No More Sad Goodbyes

by Marilyn Reynolds

  Chapter

  16

  Going south on the 605 freeway, we take the Carson off-ramp, toward Long Beach.

  “Okay,” Nikki says. “I’ve only been here once before, but it’s starting to look familiar . . . What’s next?”

  I check the Mapquest directions.

  “Right on Oleander, two miles.”

  “Oh, yeah. I think I remember . . .”

  “I thought you always came to their house on Thanksgiving.”

  “Yeah, for about six years now. But they’ve moved since last Thanksgiving. I’ve only been to this new place once, and Penny was driving.”

  “This should be Oleander coming up,” I tell her.

  “You’re about to meet my true family,” Nikki says, making the right turn. “Sometimes, for whatever reason, we have to find new families—love families rather than blood families. That’s what Penny and I have done. Not that we don’t still care about our first families. . . ”

  Nikki drives slowly, concentrating on the house numbers.

  “I know nothing can ever truly replace your family, but some­where along the way I bet you’ll find a love family, too,” Nikki says. “Lots of people do.”

  I can’t imagine ever finding another family, but Nikki sounds convinced, and I don’t want to argue with her. Especially since I’m hoping that she and Penny’ll treat me like family for a while.

  We park in front of a beige house with a big lawn and carry the pies, a six-pack of sodas, and a big jug of orange juice up the walk­way to the front door. The orange juice is for me. Sodas are not on my list of “Approved Foods for the Mommy-to-Be.”

  “Ella’s got this thing about the Virgin Mary,” Nikki says, gestur­ing towards two large statues that look like the religious pictures you see in museums.

  A woman in jeans and a bright green “PRO MARRIAGE” T-shirt walks out to meet us.

  “Hey, Jean,” she says, giving Nikki a quick hug before turning to me.

  It sounds strange hearing Nikki called “Jean,” but I guess that is her name.

  “Here, let me take your precious treasure,” she says, reaching for the pies. “You must be Autumn. I’m Sandy.”

  We follow Sandy into the kitchen where she puts the pies down on the counter and then waves both arms in the air.

  “Hey, everybody! This is Autumn! She’s one of Jean’s top vol­leyball players.”

  “Not right now, she’s not,” the guy standing next to me says, looking straight at my middle.

  “Autumn, this is Gavin,” Sandy says. “You don’t have to listen to one word he says. Not one!”

  Gavin smiles and shakes my hand.

  “And Barry,” Sandy says, gesturing toward the man next to Gavin.

  “Welcome to turkey day,” he says. He’s wearing a purple T-shirt with a rainbow-bordered sign across the front that says “Mom Knows.”

  Sandy goes around the room, introducing me to seven others.

  “The goddess at the stove is Ella, but she probably can’t look up from the sauce just yet.”

  Without a pause in her rhythmic stirring, Ella turns, flashes me a

  quick smile, and turns back to the stove.

  A guy in a “Save the Los Angeles River” shirt gets up from his chair and turns it in my direction.

  “Here, have a seat,” he says.

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, sit down! I can’t stay seated while an expectant mother stands!”

  I sit down, just because I don’t know what else to do.

  “When’s your baby due?” he asks.

  “February 15.”

  He counts on his fingers. “Not quite three months? It’ll fly by.”

  “Isn’t that just like a man,” a woman on the other side of the room says. “I’d like to see you hosting a fetus for the last three and a half months of pregnancy!”

  Several others join in on how things might be if men had wombs, and what medical advances it would take, and on and on, with a lot of laughter in between.

  The woman sitting next to me, Kim, leans closer and tells me how she and Penny have been friends since middle school.

  “I hope this all works out for her, and for you, too,” Kim says. “You couldn’t find two nicer people to raise your baby.”

  I must look surprised because she leans in even closer and low­ers her voice to a whisper.

  “Oh. I know Jean is being very cautious. But Penny called me on Saturday, just after she heard you wanted them to adopt your baby. She was thrilled.”

