Coming Home (16 page)

Chapter Eighteen

THE ALARM RANG. Jessie turned to it, confused. Why would it ring in the middle of the night? She reached over and turned off the alarm, then sat straight up in a panic, searching the room. The room had changed again. The walls were eggshell white. Gone was Winnie the Pooh. Her legs reached the end of the bed.

She leaned back, closing the tears behind her eyes.
Hold on,
she thought as the sinking realization continued to set in. She tried replaying the dream over and over again in her mind, as if by sheer will she might slip back into it. Eventually she fell into a dreamless sleep and awakened to the ringing of her cell phone. Fumbling for it, she inadvertently pushed it off the nightstand. It clunked to the floor but continued ringing. Leaning over the bed, she grabbed it, nearly falling out of bed. Half asleep, she pulled herself back up and answered it.

It was Laura. “Wake up, sleepyhead. Did you forget? We’re going to the fair! You’re dressed, right?”

Jessie covered her eyes with her arm.

“Jessie?” Laura’s voice thinned. “Are you there?”

“I’ll be right there, sweetie.”

Jessie dressed quickly and rushed down the hall to the stairway. She reached the bottom of the stairs and realized she’d left her cell phone on her nightstand. Dashing back up, she was startled by the sight of a woman standing in the hall in front of Bill’s room. The woman waved. “Jessie?”

She looked to be in her midforties and she was wearing jeans and a tan sweatshirt, quite a change from the maid uniform Jessie remembered. “Maria? Is that you?”

Maria’s eyes danced. “Howdy, stranger!”

They hugged tightly, and Jessie recognized the odors of PineSol and lemon.

“You haven’t changed, Maria.”

“Well,
you
have!” Maria laughed, making a measuring gesture in front of her own waist. “You were this high last time I saw you.”

Jessie asked about her family, and they chatted for a bit. Jessie tried to pretend she wasn’t in a rush as Maria recounted the various escapades of her children, fully grown now, and her husband’s home remodeling business. When their catching-up reached a lull, Jessie pointed toward her mother’s room. “Does it look the same?”

Maria shrugged. “I really don’t know what’s in there, since I don’t clean it anymore.” She thumbed through her arsenal of keys and they rattled in her hands. “I don’t even have the key anymore. I suppose Bill dusts it now.”

Maria glanced toward Bill’s room. “Well, I guess I’d better get back to work. We had some great talks, didn’t we?”

Jessie nodded, but she was distracted by the information. Had her mother’s room changed? Why was it locked? “Let’s talk some more later, okay?” Maria said, moving down the hall, waving goodbye.

After grabbing her phone, Jessie hurried down to the kitchen to say good-bye. Her grandmother wasn’t there, but Bill’s eyes lit up.

“You’re kinda late, ain’tcha?”

Jessie made a grimace.

“Taking the Ford?”

“Oh … well …”

Bill was already up, grabbing the key from the cabinet. “I insist. A dashing young lady such as yourself needs to travel in
style
.”

Jessie pushed the speed limit, reaching Palmer Lake in record time. She parked the car at Betty’s house, and Betty met her at the door. “Andy’s already here,” she said, looking apologetic. “The leak in the sink came back.”

Jessie offered to get Laura while Andy finished working on the plumbing, but Betty hesitated. “Be careful. Michelle’s a tough cookie, Jessica.”

“Who?”

“Laura’s mother,” Betty said. “I’ll let her know you’re coming.”

How bad can she be?
Jessie thought on the drive over. Laura was waiting on the front steps when Jessie pulled up. She popped to her feet like a jack-in-the-box, looking like she was fit to be tied, making a frantic
come here
motion with her hands.

“Mom’s inside. She wants to meet you.”

Laura held the door open for Jessie. She wrinkled her nose, whispering, “Everyone tells me our house smells like a dog, but I can’t smell it anymore.”

Laura wasn’t kidding. It didn’t just smell like a dog, but instead what a dog shouldn’t be doing indoors. This definitely wasn’t Mrs. McCormick’s house anymore. The carpet was stained, the ceiling was cracking, the walls were chipped and flaking, the entire living room was covered in clutter, and the haze of nicotine lingered.

Laura led Jessie to the kitchen toward the back of the house. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, cigarette in one hand, coffee cup in the other. She was wearing tight-fitting cut-offs and an unbuttoned flannel shirt over a white T-shirt.

She put the cup down. “About time,” she said and then turned to her daughter. “Laura, me ’n Jessie here, we’re gonna have an adult convo, okay?”

Laura looked back at Jessie with a worried look. Jessie smiled, trying to reassure her, but she was starting to wonder what she’d gotten herself into. Michelle looked more than a little rough around the edges, with dark circles around her bloodshot eyes and a pasty complexion.

