by Jess Lourey
“I tried to get her to lie back down,” Barbara says when they appear in the living room.
“I understand the baby isn’t mine,” I say, pleading. I don’t even care about my plan anymore. I didn’t account for this passion, for this consuming need to see my child. I’ll say anything for the chance to hold him, even just once. “Let me serve, to begin to pay you all back. Please.”
Catherine’s nose turns up. “I don’t think you’re strong enough.”
I glide across the floor. The movement costs me so much, but I make it appear effortless. “Are you kidding? I’m ready to have another baby. Just point me in the right direction.” I don’t laugh. That would seem too much. I must keep a tight rein.
“She can’t hurt anyone,” Dorothy says, looking me up and down.
I stand in front of Catherine, staring humbly at my feet. She’s the one who will make the decision.
“All right,” Catherine finally says, her voice cold. “The doctor said it was an easy birth. You certainly deserve to join us. Come on, then.”
I do.
I have crossed the third hurdle.
CHAPTER 65
Clan is the first man at the party to spot me. His face collapses. He turns to find someone, Ronald or Amory, I suspect, so I hurry to him. “Clan,” I say, smiling my widest. “I remember you like old-fashioneds. Do I have that right? Let me mix you one.”
He smiles, though I sense he’s wondering why I’ve joined the group. I slip into the kitchen and make his drink. I make everyone’s drinks. I serve them their favorites, one, two, sometimes three. They’ve never tasted better. I hold the nausea and darkness at bay through force of will. I change my pads every half hour. I’m docile. I will see my baby.
The celebration was starting when I came to, dipped at my arrival, and is now back in full swing, everyone talking too loudly, growing drunk and stupid. After the steaks and side dishes are devoured, I bring them chocolate pudding, which I serve up in Deck’s kitchen and keep moving, always moving.
Hurdle four.
When Dr. Krause shows up, his round glasses like headlights that pick me out in the crowd, I think it may be over. I don’t know if someone called him because they’re worried about me, but I’m certain I can’t recover from another of his injections, not in time. I don’t mix him a drink. He’s not a Mill Streeter. I don’t know what he favors.
“Hello, Miss Harken.”
He isn’t calling me Mrs. Schmidt anymore. “Hello, Dr. Krause. My baby is okay?”
“What? Yes, of course. I’m surprised to see you up so soon.”
“This is my family,” I say, indicating those gathered, their voices loud and animated. “I want to be here for the celebration.”
I must escape before he can insist I lie down. I’m pulling away from him, back into Deck’s house, when I hear the cry. I moan and lean into the doorjamb.
It’s my baby.
The wail comes again, louder. My newborn is in Deck’s house. Upstairs. In the bedroom Deck and I shared? I move toward the noise. My swollen breasts are pulsating, the front of my shirt suddenly drenched in milk.
Deck appears. He’s been at the party, of course, keeping his distance, not letting me make him a drink, but still, celebrating.
“You can’t go up,” he says. “Don’t worry. Linda has the baby.”
I quiet the rage. I don’t know Linda. “Please, Deck. Let me see our baby.”
Dr. Krause appears with his bag. “I have a shot that will dry up your milk and another that will help you sleep.”
I whimper and squeeze my chest.
Barbara appears, wavering slightly. She had only one drink, but she’s a lightweight. “It’s best if she feeds the baby the first week, isn’t that right, doctor? For the colostrum.”
Dr. Krause looks confused. “Yes. Breast milk is best for the baby’s immunity, and then formula is fine, but you requested I bring these injections.”
Dorothy appears behind Barbara, smiling warmly at me. She’s as solid as stone. “We’ve decided to let her nurse, and we’ll keep her on the pills rather than the shots for now, Dr. Krause. Thank you for coming. You’re not needed anymore.”
She turns away from him and takes me by the elbow. I have just seen what she must have been like when she and Stan ruled Lilydale alongside Barbara and Ronald, a woman whose commands were not questioned.
