Wildwood

by Drusilla Campbell

  The screen door had a right angle tear and creaked. Hannah opened it and stepped inside. She smelled the mix of children, food and disinfectant and her spirits rose and her eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

  Menopause tears, Jeanne called them. Excessive.

  “Well, good morning to you, Mrs. Tarwater.” Betts stood in one of the doorways off the foyer, tall and fat. She wore a bright voluminous muumuu and blue rubber flip-flops. Hannah could not be sure but she thought the perfect helmet of gray bubble curls was a wig.

  Hannah held up a paper bag. “Muffins.”

  “You spoil us.” The woman laughed. “If you get me used to eating homemade muffins with my coffee, I’m apt to start thinking I’ve got a right to them.”

  “That’s the whole point, Betts. You do.”

  Hannah followed Betts and the slap of her flip-flops on the hardwood floor into a room furnished with a scarred wooden desk and table, several chairs and a brown leather couch, worn and discolored. On one wall beside a cluttered bulletin board a poster showed a child teetering at the edge of a precipice with a great-winged angel guarding her from behind. The angel had a strong, unsexed face like the Statue of Liberty.

  Hannah took a plate from the cupboard and emptied the muffins onto it. Holding one in her mouth, she offered the plate to Betts. An automatic coffeemaker sat on the table and beside it a rack of cups. Hannah lifted the mug with her name on it and poured coffee. At home she’d never tolerate such coal black brine, but at Resurrection House it was part of the shared struggle. While her coffee cooled she opened the closet and sorted through hangers until she found the plain white smock bearing her name tag: HANNAH, VOLUNTEER MOTHER. As she slipped it on, she chatted with Betts about trivialities and overcame her urge to share her concern about Liz. Bett’s worry list was long enough already.

  Since leaving her convent after Vatican II, Betts had worked in whatever capacity presented itself to do whatever good she could. That was how she had explained her work on the day Hannah arrived at Resurrection House having been recommended by Father Joe, the retired rector at St. Margaret’s.

  “You might find some peace working there, Hannah.” His eyes had pierced and offended her with their directness. She thought Dan must have told him she was depressed. She had almost told Father Joe he should mind his own business even if he had known her all her life.

  Hannah finished her coffee and muffin and walked to the nursery. When she opened the door, the vertical blinds clacked at the windows and the draft smelled of dust and cars and from somewhere along the street, frying bacon. Four cribs were lined up side by side. In each small bed, a baby lay sleeping.

  Angel, the daughter of a sixteen-year-old crack addict, had come to Resurrection House from the preemie ward at County Hospital. Tiny limbs and skin like vinyl, the wizened face of an old woman: Hannah wept when she first saw her. From the start, she had known that Angel needed to be held, to feel a warm body against hers, and the beat of a steady heart. But the baby screamed and recoiled from the touch of a hand on her skin. A sudden noise sent her into spasms.

  Betts allowed Hannah to convert the room’s old-fashioned walk-in closet into a private nursery for Angel. For weeks the infant slept the clock around in darkness, swaddled tight, with the taped sound of a human heart beating beside her. When her skin desensitized Hannah held her, and they rocked for hours at a time in the blackness. In late spring as Angel finally began to relax, Hannah increased the light in the closet nursery a little every day. At last, near midsummer, Angel looked at Hannah, saw Hannah, and did not turn away.

  Hannah knew that wherever her soul went after death, it would take the memory of that moment with it.

  Her crib was brought into the big nursery, but Angel still slept more than the other drug-exposed babies. She was fragile though her eyes were clear, and she seemed to like being held and fed. For Hannah, she smiled. Now, at ten months, she was delicately made and chirrupy as a three- or four-month-old.

  Hannah watched Angel chew and suck on her dimpled fist. In REM sleep, her eyelids fluttered like moth wings. What did she dream of? A bedroom of her own, a soft-eyed dog asleep on the rug beside her crib? Her brows knitted in a V, and she opened her eyes. For a moment they stared up vacantly. Then they focused and she beamed, displaying two nubby pearls in her pink gums. Her reaching arms jerked around in uncoordinated circles.

