Good Neighbors

by Joanne Serling

  “Do you want the whole story?” I asked, my palms starting to sweat with indignation and fear.

  He nodded and kept looking at me blandly, like he was interrogating me while trying to seem like he wasn’t interrogating me. I wanted to bash him with something hard and plastic, with the phone handset or the remote control, both of which were directly within eyeshot. I breathed deeply, then glanced toward Winnie, who was involved in a TV show. I tried to smile politely and then told him the story about the hide-and-seek and the tree trunk. About Gene taking a cell phone call and not being reachable. All of which he wrote down with quick flicks of his pen as if he knew shorthand.

  “And the mother?” he asked, looking up momentarily from his clipboard.

  “She’s shopping,” I said. Which sounded inane, even to me. “For school uniforms, with their son. The one who’s not adopted.”

  Why did I say this?

  The man nodded in a way that revealed nothing and then put down his clipboard and approached Winnie, turning down the volume on the TV and explaining that he was going to examine her. Lifting her shirt to place the stethoscope on her chest and along her back, then lifting her sleeves to peer at her wrists and tapping her knees with his little hammer.

  “I’ll be back,” he said to me, exiting quickly through the parted curtain.

  A nurse came in, took Winnie’s temperature, checked her blood pressure again, and said, “A social worker’s on her way. We’re going to need to talk to the little girl privately.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Is that normal?”

  “In these cases, yes.”

  “Because I’m the neighbor,” I said, suddenly panicking. Did the man tell them I’d done something to her?

  “It’s because of the scratches,” the nurse said, raising Winnie’s purple sleeve to reveal faint red lines along her forearms. Not ugly lines, but lines nonetheless. Some of them scabbed over a bit; others fresher, like they’d been drawn with a nail just that morning.

  I felt my chest tighten and tears well up behind my eyes.

  “Are you her legal guardian?” the nurse asked, lowering Winnie’s sleeve.

  “No. Not at all,” I said, relieved that I wasn’t and therefore couldn’t be accused of this. But also disappointed as the nurse nodded curtly and pulled another, smaller curtain around Winnie’s bed, forming a circle that wouldn’t include me.

  “I didn’t see the scratches when she fell. I was, you know, focused on the blood,” I said, trying to insert myself into the narrow enclosure.

  “Please wait in the waiting room while we talk to her,” the nurse said, unimpressed by my explanation or simply uninterested in my version of events.

  “She’s only five,” I said. “She can’t speak that well. She’s Russian. I mean, she’s adopted. Her language skills are a little, you know…” I stopped. What was I trying to say? That I didn’t want Winnie talking to them? Why? I couldn’t think of a good reason. And yet it still didn’t feel right. This interrogation. This separation. I had no choice. I wasn’t even on the right side of the curtain anymore.

  I went to the waiting room and sat stiffly in one of the orange molded chairs they had lined up there. A tired-looking kid sitting in the middle of the white linoleum floor playing with a spiral maze and some balls, his weary parents eyeing me, then returning their attention to the wall-mounted television set. I couldn’t watch the set. The screen was hard to see, faded out where the sun came in through the half-drawn blinds. I picked up an old, wrinkled Newsweek, its cover torn, and tried to read, but the words kept blurring on the page. I didn’t care about how GM was faring. I didn’t care about a new lobby aquarium being built in Las Vegas. Why was Winnie being forced to answer questions she had no words for? Why did she have scratches? I was worried, even though I told myself a lot of people had scratches. I had terribly dry skin in the winter and was a constant leg scratcher, my nails going up and down my calves, seeking relief for the dryness even though I knew I’d be better off using lotion. I pushed down thoughts of the other scratches I had; the kind I’d made with my nails when I was furious with my mother. When I was frustrated with Penny. The marks visible only if you knew where to look for them. The faint lines attributed to a friend’s cat whenever someone asked about them. A fact I half believed whenever I told it. Careful to not look at my wrists now, to not damn myself by observing them. I gave up reading just as I saw Gene open the waiting-room door and look around.

