Motherless Child

by Glen Hirshberg

  He blinked, harmonica at his lips, tremulous half grin just visible behind it.

  “Don’t try so hard,” she said, as gently as she could, which wasn’t that gently. This had become a challenging night. “Don’t try to make us laugh.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Just … play a song.”

  “I did. I was.”

  “Oh, yeah? What song was that?”

  “‘She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain’? You know, ‘driving six white horses…’”

  “Yeah, but she isn’t screaming while she comes,” Jess snapped, saw the poor kid flinch again, and all at once she started to laugh. Just for this one moment. Gorgeous pancake smells flooding the air, children at her feet, a homeless boy deafening her with a harmonica. Somehow, a semblance of life had followed when she’d fled her life. Reconstituted itself around her.

  The kid looked more baffled than ever. But he laughed, too.

  Benny stuck his head out of the kitchen. “I can tell you one thing she’ll be doing. She’ll be eating these.” With a flourish, he swept a platter full of pancakes into the room, and smells overwhelmed them.

  For a long while, they sat and ate. To Jess, it all seemed almost too much but completely irresistible, like sweet tea on a scalding summer day. At first, the kid shoveled whole pancakes into his mouth at a time. But as he slowed, he started to savor, and the look on his face—not unlike hers, she imagined, at once overwhelmed and lost and just a little sickened by something surprisingly close to bliss—cast a gentle glow over the table. There was nothing joyful about anything he told them. He’d had a dealer father, a junkie mother, slept on the streets of D.C. in the spring but had come here because the cops were kinder, the tourists more generous, and only the teens got violent. But he was still mostly a boy, in there, and he not only knew who Mark Belanger was but why the Orioles had kept playing someone who hit that badly, and his survival-slyness was evident at all times but not yet dominant. Benny kept catching her eye, and every time he did she couldn’t help but grin, which annoyed her, which just made him happier, which made her grin more. Outside, through the slit in the curtains she’d now drawn, she could see the white shine off the surface of the ocean, though not quite the ocean itself. Whatever this mood was, it had claimed even the babies, and they crawled over each other and their blocks and pulled themselves standing at the side of the couch and fell back on their butts and gurgled and laughed.

  “I’ll clean if you’ll watch the babes,” Jess told them, intending to let him bask in the glow he’d created.

  But Benny said, “I’ll help. Those babes are pretty close to sleeping.” And he joined her in the kitchen, and they kissed, washed dishes, kissed some more. She put a hand down the back of his jeans, squeezed, and he laughed and held her hand there. The last thing left on the table was the pitcher of still-hot homemade syrup, and after a while Jess went to get that, and that’s when she saw what was happening.

  The kid, hunched over Benny’s laptop. Typing.

  Jess froze, syrup pitcher in one hand, just-dried skillet in the other. “What are you doing?” she said.

  The kid jumped as if she’d poured the syrup over his head, half-turned toward her. Turned the laptop in the other direction. “Sorry. I should have asked. I just don’t … you know, not much Internet access under the pier. It’s … my favorite Web site. This musician guy. I was just…”

  But Jess was behind him, now. Staring at the computer screen. Which wasn’t just.

  It was a Twitter page. Some guy whose face, in the profile photo, looked remarkably like this kid’s. Only older. And nastier. Something about the mouth.

  Underneath the profile photo was a photo of Jess. The one with Joe, in his black tango pants, from Myrtle Beach, three months before he died. Which she’d been sure Natalie had taken with her on the night she left.

  Hey, Tweetybirds, the page read. Seeking this woman. And her babies. Seen ’em? Whistle, and I’ll come.…

  She felt the impact of metal-on-skull through the handle of the pan. Like vibrations down an aluminum bat, she thought, terrified even as she followed all the way through, and the kid’s head rocked back, banged off the edge of the desk, dragged the rest of him off the chair into a heap at her feet. For one moment, she let herself stand there, made herself look, see what she’d done.

  Bashed in the head of a helpless, homeless child. And very possibly killed him.

  Benny was behind her again. Not shouting. Again. His voice came out choked. “Jess? What on earth—”

  “Benny, it’s time to run.” She dropped the pan at her feet, and the syrup with it. Then she dropped to her knees, put her hand to the kid’s bloodied temple, felt the beat there. Tears sprang to her eyes. She ignored them, held her hand to the kid’s face for one moment more.