“Come on, Joan. You can meet the baby, but don’t get too attached. It wouldn’t be good for either of you. I think this is going very well, though, don’t you? You should be pleased. Because of you, we won’t have to take any more children. We can simply farm the next generation in our own soil. I only wish your father still had his faculties. He’d be delighted to see his plan come to fruition. Now don’t be such a crybaby. It’s not as if you ever even wanted children. Deck told us everything.”
CHAPTER 66
They let me nurse my baby.
It’s the purest moment of my life.
I smell my child’s hair, sigh with sweet relief as the rosebud lips release the pressure on my breasts, sing a sweet lullaby as he suckles. I marvel at tiny fingers, eyelids the color of seashells. They won’t let me change the baby, won’t tell me if it’s a boy or girl, what they named him, but they can’t break my heart, not when I’m holding my child.
It’s over too soon. They peel my baby from my arms and herd me back to my lemon-colored bedroom in Stan and Dorothy’s house, across the driveway and an ocean away from the only thing that matters to me.
Mildred, obviously woozy and slurring her words, has been assigned as my chaperone. She watches me change the pads in my underpants and step into my nightgown, take a sleeping pill, and lie down. I don’t need to fake the relief at being in bed, the trembling in my legs, the exhaustion.
“You’re not the only one going to sleep early,” she says blurrily, brushing hair from my face. “The party is winding down already. Stanley and Dorothy didn’t even make it back over here. They’re sleeping in Deck’s living room.” She yawns, reaches toward the nearest wall for support, misses it, tries again. “I don’t know if I’ll even be able to stay up long enough to help clean. Oh well! The dirt isn’t going anywhere. I can come back tomorrow.”
Her eyes are going heavy-lidded. She excuses herself.
I spit the sleeping pill into my palm.
I lie there until I hear garbled goodbyes. Until all the lights are off. Until it is nearly eleven.
I wait, and then I wait some more.
I’m good at waiting.
CHAPTER 67
When I hear no more movement, I change from my nightgown and into loose, dark pants, slipping in a new pad. I leave the empty medicine bottles in my pocket. I’ll throw them away when I’m safely out of town. I’ve been stockpiling and grinding the sleeping pills and Valium since they brought me back from the Saint Cloud police station. I didn’t need enough to kill anyone, just to make them all sleep well the next time they’d all be gathered. A time when I would have access to all their food.
The time right after my baby was born.
I don a clean bra and shirt.
I tuck my white gloves into my back pocket, and I sneak next door. I think everyone is out, but I can’t be positive. I tiptoe up the stairs. Deck is on our—his—bed, and Linda, who turns out to be Miss Colivan, the fourth-grade teacher, is in the spare bedroom. Both Deck and Miss Colivan are fully clothed and on top of their respective covers, passed out. My child lies in a bassinet next to Miss Colivan, sleeping, pink-cheeked and so innocent that I blink back tears.
I kiss my baby’s head, then hurry to fill a bag with diapers, pins, clothes, and a purse that I hid in my former bedroom closet, into which I’ve stuffed all the money I’ve been stealing from Stan and Deck for the past six weeks. It’s only seventy-nine dollars, but it’s better than nothing. I toss the bag’s strap over my shoulder and scoop up my sweet child.
I turn to leave.
And I run straight into Deck.
“It was th
e chocolate pudding, wasn’t it?” he asks.
I nod—I found the tip not in a cookbook, like I’d expected, but a mothering book (Want to get your toddler to swallow bitter medicine? No better way to disguise it than chocolate pudding!)—and try to speak, but my mouth has gone numb. I clutch the baby tighter.
“I thought I was being smart not drinking what you served,” he says, swaying in the doorway, “but I ate some of that damn pudding. You knew we wouldn’t let you out of town, didn’t you? At least one of us has been watching you. Always.”
I gauge the space between him and the jamb. Can I push through? Has he ingested enough?
He points at the infant in my arms, closing an eye to focus. “Where are you taking my baby?”
He could have slapped me and gotten less of a reaction. “Your baby?”
