by Karey White
Curiosity bludgeoned caution.
“Is your family still there?”
Nancy kept her eyes focused on the puzzle, trying to give the impression that this was a casual question.
Celia didn’t answer immediately but when she did, her voice was barely audible. “I don’t have any family.” Despite the softness of the words, they grabbed Nancy’s attention as if Celia had screamed the sentence at the top of her lungs.
A stillness settled between them, and Nancy hesitated to disrupt the quiet. “No one?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the pain her question could inflict made her feel terrible, as if by merely asking, she was twisting a knife in a deep, internal wound.
Celia smiled too brightly and her voice sounded falsely upbeat. “There’s just me.”
Neither of them spoke for several minutes. A newscaster droned quietly in the background about a breaking political scandal in Washington, D.C.
Finally, Nancy reached over and put her hand on Celia’s arm. “Maybe I can be your family.” Nancy was relieved when Celia didn’t pull her arm away.
Celia swallowed hard and raised her shoulders. At first, Nancy felt rebuffed—wasn’t she better than no family at all—but when she thought about it later, she realized how easy it would have been for Celia to reject the offer outright, but she hadn’t. It hadn’t played out like a scene in a movie, with Celia throwing her arms around Nancy and thanking her for her generosity. But this wasn’t a movie. This was real life, and from what Nancy could tell, Celia’s experiences had left her a skittish girl who would need time to open up. Nancy could give her that.
Nancy didn’t work the next day, so she and Celia spent the morning planting the garden. In a couple more days everything would be in.
The work was hard, but Celia loved the feel of the soft, loose soil in her hands and the cool gentle breeze on her sweaty face.
“If you’re famous for your eggplant, why do you plant all these other things? Why not grow more eggplant?” Celia asked. She and Celia were working in side-by-side rows, dropping carrot seeds and brushing dirt over them.
“Have you heard of crop rotation? It’s like that. Next year, I’ll switch things up and I’ll plant eggplant over here and carrots over there. That keeps the soil from getting depleted. And I do fine selling carrots and tomatoes and cucumbers, too.”
Nancy left before noon to meet a friend in Bend for lunch and shopping. “You sure you won’t come with me?” she asked Celia.
“I’m pretty tired. Maybe after I take a nap, I’ll mix up some cookies.”
Celia fell asleep within minutes of Nancy leaving and slept so soundly, a wrecking ball could have leveled the house around her and she probably wouldn’t have awakened. Late afternoon light slanted through her window when she finally stirred.
Celia was glad they had put food in the crock pot this morning or she might have felt she needed to make dinner instead of cookies, but with the smell of chicken tortilla soup filling the kitchen, she began mixing the dough.
The sound of the mixer accompanied Celia’s thoughts as she added the eggs to the bowl. When Celia had been nine, her Mom had called Grace Shipley’s mother to see if Celia could go home with her after school. Celia had been excited. She didn’t often get invited to play at other children’s houses, and even if Mom had said she could invite a friend over, Celia would have been afraid to. What if they got home and Mom was stoned? Or had her own “friend” over?
The school secretary stopped by the classroom with two notes.
“Celia and Grace, I have a message here for each of you.”
They exchanged worried glances and walked to the front of the room to pick up the little pink papers. After they had read them, they looked across the two rows of kids and smiled. Grace even gave Celia a thumbs up.
At the Shipley’s, they played with Grace’s Barbies and watched a rerun of The Brady Bunch.
“Girls, can you come down here?” Mrs. Shipley called up the stairs, and Celia’s heart sank. She didn’t want to go home yet.
“I was wondering,” Mrs. Shipley said when they stepped in the kitchen, “if you’d like to help me make some cookies.”
Celia was thrilled. She couldn’t remember her mother ever making cookies, but it was clear after a few minutes that Grace helped her mother regularly. With no prompting at all, Grace mixed together the dry ingredients while her mother beat the butter and sugar and eggs. They let Celia stir, and they gave her the most important part of the job—adding the chocolate chips. Celia beamed when they suggested that as the honored guest, she should be the one to taste the dough first.
When Mrs. Shipley drove her home later that night, she sent Celia with a paper plate of cookies to share with her mom. Celia waved to Mrs. Shipley before she walked through the front door, eager to show her mom the warm, gooey masterpiece.
But Mom wasn’t there, so Celia locked the deadbolt, put the cookies on the coffee table to show her mother later, and began her math homework. Hours later, she woke up disoriented. Someone had turned off the lamps, but a streetlight lit up the coffee table. A ball of plastic wrap sat next to an empty paper plate. Who had eaten all her cookies? Was her mother home?
Celia tiptoed to her mother’s room and looked inside. Sprawled out on the bed was her mom with a strange man beside her. Celia backed away quietly from the door and went to bed.
Celia didn’t dwell on the last part of that memory. She focused on Mrs. Shipley and Grace and their sunny, yellow kitchen, and the warm chocolate chip cookies. Years later, when she made cookies with Myra Hundley, she made the connection. Real families bake chocolate chip cookies. For the first time in many years, here in Nancy’s blue and white kitchen, she mixed in the chocolate chips. She hummed as she stirred.