  “But Nikki . . .”

  “Penny told me that underneath it all, she’s sure Jean still really wants a baby, too. Besides, if Penny really wants something . . .”

  Nikki notices us talking and comes over. Kim makes a zip your lip sign and gives me a wink.

  “Hey, Jean, Autumn was just telling me what a great coach you are,” Kim says.

  Nikki gives her a look that’s not exactly friendly. I’ve seen that look when a player tries to make a phony excuse for showing up late for practice.

  “How about a little air hockey?” Nikki says to me.

  We go through the kitchen to a screened-in porch that has an air hockey game, a dart board on the wall with a bunch of darts stuck in it, and boxes of board games stacked in the corner.

  “Heads or tails?” Nikki asks, taking a quarter from her pocket.

  “Tails.”

  She wins the toss and bank-shots the puck straight into the goal.

  The “Save the Los Angeles River” guy comes in. “Play the win­ner?”

  “Sure,” Nikki says, then turns to me.

  “Glenn here is the unofficial Thanksgiving air hockey second placer.”

  He laughs.

  “I’ve been practicing. This is the year I move up to champ.”

  I send the puck straight across to Nikki’s goal—another bank shot back at me, another point for her.

  “She’s tough,” Glenn says, “but this is her day of defeat.”

  Others come in to watch. I only score one point against Nikki. Then Glenn beats her, and I play against him. I get the feel of the mallet, the angle of bank shots, and beat him seven to five.

  I like this lighthearted competition, thinking only about the little plastic hockey puck and how to get it where you want it to go, laughing at your opponent’s mistakes, and your own, too.

  “I’ve been beaten by the new kid,” Glenn says, pretending de­spair as he hands the mallet to Nikki. I win that one, too, to great cheers from the rest of the group.

  “This girl is a natural,” Sandy says.

  “It can be your winter sport,” Nikki tells me.

  “Hey, don’t laugh,” Glenn says. “There’s a whole official air hockey association. They have leagues and tournaments and every­thing.”

  “Scholarships?” I ask, slamming the puck off the left side and straight into Glen’s goal.

  There’s a noise from another room and Barry and Gavin both hurry out.

  “My turn!” Barry says. “You got him last time!”

  “Did not!” Gavin says.

  Everyone laughs, except me. I just stand there smiling a stupid, I-don’t-get-it smile.

  “That’s just how we were, isn’t it, Honey?” a woman, Peggy I think her name is, says to her husband.

  He laughs. “Oh. yeah. We were like, maybe if we let the little rug rat cry for another hour or so, he’ll go back to sleep.”

  Gavin comes back in, carrying a baby in his arms. Barry’s fol­lowing along behind, carrying a tote bag of what I guess is baby supplies.

  “Oh, look how he’s grown,” Nikki says. “Hi, Little Dalton.”

  She gives the baby a light kiss on the cheek.

  “How old is he now?”

  “Eight months tomorrow,” Barry says. “Can you believe it?”

  Ella comes into the room, stops to admire the baby, then says, “Okay everybody, the fun’s over. It’s time for some serious eat­ing!”

  People wander int
o the dining room, where a big round table is filled with so many heaping platters of food you can barely see the tablecloth. In the very middle of the table stand two carved wooden pilgrims and two Indians in headdress. Once the jostling’s over and everyone’s seated, Ella opens a beat-up book of poetry by e.e. cummings and reads:

  “I thank you God for most this amazing day: for the leaping spirits of trees and a blue true dream of a sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.”

  Then we go around the table and people say what it is they’re thankful for, or what special meaning their T-shirts have. When it’s Gavin’s turn he just points to the baby, who is sitting in a high chair gumming a teething biscuit and picking at slobbery crumbs. When it’s Ella’s turn she and Sandy stand up together and clasp hands. With their free hands they point to their T-shirts. Sandy’s is green and Ella’s is bright blue. Both of them have colorful abstract figures of people across the front, with “Pro Marriage” in black block let­ters below.