He nods, his face screwed up in a petulant expression that I used to find charming. “I planted the seed. It’s mine.”
I come at him with such force that he falls backward. “You forfeited any right to this baby when you put its mother in danger,” I snarl. “How could you, Deck? How could you have done this to us?”
He blinks rapidly, stupidly. “It’s their rules, Joanie. I didn’t make them.”
“No, but you followed them.”
“You did, too.”
I’m crying now, but it’s not sadness. It’s anger. “I loved you, Deck.”
“I loved you, too. Not at first, but eventually. Once I got to know you. I was just like you, Joanie. Taken when I was four. You didn’t have to fight it. They give you so much if you just go along. I was hoping I could convince you of that. They wanted me to marry you, you know. I refused. Said I’d only do it once you knew everything, and only if you really wanted to. That was me, Joanie. That’s who I am.”
I can see he really believes that’s good enough. Shitheel. My strength is ebbing, the adrenaline that has kept me upright disappearing, leaving pain and bone-deep fatigue in its wake. I need to escape before I collapse.
“I’m leaving, Deck. My mom taught me how to stay on the run. You’re never going to find me or this baby.”
I dearly hope that’s true. I reach for the doorway, grateful to feel the wood beneath my hand. It keeps me upright for another moment. He’s still between me and the stairs.
“But Deck, listen to me now.” My voice is fading. I cough to bring it back. “Wherever I end up, I’m going to tell the story. You can’t stop that. All you can do is let me go without a fight. If you do, I’ll make sure your child knows you let us get away to a better life, that you sacrificed for us. What do you say, Deck?”
Only one of his eyes is blinking now. He seems to nod before sliding fully onto his back.
“Thank you,” I say to his supine form. I stumble as I step over him, barely catching myself. I’m so close to freedom, but I can’t leave, not yet.
I have one more thing I must do.
I grab the locket from the back of the toilet tank, the car keys from the hook in the kitchen, and stagger to the garage, where I find Slow Henry licking the T-bone inside the live trap I set for him. I make the baby as comfortable as I can in the Chevelle’s front seat, creating a nest of clean, soft blankets I’d stored in the trunk, and put Slow Henry’s cage in the back. This time, I’m not leaving anyone behind.
I back up the Chevelle into the street, parking it at a distance I hope is far enough away. I kiss my sweet baby’s head, inhaling the scent of innocence. Leaving the infant feels like ripping my heart out of my chest, but there’s one thing more I must do before all my strength is gone. I tug the gloves out of my purse and slide them on before returning to the garage. I gather all the lighter fluid Deck made fun of me for buying. I load it into a bag and return to Johann and Minna Lily’s awful basement, flicking on a single light.
I’m grateful Stanley and Dorothy aren’t in the house. I’m no murderer. I curse them, though, as I squirt acrid fluid on the dais, across the wood-paneled walls, over the red robes hung on the wall, into the divots of the heavy candleholders, into the closet where Dorothy kept me. I empty one can and then grab another, and then another. The smell is overpowering.
I toss the locket containing the ancestral dirt into the center of the pyre I’m building.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I turn slowly, which is all I can manage. Ronald is wobbling, clutching the doorway for support. I gave him a double dose in his brandy cola knowing he didn’t like dessert. It’s amazing he can even stand. He looks leathery in the dim light, reptilian. I step closer, because it’s important that he hear this.
“I’m burning it all down, Ronald. Destroying your world.”
He screeches, his voice part shrill, part slurry. “After all we did for you? All the Mill Street Lilys?”
I’m numb. I have one final question, and I ask it, even though I know the answer. “Why didn’t you just adopt? Instead of stealing children?”
His swaying is rhythmic and picking up speed. “They wouldn’t have been Lilys.”
Exactly as I thought. I’ve heard more than enough. “I’ll give you a better chance than you gave me, Ronald, a running start. You don’t have to burn with this house.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” He lunges for me and I step aside, the quick motion costing me. We circle each other, both of us weak. I’m now standing at the base of the steps. He’s five feet in front of me, nearer the dais.
