by Beth Neff
“Are we going to do something?”
Jenna lowers her side of the basket and together, they set it gently back on the ground.
“Yeah, I’ve been wondering that. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”
Jenna looks curiously at Sarah but doesn’t seem to hear what she is saying.
“I think we should go find Ellie. Where’s Cassie?”
“She’s with Lauren in the tomatoes.”
“Why don’t I take this to the cooler and you go get Cassie?”
Sarah starts to move away, turns back. “What if Lauren wants to go?”
Jenna shrugs. “I don’t care.” And then Jenna thinks her knees are going to buckle under her. Lauren. It has suddenly hit her. This all has something to do with Lauren, with the letter she sent.
Jenna’s mind is a whirl. Her chest is really hurting now, and she’s not sure if she’ll be able to lift the basket at all. She quickly reviews the conversation they had last night in Cassie’s room, trying to determine if Lauren knows more than she told them. She doesn’t think so, figuring Lauren would want to brag about it if she did. Not enough information to come to a conclusion—that’s what Lauren had said. The words mean nothing and everything to Jenna. She’s been bounced around enough times to know when something is going sour. This is no different.
As she bends slowly to grasp the two wire handles of the bushel basket and heaves it up to rest on her thighs, straightens painfully and begins to carry the cucumbers to the shed, she repeats those words in her head. This is no different. Just like all the other times. But no matter how many times she says them to herself, she will know that they are not true.
“WHERE ARE YOU guys going?”
“Donna wants us at the house.” Sarah hadn’t planned the lie, doesn’t even know where it came from.
“But Donna’s right over there.” Sarah looks to where Lauren is pointing, sees Donna bending over the green pepper row almost within hearing. Sarah answers quietly.
“I know. But she said for us to go up at eleven, and it’s after that now. Come on, Cassie, we need to go.”
“Am I supposed to come?”
“No, she just said for me and Cassie.” Sarah is getting more and more anxious. Donna will stand up in just a second and see them, or she’ll hear them talking and look over. Sarah is hoping that maybe some aunt of Ellie’s has died or her bank account is overdrawn or something like that. She is anxious to find her, talk to her, get the story.
Before Lauren can protest, Sarah says, “Don’t worry. I’m sure she plans to send someone over here to help you. We’ll probably be right back.”
Lauren is standing with her hands on her hips. “What?”
Sarah takes Cassie’s arm, waves to Lauren. “Just keep working. Help is on the way.” She giggles into her hand as she and Cassie start trotting toward the bridge.
ELLIE ISN’T IN her room, the office, or in the kitchen. Jenna, Sarah, and Cassie stand at the back door for a few moments and then begin to head up into the spruce grove on the hillside at the back of the house. Sarah is leading the way—she discovered this path to the marsh behind the house one afternoon while Jenna and Cassie were swimming, anxious to find her own little retreat. She doesn’t know if Ellie likes to go back here but she just has a feeling.
They have to bend under some of lowest hanging branches, which circle the straight trunks like a troupe of graceful dancers bowing in reverence. The sharp needles brush their arms as they pass, years of shed ones carpeting the ground in a tawny mat that compresses like a foam mattress with each step. They can hear blue jays shrieking and flapping high above them. They emerge from the trees to the bright light reflecting off the marsh and have to shade their eyes with their palms to clearly see the waving grasses, arrowhead plants, and water lilies, the river moving stolidly beyond.
Sarah is still in the lead and nearly has her hand on the back of the wooden bench that Grace said her grandfather placed here two decades ago when she notices Ellie lying on it, her head resting on her elbow, her legs bent at the knees, dangling awkwardly over the edge. Sarah moves around to the front and sees that Ellie’s eyes are closed, her breathing shallow but steady.
Nobody knows what to do. The three of them stand silently, arranged in a half circle around the bench. A pair of mallard ducks cruises the hummocks of marsh grasses just yards away. There is a constant din of guttural bullfrog voices vibrating the air and, every so often, the loud rat-tat-tatting of a pileated woodpecker.
Just as Sarah is thinking maybe they should leave Ellie to rest, Ellie slowly lifts her head and stiffly rises to a sitting position, opening her eyes wide as if surprised at where she finds herself. She sees only Sarah at first, asks, “How long have you been standing there?”
“About a minute.” Ellie squints up to see Cassie behind her, then Jenna at the other end of the bench.
“What are you guys doing back here? Aren’t you supposed to be helping in the garden?”
Sarah is so surprised by the tone of Ellie’s voice that the words barely sink in.
Before she can say anything, Ellie adds, “Does Grace know where you are? Don’t you think she’s going to be kind of concerned if all of you just disappear?”
This is not at all what Sarah expected. Things must be even worse than she thought.
“Um, we’re sorry. We just . . . well, we were concerned about you.”
Ellie opens her mouth to speak, clamps it shut again, her angry frown momentarily frozen, then crumbling away, replaced by a look of humbled distress.
“Oh my gosh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“Take what out on us?”
Ellie raises her head but doesn’t look at any of the girls, just stares out across the marsh.
