“Well, fuck her,” Jay said when he’d finished rubbing his skin, finished thinking.
“Do you think I should say something? Call her?”
“Definitely not,” he practically shouted, walking abruptly past me and pouring himself a scotch from our tiny bar in the corner.
“Should I pretend I don’t know about the visit, then, if I see her?” I asked, aware that this was the last thing I should be thinking about, but trained my whole life to behave this way. To act normal. To pretend that nothing was wrong. Even when it was.
Deep sighing from Jay, who lifted his glass and took a long swig of his drink.
“Well?” I pressed, hoping for some advice, some insight, something that would make this situation all right, understandable. Already I was hoping there was a benign reason for Family Services to be there. That it didn’t have to be dire.
“This is what has to happen, unfortunately.”
“What do you mean?”
“Honey,” Jay said, putting down his glass and staring at me seriously.
“What?”
“Paige is in way over her head. You cannot stop this. You cannot undo things. And you cannot make Winnie’s life perfect. A lot happened to her before she even got to Fair Lawn.”
I put my head in my hands and started to cry. Angry with him for being so harsh. Angry with him for being right.
* * *
Morning came, and the school buses rumbled through. Pale sunshine, the snow crumbling in halfhearted banks near the corners of our driveways. The grass naked, yellowed and stiff. Drew already crossing the lawns when I went out to retrieve the morning paper, heading toward my front walk in what looked like pajamas. Lorraine in her Range Rover across the street, creeping toward my house as if this had been choreographed.
“Do you know?” Drew asked when he’d climbed the steps to my porch.
My heart racing, my eyes darting around the corner as if at any moment Paige would appear.
“Inside,” I said to him, motioning the same to Lorraine, who was parking the car, getting out. I wished her car weren’t so conspicuous. Right there, practically on my front walk! Paige would know we were talking about her if she walked past. But what could I do? Tell them to go away?
We sat in the pale gloom of my living room, the sun not quite reaching all the way in, the windows covered with sheers that my decorator had convinced me were appropriate for this sort of thing. What sort of thing? Not letting people see into your house? Not being able to ever properly look out? I hated the living room in the daytime, the feeling of being trapped. I preferred the kitchen, with its sunny views of the trees.
After a moment Drew said suddenly, “You know, obviously?”
“I was there,” I admitted, my heart racing at the memory of it.
Lorraine said, “Paige called me last night.”
“She knew the authorities were coming,” explained Drew, nodding his head self-righteously like he and Nela could have predicted this. Which was ridiculous and also insulting. Which was hard to take seriously from a man wearing plaid flannel pajamas!
“She said she didn’t care if Family Services was coming because she had nothing to hide!” Lorraine said, the hint of a snort in her voice. “She phoned me! And I was dumb enough to answer because I had no idea what was coming,” said Lorraine, suddenly standing and leaning over me. Implying that I had wronged her. Which I could see from her point of view that I had. I hadn’t warned her! Which I truly didn’t care about, for once! How Lorraine would have handled the situation. My feelings more important, for once.
“Paige said she tried to call you, but you didn’t answer,” Lorraine added, beginning to pace my room in her dark gray pantsuit, wagging her chin back and forth in disbelief as if I were no longer present.
It was true. The phone had rung and rung. I had ignored it. I didn’t care who it was. Or rather, I feared it was Drew or Lorraine or worse, Paige.
“Didn’t you hear the phone?” Drew asked, clearly taking Lorraine’s side.
I ignored the implication. That I had done something wrong by ignoring the phone, by ignoring all of them! I breathed in my fiercest, loudest breath. The kind of breath that said I was an independent, educated woman, not to mention a feminist with a formerly big job. In short, I was a person not to be messed with. Then I let the breath out and said, “Go on.”
Lorraine stopped pacing.
“Finally she reached me. Me! The last person on earth interested in talking to her!”
I doubted this. Lorraine couldn’t resist a good story. And to get it firsthand no doubt pleased her.