  “I’ve already been with her,” he said immediately. “They let me in through the main entrance.” I nodded like this was important. The logistics of things. The way he had hurried to get here! Which of course he had. But where had he been? And where was Paige?

  “My phone was on vibrate. I didn’t know what had happened until Jay came back and banged on my door,” Gene continued.

  “I’ve done that a million times!” I insisted, eager to reassure him that I wasn’t judging him. That I was a good friend—not a total failure as a stand-in parent. Which he was no doubt thinking. Which was unfair, given that I suspected him and Paige of something. Even if it wasn’t necessarily the scratches, but something harder to pinpoint.

  “Paige’s home with Cameron,” Gene added. “I mean, no use dragging him here,” he said, waving his arm toward the dirty linoleum floor, the lurking germs, the desperate tediousness. Gene himself appearing deflated, as if it were he who had been trapped in the waiting room, not me.

  I nodded and tried to smile. Then I got up to follow Gene back to Winnie’s enclosure, the inner curtain open now, Winnie’s bottom lip stitched together with ugly black thread, gauze stuffed under the top lip to protect her damaged gum. Winnie waved when she saw us.

  “Dathy!” she said through the gauze, her voice muffled, her cracked teeth barely visible beneath the giant, puffy lip. I bent down to kiss her cheek, to smooth her hair, then turned to Gene and said, “I’m really, really sorry,” hoping Winnie couldn’t see the tears in my eyes, not wanting to worry her, but hoping Gene could see them as proof of my sincerity.

  “It’s not your fault, Nicole, seriously,” Gene said. “It could have happened to any of us. Remember when Jesse fell off our swing set and broke his wrist last fall?”

  I remembered. I’d thought Lorraine was reckless to let her two-year-old swing unattended and Gene foolish to have allowed it on his property, on his watch. Was he thinking the same of me now, that I should have intervened when I saw the chase, should have removed the fallen tree branches? Probably, somewhere in the back of his mind.

  “In case you’re wondering about the scratches,” Gene continued, sitting down next to Winnie on the bed, leaving me standing awkwardly across from him, “Winnie has a bit of a problem, don’t you, honey?” he said, turning toward her, rubbing his palm against her long, thin arm.

  Winnie wasn’t paying attention anymore, her head swiveled toward the TV set hanging in the corner, SpongeBob having been replaced by a cartoon rocket ship and a boy with funny, upswept hair.

  “She scratches herself,” Gene continued, looking back at me. “It’s common with adopted kids.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. This made sense. Sort of. That an adopted child might do things you didn’t expect.

  “She obviously couldn’t explain herself with the cracked lip,” Gene continued. “And even if she could, I don’t think she’s aware of the fact that she does it,” he said, folding his hands in his lap and looking just past my shoulder.

  “Okay,” I said, starting to chew on my nails, nervous to be alone with Gene, to be having this sort of conversation.

  “Winnie has a lot of issues. Things we weren’t expecting,” Gene said, looking at me briefly, then hanging his head to stare at his lap as he said, “Paige is struggling, as I think you know.” I held my breath and waited for him to go on, wishing he would, even though I was embarrassed. The pause elongating, the silence ballooning in front of us.

  “I understand,” I finally said.

  Gene kept his
head down, sighed once, then looked up toward me, blinking his eyes rapidly as he ran his fingers through his once lustrous hair. I doubted he saw me. I doubted he saw anything. His stare seeming to go internal, into some dark recess I didn’t want to plumb and didn’t know how to.

  “I’m so glad her lip’s going to be okay,” I said stupidly, eager to make the awkward moment disappear. To bring him back into the room with me.

  “Everything will be back to normal in a month or so,” Gene said, suddenly looking me in the face. Smiling. A certain confidence and authority returning to his body.

  I was relieved even as I was disturbed. By Gene’s changeable nature. By Winnie’s mysterious personality. But I needed to believe him. To believe that everything was going to get better, not just the lip and the broken teeth, but the rest of it: Paige’s struggles, Winnie’s scratching.