  “Eighteen years together, and I’m still hoping I can sometime make an honest woman of Sandy,” Ella says.

  When it’s my turn I say I’m happy for air hockey. Everyone laughs, and I do, too, but really, I’m serious. For the first time since that horrible accident, I had twenty minutes or so of being in the zone, my mind and body working together, with no thought of any­thing else.

  For a while, when we first start eating, there’s not much conver­sation. Then, once everything’s been tasted, I guess, the talk and laughter gets back to a pre-dinner level.

  I know they’ll be having turkey at the home, and the tables will be decorated. It won’t be like this, though, with people who’ve been friends for years, and who have lives in the world. I’m lucky to be here.

  Besides Ella’s specialty dressing, Glenn has brought his special, non-gourmet dressing, which turns out to be cornbread and sau­sage. One taste and I’m in a different Thanksgiving scene, at our big kitchen table in the old house on Camellia Street. Casper’s re­laxed, without his harness, lying at Gram’s feet. Our neighbor, old Mr. Franklin, is next to Grams. He was the one who didn’t have anywhere to go, since his wife died and his kids all lived far away. There’s Lori and Jamie, from Dad’s work, and Pete and Louise, who used to live next door. In the middle of the table is the big plas­tic yellow submarine which is what Dad puts on display each year . . . put on display . . . and he always starts dinner with . . . started . . . with the same toast: “our friends are all aboard and everyone of us has all we need . . .”

  “Autumn?”

  Nikki’s voice comes through the fog to that other time.

  “Autumn? Are you okay?”

  The conversation is stopped and everyone at the table is looking at me.

  I shake my head. “Sorry,” I say, “I was just thinking about . . .”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I nod and the others turn their attention back to their conversa­tions. Nikki watches me a moment longer, then asks if I’ll help her serve the apple pie. I take one more taste of the cornbread dress­ing, savoring remnants from that other time, then join Nikki in the kitchen. She slices pie onto dessert plates, and I carry the plates into the dining room.

  Kim motions for me to sit next to her, where Barry’d been sitting before he took the baby back to a bedroom to change him.

  “Did you see how Jean kissed Dalton? She’ll love your baby,”

  Kim says, talking in that low, confidential voice she uses.

  “Now, tell me about the father. Is he smart, and good-looking, like you?”

  I look around for Nikki, but she must still be in the kitchen.

  “Do you see him very often, or did he skip out when . . .”

  “Nikki may still need more help,” I say, practically running out of the dining room and into the kitchen.

  Friday morning, before I have to go back, I call Danni. Carole answers.

  “May I please talk to Danni?” I say.

  She hangs up without a word.

  Chapter

  17

  Just before dinner on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I’m led to the visitors’ area where Nikki and Penny are waiting.

  “We came straight from the airport,” Penny says, hugging me quickly, then backing away for a better look.

  She reaches her hand toward my mid-section, pausing just inch­es from actual contact, hesitant.

  “May I?”

  I nod okay, even though I’m embarrassed.

  Penny rubs her hand lightly over my abdomen.

  “Where do you usually feel movement?”

  I point to a place just above my belly button and to the right. Penny rests her hand over that spot.

  “Is she pretty active?” Penny asks.

  “Mostly late at night, when I’m in bed. Or sometimes just after I eat.”

  Penny keeps her hand on my belly a little longer, then, after nothing happens, we move to one of the “conversation groupings” and sit down.

  “We’ve decided we’d like you to stay with us until you have the

  baby,” Nikki says. “If you want to.”

  “I want to,” I say, wondering if I really heard right—if it’s re­ally possible that I might again live in a real home.

  “We’re not sure about the baby . . .” Nikki starts.

  “But we think . . .”

  “We’ll take things one step at a time,” Nikki says, more to Penny than to me. “We’ll get the temporary foster home license completed and then, if it seems like a good idea, we’ll think about the baby.”

  I can’t stop smiling.

  Penny puts her arms around me in a soft, warm hug.

