The Shadows We Hide

by Allen Eskens

  What would have put that idea into his head—that he could walk to Austin? Looking at a map, St. Paul, Buckley, and Austin would be three points of a triangle, St. Paul on the top, Austin to the south, and Buckley to the west, with roughly a two-hour drive from any one point to the other. Walking from Buckley to Austin was crazy, yet Jeremy had made that decision and was actually walking in the right direction. How would he have known which way to go? That drew to my mind the clerk telling me that she saw Jeremy in the parking lot talking to Charlie.

  “Jeremy, do you remember that guy we met this morning when we got to the motel?”

  Jeremy didn’t answer.

  “His name was Charlie. Do you remember him?”

  “I think I do,” he said.

  That was a yes. “Did you talk to him after I left?”

  Again no answer.

  “Jeremy, it’s important. Did you talk to him in the parking lot of the motel after I left?”

  “Maybe he told me I should go home.”

  “He told you to go home? To Austin?”

  “Maybe he just said I should go home.”

  “Did he tell you which way you needed to go?”

  Jeremy began rubbing his knuckles, a sign that I was pushing too hard. So I dropped it for now.

  Charlie’s car was nowhere to be seen when we got back to the motel. I didn’t know what I would have done if I had run into my uncle Charlie. My instinct would have been to grab him by the collar and shake him until he admitted that he sent my autistic brother walking down that highway. But he would never admit that. He was building a case to become Angel’s guardian. Putting Jeremy’s life in jeopardy would kill his case.

  And that’s when it hit me. He was working not only to prop himself up, but also to make me look bad. I had lost my brother—my ward. He made a point of saying that when I confronted him in front of the social worker. That’s why he smiled when I got into that bar fight with Harley. He sees me as a threat, a rival for Angel’s guardianship. He was beating me in a game that I didn’t even know I was playing.

  Jeremy again refused to get out of the car on his own at the motel. He didn’t resist so much as just sat there until I opened the door to usher him to our room. As he climbed out of the car, his foot kicked some trash onto the parking lot: an empty water bottle, a wadded-up McDonald’s bag, and that letter from my mother. I picked up the trash and carried it into the room with me. Jeremy took a seat on the edge of his bed and began reading Dumbo again.

  I dropped the water bottle and sack into the trash. I was about to drop my mother’s crumpled letter in as well, but paused. I peeled the edges of the envelope back and turned it around in my hand, studying the half-cursive, half-print style of penmanship that I recognized as my mother’s. I examined those pen strokes, looking for the sharp angles and flairs that I often saw when she wrote in anger. I didn’t see any of that.

  I slipped a finger under the flap of the envelope and held it there. This was exactly what I swore I would never do. No communication. No contact—ever. I needed to remember why I had made that pledge and why I had kept it all these years. I let my mind drift back to the last day that I saw my mother, that day at the guardianship hearing when all hell broke loose.

  My mother held it together for most of the hearing. There were a few moments when I half expected her to come unglued, rush the witness stand, and start strangling me, but she remained in her seat. Toward the end of my testimony, I could see her twitching and rubbing the skin on her neck, and I knew that her unraveling was about to begin.

  After we had presented our case, the judge gave my mother the opportunity to testify. The sight of Kathy raising her hand and swearing that meaningless oath almost made me chuckle. She settled into the witness chair and scratched at some invisible bug on her forearm.

  The judge spoke first. “Now, Ms. Nelson, because you’re here without the assistance of an attorney, there’s no one to ask you questions. You can just tell me what you think I need to know.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Kathy unfolded a piece of paper upon which she had apparently jotted down some notes for her testimony. The corners of the paper trembled as she tried to read the words. Finally, she pressed the paper against the rail of the witness stand to steady it and began to recount her life as Jeremy’s loving and devoted mother, a tale that held only the occasional hint of truth. She had re-created every event of my testimony to suit her delusion that she had been the glue that held our family together. She even went so far as to present herself as heroic. Where I had testified that she ignored Jeremy, she told the judge that she was giving him the freedom to work on his independence. The fight I had with Larry was a kidnapping that she couldn’t stop. Scene after scene had been embellished, or flat-out changed, with me as the bad guy.

