by Jim Nelson
“You’ll need to do that twice a week,” Dr. Mayhew said.
“For how long?” her mother asked.
“Until the finality,” Dr. Mayhew said. “It’s not a cure, it’s prevention.”
Hanna let her frock fall back in place and faced the adults. Although she couldn’t see it—didn’t even consciously realize it—she peered back at them with the grim expression of a soldier ordered back to the field for one more tour.
Dr. Mayhew offered Hanna a sugar-free lollipop and a supportive smile.
“No thank you,” Hanna said. She strode behind her mother and straightened up, chin level and hands at her back. While her parents collected their things, she stroked the Band-Aid with the meat of her thumb, acknowledging the taut soreness now hidden from the world.
Seventeen
One evening while washing the dishes, Hanna asked her father about Susanna.
“Susanna?” Sitting at the kitchen table, he held a spoonful of vanilla ice cream before his mouth. “I don’t know that I’ve met her.”
“She’s in the Bible.” Standing at the sink, Hanna had her back to him. “I think.”
“Oh, Susanna.” He savored the ice cream and nodded. “Mother Mary’s bridge daughter. She bore Jesus.”
“Can I read about her?”
“Not much to read,” he said, gathering another spoonful from the bowl.
Hanna bounced imperceptibly against the edge of sink, her taut round belly springing against the counter trim. Maybe she should let go of the topic. She couldn’t come up with a good reason for hearing the full story. Girls in the Bible, like paper birds, were not going to grant her more life.
After a quiet moment of scrubbing and rinsing, her father spoke up. “There’s two bridge daughters in the Bible,” he said. “Hagar and Susanna.”
Hanna’s scrubbing slowed. Back still to him, she said, “Only two?”
“Only two,” her father said. “That’s more than Shakespeare. He only wrote one bridge daughter.” He searched the air before him. “I can’t recall her name. The youngest daughter in King Lear. Anyway,” he returned to his ice cream, “Susanna’s only mentioned once. Matthew. Or Luke. I forget which.”
“She has a pretty name,” Hanna said.
He rose from the table. “The Bible only calls her ‘the bridge.’” He set the bowl, still holding ice cream, by the sink. “I think the Church gave her a name later in order to venerate her.” He added, “They made her a saint.”
“For what?”
“For bearing Jesus,” he said, as though obvious.
For not running away, Hanna thought, the more obvious possibility.
Hanna continued washing. She couldn’t help but feel her father’s presence as he stood behind her. He was awkwardly close. It made her slow her scrubbing and rinsing. She twisted her neck ever-so-slightly to locate him in her periphery. He was there, close and silent and watching her work.
She finished a plate, set it in the rack, and began on his ice cream bowl. She dumped the remaining frigid white goop into the rinsing sink and ran hot water to send it down the pipes. She waited for anything from him, a single word, a clearing of the throat, even the creaking of the soles of his shoes as he shifted his weight. The bowl remained ice cold in the hot sudsy water. Even though she scrubbed and rinsed it well, it was cold all the way to the drying rack.
She spun around. She glared up at him, daring him to say something, anything. Her dishwashing gloves dripped suds on the linoleum.
Her father had bunched himself together, like a wash rag wrung out. His arms hugged his sides. He gazed down at her, eyeballs veiny and red.
“We’re going to lose you,” he said. “But then we get you back again.”
Then he said, “I know it’s unfair. You just have to accept things as they are.”
Hanna continued to glare up at him. She considered how to respond. It was useless. She returned to the sink.
Thankfully, he left the kitchen. She finished the dishes in short order, belly gently bouncing against the edge of the sink like a baby slapping a toy drum.
