Brave Girl, Quiet Girl: A Novel

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “Why would you do that? It’s not really fair to make her your responsibility.”

  “But you have to drive in the morning. And besides, you came all the way out here just to see if my mom would take me back and that’s more than anybody has tried to do for me for a really long time.”

  Also because I wanted to be really helpful and agreeable, and good to have around, so she’d want to keep me and help me even more, but I didn’t say that. I also didn’t say the last reason—or at least the last reason I knew about—which was that now I actually knew her well enough and liked her well enough that I cared about how she felt.

  “I shouldn’t put it on you,” she said. “But I’m going to take you up on it. Because I really need the help tonight.”

  “I know you do,” I said.

  And then, after that, other than the stuff she had to say to the motel desk clerk, we didn’t talk for a really long time.

  She took an extra-long shower, which I can relate to. I didn’t take one that night, because I didn’t want her to have to look after the baby, but I know how good that can feel.

  When she came out, in pajamas, and with a hotel towel wrapped around her wet hair, Etta and I were out on the little balcony playing with her toys.

  Etta was a little amped up from sleeping all day, so she was running around in sort of a squished circle in that little space. There was a railing and all, though, so it was safe enough. I had almost everything Brooke had brought for her to wear on her at once. Two pairs of leggings, one on top of the other, and a shirt with a sweater and her jacket, because it gets cold at night in the desert. Then I had a blanket from one of the two beds wrapped around her shoulders, but when she started running it flapped out like a cape, which made her look like some kind of tiny superhero.

  Brooke came to the sliding glass door and looked out at us, and she had this look on her face like we were the cutest things she’d ever seen in her life. But then, after I got all happy about that for a minute, I decided she was only thinking that about her daughter.

  She slid the door open.

  “What are you doing out there?” she asked me.

  “So you can sleep,” I said. “She’s not in much of a mood to be quiet.”

  She got this really nice look on her face, like she was touched by what I said, and Etta stopped running for, like, a split second, and Brooke came out and kissed her on the top of her hair. And then, before she went back inside, she took my head in both her hands and kissed me on the top of my hair, too. Like we were both her daughters.

  Then she went back inside.

  I watched through the glass while she got ready for bed, and I could still feel where her hands had been on my head and where her lips kissed me. I started thinking what it would be like if Brooke were my mother instead. I’d have another, even littler, sister to look after, and I wouldn’t have to be homeless, and if I came out to her, which I already had, she would just say she couldn’t care less. So long as I was happy she wouldn’t care how I was happy.

  But then I made myself stop thinking about it, because those kinds of ideas can set you up for a long fall. You have to be careful what you want and how much you want it, because I knew there were people who usually got what they wanted, and I didn’t seem to be one of them.

  So then it was the next morning and we were driving, and we hadn’t said much over breakfast, and we still weren’t saying much. We were going to get home that day, whatever a home was in my case, and she knew it and I knew it, and I didn’t know what that meant for me. I think she didn’t either, and I think maybe that’s what was making it so quiet in that car.

  Even Etta was quiet, and I knew she was awake so far.

  I’d been looking out the window for a long time, even though there wasn’t much out there—just flat California desert and clouds that looked kind of puffy and nice.

  Then I looked over at Brooke and she was crying.

  There wasn’t any sound to it—she wasn’t sobbing or anything. It was just these quiet tears running down her face and dripping off her chin. I could see where they’d been landing on her shirt, leaving all these little dark spots.

  “What?” I said. “What happened?”

  For a long time she didn’t say anything at all, like she wasn’t even home in there, like she hadn’t even heard me, and that scared me a little.

  Then she opened her mouth, and still nothing.

  And then after a while of that she said, “I’m so sorry, Molly.”

  “About what?”

  “I didn’t believe you. I thought you did something terrible that made your mother decide to throw you out of the house.”

  “I know you did,” I said.

  If it had been any earlier I would’ve been mad when I said it, because I already knew she believed that, and as long as I’d known it I’d always minded it a lot. But now she was crying about it, so once you’ve made a mistake like that you really can’t do much better than to be sorry about it.

  “I needed to,” she said. “I needed to believe that it could only happen if you’d done something truly horrible. Violence against a family member or something unacceptable like that. Why did I do that, though? Why did I need to make it your fault?”

  “Because then it could never happen to you,” I said.

  I’m not stupid. I’m young but I have eyes, and I’m not an idiot, and I know that people like to pretend you got yourself into the trouble you’re in by doing something that they would know better than to do. That way they can pretend that bad stuff like that happens for a reason and they can just stay out of the way of that reason.

  It’s not really a very good way to live, in my opinion, but I guess it helps people get to sleep at night.

  “Because then it could never happen to Etta,” she said.

  “It could never happen to Etta. You’re not like that.”

  “Thank you. Even thinking about it scares me, though.”

  Then we didn’t talk, either one of us, for miles and miles.

