I decided to make myself scarce. There was a chance they might end up doing it, and God knew I didn’t want to be around again when
that
happened!
So I told my dad, ‘I’m off. Tell Mom!’ and was out the door like a shot. I’m versatile that way.
I heard Megan yelling ‘Daddy’ at the front door, so assumed Willis had somehow found his way home, however temporarily. What with his lady love living right across the street, it wasn’t surprising he remembered where he used to live.
I wandered aimlessly into the living room. ‘Oh, hi,’ I said casually when I saw him standing in the open doorway. ‘Either in or out,’ I said, like I would to one of the kids. ‘We’re in the middle of a drought here.’
He closed the door behind him. ‘How’re the perennials in the backyard?’ he asked.
‘Have you been sneaking over here to water them?’ I asked, heading into the kitchen.
‘No,’ he said, following me.
‘Then they’re dead, I guess,’ I said. ‘They’re not on my agenda.’
‘Excuse me,’ he said, and headed out the back door. I heard the water faucet turn on and, glancing out the window, saw him watering his precious plants. Maybe he could transplant them across the street, I thought, if Trisha got her house in the divorce. Then I thought, oh, how great it would be to have the two of them living across the street! What if she got pregnant? I sank down on a kitchen chair. I’d kill him. Then I’d kill her. Then I’d kill Tom for being such an ineffectual husband as to let her slip off with a neighbor!
Oh, yeah, I thought, everybody’s to blame except you. Ha! I’d been with Willis most of my life. I’d only had sex with that other one guy in high school, and I’m not even sure that counted. How was I supposed to go on? Would I start dating? I see all these ads on TV for dating services, where they do complete checks for compatibility and so forth. I had this sinking feeling they wouldn’t be able to find anyone compatible with me. ‘Large woman with three live-at-home children, who writes lurid romance novels and likes to catch killers on the weekends.’ No, I couldn’t see that working for me.
Willis came back in the house. ‘They’re OK,’ he said, presumably speaking of the perennials. Like I cared.
I sighed. ‘You said you wanted to talk. So sit down,’ I said, indicating the kitchen table where I was already sitting. ‘Did Megan leave?’
‘Oh, sorry, yes. She told me to tell you she was taking off.’
‘Did she say where she was going?’ I asked.
Willis shook his head. I let it slide. We sat there, each looking off into space, hands on the table top, not saying anything. Finally, Willis spoke. ‘I heard they arrested Berta Harris again.’
‘Yes. For killing her mother when she was a teenager.’
‘Did she do it?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘I have no idea,’ I said.
‘Are you going to find out?’ he asked.
Ah ha! I thought. Here it is! Trying to find out if I’m still on the case. Looking for ammunition to use against me in court!
‘Tom is looking into things. Ken and I intend to help him if he needs it.’
He nodded. After a moment he said, ‘I worry about you.’
‘Yes, that’s the impression you left me with, when you, how should I say it? Left me. I guess it’s easier to worry about me from a longer distance.’
‘I didn’t leave you. You threw me out.’
I took a deep breath. ‘I’ll admit I didn’t discuss taking Alicia in with you before I did it. That was wrong. But Bess was different – we had no other choice. And as for Alicia now, well it’s too late—’
I totally missed his signals until it was too late. I turned around to find Bess and Alicia standing at the opened back door.
MEGAN
I was right behind Bess and Alicia and heard what Mom said. I could have died of embarrassment. Alicia had lived with us for a year, and now Mom confesses she didn’t really want her? What a way for Alicia to find out! I was devastated for her. And what was that about Bess? No other choice? I thought maybe it was time to rethink my entire life.
Both my parents stood up as Alicia rushed pass them, Bess hard on her heels. I stayed back long enough to say, ‘You’re a real role model, Mom. So cool.’ I said it in my most sarcastic voice so I’m pretty sure she got the drift.
Then I slowly followed the invisible trail left by my sisters’ tears. Once upstairs, I went into Alicia’s room. She had her ugly gray duffel bag open on her bed, and was shoving her clothing into it.
‘Where you gonna go?’ I asked as I walked in.
‘I’ll be sixteen in a couple of months,’ she said, ‘and I’ll apply for emancipation.’
I was confused. ‘But you’re not black,’ I said.
