Confined

by Barbi Barnard

  That night was the first of many that I cry myself to sleep. I walk through each day, a zombie who is only going through the motions – laugh, smile, talk, and cook, clean, unpack, sort, separate, de-clutter, repaint, and begin again.

  The summer passes in its lazy fashion and before I know it, the leaves on the tree went from a lovely shade of green to a fiery red, the air grew chilly, and the sun would dip over the horizon earlier and earlier each evening.

  Emma started fourth grade and quickly made friends. I however, remained sort of … well, stuck. Over the summer, I took a job working at the police station, answering phones and doing light clerical work. It wasn’t much but it paid the bills and for that, I was grateful.

  On the morning of my birthday, I awoke to the familiar sound of raindrops splattering against the bedroom windows. By now, the sound was familiar and I dozed off again. A few minutes later the bedroom door squeaked open and Emma Grace, my reason for going on, poked her head in.

  “Mom?” she called softly. “Are you awake yet?”

  The scent of coffee preceded her entry into the room. I open one eye lazily and glance at her. “I’m awake, baby doll. Whatcha got over there?”

  Emma comes into the room and sets the tray she was struggling to carry on the edge of the bed. “I made you breakfast in bed ‘cause it’s your birthday.”

  I push a few strands of hair out of my face and sit up, leaning against the heavy wooden headboard. “Wow,” I said eyeing the feast my daughter prepared, “This looks great. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she chirped. “Are we going to go out for dinner tonight?”

  I shrug as I pull the tray closer toward me. “I guess so, why? Do you want to go out?”

  Emma nodded enthusiastically. “I do. Can we go to Sappho, to Pasta Palace?”

  “Yeah, sure. Now go finish getting ready for school.” I steal a glance at the alarm clock. “The bus will be here soon.”

  Emma leaps off the bed and hurries down the hall to the bathroom. I pick up the cup of coffee sloshing around on the tray and sip the bitter liquid. With my free hand, I pick up the card threatening to fall off the tray and onto the floor.

  Happy Birthday was scrawled across the front in neon pink crayon. Beneath it was a picture of a three-tiered cake with a lot of glowing candles. I open it and read the brief note inside. Happy Birthday Mom, I love you! Your daughter, Emma Grace Weston.

  I refold the paper and lay it beside the plate of toast then slide out of bed. Seeing her name signed like that in a card reminded me that we still needed to talk about that. I had debated changing my last name back to Rivers, but ultimately decided against it because Emma’s last name would still be Weston. She wasn’t even a Weston, well not by blood at least. Kyle adopted her when she was two. Of course she didn’t remember this, and at the moment I was not planning on telling her either. I figured I’d casually mention changing my name and see if she wanted to change hers as well.

  Outside the bus squeaked to a stop and the driver blew the horn twice. “Emma,” I called. “Bus.”

  “I know,” she yelled, sneakers pounding down the hallway. I hurry towards her room to make sure she has everything she needs, then rush her down the stairs and out the front door where I stand until she has gotten on the bus and the hulking yellow vehicle groaned down the street.

  Next door, Steve was carrying a lunch box to his car. “Morning,” he shouted with a grin.

  “Morning,” I replied, stooping to pick up the newspaper.

  “See you at the office,” he called as he got into the squad car.

  I give a wave and walk back into the house dropping the newspaper onto the table inside the foyer and then head upstairs to shower and dress for work.

  In my room, I click the radio and hum along to the song as I grab a towel and enter the bathroom. I was twenty-nine years old today. Christ I was getting old. I laughed a bit to myself at the thought. Twenty-nine wasn’t old. Hell, that magazine I saw in the grocery store the other day was saying that forty is the new twenty. I didn’t necessarily buy that, but whatever. By the time I was forty I’d have a twenty-one year old daughter. That made me feel old, but I pushed it aside, shut off the shower water, and step out of the tub wrapping myself in my towel.

  The phone rings as I pad toward my bedroom. I thought about hurrying to answer it, but decided not to. Whoever it was could leave a message, not like they would, but they could if they were so inclined.

  The phone stopped ringing and just as I suspected the caller declined my cheery offer to leave a message. I bypass the phone and head toward the closet, standing in front of it for a good twenty minutes trying to decide what I want to wear. I feel like I should dress up a bit, but don’t want to show up at the station looking too pretty, it would raise unwanted questions and I don’t want to deal with the deputies picking on me all day. So I pull out a pair of black slacks, a blue cardigan, and an off-white tank top and dress quickly.

