When Smiles Fade

by Paige Dearth

“Thanks, Syd,” Emma said gratefully. “I appreciate that. And by the way, I think you’re pretty great too. Now I need to go to sleep. Tomorrow is Black Friday. I volunteered to work a double shift for lunch and dinner. I need to make some extra money, if Santa is going to visit Izzy this year.”

  They both glanced at the child, fast asleep on Sydney’s mattress. From the look of it, Izzy was in a Thanksgiving dinner coma. Her arms and legs lay sprawled across the bed as if she owned it. The two friends laughed at the sight, then settled into sleeping bags for the night.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  On “Black Friday,” Sydney took Izzy into downtown Kensington. Since people would be out shopping in that area, there was a better chance of them making a little more money from begging. As the two of them sat on a busy street corner, Rock, the drug dealer friend of Syd’s father, approached them. People called him Rock because he specialized in the sale of crack cocaine, or “cookie,” as the drug was known on the streets. He looked every bit the picture of a man involved in a shady business. He wore his black hair long, combing it back with a greasy hair-care product, and kept a full beard and a mustache. Even in the heat of summer, he never went without a leather jacket. He patrolled Kensington Avenue regularly, keeping a close eye on his street dealers and “whores,” as he referred to the prostitutes working for him, and was always on the lookout for young people to make money for him.

  “Hey, Syd! You get hotter every time I see you. You know, if you’re tired of making nothing begging I can offer you some work. All you’d have to do is sell a little dope for me. I bet you’d be pretty good at it, like your father was until he decided to fuck everything up,” he suggested and eyed her up in a way that made her uncomfortable.

  “No, man, I’m not interested.” Sydney told him, knowing the troubles that come with dealing dope. “I don’t want to sell your drugs.”

  “You’re an awfully beautiful little girl,” he murmured, redirecting his attention to Izzy.

  Izzy shrank back and hid her face behind Sydney. Cold as it was, Sydney began to perspire in sheer terror as Rock looked Izzy over in a way that made her skin crawl.

  “Leave her alone, Rock,” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “She’s a kid and you’re scaring her.”

  “Ohhh, I didn’t mean to scare this beautiful creature!” he wheezed, bending down to Izzy’s level and extending his hand with its long fingernails toward her.

  Sydney pushed his hand away. “Stop it! Leave her alone.”

  Rock let out a sinister laugh. “Well,” he smirked, “if she ever needs a home, my old lady and I would be happy to take her in. Would you like to come and live with Rock, sweetheart?” he asked Izzy.

  “NO! I want to go home, Syd,” the child said, beginning to cry. “I don’t like it here!”

  Sydney jumped to her feet, clasped Izzy’s fingers in a tight grip, turned quickly, and started down the street back to their home. It was a stupid idea to come here in the first place, she thought to herself. She should never have taken Izzy into Kensington. She should have known better. Over the last year, every time she ran into Rock, he tried unfailingly to convince her to join his gang of dope peddlers. He had even suggested that she could make a lot of money prostituting, promising her protection from other men on the streets. She had grown increasingly worried about seeing him. As a child he had looked out for her, but now that she was older he wanted nothing more than to exploit her for his own good.

  Rock was infamous for arm-twisting people into doing what he wanted. Since he controlled most of the drug pushers and prostitutes in the area, he had any number of people at his beck and call. His reach was endless. If he wanted to get to Sydney and Izzy, he could do so easily.

  When they got back home, Sydney quickly locked the front door and sat in the common room with Izzy on her lap. Although some of the other herd members were there, they were already too drunk to take much notice of the girls still clinging to each other out of fear. Sydney wasn’t afraid for herself; she had lived on the streets for years and was used to Rock and his slimy ways. She was frightened that she had exposed Izzy to a person like him.

  Fuck, Sydney now said to herself, holding the child tighter, I’m such a fucking idiot!