Alicia actually rolled her eyes at me and I began to wonder how much of the real Alicia I’d been seeing for the past year. ‘An emancipated minor, for God’s sake! That means I can live on my own.’ She stopped for a minute and turned to face me. ‘I’m sorry, Megan. I looked it up last year when I was living with Mrs Butler. I didn’t mean to snap at you.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said graciously.
‘Anyway, I think there are rules that you have to check in with some adult, but mostly it means I can get a job, go to school, and have an apartment.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Bess and I will come with you.’
‘I’m not going anywhere and neither should Alicia,’ Bess said. ‘We need to let Mom explain herself. I know she loves me, and I’d bet my allowance she loves you too, Alicia!’
‘What about me?’ I said indignantly.
Bess snorted. ‘She has to love you – you’re her biological child.’
‘Well, she sure doesn’t show it!’ I muttered.
I looked at Willis as Megan stormed out of the room. ‘Don’t even think about leaving,’ I said. ‘You started this – you’re gonna help end it!’
Willis’s head was in his hands. ‘I know, I know,’ he said, his voice half hidden by his posture. Finally he looked up at me. ‘How do I fix it?’
I shook my head. I had no idea. How do you un-ring a bell? How do you make night day? How do you turn a frown into a smile? My only answer, clichéd as it was, was love. Lots of it, applied unsparingly.
We both went upstairs and decided the girls were all in Alicia’s room, as that was the only door closed. I knocked on it. There had been a lively conversation going on inside the room before the knock; after the knock, there was total silence.
‘Alicia?’ I called out. ‘Honey, open the door.’
No answer.
I nodded at Willis, who called out, ‘Bess, are you in there? We need to talk.’
Finally the door opened and Megan stuck her head out. ‘No one wants to speak to y’all,’ she said and slammed the door.
I knocked on it again. ‘Alicia, please open the door,’ I said. Then added, ‘Now, young lady!’
Strangely enough, that worked. Alicia was used to following orders, poor darlin’.
Alicia herself opened the door to her room. It was a small room, the smallest upstairs – my former office. Being on the north-east side of the house, it had two windows on two walls, one of which had a window seat. With the girls’ help, I’d bought material and borrowed my mother-in-law’s sewing machine to make curtains and a matching cushion cover for the window seat. We’d painted the room a dark plum, and the material was white with plum-colored flowers on it. Very pretty and muted. We bought a white comforter and plum and white throw pillows, and made some covers for pillows out of the curtain material. The room held her twin-sized bed, an old dresser we’d antiqued white, a small desk and chair, and a purplish (as close to plum as we could find) beanbag chair.
At the moment, Bess was sitting in the chair by the desk, Megan slouched in the beanbag chair, and Alicia was standing at the bed, folding clothes into her duffel bag.
I picked up the shirt she’d just put in the bag and hung it in the closet. ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ I told her.
‘I can stay at a halfway house until my sixteenth birthday,’ she said, ‘then I’ll get emancipated.’
‘That means—’ Megan started but her dad interrupted.
‘We know what it means.’ He looked at me and I sat down on the twin bed, moving the duffel bag to the floor. Willis sat on one side, and I pulled Alicia down to the other side.
‘We all need to talk,’ I said. All I got for this were two hard stares from Megan and Bess, and the back of Alicia’s head. I pulled in a large breath. This was going to take some finesse. ‘OK, look. Ten years ago we all know what happened. Bess’s birth family was killed next door. They were our best friends and we were made executors of their will, and also guardians of Bess. There was no family to take Bess, only us.’ I touched Alicia on the shoulder. ‘And there were killers after her. We did what we could to help, and eventually ended up adopting her.’ Turning Alicia around to face me, I said, ‘But you were a whole ’nother kettle of fish. I thought what was one more fourteen-year-old girl, when we already had two of ’em? I didn’t even bother to discuss it with Daddy. I just did it. And your dad comes home to another new child. I should have discussed it with him. Whether he knows it or not, I’m positive he would have said yes, but I didn’t give him that chance, Alicia. I just took it upon myself to make that decision for the entire family.’
Alicia pulled away from me and stood up. ‘An excellent reason for me to leave,’ she said.
At that moment I heard the front door open and Graham shout, ‘Hey, where is everybody?’ Also at that very moment, Alicia burst into tears and ran out of the room, with both the other girls following her.
