by Carla Damron
“If she stabilizes, you can take her home tomorrow,” Liam had said. “I’ve arranged for a psychiatric consult. I want her to keep seeing Dr. Owens when she gets out.”
Tomorrow? It scared Lena to think of taking Becca home, of what might happen. She needed Mitch—Mitch would know what to do.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Another text from Royce, she was sure. She’d responded to none of them, hoping her silence would send the message. Royce had always been a stubborn man.
The door inched open, letting in a slice of fluorescent light. Elliott entered, followed by Sims. Elliott came to her and slid an arm around her shoulders. Her affectionate boy. Sims stood at the foot of Becca’s bed, whiskered and smelling of cigarette smoke. She could see the outline of a pack of Salems in the breast pocket of his shirt.
“Mom?” Elliott’s voice was timid. “I need to tell you something.”
She pursed her lips at his confessional tone, as though he was seventeen again and had attached his father’s Pontiac to the mailbox post.
“The other night, after everybody left, I found Becca in the kitchen eating. It looked like she’d finished a hunk of beef and a dozen cookies. Later I heard her in the bathroom throwing up. She said she had an upset stomach. I think she did the same thing last night. I should have mentioned it to you but you’ve got enough going on.”
Lena had heard the same thing a month or so ago. “Just ate too many fries,” Becca had said, and Lena had wanted it to be true. So many little signs: the breakfast battles. The weight loss. When was the last time she’d had to buy feminine products for her daughter? Had menses halted?
“How long has she been pulling this stuff?” Sims asked.
“Dr. Burnside said it’s been a while. She may have damage to her teeth.” The acid from her daughter’s vomit ate away at the enamel, he had told her. Dear God.
“Making herself puke for months? That’s revolting,” Sims said.
Elliott spun around to face him. “She’s sick. She can’t help it.”
“It’s being a teenager,” Sims commented. “All the damn pressure. You have to be thin. Wear perfect clothes. Hang out with the popular kids or be treated like scum.”
Lena wished it was that simple.
Elliott said, “I know someone with an eating disorder. She used to be in my band.”
“So what? She barfed between sets?” Sims’s voice was gruff, probably to annoy Elliott.
“No,” Elliott answered. “She’s in recovery now. But it’s been a long road. I think she was a little older than Becca when it started. She’s been hospitalized five times. At her worst, she weighed eighty-four pounds.”
Lena examined the subtle contours of her daughter under the dull white sheet. Dr. Burnside said she weighed ninety-three.
“Jesus. She almost killed herself to be skinny? To look good in a bikini?” Sims patted his shirt pocket, then retracted his hand.
“I wish you’d quit being a dick.” Elliott’s voice swelled in the small, sterile room. Lena glared. Elliott shrugged an apology, but only to please her. He glowered at Sims.
Lena thought of Becca as a fifth grader, readying for a ballet recital, the tutu a little snug around her plump belly. Starting middle school, crying in Belk’s dressing room because she couldn’t squeeze into a size nine pair of jeans. “I’m so fat,” she had said between snuffles.
“You’re growing. Your body changes every day,” Lena had replied.
“What if I get fatter and fatter! I don’t want to look like Connie.”
“Well, maybe if you tried a little exercise.” Lena had just wanted her off the couch, away from the computer and TV. She wanted Becca to eat healthy things, instead of hamburgers, fries, and candy bars, but what if Becca thought she meant something else?
And two summers ago, Becca trying on a bathing suit, her eyes tearing up when Lena suggested a one-piece might be more flattering. That had been their last shopping trip before Lena moved out, got her own apartment and started a new—however brief—life.
Elliott lifted a finger at Sims. “The point isn’t trying to be skinny. The point is control. The point is slowly erasing yourself.”
His words rumbled through the room, an earthquake.
“I don’t want to scare you guys,” Elliott said.
“Oh, you don’t?” Sims asked.
“I want you to take it seriously.”
“She’s in a damn hospital. We get it that this is serious,” Sims said.