  “If you’ve got everything covered, I guess I’ll take off,” I said, backing away so that my body was now pressing the curtain outward, away from the enclosure, away from the bed and the chattering television set.

  “Thanks again, Nicole!” Gene called after me as I waved good-bye to Winnie, relieved to escape from the fluorescent lights and the strange beeping noises of the hospital. Relieved to call a taxi and avoid having to travel home with Gene and with Winnie.

  THANK YOU FOR THANKING ME

  THAT NIGHT I LOOKED up “adopted preschoolers” on the Internet. The list of results massive and confusing. The list as much about American foster children looking for homes as it was about foreign children with adjustment issues.

  I tried to search for something more specific that might pertain to Winnie’s situation, typing “foreign children with adjustment issues” into the Google search bar. Almost immediately I found what I was looking for in the form of a lovely story about a Korean three-year-old who was adopted by a Midwestern family. In the beginning, Hak-Kun was homesick not just for Korea, but for the foster family with whom he’d lived for a short while. He cried and couldn’t sleep, which sounded a lot like Winnie. He refused to eat and then ate nonstop, which the family had to quickly limit because he was always having diarrhea. I was fascinated and amazed. Clearly Winnie was a lot like other adopted children. I read on, quickly scanning the page for how things had turned out. The boy rejecting his parents’ attempts at giving him love, ignoring them, not following simple rules, testing them, according to the article, to see if he could trust them. Maybe this was what Winnie was doing now and what Paige was so sorely struggling against? Paige not someone who liked to be tested. Paige someone who liked to have everyone do exactly as she said.

  By the end of the article, the mother wrote lovingly of her son’s transition from grief to acceptance, from rebellion to love. The whole thing was over in less than a year, which meant Winnie should be pulling out of it. She’d been adopted just over a year ago. I felt so relieved, so full of hope and happiness for Winnie’s future that I realized for the first time that I’d been truly worried about her. Or at least nervous that things were not going to work out as perfectly as I’d imagined when I’d first heard about the adoption. The idealized picture of the situation I had painted in my mind at the leftovers party so embarrassing to me now. Picturing Winnie as if she were a doll or a puppet.

  I was so relieved, so ready to close my laptop and resume my normal life, that I almost forgot about the scratching. About the marks on Winnie’s arms that Gene said were common for adopted children. I searched again. I typed in “foreign adopted children who scratch themselves.” The search came up with children who scratched others. A few children who hurt the family pet. Children who kicked and screamed and mistakenly scratched their new parents when their new parents reached out for a hug. But even in these more extreme cases, there was no mention of self-mutilation. No scratching, as Gene had indicated. Which meant what, exactly? That it was a problem specific to Winnie, not to adoption in general? It certainly could be. I tried not to think about my own scratching. Ashamed and embarrassed that I’d been so angry, so out of control. Aware that Winnie might feel the same way.

  * * *

  The day after the hospital visit, I found a letter in my mail slot. An ecru card inside an envelope lined with pale blue paper. Tiffany’s, I realized as I pulled the card out of the envelope. It was handwritten in neat, thinly shaped cursive. Penmanship obviously Paige’s strong suit.

  Dear Nicole,

  I just want to say from the bottom of my heart that we are so grateful to have friends like you and Jay. Thank you so much for taking such good care of Winnie yesterday. You are truly like a second family to us and I don’t know what we would do without you.

  Love, Paige

  I turned the card over, hoping for more, perhaps a P.S. or something extra she couldn’t fit on the front. A continuation of the flowery, half-true feelings. There was nothing written on the back, which made me embarrassed to be looking for more. I flipped the card over and read the front again, my heart swelling with pride and gratitude, wanting it to be true. Wanting to believe that I’d created an extended family for myself here, amid the towering oak trees of our cul-de-sac. Wanting to believe that Paige would be there for me if I needed her. Knowing that she would bring Lucas or Josh to the hospital. Would stand with the doctors and get all the proper diagnoses. Even though I would never turn to her for sustenance. I would be suspicious of her decisions, and doubt any story she might tell me. Pushing this thought away as I stored the ecru card in its envelope and placed it in a narrow slot in my secretary desk. The slot a resting place for past wedding invitations and small, slippery photos from when my kids were younger. Items you couldn’t throw out and didn’t have an exact place for yet.