Willis looked at me and said, ‘Well, I thought you did a good job. Although you did put it all on me.’
‘I did not! I took the entire blame!’
‘Let’s see,’ he said. ‘You’re the big-hearted mom taking in every stray around, while I’m the big fat ogre saying “no no no”! That about right?’
‘That’s not what I said!’
He stood up. ‘Oh, yeah, E.J. That’s what you said.’
He left the room and I heard as he passed Graham on the stairs.
‘Hey, Dad—’
‘Bye, son.’
‘Where are you—’
And the front door slammed behind him.
A few minutes later, Graham wandered into Alicia’s room. ‘What’s with Dad? You two at it again?’
I stood up. ‘You could say that,’ I said, heading out of the room and down the stairs.
Behind me, Graham said, ‘Is it me? Do I smell bad?’
MEGAN
I’m not a consoling type, sorry to say. But thank God Bess is. We were all crammed in the hall bath,
the
smallest bathroom in the house, thank you very much, with Alicia crying her eyes out. I’m not sure what Mom said deserved this much crying – I mean, it all seemed fairly reasonable to me, although, of course, I would never tell my mom that.
Finally, after a good five minutes of this drivel, I said, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop! You too, Bess! Listen, Alicia, you know I’m not one to take Mom’s side on a whim, but just listen a minute. What she said is something that should have been said the day they decided to be your foster parents. If my parents had any form of decent communication, it would have been said then! Think about it. A year ago, if Mom said that she was all gung-ho for it, but Dad had reservations but he got over them, you’d have been all, “I understand, Mr Pugh. And I’ll try to live up to your trust,” or some snarky crap like that. Isn’t that the truth? Don’t even consider this past year of being a family. Just think about what it was like that day.’
Alicia and Bess had both actually been listening to me. Finally, Alicia sighed real big, grabbed some toilet paper off the role, and cleaned up her face. Then she said, ‘You’re right. It’s just hearing them say that now – after a year of calling them mom and dad.’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe six months,’ I said.
Bess slugged me in the arm. ‘That’s not the point!’ she said.
Looking at Bess, Alicia asked, ‘Do you ever feel like you’re not part of the family?’
‘I used to. But only occasionally. Like when I stopped growing at five foot two and everybody else in the house towered over me. I thought, like on those kids’ shows we used to watch, which of these things does not belong?’
Alicia laughed a little. ‘Yeah. I feel that way. But it’s usually when y’all start fooling around and laughing I’ve got to admit, I don’t get your humor.’
‘Practically no one does,’ I assured her.
‘I only get it because I’ve been in this house for ten years,’ Bess said. ‘After you’ve been with us that long, you’ll get it too.’
I smiled. ‘For sure,’ I said.
The smile was gone from Alicia’s face. ‘I don’t know if I can hold out for another nine years.’
‘Just consider several of those years you’ll be off to college and then of course you’ll be a grown up and only get stuck here on holidays—’ Bess started, then she began to cry, Alicia followed, and they fell into each other’s arms, wailing away. I felt it an opportune time to leave. And I never did get a chance to discuss Mrs Mc’s affair with Bess! It didn’t seem to fit into the present situation.
TEN
A
licia agreed to stay. On Friday Ken called and asked me to drop by as we’d planned. He had managed to bail Berta out and she’d been released into his custody. He said he was taking the twins to their grandparents’ house in Codderville for the night. This would be an opportunity to talk to Berta alone. I left some money for my kids to order a pizza.
Berta opened the door when I rang the bell. It took a moment to undo all the locks and turn off the alarm system. Once I was inside she fussed for a full minute to get it back on. Then we went in the kitchen where she set out a lovely tray of vegetables and ranch dip, and some cold cuts and breads. I made myself a small sandwich and ate some veggies, trying desperately to ignore the ranch dip, and wondering if this was really the kind of meeting that required crudité.
‘Have you learnt anything more about your past?’ I asked her.
‘No, I just got here only moments before Ken took the kids to their grandparents. He said he’s got Kerry’s old high school yearbooks around somewhere. I’d look, but I don’t want to invade Ken’s space any more than I already have.’ She stopped for a moment, then looked up at me. ‘Do you think maybe I was a nice person? I mean, other than killing my mother. What I just said, which I didn’t plan on saying or anything, seems like maybe I’m a nice enough person?’