Ink for the Beloved

by R C Barnes

  He had fallen asleep long before he got to the end of his story, but his tattoo of Chloe had told me the rest. Everything Ian said was truthful. His tattoo confirmed he didn’t know about Chloe’s allergy to strawberries. It was an honest and tragic mistake.

  I shifted my body so I could relieve myself of Ian’s weight and slowly lower him to the ground. I took a last look at the tattoo and noticed something peculiar about the bottom of the dress the woman was wearing. Initially, when I had glanced at the golden gown, I had thought the detail at the bottom was lace, but now I could see the design was tiny horseshoe crabs. Ian had done the tattoo of Chloe in the memorial makeup and golden gown a long time ago, but these little crabs at the bottom of the dress were recent add-ons. This was the work my mother inked when Ian came to see her on Thursday as the “I” in Maxine. The crabs were the highlight of the story.

  I stood up and wiped my hands on the back of my jeans. Folks had drifted away from the staging area as the festival was winding down for the night. My eyes searched the area for my friends. I didn’t have to look very far. Rueben was only a few yards away, chowing down on a large bag of kettle corn. Joanie stood next to him, staring in my direction. Her hands were on her hips, and she did not look happy.

  PICTURE PUZZLES

  A cow, a lyre or instrument, a unicorn, and a crab. I had drawn sketches of these images in my notes. I was not the artist my mother was, so both the cow and the unicorn were a little misshapen. I cursed myself for not taking photos of the tattoos when I had the opportunity. It seemed so obvious now, but at the time, taking a photograph was like it a breach in the personal boundaries the individual was granting me. I was already touching their skin, taking a picture felt uncouth, especially when I realized one of the photos would be of Xtina’s behind. My memory would have to serve.

  There were circles around the images and added phrases or possible thematic ideas like “Jack in the Beanstalk?” near the cow and “Rock and Roll” because of the leather jacket. The lyre had words like “Greek God” and “Apollo” and “Olympus.” All the ideas discussed with Joanie and Rueben were somewhere on the paper.

  Joanie was furious with me about Monterey. She said nothing while we were with Mrs. Marshall. But all the way back to Berkeley in the car, she read me the riot act, shouting about drunk men and reckless girls. I told her she laid down more rules than my mother and the cops combined. She ignored my comment and just told me to do what I had to do. She waved her hand like I was an annoying fly. She was angry, and I wasn’t sure how I could fix it.

  She came over after school to assist with the Maxine puzzle, but her emotions were still simmering with displeasure. Thankfully a eureka moment dispelled the tension when Rueben yelled, “Fantasia“! We rushed to the shelves, where I knew we had the movie in our possession. We watched thinking we had the answer as we saw unicorns and Greek Gods on the screen. Then I remembered there was a Mickey Mouse version of Jack and the Beanstalk, and Joanie reminded us about Ariel, the mermaid, and Sebastian, the crab. We were getting ahead of ourselves, but our brains were clicking. Nikko and Emily were the last two people to locate. Their notes had said “howl” and “mouse.” We kept thinking howl meant a werewolf, but it could be something else. I hoped howl wasn’t werewolf because there isn’t a werewolf in any of these movies. That was the problem with these clues, there was always one that didn’t fit into place.

  “Hocus Pocus has a werewolf,” Joanie threw out in the discussion.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Rueben responded.

  “Are you sure?” Joanie asked. “I’m pretty sure I saw a werewolf.”

  Rueben turned to me. “Bess, is there a werewolf in Hocus Pocus?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see the movie.”

  “You never saw Hocus Pocus!?” they both cried out incredulously. I was beginning to wonder how Joanie saw Hocus Pocus. There are a lot of contradictions in that girl.

  “You guys, please don’t tell me the solution to finding the key is Disney,” I said.

  “Yeah, we don’t want to fall down that rabbit hole,” Rueben responded. We all groaned.

