Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl))

by Laura Anderson Kurk

  “Go on, please,” Mr. Landmann said, tripping over the words lightly—half invitation, half release from obligation.

  “She worshipped her husband and he died. It seems like that’s her trouble, but it was more. She’s grieving the idea of him and her own aging and her daughter’s separation. She grieves…everything.” I glanced at Quinn as I used his words. He nodded once, but it was barely perceptible.

  “Class, was the priest right?” Mr. Landmann said. “Did her grief become self-indulgent?”

  He called on other students as they raised their hands. Most of them agreed with the priest.

  Quinn raised his hand and started talking before Mr. Landmann called on him. He literally vibrated in his seat, his opinion on the subject making his joints jump.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But the play’s about unequal suffering. The priest shouldn’t have made such an insensitive remark to her. She’d just learned her husband had cheated on her. A lot. And he was a loser. And the priest harped on her about grieving for too long. Nobody was willing to admit Serafina deserved a little compassion because she got dealt a crap hand.”

  “If you’d written it, what conversation would the priest have with her?” Mr. Landmann loved the if you’d written it questions.

  “He would discuss theodicy instead. That would’ve been a better conversation to have.”

  “Okay,” Mr. Landmann said. “That’s a big word, Quinn. Can you define theodicy?”

  Quinn snorted softly and looked down. I felt for him because I knew what it meant. I’d looked it up when I was trying to figure out why a good God would let Wyatt die.

  “It kind of rhymes with idiocy,” Quinn said. “But it deals with the concept of a God who hands out bad stuff arbitrarily.”

  Mr. Landmann blinked once, twice, three times. Then he moved on. “Did Tennessee Williams pull Serafina’s character out of thin air? Could we all be guilty of living in denial about areas of our life to the extent we push society away completely. Do we live with self-imposed isolation and unhappiness?”

  The classroom grew quiet. Either they all thought Mr. Landmann was full of it or they were really considering what we do to ourselves and how life pinches and hurts so much that we throw up fences and walls and lock our doors. We become pearls—products of the intense need for protection. We become Jo Russell.

  Or we just decide it’s time to walk away.

  TEN

  henry

  “Hey, Uncle Henry,” Whit called when I finally walked through the dining room door, my memorized exit speech bouncing through my brain. “Where do numbers go to do their homework?”

  “I have no idea, little man.” I struggled to come up with a punch line that would satisfy Whit. The kids—all but Raf—were tucked up to the tables cleaning their plates, smiling and happy. They didn’t know anything had gone down yesterday or that someone dangerous lived in their midst. They only knew they’d get three squares a day and that Kate and John loved them.

  “No, you’ve gotta guess!” Whit whined.

  “Don’t numbers go to the library to do their homework?”

  “No,” he said. “The times table! What do you call an avalanche that’s made out of rock?”

  “A rockslide?”

  “No, a rockalanche!” This nonsense made Whit double over with insane laughter for a good five minutes.

  Kate groaned. “He’s got the timing, but he’s lacking material. Just like his daddy.”

  Aidia toddled my way and I grabbed her, turned her upside down, and blew raspberries on her back. She squealed like a piglet until I righted her and held her close. I’d like to take this piglet home to meet Meg, but Aidia would die without Kate.

  “Henry,” Kate said as she passed me with a stack of dirty dishes. “Can you take Raf’s breakfast to him?”

  “Sure. Give me some salt and I’ll rub it in his wounds while I’m at it.”

  “I’m serious. I want you to take him his breakfast.”

  “Want me to slide it through the bean slot?”

  “No.” I think she growled at me. “Take it in, sit with him to make sure he eats, and talk to the boy.”

  Karalyn tugged at my sleeve. “What’s a bean slot?”

  I leaned close so only she could hear me. “It’s that little window in the door of a jail cell where they push a tray of mushy food through to the bad guy. That way, the bad guy gets to eat, but he doesn’t have a chance to hurt anyone.”

  “Is Raf the bad guy?”

  “No, honey. He’s not the bad guy.”

  ***

  I knew Raf was in his room. I could hear a ball being thrown repeatedly against a wall. His door was unlocked because doors at Quiet Waters don’t lock, with two exceptions—the office and the bedroom Kate and John share. I knocked with my elbow, but only to announce I was coming in, not because I wanted an invitation. Raf cursed harshly under his breath, but he didn’t seem surprised when I walked in carrying his breakfast.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Good for you, but you need to eat, Gandhi. You’re not doing yourself any favors refusing food.”

  He glared at me, but I saw his eyes turn to the steaming food. He took the plate from my hand and started in on the sausage. I sat in the metal folding chair he’d placed next to his window, trying to give him a little privacy while he stuffed his face. Posters of Tupac, 50 Cent, and Latino rappers I’d never seen before covered his walls, so I studied those until he finished.

  “I should’ve trusted your instincts,” I said when he pushed his plate aside. “I shouldn’t have taken you into the city at all.”

  Raf just snorted in response and leaned back against his wall, but I could sense a change. The energy in the room settled like fine dust around us.

  “We made the paper this morning.” I unfolded the article and handed it to him.