  When I was ready, I grab my coat off the back of the bedroom door and hurry down the stairs, flicking the thermostat as I pass by. Once more, the phone rings. I groan, “I do not have time for this,” and picked it up. “Hello?” I ask into the cool receiver.

  Crackly silence answers me. “Hello?” I say again. Still nothing, so I replace the phone back into the cradle and grab my car keys. Damn bill collectors, I think to myself as I hurry out the front door. Even with an unpublished number, they still manage to find you.

  Chapter Three

  The same stacks of files are waiting for me this morning just like they have been every other morning over the last four months. On the other side, a vase of happy sunflowers was a new addition. I smile as I sit down and drag the vase toward me, pressing my nose into the perfectly round, brown centers.

  I inhale the sunflowers sweet, summery scent and briefly wonder why they always remind me of fall when they smell so deliciously of summer. Catching my attention back where the vase had been was a flat cream-colored envelope. I pick it up and slide my index finger under the flap, opening it. The paper tears away from the adhesive in a jagged line and the card is released. I pull it out and look down at it, half expecting some kind of cop with a whipped cream bikini and a night stick grinning mischievously up at me. However, it is a simple card with brown and blue stripes that read happy Birthday across the front in a cursive font.

  I open it and read all the little birthday wishes everyone scrawled inside. I slide the vase back and set the card down next to it. As I do so, I wonder if Belinda would call today. Probably not, I decided. And if she did, she wouldn’t know I was in Mora. If she even remembered it was my birthday at all.

  Belinda was, well, she was Belinda. Absentminded and immature by default, she walked out on dad and me when I was just a toddler, claiming she wasn’t cut out for the role of wife and mother, and that she was destined to do great things.

  Great things turned out to be great sex with some strange men; the latest being a British fashion designer. Or something like that. Last I heard she was in Paris with some indie film director.

  It never really bothered me that she left. Dad was a good enough father to fill the void not having a mother should have left. As for Greg, my dad, well if it bothered him, he never showed it.

  Bringing me back to the present was the ever ringing phone. I shook off my la-la land stupor and reach for the receiver. “Mora P.D.,” I said.

  “Good morning, this is Bryson Clay from the ranger station up at the national park, is the chief around?”

  “Please hold.” I spin around in my chair and peer down the short hallway toward Steve’s office. Since his door was open, I saw Steve sitting behind his desk furiously clicking away at his mouse. “Hey Steve,” I called. “Ranger station’s on line one.”

  He jumps and looks at me with an easy going grin. “Damn game,” he laughed. “Kicks my ass every time. Go ahead and put him through.”

  I transfer the call and turn my back, eyeballing the stack of file
s on the desk and picked up the one on top.

  By lunch, I’d made a fairly large dent in the mountain of paperwork. Closing the last file, I push my chair back and retrieve my purse out of the bottom drawer of my desk. My stomach growls loudly, crying for food after having eaten like a mouse for breakfast. As I stand, I bump into Steve who was headed toward my desk. “Sorry,” I said with a sheepish smile. “I didn’t hear you coming.”

  “It’s okay,” he replied. “I’m in stealth mode today.”

  “Like a ninja?” I joked.

  “Nah, more like a polar bear.”

  I frown at him not understanding if he is kidding or serious. “A polar bear?”

  Steve nodded. “Yeah, a polar bear.”

  He stares at me, waiting for me to get it. Finally, I say, “I don’t understand.”

  “Grab a bite to eat with me and I’ll explain,” he said casually.

  Oh, so slick, I thought. “Okay,” I agree. “Oh and thanks for the card.”

  “You like it?” he asked.

  “Yes, it was nice. So are the flowers.”

  “Glad you like them. So do you have plans for tonight?”

  We walk out the front door of the station and head down the block toward the diner that sat at the opposite end of the street. “Emma and I are going to Sappho for dinner.”

  “Sounds fun. Is Paul going with you?”

  “Why?” I ask. In my head I thought, keep fishing nosy.

  “Just wondering,” he replied innocently.

  Over the last few weeks, Steve and I had fallen into this easy friendship. It was clearly obvious that we wanted more from each other, but somehow we were never able to take that next step. Then I started seeing Paul, a teacher at the school in Sappho, and the next step between Steve and me, well … it was what it was, I supposed.

  “He said he would try to make it, but there’s some kind of sports thing he volunteered to help with, so who knows.”

  ”Oh. Well, I hope you enjoy your dinner anyway.”

  “Thanks,” I said. We walk in easy silence the rest of the way to the diner. I don’t know what it is about him, but being with Steve is the easiest thing in the world. As effortless as smiling or blinking, part of me wished he would just take that step, exert himself, and claim me for his own.