After a long, uncomfortable moment, she says carefully, “I wasn’t trying to hide anything, though I clearly wouldn’t have been very good at that anyway.” She snorts humorlessly.
“I just wanted to understand what was going on before I talked about it, before I got everybody all worried. I really am sorry. Not the best plan, I guess.”
“Worried about what?”
Ellie turns to look at Sarah, nods, seems to be considering. “I think what I want to do is talk to everyone at once. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I just think it makes more sense if we all sit down to talk about it together. Let’s go finish in the garden, get everything done, and then we’ll be able to spend as much time talking as we need to. Grace has got to be wondering what happened to you guys.”
The girls are nodding, disappointed but unable to argue against Ellie’s reasoning.
“It was nice, though, I mean, being concerned, finding me. I promise, I’ll tell you what’s going on. But let’s get everything else out of the way first, okay?”
They nod again, wait for Ellie to stand, follow as she leads them back to the garden. Sarah is coming, too, but she wishes she wasn’t. For the first time in a long while, she wishes she was anywhere but here.
SARAH’S NOT SURE if they have all been in the living room together before. It makes the room feel foreign, more like it did early on, less . . . hers.
Today, no one, except Lauren, is sitting where she belongs. Sarah is annoyed that she will need to join the circle in the only space that is really left—beside Lauren. Since she is the last one to arrive, she has no choice and moves quickly to her newly assigned spot.
Over the course of the afternoon, Sarah has tried to remember exactly what Lauren said on the phone to her boyfriend and feels sick all over again every time she replays the conversation in her mind. She should have done something then, told somebody, and can’t remember why she didn’t. Now, it is too late. Someone has listened to Lauren, has believed her, and Ellie—and t
he program—are in trouble.
Ellie turns to Grace and says, “Let’s just go around and see if anybody has anything they want to talk about, and then I have something I want to share with you.”
No one does. How could they? Sarah feels momentarily irritated toward Ellie, then contrite.
Sarah notices that Ellie’s shoulders are slumped and, even though her face and body look calm, her bare feet are constantly moving, one rubbing over the top of the other as if they are cold. She is wearing that smile that Sarah now recognizes as a face she puts on. Her real smile lights up her whole face, makes her eyes look like they are dancing. This one is only her mouth, the lips curving upward, no teeth showing. Sarah’s thumb is tracing the scars on her opposite wrist, lightly at first, then deeper and with more agitation.
“We have received a letter. It is from the Office of Child and Family Services, which is the arm of the Welfare Department that monitors this program and your participation in it. Your caseworkers are employed by the Office of Child and Family Services and, in a way, so are we, me and Donna and Grace. It seems that they have received some kind of complaint, and so they want to come out and ask everybody some questions to reassure themselves that we are following the rules and that you guys are receiving the services you are supposed to get under this program. They believe there may have been a violation of those rules, and it is their responsibility to check it out.”
Nobody says anything. Ellie looks around at each girl’s face and so does Sarah. Everyone looks blank.
“So, they’re coming next Wednesday.”
“Who?” It’s Jenna, and Ellie glances at her and then back down.
“It will be the supervisor, Sandra Preston. She’s the one I talked to on the phone. Plus, an investigator she says works for the whole welfare department, whenever there’s any type of complaint. I kind of argued with Sandra about that, wondered how this investigator could be sensitive to . . . the situation. . . . Sandra just said that’s why your caseworkers are also coming, so they can be in the room when you are interviewed.” Ellie rolls her eyes and waves her hand in front of her face as if the thought of the caseworkers ensuring the girls’ safety or comfort can be easily dismissed.
“I asked her if I could be there for your interviews, too, and she was pretty pissy about that, said ‘absolutely not,’ like she was mad I’d even had the gall to ask. She said each one of you, and us, would be interviewed separately. Oh, and there will also be a recorder, a ‘neutral party,’ she said, to be sure everything is properly documented. I guess that means there will be four adults to every one girl. No, wait, actually five.” Ellie is shaking her head in bafflement.
“Then what?” It’s Donna this time.
“Then they’ll take all the interviews back to their committee, which is a group of various people from the Family and Children office, and they’ll decide whether charges should be brought.”
“Charges?”
“Yep.”
Ellie shrugs a little, apologetic. “I wish there was more I could tell you. All I really know is that they’ll be here Wednesday at ten in the morning and that we have to talk to them.”
Sarah speaks up then. “Wait. I don’t get it. You mean they have to talk to us one person at a time?”
Ellie nods. “Yep. One person at a time.”
“Do they think one of us did something wrong?” Cassie asks.
Ellie looks over at her. “No, they think maybe one of us did something wrong.” She gestures toward Donna and herself, nods toward Grace.
“The thing to remember, though, is that they are just investigating. They just have a complaint, no proof of anything. Innocent until proven guilty, right?” Ellie gives a weak smile.
Sarah and Jenna meet eyes, shake their heads and moan. They are not great believers in due process.
Grace hasn’t spoken, but now she leans forward.
“I think it’s important to remember that probably none of this is even going to happen. Ellie’s going to talk to them first, and she’s going to straighten it out. I’m guessing that no one else is even going to have to meet with them.”
