Unprotected

by Kristin Lee Johnson

  Amanda returned to the living room to find Cynthia defiantly draped across her boyfriend, who was still frozen watching TV. She could hear the little girls downstairs. Not knowing what to say to Cynthia and desperate to find a distraction, Amanda went downstairs to check on Susanna and Anna.

  The unfinished basement had been converted into Barbieland. They had two Barbie cars and a jeep, a huge townhouse, and at least fifty Barbies. Since all the girls in the family were obsessed with the blonde and beautiful Barbie at one time or another, they had managed to accumulate everything Mattel had ever made.

  Anna looked up at Amanda shyly, but Susanna ran over to Amanda and grabbed her hand. “Hi, Manda.”

  “Hey, girls. Merry Christmas.”

  “It’s not gonna be,” Susanna said solemnly. Anna sat in the corner by the townhouse, trying to arrange the Barbies in the beds for an apparent sleepover.

  “Why do you say that? Are you worried that Santa won’t come?”

  Susanna rolled her eyes at Amanda. “I’m a little old for that, Amanda,” she said, precociously. “Anna doesn’t even believe that old story anymore.”

  Amanda found that very sad. “Wow, you girls are getting old,” Amanda said. “So if you’re not worried about Santa, why won’t this be a good Christmas?”

  Susanna was trying to get a pair of very tight spandex pants onto the Barbie she was holding. They slid up over Barbie’s incredibly long legs, but were stuck at her curvaceous hips. Amanda had never noticed exactly how out of proportion Barbie was. Amanda held out her hands, and Susanna gave her the Barbie so she could try to dress her.

  “Mama is so mad at everyone. I don’t even know if we’re gonna open presents. Lucy got in a fight and left, and now Cynthia was yelling at her. Mama hates all men. That’s the problem, you know.”

  Lucy got into a fight and left. Amanda wanted to ask what she meant by “left,” but the girls were more worried about their mom. Amanda pulled and tugged at the spandex pants with no luck. She finally grabbed on with her teeth and moved them a centimeter. “I don’t think your mama hates men.”

  “Yes, she does. She hates them. Lucy and Cynthia were talking about it. Lucy said that her dad was really mean to Mama. Lucy has a different dad, you know,” Amanda glanced at Anna, who was unfazed and apparently knew this bit of family history already. “Then Mama got married to our dad, but he died. Now she doesn’t want anyone to have boyfriends or get married or anything because she said men are no good.”

  “My gym teacher is a man,” Anna said, putting a Barbie in the jeep next to Ken, who was driving. “He’s good. He lets us play trench and soccer and jump rope.”

  “I’m sure everything will smooth over,” Amanda said, not at all convinced or convincing the girls. “Families fight sometimes.”

  “Our family fights all the time,” Anna said.

  “Lucy said she’s gonna run away and get married,” Susanna said, “cuz of Mama.”

  “Their wedding is all planned. She won’t run away,” Amanda said, but the words “run away” made her stomach drop.

  “I don’t even think Mama will go to the wedding,” Susanna said. “She’s supposed to be making dresses for all of us, and she’s hardly started. They’re never going to get them done in time.”

  Susanna, who wasn’t playing with anything any more, looked miserable. Amanda couldn’t believe Rosie would refuse to go to the wedding. In the years she had known this family, Amanda had been present for a few arguments. One year Marina wanted to wear a very short skirt and tank top to midnight mass. Both Lucy and Cynthia told her she looked terrible. When Rosie saw her, she gasped, and Marina flounced back to her room to change without another word being spoken. Another year Susanna and Anna were fighting and Susanna pulled Anna’s hair hard. Lucy broke up that fight before Rosie found out.

  “Susanna, did you say that Lucy left?” Amanda asked.

  Susanna was brushing spandex Barbie’s long blonde hair. “Yep. She says she’s not gonna be here for Christmas.”

  “But … of course she is …”

  “No she isn’t! Lucy and Mama got in a fight about William. Lucy said, ‘I’ve had it,’ and ran out the door. She said, ‘Merry Christmas, Mama. I won’t be back.’” Susanna had tears in her eyes. “That means she won’t be here for Christmas.”