“Boys,” Lena cautioned, weary of this endless tension between them. Elliott inched closer to her, head cocked to the side.
“She’s going to be okay,” Elliott said. “We’ll get her in counseling. I’m going to be here more, I promise.”
She patted his hand. Elliott would try, but his world was no longer Columbia.
“You’re not alone with this, Mom,” Sims said. “Connie and I will help however we can.”
Her well-meaning boys. They loved Lena, but in truth, they loved who they thought she was.
When Lena had left Mitch, she had taken three suitcases and all her art supplies. The loft apartment was the third she visited, right in the heart of the Vista downtown, close to the river. Natural light poured through the tall windows. Exposed beams on the ceiling would hold hooks for her ferns and purple heart plants. There were two bedrooms, one for her and Royce, the other for Becca. Only it wasn’t. Lena placed her easel there, converting it into an art studio, with a futon in the corner that Becca could use on the weekends she stayed over. She never did. She was too angry. The separation lasted six weeks. Elliott never knew about it. Sims chose to believe it was a brief menopausal folly.
Both boys danced around the truth but Becca never learned how. No more secrets though. That was Lena’s pledge to Becca. And to Mitch.
“You should go home,” Lena said to the boys.
“I can stay,” Elliott replied.
“No.”
Both sons stared.
“I mean there’s nothing you can do here. Sims, drop Elliott by the house. I’ll stay the night with Becca.”
JOE BOOKER CIRCLED THE tiny room like a caged leopard. The man had told him to wait, but not given Joe any choice when he locked him inside. Nothing in the room but two chairs and a table. No window, except a tiny one in the door. A magazine had tattered corners and a picture of football players on the cover. Joe had played ball in high school. It was something he was good at doing, but that was a long time ago.
He hated waiting, especially indoors. Worse was not knowing if Mr. Mitch’s girl was all right. She was shivering when they took her from him, and cried out when they put her on the gurney. When he tried to follow her, the blue-uniform guy wrenched his arm behind him and shoved him down the hall into this place. The click of the door lock echoed in his head.
“You’re getting what’s coming to you,” the voice snarled in his head.
Joe nodded. He was long overdue for what was coming to him, but please not here. Not in this tiny room.
His stomach grumbled. Supper at the Methodist church was long over. How long had he been here? Nighttime by now. He needed to get to his squat; Mr. Wortham Pinckney would be expecting him. He felt pressure like a stone in his bladder, but there would be no relieving himself in this small space. The gray walls pushed in; he could feel the weight of the ceiling like a giant hand on his head.
“About damn time they lock you up.”
No. He couldn’t go to jail. Not again. Never ever again. It had happened in the army when he got into a ruckus with a drunk officer. Worse was the time they busted him for trespassing and tussling with two cops. Said they were gonna throw away the key and damned if they didn’t. The voices so loud in his mind he couldn’t help but yell back at them, which landed him in solitary. A cold bed frame, a piss hole, a sink. No pillow or blanket. No escaping the noise inside of him. Days and nights that bled into each other until time stopped mattering. That was when the Lord spoke to him and said, “Believe.�
��
He did believe. He’d done what the Lord asked and here he was, stuck in this hole.
Not for long though, because when they opened the door he’d jump them. He was big and strong and he could move fast when he had a reason. He’d flee this hellhole before they could stop him.
Different voices now. Not in his head. Outside the door. A woman yelled, “Why is he locked up in here?” like she was mad.
A man answering, “We called the police to question him. They ain’t showed yet.”
“Let me talk to him,” the woman said.
“I don’t think—”
“You’re holding him illegally. You damn sure will let me in,” she demanded.
Someone jiggled the doorknob. Joe itched to run but wasn’t going to tackle a woman to do it. He flattened himself against the wall, watching as the lock turned, the knob twisted, and the door cracked open.
“About damn time!” The woman pushed herself into the room. He’d never seen her before.
