The Tiger's Child

by Torey Hayden

“So, there’s nothing wrong with telling me that, is there? You do fuck him, don’t you?”

  “Fuck, no. Make love, yes. There’s a difference.”

  She shrugged. “It’s all fucking to me.”

  I had planned to take Sheila out to the shopping mall for the afternoon. Shut away for so many months, she was keen to enjoy the sights and sounds of crowded places and there weren’t many more crowded than a mall on Saturday afternoon. We ate a quick lunch, then I popped into the bathroom to brush my teeth before we left.

  Still brushing my teeth, I wandered out of the bathroom to hear a soft tappy sound. Rounding the corner into the living room, I saw Sheila with the telephone in her hand. “Who are you calling?” I asked in surprise.

  “No one.”

  This seemed highly unlikely to me and I must have looked it.

  Sheila got a silly look on her face. “Sorry. I was playing. Just messing around. I’m sorry. But, see, you can play tunes with these pushbutton phones. And I just wanted to try it …”

  I still regarded her skeptically.

  “Yeah, come here. I’ll play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ for you.”

  I was slightly unsettled by the phone incident. Perhaps she was doing no more than playing with the push buttons and I was being needlessly wary, but intuition told me otherwise. Throughout the afternoon I was gnawed by the questions it brought up. Whom had she been calling? Why? And why didn’t she want me to know?

  The afternoon was a fairly tense one for me generally. With Sheila’s history of running away, I knew the mall was a chancy place to take her. I had wanted to give her a happy, carefree time reminiscent of our old times together. Equally, I felt it was important for her to believe I trusted her, but the hard, cold truth was, I didn’t really. I had been in business with these kids too long to be anything other than incredulous, and the secret phone call had only served to sharpen my wariness.

  As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. Sheila was delighted with the trip to the shopping center. She went into each and every shop, handled most of what she could get her hands on, tried on endless clothes and hats and jewelry and consumed a nightmarish assortment of doughnuts, caramel corn, cookies, pizza slices and ice cream, all washed down with gallons of Orange Julius. She fell in love with a funky little number made from what appeared to be someone’s ready-for-the-trash-can jeans. The top was pretorn and came with its own supply of safety pins conveniently attached. The skirt barely covered her bottom. She had already bought a very rude T-shirt with her own money, so I offered to get her the dress. For a glimpse again of her wacky fashion sense, it seemed a reasonable price to pay.

  By the time we got home, Hugh was already there. This startled Sheila. She had taken the key to my apartment from me to open the door and clearly had not expected to find someone on the other side. She screamed in surprise and ran back into the hall where I was.

  Hugh, the eternal joker, waited until Sheila and I came through the door. Then he took one look at her, threw his arms up and gave an identical startled scream and ran off into the bedroom.

  Sheila’s jaw dropped. “God, who’s he?”

  “I’m a burglar. Go away,” came a little voice from the bedroom.

  “Is this for real?” she asked.

  “That’s Hugh,” I said with enough exasperation in my voice to let him know we’d just about had enough.

  Hugh appeared around the corner with a little floral hat I’d worn to a wedding the previous week perched on his head, but his expression funereal. “Yes,” he said, bringing his voice way down into a deep double bass, “I’m Torey’s friend, Hugh.”

  Sheila’s eyes had widened to the very edges of her face. “And I thought Jeff was bad,” she murmured. “God, Torey, where do you find them?”

  The evening was delightful. Sheila spent hours in the bathroom getting ready. She kitted herself out in her new clothes, rude T-shirt and all, and then helped herself liberally to my makeup. Afterward Hugh took us out to a Japanese restaurant where the chef, wielding his knife with artistic precision, prepared our meal right at the table. Sheila, who had never used chopsticks, fumbled and laughed and fumbled again, repeatedly dropping food into her lap. In normal circumstances, Sheila was not inclined toward humor. Her dignity, her sense of self were still too fragile to stand up to hearty laughter. However, on this particular evening she was able to see the funny side of her clumsy efforts and, more crucially, able to tolerate and even join in with Hugh’s silly remarks. Indeed, Hugh’s comments were so absurd that soon all three of us were convulsed with hilarity to the point that Sheila was not the only one unable to work chopsticks.

  Afterward we took in a science-fiction movie. Hugh bought us a humongous container of popcorn and then sat between Sheila and me so we could share it. While waiting for the film to begin, the two of them amused themselves throwing popcorn into the air and trying to catch it in their mouths. I was starting to feel just a little uncomfortable with all this merriment, because I could sense we were getting on other people’s nerves and I was worried that someone might complain. Yes, we better settle down, Hugh acknowledged. In a rare display of affection, Sheila clutched hold of Hugh’s arm and pressed against him in a half-hug.

  That evening after Hugh had left, Sheila and I sorted out our sleeping arrangements in my apartment. She was getting the couch in the living room and I pulled the back cushions off to make it roomier.