“Apparently Yazmin called Family Services! She said she wasn’t comfortable with the atmosphere in the house, or with the ‘rituals.’”
“Rituals!” Drew said. “It sounds like Satanic worship.”
I glared at Drew. Aware he was trying to be funny but not amused by his sense of humor.
“Paige told me she’d fired Yazmin for stealing. That’s why Yazmin called the authorities. Payback,” Lorraine explained.
I opened my mouth, too shocked to speak, then closed it. What would I say anyway? That I doubted Yazmin was stealing? That she had more to lose than Paige did by calling the authorities. Especially if Paige now filed a police report.
“Yazmin told the investigators that Winnie told her she wished she had a different family!” Lorraine added.
“Jesus Christ!” Drew said softly, shaking his head.
“Why would she say that?” I asked, my hands suddenly cold, shoving them under my thighs to warm them.
“It’s not that uncommon!” Lorraine continued. “Paige told me it’s part of Winnie’s syndrome. Part of spending her early years in an orphanage!”
We moaned. We shook our heads. We wondered if this was true and if Paige was still an unfit mother. At least to Winnie. Both facts suddenly possible in the gloom of my living room.
“Why’d Lydia let them in if Paige wasn’t home?” I asked, moving toward the edge of my couch. Which made a terrible crackling sound. My faux down cushions cheaper than I realized when I’d bought them. Which I regretted.
“Paige knew they were coming and didn’t want it to seem like they were hiding something,” Lorraine said. “That’s what Paige told me, anyway.”
“And?” I pressed. Aware there was definitely an “and” but not sure Lorraine would acknowledge it.
“And they probably also wanted to buy time until Gene could get there,” Lorraine said, tucking her hands into her slacks pockets as if making a presentation to a client. “Gene knows Paige has a temper. She could make things worse. Screaming at the authorities. Shooting herself in the foot. So he came home from work and did the interview with her at night. But he also knows now that things have got to change. That Paige can’t continue like this. Angry at Winnie all the time. Sending her to her room for every minor infraction. I think if she knows there’s something at stake, she’ll be able to change. She’s probably seeing a shrink right now!”
I looked toward Drew on the couch, who merely shrugged. Not willing to offer an opinion. Or maybe he’d just stopped having them, cowed by Nela into seeing things as black and white.
“So you think things will get better now?” I asked, turning back toward Lorraine.
“Yes, I do,” Lorraine said, shaking her head with satisfaction. “Everything will be better now.”
I thought Lorraine was probably a very good recruiter, or at least very good at convincing her clients that she was. Because she made you believe the things she was saying, even if deep down you knew that you shouldn’t. And so I said nothing to contradict her. Her conviction not an illusion unless we laid it bare for discussion.
THE WOUND ALWAYS STINKS
A DAY PASSED. THEN two. The sun continued to rise pale and yellow in the January sky, and the school buses continued their slow rumble through the neighborhood. The Edwardses going about their normal work and school routine, Lydia visible in the yard with Winnie, playing quietly,
coming and going occasionally in her tan-colored station wagon. All of this reported to me by Lorraine, who made a point of stopping by the Edwardses’ house and introducing herself to Lydia. Offering to help if she needed anything. Refraining from mentioning the authorities’ visit, but hoping, I knew, that Lydia would confide more details to her.
Instead, all Lorraine got was a “Good morning, Miss Lorraine.” Followed by instructions from Lydia that Winnie should do the same. Lydia helping Winnie form the words. Lydia perfectly calm and neutral, as if nothing had happened.
Lorraine wanted me to go over and ask questions. To press my advantage. I had been there, hadn’t I? I had a right to ask questions. I ignored her. I pretended she was joking. I told her she was naive to think that Lydia would trust me. Plus, I didn’t want to get more involved. Afraid Paige would find out and somehow blame me for something.
And then on the fourth day, Lydia appeared on my front porch with Winnie.
