Wildwood

by Drusilla Campbell

  “She gave me a Hershey Kiss.”

  Jeanne dug in the pocket of her sweater jacket and brought out another silvery Kiss. She held it out and Adam took it.

  “Thanks.”

  He unwrapped the foil, put the chocolate in his mouth and lay back. Jeanne took the paper from his hand and set it on the bedside table beside a glass of water with a bent plastic straw. Next to the little table, a window opened onto the back common where a half-dozen students tossed Frisbees and footballs. Adam stared at the ceiling. Jeanne watched him and became aware that he was concentrating hard on something.

  “I’m counting,” he told her. He pointed at the acoustical tiles overhead. “There’s twelve in all the rows ’cept one’s got eleven.” His forehead wrinkled. “I mighta lost count ’cause I had to blink.”

  “Have you tried counting the dots?”

  “My eyes get all burny.”

  “Would you like a book to look at instead? Maybe a magazine or something to draw with?”

  He shook his head.

  “Nurse Judy says you broke your ankle. Does it hurt?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Have you had some aspirin?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re going to learn to walk on crutches for a while.”

  He looked interested. “Cool.” He looked up at the ceiling again.

  “Why’d you let go of the rope, Adam? You were almost to the top.”

  He said nothing. She guessed from his long stare that he was trying to figure out how much he could trust her.

  “Uncle Louis said.”

  “He told you to let go and fall?”

  Adam nodded and then sighed.

  “Do you always do what Uncle Louis tells you?”

  He put his hands up to cover his ears. She pulled them away gently.

  “Uncle Louis lives in your mind, doesn’t he?” His hands wriggled in hers. “I’ll tell you a secret, Adam.”

  He looked at her.

  “Mostly you don’t get to know this until you grow up.” She dropped her voice and looked from side to side, a cartoon spy. “It’s a very grown-up secret.”

  “I won’t tell.”

  “Promise?” He nodded the smallest possible nod. “The things you hear in your mind, they’re not always true. Sometimes the mind lies.”

  Adam stared at her then looked away and up. His lips moved as he began to count the tiles again.

  “Never mind. Everything’s going to be okay. Be patient a little longer.” She touched his cheek and imagined it was James she caressed. What would it be like to touch her own son? “I talked to your father’s office a little while ago. He’s in Tokyo. Japan. But he’ll be back on Thursday and then he’s going to come down here and get you.”

  “Uncle Louis says Daddy’s mad at me.”

  “Uncle Louis is a liar.”

  Adam looked as if he expected momentary murder and mayhem.

  “Your father wants you to be happy. And so do I. You don’t have to stay at Hilltop if you’re unhappy.” She lifted a lock of hair off his forehead for the pleasure of touching him.

  Adam closed his eyes, ignored her and pretended to sleep. Jeanne stayed beside him. She watched his face and after a few moments the tension melted from it. His breathing deepened and beneath the light infirmary blanket his narrow chest rose and fell.

  Outside the infirmary she stood on the side porch watching the boys on the playing field. She knew each by name, his parents and his special needs. When the Frisbee dropped near her feet she picked it up and bent her arm back, sent it sailing on a gust of wind. Once years ago there had been talk of making Hilltop a coeducational school, but she had opposed the idea. At the time Teddy asked why she cared so much; and her answers had been scientific, based on sound educational theory. Children did learn better when boys and girls were separated. But really, she saw now, her arguments had been to rationalize nothing more than wanting to be surrounded by boys standing in for James, variations on her son.

  She would tell Simon Weed to follow his heart. He must not let his boy go to strangers, even Hilltop strangers. Hire tutors, the best in the world. Kid-friendly shrinks, as many as it took to sideline Uncle Louis.

  When Hannah and Dan made love that night they kissed as if they were inventing kisses, as if kissing might save their lives. Afterwards Dan stayed inside her and they held each other for a long time before slipping apart and over to their own sides of the bed.

  Hannah took care not to wake Dan when she went into the bathroom. The luminous digital clock ticked over the minutes after midnight. Her body ached for sleep while her mind churned and made sleep impossible.

