“You been snooping around in the closet?”
Sylvia felt her face burn like a fried tomato. It was her house! Everything in it was hers, including the box. But she still felt like a naughty child.
“You been reading them letters?”
“Yes. I read all ten of them. And I looked at all the photos too. Of LeRoy.
Leroy
.”
“You said it right first time. Le
Roy
. I wondered how long it would take you to discover that box. Actually, I kind of hoped you’d find it—get this all out in the open, finally.”
Sylvia felt a ball of air gather in her stomach. So Jacqueline knew
all along
?
Thanks for letting me in on the secret
! “He’s my half-brother, you know.”
“You got that right.”
Sylvia sat in cold silence. Furious with Jacqueline for the first time she could remember. So cavalier! As if half-brothers popped out of closets every day of the week! Secret half-brothers who seemed to vanish at the age of ten. “So where
is
LeRoy? How can I find him? Why didn’t you
tell
me, Jacqueline? How long have you known about him?”
“Forever. I mean, since before LeRoy were born. Figured all those years something woudda snapped. That your mama woudda found out. But she never did. I wasn’t gonna be the one to go telling on nobody, breaking up a happy family. No siree.”
“I hate to say it, and I hope Mom rests in peace, but if she hadn’t been such a
racist—
”
Jacqueline jolted her head around and stared at Sylvia for a long beat before she turned her attention back to the road. The car slowed to a snail’s pace. In that look there was quiet rage. “You think only white people are racist? You know what they told me when I first came to Michigan? Not white people, but black folks. African Americans. They would ask me in all seriousness if people from Trinidad were savages, lived in trees and wore grass skirts. I remember being called a West Indian Monkey and a Coconut Ape! I was told to go back to the jungle where I came from and that my folks were stealing jobs from the
real
black people who needed them. They said we practiced voodoo and were evil. And then I heard the other side of the coin. From my own kind. That I should watch out for
African
Americans—that only wanted to live on welfare, that they were lazy and all of them criminals. You think my mama trusted them or they trusted us? Racism is everywhere, Sylvia honey. Ain’t nobody gonna tell me white folks is the only racist people round here.”
Sylvia sighed and slipped down into the bucket of the leather passenger seat. She had underestimated Jacqueline’s fierce loyalty to her parents. “So where is he? Where is LeRoy now?”
Jacqueline shook her head sadly. “I’m so sorry, honey, but LeRoy had a fatal accident.”
Sylvia felt her nose prickle, her eyes mist. “What happened?”
“Loretta had cancer and was having radiation treatment, paid for by your father. She was exhausted and in and out of the hospital. It was your dad’s idea to send LeRoy off to summer camp. Fun for him, he thought, and a break for Loretta. At least, that’s what Loretta told me. LeRoy went to one of the lakes to a swanky, expensive camp, I can’t remember the name. The only trouble was, he made friends with a group of bullyboys. You know, troublemaker, show-off types? The boys sneaked off to swim one evening and LeRoy didn’t come back. The boys said he’d swum off onto that platform float thing—you know, the thing with oil drums, used for sunbathing? They found his body the next morning, washed up on shore.”
“Oh my God. Where had the camp leader been all that time? How did they let something like that
happen?
”
“Things were different back then. In those days, children ran around more freely—there were less rules back then.”
“True,” Sylvia said despondently. “What a
tragedy!
You think those boys did it, then?”
“Maybe they were horsing around. Only the Lord knows what happened—a mystery, never to be solved.”
“
What
? They didn’t do an autopsy? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that his mama, my friend Loretta, passed away thirty odd years ago, very soon after the tragedy, so I never did get to ask her details. At the time, she was so destroyed by his death, plus the fact she was weak and dying from cancer, that she didn’t want to discuss it with no one. Maybe those boys were innocent, maybe they weren’t, but we’ll never know for sure.” Jacqueline swerved the Oldsmobile hard to the right, catching the sidewalk and bumping back down again. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Didn’t Daddy do anything? Didn’t he sue the summer camp for negligence?”
“I surely don’t know the details. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I never thought it my place to ask.”
