How it Ends (17 page)

I told no one because there was no one to tell.

But I dreamed about the encounter, and somehow it became a good dream where the groping softened to holding and hugging, and I woke up sick at the residual happiness and longing the physical contact had left me with. I’d felt cared for in the dream, wanted and protected, important to someone, and it left me so hungry to be touched.

There was no affection between the limited home staff and the
crowd of children, no spontaneous hugs or squeezes, no one to lean against or a hand to hold, nothing. Approval was expressed with nods and smiles, maybe a rare pat on the shoulder, and while the staff wasn’t cruel, neither were they kind. They didn’t fraternize with the children, didn’t take the little ones on their laps or listen to personal problems or breech the invisible walls between those who had families and those who didn’t.

There were too many of us, too many unwanted, unclaimed faces, some upturned and eager to please, some downturned and creased with sullen bravado, the mask of the unloved. Some kids became the mothers they didn’t have, cuddling the younger children, seeking love and acceptance in their needy embraces. Others grew hard and mean, pinching the smaller kids, pushing them around, socking them, or stealing their stuff, pleased to be dreaded by the home’s ward mothers, to be called down for a one-on-one scolding, to lose privileges and brag about it.

I fell prey to the bullies at the home, too, and over the months, the box that contained my life was slowly emptied, stolen piece by piece. My mother’s hairbrush disappeared and reappeared in someone else’s hand, her earrings clipped to someone else’s ears, the photos cut for paper dolls. The last straw came when I walked into the dorm and saw one of the big girls holding the bottle of Evening in Paris. I went blind with rage and threw myself on her, punching, kicking, and biting until the ward mother pulled us apart.

As a result, what was left of my mother’s things—the last few drops of cologne, some photos, and the few flimsy brown pieces of the dried orchid—were confiscated and locked in the home’s office along with the contents of the big envelope the state lady had taken from my box on the very first day.

The only thing I had left was the cardboard souvenir photo from Ciro’s, and no one tried to steal it once the bigger girl, sporting a black
eye, bloody nose, and fearsome bite marks on her forearms, told the other kids to steer clear of me because I was nuts.

The staff labeled me incorrigible, a rebel who insisted on clinging to the past instead of putting it behind her and moving forward.

And I was fine with that because I didn’t
want
to put my mother behind me. I didn’t
want
to forget I’d had a real home once and a life where I wasn’t an orphan and a bastard but a girl with a mother, and a father who’d died in the war.

While my heart didn’t move forward, other parts of me did, and I developed a real waist, hips, and large breasts. With those came my second period, perhaps originally delayed by shock and occurring some months after the first episode.

I’d woken up one morning feeling awful and gotten dressed only to have the ward mother take me aside on my way to breakfast and say, “There is a blood spot on the back of your skirt, Louise. You’re going to be fifteen soon, you’re a young lady now and must practice better feminine hygiene.”

“Blood?” I whispered, because I’d heard stories of course, but they had been vague references to the arrival of an Aunt Tillie, and there had been pale girls who held their stomachs and were excused from gym class, and those white Kotex dispensers in the lavatories, but none of that applied to me—

“Follow me,” the ward mother said, leading me into an empty stairwell. “I didn’t realize you missed the girls’ health film.” She cleared her throat and focused somewhere past my left ear. “Your menstrual cycle is your body’s way of preparing for a baby. The nurse will give you napkins and a belt you must wear until the flow stops. You mustn’t swim while you have your monthlies, and you must change the napkin often or you will smell unpleasant.” She glanced at the arms I had crossed protectively over my tender breasts. “You’ll be given deodorant and a razor, and this afternoon you’ll be fitted for a
brassiere. No more undershirts. It will be your responsibility to wash your brassiere in the sink nightly, along with your underpants. Young ladies must be modest, clean, and fresh at all times. Keep your fingernails trimmed and your hair combed. No one likes a dingy girl.

“Boys will be paying attention to you now, so you must be very careful not to encourage them. Always sit with your knees together and your ankles crossed. If you have any questions, you may come and see me during your free time, all right?”

No. Yes. I didn’t know. What was this heated river rising inside of me, so grateful for her instruction, for her taking the time to talk to me one-on-one and for knowing my name? Throat aching, I reached out and touched her arm. “Thank you, Mrs. Sanders.”