I pull out Ursula’s rhinestone-encrusted Zippo. I strike the wheel with my thumb, calling a flame to life. “Your last chance, you heartless asshole.”
He groans and leans heavily against one of the tables, his hand knocking over a candleholder. I move toward him, the training to help so ingrained that it’s automatic. It takes me less than a step before I remember who he really is.
My realization comes too late.
He’s holding the heavy brass candleholder in his hand. He flings it at me, aiming for my head. I grunt as it hits my shoulder, knocking the lighter out of my hand. The flame licks the air on the way down, meets the fumes of the lighter fluid, and roars its joy, crackling across the cursed basement.
The force of the ignition forces me back and up. I land on the third stair from the bottom, my skin tingling from the flames. Ronald lies near the dais, a crumpled, motionless figure. The fire is drawing a second breath, preparing to eat this hateful house from the bottom up.
I don’t wait for it.
I would have chosen a different ending for Ronald, but I’ll be damned if I’ll burn with him.
CHAPTER 68
Blood is trickling down my legs, my shoulder is throbbing where the brass candleholder hit it, and the tips of my hair are singed as I limp down the walkway. Part of me knows I can’t make it out of Lilydale. I’ve lost too much blood, exerted too much energy. But I will drive until I pass out, because what choice do I have?
I almost reach the end of the sidewalk before I smell the cigarette, untangle its elegant, gritty smell from the rage of lighter fluid and flame. I stop, frozen. An orange ember burns in the shadows of an oak tree, a flicker compared to the blaze crackling behind me.
Regina steps out. “So, where’re you headed?”
We stare at each other. I’m shuddering. The heat of the house is cooking the shirt on my back, but I’m freezing.
Have they made her one of them?
I can’t go back.
I won’t.
Regina finally speaks. “It’s a wide world, sister. We don’t have to stay here.”
I moan in relief and drop to the ground.
“Jesus,” she says, running to me. “You had the baby. You shouldn’t be on your feet, you know.”
As if on cue, my sweet child wails from the front seat of the nearby car.
Regina’s eyes widen. “We have a lot to catch up on.”
CHAPTER 69
I’m cocooned in the Chevelle’s back seat, a warm breeze kissing my hair.
I am nursing my baby. Slow Henry is sleeping on my lap.
We pass fire trucks screaming into Lilydale.
Regina is driving us south, toward Siesta Key.
She wanted to leave Lilydale immediately until I explained that Angel was being held at the Schramel house. I wanted to be the one to free him, but I didn’t have the strength. Fortunately, Regina didn’t question me, just ran into the house and came out with a sleeping Angel moments later.
When she leaned over to set him next to me in the back seat, her pearl necklace slipped out of her shirt. I blinked back tears, taking it as a message from my mother, a sign that she was with me now and would keep me safe, just as she had when I was a child.
I caressed Angel’s sleeping head as Regina drove us to his mother’s house. What monster could steal a child from its mother? How could the Mill Street families have possibly convinced themselves of their righteousness? I could live to be a thousand years old, and I’d never understand it.
It took some convincing for Regina to get Mariela to walk out to a strange car in the middle of the night, but once she did, and laid eyes on her son, she wailed in gratitude. She bundled him in her arms, rocked him, kissed him all over.
He woke up. “Momma?”
She wailed again. He clamped his wiry arms around her neck.
“You have to leave,” I said.
Mariela glanced at me, sitting in my own blood, clutching my newborn. She nodded once, her eyes wet and her mouth grim, and strode quickly back to her house.
I knew what her expression meant.
We don’t belong here, her and me.
We never did.
And we are going to escape and never return.
Minnesota Town Shaken by Rape, Kidnapping and Arson Allegations Spanning Decades
By Joan Harken
March 23, 1969
The New York Times
Section A, Page 16
“It’s your average small town,” declared Ernest Oleson, the newly elected mayor of Lilydale, Minn., population 1,464.