Sound Of Gravel, The (19 page)

The phone rang that night and Matt got to it first. I heard Mom’s voice on the other end saying they were in Oklahoma and didn’t know when they’d be home. Just as I asked Matt to give me the receiver, the line went dead. “Mom didn’t have any more change,” he explained, his voice so nonchalant I almost burst into tears. I couldn’t cry in front of the others, though. It didn’t seem right. I just stared at the TV until the feeling passed.

21

A few days later, on a muggy afternoon, we heard a knock at the door. By then, my brothers and I had spent hours and hours in front of the TV, having only taken brief breaks to sleep, or to retreat to our bedrooms or outside when Luke became so overwrought by a program that his jumping shook the entire trailer to its core. Matt and I were slouched on the orange couch, Aaron in the brown reclining chair, and Luke was lying in his usual spot on the floor. We were all watching
General Hospital,
one of our favorite shows, which, even though Mom would probably have preferred we not absorb the sinful deeds of Luke and Laura, Mom never banned because she loved it as much as we did.

When we heard the rapping sound at the front door, we all jumped. Our eyes darted from the TV to the door, and then to each other. We weren’t expecting anyone, and visitors to the trailer were rare even when Mom was home. The knock came a second time, and Matt slowly rose from the couch and opened the door. The living room flooded with light and heat. A man and a woman, both middle-aged, both dark haired, and both well dressed stood on the threshold—he in a shirt and tie, she in a gray suit with stockings and high heels. Each carried brown leather briefcases, and for a moment I thought they might be Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Church frequently sent missionaries into our trailer park on Sundays in search of converts. But it wasn’t Sunday.

This will not end well,
I thought to myself as I turned off the TV, my eyes fixed on the man and the woman. I watched as the two of them scanned the room. Their eyes stopped at the sink piled high with dirty dishes and the old cereal bowls sitting on top of the kitchen table, its surface sticky with spilled milk.

The woman looked at the man with a stunned expression. Then she quickly recovered, forced a smile onto her face, and turned to Matt. “Is your mom at home?” she asked through lips covered in a lavender lipstick and teeth straight and white.

“Um, no, my mom’s not here right now, but she’s comin’ back anytime.”

I was impressed by Matt’s smooth delivery of the lie. The man asked, as sweetly as the woman, if they might come in. Matt hesitated a moment, then stepped aside and opened the door wide for the pair, who now introduced themselves as representatives of the Department of Social Services.

“One of your neighbors telephoned our agency and said you kids have been alone for a few days,” said the woman. “We’re just checking in to make sure that isn’t true.”

None of us said a word, and the couple walked farther into the living room, suddenly fragrant with the clean smell of the woman’s perfume. I liked the way she combed her hair: short, feathered back, and held meticulously in place with hair spray.

“Where is your mother?” the woman asked.

“Oklahoma City,” Matt replied.

“How long has she been gone?” the man asked.

“A few days.”

“Have you had a babysitter?”

Matt shook his head.

“Have any grown-ups checked up on you while your mother has been gone?”

Matt looked at the two of them a moment. “No.”

The man eyed the woman, then asked, “Do you mind if we look around?”

“Sure,” Matt replied, and soon the pair were in the kitchen, swinging open every one of the cupboard doors and poking their noses in the fridge. Noticing the big, green bowl full of runny batter—my latest failed attempt at pancake making—they asked what we’d been eating. Matt answered truthfully: cereal, popcorn, and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

The man tried to make his way to the hallway and bedrooms, but Luke was in the way. “You need to get up, buddy,” Matt said, whispering into his brother’s ear. “Sit on the couch and get out of the way, ’kay?” Luke reacted as if he’d had water poured on his head during a dream. He scrambled to his feet, his greasy hair matted where he’d been lying on it.

I heard the man’s footsteps as he walked down the hall but didn’t follow him. I imagined the expression on his face as he discovered my bedroom floor littered with dirty clothes, and I felt a deep sense of shame. Matt was now biting his fingernails and staring at the floor. The same question seemed to run through both our minds—what do we say or not say? We knew enough not to mention anything about polygamy or Mom’s being married to Lane, but that was the extent of our coaching in this regard.