“Nobody told Mom about LeRoy? Even after he died?” Sylvia glared at Jacqueline, accusation dancing in her eyes.
“Sylvia, honey. I’m sorry. But what was I meant to do? Get a big wooden spoon and stir up trouble? Your mama was happy. She had no idea that LeRoy existed. It was not my place to go round stirring up no trouble. If your Daddy wanted to tell me bout LeRoy, he woudda. But he never did, not even after your mama died. So I kept my pretty little mouth shut.”
Sylvia tried to process all this information. Her dad must have been riddled with guilt. His own son dying because of his bright idea to send him off to summer camp. And she, too, had left Grace with Ruth, neither of them imagining, in their wildest imagination, what ills could befall their child. Her father’s suicide was making more sense every day. Guilt. Remorse. The feeling of culpability. Knowing that your choice had fatal consequences.
One split-second decision could ruin your life and the life of the person you made that decision for. Grace. LeRoy . . .
Both victims of one, fatal choice.
Sylvia propped her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees, and began to sob quietly.
Jacqueline took one hand off the steering wheel and laid her elegant fingers on Sylvia’s head. She stroked her hair softly. “I know, honey, I know. It’s a very, very sad story. And I can imagine what’s going through your mind right now about Gracie. But as God is my witness, I have a very strong feeling that you
will
find her. You have to have faith, honey. You have to keep strong. For Grace’s sake.”
Grace
G
race was hiding in the bathroom. When she last saw Mama Ruth, Ruth was sipping a cocktail by the bar, watching the sunset. Grace pretended she was tired and wanted to go to bed early. Ruth was talking to a man in Spanish. Of course. She didn’t speak to anybody in English anymore. She’d been flirting with this same man for a few days already. His name was Lucho. He was one of the surfers. Ruth was even spending nights with him. Grace didn’t mind him too much because he bought her candy and took her swimming. He was okay, she decided. Ruth thought he was the Bees Knees. She laughed a lot when she was with him and Grace had seen them kiss. Not a smoochy kiss, but still.
Grace had enough time. “Mama Rocío” was busy. Unless she came up to the bathroom to be sick. She often did that. She’d stuff her face, especially with ice cream and sweet things, and then she’d vomit afterwards. Grace didn’t understand why she did that, but one thing she knew for certain—it was Mama Ruth’s Big Secret.
She unrolled the recording pen from her nightgown. The battery was almost dead. She’d have to find a secret place to charge it—she knew about charging batteries; her dad had taught her. She’d need to charge it with Lucho’s computer. She’d do it tomorrow when he was surfing.
She pressed down on the pocket clip to record:
“I have to whisper. Because if Mama Ruth, oops, Mama
Rocío
hears me, I know she’ll take this pen away from me.
Today she gave me another haircut. Even shorter. Boy, do I look like a boy! That sounds funny, ‘boy do I look like a boy.’ But it’s true. Every time I look in the mirror, I get a big surprise. I miss my mom and dad. Mommy passed away. Ruth told me. She said that Mom was in a car accident and died instantly which means she died straight away and felt no pain. I cried and cried for a week without stopping. She—Ruth, I mean—wants me to call her Mommy but it feels funny. She says that Daddy might come out and see us and that Daddy will grow to love her more than he loved Mommy. I don’t think so.
Yesterday, she was speaking on the phone to a doctor. She was talking in Spanish. But then she also spoke English. I can understand quite a bit but I can’t say much. I can say
perro
which means dog and
osito de
peluche
which means teddy bear, but it doesn’t sound as cute. She says she’s going to Rio de-something-or-other but it’s a secret. I heard her talking in English to someone else and she was talking about plastic surgery. About her nose. The same thing that Mommy did with Pidgey O Dollars! I miss him. I hope the Bogeymen decided they didn’t like him anymore and gave him to a nice little girl. That’s what Ruth says could happen. She says there are children in Rio who live on the streets in boxes and in garbage. She says that one day she might get me a baby brother from the garbage and wash him and then I can have a brother all for myself.
