The pinging continued and she finally got up and moved to her desk, lest the noise wake up the rest of the family. She turned on her monitor and saw the IMs.
T_Tom37: ‘E, u there?’
Skywatcher75: ‘What do u want?’
T_Tom37: ‘Sorry if I scared u’
Skywatcher75: ‘U didn’t scare me – just pissed me off!’
T_Tom37: ‘Didn’t want 2 do that either’
Skywatcher75: ‘I don’t want 2 talk 2 u n-e-more, Tommy, or whatever ur name is’
T_Tom37: ‘Bessie, ur n danger’
The only danger Elizabeth felt she was in at the moment was from flying glass when she punched in her computer monitor. God, what was he up to?
T_Tom37: ‘Do u want me to prove I’m Aldon?’
Skywatcher75: ‘Yeah, u do that’
T_Tom37: ‘Our parents were Roy and Terry Lester and our older sister’s name was Monique’
Elizabeth felt her stomach turn over.
Skywatcher75: ‘U could find that out n-e-place. Big deal’
T_Tom37: ‘U have a mole on ur R hip, shaped like a star’
Elizabeth felt the bile rise. Not many people knew that. Her mom, Megan . . . Oh, yeah, and anybody in any gym class she’d ever taken! Again, big deal.
Skywatcher75: ‘So u no some-1 I took gym w/, huh?’
T_Tom37: ‘What do I have 2 do 2 prove I’m Aldon?’
Skywatcher75: ‘B dead’
Elizabeth wrote those words, then turned off the monitor and the computer at the box. No more pinging in the middle of the night, thank you very much.
BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999
The hospital administrator handed me a slip of paper with the estimated amount of the twenty per cent we would owe the hospital after the insurance paid out. It equaled to two house payments, a summer utility bill, a car note, and groceries for a month.
‘Looks like we’re releasing her tomorrow,’ the jovial, very young man said. ‘That’s good news, huh?’
I returned his beaming smile. ‘That’s wonderful news.’ I stood up and said, ‘I’ll go see Bessie now and talk to her doctors. You’ll have all this ready tomorrow when I check her out, right?’
‘No problem, Mrs Pugh,’ he said as he ushered me out of his office.
I made my way to the elevators and up to pediatrics and Bessie’s room. She was sitting up in bed and a girl in a candy striper uniform was feeding her Jell-O.
‘You are such a brave little thing,’ the girl said. ‘You’re my brave Bessie. Look at how you eat this stuff! Why, you’re the best little girl on this whole floor, you know that?’
I smiled and said, ‘Hi.’
The girl looked around and blushed. ‘Hi,’ she said.
I came into the room and kissed Bessie on the forehead. ‘Hey, Bessie, honey, how are you doing?’
She didn’t answer, she didn’t smile. What she did do was look at me. Right into my eyes. I thought my heart would break wide open. ‘You’re going home tomorrow, honey! Back to my house! Megan’s so excited. We’ll fix up the extra bed in there just for you! Like when you spend the night. How does that sound?’
She leaned forward, taking the Jell-O from the spoon in the candy striper’s hand into her mouth. She squashed it around a minute, then looked at me and nodded.
‘Can I have a hug?’ I asked. She put her little arms around my neck and squeezed. Real live communication. As she let go, I kissed her cheek. ‘I’m going to go see your doctor, then I’ll be back, OK, honey?’
She didn’t respond but went back to her Jell-O.
I found her doctor, a new one I hadn’t met. This was a beautiful young woman named Ashma Rajahri and we introduced ourselves.
‘Such a tragedy,’ she said, shaking my hand. ‘I am so sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you. I just wanted to say what a great job you’ve done with her. She looks wonderful.’
Dr Rajahri smiled. ‘Do not thank me. Thank the incredible recuperative powers of children. She is a very brave little girl.’
‘Yes she is,’ I agreed.
‘One thing you should be aware of, Mrs Pugh,’ the doctor said, leading me to a couch in an alcove where we both sat down. ‘Elizabeth is not speaking. I don’t know how long she will be thus, but as of now, she is not talking. There is nothing wrong with her physically. I had an ENT specialist check her, and there is nothing wrong. Yet, she does not speak.’
‘You can’t say how long—’
Dr Rajahri shook her beautiful head. ‘I only wish that we could. I would suggest that at your earliest convenience you seek psychiatric counseling for the child. She has been through a very traumatic experience and I can only assume this is what has made her speechless.’