  Amanda swallowed hard. The last time she and Lucy had spoken, Lucy reminded her to be there by noon. She didn’t say anything about being with William’s family for Christmas, although Amanda realized that Lucy would probably go to his family’s house at some point over Christmas. But this was different. Susanna said that Lucy left and wouldn’t be back.

  Amanda’s stomach dropped as she wondered where that left her.

  * * *

  Amanda dressed a few more Barbies with the girls until boredom and worry got the best of her. She returned up the stairs. The situation in the living room with Cynthia and her boyfriend hadn’t changed, except they were now lying down together on the couch under a blanket. Her hair looked messy, like they actually had the nerve to make out with Rosie one room away.

  Back in the kitchen, Marina was sitting at the table eating Doritos. Of all Lucy’s sisters, Amanda was the least comfortable with Marina. It seemed that Marina caused the most conflict, though it was never anything like this.

  Amanda sat at the table across from Marina. “So … Merry Christmas, huh?”

  Marina glared at Amanda, but she also seemed anxious to talk. “Bet you wish your mom was still alive so you didn’t have to deal with this.”

  Amanda was shocked that Marina made reference to her mother. She never knew how much Lucy had told her family about Amanda’s situation.

  “Actually, my Christmases were never much when my mom was alive. We’d probably be eating at a soup kitchen or something like that.”

  Marina’s eyes widened. “Really? Was your mom crazy?”

  Hard question, though Amanda had definitely considered it before. “Not crazy, exactly, just messed up.”

  Marina nodded. “Mama’s messed up too. Our whole family is messed up.”

  “You guys have never seemed messed up to me. I think your family is wonderful.”

  Marina snorted.

  “Seriously, Marina, you don’t know how lucky you are. A lot of people would give anything to have a house and a family that loves them.” Amanda was one of those people.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know about any of that. Mama’s losing it. Lucy and Cynthia don’t see it because they’re too busy screwing their boyfriends, but I see it. She can’t remember stuff. She cries when nothing has happened. She sleeps all the time.” Marina looked worried, and much older than her fourteen years. Amanda always had the impression that she wanted to be as distant as possible from the family, but today she looked like she just wanted her family to be okay.

  “She sounds depressed,” Amanda said. “People sleep a lot and can get really groggy and out of it when they are depressed.”

  “You’re probably right,” Marina said.

  “She could get on medication, and that could help a lot.”

  “Yeah, right. There is no way she would take medication. If she’s sad, she thinks that’s what God wants for her. She would think she deserves to be sad. She probably thinks Lucy getting pregnant is her fault because she is a bad mom, so she’s coming down on the rest of us twice as hard.” Marina started to cry.

  “Do you really think she’s that upset about Lucy being pregnant? You think that’s the cause of all of this?”

  “Mama said to Lucy today that William is just like Lucy’s father. Mama hates Lucy father, and Lucy knows it. That’s why Lucy got mad and left.”

  “You don’t think she’s coming back?”

  “She said she’s not. I was standing there when she left. She told me ‘sorry.’”

  The roar in the back of Amanda’s head just got louder.

  * * *

  Amanda and Marina sat at the table a while longer, until the little girls came up
stairs wondering what was happening. They all felt the tension and no one knew what to do about it. Finally, Amanda and Marina decided to start cooking in hopes that they could draw Rosie out of her room that way.

  After an hour of attempting to make shredded beef and refried beans (with Amanda trying to find recipes and Marina trying to remember spices and oven temperatures), it became apparent that Rosie was not going to come out of her room on her own. Marina knocked softly on her bedroom door. When there was no reply, Marina opened her door a crack, stared for a moment, and then closed it again.

  “She’s sleeping,” Marina said tearfully. “She didn’t move when I opened the door or whispered her name. I don’t know what to do.”