  Joanie and Rueben took off, and I was left to ponder the meaning of the Maxine board I was creating. I drew lines connecting the images in order of MAXINE with question marks around the tattoos I had not yet seen or touched. I was transferring the work from paper and using the board Ollie had mounted when we first were trying to figure out what Maxine was. My Maxine board with sketches and phrases and question marks mapped out did resemble the television show murder boards. I wondered if policemen really did that. Did Officer Lopez have a board up that she was looking at as she tried to solve the crimes surrounding Cosmic Hearts? I doubt she had Jack and the Beanstalk written on hers, though.

  Echo came in, holding a picture of a cow. Her drawing showed a smiling cow eating grass under a sunny sky. “Here,” she said, handing me the drawing. “Put this one up. Yours is boring.”

  “Thanks,” I said, ignoring her little jibe. Echo had definitely inherited the artistic gene from our mother. Her cow was much better than my cow. I removed my shabby drawing and placed hers in its place. We both stepped back to admire her handiwork and how it beautified my Maxine board.

  “What are you doing?” Echo asked. She gestured to the whole board and its contents.

  “I’m trying to figure something out,” I answered.

  “Is it connect the dots?” Echo had a lot of connect-the-dots picture books, and I’m sure my lines linking one image or idea to the next reminded her of that. “It doesn’t look like anything,” she said.

  “I know,” was my reply.

  “I think you missed a dot somewhere.”

  “I know,” I sighed. This kid was really grinding my gears.

  “Maybe the little pictures are part of a big picture.” She skipped out of the room and came back with one of her “Where’s Waldo” books. She opened her book to a random page. “Look,” she said, patting the page showing an immensely detailed drawing of medieval England. “This is the big picture.” She swirled her hand around the page. “But then over here is a cat hiding in a barrel. Here’s a lady hitting a man with a long piece of bread. Oh look, there’s Waldo. And see, right here is a horse eating an apple.” She pointed at each image as she spoke.

  Small pictures that were part of a big picture. I think Echo was onto something. Perhaps what my mother was doing was building a larger image instead of leading me to a smaller one. I felt on edge, and tingly like something important had just happened.

  I got it. My mother was using a crossword puzzle to build a picture puzzle. She liked words, but I was drawn to thematic images. She had crafted this puzzle for me to solve. What was the bigger picture?

  “What is that?” asked Echo. She was pointing to my poorly sketched horseshoe crab for Ian Kramer.

  “It’s a crab,” I answered.

  “I don’t see it,” Echo answered. She gave me a pitiful glance and left the room, shaking her head. “I’m going to draw you a better one.”

  I knew whatever crab Echo designed would look just like Sebastian from The Little Mermaid.

  It’s a rough day when your six-year-old sister gets to put you in your place.

  CPS

  I approached the house from the east and saw an unfamiliar woman standing on the front stoop. She was dressed in a basic skirt, beige sweater, and a scarf to add some life to the ensemble. Modest brown loafers adorned her feet. In her arms, she held a stack of folders. Everything about her screamed Child Protective Services.

  I paused on the sidewalk. My brain racing. What should I do? I could turn and run, give an excuse claiming I didn’t see her, and I need to meet with a study group for a class. But then she’d come back another day. And perhaps that day would be frightful and chaotic. Besides, the study group or class excuse might not work. She could be informed about my mutual “time-out” from high school.

  I breathed in and out, releasing the air through my nose. No, I surmised it
is best for me to confront her now. Perhaps I can make this quick and send her away.

  I walked slowly down the street watching her warily. Eventually, she looked over and saw me. A quick glance inside a folder must have confirmed I was Elizabeth Wynters. She waved and gestured for me to come up the steps as if she lived in the residence and not me.

  “Elizabeth Wynters?” she asked.

  “Bess,” I answered. “I go by Bess.”

  She flipped open her folder and made a notation. Looking up, she flashed a smile, but it wasn’t genuine at all. In fact, I was getting weirded out by this woman. She wasn’t a predator like Todd. No, this woman reeked of bureaucracy.