“You’re welcome.” The ward mother nodded, stepped back, breaking the connection, and said briskly, “I’m glad you’re finally coming around. Now please go down and see the nurse.”

And the moment, as fragile as a bath bubble, popped.

Two months later, only a week after Christmas, a doctor from a rural community upstate queried the home about fostering a neat, quiet, able-bodied girl to help around the house and keep his invalid wife company.

He arrived for an interview on New Year’s Eve, and some hours later, they sent me home with him.

I paused the CD and glanced at Gran.

Her eyes were closed, so I turned off the player, did my homework, and when Grandpa finally returned, loaded the deer food, opened the cans of cat food, and did what I was supposed to do.

It was cold and gray out, a depressing twilight, and most of the stray cats were huddled in the three-story cat condo. Normally there
would be little electric heaters or lamps glowing inside to bring heat, but I guess they couldn’t afford it anymore, because the heat wasn’t on.

When I walked into my house, fingers numb from the cold, nose running, I looked at my parents and said, “If I died tomorrow, what would you do with my stuff?”

“Garage sale,” my father sang out, but when I didn’t laugh, he glanced at my mother.

“We would keep it, of course, because you loved it and we love you,” she said, watching me.

“Good,” I said hoarsely and made it up to my room before I started crying.

Seth and I can’t mess around
at my house because my mother’s always home in the afternoon, so we usually go straight to his house after school and stay in his room until his parents get home from work. I don’t know how his classy, sophisticated-looking mom can breeze in, look at me sitting on his bed reading one of the many paperbacks I always keep in my purse and him sitting on the floor playing his guitar, and not know we were all over each other, sometimes only minutes earlier. How does she miss this?

I can see how his father misses it, because he’s kind of absentminded but not in a cute way, more like a rumpled, grumpy bear irritated at being woken from a lifelong hibernation way. He doesn’t talk much, only comes home, takes off the top part of his suit and tie down to his T-shirt, puts on moccasin slippers, and watches TV, grunting occasionally or making arrogant comments. Seth’s mom chatters at him but he hardly ever does anything but mutter back.

Still, he’s nice in his own way to me, so I have no complaints.

It’s been three weeks now, and I’m kind of becoming a permanent fixture in his house, which is very cool, although my being there so much has also brought me some pretty weird information.

Like one night when his mother went out shopping with the girls (she does that a lot) and his father was watching TV, Seth drank some vodka, got way too chatty and showed me things in his room, like the smudge on the wall behind his bedroom door, which was a souvenir left by Bailey’s—who was out in Arizona in rehab—sunless tanner the first time he did her standing up, a dent he’d kicked in the wall near his desk when Bailey had dumped him that last time, and the scratch the hatchet-faced mall girl’s studded bracelet had left on his headboard.

I didn’t say anything, just listened and felt sick because he sounded so proud of it all, especially the little notches he had scratched on the back of the headboard where nobody could see them, and so I said, “Is mine up there yet?”

And he grinned and said, “Nope, not till we do it,” and then he started kissing me.

I had to remind him that the door was open and his father could come along any minute. He snorted and said, “Don’t worry about it; he doesn’t see shit around here. If it ain’t work, it ain’t important.”

So I asked him what his father did and he said he was an engineer, and that sounded boring, so I didn’t ask any more because I really didn’t care. Besides, I had a lot worse things to think about, like how many girls had been here before me, and even more hurtful, if he had loved any of them besides Bailey.

Even stupider, I had the urge to leave my own mark, but I didn’t use sunless tanner or wear studded bracelets, so the best I could do was put on lip gloss and kiss the top left-hand side of his dresser mirror, leaving a perfectly hot lip print.

It wasn’t much but it made me feel better.

Seeing those hidden notches started me thinking, though, especially about how he’d said I was the only girl he’d ever made orgasm just by
having a hand in my pants. It made me wonder (and not in a good way), what he actually thought of that, and of me for letting it happen. Hell, not only
letting
it happen but pretty much showing him how to
make
it happen.

Hmm.

I probably shouldn’t do that again.

I wore the pearl pendant Gran had given me for my birthday to her house today, thinking maybe she’d be happy to see it again, and I’m pretty sure she was as her thrashing was quieter and she managed to swallow four sips of water before I settled into my chair and hit play.