I nodded my head, wondering how Megan was going to handle this – how any of us was going to handle this.
FOUR
BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, THE PRESENT
I
’ll infiltrate their little ‘family,’ as they like to call it. Charles Manson had a ‘family;’ Jim Jones had a ‘family.’ I’ll teach them what family is really all about! A lesson they’ll take to their graves.
E.J., THE PRESENT
This is the best summer I’ve had in I don’t know how long. Pre-kids, at least! I have the entire morning and part of the afternoon to work, or talk on the phone, or catch up on inappropriate TV that I’ve DVR’d, or just sit and watch my hair grow. Oh, and of course worry about Elizabeth. But I think I have everything under control in that area. Graham is right beside her the entire time she’s at camp and Gus Mayhew is there for backup.
Then the second week of camp, on a Tuesday, Elizabeth came home and said, ‘I’m going over to my friend Alicia’s this afternoon.’
‘Alicia? I don’t know her, do I?’ I was folding clothes and catching a missed episode of ‘Project Runway.’ I don’t know why I watch the show religiously – I couldn’t get my big toe in one of the outfits they’re making – but I still love it.
‘She was new at school this year,’ Elizabeth said.
I looked at my daughter and muted the TV. ‘Oh! She’s the one you wanted to go spend the afternoon with without me talking to her mother.’
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. ‘Gawd, Mom.’
I shook my head. ‘Her mother still hasn’t called,’ I said, un-muting the TV.
My daughter took the remote out of my hand and muted it. ‘Alicia’s mother is a drug addict. Alicia was taken away from her when she was ten. Alicia lives in a foster home. We won’t be going to her house, needless to say, we’ll be taking the bus to the mall in Codderville.’
I smiled at Elizabeth. ‘There!’ I said. ‘Doesn’t the truth feel better?’
She smiled. ‘Yes, it does, Mom. So I’ll be back around five—’
I shook my head and took the remote back. ‘No. You may invite Alicia to come over here. I’ll even go with you to pick her up. But . . . You. Are. Not. Taking. The. Bus. Anywhere. Do you understand?’
‘Gawd, Mom, you are such a . . .’
I waited. Finally, ‘Such a what?’
‘A pain in the ass!’ my daughter finally said.
‘Why don’t you talk to Alicia about coming over
next
week?’ I said. ‘Because you’re grounded for the rest of this week.’
‘Gawd! Mother!’ At that point she whirled around and stomped up the stairs, while I un-muted the TV to find out what Tim Gunn had to say.
At about that same time, Megan came flying down the stairs, heading for the front door. I sighed and muted the TV. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked her.
‘Out,’ she said, door opening.
‘Stop!’ I yelled.
Her entire body heaved a giant sigh as she turned and stared at me. Not a word passed her overly lipsticked lips.
‘Where are you going?’ I repeated, a phony smile on my face.
‘Out,’ she repeated.
‘Shut the door. You’re letting the air-conditioning out and the heat in!’
She shut the door, standing with one hip stuck out and her hand on the doorknob. Her shorts were too short, both top and bottom, her top showing too much cleavage and too much tummy.
In the time-honored tradition of mothers everywhere, I said, ‘You’re not going anywhere in that outfit.’ She rolled her eyes, still keeping her hand on the doorknob. Oh, Lordy, this was going to be a fun year. ‘Upstairs. Change. Then we’ll talk about where you’re going. And
if
you’re going.’
‘Gawd, Mother,’ she said, letting go of the doorknob and stomping back up the stairs.
It was heavenly quiet for almost fifteen minutes before the doorbell rang. I muted the TV, sighed my own sigh and headed for the door, almost getting knocked over as Megan jumped down the stairs to beat me. We grabbed the door at the same time. I wrestled the knob out of her hand and opened the door.
The boy standing there was a vision. Shorter than me, he wore a knit cap pulled low over his head, touching his eyebrows, with grungy-looking long brown hair falling out of it. His eyes were covered with shades, and he wore a baggy T-shirt over even baggier cut-off jeans. He wore high-top red sneakers that had seen better days and was carrying a skateboard under one arm. I caught all this in the thirty seconds the door was open before Megan slid out on the porch to join him, trying to pull the door closed behind her.
‘Megan—’ I started.
‘I won’t leave the porch without telling you,’ she said and the door closed.