  “Jess. Jesus Christ, you—”

  Jerking to her feet, she collapsed the bassinet, started throwing blankets and toys toward the door. “Bag those up, Benny. Everything in the trunk. Come on.”

  “I’m not doing anything until you—”

  “Benny, Benny, Benny, we have to run.” And she was running, hurtling around the room.

  She would run, all right. But not away. Not anymore. Because Natalie’s face had floated up in front of her, again. Staring right down into Jess’, and this time Jess let herself see. Let herself acknowledge what she’d been too angry or frustrated or just plain tired to acknowledge before. What she should have known all along. Natalie was Natalie, all right. A little wild. Way too hungry for the world, and so way too likely just to put it all in her mouth. But underneath the wildness—and all around it and much stronger—was the daughter Jess had raised. Fierce and strong and loyal and loving and determined.

  And scared. That’s what Jess hadn’t been able to face, hadn’t let herself see. Natalie had looked hard on that last night, all right. Had meant to terrify her mother. Had really meant to leave her son behind.

  But only in order to save him.

  In mid-sprint, as she snatched Benny’s robe off the back of the door, she felt a sudden, stupid swell of pride. Because Natalie really was Natalie, after all.

  The daughter she’d failed, in other words. Not by letting her make her mistakes or become who she’d become. But by letting her go and not standing by her.

  Well, that was over, now.

  “I’m coming,” Jess murmured, hurling clothes and baby toys into her suitcase, Benny’s suitcase. “Shit, Natalie, I’m coming.”

  She’d seen the woman standing by the back window the second she entered the bedroom—of course she had; how could she not have?—but somehow Jess didn’t register her or at least didn’t stop. Was too busy. When she lifted the suitcase, though, and turned to the living room, she found the woman standing between her and the door. Stout, strong, pretty African-American woman. Standing in her bedroom, where she could not possibly be. Smiling.

  “You want to put that over on the bed, dear?” the woman said.

  Then she leapt, catching Jess around the shoulders and twisting her facefirst and down into the floor.

  19

  Twenty-four hours earlier …

  It took Natalie far too long, most of the rest of the night, to row the flatboat back up the narrow, root-choked tributary to the bait-shack pier where Sophie had stolen it and left the car. The whole time, Sophie just sat in the bow, wrapped in a mucky tarp she’d found in the bottom of the boat, shivering as a surprising small-hour chill seeped out of the black gums and hung in a gauzy, white haze on the surface of the water. Her wet hair obscured her eyes. She spoke only once, when they reached a fork in the waterway, and Natalie, who could barely restrain herself from leaping for the land and charging through the trees, hissed, “Well?”

  Sophie didn’t hesitate, nodded with her chin. “That way. Hurry up; why are you rowing so slow?”

  Natalie could have brained her with the oar. Instead, she turned the boat and pulled. In truth, she was relieved that Sophie had immediately unde
rstood the situation. Had grabbed for Natalie’s hand—causing one horrible moment of doubt, when Natalie thought her friend was going to pull her into the water to meet her scaly new pals—and scrambled back aboard.

  But she also found it hard not to blame Sophie for taking them here in the first place, so far from where they needed to be, even if that was unfair. And more than once, she glanced up as she rowed to find Sophie gazing dreamily past her shoulder, back into the swamp. As though Natalie had plucked her out of summer camp.

  Also, Natalie’s whole face hurt where Sophie had bashed it against the GTO’s dashboard. And the chill had slipped through her own sweat into her bones, so that only the rowing kept shivers from overwhelming her, too. Every single time she stopped moving, her Hunger stirred, seemed to unhinge, yawn wider, like an internal set of jaws that could swallow her whole.

  As soon as they’d gotten in the car, Natalie floored the accelerator, pointing them straight north through tiny swamp-shack towns toward I-95. All too soon, sunlight started streaming through the forest to the east. Sophie kept glancing out the window, then over at Natalie, then back at the woods as they flushed with color. But she didn’t say anything until the sun itself swept over the rim of the treetops and engulfed them.