How It Ends

I didn’t want to be a foster child. It meant the home actually had the power to give me away. I didn’t want to leave the only familiar place left and be sent away with a man I didn’t know to a place I’d never been, but I had no say in the matter. Out of the eight girls the staff had discussed with Dr. Thaddeus Boehm before he arrived, he had chosen four to meet, and I was one of them.

He rose when I entered the ward mother’s office. He was a tall, dark-haired, distinguished-looking man in a dapper gray suit, topcoat, polished wingtips, and thin gray driving gloves. His hair was graying at the temples, his mustache neatly trimmed, and his gaze cool, sharp, and assessing. He smelled of rich, sweet cherry pipe tobacco and, beneath it, something…spoiled, like the vaguest hint of rancid lard.

“And this is Louise,” the ward mother said, giving me a look that said,
Smile.

“Louise…?” the man said, closing a docket with my name on it and watching me.

“Bell,” the ward mother said.

“Closson,” I said at the exact same time.

His mouth curved into a chilly smile. “I see. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Louise. I’m Dr. Boehm.” He nodded but didn’t offer his hand, so I said, “Pleased to meet you,” and clasped my hands in front of me, not sure what I was supposed to do next.

“Louise has been with us almost a year now,” the ward mother said, giving me a warning look. “She grew up an only child caring for her sickly mother, so she is used to having responsibilities and is a very bright, well-behaved girl.”

I forced a smile.

He gave me a clipped nod. “Thank you, Louise. It was very nice meeting you.”

“You too,” I said and, with a peek at the ward mother, who looked disappointed, spun on my heel and left.

A half hour later the ward mother found me, told me to pack my things and come to her office immediately.

Dr. Boehm had chosen me.

He drove a shining black Chevy Bel Air with sparkling chrome and a spotless black-and-white interior. The only thing he said when I arrived clutching my sad little box of hand-me-downs donated by the local church and my Ciro’s souvenir photo tucked safely in my purse was, “This is everything?”

I looked at the ward mother, wanting to ask about the Evening in Paris bottle and the last few things of my mother’s.

“We keep the children’s documents and possessions for six months after placement, so once we’re certain she’s a good fit for your family, you may call and request we send them on,” she said.

The doctor nodded, unlocked the trunk, and set my box down in the corner near the spare tire. He closed the trunk and glanced
at me. “The passenger side is unlocked. Please wipe your feet before you get in.”

I was careful to do so, as the floor mats were white and nothing I owned was as perfect as the interior of this car or even the blanket covering my side of the seat.

We said good-bye to the ward mother and I gazed desperately at her for a moment, wishing she’d snap her fingers and say,
No, I just remembered you can’t have Louise, we need her here! Pick someone else instead,
but she didn’t, only nodded and stepped back, so I glanced at the girls clustered in the windows. I didn’t smile because I wasn’t triumphant; I was scared and worried and shy at being in a car alone with a strange man. I had no idea what the rules were or what would be expected of me.

“We have a two-and-a-half-hour ride ahead,” he said, pulling away from the home and onto the street. “If you have any questions, you may ask them.”

“Thank you,” I said nervously, smoothing my skirt down over my knees.

He waited a few miles and, when I didn’t speak, told me why he had chosen me, that despite my unfortunate circumstance of birth, which had not weighed in my favor, he had been encouraged by our brief meeting as I appeared to be a neat, clean girl with good manners and modest expectations. He had carefully reviewed my file and my health records, and while my mother dying of tuberculosis had been troubling, the experience I’d gained caring for her had tipped the scale in my favor.

“Do you have any questions?” he said.

“No, thank you,” I said and stared unseeingly out the window as the last of the familiar places passed and the unfamiliar began.

He spoke again about an hour later when we stopped for gas and to use the restrooms. He bought himself a cup of coffee and me an icy bottle of Coca-Cola, and as we stood outside the car in the cold drinking them because even a small spill might stain the seat, he told me he had a handyman who did all of the outside work and a woman he referred to as Nurse, who not only assisted in his practice but for the last ten months had also taken care of his wife and, when the office was closed, acted as a live-in housekeeper.

“Naturally this is too large a burden for any one person to carry, hence the decision to bring in additional help,” he said and sipped the steaming black coffee. “Nurse will still be responsible for my wife’s medication and intimate personal care but her other duties must come first, so in addition to companioning Mrs. Boehm, you will be expected to assist with the cooking and housekeeping. We’re not going to enroll you in school immediately, either. We will reconsider once the influenza epidemic has run its course. I trust this will not be a problem?”