  But, he didn’t.

  I am kind of glad that he didn’t. Things were easy the way they are. Paul didn’t ask questions about me or my past or why I left Mora in such a hurry after graduation. Why I never came back or visited – all things Steve asks about on a regular basis.

  All things I wasn’t ready to talk about yet. I knew that if I stayed in Mora, eventually someone would remember that spring and start talking about it, or I would run into someone who was part of what Kyle used to call “the incident.” In a town as small as Mora, it was just a matter of time. It was a miracle that it hadn’t happened already.

  As we walk into the diner, the scent of clam chowder and freshly baked bread hits me, making my stomach growl loudly. Steve laughs as we walk toward an empty booth near the back wall of the diner. Radios on each table cast yellowish glows on the black and white speckled Formica tabletops. Steve slides into the red booth and I slid in opposite him. The interior of the diner was cheery against the overcast afternoon.

  “Looks like rain,” Steve said, following my gaze out the large plate glass window next to the table. “By the way, how’s that window holding up?

  “Oh, it’s good. Thanks again for recommending those guys, they did a great job.”

  A few weeks ago, a severe storm knocked a large branch off a hemlock tree outside of Emma Grace’s window. The branch crashed through the window and into Emma’s bed. Thankfully she was at a sleepover that night. Steve cut up the branch and boarded up the window, giving me the number to a couple of handymen who would fix it cheaply.

  When our waitress arrives, we give our orders. Steve sipped on his water as she walked away. After a long swallow he asks, “Where in Sappho are you going for dinner?”

  “Emma wants to go to Pasta Palace, so I guess that’s where we’re going.”

  “You don’t sound like you really want to go anywhere,” he said.

  “I don’t,” I said with a shrug. “I’d rather stay home and watch some old black and white movie or some steamy romance flick.”

  “Like what?”

  I shrug and think about digging through my purse for a quarter to play some music on the jukebox stationed at the far end of the table. “Something about Paris,” I offered. “Maybe that Brando flick, Last Tango in Paris.”

  Steve choked on his water, his face turning deep red. “I’d say that’s about as steamy as they come.”

  I shot him a coy smile. “You could say that. It’s a really good movie though.”

  “I’ve never seen it,” he admitted.

  “You should come over and watch it with me sometime.” I grin and reach into my purse for some change. Over the line, yes, but did I care? No. I find a quarter and scoot toward the jukebox leaving Steve to think about my proposition while I search through the playlist.

  Dad and I used to come here all the time and when we did, he always played James Taylor’s How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You). He was a huge James Taylor fan, always played his music morning, noon and night. It drove me crazy for the first seventeen years of my life. Then when I moved to California, I missed hearing the songs. One afternoon right before Emma was born I was in the grocery store and Don’t let Me Be Lonely Tonight came on and immediately made me feel guilty.

  As I sit here now, the flirty feeling dissipates and I feel terrible for not being a better daughter, hell for not being a better person. Gregory was my father, if anyone would have understood what happened it would have been him. He might have been able to help; help me, help Emma, and help the other girls.

  I feel tears well up in my eyes. I drop the quarter on the table and immediately try to stop the flow of sadness pouring out of my tear ducts. Startled, Steve looks up, his eyes wide. “What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice laced with concern. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m sorry,” I sob reaching for my napkin. “I was just… it’s just… overwhelming. Dad and I used to come here all the time and he’s gone and I never –” my voice broke as I sob into my napkin. “I’ll be right back,” I bawl, sliding out of the booth and hurrying blindly toward the bathroom leaving a dumbfounded Steve sitting at the table as the diner patrons stare at him.

  Hands meet wood and push the door open. I slip into the dimly lit bathroom, the door slamming loudly behind me. I walk to the sink, leaning on it, peering at my bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Get a grip, I tell myself. Stop blubbering like a heartbroken teenage girl. Turning on the water, I let it run warm before splashing a handful on my face. There is a soft knock at the door.

  “JoJo?” Steve calls through the door. “Are you alright?”

  I dry my face before answering his call. “I’m fine, I’ll be right out.”

  “I’m coming in,” he said.

  “No, Steve, you don’t have to,” I protest. “I’m coming out right now.” I toss the wadded up paper towels into the trash and pull open the bathroom door. “All better,” I said with a false smile. “Let’s go eat.”

  “What happened?” he asked guiding me back to our table.

  “Just… memories. Greg and I came here all the time for dinner. It’s just sad being back here without him. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to cause a scene.”