  “Natalie, Jesus!” Sophie flung her hands up but didn’t cover her eyes, not quite, and she didn’t burst into flame or anything. Neither of them did. After her outburst, Sophie just scrunched in her seat, knees to her chest, hands thrown over her head, whimpering. But with her eyes open.

  Which made complete sense to Natalie, even as she squirmed in her seat, bit almost through her bottom lip in an effort to stay still, not jerk the wheel and send them careening into the nearest shadows. They hadn’t exploded. She’d known they wouldn’t. The sun hurt, all right, probed at every nerve in her skin like a dental tool digging through root. She didn’t think she could tolerate it for a whole day, maybe not even a whole hour. But she’d get as far as she could.

  And in the meantime, through the agony and the haze of her own tears, she’d stare, like Sophie, at the way the world looked when it was lit. How could I possibly have forgotten so quickly? But she knew the answer to that. She hadn’t forgotten, really. This sight—this impossible green, this radiant orange, the daily blossoming of the whole planet—couldn’t be forgotten, because it couldn’t be remembered. Could not be held in a human brain. That’s what made it such a daily revelation. All her life, she’d been told that death was unimaginable, unknowable. When in truth, it was life that could never be imagined. Life was just too big.

  She held out as long as she could—nowhere near long enough—and then skidded the car sideways down an embankment, across a dirt lot next to a baked, brown fallow field, and straight up against some sort of drain conduit, a giant cement cylinder. By the time she’d wrenched the key to Off, Sophie had already fled for the shade, and Natalie stumbled from the driver’s seat, barely even got the car door shut, and followed.

  It wasn’t exactly cool in the conduit, but after the swamp and the sun, the breeze in there felt sweet as a shower, and it soothed them both. For a long while, they said nothing, stood with their arms out or lay flat like lizards with their limbs stretched across the skin of the cement, regulating their body heat as best they could manage. Occasional horse- or dragonflies buzzed at either end of the conduit, zipped through, twitched around their faces, zipped away again. Somewhere to their left, out in the tobacco fields just beyond this one, some sort of machine rumbled to life, close enough that they could feel its shudders in their feet and spines.

  Eventually, Sophie straightened, backed halfway up the curve of one wall, and perched, still as a spider. Outside, the machine shuddered closer. Natalie stood, felt Eddie’s ghost hands at her cheek. They couldn’t wait for dark, she knew. Had to go. Now.

  Hold on, she murmured inside her head, but to her son. My sweet boy. Mama’s coming.

  “You realize if someone finds us, we’re going to have to do something. Right?” Sophie asked.

  It wasn’t just the words that made her cringe. It was the tone, so blank that even Natalie couldn’t read it. But it made her hungry. No—reminded her how hungry she was. She stomped her foot like an eight year-old, and ridiculous tears sprang to her eyes.

  “Why, Sophie? Why do we have to?”

  Sophie took a long time answering and in the end said only, “Little feet. Little Roo feet,” in the same unreadable voice.

  The sun had reached its zenith, the colors out there going even richer as midday shadows swirled into and suffused them, when Natalie pulled Sophie off the wall and led her toward the opening of the conduit. Sophie started to protest, looked at Natalie’s face, and stopped. They were standing right at the conduit’s mouth, pushing pointless air in and out as though preparing for a deep-sea dive, when the girls appeared.

  Three of them, maybe ten or eleven years old, in flip-flops and baggy shorts. Two wore floral bikini tops and one, the closest, a baggy Four Corners Pizza Pie T-shirt. Because of what was happening to her body, Natalie knew instantly, remembering that age with a clarity that stunned her. Remembering being that age with Sophie. Remembering watching Sophie’s sudden, startling curves with the most disquieting mixture of dread and envy. The girl approaching them now wore braided blond pigtails and had an unlit cigarette in her mouth. Skin beaded with perfect pearls of sweat.

  So tasty …

  Natalie was literally in mid-lunge, half off her feet and flying, when Sophie caught her around the wrist and ripped her backward, almost tore her shoulder out of its socket. Turning, snarling in surprise, Natalie stared into Sophie’s face. Which was blank. Not friendly, not sad, nothing.

  The girls, squealing, had already scurried away. Natalie could hear their sandals flapping in the dirt like grasshopper wings.