  Amanda didn’t either. Amanda didn’t feel like she could approach Rosie and talk to her because she was afraid Rosie would see her actions as disrespectful. But she was afraid that eating their special meal without Rosie would be disrespectful too.

  “I think we should wake her in time for her to get ready for church,” Amanda finally said. “We know she won’t miss that. Then hopefully she’ll perk up, and we can eat after church.”

  So the Ramirez girls and Amanda, minus Lucy, awkwardly sat around the house until it was time to get ready for the Christmas Eve mass at 4:30. At 3:30, Marina brought the little girls to their rooms to get dressed. Amanda cleaned up the kitchen. Cynthia, who defiantly hadn’t left her perch on the couch, wandered out to the kitchen.

  “So what’s going on? Is everybody still going to church?” Cynthia asked, not acknowledging any role she might have in the family conflict.

  At that moment, Amanda wanted to slap Cynthia. The letdown from preparing for Christmas and having it fall apart was unbearable. Amanda was much angrier with Lucy for abandoning the family, and especially for abandoning her, although she knew it was selfish to be more concerned about herself when the family was in such crisis.

  “Of course everyone’s still going to church,” Amanda said brusquely.

  Cynthia put her hands on her hips. “All right, Amanda. You don’t have to get pushy too. It’s bad enough that I get it from my own family.”

  Another jab at her outsider status. All of this was so out of character for Cynthia, and part of her wanted to ask her if she was okay. A bigger part of her still wanted to slap her. Cynthia flounced out of the room.

  By 4:00 the kitchen was presentable, with the pans covered and put into the refrigerator hopefully for dinner after church. With nothing else to do, Amanda found her purse and went to the hallway mirror to check her hair and put on lipstick. Cynthia and her boyfriend were putting on their coats.

  “We’ll meet you there,” Cynthia said to Marina, who was doing Susanna’s hair in the bathroom. Cynthia and her boyfriend went out the door before anyone could answer. Susanna looked up at Marina silently, watching for her reaction.

  Suddenly they heard Rosie’s bedroom door open. She emerged from the kitchen wearing her church clothes. Her face looked gray and tired, and her eyes seemed to be half open. She didn’t look at anyone as she silently took her coat from the hall closet.

  Anna ran to her Mama and hugged her. Rosie held her for a moment with her eyes closed. The group shuffled out the door to Rosie’s van in the garage, still not acknowledging that Cynthia and Lucy were not there.

  * * *

  When Amanda looked back on that Christmas Eve, she realized that the reason it hurt so much was that she thought her years of pathetic holidays were over. After spending December 23 going to clients’ and foster parents’ homes, each with a different sad Christmas story, she believed she was finally on the other side of the fence. Amanda thought she was officially part of the world that didn’t ache from Thanksgiving through the New Year. She thought that she had finally become normal, at least in that regard.

  Which was why Lucy’s abandonment and the Ramirez’s terrible family feud hurt so much worse than any Christmas spent at a soup kitchen. The ugly truth was that Amanda thought she was better than that.

  Even though the day improved slightly after church, the gnawing in her gut never went away. Church seemed to calm Rosie, so that when they went back to the house they ate a subdued dinner with store-bought tortillas. Cynthia brought her boyfriend back to the house, and Rosie was civil enough to pass him the sour cream at dinner. The little girls were excited about their gifts, and Rosie gave Amanda a warm smile when she opened her certificate for a massage. But when all the gifts were opened and there were piles of wrapping paper and boxes everywhere, there was still a small group of unopened gifts under the tree.

  Somehow Amanda expected Lucy to return that night. She never believed that Lucy would truly stay away from her family, and Amanda, on Christmas.

  Everyone went to bed early that Christmas Eve. Amanda slept in Lucy’s bed, just as she usually did when she spent holidays with the Ramirezes. She lay in bed awake for a long time, stinging emotions swirling in her head. She was barely aware that her fists were clenched, fingernails digging into her palms

  Chapter Fifteen

  The week after Christmas passed quickly at work, and before Amanda knew it, New Year’s Eve, the day of Lucy and William’s wedding, had arrived. Amanda had managed to avoid Lucy all week by turning off the ringer on her phone and unplugging her answering machine so she could legitimately say she did not know Lucy had called. Not knowing whether or not Lucy had tried to call was difficult too, but the need to avoid her was stronger than her curiosity.