  She resolved never to hang out with Izzy in Kensington again. From now on, they’d take the bus into Center City, Philadelphia. She brooded for hours over their encounter with Rock and decided not to tell Emma about it and hoped that Isabella wouldn’t either.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  As Christmas quickly approached, Emma worked as many hours as she humanly could to earn enough to buy presents for Izzy and something special for Sydney. She hadn’t talked to Brianna or Katie since she fled Ambler. It was just too risky for her to have any contact with anyone from her past. She knew that Ethan wouldn’t give up on hunting them down.

  Izzy’s excitement over Santa’s imminent arrival mounted and she could barely contain her enthusiasm on Christmas Eve when Emma put her to bed.

  “Santa’s coming tonight, right?” she asked her aunt for the hundredth time that evening.

  “Yep, he’s coming,” Emma assured her.

  After Izzy had fallen asleep, Emma snuck downstairs and put up the used tinsel tree she had bought at a yard sale. She hung a string of twenty-five lights on its silver branches and half a dozen shiny balls she had picked up at the dollar store. Then she carefully laid out a winter coat with gloves and a hat, a new pair of jeans, a generic Barbie doll, and a Monopoly Junior set. Emma knew it wasn’t much, but it was what she had been able to afford; it would have to do. She had bought Sydney a new sweater that she’d gotten cheap from a local street vendor.

  Izzy woke early on Christmas morning and nudged Emma in her sleeping bag. “Do you think Santa came?” she asked, bursting with anticipation.

  Emma rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

  After waking Sydney, the three of them went down to the common room to find the small lit tree and the presents laid out underneath.

  “He came! He came!” Izzy yelped gleefully.

  She ran over and touched each of her presents several times. Having so many gifts at once was a new experience for her and beyond exciting. Emma looked on, her heart melting at the sight. She hoped she could give Izzy the kind of life that she and Gracie had been denied. Emma took the newspaper-wrapped sweater out of a nearby closet and gave it to Sydney.

  “Merry Christmas, Syd,” she said. “This is from Iz and me.”

  Sydney sat in silence for several minutes, holding the package in her lap, staring at it as if she didn’t know what to do with it. She turned it over and over in her hands as the tears slid down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” Emma asked in alarm.

  “Nothing,” Sydney said quietly. “It’s just that this is the first present anyone ever gave me in as long as I can remember. My father was always too fucked up on dope to remember to buy anything for me.” She opened the present slowly, savoring every moment of the experience, then looked up at her friend. “The sweater’s beautiful! Thank you so much, Emma.”

  “Hey! What about me?” Izzy yelled at her, a small hand firmly poised on her hip.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Sydney exclaimed. “Of course! Thank you, Izzy.” Then she looked back at Emma. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have any extra money. So I couldn’t buy you anything. But Izzy made you a gift.”

  Isabella ran up to the bedroom where they had hidden Emma’s gift. Then she came charging back down the stairs, breathless.

  “Merry Christmas, Aunt Emma!” she puffed.

  In Izzy’s hand was a necklace made of macaroni. Emma put the necklace over her head and arranged it around her neck. Then she gushed that it was the most wonderful gift anyone had ever given her. The child was glowing, believing that she had done something really special for her aunt.

  Later, as they sat on the floor in the common room playing Monopoly Junior together, Emma was
overwhelmed by a sense of being surrounded by family. Christmas had never been a good time for her, but now, in the company of two people she loved, it felt like a whole new beginning, as they sang along with Frosty the Snowman on the small transistor radio.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  By spring the following year, Emma had nearly stopped thinking about Ethan. She had a few offers from her co-workers and her customers at the restaurant to go on dates, but she had always turned them down. Scarred by her past experience, she wasn’t ready to risk getting back into another relationship that might turn out to be abusive. She had decided that being single might be the only way for her to remain unharmed. Besides, everything she did now was for Izzy. She had been saving as much money as she could from the tips she earned waiting tables and was hopeful that in a couple of months she would be able to rent a small apartment somewhere in the city. She was planning on taking Sydney along with them.

  A little before five thirty, she went to look for Sydney and Izzy. She found them down in the common area, watching Nickelodeon. Emma leaned over and squeezed her niece.

  “Where are you going, Aunt Em?” the child asked innocently.

