These Things Hidden (9 page)

T
he newspaper doesn’t reveal many details about the robbery at the bookstore, just that Claire Kelby and her five-year-old son were there and that Claire was taken by ambulance to the hospital. After reading the article, Charm rushes over to Bookends to check on Claire and Joshua.

Through the years, Gus had heard the gossip from his friends at the fire station. They shared the news they gathered about the little boy that was left at the fire-house and in turn Gus would come home and share the tidbits with Charm, who listened greedily, hungrily. He was healthy, was adopted by a nice couple, the mother owned a bookstore, the father was a carpenter, they named him Jacob or Jeffery or Joshua.

There were only four bookstores in town and it wasn’t
difficult for Charm to find the one owned by a woman who had a husband who was a carpenter. Bookends. She liked the name. It sounded strong, sturdy, safe.

The first time Charm got the nerve up to go into Bookends, she was eighteen. She figured the store would be closed, maybe not even be there anymore. She slipped in unnoticed and went back to a spot in the self-help section. She only needed one look, she told herself, only needed to see his face, look into his eyes, then she could leave. A woman walked by a few minutes later, carrying a stack of books, a little boy toddling closely behind her. He was small and had blond hair the color of corn. She quickly dropped to a sitting position, making it even more difficult for anyone to see her among the stacks of books about how to get a lover, keep a lover and live without a lover. If she was discovered, she figured it would appear that she had settled in to look through the books that would somehow save her from herself. The squat little bulldog that roamed the store waddled up to her and she patted his head, hoping he wouldn’t give away her hiding spot. The woman passed by without a glance. But Charm saw the little boy’s face. His beautiful face that was his father’s. The same nose that turned delicately upward, the same ears that poked out a little too far from his head. His eyes were dark brown, the color of chocolate. She had found him.

Their eyes, mirrors of each other, latched on to one
another. Was there a flicker of recognition? Charm wanted to think so, wanted him to wade back through the days, months, years that they had been separated and find a memory of her. But the moment was too short.

She thought that she would be able to just walk away once she saw him. That after she saw his face and knew that he had a family that cared for and loved him, she would be able to waltz right out without looking back. She was wrong. She couldn’t just leave. Who were these people who had ended up with him? Who were the Kelbys? No, she couldn’t walk away just yet. Maybe never.

After seeing Joshua that first time in the bookstore with Claire, it took her three weeks to gather enough nerve to return. She planted herself in the self-help section because it was located in a far corner of the store behind the cash register and gave her the best spot to secretly watch the front door to see who came and went. She pretended to read through a book about moving someone’s cheese that she actually found quite good and ended up buying.

She wanted to get close enough to make sure he was okay, well taken care of. She wanted to say with a single look,
You were a boy who was well loved. You were born on a cool summer night and when I held you in my arms for the first time I wasn’t a child anymore, but a mother
—your
mother, even if it was only for a short time. You were a baby who liked
to have your bald head rubbed, loved to be sung to by a sick man and rocked to sleep by a young girl. You would cry until all the tears that could be were squeezed from your body. But then you’d look up at me like I was the only person in the world and it didn’t matter that I only got two hours of sleep the night before. The secret of you was too heavy. I wanted you to have an excruciatingly boring childhood with a mother and father.
That’s what her look would have said.

And the boy’s look would have said,
I know you. I’m not sure how, but I knew you once somewhere and that place was warm and good.

From behind a book about a man who thought his wife was a hat, Charm continued to wait. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small boy in a white T-shirt dash into the children’s section. She moved slowly to get a better look. It was him, she was sure of it. He was smiling; he looked happy. The little boy was fine.

She now knows that Claire and Jonathan are the perfect parents for him. She doesn’t seek him out to mourn over him or to reassure herself that she did the right thing. She comes, she thinks, to watch. To learn. To witness what she never had as a child, to experience what her mother could never give her. That’s what a mother should be like, she thinks as she watches Claire bend to give Joshua a hug or wipe away a tear or whisper in his ear.
I had a hand in this,
Charm tells herself. He is safe.

Now, as she steps through the front entrance of Bookends, Charm finds Virginia working at the counter. “Hi,” she says breathlessly. “I heard about the break-in last night—is everyone okay?”

“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.

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.

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.