“That safe haven thing probably doesn’t apply to dead bodies, though, does it?”
“No,” he said. “It does not.”
Granger leaned down and picked up an empty bottle of Faygo cola he must have had sitting on the floor by his chair. He spat and then set the bottle back down by his feet. Polite.
“So this baby,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “Because you were sort of wondering, as a concerned citizen.”
“Yes,” I said. “Exactly.”
“It’s pretty simple really,” he said. “The hospital called us after the drop-off and treated the baby. Then we called the judge. Judge shut off the Michigan State game, called an emergency hearing, and came down to the courthouse. Standard operating procedure. Judge ruled the baby be placed in temporary foster care until the adjudication and turned it over to Family Services.”
“Adjudication?”
“It’s basically like a trial. They just call it something different.”
“When’s that?”
“Has to happen within sixty days.”
“What about the mother?”
“Kayla Hawthorne? They found her wandering around the north hills when the storm cleared. She was high as hell and hysterical. Woke up to find her baby gone and took off to find her on foot. She was clutching a butcher knife for some fucking reason.”
Granger looked at me and must have noticed my surprise. I couldn’t believe he was telling me what he was, that he was calling people by their names and dealing in specifics.
“Everything I’m telling you right now,” he said. “Is public record. You can walk right down to the courthouse and ask to see the file.”
“Is that right?” I said.
“That’s right,” he said.
“So where’s Kayla Hawthorne now? Is she in jail?”
“Jail?” he said. “Hell no, she’s not in jail. They don’t put you in jail for being a shit mother and a drug addict. She’s wherever she usually is, doing whatever it is she usually does.”
“So what’s going to happen at the trial?”
“They’re going to take the baby away and she’ll probably be adopted by the foster family that has her now. Kayla could fight it, but she’s already lost one and it would be a long shot. Then again, she might not even want to try and keep it. If she doesn’t, she can call the court and they’ll be over in zip-point-shit with the paperwork. Family Services wants that baby out of the home. That much I can tell you for sure.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “It is good.”
“And the baby’s okay?
“She had a hell of a fever, but it come down. She’s got a clean bill of health, far as I know.”
“And what about the father?”
“What about him?” Granger said. “Your guess is as good as mine. Good as Kayla’s probably. Now, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” I said.
“What are you going to do? After all this mess?”
“Portland,” I said. “I think I’m going to Portland.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I said. “To move in with Starr.”
“As long as you’re not running off with some dipshit you met on the Internet.”
“As you know,” I said. “I don’t have the Internet.”
“You taking the truck?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And Wolfdog.”
“I won’t worry about you out on the highway then,” he said. “Not with her riding shotgun. Just don’t get pulled. I assume she isn’t registered.”
“I won’t get pulled,” I said.
“I got some gift certificates,” he said. “Meal deals at BK, if you want to take them for the road. I got a whole stack over there clipped to the fridge.”
“You trying to get rid of me or something?”
“No,” he said. “It’s just that you got to get out while you can. This place has a way of sucking you in if you let it. Like quicksand.”
“I won’t let it,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Then take the damn gift certificates.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for helping with Portis and for everything else.”
“Protect and serve,” he said. “You know how it is.”
“Granger,” I said. “I do have one more favor to ask. If you wouldn’t mind.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The foster parents were Matthew and Rebecca Farmer. Granger didn’t know them personally, but had heard they were good people. That they’d been on the wait list for some time and were thrilled when the court called about Jenna.
He scratched out their names and address and I was glad to see it was on Williams Street in West Cutler. It was all oak trees and wide sidewalks over there—a nice neighborhood with a Montessori school and beautiful old homes—none of that tacky new construction like you see along the water.
Granger left for work and told me to crash out on the couch for a while if I wanted. He said I looked tired and that I should get some rest before I drove clear across the country. I told him I would, but sat at the kitchen table instead and wrote out my letter.
Granger had notebook paper and some envelopes right there on the kitchen counter and I was resolved to tell the Farmers everything. Everything I believed they needed to know.
I refilled my coffee and I wrote. I described finding Jenna by the window and the way the snow was slanting in. I told about the pickup being buried and walking along the river with Portis. Then we’d hiked to the shanty and tried to drive out and when we couldn’t Portis had died trying to save me and Jenna both.
I left out the part about Carletta in the trailer. I didn’t see what good it would do anybody to know what Mama had done, so I kept my focus on Jenna and how strong she had been. How incredibly brave she was. I wrote about the papoose and the blanket and how we’d fed Jenna on formula and melted snow. I told about Shelton Potter in the trailer and how he’d done the right thing and let me take Jenna. I could not say that he was a good man, but I could say Shelton Potter was more than the bad things that he had done.
It came as a surprise to me, but it felt good to put it all down. To tell my story and see it in black and white. To see it on the page and as something outside of myself. I felt lighter for the truths I’d told, but saw no profit in revealing who I was.