  “I have to go to work, sweetie,” she replied, “but Syd is going to take care of you while I’m gone.” She turned to Sydney and handed her ten dollars. “Here,” she said, “for dinner. Buy a pizza for yourselves.”

  A whole pizza was a luxury in their home. “Really?” Sydney said, pleased. “Wow! Thanks, Em.”

  Emma laughed. “Well, a pizza to babysit for eight hours is a good deal for me.”

  Sydney smiled mischievously. “Yeah, well, I don’t have high expectations. That way, I’m never disappointed.”

  Emma smiled back, but deep down she felt sad, aware that beneath the bantering tone, Sydney was serious. Growing up the way they had, not having expectations was the only way to cope in the wild jungle they had been thrown into. Each of them had learned how to take it one day at a time, to be grateful for all the good things, no matter how insignificant, and to run as fast as they could from the things that kept them down. It was a sad way to live, but it was the attitude needed to get by.

  Bar 210 was overcrowded that night. Emma was already three hours into her shift and didn’t notice Pete entering the restaurant with a couple of friends who had talked him into spending a night in the city. One of them had visited Bar 210 the previous week and had joked with Pete that it was a place where you could meet girls who weren’t on welfare.

  Pete was pleased to see all the well-dressed women sitting at the bar. It was while he was taking a seat next to a pretty blonde that he saw Emma walk across the room. He stared hard, intent on making sure he hadn’t made a mistake. No, it really was her. Pete was too far away for her to notice him, but he wouldn’t have missed that silky hair from a mile away. In fact, that was what had initially caught his eye. He waited impatiently until she had gone back in the kitchen then he raced outside to call Ethan.

  On the other end of the phone, Ethan felt powerful as he wrote down the name of the bar. “I’ll be there in forty-five minutes,” he told his friend. “Whatever you do, don’t let that cunt out of your sight!”

  When Ethan arrived at Bar 210, he found Pete waiting outside the restaurant. He had warned his friend not to go back inside. He didn’t want Emma to recognize him. The two men sat in their car down the block and waited for her to leave after work.

  At two-fifteen that morning, Ethan saw her come out with a couple of other people who worked there. Wishing them goodnight, she walked in the opposite direction toward her car. The men sat absolutely still in their car until she got into hers. Then they followed her back to Kensington, keeping back far enough that she wouldn’t get suspicious. The moment she parked the car, Ethan moved briskly. As she got out, opened the car’s rear door, and reached into the backseat for her purse, she felt the cold blade of his knife against her throat.

  “I told you I would never let you go,” he whispered. “Now get back in the fucking car! We need to talk.”

  As Emma complied, she focused on breathing evenly and remaining calm. She knew that if she betrayed any sign of weakness or fear, Ethan would take further advantage of her. She hadn’t expected him to find her. But here he was and she had to deal with the inevitable.

  “Look, Ethan,” she began, trying to sound reasonable, “I don’t want to be with you anymore. I’m making my own life now and you’re free to move on with yours.”

  “So is this the shit-hole where you’re keeping my daughter?” he asked as though he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

  “Leave us alone,” she said dully.

  “We both know I’m her father, Emma,” he told her. “In fact, while you were milking your sister’s death for all it was worth, I had a paternity test done. You never know who else that little scumbag sister of yours was fucking when she was fucking me! I have the papers, Em. I have a right to my child.”

  Emma froze. Then deep regret set in as she realized that in her rush to leave the apartment with Izzy, she had forgotten to take her most precious possession: Gracie’s journal. She wondered how she could ever have forgotten it. Stupid, stupid mistake!

  “What do you want from us, Ethan?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “I want my kid, Emma. You have a choice: you can either come back to me with her oooorrrr she can come back with me on her own. You know how impatient I can get. You don’t want her coming back with me alone, right?”

  Emma’s breathing quickened. She faced the prospect of the only decision with a helplessness she hadn’t felt in a long while. But she couldn’t give up without a fight.

  “Ethan, she’s just a kid,” she said. “How about if we leave her here and I come back with you?”