  “Was he high on something?” Sheila asked, as we worked.

  “Who? Hugh? No, he’s always like that.”

  “Wow.” She paused to straighten the sheet over the cushions. “You’re sure he’s not high? He doesn’t, like, take something and you don’t know about it?”

  “No. That’s just Hugh,” I replied. “I think it’s one of the things that attracts me to him so much. I love a good laugh.”

  She nodded. “I guess I never knew people could be like that if they weren’t high. Or drunk or something. I didn’t know you could make yourself so happy.”

  Once Sheila was settled on the couch, I got ready for bed myself. I cleaned up, said good night and then disappeared into my bedroom. It was quite late and I was tired, so within moments of turning out the light, I was asleep.

  I awoke with a start. The room was dark. Turning to see my bedside clock, I noticed it was only about an hour and a half after I’d gone to bed and I had that hair-raising sensation of no longer being alone in the room. Rolling over in the bed, I raised myself up. “Sheila?” I whispered into the darkness.

  For a moment or two there was no response, then she stepped out of the shadows by the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “What are you doing?”

  She didn’t answer immediately, so I reached to turn on the light. “Don’t!” she pleaded, so I didn’t.

  I leaned over the side of the bed to see that her blanket from the couch was on the floor. She came forward and lay her pillow down on top of it.

  “What are you doing?” I asked again.

  “I can’t sleep.” Her voice was small and childlike. “It’s strange out there. I’m not much used to sleeping all on my own. Angel, like, snores and I’m used to her noise. Do you mind if I’m in here?”

  “I don’t think I snore.”

  She giggled. “That’s all right.”

  Sheila lay down on the floor and pulled the blanket up over her. Silence descended then. Sleepy, I dozed.

  “I liked tonight,” Sheila said softly into the darkness. “I like Hugh. You’re lucky.”

  “Yes.”

  “I had a really good time. That’s about the most I can remember laughing in a long, long time,” she said.

  “Hmmm.”

  “I hope I get a boyfriend like Hugh someday.”

  Dozing, I’m not sure I responded.

  “Tor?”

  I roused myself. “Yes?”

  “Do you really fuck him?”

  “It seems I’ve heard this question before,” I mur
mured. “You seem unusually interested in my love life.”

  “It’s just I can’t picture you doing it.”

  I smiled into the darkness.

  “Actually,” she said, “I’m not sure I want to. It seems so awful to me. I’m not kidding, I’m never going to do it of my own free will.”

  “You might feel very differently when the right boy comes along.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  A quiet interlude followed, a deep, pensive silence, heightened by the darkness. Then at last her voice, “Tor?”

  “Hm?”

  “Do you think I’m ever going to get a boyfriend? I mean, if I won’t do sex with him, will any boy ever want me?”

  “A real boyfriend will love you for much more than sex. And who knows? You might feel differently. It’s a natural part of loving a man—wanting to touch him, wanting him to touch you.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “You’ve had bad experiences, Sheil. Hideous experiences, that a kid just should never have to go through. You’ve been fucked up in the real sense of the word and that’s tragic. But this isn’t fucking, not this natural feeling. It is love; it’s part of love, and you can tell that, because when it happens, it makes you feel happy.”

  The conversation drifted away then. I had the sense of a thinking silence again, and then, just silence. Settling back into my covers, I closed my eyes.

  “I hope he’s like Hugh. Funny like him,” she said.

  “Yes, I hope so too. Hugh’s good.” A pause. “Now, I hate to be a party pooper, but it’s very late. We’ll feel like sheep vomit tomorrow morning if we don’t go to sleep.”

  A chuckle from down on the floor. Then silence.

  Then her voice again, soft in the darkness. “You know what this reminded me of, this tonight?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Remember that time with your other boyfriend? What was his name? Chad? Remember when he took you and me out for pizza? This tonight was like then. Fun, like that time was.”

  “You remember that?” I asked, because I distinctly recalled her saying she hadn’t remembered it when she was fourteen.

  “Yeah. Sort of. Well, not every little detail, but what I remember was the feeling. Feeling really happy. Being with you and him and feeling so good. I remember thinking, this is what it must feel like, if you got a real mom and dad.”

  I smiled into the darkness. “Yes; I remember feeling good that night.”

  “It was that way tonight, kind of, too. You know. Kind of a family feeling. Like … well, a belonging feeling.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s nice to feel that way. It’s nice to think that the people you’re with aren’t looking for the first opportunity to open a door and shove you out.”

  Chapter 30

  Dear Mom,

  I was a lot of trouble in those days. That’s probably why you had to do what you did. I think I can understand it, because it was probably the only thing you could do. But I’m a lot better now. Here are my good points:

  1) I can cook

  2) I can do housework really well

  3) I will get a job when I get out of here and earn money

  4) I get mostly A’s at school and so am on the Honor Roll (well, I was on the Honor Roll at my old school. There isn’t one here, but I will be on one, if I go to another school).