  “And that’s not all,” she said, playing up her street-urchin sincerity. “Joe has a temper. He once smashed a glass picture on Jeremy’s head, cutting him bad.”

  I whispered to Sherri, “That was an accident. I was ten years old, and the picture fell off its nail in the wall. I didn’t hit him with it.” Sherri held her hand up to shush me.

  “He’s always been mean to Jeremy. I’ve seen Joe hit Jeremy…so many times.”

  “That’s not true,” I whispered again.

  “When they were in high school, Joe used to push Jeremy around. Once he threw a can of pop at Jeremy, hitting him in the eye.”

  My brow popped up in confusion. What was she talking about?

  “I had to take him to the hospital. I told them that Jeremy had hit his eye on a windowsill.”

  Then I remembered. Jeremy had hit his eye on a windowsill. She was making stuff up out of whole cloth. She knew damn well that Jeremy fell. I wasn’t even in the house at the time, but I remember the trip to the ER—there would be records.

  “And one time, I caught Joe trying to smother his brother with a pillow. Joe was mad at something Jeremy had done. I heard some commotion and went to check. Joe had Jeremy on the floor and was smothering him with a pillow.”

  “That’s a lie,” I blurted out. “That never happened.”

  “Mr. Talbert!”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Sherri said, grabbing hold of my forearm. “It won’t happen again.” She looked at me as if she wanted to punch me. I nodded my understanding.

  “Your Honor,” Kathy continued, “I can’t tell you how scared I am for Jeremy’s safety. I know Joe comes across as a calm person, but I have the medical records. Jeremy’s eye, Larry’s leg. I’ve seen it, Your Honor. Joe is…he’s…” She was struggling for the word she would use to sum up her case. She looked at her piece of paper to find it. “He’s volatile.”

  I leaned over to Sherri and said, “And yet, nothing has happened to Jeremy since he came to live with me.”

  “I know that I’m not perfect,” my mother said, scratching the side of her neck. “But I’m clean now. I’m in treatment. I’m getting my life back together. All I’m asking for is a second chance. Let me prove that I can be the mother I used to be. Let me keep my son.”

  The judge looked at his watch and then at Sherri. “It’s already five minutes into the noon hour. Is your cross-examination going to be long?”

  “Most likely,” she said.

  “Then let’s adjourn for lunch and pick it up at, say, one thirty?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Ms. Nelson, we’re going to break for lunch, and after lunch, we’ll start with your cross-examination. So be back here by twenty after.”

  She nodded, her cheeks turning white when she heard the words cross-examination. The critters under her skin had to be buzzing at the thought of getting grilled by a real attorney. She stayed in the witness chair for a few minutes, as though she needed to catch her breath. Her monster was awake.

  When I first learned that my mother had been using methamphetamine, I researched the hell out of it. I wanted to know what signs I had missed: sores on her face, the gaunt cheeks, fidgeting, picking
and scratching, the inability to sit still. I also researched how a meth addict could cheat the system and continue using even while on probation. I was amazed at the level of creativity and effort that they would put into cheating a drug test. I didn’t know which method Kathy would use, but having lived with my barfly mother as long as I had, and knowing that she would always consider herself smarter than any probation agent, I had no doubt that she would try to find a way to feed the monster that seethed inside of her.

  She walked past me as she left the courtroom, her hands tucked into her stomach, the fingers of her right hand scratching the back of her left. She didn’t look at me. I waited a couple beats before following her, pausing at the door of the courtroom to watch. She went to the row of small lockers where people had to stow their possessions before going to court, and there she pulled out her purse, tucking it up under her armpit as though it held a winning lottery ticket. She looked over her shoulder at the courtroom, but I ducked back before she could see me.