  And then, just out of nowhere, she said, “Think you can forgive me for that?”

  I said, “I think I already did.”

  And then we rode most of the rest of the way back to LA without talking.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Brooke: Wrong

  We were about thirty miles outside of LA when the silence broke. Molly broke it. She had a question.

  “So, do we have a plan?” she asked.

  I immediately felt the sense of pressure it placed on me. I’d told her I was going to find her some kind of solution. But I couldn’t do my promised research and drive home from Utah at the same time. Still, I felt the weight of the big promise I’d made.

  “I need time to put a plan together, Molly.”

  “I meant tonight.”

  “Oh. Tonight.”

  That was a reasonable thing to ask. We were almost home. My home, that is. She wanted to know her immediate fate.

  I could hear the edge of tension in her voice. It wasn’t overt. In fact, she might have been doing her best to keep it to herself. The fact that I recognized it probably meant I was getting to know her a little.

  It struck me that the trip had changed something about her situation. It had removed her from the jaws of the unpredictable streets, if for only a few days. I had been in similar situations, only with much smaller fears. When you’re immersed in them, and treading water every day, it feels just barely doable. But step away for a time, and it’s hard to imagine you ever successfully navigated those waters.

  I had given Molly a few days of feeling found, and now she was dreading getting lost again. Hard to blame her for that. I had told her I wasn’t throwing her back to that terrible crate on that vacant lot full of trash. Now she was ready to find out if that was just talk. Or if she could really depend on me.

  I’d been thinking about a plan for our first night back. Of course I’d given it thought. And I did have one idea. But it felt wrong.

  “I
had a thought,” I said. Trying to ignore how wrong it was.

  “Okay. I’d like to hear it.”

  “It doesn’t feel right to me, though.”

  “Still want to hear it.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror to see if there was any movement from Etta. I was pretty sure she was asleep. But I wanted to know for a fact. I’m not sure why it felt important in that moment.

  “I can’t bring you into my mother’s house,” I said. “She’d have a fit.”

  “Right. You said that.”

  She was staring out the window. Her face was turned fully away. Maybe so I couldn’t see what was happening in her eyes.

  “I could put you up in a motel for the night. Problem is, it would have to be a really long way away. I’d have to drive a long way to find the right one. Because the ones within a few miles of my mother’s house would be a lot more expensive than I could afford.”

  “Was that the idea you said was wrong?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. What was the idea?”

  “I’m not comfortable with it,” I said.

  “Can I please just hear it anyway?”

  “I was thinking . . . my mother has a rollaway bed. And I was thinking maybe I could move it into the garage for tonight. There’s no real need to put the car inside. It’s just about to be repainted anyway. Although my mother will want it in the garage all the same, because she thinks it’s an eyesore for the neighbors. But anyway. It’s a terrible idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Why is it a terrible idea? Because then the neighbors will have to look at the weird car?”

  “No. Because it’s a garage. You deserve better than a garage. People make their dogs sleep in the garage. It’s not for human children. I think you’d be better off if I drove you to a motel.”

  She turned her head to look at me. But I had to keep my eyes on the road in that moment.

  At least, I think I did.

  “I’d rather be closer to you and Etta,” she said.

  There was a lot to unpack in that simple sentence. A bunch of hopes. A boatload of emotion. I think that was the moment it struck me that Molly had latched on to us as her family. Or was trying to, anyway. She wanted to be part of what Etta and I had together. She wanted in. I couldn’t see what I had to give her except disappointment.

  I talked over all that.

  “A garage, though. It doesn’t seem good enough.”

  “Seems good enough to me. It has four walls. And a bed. Whatever kind of bed you said your mother had. I don’t know what that kind of bed means, but it’s a bed, so it’s better than what I’m used to.”

  “A foster home would have to give you more than a garage.”

  “When I was in that foster home I had to sleep in a closet. Locked in.”

  I said nothing for a minute. I was digesting that. Trying to make my peace with what that terrible foster home had offered Molly. And what another placement might offer her again when I entrusted her to someone else. But there was no peace to be found there.

  “It’s just for one night,” she said while I was thinking.

  “Okay. I guess it’s good enough for one night.”

  But there was a hefty dose of denial in those pronouncements. And I think we both knew it. Somehow we were both willing to pretend that I could solve her homelessness problem tomorrow. In a single day.

  “You sure you don’t need to use the bathroom one last time?”

  “Positive,” she said.

  She was sitting on the edge of the rollaway bed. We had made it up for her with sheets and a blanket. I had brought out two bottles of water and a plastic cup. A towel and washcloth, because I had learned that you bring your guest a towel and a washcloth. It had been ingrained in me as part of some kind of social contract. But it was absurd in this case, because she wasn’t allowed near any of my mother’s four bathrooms, despite the fact that I had snuck her into the downstairs one once.

  Etta was running around the garage like a maniac. The soles of her light-up sneakers were flashing blue and red sparkly lights. She was nearly bouncing off the walls. She looked like she was imitating a pinball in a machine.