  Amanda had also avoided Jake all week at work, so she had not spoken with anyone about the final wedding plans. She didn’t know whether Rosie finished the dresses, or what kind of flowers Lucy had chosen, or what time to be at the church to get ready.

  Instead of dealing with her personal life, Amanda focused on her job and the people who were officially crazier than she was. Amanda learned that Angel, Blaze, Justice, and Anthony actually had a very nice Christmas at the foster home, despite the bitchy Mary. Amanda spent over two hours with Angel one afternoon, chatting with her about volleyball, school, and about her family. Angel was rather tightlipped about her mother, but she had no problem talking about the other people they had come into contact with in their travels. Angel, age nine, told of the man who was HIV positive who took so many medicines that he could swallow handfuls of pills at once. She talked about the house they lived in that had an actual hole in the bathroom floor that her mother covered with heavy cardboard so they could use the toilet. Then there was the trailer they lived in that had no heat or running water, so they peed in a five-gallon bucket and showered at swimming lessons, which they attended on a scholarship. Angel told Amanda that her father was in prison, and she had never met him, although her mother showed her his mug shot on the Department of Corrections website on the public library computer. Blaze’s dad was the one Angel remembered the best and feared the most.

  Amanda also finished the reunification plan with Hailey, and Hailey and Charlie started having regular visits at Hailey’s mom’s house. Hailey had actually decided to move out of her own apartment at the end of the month and move back home with her mom so she could be with Charlie every day. Hailey seemed intent on changing her life, and she was working hard.

  Amanda spent New Year’s Eve morning catching up on casenotes about Hailey, and writing the long, sordid social history for Angel’s family. The detachment with which Angel described her life was disturbingly familiar to Amanda, though Amanda also knew that she wasn’t nearly as detached as she used to be. Amanda credited Lucy for helping her break down her defenses and participate in her own life. Unfortunately, Amanda had realized over the past several weeks that she couldn’t seem to get her defenses back up when she wanted them back.

  The office closed at noon, so Amanda reluctantly went home to prepare for the wedding she didn’t want to face.

  When she parked on the street by her apartment, Amanda could see the wardrobe bag that must have contained her dress hanging on the screen door. She climbed the steps carefully, noticin
g only one set of footprints in the snow that had fallen that morning. Whoever delivered the dress came alone. Amanda wondered if it was Lucy, or if someone was helping her handle the last minute arrangements.

  Amanda grabbed the dress and brought it inside, finding a note attached to the hanger.

  “Amanda, where have you been, sweetie? I’ve been trying to call you all week. I hope nothing is wrong. Here is your dress. William’s aunt finished them last night, so I hope it fits. See you at the church at 3:00. William’s cousin will go there to do your hair if you want yours done. Love, Lucy.”

  No mention of Christmas.

  Amanda threw the dress on the table with her purse and keys. The hurt that she had felt all week turned to anger at Lucy’s lack of acknowledgement. Family used to be the most important thing to Lucy, but now it seemed that she was so self-absorbed that she didn’t care about any of them.

  Amanda decided that if Lucy could skip Christmas, it was her turn to skip the next big event. Even if that big event happened to be Lucy’s wedding.

  Amanda turned off the lights and went to bed.

  * * *

  She wasn’t sure when she realized she was awake. There was some kind of noise, but it could have been part of her creepy dream. Amanda had been dreaming she was getting married to Cynthia’s adolescent boyfriend. They had been holding hands in the front of Lucy’s church, and Amanda looked back and saw that no one was on her side of the church except for Lucy and William. The only people on the “groom’s” side of the church were homeless people there for the free meal.

  Amanda rolled over to find Jake leaning over her bed. She screamed and clutched the covers to her chest for some meager protection.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You have got to start locking that door,” Jake said, looking worried and annoyed.