  Kathy left the courthouse and walked—because she still didn’t have a license—down to the end of the block. Then, instead of turning in the direction that would take her to her apartment or toward any food establishment, she turned the opposite way, looking over her shoulder again. She was up to something, and I had a hunch I knew what. I followed at a safe distance, being careful to hide behind cars and trees whenever she glanced around. I followed her until she came to a row of buildings that had been abandoned due to a fire. I hid behind a parked car as she looked over her shoulder one last time and then slipped behind the buildings.

  I knew where she was going. One of the buildings damaged in the fire had been a dive bar call Bingo’s, a particular favorite of Kathy’s. Behind the bar was a patch of gravel big enough for a handful of parking spots. That patch was surrounded on three sides by windowless walls of other buildings. That locale offered seclusion in the middle of town.

  Bingo’s had been boarded up after the fire, but someone had pried the plywood off of the front door, and I easily slipped in, pulling out my phone and queuing its video camera. I crept back to where the kitchen had been and found a window that had not been boarded up because it had metal bars across it. I turned on my camera and slid my hand between the bars.

  From there, I watched as my mother squatted on the ground between two dumpsters, something precious cupped in her hand. Then she lifted a small glass pipe to her lips and lit a flame. My mother was smoking meth. One hit—two—then she stood up, packed her pipe back into her purse, and left.

  I waited in the kitchen of Bingo’s until I was certain that Kathy was well out of sight. Then I made my way to a café I hadn’t been to since high school, where I ordered a fish sandwich, a root beer, and a piece of cherry pie to eat for lunch while I repeatedly watched the footage of my mother smoking meth.

  Later, when I showed Sherri the footage, she started laughing. “This seals it,” she said. “Your mother just swore under oath that she was clean. She lied to the judge—and they hate it when that happens.” Then Sherri turned to me and, in a serious tone, said, “You understand, this will likely get Kathy sent to prison?”

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “If I show this to the judge,” she said, “they’ll search her purse. They’ll find the pipe, or they’ll make her give a urine test. Either way, it’ll be a probation violation—her second one. With that in mind, do you still want me to use it?”

  I started having doubts, but then I remembered how my mother lied about my hurting Jeremy. She told the judge that I abused my brother. She was playing dirty. She’d set the rules for this fight; she couldn’t hold it against me if I fought back. I didn’t make her smoke that meth. I didn’t put her on probation. This wasn’t my doing. I had to save Jeremy from her. I had no choice.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want to use it.”

  When the hearing resumed, Kathy went back on the stand.

  “Ms. Nelson,” Sherri began, “one of the last things you said before we broke for lunch was that you are clean and sober now.”

  “Yes,” Kathy said.

  “Is that true?”

  “It’s true, as God is my witness.”

  “And all of those allegations you made against your son, Joe, those are equally as true?”

  “They are.”

  “So you haven’t smoked any methamphetamine or any other illegal substance since your last arrest?”

  Kathy narrowed her eyes at me, undoubtedly seeing a trap coming but unable to stop herself. “I have not,” she said.

  My attorney then played the footage from my phone, explaining to the judge that I had followed my mother over the lunch break. The judge’s face froze in shock as he watched my mother get high.

  After that, things got crazy. The judge ordered the bailiff to seize my mother and had a city cop confiscate her purse from the locker outside. They kept Kathy in a holding cell attached to the courtroom while law enforcement got a search warrant, signed by a different judge. More cops showed up, and the judge disappeared back into his chambers with them.

  When the judge returned, the bailiff brought Kathy back into the courtroom in handcuffs, her eyes red and smudged from crying, her skin brittle with rage. As they escorted her up to the bench, she kept her stare locked on me, her hatred burning bright behind the tears.