  “Breakfast time, my Angel,” Hannah said. “And then we’ll go to the park.”

  The park was one city block square and planted with old live oak trees through which the sunlight fell like coins. Hannah sat on an iron bench with Angel in her arms, and they watched a pair of noisy boys push and shove each other in and out and over a playground sculpture of wood and rubber provided by a service club. The seats of the old metal swing set beside the sculpture had been stolen, and lengths of useless chain hung from the horizontal bar, limp as wet hair. To conserve water, the city no longer watered the grass and the shrubs and perennials sagged as if despairing. At the edge of the playground, a man with a shopping cart stuffed with green plastic bags scavenged in a trash can.

  From behind Hannah a feminine voice said, “Do you mind if I sit here?” Hannah looked up at the speaker, a young woman with a toddler and an infant in a baby carrier. “Your baby’s beautiful. How old is she?”

  Hannah paused a heartbeat. “Three months.” She didn’t want to explain why Angel was small and could not yet sit up alone.

  Angel eyed the newcomers with interest. The toddler showed her his Tootsie-Pop and she reached for it with normal reflexes that thrilled Hannah.

  The young mother sat on the bench and shooed her son off to play. As she adjusted her baby in its canvas carry, she said, “What’s her name?”

  “Angel.” Hannah heard the pride in her voice and added, “Angel Elizabeth Jeanne.”

  A little make-believe won’t hurt.

  “Big name for a little girl.” The young woman opened her eyes wide at Angel and got a smile for her effort. “She’s so petite. What was her birth weight?”

  “Five pounds, two ounces.” Ingrid’s weight. Before the words were out, Hannah wanted them back; but the woman would think she was crazy if she tried to explain why she’d lied.

  I’m just pretending a while . . .

  “Is your husband Mexican?”

  Hannah said nothing.

  “I mean you’re so fair and she’s so dark. Her eyes are really great. I always wanted brown eyes.”

  “Yes,” Hannah said, “he’s Mexican.”

  This young woman believed Hannah was Angel’s mother. Why would she think otherwise? Dan might know she was a closet anarchist but to the world Hannah looked like the paradigm of middle-class rectitude. Her word would not be doubted. If Hannah wanted to she could take Angel across the border and they’d fit in easily. Her Spanish was good. They could find a place to live in Ensenada, live for a long time on practically nothing.

  The young mother said, “We just moved into that pink Spanishy place near the school. We’ve got half the second floor. It’s not bad but so close to the school and all . . . God, it’s noisy.”

  The idea of mothers complaining about kid-noise made them laugh.

  “Do you have other children?”

  Hannah stroked Angel’s hair. “No.”

  Forgive me Eddie, Ingrid. I’m only playing.

  “You had to wait a while, huh?” It was a tactful allusion and impossible to be affronted by. “Did you have a hard time?”

  “She’s never given me any trouble.”

  “Lucky you. This one,” the garrulous girl tapped the nearly bald head just visible at the top of the carrier, “took eighteen hours getting born and now he sleeps all day and cries all night. My husband’s going crazy. He’s in grad school, and he can’t study with all the bawling.”

  They talked about feeding routines and sleeping patterns, the pros and cons of disposable diapers. The sun in the cloudless sky shone through the arms of the great oaks, stippling the
playground with light. An ice cream truck went by a half-dozen times playing Babes in Toyland. Angel fell asleep in Hannah’s arms.

  The young mother asked, “Do you come here often? It’s nice to have someone to talk to. The parks at home—I’m from outside Cleveland—they’re full of moms and kids. Here it’s different. More women work.” She nodded toward the man hunting and gathering with his shopping cart. “Mostly you see them.”

  “I’m usually too busy for the park.”

  “Maybe we could work out a babysitting co-op. I used to do that with my friends.”

  “I don’t go out much.”

