What We Take For Truth

by Deborah Nedelman

  “Your mom?” Jane sighed and pushed her coat back into the corner. “Well, I’m not really sure. We lost touch.”

  “She’s still alive?”

  “I suppose she is.”

  “She wouldn’t even know me. My own mother. I could walk right by her on the street and she wouldn’t even recognize me. I wouldn’t...” Tears were streaming down her face, but Grace seemed not to notice.

  “Why? Why did she leave me?”

  Jane pursed her lips, leaned forward and looked hard into Grace’s eyes.

  “It wasn’t that easy, honey. Believe me, she loved you more than her own heart. It was just a bad situation and I... well, from where I stood, it seemed like the best solution.”

  “From where you stood? What did you have to do with it?”

  “We were best friends, don’t forget. Annie told me everything. And Warren, well he wasn’t talking much in those days, but he was my brother. I knew him, and I knew he just couldn’t live without you.”

  It was like some sort of awful, hideous soap opera. Grace wanted to laugh out loud, but the tears wouldn’t stop.

  Jane took another long drag on her cigarette.

  “I did what I thought was best for everyone involved. It was a hard time. I told your mother to go. I told her to leave you with Warren and I’d help him take care of you. I told her…”

  “You told my mother to leave me?” Now Grace’s voice had dropped to a whisper, an incredulous gasp. Everything was upside down; what had been the floor was now the ceiling, the inside, now outside. The only explanation was that somehow the rules of physics were no longer in effect.

  Jane wasn’t making eye contact with her niece anymore; her voice flat as she reported what had happened.

  “I told her that once your father had gotten over her leaving and had calmed down, I would bring you to her. I thought it would only be a few weeks or something.”

  Jane brought her eyes up and sighed.

  “Oh, hell I don’t know what I thought. I was just worried about Warren.” Then she shrank back against the booth and seemed to wither into an old woman as Grace stared at her.

  “But you never did it.” This woman, her aunt, was a monster. A hateful, horrible thing. “You never took me to her.”

  “No. How could I? Warren needed you. You made him happy.” Tears formed in the corners of Jane’s eyes. She looked down and began to sob.

  The anger and hatred Grace recognized a moment before dissolved into numbness. She looked across the table at her aunt’s tear-streaked face and wondered, Who is that woman and why is she crying? I am supposed to be crying, not her.

  But Grace’s eyes were suddenly dry and wide, wide open. She had to let as much light in as she could. A darkness was approaching. For now, a flimsy, opaque membrane was keeping the reality of Jane’s words at a slight remove. Grace heard—her ears were working as they always had. The words were English—a language she still recognized as familiar and meaningful. But it was all still in her head, in the concrete, cold, thinking realm.

  There must be a barrier, Grace thought, somewhere in my neck, because my guts and my heart feel fine. Everything will settle down here in a minute and I’ll be able to walk out of here just like I walked in—normal. Everything will be normal. As long as the barrier holds.

  But she couldn’t take her eyes off Jane’s face. She couldn’t push herself out of the booth, stand up, and walk away. She couldn’t figure out how to get her body to move.

  What she wanted was to lie down on the floor, right there, right on the cold tile of the restaurant where she could rest her head alongside the spilled peas, abandoned crusts of bread, and dropped cutlery. She imagined how good it would feel to have the blood return to her head, to regain the strength to stand. But she knew that once that happened, once the world was upright and she was on her own feet, nothing would ever be the same. If she could just hold herself in suspension like this, maybe the barrier would not break; maybe she would never have to feel it.

  Aunt Jane, Dad’s biggest supporter. People talked about how Jane loved her brother so much no other guy had a chance with her. And it was true. Grace could see that now as she looked at the pleading face across from her.

  “Parrot? I know you have to hate me. I just hope...” Jane seemed so much smaller now.

  “I don’t think hate is quite the right word.”

  Grace couldn’t let her go on; she didn’t want to hear what Jane hoped for.

  “I’m not exactly sure what this is called. I’ve never felt it before. Numb. Empty. No feeling at all. That’s it. I have no feeling for you at all.” With that, Grace was finally able to command her feet. She stood, picked up her pack, and walked out of the restaurant.

