The Invisibles (25 page)

T
hey pulled off again, this time at a mini-mart in Clarion, Pennsylvania, to refill on gas, drinks, and snacks. Ozzie, who had volunteered to buy the food, returned with a gigantic package of Nutter Butter cookies, four strawberry yogurts, string cheese, and six bottles of water.

“Oh my gosh, all this junk food reminds me of the Chore Chart at Turning Winds.” Grace said suddenly. “Remember all those jobs we had to do?”

“Yeah, because Elaine didn't feel like doing any of it herself.” Ozzie peeled open the package of cookies. “Fat slob. She probably sat around all day and ate potato chips while we were at school. I don't remember her picking up a broom even once when we were there.”

“She ran the place!” Monica said. “And she was the only one there half the time, remember? Everyone else worked part-time. Besides, she wasn't so bad. I remember she sat up one night with
Ella after she'd come back from visiting her dad. I don't know what happened, but the poor little thing wouldn't stop crying. Elaine stayed in her room for most the night, until she fell asleep again.”

“And I remember she crocheted a huge baby blanket for D'Shawn,” Grace piped in. “It was all these different colors. Just beautiful. It must've taken her months.”

“D'Shawn,” Ozzie murmured, looking out the window. “My God. I wonder whatever happened to her.”

“She was going to move in with the boyfriend and his mother,” Grace said. “Remember?”

“I'm sure that went over like a lead balloon,” Ozzie said. “She was constantly bribing me with her Newports to get me to do her jobs on the Chore Chart. She hated doing any kind of housework.”

“What job from the Chore Chart did you hate the most?” Monica asked. “Mine was cleaning the bathrooms.” She shuddered. “Ugh. All that hair in the drains, and the crud around the bottom of the toilet?”

“Do you mind?” Grace asked, holding up a piece of cheese. “I'm eating here.”

“Well, that was my worst,” Monica said. “What was yours?”

“Cooking dinner.” Grace's response was immediate. “I used to break out in hives when it was my day to cook. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

“You did fine!” Ozzie insisted. “We all did, considering. I don't remember very many meals I didn't eat.”

“I do!” Monica said. “And a lot of them were yours.”

“Mine?
” Ozzie looked shocked. “What're you talking about? I
was a great cook! I'm still a great cook. Maybe not as skilled as Henry yet, but close.”

“I'm with Monica,” Grace said, stifling a giggle. “You did get a little weird when it came to food combinations. Admit it.”

Ozzie put a hand on her hip. “Give me an example.”

“Scrambled eggs with cut-up Slim Jims,” Grace shot back.

“It's the same thing as sausage and eggs!”

Nora raised an eyebrow.

“Fine, gimme another one,” Ozzie demanded.

“Peanut butter toast with sliced tomato and bacon.” Monica stuck a finger in her mouth. “Blech!”

“My BPTs?” Ozzie looked hurt. “You didn't like them at all?”

“Horrifying,” Monica said, shaking her head. “Nightmare-inducing.”

“Peanut butter and tomato do not go together,” Grace added. “Under any circumstances. Ever.”

“What about you, Norster?” Ozzie looked pleadingly at her. “You liked my BPTs, didn't you?”

“I don't remember the BPTs,” Nora said, spooning the last of her yogurt. “But I do remember the time you made something called Popped Cereal.”

“Oh my God, Popped Cereal!” Monica and Grace began to laugh wildly. “Popcorn and milk! Ozzie, you were nuts! How did Elaine ever let you get away with that one?”

“Oh, I told her it went way back.” Ozzie was finding it hard not to smile, too. “Which it did. Growing up, those were the only two edible things in our house half the time. Elaine was all tickled, though. She thought I was trying to share a piece of the old family heritage.”

Their laughter filled the car, and Nora thought as they sped along that it was still one of her favorite sounds in the world.

I
still have no idea if my parents are even alive, but has anyone else been in touch with theirs?” Ozzie asked as the car raced on. “Any phone calls maybe, or sudden encounters?”

“My father called me once at Liam's place.” Monica's voice was tentative, almost fearful. “I almost fell over when some guy told me I had a collect call from the Richmond State Prison and asked if I would accept charges. I have no idea how he even found me.”

“Wow,” said Ozzie. “What'd you do?”

“I hung up,” Monica answered. “I said no, that I wouldn't accept the charges, and I hung up.”