  “You might change your mind. Once the novelty’s worn off.” She wiped Tootsie-Pop drool and sand off her toddler’s face. “What’s your name?”

  “Hannah.”

  “I’m Judy.” The toddler tugged her pant leg and whined to be lifted. Judy groaned. “No rest, I guess. Gotta go. See ya, Hannah.”

  “See ya, Judy.”

  In the distance a school bell rang and from farther away a siren screamed. No harm done. She kissed the top of Angel’s head. When you’re mine it’ll all be true anyway.

  Hannah made a late lunch of cold meat loaf sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies with milk. After eating she and Liz stood at the sink and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Liz talked about her neighbors in Belize City: the fortune-teller named Divina, the man who drove a Cadillac and sold bananas by the stem door to door, Petula who chartered boats to tourists. She described frogs the size of softballs that squatted on her steps and sang while the rain poured down.

  Hannah listened and tried to pretend she was interested. All the while she observed Liz for signs of illness, but the amazing thing was she had never looked better. The years had softened her rather sharp features and she smiled a lot and her laugh came from somewhere deep inside. She must be happy, Hannah thought. Happy or sad, the young were always pretty. But to be a pretty middle-aged woman, happiness was more important than cosmetics or surgery.

  If she’s not sick, why did she go to the doctor?

  Hannah couldn’t stand the waiting. “Liz, tell me what—”

  “I almost forgot your present. I brought you something special from Florida.” Liz went upstairs and in a moment she came back into the kitchen. “Close your eyes and stand with your back to the sink.”

  Hannah did as she was told. “It’s not a bug or anything? From Belize?”

  Liz laughed and then Hannah heard a soft unidentifiable squeak and water in a fine spray touched her cheeks and wet her eyelids.

  “What? . . .”

  “It’s rain,” Liz said. “I brought it from Florida like you said I should.”

  Tears again.

  They walked down to the barn.

  When Dan and Hannah bought the house on Casabella Road, there had been nothing on the lower field but a long, ramshackle old henhouse—a sinister place, thick with webs and shadows and the hint of snakes. Even the Fearsome Threesome, intrepid at eight and nine, had been reluctant to explore it until one hot autumn afternoon when Jeanne led the way and pried open the door with a screwdriver.

  They had peered down a long empty space striped by mustard-colored shafts and plates of sunlight entering through knotholes and gaps between the boards. Through a cloud of shimmering motes they saw straight ahead of them, dead in the middle of the barn and spotlighted in dark gold, an oversized wooden chair joined by bolts the size of silver dollars with a high square back and chunky square-edged arms and legs. In a hushed voice, Jeanne said it was an electric chair without the juice. It was easy to believe her.

  Years later on the day the builders demolished the old coop, Hannah stayed on the hill and watched, eager to see the electric chair brought out. The workman found a wooden kitchen chair with arms, the kind mass-produced in the Twenties and Thirties.

  “It was nothing at all,” she told Liz as they walked through the paddock gate and were immediately surrounded by clambering dogs and cats with their tails straight up and quivering. “Just a chair. All those years we were so afraid of it . . .”

  Liz nodded and inhaled as if she were about to say something. Now she’ll tell me, Hannah thought. Tell me, tell me.

  Instead Liz gestured toward the animals. “Are they all yours? There must be a dozen cats.”

  “The dogs and the donkey came from the Humane Society. People just leave cats at the end of the driveway.”

  “You’re such a soft touch.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Walk away and let them die? Ramon comes morning and afternoon to help. They’re no trouble.”

  Beaten, starved, neglected: the streetwise orphans always kept their distance at first. But gradually, inevitably, they trusted Hannah and learned to come when she leaned on the paddock fence and called. They trembled when she stroked their coats but did not run.