  ***

  Once outside, the glare of daylight and the blast of car horns knocked Grace back against the building; she leaned there as strangers swarmed around her. She closed her eyes, breathed in the diesel fumes, and let the cacophony of the city engulf her.

  “Hey, baby, got any spare change?” Her eyes popped open to see a dirty hand, palm open in front of her. The stench of stale alcohol. A fleeting image of Walt deVore flashed across her mind. He knew the truth. Rose Dyer knew the truth. Even Mrs. G knew the truth. The whole damn, stinking, lying town knew the truth and no one had the guts to tell her. All these years! Grace pushed herself away from the wall. Shrugging off the begging hand, she stepped into the flow of people.

  Her mind boiled, heated by shock and confusion. Was everything she’d believed about her mother a lie? Had her mother even loved her at all? Why hadn’t she come back to get her? What had Jane told her? What kind of woman keeps a child from her mother?

  Even as these questions formed in Grace’s mind, she was aware of an aura of unreality about the whole situation. It was like something she’d read in a book, a story about someone else, some whimpering, pitiful child. A story too cruel to believe.

  Smells of urine and garbage blew out from the alleyways. Loose pages from old newspapers, discarded cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and clumps of gum decorated the sidewalk. Her feet moved swiftly over concrete; they carried her toward the water, down the steep hill toward Puget Sound.

  At the bottom of the hill a man stood on the corner playing a flute. His yellow hair was a mass of dusty curls, his eyes were closed, and his thin body swayed with his music. A narrow instrument case, lined with bright red velvet stood open on the ground in front of him and a scattering of coins and a few pale green bills lay inside. People pushed past, tourists with cameras held up to their eyes, groups of women sipping lattes from paper cups, strollers with crying babies in front and sacks of vegetables in back forged through the crowd, propelled by young women with harried expressions.

  With no thought of a destination, Grace had wandered into Pike Place Market. Assaulted by the noise and the smells, she stood frozen. Coffee fumes mixed with the odors of the glistening fish; piles of summer fruits and tables of green; strains of flute music from her right, amplified drums on her left. Hawkers called, children laughed, venders shouted greetings over the heads of their customers.

  An arguing couple jostled Grace as they passed, momentarily rousing her. Food. Maybe she could think if she ate something, if she could find a quiet place to sit. She wandered through the warren of stalls and shops and found herself in a small walled garden. Shiny metal tables and folding chairs were scattered over an uneven brick patio. Along one side was a chowder joint; a ragged fishing net knotted with clamshells was draped above the doorway. Tourists were lined up cafeteria-style with yellow plastic trays.

  She turned to leave and passed a spiral stairway that climbed to the street above. Tucked behind the stairs, she saw a sign that read “Hummus, Falafel, Spanakopita.” Feeling a bit like Alice tumbling into wonderland, she walked toward the sign with no idea what its words meant. Something about their foreignness and their vaguely organic quality drew her.

  “May I help you, miss?” It was a female voice, lightly accented a
nd musical.

  Grace peered behind the staircase and found a counter with glass cases displaying foods she couldn’t identify. “Ummm, what’s good?”

  “If you’re hungry, miss, everything is good.”

  “OK, well, yes, I guess I am hungry. What do you recommend?” She didn’t trust herself to make a choice.

  “How about a sample plate, miss? A little bit of everything, eh?”

  “OK, good idea.”

  “All right then.” The woman, who looked about Grace’s age, turned and called to a little girl who sat on a stool in the back of the tiny kitchen, “Nuket, come. Help me.”

  The little girl jumped down and grabbed the top plate from the stack on the shelf behind her. “Here, Mommy. Should I get a fork?”

  “Yes, my sweet, a fork and a napkin. And put them on the tray. Are your hands clean, Nuket?”

  “Oh,” she looked down at her palms and pulled her stool over to the sink and held her hands under the running water.

  “She needs to learn. It is good for a daughter to learn from her mother in the kitchen. She is a big help to me.” The woman spoke with clear pride.