The last pan of cookies were in the oven when Nancy returned.
“I was going to say you should have come with me, but these smell so good, I’m glad I left you home.” She broke a cookie in half and took a bite. “Mmm, perfect.”
Celia rinsed out the bowl and put it in the dishwasher. “Did you have a nice time?”
“It was lovely. I had the lemon ricotta pancakes with berries. And then the sales. I hope you don’t mind, but when I saw this, I had to get it for you. It’s the same color as your eyes.”
Nancy pulled out a pretty blue wrap dress and handed it to Celia. It was soft and drapey and Celia held it up to her.
“It’s beautiful.”
“They had some beaded sandals I would have gotten to go with it, but I didn’t know what size you wear, so you and I are going to Bend tomorrow right after you finish up at Ellis’s.”
“We don’t need to do that,” Celia said, thinking about her depleted funds.
“Nonsense. It’s all on sale and I want to get it for you. We can call it an early birthday present, if you want. Or late. When is your birthday?”
Celia grinned. “October first.”
“How old will you be?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Ah, you’re such a child. Anyway, I’m getting you those sandals, so you can either go with me and we’ll get you the right size, or you can stay here, and if I end up with the wrong size, it will be a waste of money.”
Celia surprised herself when she stepped forward and hugged Nancy. It was an awkward hug, barely more than a pat on the back, but it was the first real contact she’d had with anyone since... that night.
“I work in the morning, so you’ll have some time to work on the garden and then we’ll go when I get home. If I get off in time, maybe we’ll go get more of those pancakes. They’re heavenly.”
Celia took the dress and hung it in the closet, letting the fabric spill over her fingers.
“Could you take these to Silas’s?” Nancy asked, holding out a plate of cookies covered in plastic wrap.
The thought made Celia nervous, but of course she couldn’t refuse.
“I don’t think he’s home, so take the key and leave them in the cupboard beside
the fridge. Don’t leave them on the counter or Winston will polish them off, including the plate.”
Celia took the key off the nail by the back door and walked down the long, gravel lane that led back to Silas’s house. The sun had barely gone down and the moon looked pale in the lavender sky. The garden stretched off to her left, the soil black furrows in the twilight. It was almost all planted and Celia felt an excitement that she would get to see her hard work grow into vegetables.
Silas’s house was dark, save a dim light coming from a room in the back. When no one answered her knock, she used the key and let herself inside. Winston came forward from the lighted back room and gave a couple of impressive barks, but when he saw who it was, his tail wagged furiously.
“Hi there, Winston. It’s just me.”
She turned on a light switch and a lamp lit up on a table to the right of the fireplace. Celia looked around. She was standing in a tidy, but masculine living room. The leather furniture looked almost new. A few books were scattered on the coffee table. She walked over to see what they were and saw a couple of thrillers, East of Eden, and a Bible.
Several family pictures lined the mantle. One caught her attention—a picture of a little boy and his parents building a sand castle on the beach. She walked over and took a closer look. She could tell the boy was Silas by the wavy, brown hair and the ears that stuck out a little.
She continued on to the kitchen and set the plate of cookies on the stack of plates in the cupboard. “That’s so you won’t eat them all,” she said to Winston. The kitchen was a mismatched affair—older cabinets, new tile floor. A newer stainless steel refrigerator sat next to a white oven. It wasn’t fancy, but it was clean. She opened the refrigerator, curious to see what kind of food a bachelor stocked.
“Hello?”
Celia jumped and bottles rattled as she slammed the fridge door. Silas sidled through the doorway around Winston and entered the kitchen.
“Oh, hi. Nancy asked me to bring you some cookies,” Celia explained, embarrassed to have been caught looking around his kitchen. Not sure what to do with her hands, she shoved them into the pockets of her hoodie. Then, realizing it looked like she was hiding something, she took them out and folded her arms.
Silas looked from her hands to the counter to the refrigerator. “You p—” His lips pursed and Celia glanced at her feet, embarrassed for him. “You put the cookies in there?”
Celia’s face flushed and she was glad she stood in the half-darkness. “No. They’re in the cupboard. So Winston wouldn’t eat them. Nancy said...”
Silas nodded. “Good thinking.”
Silas and Winston stood silhouetted against the light of the back room, a man and his dog. She felt like an intruder as he stood facing her, and even though she couldn’t see where he was looking, she felt his eyes on her.
“I should go.” She was at the doorway to the living room when the kitchen light burst on, a spotlight behind her.
“Hey, why are you running?”
Celia glanced back at Silas and saw his smile.
“I’m not.” She could hear the defensiveness in her voice. “I’m leaving now. Nancy said you weren’t home.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“You’re not.”
Celia shoved her hands in her pockets again. She should have hurried so she wouldn’t have been caught in his house.
“It’s just... I’m not...” She turned to the door. “I’ve got to go.”
She hurried across the driveway and started down the lane.
“Thank you,” Silas called from the front door.
“You’re welcome,” she said, but he probably hadn’t heard her.
Celia left Sisters Gallery with her first paycheck. It didn’t add up to much—less than fifty dollars—but it would buy what she needed most right now. Confirmation.