  He grunted. “They talking about closing this place down?”

  “I don’t know.” I shifted in my chair to glance out the window. “I think unwelcome eyes are on us now. It was probably going to happen anyway, but I put things in hyperdrive.”

  “They’ll come gunning for both of us now.” He handed the paper back after he scanned the main points.

  “John’s whole mission is to keep you safe,” I said. “You don’t need to worry. Just stay out of Managua and keep your nose clean.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m leaving for a little while. I’ve stirred things up enough.” I couldn’t believe I broke my news to Raf first.

  A look resembling regret crossed his face. But that couldn’t be right. “Does your sister know?”

  “She will soon enough. Don’t say anything yet.”

  Raf looked down at the lightweight blanket on his bed that matched the ones on each bed at Quiet Waters, made by the ladies at my church in Chapin. He fingered the edge of his thin blue one now as he thought something over.

  “Do you think I could go with you?” Judging by his posture, he’d just laid everything on the line and didn’t expect much in return.

  The request broke what was left of my heart, but it was impossible. It would be a legal nightmare and cause my family a lot of anguish. But John was probably right. I’d misjudged this kid.

  “Raf, man, I really wish that could happen, but you know I can’t do that. When things are quiet, I’ll come back and you can help me knock the work out. Deal? You’ll be safe here, I promise. John swears it.”

  He nodded. “If I’m here when you come back, I’ll help.”

  I stood and shook his hand. “You need to come out of this room today, Raf. You’re hurting Kate more than you know.”

  He jumped down from his bunk and started gathering up clothes and things to take to the shower. It’s funny how when you’re fifteen, you can go from sullen and wronged to model citizen in a matter of seconds, and nobody will question the change.

  ***

  I found Kate gathering the little girls up for a lesson in health. Every week, she taug
ht them a new hygiene rule they’d never heard before. She spent the most time on the importance of bathing and the proper way to brush one’s teeth. Things a mother teaches her own, Kate had, out of necessity, turned into a formal curriculum, taught in English to help them with their language skills.

  The girls watched in horror as Kate opened the hinged mouth of a skull some dentist had given her for this purpose. I’d bet whomever this skull belonged to never dreamed his head would be passed around by little bitty orphans learning how to brush and floss.

  “Henry, tell the girls why you think it’s important to brush your teeth twice a day.” Kate was baiting me, really. And her grin told me either she didn’t know the full story of yesterday or she’d already forgiven me.

  “It’s pretty important. If I didn’t brush twice a day, I’d never convince Meg to kiss me.”

  This set all the girls off, giggling and making smooching noises, something that obviously had universal comic appeal. Kate had a time settling them down again and she shot me a cold look.

  “You asked.” I pressed my hands into the air toward the girls, trying to get them to hush. “Kate, I need to talk to you when you get a second.”

  She stood and spoke to the girls who’d become a heap of quivering gelatin, moving as a mass of giggling misfits.

  “If you can hear my voice, clap once.” Her request was met with continued silliness. “If you can hear my voice, clap twice.” We heard a few double claps that time. “If you can hear my voice, clap three times.” This time, the mass moved, tilted, and sat up straight, becoming individual little girls again who clapped three times and watched Kate—all except for Karalyn, who watched me.

  “I’m stepping outside for a minute to talk to Henry. While I’m gone, you may pass Señor Skull around and gently inspect his grown-up teeth.” The girls, distracted by the prospect of touching the skull, got it together.

  “What’s up?” Kate linked her arm through mine as we moved into the hallway. “Is Raf okay?”

  “Raf is better,” I said. “He’ll be down in a minute. We sort of came to an agreement.”

  She released a breath. “Thank God.”

  I smiled down at her. “You’re doing a good thing here, Kate.”

  “What are you dancing around trying to avoid telling me?”

  “I’m flying home tomorrow.” I found a piece of baseboard that had worked loose so I used it as an excuse to bend down and hammer it with my fist. I didn’t want to see her reaction.

  “No,” she said.

  “Before you argue, hear me out. I’m at an impasse right now. I can’t do what I was brought here to do. I can’t even use pressure to try to get supplies because I shouldn’t show my face in the city for a while.”

  “We can work around that.”

  “Not effectively. My being here calls the legitimacy of Quiet Waters into question and I can’t live with that. John doesn’t have it in him to admit that my leaving would make a statement, so I’m taking the decision out of his hands.”

  “You need to think about this, Henry. This is a knee-jerk reaction. Or a wounded ego. Or something. This isn’t you.” She had assumed the pose that made her look most like our mom—arms crossed over chest, hip thrown out.

  “I’ll work on the supply angle from up there and get everything ordered,” I said, standing and leaning against the wall.

  “That’s just dumb.” The lines etched around her eyes deepened. “You can do the same thing here. We have internet, too.”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “While I’m there, I can help Dad with harvesting and be of use to someone. If supplies come, I’ll come back to finish what I started. The flex building and fence won’t take me more than two or three weeks if I get what I need.”

  “If…but what about the kids, Henry?” Kate played the one card that had a chance of taking it all. “They love you so much. I don’t even care about the flex building anymore.”