*
The summer heat had receded the last week of July but returned in force at the beginning of August. Hanna proposed iced tea, a tossed salad, and sliced fruit for the lunch, but her mother knew Mrs. Grimond would think she was skimping. She led Hanna through the preparation of a macaroni casserole. The oven heated the kitchen and the dining room so thoroughly Hanna had to throw open the windows and sliding glass door to allow air through. She felt faint preparing lunch, but told herself to push onward lest be subject to Mrs. Grimond’s tongue-clucking when the food wasn’t ready upon her arrival. The second time she felt faint, her mother sensed it and told Hanna to lay down in her bedroom, the coolest room in the house.
The doorbell jolted Hanna awake. In her stupor she started to jump from the bed, then fell back to the pillows. Her swollen belly no longer allowed for such athletics. She pushed herself up on her elbows, swung her legs off the side of the bed, and slid out to her feet. Up, she checked her hair in the mirror and hurried to the entryway. Her mother was waiting.
“You look fine,” she told Hanna. “I took out the casserole, everything’s on the countertop. We’ll do this like Vivian did lunch at her house.”
Vivian Grimond waited at the front door with her mask of a smile and darting eyes sensitive to any out-of-place detail. Erica stood behind her posed as a bridge daughter should, back erect and hands hidden. Without speaking, Hanna opened the door fully and acknowledged them. The women exchanged pleasantries in the entryway. Mrs. Grimond complimented Hanna’s mother on the decorating. She expressed she wished they’d done these lunches sooner. Hanna looked to Erica for some recognition, some secret signal of eyes or eyebrows or even a nod, but Erica remained expressionless behind her mother.
“How do you like your iced tea?” Hanna’s mother asked Mrs. Grimond.
“Sugar and lemon,” she said.
Hanna’s mother nodded for their leave and the bridge daughters made a beeline to the kitchen. Their soft-soled shoes scuffled on the entryway tile and padded quietly on the kitchen linoleum. Hanna wished they could talk, but unlike the Grimond house, the kitchen had no heavy swinging door to seal them off while they worked. A second opening in the kitchen led straight to the combination dining/living room where the women relaxed. Hanna would be risking a great deal if she talked to Erica now.
Although they’d only worked together for one lunch, Hanna had learned quite a bit over the past weeks. Now they operated in lockstep. Erica used the stepstool to retrieve two tall iced tea glasses from the kitchen cabinet, requiring only a pointed finger from Hanna to hint which cabinet held them. Hanna took a plastic bucket of ice from the freezer and set it in the kitchen sink. They prepared four iced teas, two in specialty iced tea glasses with cartoon lemon wedges painted on their sides, and two in plastic tumblers for themselves. Although the oven heat had dissipated, it remained warm in the kitchen. Hanna’s mother had started the house’s forced air to help.
Lemon and sugar in Mrs. Grimond’s glass, lemon in Hanna’s mother’s. Then Hanna took a flat glass pan of Jell-O from the refrigerator and began spooning portions.
“Slice it, slice it,” Erica scolded under her breath. She went through the drawers until she found a metal spatula. She cut squares of red Jell-O from the sheet and slid them onto dessert plates, eschewing the bowls Hanna had brought out to use. Slices of bananas and grape halves floated in the Jell-O as though held in stasis for some future civilization to reanimate. Hanna detested anything in her Jell-O, but her mother had insisted.
Hanna strode out to the living room with the women’s refreshments on a TV tray with the legs removed. Per decorum, Erica stood in the entry hall with her hands behind her, watching Hanna serve the Jell-O and making her own presence known.
“We’ll call you when we’re ready for lunch,” Hanna’s mother said to her. “You can have your Jell-O in your room.”
“You let her e
at in her room?” Mrs. Grimond said.
“It’s fine,” her mother said, motioning to Hanna that the quicker she left, the better.
*
Hanna closed her bedroom door and lifted herself onto her bed. Jumping onto the mattress was a small far-off pleasure now lost.
Erica peered around, taking in the toys, the books, the tsuru. Her jaw hung loose, making a faint frown. “This is your room?” she said. “You’re so lucky.”