  I pulled out a card and began a note back to Paige. Explaining how sorry I was about Winnie’s accident. How relieved I was that it wasn’t something more serious. How I should have written to her first! Then I thanked her for all the kind things she’d said about Jay and me and told her we felt the same way about her and Gene and their kids. I signed the note with a flourish using my good silver pen, a gift from Jay one Mother’s Day. I knew the note was ridiculous and old-fashioned. Insincere and overly formal. But it seemed exactly right for the occasion, acknowledging something deep yet untrue between us, something delicate and easily broken if we didn’t do this thank-you thing just right.

  I put on my coat and walked the card over to Paige’s, eager not to run into her, unable to say any of these things face-to-face. Certain that I wouldn’t have to, because Paige didn’t want to see me, either. Even though she was no doubt able to chart my progress if she was looking out her bedroom window. My hurried pace as I descended the narrow slope of my yard, my head turning from side to side in an effort not to look directly at her Tudor. Taking in the Guzman-Venieros’ ranch, the Weinbergers’ weathered gray colonial. Finally ascending the Edwardses’ long bluestone walk and slipping my card through their mail slot. Paige’s bedroom curtains just visible out of the corner of my eye, the flutter of an object at the window causing me to look up against my will, to squint against the weak winter sunlight, then jump back when I thought I saw a shadow just next to me. Clutching my heart, breathing deeply, embarrassed to be imagining things.

  A NEW BEGINNING

  WINTER DRIZZLED OUT THE way it always did, with fits of warmth followed by long stretches of numbing and miserable cold. The weather always about to deliver a new season, then failing in its promise. My mother calling to inform me that she was sick of waiting out the cold Midwestern winter and had finally saved enough to go on a warm-weather vacation.

  “Don’t tell your sister,” my mother warned me. “She’ll just be jealous of me!”

  “Lucas made corn tamales,” I said, hoping to change the subject. Our monthly conversations lately limited to the weather and the boys. Both of us eager to pretend there wasn’t something vibrating between us. Penny’s struggles, our helplessness to make everything better.

  “Your sister told me I’m the reason she stayed w
ith Bob for so long. That she had no male role model!” my mother hissed, starting to cry. I closed my eyes and tried to think about what to say that was fair and wouldn’t cause trouble.

  “You hate me,” my mother sobbed before I could come up with a suitable answer. As if there could ever be a suitable answer to such a murky and explosive accusation.

  “I don’t hate you,” I pleaded, bending down to clean one of the cupboard doors, to wipe away the dried food remnants and smudges of grease that seemed to forever accumulate there. Wondering if you were supposed to use a special wood polish, wondering if my mother knew what it was.

  “Then why won’t you say I was a good mother?” my mother demanded while I scrubbed.

  “I have. You were!” I said. Wishing we didn’t have to talk about this. Aware that Penny’s unhappiness weighed on my mother more than she let on. Aware that it would weigh on me, too, if I were in her shoes.

  “You blame me for the past!”

  “I don’t blame you for the past,” I insisted, exasperation creeping into my voice. Wishing that I could tell her the truth. Deciding to try it and bracing myself for the worst. I walked outside where the boys couldn’t hear me and said, “I blame you for the present,” waiting for my mother to start screaming, aware that if she did, I would hang up on her. Not willing to console her any longer.

  “What? That I wouldn’t help Penny with the bedding? Is that it? I should enable her the way you do?”

  “I’m helping her with tuition!” I retorted, resisting the urge to pull my hair or dig my nails into my wrist. Determined to be different, as if standing beneath sky and trees on the lawn of my home could make it so. Aware that it could and that I planned to make it true.