She says that soon Daddy and her will be together. She thinks Daddy is very cute. But right now she likes Lucho the surfer boy. He comes from Colombia. He said that when he was a little boy they had guns at school and it was very dangerous. Mama Rocío says that if she goes to Rio de what’s-it-called, Lucho can look after me here in El Salvador and he’ll buy me lots of candy and I can do anything I want. I can stay up late.
I’m still not used to my new name. I guess Adela is okay. I keep forgetting things. Yesterday I forgot how to say, ‘brush my teeth’ in English and I said
limpiarme los
dientes
instead. Nobody speaks English here. Mama Rocío never speaks English to me anymore. Only sometimes, if we’re alone. She says it’s time for me to go to school but only if I promise not to tell anybody my secrets. She said if I talk about my old Mommy, the Bogeymen will take her out of Heaven and take her down to Hell where there’s fire and where the Devil lives, so I mustn’t ever talk about her to
anybody.
I wonder if I go to school there will be guns, like at Lucho’s school. Mama Rocío says I’m Catholic now—she gave me a gold cross to prove it. She says in a few years I’ll get to wear a long white dress and take Communion and then I’ll be like a princess. Wait! I can hear her. I hear footsteps—”
Grace was in the bathroom. She could hear Ruth tiptoe into the bedroom. She was calling. “Adela, mi amor? Are you there?”
Grace hid the pen under a towel and scuttled over to the toilet. She pulled the chain.
“Adel-La? What are you Doo-Wing?’ Her voice sang like the Child Catcher in
Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang.
Ruth entered the bathroom, stared at Grace for a second, and then her eyes swept about the room. Grace could feel her heart go
boom
. It felt hot and poundy—her tummy was doing somersaults. Her little hands were sweaty and as sticky as lollipops.
“Adela? What are you doing in here?”
“Nothing.”
Ruth came close. Her breath smelled of cocktails. “Well you must be doing
something
.”
“Nah-ah.”
“Are you
lying
to me? You know what that cross around your neck stands for, don’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It means you’re a good little Catholic girl who always tells Mommy the truth.”
Grace stood still. But she let her gaze wander for a second to the towel. But then quickly looked at the floor.
Ruth turned her head. “Have you done something with that towel?”
“Nah ah.”
“Because if you are lying to me you know what will happen, don’t you?”
Grace remained silent.
“I will take Carrot and your other bear to Rio with me and give them to the poor street children.”
Grace could feel a trickle of wee-wee running down her thigh. She looked down at the floor and saw a tiny puddle of yellow that had appeared like magic—a splash of lemonade.
“Oh nooo! Not again! Adela, what is
wrong
with you! Stop already with this piddling business. I’m getting so
tired
of changing your sheets in the middle of
every single goddamn night
! I thought you wanted to be a big girl, not a little baby! Do you want me to put you in diapers? Do you want to wear big, ugly, padded diapers like a
baby
? Because if you don’t stop already with these uncontrollable waterworks, that is
exactly
what I am going to have to do. Act like a baby and I’ll treat you like a baby, little Missy!” Ruth raced toward her, scooped her up and plunked her on the toilet. Grace’s skinny little bottom sank down the hole in a big U. It felt like a giant bucket and she was scared she might plop to the bottom. She concentrated but no wee-wee would come. What had been inside her body was already on the floor.
“You’re like some pissing machine! It’s so gross. You have to learn to be a grown-up, okay?” Ruth was frantically mopping up the puddle with a big wet cloth.
Grace wriggled about on the huge seat and tried to get comfortable. It was pinching her. She hoped Ruth wouldn’t touch the towel where the pen was hidden—then she’d
really
be in trouble. She’d change the subject. “Why are you going away?”
“Because I have a little problem with my nose, baby. I have a deviated septum and can’t breathe properly.” She was now rinsing out the smelly cloth under a hot tap and mumbling, “Gross, gross, gross. I am so not cut out for this parent
shit
!”
“Are you going to have plastic surgery like Pidgey O Dollars?”
“
What?
Where did you hear that?”
“I dunno.”
“Have you been spying on me? Have you been listening to my private telephone conversations? Have you been
eavesdropping
?”
Another trickle of wee-wee came out, luckily straight into the toilet this time. “No.”