  It was Wednesday at last.

  Barefoot in her white terry robe, she moved through the house like a ghost. In the den Cherokee lifted her elegant head from the couch and thumped her tail. Hannah sat beside her and switched on the television. She found an ancient black-and-white movie starring a pallid young man with a pencil mustache and Myrna Loy, skinny and smirky as always. They guzzled martinis and called each other darling. She watched for a few minutes, then flicked to a channel where a swami preached circles in a singsong voice, flicked again to the skin care secrets of a woman with kumquat-colored hair. On MTV a boy in sequins gyrated while fans screamed.

  While the images danced on the screen, Hannah walked around the family room absentmindedly straightening the bookcases and tidying a pile of papers left by Eddie on the project table. On the cover of a blue binder he had written with care, using stencils, THE RINCONADA ROCKETS. Inside neatly tagged dividers with typed labels separated the pages. In the first section there was a typed list of players, the roster of the Rockets with all their personal stats: size, weight, college team, position in the draft. The second section held the players’ trading cards encased in plastic for protection. Hannah stared at the mostly African-American faces and repeated the names to herself. She recognized a few as stars. The third section was all statistics, a formidable array of numbers translated into percentages and ratios. Yards on the ground, yards in the air, attempted passes and completed passes, sacks. Math. And laid out as clearly as a Fortune 500 stock report. The next divider set apart a precise reckoning of how much money the Rockets had won for Eddie so far that season. Twenty-three dollars and thirty cents. The last section held typed articles about the Rockets signed with the byline Ed Tarwater. She read one entitled “Rockets Fizzle in Third Quarter” and found no errors.

  He made her proud, this boy, smart as he was in his special way. But he shamed her too. While hiding who he really was—the owner, manager, coach, and even the journalist of a winning team—he had tried to play football at Rinconada High School because she wanted him to. Her skin prickled with regret and then with irritation. She never demanded he play. He could have refused.

  Hannah’s throat and jaw tightened. She pressed her fingers to her temples. He loved her and she had been awful to him.

  “It isn’t that I don’t love you, Eddie. Ed. It’s just I can’t . . .” Her words feathered off into the silent house.

  The boy would be better off without her.

  Deep in a bosky dream, Cherokee thumped her tail.

  Hannah turned off the television and made her way to the kitchen where she warmed milk for cocoa. The clammy tiles stuck to her bare feet. Outside the branches of the olive tree scratched the kitchen windows, and she was aware for the first time of the wind breaking through the trees. She opened the back door and stepped outside into a rush of cool air. Clouds tumbled and chased across the sky like children playing. Gooseflesh rose on her arms and she rubbed it hard. There was weather on the way at last.

  Wednesday

  “You’re early, Hannah.” Betts looked up from her paperwork. She glanced at the clock on the wall over her desk, stood and gathered a stack of papers into a bulging file. “I didn’t expect you until ten.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” Hannah found her cup and poured coffee.

  “Everything okay with you?”<
br />
  “The weather’s made me edgy.”

  “The guy on Channel Ten said rain by noon. That high pressure system seems to have moved.”

  “A big storm, I heard.”

  “I’m due at the staff meeting this minute. Want to sit in?”

  “For a while.”

  Staff meetings at Resurrection House were held in what had been the mansion’s dining room in the glory days. Hannah found a seat on an ancient overstuffed couch near the door and folded her legs under her. In more optimistic times the home’s dilapidated rooms had inspired her with all that soap and water, paint and time, energy and commitment could accomplish. That was before she learned about percolating damp and mold and cockroaches four inches long. Overhead fecal-brown water stains the size of hubcaps marked the ceiling. Underfoot, the carpet remained a grimy brown despite vacuuming and whirring carpet cleaners. Everywhere she looked she saw symbols of a futility progressed far beyond the reach of suds and paint and willing volunteers.