  “She is a lucky girl.” Grace stood paralyzed by the pain. She had been even younger than this child when she last stood in the gleaming kitchen, watching Annie’s hands rolling pie dough. Her vision blurred with tears.

  “Are you OK, miss?” The woman held out a napkin. “Here, you go have a seat. Nuket will bring your food to you.”

  Grace spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on a metal chair in that garden. Crowds came and left: families with squirming kids who threw their crackers on the ground; old men who sipped their chowder with their jackets zipped up to their chins and their woolen hats pulled down over their ears; gaggles of teenagers who clomped down the staircase and ran across the courtyard tossing cigarette butts and “fuck-off-assholes” in their wake. Men in suits and ties ordered wraps from Nuket’s mother and walked out of the garden checking their watches.

  As the brick wall brightened with the sunset, Nuket began to pull the shutters across the counter of her mother’s stand. She leaned out, surveying the courtyard, and saw Grace still sitting in the corner. “Did you like it, miss?”

  Grace had fallen into a trance, tracking memories of her childhood, bits of conversation with Rose and Jackson, even casual comments made by people like Mrs. G and Sherrie. Measuring her experiences of these people who’d become her family against the new reality Jane had exposed, she was unsure of everything. With effort, she roused herself.

  “Oh, it was delicious. Thank you.”

  It was getting late. Where could she go? Shauna and Jen lived somewhere in the city. But the thought of explaining it all to them made her weak. And what if they knew it all already? What if they’d kept the secret too? No, she couldn’t face it.

  Nuket’s mother stepped out from behind her counter carrying a plastic bag of garbage. Grace stood and picked up her pack. “Um, excuse me, but do you know where I could get a room around here? A cheap room?”

  ***

  “How the hell did that work? The whole town?” Charlie sat at the table in Walt’s kitchen trying to absorb what Henry had just told him.

  “What can I tell you, man? It’s a small town. People are loyal around here.”

  “Loyal. Right. A bunch of liars sticking together. Kinda like us, up there stealing trees. We’re pretty damn loyal too.” Nathan’s stench was all over this story. Charlie’s shoulders stiffened. He stood and began pacing around the kitchen.

  Henry leaned back in his chair and put his hands flat on the table. “Look, Annie abandoned her four-year-old daughter. What kind of mother does that? Folks wanted to protect that kid. I get it.”

  “Yeah? Well, maybe you don’t know the whole story man. I mean it’s not like I have this loving relationship with the lady, but Annie’s a victim here too, I’d say.”

  “Yeah?”

  Henry came from a pretty screwed up family from what Charlie could remember. There’d been a lot of drinking and some spectacular fights that became legend among the kids in town. Charlie could still recall the shock of witnessing Henry’s mother drag his father out of the Bullhook by his hair while yelling, “you cock-sucking asshole somabitch.” For nine-year-old Charlie, it was a first; he’d never forgotten that particular string of epithets.

  Through it all Henry had kept his cool. He belonged to those people, but he wasn’t really one of them. Charlie could never understand how his friend managed that.

  Charlie stopped in front of the sink, looked out the window. “My father knocked her up, you know? And from what I heard, her husband, Warren, was not a guy to take that lightly.”

  Henry didn’t move. The old clock above the stove ticked loudly.

  “Nathan, the chickenshit, grabs her up and takes her away. Leaves me and my mom behind, by the way.” Charlie’s hands curled into fists and he began slowly pounding them—left then right—on the porcelain lip of the sink. “I’m not saying she had no choice, but man, her choices weren’t good. An abortion without Warren finding out? Not likely. They leave. And then things get worse.”

  Henry stood now and walked over to stand next to this man with whom he’d shared a childhood. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  Charlie raised his eyebrows. He went over to the table and picked up the pack of cigarettes, took one, and lit it. “Look man, I need to be telling this to Grace. She’s an adult, for fuck’s sake. She deserves to know. I gotta go.”

  Henry reached out to put a cautioning hand on Charlie’s arm. “I never credited it much, but there’s people who say this town is cursed.” He looked hard at his friend. “Good luck, Charlie.”

  The two men walked out of the house and Henry turned up the hill toward his own home, Charlie down toward the Hoot Owl.