  “Ms. Nelson,” the judge said, pulling her attention away from me. “I have been informed that a pipe was found in your purse, and that pipe tested positive on a preliminary test for the presence of methamphetamine. We are currently in the middle of a guardianship hearing, and you have the right to take the stand and continue with that hearing if you so choose, but I strongly advise that you do not. Anything you say can be used against you down the road. And as it stands, you are looking at charges for possession of a controlled substance as well as perjury. You should think carefully before you decide whether or not to give up your right to remain silent.”

  Kathy didn’t take the stand, but she didn’t remain silent either. She turned to me and yelled, “You piece of garbage! You goddamn worthless—” She lunged at me, but the bailiff and a cop held her back. “You’d better hope they put me in prison, because if they don’t—”

  The judge stood behind his bench. “Ms. Nelson! Do not—”

  “I’ll fucking kill you.”

  “Bailiff, get her out of here.”

  The bailiff and the officer pulled her backward through the door. The whole way, my mother continued to curse me.

  When the courtroom fell quiet again, the judge took a breath and looked at his court reporter to see that she was still making a record of the hearing. Then he looked at Sherri and said, “Do you have any more evidence to present, Ms. Knuth?”

  “I…um…no, I guess I’ll rest my case.”

  The judge nodded. “I’ll take the matter of the guardianship of J.W.N. under advisement. In the meantime, I’ll issue a temporary order granting the guardianship request of the petitioner, Joseph Talbert. I’ll have a permanent order out in due course. We are adjourned.” Then, with the record closed, the judge took another deep breath, puffed his cheeks as he exhaled. “Wow,” he whispered half to himself. Then he stood and left the bench.

  Alone in the courtroom, Sherri leaned over to me and said, “Well, that went well.”

  Chapter 27

  I sat on my bed in that crappy motel room, a finger edged up under the flap of the envelope, a thin piece of tape, placed there by Lila, the only impediment to my reading Kathy’s letter—well that tape plus an avalanche of bad memories gathered over a lifetime of knowing my mother. I looked at Jeremy, who was quietly reading his book. Dumbo. I thought of Jeremy’s words from that morning, wondering if his mother was dead. I remembered Lila holding the letter and telling me that I needed to read it. I struggled to push those thoughts aside, but in the end, I opened the envelope and read the letter.

  Dear Joe, Jeremy, and Lila,

  I am addressing this letter to you all, but my
greatest hope is that you, Joe, will read this. I have many long roads to walk, but the road to you remains my longest and most difficult.

  As I write this, my head is flooded with the memory of the last time I saw you. I was being pulled out of a courtroom by two men with badges. I can’t remember all the things I said to you, but I remember that I couldn’t think of words strong enough to say at that moment. It’s terrible to think that a mother can hate a son, but that day I hated you. As you know I was high on meth at the time. I don’t say that as an excuse. There is no excuse. I only say it to let you know that everything you believed about me was true.

  After they arrested me that day, I thought my life was over. I knew when they pulled me from the courtroom that I lost Jeremy. All I could think was that I was going to go to prison, and you were the reason why. I couldn’t see that I had put myself there. I had committed every act that they accused me of, and still I could only see my downfall as being your fault. Somehow, I was able to see everything that went wrong in my life as being your fault.

  I was sure that they were going to throw me in prison. The judge at my last probation violation hearing said that she was giving me one last chance, and if I blew it, she would have no choice. And so, what did I do? I blew it. I got high in the middle of Jeremy’s guardianship hearing. I didn’t think I could function if I didn’t have a hit. I thought I could get away with it. But you knew me too well. I am ashamed to say this next part, but I have to be honest. When you showed that video to the judge, I wished that I had never given birth to you. I saw your act as the greatest of betrayals. I know now that I was wrong.

  It may be hard to believe, may be impossible to believe, but you saved my life that day.

  After they arrested me, they charged me with my second controlled substance crime. I had thoughts of killing myself. I thought that if I committed suicide, I might make you feel guilty. I tried to picture your face when you learned that I had died because of your betrayal. In truth, though, I could never really convince myself that my death would make you feel bad at all. I have done terrible things to you and your brother, and I have no reason to expect that you would feel anything for me.