  Hannah knew each of the eight other women in the room but today she said nothing, greeted no one as she sat with her legs curled under her, holding on to a cup of bad coffee with one hand while the fingers of the other beat on the arm of the couch. She wore sweatpants, a plain gray sweatshirt, and running shoes. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she’d left the house without applying makeup—not even lipstick. Her plan had been to look anonymous. An unremarkable middle-aged housewife, a suburban frau born to shop at Wal-Mart ’til she dropped, unnoticed.

  Betts addressed the group. “We need to move along this morning. Sheila and Lupe are minding the store for us but let’s not take advantage of them.” She opened the notebook on her lap. “I have only three agenda items.”

  She mentioned the problem of cigarette smoking. Maryann moved that the screened laundry porch be designated a smoking area. Someone else said outside on the front veranda. A vote was taken and the veranda won.

  The next item of business surprised Hannah.

  “Shannon came by yesterday to tell me she’s got a job.”

  “I hope you didn’t take her word for it.” May’s laugh was caustic.

  Hannah shifted her legs out from under her and planted them on the carpet. Inside her running shoes her toes began to wriggle impatiently.

  “I called the company and they verified. Apparently she was completely candid with them about living with us and having Angel. The man I spoke to said he thought she was a good employment bet. Highly motivated.” Betts checked her notes. “The company does bulk mailing. Third class stuff.”

  “A real career opportunity,” May said.

  Betts shot her a look. “It’s a start and that’s all we’re asking at this point. I’ve gone over the house contract with Shannon. She knows the rules and she told me she’ll follow them.”

  Maryann asked, “Where you going to put them?”

  “The room at the back, the one that overlooks the side yard,” Betts said. “There’ll be plenty of room for a crib.”

  Betts: so determinedly optimistic, so everlastingly cheery. And so wrong, so completely blindly wrong.

  Hannah had read Shannon’s core as surely as a psychiatrist decoding responses to a Rorschach test. Shannon had beguiled every woman at the meeting—except perhaps May—with her girlish smiles and promises, blinded them to her shifty, restless, sideways eyes. Angel needed commitment and sacrifice, a lifetime of devoted and selfless care if she was to rise up whole and bright. Shannon didn’t have it in her.

  Betts began to speak of another girl who had applied to live at Resurrection House. Her baby was still in the preemie ward. She stopped in midsentence. “You okay, Hannah?”

  Hannah picked up her purse and rose from the couch. “I need some air,” she said and managed to smile. The folding doors squeaked as she pulled them back. She shrugged apologetically to the group. “Hot flash.”

  Benign smiling faces watched her out the door.

  It’s so easy to fool them, she thought.

  Hannah went immediately across the foyer downstairs and along the hall to the nursery where it was quiet except for baby sounds and the scratch of an oak branch against the eaves. Swaddled in a blue blanket, Angel lay on her back sucking her fist. Her open eyes stared unfocused at the ceiling.

  “Hello, baby girl.”

  A blink and then Angel recognized her and squirmed excitedly. Hannah picked her up. At ten months the bundle in her arms felt more like three or four. Small splayed hands batted her face. Hannah grabbed one and kissed it. Pressing her face against the baby’s warm damp neck, she whispered, “Angel, my Angel.”

  With Angel in her arms Hannah left the nursery and went quickly to the front of the house. From behind the closed dining room doors, she heard laughter and the sound of paper shuffling. She scribbled on the chalkboard: Gone to the park. H and A.

  She grabbed her jacket from its hook and hurried out the front door and down the steps, across the yard and around the corner to where she had parked the Volvo out of sight of the house. She shifted Angel to her hip and rummaged in her bag for keys. She opened the back curbside door. Eddie’s infant car seat was anchored in the back on the side opposite the driver. To fit Angel, Hannah had to loosen her blanket and then adjust the angle of the seat to an almost reclining position. The lever stuck. She needed both hands to budge it. She laid the baby on the backseat and groped under the car seat. Her hands were slippery with sweat. Behind her a door slammed and a dog barked. She turned around expecting to see Betts or Maryann hurrying toward her, but it was only a woman from the building next door retrieving her newspaper.