I looked out past the gas pumps to the highway where so many people in so many cars were traveling in so many different directions and said quietly, “Not at all,” because I’d already been orphaned long enough to know that my fate could have been far worse and that I was actually very lucky.

There had been a girl at the home, a slim, pretty girl with a knowing way and a ne’er-do-well father who would reel in every payday drunk on Kentucky mash. He was a short, square-headed man with a lank Hitler mustache and a fringe of thin, mousey blond hair. He’d stand out front on the curb, dungarees sagging, eyes bleary, scratching at the pestilence plaguing his groin and calling, “Where’s my little darlin’? Come on out here and give your old man a squeeze!” and she would come tripping down the stairs, smile wide and gaze hard, wrap her arms around him, and curve her hips against him, and the whole
time she was cooing and squirming in his arms, her hands were busy in his pockets, scandalizing the entire state-home staff.

The home fostered her out four times, and four times she was sent back for inappropriate behavior. She got caught in the boiler room with the janitor on payday, then with the scrap hauler in the slaughter room at the butcher shop on payday, and finally, in a move that didn’t surprise anyone, disappeared with her daddy on payday and never came back.

We heard later, via the whispers racing through the home, that they had been arrested in Le Claire, her for prostitution in the back of a car, him for renting her out and collecting the cash.

Hers was not the darkest story. There were others, nightmare tales of kids who were worked or starved to death, beaten, chained behind buildings and locked in root cellars. The stories were whispered rather than openly discussed, and any kid who had lived through the torment and returned to the home alive was always avoided, as if their fate might be catching.

Almost as chilling were the reports of whole families dying of influenza and the endlessly echoing ravages of polio, both swelling the home to capacity with the influx of newly made orphans.

So I decided then and there that if I had to leave the home—which I did—then I didn’t mind being kept safe in the capable, gloved hands of the doctor and in the isolation of the Boehm residence.

He spoke again after we’d finished our drinks and gotten back on the road.

This time he told me what to expect of his wife, a woman of fragile emotional status, an only child whose mother had died giving birth and who had been sheltered from life’s harsh realities first by her late father, also a respected physician, and then by him.

She had come close to death thirteen years ago during the delivery of their only child, a little girl born with a debilitating infection and severe, inoperable deformities, and who had lived less than two days before succumbing to the inevitable.

Losing the child—he did not say her name—caused his wife to become inconsolable and, unfortunately, irrational. She demanded to see the newborn, which, because of its horrific appearance, had been withheld so as not to further disturb her.

Finally, hoping to ease her distress, he had brought her the infant, having taken care to completely swaddle it from head to toe, but his wife had insisted on unwrapping the body, and the shock of what she’d delivered caused her to collapse.

When she awoke some hours later, he discovered that the trauma had affected her mind, causing depression and spontaneous hysteria. He’d immediately had her moved from the maternity ward to a room of her own, affording her privacy and uninterrupted rest, but sadly, there was no measurable improvement.

She was treated with electroshock therapy only once, as inducing the grand mal convulsion had cost her several fractured ribs and a torn ligament in her left leg.

The pregnancy had also exacted a dire toll on his wife’s physical health, and in addition to her fragile mental state, she was plagued with feminine health problems requiring several surgeries over the years, which he himself had performed. The last of these operations had been ten months ago, but instead of improving with bed rest and carefully controlled stimuli, his wife was still caught in the unrelenting grip of moodiness, fluctuating emotions, and bouts of depression.

He recited all of this in a very precise voice that didn’t invite questions.

“Her father was a great mentor to me and I promised him that when Margaret and I married I would always keep her well; however,
I fear this last year has been an exercise in futility. Just the sight of me agitates her now.” He tightened his gloved hands around the wheel. “In addition, the stress has exacerbated my own health issues and I’ve had to cut back on my office hours.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Thank you. Unlike my wife, I’m of fairly robust constitution, thanks to my late father-in-law’s edicts of fresh air and exercise, so that continues to help.” He flicked on the signal light and exited the highway. “Some of his ideas would be considered old-fashioned now, but I never underestimated his wisdom and very much enjoyed our debates. We spent many an evening discussing the effects the female reproductive organs have on feminine mental health.”

His voice was calm and deliberate with no hint of anything personal; however, I could feel myself blushing in the twilight and wished he would change the subject.