Sweetgirl (17 page)

The foster parents were Matthew and Rebecca Farmer. Granger didn't know them personally, but had heard they were good people. That they'd been on the wait list for some time and were thrilled when the court called about Jenna.

He scratched out their names and address and I was glad to see it was on Williams Street in West Cutler. It was all oak trees and wide sidewalks over there—a nice neighborhood with a Montessori school and beautiful old homes—none of that tacky new construction like you see along the water.

Granger left for work and told me to crash out on the couch for a while if I wanted. He said I looked tired and that I should get some rest before I drove clear across the country. I told him I would, but sat at the kitchen table instead and wrote out my letter.

Granger had notebook paper and some envelopes right there
on the kitchen counter and I was resolved to tell the Farmers everything. Everything I believed they needed to know.

I refilled my coffee and I wrote. I described finding Jenna by the window and the way the snow was slanting in. I told about the pickup being buried and walking along the river with Portis. Then we'd hiked to the shanty and tried to drive out and when we couldn't Portis had died trying to save me and Jenna both.

I left out the part about Carletta in the trailer. I didn't see what good it would do anybody to know what Mama had done, so I kept my focus on Jenna and how strong she had been. How incredibly brave she was. I wrote about the papoose and the blanket and how we'd fed Jenna on formula and melted snow. I told about Shelton Potter in the trailer and how he'd done the right thing and let me take Jenna. I could not say that he was a good man, but I could say Shelton Potter was more than the bad things that he had done.

It came as a surprise to me, but it felt good to put it all down. To tell my story and see it in black and white. To see it on the page and as something outside of myself. I felt lighter for the truths I'd told, but saw no profit in revealing who I was.

I'm the one who found her, but I'm not the same person I was before. I am different now because of Jenna and Portis Dale and I believe we all tried to save each other in that storm and that mostly we did. I know Portis came to love Jenna in that short time and that he was changed by it.

I included a brief postscript that explained, among other things, that the Farmers should not try to locate me.

I will be somewhere else. And if anybody comes to you with a story that disputes the events described in this letter they are an outright liar and not to be trusted. If you need proof of my account I can tell you about the terrible rash Jenna had beneath her diaper and that she was bone skinny and in possession of two little nubs of teeth at the time of these events. I'm sure the doctors/police took pictures if you feel it necessary to validate my claims.

I sealed the letter in the envelope, then grabbed an empty grocery bag Granger had in his pantry and took everything out to the truck. Wolfdog sat up and barked and I hurried toward her. I opened the passenger door to pet her and told her everything was all right. Then I took Carletta's blanket from the glove and dropped it in the grocery bag with the letter.

Mama might have intended the blanket for Tanner, but it was Jenna who'd been swaddled in it. The blanket had helped to carry her and keep her warm in the north hills and that made it hers.

I drove down Poplar Street with Wolfdog beside me in the cab. I'd stop at Pickering's on the way out of town for my last paycheck and there would be enough for gas, and even some food if we got tired of Burger King. We were going to make it to Portland, there wasn't a doubt in my mind about that.

We took Poplar to the highway, past the cement plant and the trailer park, and then made the turn for town. We drove by the Methodist church and City Hall and I watched the sun glint off the waterfront where the waves were frozen in mid-tumble along the shore. Beyond the shore was the bay and I could see the slow
push of a freighter in the distance where the ice broke into blue water and ran clear into sky.

I turned into West Cutler, then onto Williams Street, where I slowed as I passed Jenna's new home. I think it was what they call a bungalow. One of those cute, California-looking houses, and sharply painted to boot—everything forest green and trimmed orange. I drove to the end of the block, then looped back and parked across the street.

The Farmers had their sidewalks shoveled and a trimmed hedge that lined their drive like a fence. There was a big front porch swing, bird feeders staked throughout the yard, and a brightly colored sign above the door that said
WELCOME
.

There was a red Pontiac Vibe easing slowly toward us on the street, and then the left blinker came on and it turned into the Farmers' drive. My first thought was to put the truck in gear and drive away, but I did not.

I watched Mrs. Farmer get out and I put her somewhere in her mid-thirties. She had beautiful red hair that fell down around her shoulders and wore a yellow North Face jacket and blue jeans. And when she lifted Jenna from the car seat I felt my breath catch.

Jenna called out in that sweet, high-pitched babble and Mrs. Farmer smiled as she swung her onto a hip. Mrs. Farmer reached back into the backseat for a bag of groceries and then bounded up the porch steps while I sat there watching with a cave in my chest. They both looked so happy.

I didn't know what I was going to do now, had never planned that they might be home. Wolfdog's side ballooned with easy
breaths, though, and that calmed me as I waited a few moments and then stepped out of the truck.

I held the bag against my side and jogged up the drive. I could see more groceries in the hatchback and hurried up the porch steps. My mouth had gone to cotton and my breath was quick and short in my lungs.

The front door was open and I could hear music playing softly from the back of the house, maybe from the kitchen, and when I went to set the bag down I looked through the screen door and saw Jenna on a play mat inside.

She was on her back and batting at a stuffed animal that dangled above her. She was in a small room to the side of the entry and between her and the door was a long hall that led straight to the back of the house.

I watched her and remembered the bassinet and the way she'd screamed out against the wind. I remembered carrying her through the snow and how Portis had helped me when she grew heavy. I remembered her sleeping beside me in the shanty and the way she chomped my knuckle for comfort when she'd finally been freed from Carletta. I remembered Shelton placing her in the papoose and how the snow still fell as I ran for his truck.

I watched her now, in a long-sleeve onesie with sewn feet and her black hair shooting off in all directions. She cooed as she played and when she turned toward me I swear her eyes widened into saucers and were all shot through with light. Jenna went
gheew
and parted her lips into a smile. She reached up a hand and I put my palm against the screen.

I saw light through the double-hung windows in the living
room and could make out the music from the kitchen more clearly now. I heard the sound of acoustic strumming and the clank of cans as Mrs. Farmer put up food in the pantry. I could hear the chatter of children playing in a neighboring yard and the faraway rumble of a truck on the highway.

I said, “Good-bye, Sweetgirl.”

TRAVIS MULHAUSER
is from Petoskey, Michigan. He currently lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and two children.

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Greetings from Cutler County: A Novella and Stories

Cover design by Kimberly Glyder Design

Cover photograph © Cate Davies/Trevillion Images

Title page photograph: Yankee Springs State Parks, Michigan © Dean Pennala / Shutterstock, Inc.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SWEETGIRL
. Copyright © 2016 by Travis Mulhauser. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-240082-6

EPub Edition JANUARY 2016 ISBN 9780062400840

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