I’m the one who found her, but I’m not the same person I was before. I am different now because of Jenna and Portis Dale and I believe we all tried to save each other in that storm and that mostly we did. I know Portis came to love Jenna in that short time and that he was changed by it.
I included a brief postscript that explained, among other things, that the Farmers should not try to locate me.
I will be somewhere else. And if anybody comes to you with a story that disputes the events described in this letter they are an outright liar and not to be trusted. If you need proof of my account I can tell you about the terrible rash Jenna had beneath her diaper and that she was bone skinny and in possession of two little nubs of teeth at the time of these events. I’m sure the doctors/police took pictures if you feel it necessary to validate my claims.
I sealed the letter in the envelope, then grabbed an empty grocery bag Granger had in his pantry and took everything out to the truck. Wolfdog sat up and barked and I hurried toward her. I opened the passenger door to pet her and told her everything was all right. Then I took Carletta’s blanket from the glove and dropped it in the grocery bag with the letter.
Mama might have intended the blanket for Tanner, but it was Jenna who’d been swaddled in it. The blanket had helped to carry her and keep her warm in the north hills and that made it hers.
I drove down Poplar Street with Wolfdog beside me in the cab. I’d stop at Pickering’s on the way out of town for my last paycheck and there would be enough for gas, and even some food if we got tired of Burger King. We were going to make it to Portland, there wasn’t a doubt in my mi
nd about that.
We took Poplar to the highway, past the cement plant and the trailer park, and then made the turn for town. We drove by the Methodist church and City Hall and I watched the sun glint off the waterfront where the waves were frozen in mid-tumble along the shore. Beyond the shore was the bay and I could see the slow push of a freighter in the distance where the ice broke into blue water and ran clear into sky.
I turned into West Cutler, then onto Williams Street, where I slowed as I passed Jenna’s new home. I think it was what they call a bungalow. One of those cute, California-looking houses, and sharply painted to boot—everything forest green and trimmed orange. I drove to the end of the block, then looped back and parked across the street.
The Farmers had their sidewalks shoveled and a trimmed hedge that lined their drive like a fence. There was a big front porch swing, bird feeders staked throughout the yard, and a brightly colored sign above the door that said WELCOME.
There was a red Pontiac Vibe easing slowly toward us on the street, and then the left blinker came on and it turned into the Farmers’ drive. My first thought was to put the truck in gear and drive away, but I did not.
I watched Mrs. Farmer get out and I put her somewhere in her mid-thirties. She had beautiful red hair that fell down around her shoulders and wore a yellow North Face jacket and blue jeans. And when she lifted Jenna from the car seat I felt my breath catch.
Jenna called out in that sweet, high-pitched babble and Mrs. Farmer smiled as she swung her onto a hip. Mrs. Farmer reached back into the backseat for a bag of groceries and then bounded up the porch steps while I sat there watching with a cave in my chest. They both looked so happy.
I didn’t know what I was going to do now, had never planned that they might be home. Wolfdog’s side ballooned with easy breaths, though, and that calmed me as I waited a few moments and then stepped out of the truck.
I held the bag against my side and jogged up the drive. I could see more groceries in the hatchback and hurried up the porch steps. My mouth had gone to cotton and my breath was quick and short in my lungs.
The front door was open and I could hear music playing softly from the back of the house, maybe from the kitchen, and when I went to set the bag down I looked through the screen door and saw Jenna on a play mat inside.
She was on her back and batting at a stuffed animal that dangled above her. She was in a small room to the side of the entry and between her and the door was a long hall that led straight to the back of the house.
I watched her and remembered the bassinet and the way she’d screamed out against the wind. I remembered carrying her through the snow and how Portis had helped me when she grew heavy. I remembered her sleeping beside me in the shanty and the way she chomped my knuckle for comfort when she’d finally been freed from Carletta. I remembered Shelton placing her in the papoose and how the snow still fell as I ran for his truck.
I watched her now, in a long-sleeve onesie with sewn feet and her black hair shooting off in all directions. She cooed as she played and when she turned toward me I swear her eyes widened into saucers and were all shot through with light. Jenna went gheew and parted her lips into a smile. She reached up a hand and I put my palm against the screen.
I saw light through the double-hung windows in the living room and could make out the music from the kitchen more clearly now. I heard the sound of acoustic strumming and the clank of cans as Mrs. Farmer put up food in the pantry. I could hear the chatter of children playing in a neighboring yard and the faraway rumble of a truck on the highway.
I said, “Good-bye, Sweetgirl.”
About the Author
TRAVIS MULHAUSER is from Petoskey, Michigan. He currently lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and two children.
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Also by Travis Mulhauser
Greetings from Cutler County: A Novella and Stories
Credits
Cover design by Kimberly Glyder Design
Cover photograph © Cate Davies/Trevillion Images
Title page photograph: Yankee Springs State Parks, Michigan © Dean Pennala / Shutterstock, Inc.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SWEETGIRL. Copyright © 2016 by Travis Mulhauser. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-240082-6
EPub Edition JANUARY 2016 ISBN 9780062400840
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