She was a tall, ample woman with long hair the color of fence wire. She wore dark pants, a cape, and scuffed shoes. When she approached, her gray eyes were chin level to Joe.
“You must be Joe.” She spoke quieter now, the mean look on her face sliding off.
He nodded, eyeing the blue uniform man behind her, the Tazer still clipped to his belt.
“Leave us alone, please,” she said to the man. It wasn’t a request. When the man didn’t budge, she pointed at the door like someone used to giving out orders. The man made a reluctant retreat.
“Please, sit.” She gestured to a chair. Joe wanted to appease her but the room got so much smaller with two of them in there.
“Just for a minute,” she added.
He did as he was told.
“You brought my niece Becca to the hospital.”
Niece. Mr. Mitch’s girl was this lady’s niece?
“Forgive me. I meant to introduce myself. My name is Abigail Parker. Call me Abby.” She extended a wide hand with bulging knuckles like a man’s. Joe didn’t like touching people, but didn’t want her mad at him, so he gripped the strong fingers.
“I’m trying to understand what happened. Would you mind helping me?”
“Okay.” His voice sounded scratchy. He cleared his throat.
“Where did you find Becca?”
He eyed the door behind her. “In the park. On a bench.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“No ma’am. She was lying there like she was asleep but she didn’t wake up.”
“Could you tell she was sick?”
“She was pale. Shaky like. I tried to get somebody to help but nobody paid no attention.”
“The way of the world these days.” Miss Abby shook her head. “What did you do next?”
He wasn’t sure what to say. Would she be mad that he touched her? Might be madder if he didn’t answer. “I carried her—I was real careful—away. I wanted to take her to the church so Reverend Bill could help but that was too far.”
“Reverend Bill? Bill Tanner?”
“Mr. Mitch goes to that church. Not no more though.”
“You knew Mitch?”
“Yes ma’am. He’s been good to me.”
“You recognized my niece.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“What happened after you realized you couldn’t make it to the church?”
Joe lowered his head, wondering if he could trust this woman with the truth. No matter, it wasn’t his truth to hoard. “I did what the Lord wanted. I brung her here.”
“You carried her? That had to be several miles.” The woman leaned back, shaking her head.
He didn’t reply. He remembered his feet pounding up the street, the girl so pale, quivering in his arms. How frightened he’d been that he was too late.
“I’ll tell you what you did, Joe. You saved her life. I can’t bear to think what would have happened if you hadn’t found her.”
Joe asked the question that had been poised on his tongue since he arrived. “Is she gonna be okay?”
The lady’s eyes got moist. She stared down at the table, scaring Joe that she had bad news about the girl, but then she looked up and gave him a sad little smile. “We think we can take her home tomorrow. But she’s got some . . . problems . . . she’s going to need help with. But no matter. We’ll make sure she gets what she needs.”
All that had him confused, but if Mitch’s girl was going home, it had to be good news.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
Why would she want to know that? It wasn’t her business. He scratched at his leg but the itch was more inside. He could make it to the door in two steps and be gone.
“I don’t mean to pry,” she said. “Don’t suppose you have to tell me. But I want you to know how . . . incredibly grateful we are. Mr. Mitch’s family, I mean. I wish there was some way I could repay you.”
He shook his head. His reward was to please the Lord.
She reached in her pocket and pulled out two twenty dollar bills. “This is a little something.”
“No ma’am—”
“Take it. I insist. Think of it as a gift from Mr. Mitch.”
He looked down at the bills she’d tucked in his fingers. “Take it,” said the Lord.
As she stood, she said, “I suppose you’re ready to get out of this place, huh?”
Joe sprang to his feet, startling the woman. “I see you are,” she said with a low laugh. She opened the door. “Don’t worry about that security idiot. He’s got no reason to hold you.”
When he reached the hall, he wasn’t sure which way to go. She pointed left, and he could see an exit sign. He walked, then ran, then pushed through the glass door, taking in a deep breath of cool night air.
Free.