Ozzie nodded. “What about you, Grace? You ever hear anything again from your mother?”

“I saw her once.”

“Your
mother?
” Ozzie sounded as flabbergasted as Nora felt. “You did? My God, after all that time! Where?”

“I'm still in touch with my little brother,” Grace said. “You remember me telling you about Sam? He lives out in Arizona, right near the border.” She smiled. “He's married now, has three kids, and owns his own construction company. He's doing so well. Anyway, he called and told me that she was in some asylum out there, receiving electroshock therapy.”

Ozzie whistled through her teeth.

“Sam said he thought the shock treatments were working, but that she kept asking for me. Over and over and over again. He said she just kept repeating my name, and nothing else.” Grace stared into the horizon at something and then refocused. “Anyway,
he begged me to come see her and I went. More for Sam, I think, than for her. I flew out there, it must be two years ago now, and I met Sam, and we went together to go see her.” She pressed a finger against the bottom of her throat and left it there, but her eyes were blinking rapidly, as if she were trying to dislodge a wayward thought inside her head. “It's funny, the expectations you carry around when it comes to certain people, isn't it? I hadn't seen my mother in almost thirteen years by then, but for some reason I was still holding on to the same ridiculous reunion scenario I'd had when I was a teenager. You know, her freezing for a split second when she saw me, eyes filling with tears. And then rushing over, screaming my name, and throwing her arms around me.”

“She didn't?” Ozzie looked perplexed.

“She refused to believe it was really me,” Grace said. “She just kept saying, ‘You're not my Grace. You don't even look like Grace. Grace is much shorter than you. And skinnier.'” Grace brushed the top of her arm with her fingertips. “She even pinched me, like she was trying to make sure I was an actual person.”

“Why?” Monica sounded pained.

“Sam said she was probably waiting for that sixteen-year-old girl she'd left behind to walk into her room.” Grace shrugged. “Who knows what shape her brain was in, after all those years? In and out of treatment. On and off drugs. Maybe she was just stuck back there, you know? Back when I was younger.”

“Oh, doll,” Ozzie said. “How awful.”

“In a way it was good for me to see,” Grace said. “It made me realize how sick she was, how sick she'd always been. I think it
even helped me forgive her for everything she put Sam and me through.”

Outside, the sky looked endless, a pale blue color shot through with clouds. Nora couldn't help but wonder if it had been Grace's meeting with her mother that had triggered her last suicide attempt. Grace blamed it on the pregnancy, but what had she really thought, having her mother, who had abandoned her so many years ago, deny her existence yet again? What did something like that do to an already fractured mind?

“What about you, Nora?” Ozzie asked. “You ever hear anything from your mother?”

Nora thought back to the letter she'd received twelve years ago. It had been from Mama, postmarked from some seaside town in Maine and mailed to Turning Winds, which in turn had forwarded it to her at the library. The letter had been long and sloppy and rambling, but the gist of it was that Daddy Ray had died and Mama was all alone, living in a little house by the sea. She hadn't asked Nora directly to come and visit, but Nora could feel the request implied there between the lines. She'd crumpled up the paper after reading it and thrown it away. Later, just before she locked up the library for the night, she'd gone back over to the trash can and fished it back out again. It was still in her dresser drawer, hidden behind her old running socks.

“I got a letter once,” she said. “She's somewhere up north.”

“What'd the letter say?” Monica asked.

“Nothing much. She moved to Maine after her husband died. She wanted me to come visit.”

Silence.

“What was her husband's name?” Grace asked. “I don't think I've ever heard you say a word about him.”

“George,” Nora said. “But I had to call him Daddy Ray.”

“Why Daddy Ray?”

“That was his last name. It's what he wanted to be called.”

“You never said much about him,” Ozzie said. “You know, back then.”

“There wasn't much to tell.”

“Did you go to Maine?” Ozzie asked.

Nora shook her head. “I'll never go. I have nothing to say to her.” She hadn't realized she had even felt such a thing until it came out of her mouth.

Ozzie nodded. “That's kind of how I feel now, too. I used to think that I'd go back and rage and scream at my mother. Maybe even throw something at her. But what would that do?”

“It might make you feel better,” Monica offered.