“Winnie wanted to say hello,” Lydia said, smiling widely, her short orange hair covered by a black fisherman’s cap. Winnie in a purple quilted jacket that looked new, which pleased me.
I stepped outside. I hugged Winnie. I looked up carefully at Lydia, wondering what face would greet me. I was expecting blank eyes, a bland face. The look of a woman who was merely employed and wanted to remain that way. Instead, she looked right at me, the whites of her eyes slightly red, as if she hadn’t slept well.
“I didn’t tell Paige that you were there the other day,” Lydia said calmly. Not in a hurry. With a certain kind of confidence that she was in charge and would remain that way. Which surprised me, given the state of her eyes.
“I think that was a good idea,” I agreed. My mouth going dry and my torso suddenly weak. I leaned against my glass door to steady myself while Lydia turned and said over her shoulder to Winnie, “Do you want to walk just to the end of the circle and back? I think we left your chalk on the driveway.” Her voice warm and pleasant. I didn’t think I’d ever heard Paige speak to Winnie so calmly, with no implied hint that she was about to be disappointed.
Winnie stood on her tiptoes and nodded happily, her chin bobbing up and down with excitement.
“Just stay on the sidewalk and come right back,” Lydia continued firmly, bending down to place a tiny foil-wrapped candy in the corner of Winnie’s palm.
Winnie smiled, the corners of her mouth making her cheeks bunch up and her eyes sparkle. “I love it!” she said, rolling on the balls of her feet twice before unwrapping the chocolate and popping it in her mouth. Her cheeks puffed up and silly-looking as she skipped down my porch steps toward the sidewalk, out of earshot. We were alone.
“How’s Winnie?” I asked, hoping I sounded worried. Hoping Lydia could tell I put Winnie’s welfare above that of her mother.
“Paige called me at home all night after the ladies came.”
I squinted. I cocked my head to the side. My fingers starting to tingle with cold despite the bright sun above my lawn.
“Why?” I demanded, hoping to show her how angry I felt. How good I was at heart despite supposedly being friendly with Paige.
“She wanted to know what Winnie said to them before she got there,” Lydia continued.
“Why all night?”
“Because she didn’t believe me.”
“What did Winnie say?” I asked, curious about exactly what had been reported and whether a six-year-old could even be a reliable witness.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t in the room,” Lydia said calmly, gravely.
“Why not?”
“Because they asked to talk to her privately, and I said okay, as long as the door is open,” Lydia replied. “Paige told me to let them in,” she explained. Which suddenly made me not trust Lydia. She knew all along that the authorities were coming and she stayed there? What person in her right mind would work for a parent who had been reported to Family Services?
“I told everything to my employment agency, of course,” Lydia added, as if reading my mind. “But I can’t just leave. I have my own grandkids to think of. They live with me. Along with their mother.”
“So why did Paige want to know what Winnie said if she knew people from the agency were coming and wasn’t afraid of them?” I asked, wanting to return to the bare facts and circumstances, away from the conjecture about Lydia’s judgment and loyalty. I was still friends with the Edwardses, and I didn’t even need their money!
Lydia shrugged.
“How is Paige now?” I asked, afraid of the answer, knowing I needed to hear it.
“All she can do is yell at Winnie; Winnie this and Winnie that! Sometimes Winnie gets wild and starts thrashing around the room. I think she scratches herself by accident.”
Hand to my mouth, my head throbbing.
“Finally, I told Paige, ‘She’s just six. You need to have patience. This isn’t good for her.’ But Paige doesn’t listen to me. She says I don’t understand about adopted children.”
“Oh my God.”
“I pray to God. That’s what I do.”
“For what?”
“For Paige to calm down.”
“But how does she seem besides the screaming?” I pressed, determined to get to the bottom of things.
“How does she seem to you? You’re her friend,” Lydia said, raising her eyes to look at me.
“I’m not really her friend,” I said, lowering my eyes to my porch floor.
“They lock her in at night,” Lydia said. “Which I told Gene not to do.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, lifting my gaze back toward Lydia, my eyes starting to tear.