“This place is a mess,” the man said, startling us as he stepped in from the hallway, his expression almost as fearful as ours, his hands stuffed into his pockets as if he needed to avoid contamination. He reached up to scratch the top of his head and then quickly pocketed his hand again. “There’s an open flame under the hot-water heater in the back bedroom. There are plastic bags and clothes sitting all around it. It’s a miracle it hasn’t started a fire.” He took in a deep breath and shook his head at the woman. “We have to get ahold of the mother. And there’s no way we can leave them alone.”

The woman told us all to sit down. “We need to decide what to do,” she said with a serious glance in our direction. Matt and I sat down next to Luke on the couch, our shoulders hunched forward and our elbows on our knees. The woman shooed Aaron off a chair and motioned for him to join us. The man pulled in a chair from the kitchen, wiped crumbs from the seat, shook his head, and sat down.

The woman popped the gold latches on her briefcase and took out a pen and pad. “Do you kids have a phone number where we can reach your mother?” Her voice sounded kindly, like that of the Wicked Witch just before luring Dorothy into a trap.

“No, we don’t,” Matt finally answered. “We’re not sure exactly where she is right now. She called us from a pay phone … somewhere.”

“How long has your mom been gone?” asked the two of them in unison.

“It’s been maybe two days,” Matt replied. The woman began scribbling on her pad. “Not that long.”

“Has anyone else been here to watch over you or cook for you?”

“No, but we’ve had something to eat every day.” Matt sounded proud, as though he were solely responsible for this achievement. But the woman just put down her pen and looked at the man.

“Do you know when your mom will be home?” asked the man. “We can’t leave you here without an adult. You might have to come with us.”

The second he said that, I began to shiver; my Wicked Witch suspicions were right. I expected to feel the Kansas wind stir and to see her face turn green. The two adults seemed to detect my fear, and I could feel them struggling to maintain a gentle demeanor.

“Surely you must know a grown-up who lives close by,” the woman said, “someone who can take care of you till your mom gets home.”

There was a long pause. I heard a car start outside, its motor purring, and felt Aaron fidgeting beside me.

“We do,” said Matt. I gave him a puzzled look. “Mom’s friend, Gary,” he said to me, emphasizing
friend
. We couldn’t say he was Lane’s brother. That might lead them to ask about Lane. “He has a little grocery store.”

After a few minutes of searching in the kitchen, the man found our phone book, and Gary’s name inside it. He picked up the receiver, stared at it in hesitation, then dialed the number.

No answer. Matt’s face turned red with frustration and fear. The man dialed the number a second time. Nothing. “I think you’re going to have to come with us,” he said to Matt, then turned to the rest of us. “You kids go ahead and get some clothes for a few days. We’ll try calling your mom’s friend one more time before we leave.”

Matt and Luke left for their room and Aaron and I for ours. Just as I’d feared, the floor was littered with clothes, and I quickly sorted through them, separating the lightly dirty from the filthy. In the closet, a plastic garbage bag filled with clothes was indeed sitting next to an open flame, just as the man had said, and I yanked it out of harm’s way. After going through a few dresser drawers, I was finally able to cobble together some outfits for Aaron and me.

“Here.” I handed my brother a button-up shirt and pants. “Change your clothes.”

“No.”

I turned to look at him.

“I don’t like buttons,” he said calmly.

“That’s all we have that’s clean.”

Aaron looked at me, his arms folded defiantly across his chest. I threw both the shirt and pants at him, but he didn’t move. They fell back to the floor where I’d found them.

“Those pants have snaps on them,” he said.

That my voice rose surprised both of us. “We don’t have time to keep lookin’. Those people are ready to take us
now
!”

“I’m not wearing those clothes.” Aaron stamped his foot in the pile of clothes.

“Yes, you are, you little
shit
!” I yelled.

Aaron’s mouth fell open with shock. “I’m gonna tell Mom when she comes home you said the S-word,” he whispered.