  Ethan cackled. “Do you think I’m stupid like you? Nah, she’s coming home to Daddy. Now let’s go inside and get my little girl. And I’m warning you: if you do anything stupid, I will call the police, show them the paternity test results, and you will never see Izzy again. You got me?”

  As they left the car and headed up the front steps to the house, he reminded her once more, just in case she’d forgotten, “Don’t make me lose my head, Emma.”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  As soon as Izzy set eyes on Ethan, she started to cry. Young as she was, the child instinctively knew that being in his presence was a bad thing for them. Emma rushed over and picked her up.

  “Sydney,” she said to her friend, her voice betraying no emotion, “this is Ethan. Izzy and I are going to pack our things and go back with him.”

  Stunned into silence, Syd didn’t know what she could do to help. Knowing of the rotten things that Ethan had done to Emma and Gracie, she grimaced as she locked eyes with him and willed him to die in the doorway. Street smart and wise beyond her years, Sydney detested slimy little pricks like him. She followed Emma up to the bedroom.

  “Christ, Emma!” she protested. “Have you lost your mind? What the hell do you think you’re doing? You know what he’s capable of! Why are you going back to him?”

  Emma’s voice was fraught with tension as she replied, “He threatened that if I didn’t, he would come back with the police and take Izzy away from me. He said he had a paternity test done right after Gracie died. And it’s true that he’s Izzy’s father. Fuck, I can’t believe this is happening all over again!”

  Sydney put her arms around Emma and the two friends hugged. Izzy went up to the pair and wiggled her way in between them. Then she held up her arms and said, “Me too.”

  The three of them stood in the middle of the room and said their good-byes. When they came back downstairs, Ethan was standing in the same spot where they had left him.

  “Come, baby, come to Daddy,” he cooed to Izzy in a successful attempt to torment Emma.

  “Noooooo!” Izzy started to whine, clinging to Sydney. “I don’t want to go with you. I want Sydney. I want to stay with Sydney!”

  Sydney looked down at the child, th
en glared at Ethan.

  He noticed her hostile expression and said belligerently, “What? You got something to say to me, you filthy little pig? Go take a fucking shower, you disgusting bitch! Get away from my kid before she catches something from you! Let’s go, Emma. NOW!” He was bellowing and his words echoed throughout the house.

  Ethan walked over to Sydney and began prying Izzy from her arms.

  The child refused to let go and held on as tight as she could. “I want to stay with Sydney!” she cried.

  Ethan gripped her small arm in his large hand and squeezed it like a vise.

  “Owww! Stop it! You’re hurting me!” Izzy screamed.

  Emma came up quickly behind him. “Leave her alone,” she said with authority. She held out her arms and Izzy went to her and wrapped herself around the only mother she had ever known.

  “Aunt Em, I don’t want to go anywhere! I want to stay here!” Izzy sobbed.

  “I know, sweetie,” Emma soothed. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

  She looked back helplessly at Sydney and then at the other people she had lived with so peacefully. All the housemates felt terrible about what was happening to the duo they now considered family members, a part of their herd.

  Once he had managed to get aunt and niece into the car, Ethan slapped Emma across the face for the scene she had caused. “If you ever embarrass me like that again, I will destroy you. You better get it clear in that empty skull of yours that what I say goes.”

  He screamed at her and showered abuse on her during the entire drive back to Ambler. Emotionally exhausted by the ugly scenes she had witnessed, Izzy cried herself to sleep within fifteen minutes, despite all the white noise Ethan was making.

  When they reached the apartment, Emma carried Izzy in from the car, kissed her cheek softly when they reached the bedroom, laid her on the bed, and pulled the covers over her. Then she went out to the living room to face the devil.

  “You think you’re something else, running off like that?” Ethan hurled the moment she appeared. “You’re nothing, do you hear me? Nothing! Things are going to be a lot different around here now. For starters, you have no driving privileges. You’re gonna call Doubles in the morning and make sure you get your job back. And you’re gonna give me every penny you make. I had to borrow goddamn money from my mother to keep our apartment! Do you know how embarrassing that was for me? Do you?”