  But Grace wasn’t at the café. Lyle said she was out of town.

  Chapter 14

  Grace dropped her backpack on the floor next to bed twenty-one. In her hand were a threadbare towel and a gray woolen blanket. She’d gotten these from the sullen guy who’d taken an uncomfortably close visual inventory of her physical attributes when he checked her into the hostel. After unfolding the blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders, she slumped down on the mattress.

  It was after nine, but there was still some light in the sky and the rows of beds were empty. The place smelled of rank body odor and stale cigarette smoke. The walls of the long narrow room were covered with a thin coat of white paint that allowed the history of the old building to seep through. Perfect, Grace thought, this hostel could be an orphanage right out of Dickens. I fit right in.

  A crushing fatigue suddenly took hold of Grace’s body. She slid down on the bed and closed her eyes. When voices and footsteps roused her, Grace pulled the blanket over her head, and prayed for sleep.

  In the morning, after finding her way to the bathroom and brushing her teeth, Grace walked down to the common room. There were a few people huddled over the remains of a meal. Was it breakfast or lunch? She picked up a cup from the tray by the coffee urn and poured herself the dregs. Then Grace forced herself to go over the previous day’s events in detail. She needed to think, to sort out what Jane had told her and what it meant. But even after downing a couple of bitter cups, Grace’s mind was still muddled. Her limbs felt weak, her stomach refused the thought of food.

  She dragged herself back to her bed and buried her face in the pillow. Squeezing her eyes shut, she yearned again for sleep to bring the curtain down on her whirling distress. But it did not return. The stench of the room, the well in the middle of the mattress, the periodic slamming of a distant door, the blasts of static-laced music from the radio in the common room, the grumble of traffic, smoother and far more constant that the sounds of logging trucks passing her cabin—it all conspired to keep her aware of where she was and where she was not.

  Grace sat up, slipped her feet into her boots, pulled out the sweatshirt she’d stuffed at the bottom of her p
ack, cinched it closed, and hefted the pack onto her shoulders.

  “I’ll be back tonight,” she told the girl in the dingy flannel shirt, yards too big for her, who leaned against the check-in counter.

  “Whatever.” Not even a glance in Grace’s direction. “We don’t hold beds. Not a hotel.”

  “Right.” Grace nodded as she stepped out onto the street. “Even I wouldn’t mistake this place for a hotel.”

  The blue sky of the previous day had disappeared as if it had never been. The pavement was dark with rain that had fallen during the night. A backdrop of gray lurked behind everything, fogging her mind as well as her body.

  Why didn’t my mother come back for me? Maybe she tried. Maybe Jane lied to her too, maybe she thinks I’m dead.

  She grasped at this shimmer of hope. My mother is grieving; all this time she’s believed I was dead. There was fuel in this idea—a joyous reunion, Annie’s arms around her, gratitude, relief, love—all this was possible still. All she had to do was find her. The fog lifted for a moment.

  Don’t be ridiculous. I was a healthy four-year-old. It would have been way too convenient for me to die just when she left town. No one would believe that.

  Grace pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her hair. What kind of mother just walks away from her child? What kind of child was I? Why did she leave me? Each time these questions circled through her brain, Grace felt more confused. If she were ever going to find an answer to any of it, she needed to start searching for Annie.

  The phone hung inside a shelter of sorts, no sides or door, but a small plastic dome kept the rain from dripping down her back as she stepped up to lift the receiver. An empty chain dangled from the bottom of the phone box; the phonebook had likely disappeared long ago. Grace dropped a quarter in the coin slot and punched 411.

  “Do you have number for Anne Tillman or, um, Anne Roberge?”

  ***

  By the time she’d checked into the hostel for her second night, Grace had learned enough to take a bed at the end of the row by the back wall, where the constant shuffling of folks back and forth from the bathroom wouldn’t disturb her. Aside from this kernel of street-wisdom, the day had yielded only frustrating dead ends. Telephone Information had no listing for Tillman or Roberge in Seattle. She’d had the same luck at the library, where she’d randomly pulled phonebooks from around the state. The world outside Prosperity seemed impossibly huge.