“I don’t care what you tell her! Just change your clothes.” I noticed my brother look at me with fear for the first time in his life. I grabbed his shoulders and lowered my voice. “Look, do you get what’s happenin’ here? These people are from the government and they’re taking us away from Mom. We have to be good or they won’t bring us back.” I felt my throat harden and my eyes well up, but I knew I couldn’t cry. I picked up Aaron’s clothes and shoved them into his folded arms. “Now, put these clothes on.
Right now
.”

Afterward it would seem to me that I crossed some sort of threshold that day, that I’d been merely a sister in the morning, but by afternoon I was something else altogether. As Aaron glared at me and then slowly began to exchange his T-shirt for a button-up, all I could think about was the danger we were in. Without another word I helped him button his shirt, then I stuffed some jeans, shirts, and underwear into a brown-paper grocery bag.

We all met back in the living room, and I had the distinct feeling that the man and the woman were dreading what was about to happen as much as we were. They looked at each other forlornly, and the woman walked into the kitchen to try Gary’s phone number one last time. I looked down to see my fingers trembling, and then up again when I heard the woman speak.

“Yes, hello?”

Thank goodness. After the woman had apprised Gary of the situation, he agreed to take charge of us while Mom was gone, and a half hour or so later we heard his car pull into the trailer’s parking space. He entered without knocking. His dark brown hair had been carefully combed behind his ears. I’d never seen him wear the white, button-up shirt he had on, or those plaid pants or white leather shoes. He looked as if he’d been playing nine holes at the country club when the social workers called, but Gary didn’t play golf.

He told the social workers that he had already reached Mom by CB radio, and she was on her way home. Satisfied, the pair gave Gary their card, told him that Mom should call them right away, and left.

An awkward silence followed. Gary hardly knew us and was as uncomfortable as we were. “Let’s go to the movies,” he suggested.

We passed a few hours there, and when we walked out of the theater, it was dark outside. A full moon, golden and forbidding, was in a periwinkle sky. I stared heavenward during the drive home and then up at the ceiling for hours once I’d gone to bed. Still, I found myself comforted by the sound of Gary readjusting his body on the couch in the living room, and by Aaron’s slow breathing on the bunk below.

Eventually, I heard an engine out front. Truck doors opened and closed, a key turned in the front-door lock, and at last I could hear Mom’s and Lane’s muffled voices in the living room. I crawled out of bed, climbed down the wooden bunk, and made my way down the hall. There she was, my mother, looking more tired and pale than she had when she left, with Meri slumped over her shoulder asleep. Mom paced nervously back and forth between Lane and Gary, who sat on the couch explaining the situation.

I couldn’t help myself; I ran into the living room and threw myself at her, wrapped myself tightly around her legs, and squeezed them as much out of despair as relief. Mom patted my head with her palm and ran her fingers through my messy hair; and as she did, the worry on her face seemed to dissolve into a smile of relief. In the next moment, she leaned down, wrapped her free arm all the way around my upper back, and pulled me tightly against her. She seemed to feel as wretched as I did.

The next morning, Mom phoned the man and the woman, set up an appointment, and later that week visited their offices. When she came home, she said she had been warned by the social workers never to leave us alone again. To ensure that didn’t happen, they had placed her on probation for the next two years, during which time we would not be allowed to move out of the El Paso area and could expect unannounced visits from the department at any time.

Mom was incensed. “People in this country think they’re free, but they’re not. The government has their fingers in all our business. I just can’t believe this.”

Mom was angry, but as a result of her probation we were forced to live in one place for a longer period than we ever had before. I found a new kind of peace in being settled, in not being abruptly taken out of school or being forced to get used to new surroundings every few months. For that, I was grateful to the US government and its tyranny, even if the peace didn’t last much beyond the probation.

22

Later that week, Mom was washing dishes with her back to the TV when the evening news reported that the man known as the Mormon Manson—my uncle Ervil—had died of a heart attack in a Utah prison. Mom spun around, wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, and hurried into the living room. There, she watched with a pale, stunned look on her face as the reporter recounted Ervil’s infamous crime spree. Mom counted on her fingers the number of years that had elapsed since my dad died; it had been almost nine years since he’d been executed.