“I don't think so. Or maybe it would, but just for a few minutes. And then afterward, I think I would feel even worse.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be better than her,” Ozzie said. “My mother's way of handling things and dealing with people was to scream and yell and then beat them to a pulp if she could. I know I'm in a relationship right now that says otherwise, but I don't want to scream and yell at anyone anymore. Not even her. I want to figure out another way of communicating. And if I ever go back there and have it out with her, I want it to be done in a decent, respectful way. I want her fucking jaw to drop open, listening to me talk. I want her to see that she spent her life stepping
on me and that I got up anyway, and walked away from it with my head held high.”

Not me,
Nora thought.

Not ever.

Ozzie's plans were respectable, even admirable, but Nora knew that if she arrived at her last day on Earth without laying eyes on Mama again, she would be just fine.

T
hey had driven a few more hours when Ozzie suddenly pulled off at an exit that read Stroudsburg, and said that if she couldn't find herself a bathroom, she was going to ruin the front seat of Liam's beautiful car. The sun was long gone, and the sky was dark. The clock on the dashboard read 9:57 p.m.

“Oh, thank God,” Monica said. “I didn't want to ask again.”

Ozzie rolled her eyes and pulled the car into a rutted parking lot. She parked in front of a small store with a dirty red and white awning over the front door. The inside was lit with a bright, almost garish sort of light, and Nora could make out a tall figure standing behind a counter. The scrawled missive
WE SELL BEER AND ICE CREAM
was taped in one of the windows, and another sign, scratched out in the same cryptic handwriting, was tacked to the front door:
RESTROOMS IN BACK
.

“Ewww.” Monica sat forward on the seat, perusing the building with a worried expression. “Nothing in that place is going to be clean
or
have a single room. Can't we go somewhere else?”

“Oh, for the love of Pete.” Ozzie had already opened her door
and was stretching her arms and legs outside the car. Grace and Nora followed. “We're the only other people around. And if you're worried about germs, just put some toilet paper down on the seat. Or squat above it. It's not a big deal.”

But Monica held back, her fingers gripping the front of the dashboard. “I don't know if that'll be enough. You can pick up anything on a dirty toilet seat these days. Even STDs.”

“Well, we can go somewhere else,” Grace said. “But the sign back there said the next restroom isn't for another thirty-four miles. Do you think you can wait that long?”

Monica let out a small whimper.

“I'll go first,” Ozzie said, leaning in Monica's window. “Okay? I'll go first and then wipe everything down, and then you can go. All right?”

Monica dug inside her purse. “Use this,” she said, handing Ozzie a plastic bottle of lime-coconut-scented hand sanitizer. “For when you wipe down the seat.”

Ozzie studied the plastic bottle and then raised her eyebrows as Monica got out of the car. “Okay,” she said. “Whatever floats your boat.”

Nora moved quickly inside the dirty restroom after Monica and Grace were finished, being careful not to touch anything she didn't have to.

“Where's Ozzie?” Monica asked as she emerged back outside.

“Probably getting something to eat,” Grace said.

“Inside?” Monica looked horrified as she glanced at the store again. “She won't find anything edible in there.”

“Let's wait in the car,” Nora suggested. “She'll be out in a minute.”

Thirty seconds later, Ozzie reemerged, not from inside the building, but from the right-hand side of it. She walked toward them with long, quick steps, her eyes riveted on something inside her cupped hands.

Monica rose up a little on the seat, staring through the windshield. “What happened? What's she holding?”

Ozzie trotted up to the car and motioned for Monica to roll down her window. Monica looked at her fearfully and then lowered the glass pane.

“Look what I just found,” Ozzie said, opening her hands.

Monica screamed and drew back, nearly pinning Grace against the side of the door. Her feet scrabbled on the seat in front of her, and her arms flailed helplessly on both sides.

“What?” Grace yelled. “What is it?”

“Oh my God, it's a rat or something!” Monica shrieked. “Get it away, Ozzie! Get it out of here!”

Nora leaned over the backseat and stared into the well of Ozzie's hands. Inside was the tiniest creature she had ever seen; no bigger than a dinner roll and covered with soft brown fuzz. It had ears, but just barely, and its tiny slits for eyes were squeezed shut.