Laura scampered off to the living room, and Michelle took another puff, narrowing her eyes at Jessie. She twisted her mouth to blow smoke in the opposite direction without removing her gaze. She smiled, but her eyes were fierce and taunting, and she wasted no time. “I don’t know what your angle is, but I work awfully hard to put bread on this table, more’n twelve hours a day sometimes, and a lot of people come around here making me look bad, like that ice-cream-scooper lady.”

Surely Jessie had missed something. “Michelle, I don’t mean any harm… .” The woman’s name felt strange on her lips. Other Michelles she’d known were very proper highbrow types. “I don’t … have an agenda here.”

Michelle raised her eyebrows. “Well, Jessie, everyone has an
agenda
.” She said the word with slow deliberation, implying that Jessie had been trying to embarrass her.

Jessie inhaled deeply.

“I know all about you, Jessica Lehman,” Michelle said with that same slow, almost mocking deliberation. “I know
all
about your family. I know
all
about your father. And about your mother.” She took another puff, blowing it sideways, her eyes fixed upon Jessie. “You and I ain’t so different. Your clothes are a little newer, maybe… .” She gave Jessie an up-and-down scrutiny that bordered on lewd, then another cynical smile, as though Jessie had been weighed and found wanting.

“We need to get going … if we’re going,” Jessie said softly.

“Got a plane to catch?”

It was then that Jessie noticed a small line of something white on the table. She put two and two together but tried to keep her newfound awareness as surreptitious as possible.
Salt?
she considered.
Maybe sugar? You bet. All in a nice little row… .

“I’m doing some baking.” Michelle giggled a husky, obnoxiously taunting giggle, and it was suddenly obvious to Jessie. Based upon Michelle’s strange behavior, caffeine and nicotine weren’t the only foreign substances in Michelle’s bloodstream. The brazen way she flaunted her illicit lifestyle was rather astonishing. Perhaps she was too stoned to comprehend her own behavior.
Maybe she wants to be caught,
Jessie thought.
Maybe she wants Laura to be taken away from her… .

“We need to go… .”

“What’s your rush?” Michelle asked, crushing her cigarette in one of the dozen or so foil ashtrays lying around the kitchen. She called for her daughter, and Laura came running to the kitchen doorway. “If you run away again, I’ll sic Molly on ya.”

Laura frowned, setting her chin into a pout. She glanced at Jessie and scampered off in the direction of the front door. Jessie heard the front screen door bang. Michelle chuckled.

“Nice meeting you,” Jessie lied. Michelle merely gestured with her cigarette. Jessie pushed her way out the front door. Laura was already in the car, buckled in. Jessie got into the driver’s seat and started down the block. At the end of the street, Jessie stepped on the brake and turned to Laura. “You okay?”

Laura shrugged. “Mom’s a kick, huh?”

Yeah,
Jessie thought, slipping the car back into gear.

They drove straight to Mrs. Robinette’s house and parked in the gravel driveway.

Andy and Betty were sitting on the porch. Apparently the sink leak hadn’t been too serious.

“Wait here, sweetie,” Jessie said to Laura. She slammed the door.

“It’s fair time,” Andy called, but his smile diminished as Jessie approached them.

“We need to call the police,” Jessie said to Betty.

Betty didn’t even flinch. Her face settled into a grimace. “I take it you met Michelle?”

“The woman’s stoned out of her mind.” Betty shook her head sadly.

Jessie was confused. “But I saw her—”

“Jessie, I’m glad you talked to me first.”

“Betty—”

“It’s a game,” Mrs. Robinette interrupted. “Do you think she cares about meeting her daughter’s adult friends?”

“Huh?”

Betty shook her head again. “Michelle
was
an addict. Or she may still be. Coke. Crack. You name it. Guess who turned her in two years ago.”

“You?”

“Yep. The court sent Laura to live with Michelle’s crackhead sister. Six months later, Michelle comes home and Laura is back with her mother. Claims to be off the coke, but she’s furious at this community. Furious with me. Why didn’t she just move away? I don’t know. Anyway, she starts playing games with us. Makes it look like she’s still taking the stuff. I can’t tell you how many times somebody has snitched on that woman. They search the house and she just laughs. They put her through a drug test. Three times, Jessie. They never find anything. The last time we called, the police refused to investigate.”

Jessie was chagrined.

“Yep,” Betty continued. “We fell right into it. We’ve cried wolf too many times. In fact, that
might
have been real coke you saw, but there’s no way the authorities would respond. The police think we have it in for her. And they’re right. We’re doing everything we can, but nothing works. She’s an unfit mother, but she’s smart enough to play the system.”

“So what do we do?” Jessie asked. “Surely there’s something …”

“We pray, Jessie.”