Ellie turns toward Grace with a look of incredulity.
“That’s not right, Grace. I’ve already talked to them, and this is what they said would happen. There is no way I’m going to be able to go in there and just smooth it all out.”
“But you’re the program director.”
Ellie looks suspicious. “Riiiight. So, what’s your point?”
“It seems like the complaint is against the program, should be handled by the person in charge. I’m not sure why the rest of us would need to participate. I mean, me and Donna.”
Ellie has clearly lost her patience, is staring at Grace as though she doesn’t quite recognize her. She speaks very slowly, as if to a young child.
“They want to hear from everybody. Sandra made that very clear. We all have to be there and we all have to answer their questions. There isn’t any way out of it, and it isn’t reasonable to imagine that there is.”
Grace just shrugs and sits back, doesn’t seem the least bit daunted by Ellie’s stridency.
“What do they think you did?” Lauren asks.
Sarah can tell right away that this is the question Ellie has been waiting for, hoped not to hear. Ellie has two bright spots of red on her cheeks. She seems to be struggling with the answer, or with whether she will answer at all, Sarah doesn’t know. She is looking down at her clipboard again, and Sarah thinks she may be about to cry.
Finally, Ellie looks up, first at Donna and then at Lauren.
“I’ve been thinking about this all day. She strongly recommended that I not tell you that, said each person would be fully informed at the beginning of their interviews. I guess she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to have a lot of discussion about it ahead of time, among ourselves, that it might affect everybody’s ability to answer honestly. Since they are already unsure whether our program follows their rules, I’m a little hesitant to violate her trust. But part of me also thinks that you should know.” Ellie looks down again, shakes her head sadly.
“I knew someone would ask me this”—and she laughs a little—“so I should have made a decision by now, shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t think you should tell us.”
Everyone looks at Cassie. Cassie turns directly to Jenna.
“I don’t think she should. I think it would be better if we didn’t have it in our minds when we go into it. We should just be completely honest and answer their questions, whatever they are, because either we don’t know about it, or we don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. And, that way, Ellie wouldn’t have to worry that she’s done something wrong.”
Jenna is nodding. “Cassie’s right. Don’t tell us. Do you know who . . . complained or reported you or whatever?”
Ellie shakes her head. “No. She wouldn’t tell me but she said we will be fully informed about that on Wednesday, too.”
“So, she didn’t even tell you all of it.”
“No, I guess not.”
Jenna lays her palms out to the group. “Well, there you go. It’s better going into it not knowing. Cassie’s right.” She turns to Ellie. “I don’t think you should tell us.”
Lauren says, “Well, I do. How can we answer the questions correctly if we don’t know what they’re being accused of?”
Not one person looks at Lauren, and Sarah thinks that she hates the word “accused” and imagines it poofing out of Lauren’s mouth like a green spray of noxious smelling gas.
Donna asks Ellie gently, “Does it help you to know that the girls don’t think you should tell them? That we think you’re doing the right thing if you follow their suggestion?”
Lauren is almost whispering under her breath, “Who is ‘we’? Did no one hear what I just
said?”
Ellie’s eyes are filled now, but she is swallowing hard to hold the tears back, nods.
“Yes, it helps a lot. I appreciate your input, Lauren, and it’s not an easy decision. I think maybe it’s best to leave things as they are. I wanted you to know what’s going on, as much as possible, and be prepared, and that’s all we can do for now. I can tell you for sure though, that I believe the complaint is completely groundless, and I don’t want you guys to worry about anything.”
Ellie clearly wants to say more, her mouth still open, but no more words come out. It is as if the energy to propel them has just sputtered out.
Finally, she says, “If there’s . . . well, anything anyone needs to tell me, this would be the time. Not here, necessarily, with everybody, but anything you think I should know about this complaint, please consider giving me a chance to hear it from you first.”
Ellie isn’t meeting their eyes, as if she’s wanting to keep even her gaze neutral, but Sarah can’t help but notice that, after a long moment, she is glancing at Jenna.
Ellie hasn’t told them that the meeting is over, but the girls slowly rise anyway, move out of the room without looking back. They all go in separate directions, either not wanting to talk or to look like they are talking among themselves. Sarah takes the stairs two at a time, grabs the book she’s been reading off her bed, and is back down the stairs and out the back door, all before Ellie and Donna and Grace have stood up from their seats in the living room. She doesn’t know how she’ll face any of them again.
SATURDAY, JULY 21
FINALLY. LAUREN IS ABSOLUTELY SURE THIS IS IT. SHE’S finally, finally, finally going to get out of here.
She believes Ellie when she says she doesn’t know who reported them. She could have just said she didn’t know the nature of the complaint either, but she didn’t. Lauren wonders if maybe they’ll never be told after all. Maybe Lauren’s dad or the attorney have figured out some way to get her out of here without them even finding out. But no. That will have to come out. Lauren may even have to testify or something when they bring the charges. She didn’t think of that before, and a hard lump forms in her throat. Her dad would never let that happen. She’s been hurt enough already. That’s what they’ll think. And it’s true. She has suffered enough. Maybe it’s almost over.