“It's not a
rat,
” Ozzie said. “It's a baby rabbit.” She lifted her hands up, turning the small creature to the right and then to the left. “I can't believe none of you noticed it. It was just a little ways from the bathroom.” She nodded toward the animal. “Look at the little white blaze on its forehead. That means it's still too young to survive without its mother. It must've fallen out of the nest somehow and then crawled toward the bathroom.”

“Well, put it back!” Monica was still clutching at Grace behind
her. “Please, Ozzie. It's probably carrying all kinds of diseases. Go put it back.”

“Oh, I
will.
” Ozzie made no effort to hide her annoyance. “There's a field right behind the store, which is where the mother probably is with the rest of the litter. I just wanted you guys to see it first. Have you ever seen a wild rabbit? They're a lot different than the domestic ones you can raise at home.”

“No, I've never seen one.” Monica's voice was a whimper. “And thank you for thinking of us, but you can go return it to the field where it belongs.”

Ozzie rolled her eyes. “It's a
rabbit,
Mons, not a cobra. Relax.”

“I'm relaxed.” Monica nodded her head. “Go ahead now. The field's right behind you.”

Nora was still staring at the tiny animal. Its nose had begun wiggling ever so slightly, as if just catching wind of her scent, and the tip of its right ear was bent forward, as if it had been creased somehow. She opened the door on her side of the car. “I'll go with you,” she said as Ozzie turned back around.

“Me, too.” Grace got out of the front of the car.

“Wait, you guys are
leaving
me?” Monica leaned halfway out of the window, a horrified look on her face. “All alone?”

“Get out of the car and come with us!” Ozzie called, not turning around.

Nora trotted back to the car and leaned in Monica's window. “Come on,” she said. “It'll be like an adventure.”

“I don't
like
adventures,” Monica whimpered as she stepped out of the car. “Especially when they involve wild animals. My idea of an adventure is looking at
pictures
of animals. Preferably on the wall of a spa.”

They followed Grace and Ozzie toward the back of the building, stopping as they rounded the corner.

“Good Lord,” Monica said. “It's like
Little House on the Prairie
out here.”

Nora didn't disagree. Even in the dark she could make out the stretch of field, full of waist-high brown and green grass and dotted with black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne's lace. Not a building was in sight. Just grass and flowers and more grass and flowers. Above it a star-spangled sky loomed, wide and endless as the ocean.

“Shhh!” Ozzie said, looking at Monica. “You have to be real quiet or we won't be able to find the mother.”

“You want to
find
the mother?” Monica's voice went up a notch.

“Monica.” Ozzie turned around, her steepled fingers parted at the top. “We have to find the mother. That's the only chance it'll have of surviving.”

Monica gripped Nora's arm. “Okay. But what if . . . what if the mother's mean? Like what if she charges at your leg or something because you have her baby? And then she bites you?”

Ozzie bit her lip, suppressing a smile. “Really?”

Nora patted Monica's hand. “It'll be okay. Wild rabbits don't usually charge at humans.”

Monica nodded and stared out at the field. She did not look convinced.

“Why don't you and Nora go left?” Ozzie suggested. “Just walk along the perimeter of the field and look for any movement in the grass. Grace and I will go this way and do the same thing.”

“Movement?” Monica repeated. “What kind of movement?”

Nora pulled on her arm. “Come on. And don't worry; I won't let anything happen to you.”

“Fine.” Monica clutched at her hand. “But if I see anything move in that grass, I'm running like hell.”

The left side of the field was behind the store. A large metal dumpster sat at the opposite end of the building, filled to overflowing with black plastic bags. Flies swarmed over the tops of it in tight, dark clouds, and then separated again, like loose threads. A heap of smaller white bags had been thrown haphazardly around the bottom of the dumpster, and their contents—old watermelon rinds, orange peels, dirty Q-tips—spilled out from the gnawed corners.

“It smells like summer in New York back here,” Monica whimpered. “I don't like it.”

A hiccup of a movement next to one of the white garbage bags caught Nora's eye. She paused and then squinted, wondering if she had just imagined it. But there it was again, a slight kick, almost like an afterthought, from behind the garbage bag. “Stay here,” she said, holding Monica lightly around the wrist. She concentrated on keeping her voice as normal sounding as possible. “I just want to go see something.”

“What?” Monica's voice pleaded behind her. “What is it, Nora?”