  “I’m a little early,” the woman explained. “I was told you got home around 4:00. And look here you are, 4:00 on the button.” She looked around me. “Is there a reason you didn’t ride your bicycle?”

  My eyes widened. WTF? How does she know I ride a bicycle? Without thinking how it would sound, I asked “Is my bike riding in your file?”

  The woman pressed her lips together in response to my flippancy and pushed back the glasses on her face. “Yes,” she said. That is in the file. It says you use a bicycle as your mode of transportation. I don’t see it, so I was wondering if I was stolen. Those can be very pricey to replace.”

  I had to keep myself from frowning at this woman. Fear was seeping into my body like a chill in the air. I had always worried our family court file was thick and filled with personal information that shouldn’t be public knowledge. The woman’s eyes were bearing down on me as she waited to hear the answer regarding the status of my bike.

  I didn’t want to say where it truly was. I had left in on the CAL campus to shield my movements from Todd. Not that he was following me, but he was following me. My bike had become a liability if I didn’t want Todd or whoever to know where I was. I figured the house was safe – even if we didn’t have the police on constant surveillance.

  Now Child Protective Services was standing on our doorstep to protect the child. That meant this woman was here thinking she might remove my sister.

  It was as if the woman was reading my mind. “Where is your sister?” she asked.

  “She’ll be home soon,” I responded.

  There was a long pause and the woman looked at me expectantly. It took me a minute to realize she was waiting for me to invite her inside. Talk about the one thing I didn’t want to do. It’s not that the place was a mess, I knew it wasn’t, but inviting her in seemed like she was an invited guest. And nothing was farther from the truth.

  Finally, I bit the bullet and said, “Would you like to come in?”

  She smiled her condescending smile again. “That would be the idea,” she replied.

  I opened the door and let her in. I’ve always believed my mother’s anger at people’s judgements to be over the top, but here I was witnessing an example of the type of judgement my mother despised. This woman didn’t know us - she didn’t know us at all and yet she was stepping into our home ready to make a judgement and write a report. Her report would be added to all the other reports in the folder and anybody reading them would believe they knew our family. But there was so much they were missing. For instance, anything about Ollie would only state he was a tenant and not the keeper of the kitchen. Ollie’s cuisine and his boisterous sense of humor kept this family content and loved. There would be no mention of Dusty outside the fact she was Terry Wynters’ business partner at Cosmic Hearts. Dusty’s no nonsense viewpoint kept my mother from falling into too many flights of fancy. Then, of course, there would be no mention of Luther (outside of the restraining order). Luther’s love and support had shown both Echo and I what we were missing by not having a father around. Luther grounded us. He was the solid rock that kept the helium filled balloons from drifting into the sky.

  None of those people were in the file. And right now, those were the adults in my family circle.

  I watched the woman as she stepped over the threshold and into the foyer of the house. She looked around at the large couch and love seat filled with throw pillows, the worn-down Asian rug, and the multiple art projects in different stages of completion. Some of the art projects were notions of my mother’s who wanted to experiment in different mediums. Some of the art projects were Echo’s as she mimicked our mother. By the way, if people ever wondered where the nickname “Echo” came from, it was a combination of her physical resemblance to our mother and her proclivity to play in the art world.

  I was reminded of this when the woman asked where Eleanora was. I almost said “who,” but thankfully caught myself.

  “She had a playdate afterschool,” I answered. “She’s scheduled to be back at 5:00. Ordinarily, I would be studying during this time period.” The comment was said to let this woman know she was interfering.

  “Yes, but you’re not in school right now,” the woman replied.

  She did know about that. I realized being placed on a “forced hiatus” in a public school was probably something the authorities would be notified of. Government agencies stick together in theory.

  “I might not be attending classes, but I still have work I need to hand in,” I said. “We didn’t know you were coming. Otherwise I would have had my sister here at the house.”