After a stop at Oregon National Bank, Celia headed for the pharmacy. She didn’t flinch when the bill came to more than a fourth of her paycheck. After all, it was the reason she had needed a job in the first place.
Celia walked by The Stitchin’ Station, hoping Nancy was still working. When she saw Nancy’s car parked on the side street east of the store, she hurried her step.
She patted Nubia’s head when she walked in the house, but when the dog tried to follow her into the bathroom, she nudged her away and closed the door.
“Sorry girl, but this is private.”
Celia locked the door, followed the instructions on the box, then sat on the edge of the tub, waiting and counting slowly to herself to keep track of the time. “One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand...”
She didn’t look at the little window as she counted, afraid her scrutiny might alter the results. “Seventy-three-one-thousand, seventy-four-one-thousand.” She felt a little sick to her stomach, a feeling she was growing accustomed to. She took a deep breath and slowed down, afraid she’d been counting too quickly. “One-hundred-seventy-seven-one-thousand, one-hundred-seventy-eight-one-thousand, one-hundred-seventy-nine-one-thousand.”
She didn’t say the last number. She pushed off her knees with her hands and looked down at the counter at the little, pink plus sign.
Instinctively, she rested her hand on her stomach, leaned back against the door, and slid to the floor as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Celia had known she was pregnant. She counted back in her head, careful not to think about the details of the night it had happened. She had been pregnant for over seven weeks.
Her breathing was quick and shallow and a sob escaped her throat. How could something like this have happened? Emotions warred within her—sadness, fear and anger. After a few minutes, rage overpowered everything else. She clenched her fists, and for the first time since she had left Chicago, she wanted to be back there. She wanted to find him and beat the smirk off his face. She wanted to kick him and pound him and demand that he suffer for what he had done to her. She wanted to call the police and watch them take him away in handcuffs.
For several minutes, Celia imagined the pain she wanted to inflict on Damien.
Nubia’s whimpers on the other side of the door brought Celia back from her murderous Chicago rage and she concentrated on slowing her breathing. She didn’t have enough money to go back to Chicago and exact her revenge, and even if she could afford it, she would never return there. She didn’t want him to know his baby was inside her.
“No. It’s not your baby,” she said, refusing to let him own something that was a part of her. He would never take anything from her again. It was her baby and she’d decide what to do with it.
It was still early. She could do whatever she chose. Even those most opposed to it, agreed abortion was acceptable in a case like hers. She shouldn’t have to carry the burden of something she hadn’t asked for, something that had been brutally forced on her.
But even as those thoughts scurried through her mind, she knew she would never do that. There was a baby growing inside her and she knew she could never intentionally hurt it. She would protect it from bad things the way she wished her parents had protected her.
Celia pulled herself up to the sink and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were red and swollen, her skin splotchy. She rinsed her face with cold water and it helped, but she still looked a mess. Nancy would be home soon, and if she saw Celia like this, she’d have questions Celia wasn’t ready to answer.
She put the pregnancy test back in the box and shoved it in her pocket. On her way through the kitchen, she scribbled a note on a piece of scratch paper. “Took Nubia for a walk. Be back soon.”
Nubia wiggled with delight as Celia put the leash around her neck and led her out the back door. Two blocks away she came to a park. She walked across the lawn to a pavilion of picnic tables and buried the pregnancy test in the garbage can. Then she and Nubia started down a road that led out of Sisters, away from The Stitchin’ Station and the Forest Service Office. Celia didn’t want to run i
nto Nancy or Silas.
“Did she tell you where she was going?” Silas said into the phone.
“No. She left a note on the table saying she was taking Nubia for a walk, but that was ages ago. I got home from work about four and she was already gone.”
Silas looked at the clock on the stove. It was almost eight. “I’ll take a drive around and look for them. Does she have any other friends?”
“Not that I know of. I’ll come with you.” Nancy sounded frantic.
“M-maybe you should stay here so you can call if they get back.” Silas was already getting in his Jeep.
“I might go crazy waiting here, but you’re probably right.” Aunt Nancy’s voice was filled with concern.
“Call if they come back,” Silas said and pulled out of the driveway.
It bothered Silas that Celia would cause his aunt to worry. Aunt Nancy was too old to have to deal with someone taking off like this. He hadn’t been comfortable with the plan Pearl and his aunt had cooked up, but in the last few weeks, he’d started to think having Celia around wasn’t such a bad thing. Aunt Nancy seemed happy, and Celia had shown no signs of trying to take advantage of her. To the contrary, Celia had surprised everyone with her hard work and willingness to pitch in.
Silas drove down Main Street, then began to criss cross the side streets. He circled the park, but the only people there were Phil, who owned the Texaco station, and his son throwing a football. A few people ate at tables outside the Sno Cap, but none of them were Celia. Silas turned south and followed Elm Street until after it passed Logging Road then turned around, then cut across to Edgington until he came to the middle school.
How far could she go on foot with a dog? In addition to the main road that ran through town, there were many small roads that she could have taken. Would she know where she was or how to get back?
Silas’s phone rang and the screen told him it was Aunt Nancy. “Did they get back?”