CHAPTER 19
Tonya gripped the cell phone and half-listened as her mother blathered on about Buddy’s stellar performance with his high school debate team. “We bought him a suit and a red tie and he looked great. He argued with such passion I almost thought our Buddy gave a rat’s ass about expanding oil drilling operations in Alaska.” Mom laughed. Tonya rolled her eyes.
Traffic on Gervais Street inched along. Behind her, Byron snoozed in his car seat, having drifted off as soon as she got him from daycare. Dinner would be take-out; John had gone to happy hour after work, though he’d promise to buy draft beer instead of the martinis he’d developed an appreciation for, which would save a little money.
She passed the state capital, the Confederate flag hanging limp on its dark metal pole, two tourists snapping photos of a man dressed like a Rebel soldier beside it. “Heritage, not hate,” his sign read. If only it were that simple.
“Maybe Buddy can go into politics after college,” her mother said. “Run for a house seat first, then a senate seat, or even governor.” She pronounced it “guv-nuh.”
“You’ve given this some thought,” Tonya answered with a smirk. Buddy would last approximately seven minutes in a campaign for office. Tonya could picture him being challenged by a TV reporter and screaming, “Go screw yourself,” before being bleeped off the screen.
“How’s your nose?” her mom asked.
“A little sore’s all. Byron’s doing okay, too.” That morning, John had suggested taking Byron to physical therapy: “Just to make sure he’s healing okay.” A few clicks of the desktop mouse showed Tonya that John was still emailing Carol the paralegal, who’d suggested the consult. John wanted to make their injuries look worse than they were, treating the car crash like a winning lottery ticket. Tonya still hadn’t signed the papers so Carol’s firm could represent them, something he brought up again over breakfast.
“Are you still in the rental car?”
“The van was totaled.” Tonya missed it. The way the bucket seat molded to her fanny. The purple Sharpie mark on the console from when Byron snuck the marker from her purse. The tiny brown dots on the ceiling left when John flicked the straw out of his chocolate shake. A litt
le room on wheels where she lived part of every day, now a hunk of scrap metal.
“You should get a Volvo,” her mom said. “They’re very safe.”
“A Volvo? Are you kidding me?”
“A Volvo wagon. Safe, sturdy, and quite comfortable.”
Tonya swerved into the left lane and squeezed the gas pedal, her fingers coiled tighter around the steering wheel. Sure, a Volvo. Why not a BMW or Mercedes like Mom had?
“Tonya?”
“We cannot afford a Volvo. Christ, Mom. We’ll be lucky to buy a used van the same age as the old one. With our mortgage, and Byron’s daycare, and our credit card bills we can barely afford groceries so no, we won’t be getting a damn Volvo.” She eyed her son in the rearview mirror, relieved he was still asleep.
Her mother grew silent. Tonya turned onto Trenholm Road, but pulled off the road when she realized where she was: two blocks from the site of the wreck.
“Tonya—” her mother spoke, shocked and berating.
“And you never helped, Mom,” Tonya went on. “Never even offered. Not with school, not with Byron. Buddy is your whole world and I’m not—I’m not anything.” Memories of the accident strobed through her brain. The canopy of tree branches, the gentle rise of hill her van had climbed that morning, Byron fussing behind her, Marion on the cell phone telling her she’d better hurry, the Lexus sailing through the intersection, filling her eyes with pearly white, no time to brake or steer away, the crunch and squeal of metal hitting metal, the van spinning in a half-arc off the road, Byron’s car seat suspended by seatbelt straps, the place where he’d been sitting eaten away by the front of Mitchell Hastings’s car before it hit the tree. All in the length of a breath.
“Are you asking me for money, Tonya?”
She had forgotten the call, captured again in that moment, in the what-could-have-beens.
“No. I’m not asking you for anything.” Tonya clicked off the phone. After a quick U-turn, she made a right on Lakeshore, slowing under the live-oaks with branches spanning high over head. She’d passed the house the first time she’d looked for it, but this was her third visit.