawn and guzzling mixed drinks? Why don’t you stop waiting for my dad to come back and fix things? Maybe he isn’t coming—did you ever think of that?” Even as I said the words, part of me rebelled against them. Of course he would return. He had to. “Maybe you need to stop waiting and start figuring out how to take care of yourself . . . and them. You’re their
mom
. Act like it.”

“Shut up!” Barbie pushed off the sofa, backhanded the air in a quick, violent motion that caused Mark and Landon to shy away. They skittered to the end of the sofa, climbed over, and ran toward the hall. I saw Aunt Lute coming out of the darkness, pink chiffon floating like the veils of a ghost. Stopping at the edge of the light, she opened her robe and wrapped Landon inside. Mark clung to her sleeve. Through the diaphanous pink curtain, Landon’s wide, fearful eyes tracked Barbie’s flailing hand.

Jewel wailed louder, arched her body, and fell backward with a quick jerk that made me jump toward her, arms outstretched. Barbie caught the baby and wrapped her tightly, smothering the cries. “Don’t you
touch
her,” she hissed, twisting away. “You can’t take my kids. I won’t let you take my kids.”

I clenched a fist, squeezed until the fingernails bit into my skin. My mind was racing out of control, running toward something that seemed too ominous to confront, especially tonight. The truth was that no matter how much I tried to normalize our situation by making friends with the neighbors, or volunteering at the church, or taking the kids to story hour, it was all a farce. We couldn’t keep living like this. We couldn’t stay in this borrowed house, with Barbie spending her nights on Lower Greenville, and Aunt Lute wandering in the backyard, and our supply of cash dwindling.

Barbie’s eyes narrowed, and she swayed on her feet again. “You’re trying to turn them against me. You and . . . and . . . her. I won’t let anyone take them away. I know what that’s like. I know how it feels to have someone . . . to have someone take your baby and. . . .” The sentence faded without an ending. I stood silent, waiting for more, wondering at the words. I knew almost nothing about Barbie’s history. I had no means of understanding her, because she was a virtual stranger. I’d never tried to go beneath the surface. I knew my father had met her at a charity fashion show. He was the celebrity host; she was modeling swimsuits. When he brought her home, I told him he looked like a poster boy for midlife crisis. I said I couldn’t wait to be old enough to move out, and as soon as I was, I’d go to a college as far away as possible. It never occurred to me to wonder if that hurt him, to wonder if he was lonely and if Barbie filled some need in him. I never cared whether the two of them loved each other, or why Barbie was willing to endure endless medical procedures and daily hormone shots to fill the house with kids. I thought it was idiotic, and I couldn’t wait to leave it all behind.

Now, for just a moment, I saw something real in her. Desperation, need, pain, fear. Then anger, like clouds rushing over, covering everything.

“Don’t you
ever
take them anywhere again.”

“If you’re here to watch them, I won’t.” My wild rush of emotions ebbed away, draining out to sea like a high tide, depositing me against the doorframe, clinging to Daniel, feeling beaten. A part of me wanted gratitude for having stepped up to the plate these past weeks. A part of me felt I deserved it. “But I’m not going to sit here and be your babysitter while you go out and party with Fawn, and come home wasted, and sleep it off.”

“Fawn’s the only friend I have left.” Barbie’s cheeks flamed red. Tiny beads of saliva dotted her lips and chin, and she swiped the back of a hand clumsily across her mouth, wiping them away, drawing leftover lipstick sideways onto her cheek.

“Fawn isn’t your friend. If Fawn were your friend, she’d care whether you were looking after the kids. She’d care whether you were looking after yourself. She wouldn’t be taking you out spending money when the bank account is low enough already. If Fawn were your friend, she’d be helping instead of hurting.”

Barbie bounced the baby, awkwardly trying to quiet her. “You think you’re right about everything. You think you’re so smart. He left because of you. He left because he couldn’t stand to tell you he’d lost the money, and he couldn’t pay for that stupid college, and the stupid car you begged for, and your clothes, and all the things you want. You think that piddly little golf scholarship was going to pay for all that? Huh? Not even close. He left because
you
wanted too much. He left because of
you
.”

I stepped back, momentarily stunned, then slowly feeling the sting of reality. Barbie was right, and not just about herself; she was right about me. My life had been all about the labels, all about having the right things and being seen in the right places. I never considered what my father did to acquire the money that provided the comforts. I just took them for granted. After he married Barbie, I’d made it clear that he couldn’t possibly do enough to make it up to me. I’d taken all the gifts meant to buy my love, and cut the strings with such determination that, when life crashed down around us, there were no family ties left to bind.

The lines in the book draw a picture. Not a picture with colors and animals and houses you can see, but if someone should tell you what the line picture means, and you tuck the line picture into your memory, then when you see the line picture again, your mind will say,
This is a tree
, and you can see the tree behind your eyes. Mrs. Kaye has given me the book from the reading class, and in it, I can see
cat
, and
tree
, and
road
, and
sky
, and
bird
, and many others. I look at the lines, with their strange curves and crosses, and they are not only lines. They are pictures.

Some of them I knew. I understand this now. I have learned many of these lines all my life, but I did not know this.
Book
, I have seen on the sign at the Book Basket,
stop
,
speed
,
hospital
,
police
,
cleaners
,
restaurant
,
pharmacy
,
gas.
You will know these, because you have seen them many times. People have said them to you and pointed at them as long as you can remember. Your mind understands the line pictures, but you do not know this until someone shows you. I can read, after all, and I am learning more. I am learning faster than Elsie. For Elsie, the letters move on the page when she looks at them.
The letters won’t be still
, she says, and she struggles with the words over and over and over again. Sometimes I wish to reach out and turn the page, and say,
Move along. I need to see more!

But I must stand and wait and be silent. Mrs. Kaye smiles at me and tells me she would teach me, if I like. She points to an empty table, but to be in the class, I must write my name on the paper, the
form
, they call it. I am afraid of the paper. “No,” I say, “I can watch here.”

The mother of Root and Berry is patient. She smiles at Elsie even when the word pictures move around. “All right, let’s decode it,” she says. “Dol-lar. Dollar. It’s not such a long word when you break it down.”

Elsie does not smile in return. Elsie is an unhappy woman. This you can see in her face. Long lines travel downward from her mouth, and deep creases are like roads on her forehead, reaching to the places she has been. She has frowned for many, many years.