  “You’ve been through so much, Autumn. But you’ll like it at our place. I know you will.”

  Before they leave, Penny puts her hand on my stomach again, just in time to feel a kick.

  “Oh . . . Oh, that’s the sweetest thing . . . that little baby in there . . .”

  She takes Nikki’s hand and holds it over the same spot, but ev­erything’s quiet again.

  Wednesday, less than a week after Thanksgiving, I get a progress report from Ms. Guerra. Madison walks out into the hall with me, to tell me goodbye.

  “You’re so lucky! I wish they’d take me, too. I don’t even care if they’re muff divers.”

  “Madison! That’s so disrespectful!”

  “No, it’s not! How can it be disrespectful when I don’t even know them?”

  “That’s just the point.”

  “Well, anyway, I wish I could go with you.” She shakes her head, sadly, then smiles.

  “I bet you won’t be gone for a week before you’ll have forgotten everything I taught you! Say ‘bitch’!

  “Bitch.”

  “Say ‘shit.’”

  “Shit.”

  “Say ‘fuck.’”

  “Madison . . .”

  “Come on! Don’t be such a pussy!”

  I laugh.

  “Madison . . .”

  “I knew it,” she says, also laughing. “As soon as you get out of here you’re going to revert to your old goody-goody self.”

  “I hope so,” I say.

  “Come on, then. Just once more—for old time’s sake.”

  “No! There’s got to be more interesting things to say than bitch, shit, fuck!”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Madison says, suddenly sad again.

  She throws her arms around me. “Good luck!”

  “You, too,” I say, surprised that I feel like crying.

  We promise to write each other, even though our letters will have to first go through Miss F.

  I go down to the nurse’s office to say goodbye to Ms. Lee.

  “Thank you for all of your help,” I say.

  “Are you going to be okay out there in the big world?”

  “I’m going to be soooo okay—more than okay.”

  Miss Lee smiles.

  “I believe you will be. Just don’t go near the
river.”

  “Huh? What river?”

  “You know! That most dangerous river of all. Da Nile.”

  It takes a moment, and then I get it. Da Nile. Denial.

  “Ha, ha,” I say, stone-faced.

  “Really,” Miss Lee says, still smiling. “Take good care of your­self. Drop in now and then if you can.”

  Miss F. isn’t in her office when I stop to tell her goodbye. I think about leaving a note. Then I realize, hey, I can just call her! I’m going to be in the real world, where I can use the phone, and email, and the U. S. Postal Service! Like real people do.

  I take my paperwork down to the windowless room and give it to Ms. Smeal. She reads it over, slowly, then goes into the storage room and gets my stuff. She hands things to me, one at a time, as she checks them off her list. My shoes, my Hamilton High sweat­shirt—each time she hands something to me, I have to write my initials beside the description. And each time it feels like I’m get­ting back a piece of my self.

  Once I’ve got all of my belongings in front of me, I take the basics behind the folding screen and change clothes. My jeans, al­ready too tight when I came in here, won’t even zip halfway up, now. I put the “shared” clothes on an empty chair near the door.

  “You can keep the shoes,” Ms. Smeal says.

  “No thanks.” I say, lacing my Nikes. “I like my own shoes.”

  My dad’s wallet and Grams’ purse I put at the very bottom of my backpack, then my cell phone. Next goes my Hamilton High books and then my notebook. The red plastic purse with pictures and driver’s license I put in a small zippered compartment. Then I stuff the rest of my clothes into the three shopping bags I came in with and go out to the waiting room. Nikki’s already there, talking with Miss F.

  “You weren’t going to leave without telling me goodbye, were you?” she asks, flashing the smile that was so reassuring to me when I first arrived here.

  “I stopped by your office but you weren’t in,” I say.

  “Well, then, here I am now!” She opens her arms to me and I step into her soft embrace.

  “The best of luck to you,” she says.

  “Thanks.”

  She fishes around in her pocket, pulling out candy kisses, pen­cils, notes on torn pieces of paper, until she finds her cards.