Nora knew it was the mother rabbit even before she got up close. She knew it was in the very last stages of death too, in the same way she understood that the tiny balls of fur around it were the other babies, and that they were already dead. A fox, perhaps, or maybe even a cat must have stumbled across the nest and dragged it out here. Or maybe the mother rabbit had gone in
search of food and been mortally maimed before the attacker had turned its attention to the babies. Whatever the situation, they were too late. There was nothing anyone could do.

“Don't come over here,” Nora said, holding her hand out in Monica's direction. “Just stay right where you are.”

Monica stood frozen to the spot, watching as Nora grabbed an empty paper bag and laid it gently across the lifeless carcasses.

“It's the mother?” Monica whispered as Nora came back over.

Nora nodded. “And the rest of the babies.”

Monica stared at the paper bag, her stricken eyes filling with tears. “That's terrible,” she said.

“It is terrible.” Nora took Monica's hand again. “But it's life too, Monica. Come on. Let's go get Ozzie and Grace and tell them.”

M
onica put up a fight for twenty whole minutes after Ozzie announced that she was keeping the orphaned rabbit, but Ozzie didn't budge. “For Christ's sake, Mons, the poor thing's entire family has just been obliterated.” She crawled into the backseat of the car, still holding the animal in her hands. “At the very least, we can keep it safe during the remainder of the trip. Look at him! He's shaking like a leaf.”

Grace climbed into the driver's seat, but made no move to start the car. “I think he might be shaking so much because we've taken him out of his element.”

“Do you know anything about wild animals?” Ozzie's voice was dangerously close to sounding rude.

“No, but—”

“Well, I do,” Ozzie said. “We've raised two baby foxes at our house and a porcupine.”

“A porcupine!” Monica, who had crept into the front seat next to Grace, drew back in horror. “Ozzie! You cannot be serious.”

“They're adorable. You would love them. My
point
is that I know what I'm doing here. You've got to trust me.”

“Well, I may not have raised any wild animals from birth,” Grace said, “but I've read enough to know that taking them out of the nest when they're this little isn't a good thing. He's not an infant, Ozzie. I bet he has a good chance of making it if we just put him back where we found him.”

“In the nest?” Ozzie sounded incredulous. “Did you forget that his mother was torn to pieces back there? It won't take ten minutes for some fox or badger to smell this little guy and finish him off, too. If we put him back now, we're just bringing him back to die. But if we keep him, we can give him some food, keep him warm and comfortable. We can at least give him a chance.”

“To do what?” Grace's eyes flashed. “We're on our way to
Manhattan
, Ozzie. We have to go to a police station in the morning and God knows where else after that.” She reached out and put a hand over Monica's. “I don't mean to project, sweetie. We just don't know what else is going to happen yet.”

“What's your point?” Ozzie asked.

“My
point
. . .” Grace paused, rolling her eyes. “. . . is what are you going to do with the rabbit? Put him in your pocket? Dump him in a shoebox and set him outside the police station until everything's over? And then you have to take a plane home. Do you really think you can pass through security with a wild animal in your hands?”

“I don't need to take him all the way home.” Ozzie sounded less convinced. “I'll . . . I don't know, I'll find a vet somewhere. In Manhattan. There's got to be a million of them there.”

“Ozzie, come on.” Monica's pleading voice was back. “We don't have time to do that. We're barely going to get into the city as it is, and we still haven't found a hotel room!”

“I agree.” Grace set her jaw. “Now come on, Oz. You're the one who's always yelling about being realistic about everything, so let's get real here, okay? As sad as it is, we can't bring the rabbit. We just can't. It doesn't make any sense. You have to put him back.”

“I can't.” Ozzie turned away from Grace and Monica, resting her head against the side of the seat. “Besides, I've already given him a name.”

“A name?” Nora asked. “What is it?”

“Elmer,” Ozzie said.

Nora and Grace exchanged a look. “Why Elmer?” Nora asked.

“Oh, you know, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd. One just sort of segued into the other.” She shrugged. “Listen, we're not letting him out to die, okay? Please just start the car. Give me a minute, all right? I'll think of something.”

“What if it has fleas?” Monica tried as Grace started the engine. “Seriously, what if it has fleas and we get them and bring them home?” Her eyes were opened so wide that Nora could see tiny red streaks zigzagging across her pupils. “If I get fleas on top of everything else I have to deal with right now, Ozzie, I will seriously lose what's left of my mind. I'm not kidding.”