  “The purpose of a surprise home visit is to see how you are functioning on a day to day basis and not what you do when company calls.”

  Company!? Did she just compare herself to company?

  The woman walked into the kitchen and looked around. She then pushed open the door to my bedroom and peered inside. It sounds stupid, but I was glad I made my bed this morning.

  “This is your bedroom?” the woman asked.

  I didn’t answer because something flippant was about to fly out of my mouth.

  She looked around the back of the bedroom door and noted the locks. She played with the deadbolt, moving the mechanism back and forth. She then made a notation on a piece of paper in the file. I stood there, saying nothing.

  The woman then moved towards the staircase that led to Ollie’s bedroom and his private bathroom.

  “That’s where Ollie stays,” I said.

  “I’ll just go have a look,” the woman replied. She disappeared up the stairs. Her sensible shoes treading softly as she climbed. I didn’t follow her. Instead I listened as she moved about on the upper floor. I didn’t hear drawers opening, but she did open Ollie’s closet door and move items back on the hangars. After a beat, she came back down.

  “That’s a lovely space for the tenant,” she observed. “Do you happen to know where your mother keeps the rental agreement and his references?” The woman looked about for a desk or office space that would indicate where such important papers would be located.

  I knew Ollie’s lease was somewhere in his room, but I stated, “you’d have to ask my mother where she keeps it.”

  The woman looked over at me, with an expression that could have been read in many ways. Did she think I was being a wiseass or just sadly mistaken?

  To help her along with the assessment, I replied, “Oh, I’m sorry. You can’t ask her right now. Perhaps, later.”

  The woman ignored me and continued to move through the other side of the house. She glanced into Echo’s room and then took her time walking through the master bedroom and bathroom. She moved back into the hallway and stopped. “What’s this?” she asked.

  She was standing in front of the Maxine board. While she had been upstairs in Ollie’s space, I had debated covering the board with a sheet. But I felt that would draw even more attention to it. I was hoping she would see all the other partially completed projects and believe it was like them.

  The woman continued to look at the drawings and images taped on the board and the phrases marked alongside them.

  “It’s a game I’m playing with my sister,” I explained.

  “How do you play it?” the woman asked.

  I opened my mouth and stuff just flew out. “Well, it’s hard to expl
ain, but I was teaching her about storytelling and identifying key elements in a story. This is about Jack and the Beanstalk. The cow is there because Jack goes to town to sell the cow which is what launches the story.”

  The woman nodded. “I see you have Jack and the Beanstalk written here. But what is the crab for?”

  “Um, she likes The Little Mermaid, and they have a crab in the story.”

  “And the unicorn?”

  “She wanted the land where the giant was to be magical.”

  The woman appeared puzzled.

  “She’s six,” I responded as if to offer an explanation.

  “Teaching a six-year-old the fundamentals of storytelling is ambitious,” the woman said. She turned away from the Maxine board and wrote something else in her file.

  I kept my mouth shut. I just wanted this woman to leave. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” I offered.

  “I need to see and speak to Eleanora,” the woman replied.

  “She’s at a friend’s house,” I answered.

  “That’s fine. I’ll wait.”

  The last thing I wanted was to sit with this woman for the next hour. She wasn’t particularly interested in speaking to me. That’s okay, but I didn’t want her to talk to Echo and have my sister blurt out stuff about Luther.

  “Would you like me to contact the family and ask them to bring Echo home earlier?” I asked.

  “That’s not necessary,” the woman replied.

  “Oh, I insist,” I said. “Why hang around here when you could be back in your comfy office? I’ll call them now.” I rang the Kelly’s and told them there was a social worker at her home who needed to speak with Echo. They understood and agreed to bring Echo back early. I then asked to speak with my sister, briefly.

  “Hey, Echo,” I said. “There’s a nice lady here at the house who wants to talk to you. Maisie’s parents need to bring you home now.”

  Echo sighed and complained about not finishing her snack. They had just gotten back from the park.