  She sounded a little desperate. Something inside me ripped, like perforated metal that, when bent enough times, will finally crack. She was right. I knew she was right, but the piece of me that just separated violently couldn’t be reattached. No matter which way I moved, it would tear me with its splinters. Going home—big pain. Staying here—unbearable. I almost wished it was only my heart breaking, but I think it was more.

  Kate sensed the finality of the moment and broke into tears. I felt my brain scramble in panic, like it does when any of my sisters cry.

  “I just want you here for the kids. And I’ve missed my baby brother. I get so homesick and the baby….” Her voice faded into a whisper, wet with emotion.

  I put my hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her. “Sam and Janice are coming for the holidays and you’ll get to be home for a while. When the baby comes in January, Mom and Dad are coming for a few weeks.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “I’m not heading out that much earlier than I would have for Thanksgiving.”

  Drying her eyes with the back of her hand and her nose with her sleeve, Kate took a deep breath and appeared to be resolved. “The difference being that you’re not coming back after Christmas. Are you, Henry? You’re done here. You want to go home. Just admit it. Did you ever plan to stay the full year?”

  “Of course I did. I’m not saying I’m done here.” I spoke to her back because she’d turned toward her classroom. “Where’s John?” I called after her.

  She turned around to face me again, stress lining her face. “He’s gone to Managua to meet with our government rep. They’re trying to figure out just how big the pile is you stepped in yesterday.”

  I winced and stayed silent.

  “He’ll be late getting back. I’ll let you tell him your plans when he gets here.”

  ***

  I spent the afternoon using the extra plywood I’d saved from the roof project to extend the privacy fence further around the dorms. If the fence represented the arms embracing these kids to keep them safe, it was a weak, ineffectual hug, at best, but it was all I had to give them.

  After dinner, Kate and I split duties, ignoring the heavy air. I read once that the column of air above us weighs more than a school bus, but it doesn’t crush us because it’s constantly in motion. We don’t even feel the weight, usually.

  But while I was there with Kate, the air pushed down on my scalp, and made my shoulders ache. We cleaned, washed, and herded kids into baths and beds, read stories to groups and said prayers. Whit fell asleep in his bunk; Kate kissed him and left for her bed.

  I logged into the airline site and bought a one-way ticket home, then carried a metal chair outside where I sat on the concrete step of the boy’s dorm, whittling a bird out of a branch. Darkness seemed harsher in San Isidro than it did in Chapin.

  Finally, at about nine o’clock, John drove into the courtyard with his headlights out and cut his engine. His face was illuminated by the dash lights. He looked tired. We watched each other for a minute until he climbed out, pushed his truck door closed with his hip, and walked my way.

  “There are nights, you know, when a cold beer would serve a greater purpose.” He pulled his cap off to relieve some tension, then tossed a wadded up piece of notebook paper my way, chuckling. “Found this under the seat of the truck today and saved it for you.”

  He sat on the step while I unfolded the paper.

  Karalyn’s tentative handwriting played across the page, as unsure and unsteady as the girl herself. “¿Es Henry mi novio? Sí o no.” She’d made little boxes to check and someone had checked the yes box for her—or she’d just gone ahead and checked it herself. I laughed, folded the paper, and jammed it into my back pocket.

  “You’re making the girls weak in two countries now, loverboy.”

  “Surprised?”

  “I guess you are sort of adorable.” He arched an eyebrow, mocking me. “On a more serious matter, the consular office wants you to steer clear of the city for a while. You’re kind of hard to miss, towering over the loca
ls like you do.”

  “I understand.”

  “Right now, your role is to lay low like you’re being sufficiently disciplined by us for breaking a rule. They think that’s enough to convince the Ministry of Family your decision yesterday was your own personal folly, and not something Kate and I endorsed. They are begging us to make another mistake so they can add us to the list to close for good.”

  “What about the threat of suspending my visa?”

  He shrugged. “It’s definitely possible, but it’s not something to worry about. If they yank your visa, we’ll find another way. This country was built on deals made under tables.”

  I nodded and gathered my thoughts for the conversation that had to begin right then. Starting with the good news, of course.

  “Raf joined us today.” I went back to whittling on the stick.

  “Oh yeah? Did you have something to do with that?”

  “I just told him it was time. He helped me nail up some plywood around the dorms.”

  John looked around at the strange fence that had begun to take shape and he bowed his head in my direction. “Thanks, Henry.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and let my brain go on auto. “I need to tell you something else.”

  John looked up expectantly, steeling himself for more bad news. What a way to live—driven by a noble cause, but always on edge.

  “I just bought a ticket for a flight leaving tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.” My hand slipped over the branch I whittled, nearly cutting my thumb off.

  Before John could call me out as a coward, I rushed into my memorized list of excuses, topped by the fact that I planned to surrender my visa for the leverage that would give Quiet Waters. I could pick up a three-month tourist card when I returned.

  John stayed absolutely silent while I talked. He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing his feet, leaning his weight on his elbows. When I finally shut up, his head fell back and he adjusted his cap brim so he could look up at the sky. John could do intense like no one I’d ever known. Kate said it was the brooder in him that first got to her.