  In Levi’s and sweatshirt, ancient boots pulled on over a discarded pair of Dan’s wool socks, Hannah fed the dogs and measured out oats and forked fresh hay down from the loft. The work was basic and hard, and she felt strong doing it. Liz sat on the gate of an empty stall and gabbed at her, but Hannah only listened with half attention. Liz wasn’t saying anything that mattered, not yet. Sooner or later she would have to get down to it but for now . . . well, Hannah admitted, she was just as glad not to go there. Instead of worrying about Liz and her mystery, she preferred to imagine how Angel would love the barn and the animals. When she was four Hannah would teach her to ride. She’d make her a brown velveteen weskit and a matching jacket . . .

  Liz had stopped talking.

  “What’s the matter?” Hannah asked.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  “Look who’s asking.”

  “I know a lot about depression, Hannah.”

  Hannah waved the word away. “Who said I was depressed?” Hannah hung the pitchfork on a hook. “You’re gone for years and now all of a sudden you’re back and full of secrets and you know everything.” She regretted her tone but did not apologize.

  “There’s things we should talk about.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Bluegang.”

  The answer startled Hannah. “Oh. That.” She sighed and crouched down to pat a mangy beagleish sort of mutt. Pus accumulated in yellow gobbets at the corners of its eyes. She’d have to call the vet, get some drops.

  She stood up and waved her arm in the direction of the creek. “It’s right down there, over the hill. If you’re so interested, go look at it.” She headed out of the barn. “Tomorrow night you can talk all you want to Gail Bacci about Bluegang. It’s one of her favorite subjects. That and how much money she’s making.”

  “Please, Hannah. Don’t make this hard. I have to talk about it. That’s why I’ve come back.”

  Hannah stopped. “What about the doctor?”

  “That’s . . . something else. I told you not to worry about me. I’m not sick.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I have nightmares . . .”

  “The doctor’s a shrink?”

  “I keep seeing that boy.”

  Hannah felt her jaw tighten and a brooding ache burrowed in beside her right ear. “We made a deal we wouldn’t talk.”

  “We were children, we wanted it to go away like it never happened. We were scared. But now—. I can’t make it go away anymore. And it’s crazy not to talk about it. Something like that happens and we have to talk about it.”

  “Leave it.” Hannah pressed her index finger hard into the pain behind her ear and told herself to relax and it would diminish.

  “It’s not over for me,” Liz said. “The last year I’ve been obsessing.”

  “You?”

  “And I can’t sleep.”

  Hannah laughed. “Who can?”

  “I did something terrible that day, Hannah.”

  You?

  “I should have insisted that we tell someone right then. I almost did but I thought how my parents were so busy and how upset th
ey’d be with me.”

  Hannah’s voice broke as it rose in volume. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I knew what was right to do but when Jeanne started talking—”

  “I said leave it. I don’t want to talk about this.” Hannah gestured Liz through the paddock gate and slammed and latched it shut behind them. “And I won’t. Period.”

  Jeanne wove Teddy’s Waterman pen between her fingers. On the desk before her, the report from the housekeeping staff lay open, but she could not concentrate on complaints about old plumbing, long hours and low wages. Across the room the bell-curve walnut clock on the credenza struck two. She double-checked the clock against her watch: 2:01.

  She had allowed Robby to take Adam Weed into town. Older honor students like Robby were given such privileges on special occasions. In this case, Robby needed to buy his mother a birthday gift. Using the Waterman like a drumstick, she played an irritable riff on her desktop. She had wanted the boys to bond, but maybe it had been a mistake to trust Robby with someone as fragile as Adam Weed.

  She could have a drink at five. Five was a legitimate time for a drink.

  On the credenza, a little to the left of the clock, was a picture of her father and mother, an enlargement of a snapshot taken one Easter by her brother, Michael, during his photography phase. Against the backdrop of the rose cloister, it showed her father’s stubborn chin and wooden back. Her mother’s equally unyielding nature was disguised by a floral dress and exuberantly gauzy hat. As far as Jeanne could remember, they had been almost moderate in their habits in those days. The drinking had begun in earnest after Michael died.

  There was a knock on the hall door.