Hanna didn’t know what to say to that. She ate up the Jell-O in three bites, whipped cream and fruit, all of it. When she’d visited Dr. Mayhew food had lost all its flavor. Now, this week, sweets and savories held intense flavors for her, the sugar so strong she could feel it sizzling on her tongue like Pop Rocks. Erica sat in Hanna’s writing desk chair, feet swinging idly. She ate her treat with less relish.
“Why can’t we just serve the Jell-O in scoops?” Hanna said, savoring the gelatin’s artificial cherry flavoring. “That’s how we do it all the time.”
“It’s a test,” Erica said. “Like when my mother came in. Did you notice her looking at the floors? If something’s not right, it’s a point in her favor. That’s what my mom does.”
Hanna thought that sounded silly, a lot of trouble for no good reason. “Why?”
“She has her reasons,” Erica murmured, and pushed a blob of Jell-O into her mouth.
“Well, I don’t care what she thinks or says,” Hanna said.
“You will,” Erica said.
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing.” Erica shook her head. “If you’re living like…this,” she waved her spoon as though casting a spell on the bedroom, “then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Hanna scraped up the last of the dessert in her bowl and licked the spoon clean. She wanted to press Erica for an explanation. From the last lunch, Hanna suspected Erica liked to pretend she knew more than she really did, to pretend that she was worldly and dark.
“Are you still doing those Susanna dinners at church?” Hanna asked.
“Did you tell you mother?” Erica demanded, all interest in her Jell-O disappearing. “You promised. You pinkie promised.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Hanna said. “But I had an idea.”
“What kind of idea?”
Hanna bounced a little on her mattress. “Promise you’ll listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“Promise it.”
“I promise!” Erica said, exasperated.
Hanna said, “I want to take a loan out from you.”
“A loan? What do you mean?”
“You give me your money,” Hanna said, “and I’ll give it all back later, plus some extra as interest.”
“Interest?” Erica said. “Interest in what?”
“I mean I’ll give you more money back.”
“No way,” Erica said. “I’m not giving you my money.”
“At your rate, you’ll have enough for a bi-graft before you need it,” Hanna said. “Even if I took all your money you’ll have more than you need. But I promise, I’ll give it all back to you, plus more. Don’t you see?” Hanna slid off the bed to her feet. “That means you’ll even have more money when you run away. You’ll need it.”
“How can you give me all my money back?”
“I can work,” Hanna said, lowering her voice. This was the big plan. “There’s a huge flower market in Los Angeles. It’s bigger than the one in San Francisco. I’ll work every day there and give you the money I make.”
“You’re going to run off to Los Angeles,” Erica said, “and then come back here with my money in time for me to get a bi-graft.”
“I promise,” Hanna said. “I don’t even think it’ll take a year.”
“No,” Erica said, shaking her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Even if I run off and never come back,” Hanna said, “you’ll have enough for a bi-graft anyway. Please?”
“You should’ve gotten your own money,” she said. “That’s not my fault.”
“My mother didn’t tell me I was bridge daughter until I turned thirteen,” Hanna said. “You’ve known for a long time, right?”
“Oh, how bad for you,” Erica said, voice rising. “Poor little Hanna, stuck in this room all by herself, toys and books and her mom making her dinners each night.”
Hanna, flustered, grasped for anything to toss back. “You have your own room!”
“Only after Jennifer’s finality,” Erica snapped, meaning Jason and Jed’s bridge mother.
“Do you have to take shots?” Hanna showed Erica the place on her rump where the syringe was inserted every three nights. “This is for the baby, not me,” she explained.
Erica’s stared coldly back. “Don’t you get it? It’s all for the baby,” she said evenly. “And, no, I don’t get shots. I get this.”
She stood and turned her back to Hanna. Grabbing the bottom of her dress with both hands, she lifted it to her shoulders. She had beautiful pale skin discolored by a flurry of thin red welts like tally marks, from her shoulder blades down to her waist. Some were fresh, red like boils, while others had healed to faint scar tissue, the skin wrinkled like used-up Saran wrap.