  The lever released with a jerk, sending a startled squirt of adrenaline through Hannah’s system. She brushed her hair back off her face and rested her forehead against the roof of the car until her heartbeat slowed and her hands stopped shaking. Then she settled Angel in the car seat, closed the rear door, went around and opened her side, got in and turned on the ignition. The engine fired and immediately Angel began to cry.

  Hannah smiled because tears were exactly what she had expected. The movement of the car and the purr of the engine would lull Angel to sleep. But she had forgotten how a baby’s raw screams take on substance in a car’s interior, filling up the space with a noise like shards of glass. She laughed and felt young and pleasantly harried and entirely competent.

  She focused on the road ahead. Angel finally quieted. Hannah craned her neck around to check if she was breathing. Of course she was, there was no reason for her to stop breathing. But once Hannah started worrying, she couldn’t stop. It had been the same with Ingrid and Eddie. At the next exit she pulled off 101 and switched the car seat to the front passenger side.

  Angel cried again, barking shrieks of distress Hannah could not silence with touch or talk. This was exactly the sort of problem a girl like Shannon would not know how to handle. She would probably end up hitting Angel out of frustration, but Hannah would never do that because she understood any break in routine overstimulated a crack baby. The next few hours would be difficult for Angel, but Hannah had prepared for that. She kept one hand on the wheel and the other stroked Angel’s thin arm. A few miles down the freeway the baby’s tears subsided again into woeful snuffles, and at last she fell asleep. Her long black eyelashes glistened and every minute or so she shuddered, shaking off the last of the tears.

  To the right of the highway a mass of plum-colored clouds insinuated itself eastward over and through the passes of the Coast Range. Drained of color under a heavy sky, the parched landscape of live oak, eucalyptus, fields and orchards lay in dun desolation. In the wind the trees arched their spines like ballerinas; and beside the road, a string of fishing lakes shone like pewter plates. Hannah checked the rearview mirror. A blue-gray wake of empty road stretched behind the Volvo, and she imagined she was looking back at the receding shoreline of her old life. Reflected in the rearview mirror she saw an untidy middle-aged woman with too much frizzy hair. She smiled at herself. Everything was going according to pl
an and expectation.

  Once she saw a highway patrol car on an overpass, and for an instant a cold clarifying wind keened through her mind, and she knew she should turn around. But the thought passed as quickly as the scenery.

  Hannah knew what she was doing. The flight with Angel was kidnapping and literally against the law, but she had thought this through and right and wrong could not concern her anymore. What jury would convict her for saving a baby’s life? In Hannah’s care Angel had a chance, with Shannon she did not. Simple. True.

  The day before Hannah had shopped for supplies and cashed a large check at Wells Fargo. By the time Dan learned how large, she would be gone. The cooler was in the trunk full of ice and basics. In one cardboard box were the cans of soup she had got for herself and the jars of baby food Angel would need until they settled somewhere in Mexico and Hannah could puree fresh produce as she had for Eddie and Ingrid. In another box was an old microwave she hoped still worked. The first night they would stay in a little housekeeping motel she remembered in the Carmel Valley. It was off the road and quiet, sparkling clean and smug in its plain utilitarian style. The next day she would trade the Volvo for a used car, pay cash, and drive to the border.

  Hannah tried not to think about Dan and her children, but everywhere along the road she saw things that reminded her of those she had left behind. In a paddock a man stood beside a horse, and she knew she could depend on Dan to feed Glory and the foster animals. She imagined him beside the mare, resting his forehead on her neck. At first he’d be too worried and confused to be angry. Then he would beg God to help him understand why she had left him. He would fight off anger until, exhausted, he had to let it in. For a while it would take over his life. But some part of him would never give up hope that she was coming back. He would be a good father and a comfort to the children.

  She pushed down the faces of Ingrid and Eddie when they came into her mind; but like buoys in rough weather, they popped to the surface again. Someday she would write them. I love you, I will always love you. She shook her head to clear away the syllables. You two gave my life its meaning. She clenched her teeth until her jaw ached.