  “Why?” Natalie growled.

  Sophie didn’t answer.

  “I thought you wanted me to.”

  “I do.”

  “I thought you couldn’t fucking wait for me to Finish.”

  “I can’t.”

  Natalie stared, felt those jaws inside her close just slightly, slip just barely back into the cave they’d hollowed out for themselves. Moray eel in her esophagus.

  Sophie stared back. Didn’t look angry. Didn’t look sad. “You can’t eat them. Not those girls.”

  And Natalie grabbed her around the waist. Hugged her. Sophie did not hug her back. “Come on,” Natalie said. “We’re going. We have to go.”

  “This is going to hurt,” said Sophie.

  And it did, the second the light touched them. The pain proved even worse than it had a few hours earlier, but once they’d reached the car Sophie threw herself in the back under the tarp from the boat and Natalie kept the pedal down and leaned away from the windows as far as she could. Only her knees remained directly in the light, and they burned like someone was pressing an iron down on them but didn’t smoke, didn’t turn red, just scalded. Eventually, some unimaginable stretch of time from now, it would be evening. She pushed the pedal even harder, and they flew.

  As the royal blue overhead finally began to darken and the moon rose, and Venus with it, Sophie rummaged under her seat, came up with a cassette, and jammed it in the deck without looking at it. Buddy Holly. Raving on. For a few seconds, he sounded so sweet in Natalie’s ears, a warm, wild wind she could sail forever. Then he didn’t, and she punched off the radio.

  “Why?” Sophie asked.

  Natalie didn’t answer.

  “Come on, Nat. I need the distraction.”

  “I don’t.” Natalie edged forward in her seat, as though that could coax just a little more speed from the GTO.

  Four times, they got pulled over, had to waste precious seconds staring into cops’ eyes and leaving them quivering in their wake. Each time, Sophie had to clamp Natalie in her seat, murmur low and steady to keep her from hurtling out of the car, tearing at the soft, sweat-dewed throat-meat hovering just out her window like a drooping flower,
so close she could smell not just the skin but the sweet life beneath it. The last cop was a woman, fifty or so, silver-black hair just starting to thin. It rolled in the wind like the crown of a tree, and Natalie waited for Sophie’s iron-firm clamp around her wrist, then looked up in alarm as Sophie’s door slammed. Buzzing, paralyzed, she watched Sophie make her way around the car, waltz right up to the woman, who barked at her to stop, started to pull her gun, and went still. Sophie’s hands flashed out, but only to cup the woman behind the neck, pull her close. The kiss Sophie gave her took forever, looked so soft, like biting into a nectarine. Except not biting. Again, as Sophie pulled away, Natalie found herself watching through a film of tears.

  “Why did you do that?” she whispered when Sophie climbed back in beside her, though she was already revving the engine, peeling them back out into the traffic.

  “She just looked so small,” Sophie said, in a manner that somehow communicated profound understanding and no compassion whatsoever. “She’s trying so hard. It’s hard being her.”

  In the rearview mirror, Natalie could see the cop standing in front of her bike, a hand to her mouth and the wind in her hair.

  They arrived at Honeycomb Corner just after 2:00 a.m. Natalie knew her child wouldn’t be there—she would, in fact, have killed her mother if he had been, provided the Whistler hadn’t already taken care of that—but she still experienced a spasm of nostalgia as she gunned the GTO up Sardis, past the rows of perfectly ordered and trimmed pines, neat and unreal as hedges in a child’s drawing, past the leafy subdivisions they’d never been able to afford to move to, the parks with moon-white teeter-totters and baby swings that the city kept not only oiled but painted. I was an alien among you even then, Natalie thought, watching the houses, the lights already off in almost all of them. Though I never meant to be.

  She realized that what she felt actually had little to do with nostalgia. Was, in fact, even more inane, under the circumstances. This was simply the place where she’d lived with her mom. The place where she’d gone whole hours—just occasionally, every now and then—believing she was safe. Believing that enough to forget, sometimes, that there was any other way to be. When she saw Caution tape stretched across the entrance to the trailer park, she stomped the brake so hard that the GTO squealed and bucked before skidding to a stop.