“What do your parents do to you when you speak when not spoken to?” she said over her shoulder. “When you put too much detergent in the machine?”
Hanna crossed the room with her hand out to touch the welts. Erica pushed her dress back into place before Hanna reached her.
“You’re not getting my money,” Erica said.
They stared at each other a long while. Hanna’s mother called to them from the living room. The women were ready for their luncheon.
*
After serving the women the casserole and side dishes, Hanna and Erica retired to the kitchen to eat their lunch. This week Hanna was famished at meal times, seemingly eating for three instead of two. She ate double portions of casserole and a healthy portion of fruit. Erica ate most of her casserole square and picked at her salad. As the kitchen had no stools or chairs, they ate standing, a traditional touch to their bridge daughter meal. Through the open way, Hanna listened to the women discuss the Grimonds’ church. It seemed the Grimonds had no social outlet beyond it.
In Hanna’s bedroom, door closed, Erica said, “You need to get your own money. If I help you, I have to help every bridge who asks.”
Hanna, morose, went to her windowsill. She picked through the origami cranes absentmindedly. She located one she’d folded with Aunt Azami’s new paper. It was a baby-blue checker pattern with dainty pink blossoms in the blue squares. She turned it over as though inspecting its sex. It was numbered 843.
“Here.” Hanna offered the crane to Erica.
Erica crossed her arms. “You can’t bribe me with one of your paper birds.”
Hanna went to her writing desk and peeled off the top sheet of the origami paper there. She opened her register and wrote Erica’s name beside the number 966.
“Why did you make so many of them?” Erica said. “Can’t you fold anything else?”
Hanna’s practiced fingers made quick deft creases. She no longer needed to refold lines. She didn’t even need to be sitting or using a table as a folding surface. She could fold standing, just as they ate their lunch in the kitchen, just as bridge daughters back to antiquity took their meals and folded clothes. As the tsuru began to take shape, Erica’s critical expression softened to mild wonder. Last creases in place, Hanna took the beak and tail by her fingertips and pulled. The wings gently spread as though preparing for flight.
Erica, unaware of herself, said, “Oh!”
Hanna held it out to Erica, who accepted the tsuru. She let it sit in the palm of her hand. With her other hand, she touched its side, rocking it back and forth, prodding it to animate and take flight.
“I should tell you,” Erica said. “My mother is trying to convince your mother about something.” She took in a deep breath and sighed it out. “It’s called Susanna Glen. I
t’s a camp in the Santa Cruz mountains. Our church helps run it.”
“Camp? Like sleeping outside?” That sounded like fun.
“No,” Erica said. “Susanna Glen is a place they keep bridge daughters. Out in the woods, gated, fenced, watched over by adults. They send bridge daughters up there until their finality. If your parents say yes, you’ll probably go right away.” Sensing Hanna’s naiveté, she blurted, “It’s so you can’t run away. It’s a big cage in the redwoods. They send you up there and they keep you there until you die.”
Eighteen
The drive down Sainte-Beuve Way reminded Hanna how she used to cherish time alone with her father, a rare treat due to his work schedule and her mother’s near-constant presence. This afternoon, Hanna did not cherish her father’s company so much. Not in the least, she realized. His squeamishness about administering the shots and the uncomfortable moment in the kitchen did not endear him to Hanna.
Unlike the rigidness that had developed in her mother over the past few months, her father had grown withdrawn: at dinnertime, in front of the television, even when she brought him a glass of ice water as a break from mowing the lawn. Her parents had prepared for over thirteen years to detach themselves from their bridge daughter, and Hanna could sense her connection to them crumbling as her finality approached. They were not so different from Mrs. Vannberg after all, or even Mrs. Grimond. They would celebrate their new child when Hanna died. They would mourn the loss incurred, but only lightly, as a necessary price to be paid. They would surrender to an instinct injected into the human DNA chain millions of years ago—they would surrender to God’s eternal plan for mankind—they would surrender Hanna in one heartbeat and embrace Hanna in the next.