“Gene goes up after I tuck her in,” Lydia continued, unaware of my confusion and growing discomfort. Or maybe well aware of it. Willing me to face it.
“He gives her cough medicine to help her sleep before he locks the bedroom door,” Lydia said, nodding her head, looking right at me. “They have a monitor if she needs something.”
I raised my hand to my mouth again. Eyes on my porch floor. The locked door was all part and parcel of the original story Paige had told us about Winnie having sleep issues and refusing to stay in her room. Which meant what, exactly? That the locked door and cough syrup were necessary?
When I looked back at Lydia, she was still standing there calmly, waiting, no doubt, for me to say something.
“Did you tell Family Services about these things?” I asked, anxious to have a third party evaluate these decisions.
“They didn’t ask me any follow-up questions,” Lydia said, opening her cracked and empty palms as if to reveal something. The nature of nothing.
“But you could call them. Couldn’t you?” I pressed.
“You know what they said to me?” Lydia asked. Still calmly.
“What?” I asked.
“One of the agency ladies said to me, ‘Look at this house. Look at this pool. These cars.’ She waved her arms around the whole property and said, ‘I doubt something bad could happen in a neighborhood like this.’”
“They didn’t mean that!” I said. Confident it couldn’t be true. People had been going on talk shows for years, spilling the gory details of their childhood misery. White families. Thin families. Fat families. Rich families. Families from every corner of the universe. Surely by now people, especially the authorities, knew how to look beneath the surface. They wouldn’t be blasé simply because Paige and Gene lived in a marvelous brick Tudor. I prayed this was true even as I worried that it wasn’t.
I must have looked forlorn. And disappointed. At my inability to do anything. At my knowledge that doing something wouldn’t fix this.
“Don’t worry,” Lydia said, smiling gently at me, no doubt sensing my despair. “I once knew a Kenyan nanny who used to say, ‘The wound always stinks.’”
I looked at her quizzically. Confused by the proverb.
“The Edwardses can try to cover up what’s happening, but if they’re wrong, they’ll be found out. Eventually the stink of the wound will reve
al itself.”
I smiled like I knew she wanted me to. I tried to pretend I could put my faith in the universe as the proverb was implying I should. But I doubted it was true. Just like I doubted Lydia truly believed it. Otherwise, why had she told me the things that she had? Wasn’t she hoping I’d intervene? Wasn’t she hoping I’d reveal the wound myself?
* * *
Inside, I went straight to my office and looked up Children and Family Services, willing myself to jot down the number even as I lingered over the stories that poured forth on my search page. One father tying his daughter to a bathtub drainpipe whenever she asked for seconds at dinner. Another child spun around by her hair, her face smashed into walls. There were burned children. Beaten children. Foster parents who were worse than the biological ones. The Edwardses were nothing like the families described on the Internet. And yet. There it was. I sensed it when I closed my eyes. The black trickle of something dangerous. It didn’t have to be obvious, draped with a sign that said trouble. Even though I’d been waiting for that all my life. A sign that what I felt was true. I turned back to my desk and shut the computer screen, not eager to be drawn back into the misery that greeted me there. Picking up my cell phone before I could change my mind. Dialing the hotline as I paced my office, my fingers numb, my mouth dry.
“Would you like to begin with your name?” the woman asked when I’d finally established what I was calling about. Which took forever. Which took much longer than I thought it should. How many people had been turned away by the hold time and the confusion at an agency that was supposed to protect children?
“I don’t want to be identified,” I said, my voice steady, even if my insides were shaking.
“So this is an anonymous call?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s anonymous, you can never call back and add more information. You can’t update us.”
“That’s okay.”
“If it’s anonymous, we can never call you and ask questions. Get clarification.”
“So you’re saying you want my name?” I asked, suddenly on the verge of crying. Which was so embarrassing. How powerless I felt in the face of this nameless authority.
Good Neighbors Page 18