She had at least changed her top to a T-shirt that covered her from neck to shorts. Unfortunately it was tight, showing off how well-endowed my fourteen-year-old daughter was. Which is, needless to say, way too well-endowed to my way of thinking.
At that point Elizabeth came down the stairs. ‘Alicia’s on her way over,’ she informed me.
‘I told you next week,’ I said, heading back into the family room. ‘What part of being grounded did you not understand?’
She made a sound of great indignation. ‘I didn’t think you were serious!’ she said, as if totally shocked.
‘When have I not been serious about grounding?’ I said. The one parenting tip I took from my own mother: stick to your guns on punishment.
‘That’s just ludicrous!’ she said.
‘Do you want to go for next week, too?’ I said, looking at her with what I hoped was a stern eye.
‘But she’s on her way over here!’ Elizabeth said.
‘Call her and tell her she can’t come.’
‘Mom, she’s a foster kid! She doesn’t have a cell phone, for God’s sake!’
I moved closer to her and glared down at her. ‘Watch your tone, young lady, or you’ll be grounded for the rest of the summer!’
Tears popped into her eyes. With Megan I couldn’t trust tears – she was way too dramatic and could conjure tears at the drop of a hat. Bessie, on the other hand, rarely cried. ‘Mom, she’s riding a bike she borrowed from someone to come over here. It’s like two miles away or more,’ she said, her voice softer now, as she tried to keep the tears from spilling.
Ah, hell, what could I do? I sighed. ‘You are in real trouble, young lady. But after Alicia leaves. Do you understand?’
Elizabeth’s shoulders slumped in relief. ‘Thank you!’ she said, and ran back upstairs.
When I was in the sixth grade, a new girl transferred to our school. Her name was Teeny, like some very large men are called Tiny. She was an Amazon by our grammar school standards. In sixth grade I had grown to the gargantuan height of five foot four inches. Before Teeny, I had been the tallest girl in my class, even taller than a good many of the boys. Teeny towered over me – and
all
the boys – and I loved her for it. For the first time that year I could stand up straight, shoulders back, as my mother dictated umpteen times a day.
I will always remember Teeny for that, and for one other rather important detail. She and my best friend Mary Beth and I were walking to the store after school one day and Teeny let slip that her older sister was going to have a baby. Mary Beth and I were very excited, talking about showers and new houses, and all the other things we knew our aunts and our mothers’ friends did when they were expecting. So I asked the question I always heard my mother ask: ‘Is it her first?’
Teeny looked at me as if I was crazy. ‘Well, yeah,’ she said. ‘She’s like fifteen, ya know.’
Well, no, we didn’t know. ‘And she’s married?’ Mary Beth asked.
Teeny sighed. ‘No, she’s not married!’
And then I asked the most important question I’d asked anyone up to that point in my life: ‘Then how’d she get pregnant?’
And Teeny told us. In detail. OK, so maybe Mary Beth and I were incredibly naïve for eleven-year-olds in the 1970s, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, when Elizabeth’s new friend Alicia walked in the front door, I could have sworn Teeny hadn’t aged – she looked that much like the girl who stole my innocence all those years before.
But where Teeny had been full of bravado, Alicia was shy, barely raising her head when she spoke to me, and then only saying, quickly and quietly, ‘Nicetomeetya.’ She had long, straight, dusty-looking brown hair hanging in wings that covered most of her face, and what hair didn’t cover, large, black-rimmed glasses did. She was dressed in a mixture of Goth and Pentecostal – no make-up that I could see, but a long-sleeved black turtleneck under a gunmetal gray jumper that hung way below her knees, black tights, and large, clunky black shoes. And she was wearing this while biking in the afternoon of a central Texas summer day. She had to be part reptile.
She and Elizabeth ran up the stairs to Elizabeth’s room, without even giving me the chance to ask her if Megan was still on the front porch with skater-boy. So I took that opportunity to open the front door and look. They were sitting on the two-seater swing on the front porch, bodies touching, hands entwined, staring into each other’s eyes. I turned around and shut the door. There are some things I just don’t want to know.
BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999
‘Lester, Roy, L-E-S-T-E-R. Lester. Yes, I’ll hold.’ I’d been on the phone for four days – OK, maybe just an hour – with the Codder County Utility Commission trying to find out about Roy’s insurance. Finally the woman came back on the line. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t give out information on Mr Lester unless he gives his permission in writing.’