  Again she had slept far too much on the drive. I would probably never get her to sleep.

  Molly was watching her bounce around.

  “You can come get me,” she said. “You know. If you need to sleep and you want somebody to look after her.”

  “That’s not fair to you,” I said.

  “I don’t mind. But . . . Oh. Never mind. That won’t work because I can’t come into the house to watch her. But if you didn’t mind her being out here . . .”

  I could feel us skirting around an uncomfortable truth. The garage was not good enough for Etta, and we both knew it. I had put Molly in accommodations that were not up to par for my own daughter. And I knew that was wrong.

  “What else can I get you before bed?” I asked her. Ignoring the rest of the problems.

  “Nothing. I’m fine. This is fine.”

  “Okay. We’ll leave you, then. The light switch is here.”

  I pointed to it on my way to the door that led into my mother’s kitchen.

  Suddenly Molly was flying across the garage to me, her feet bare on the concrete floor.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  And she threw her arms around me. Enveloped me in a hug.

  I just stood a moment. Not hugging her back. I wasn’t sure what to do with all that emotion. I had never been good with emotion. We hadn’t been a huggy family. We hadn’t been overtly loving toward one another.

  Still, I couldn’t bring myself to simply reject this girl who had so little. Who wouldn’t have a toothbrush or a change of clothes if I hadn’t bought them for her.

  I wrapped my arms around her in return.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll figure out how to get you someplace better.”

  But it was the wrong thing to say. I could feel it. I could feel her muscles turn to lead. She pulled away from me. Turned her back and shuffled over to the bed. Shoulders slumped. Dejected. She didn’t want nicer accommodations. She wanted to be with Etta and me.

  I took hold of Etta’s hand.

  “Good night, Molly,” I said.

  “Night, Molly,” Etta chimed in.

  “Good night,” she said.

  It was clear from her tone that she was hurt.

  I took Etta into the house. I left a note on the table for my mother to find in the morning. It said, briefly, that Molly had been invited to sleep in the garage but it was only for one night. And to please, if she was angry about it, resist the temptation to take it out on the girl. To please come take it out on me instead.

  I took Etta upstairs and listened carefully. My mother was asleep. And seemed to have stayed asleep through our arrival. And I was thankful for that small favor.

  It was about one in the morning when I lost it. Etta was still wide awake. Still bouncing off the walls. She wanted stories. She wanted to play. I was exhausted. I was accidentally falling asleep every couple of minutes, only to have her bounce me awake again.

  I put her in her toddler bed with the crib sides for just a minute.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I’m just going to check on Molly.”

  “Molly, Molly, Molly!” she shrieked.

  I stood out in the hall for a minute, listening. Waiting to see if she had wakened my mother. When I heard nothing, I crept down to the garage.

  I opened the door from the kitchen. Or, actually, the laundry room right off the kitchen. Molly was in bed in the dark, faced away. The garage had a pattern of windows on the top half of its automatic door. Light from the streetlamp on the corner spilled in and fell over her.

  “Are you asleep?” I whispered.

  “No,” she said. At normal volume.

  “Did you really mean what you said about looking after Etta?”

  “Sure. Bring her in here.”


  “No, I thought you should come upstairs to watch her.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “She’s asleep.”

  I felt a wash of shame as I said it. I could even feel my face heat up. “We can sneak you in without her noticing” didn’t feel like the right statement. I wanted to have said something more like “I’ll stand up to her for you.” But, beyond its being hard for me to stand up to her, I couldn’t tell my mother what she had to tolerate in her own house. That was the problem with my living there.

  “Okay,” she said.

  She either didn’t recognize the pathetic nature of the subtext, or she chose to ignore it.

  She followed me up to my room.

  Etta had climbed out of her toddler crib. Which I had no idea she was able to do.

  “Well, that’s the end of an era,” I said.

  I know Molly couldn’t have understood my meaning. But she didn’t ask me anything about it.

  A hand on my shoulder woke me up. Or half up, anyway. I struggled up through the depths of a dream I already could not remember.

  “Etta’s asleep,” Molly said.

  “Oh. Good. Thank you so much.”

  “I’m going back down to the garage.”

  The hand disappeared.

  I sat up. Watched her walk to the door in the half dark. The night-light was still on for the baby. She didn’t like to sleep in the dark.

  “Molly,” I said quietly.

  She stopped at the door and just waited.

  “Thank you. That was a really nice thing to do.”

  “No problem,” she said.

  “You’re a nice girl. I’m sorry I was so slow figuring that out.”

  She didn’t answer. She just let herself out of the room.

  I woke in the morning after not nearly enough sleep. Light was pouring through the window and directly into my eyes. I lay awake for a few minutes, wondering why I hadn’t bothered to pull the shades. Probably because it had already been dark when we got in. Or because anything I had ever experienced in the way of a life routine seemed to be shattered now.