  5) I will do what you want now, because I’m old enough to know.

  October came. Knowing I was her only visitor, I continued to see Sheila on a near weekly basis, and her improvement was remarkable over the early part of the fall. She was keen now to earn points in hopes of a Saturday afternoon spent out away from the ranch and Jane reported much improved cooperation during the week. Sheila still eschewed the company of the other youngsters, but this didn’t bother me too much.

  With her father’s parole coming up at the end of the month, plans were afoot for Sheila’s release as well. Jane intended to keep her at the ranch until the middle of November to give Mr. Renstad a chance to get settled. After our last unpleasant parting, I had not talked to Mr. Renstad again and I didn’t know if he realized that I was involved with Sheila yet again. As a consequence, all my information came from Jane. She had already told me that Social Services had made his evidencing some sort of stable lifestyle a prerogative of getting Sheila back; however, in October, Jane said that employment in Broadview had been arranged for him through a prison rehabilitation program and all that was left was finding him a place to live.

  Sheila took all this news and activity fairly calmly. She’d been through it all on at least three previous occasions, and so maintained an “I’ll believe it when I see it” sort of skepticism. And of course, there was another matter.

  “Torey! Torey! Come here.” She motioned excitedly, when I arrived on the Saturday before Columbus Day. Quickly shutting the door to her room behind me when I came in, she bounced over her bed. “Sit down. I want to show you something.”

  I sat.

  Leaning over her bed, Sheila pulled out the under-bed box where she stored all her treasured possessions. She lifted the cardboard lid and extracted a letter. This she pressed to her chest and grinned at me. “Guess what! Guess what this is.” But before I could guess, she thrust it into my hands. “It’s from my mother.”

  I took the letter from her.

  “Remember that ad I put in? You know, in the paper? Well, it worked! She saw it and she’s written me this whole long letter.”

  The letter was long. There must have been ten or twelve pages written on both sides of the paper in a small, scrawled handwriting. I unfolded it, pressing it flat on my knees, and began to read.

  Within the first few paragraphs, my heart sank. There was a strange, desperate note to the writer’s prose. She said she had given up a daughter for adoption and then went on for several pages telling a very convoluted story of emotional problems and abusive marriages.

  “Sheil, I hate to say this, but … I’m not sure this is your mother.”

  “It is. She says the girl was four. I was four,” Sheila replied. “I mean, how many four-year-old girls could this have happened to?”

  “Well, not very many in your exact circumstances, but she doesn’t mention the exact circumstances. And besides, she says ‘give up for adoption.’ What your mother did was not quite what I’d call ‘give up for adoption.’”

  “Yeah, I know, but she was upset,” Sheila countered. “Look how she keeps saying how upset she was. God, it’s, like, wrecked her whole life. And I knew that’s what it would be like. I knew my mom would be so sorry it happened, and she’d want me back, if she only knew where to find me.”

  Lifting my head, I regarded Sheila. I had seen that look so often in her eyes. She could have been six again, for all the poignant vulnerability in her expression. So desperately, she wanted this to be true. I reached my hand out to touch her shoulder, but she pulled back.

  “She says my name is Sheila. She knows that,” she insisted.

  “Lovey …”

  “But she says.”

  “You told her that. Your name was in the advert, wasn’t it?”

  “But she says. Why would somebody lie about something like a name? Why would she want to contact me, if I wasn’t her daughter?”

  “Because sometimes there are people with very bad problems who can’t tell what’s real from what isn’t real,” I replied.

  Anger suddenly flared in her eyes. “That’s me, huh? That’s what you think I am. Crazy. Go ahead, say it, Torey, ’cause that’s what you’re trying to say.”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m referring to her, this woman who’s written this, not you. I think she wants you to be her daughter. I think she may even believe you are, but you aren’t.”

  “I am! That’s my mom. I know it is. Read the whole letter. You’ve just read a few pages. She talks about Jimmie in there. She talks about him and about my having four more brothers too. Younger brothers, ’cause she go
t married again.”

  My shoulders dropped. “But you gave Jimmie’s name in the advert, Sheila. She’s going to know your brother’s name is Jimmie before she even wrote the letter, because you told her yourself.”

  Tears came to her eyes. “You’re just being spiteful. You don’t want me to find my mom.”

  Again, I reached my arms out to her. “Sheila, come on.”

  Struggling to keep her composure, she turned away from me.

  “Sheil, I do want you to find your mom. Nothing would make me happier, simply because I know how happy it would make you; but I don’t want you to get hurt even worse than you have been. And I’m so afraid that’s what’s going to happen here.”

  “Go away.”

  “Sheil …”

  “Go away. Go on. I don’t want to see you this weekend. Just go away.”

  No little “Dear Mom” notes came to me during that week, and when I came the following weekend, Sheila said no more about the letter. She wasn’t her usual friendly self, so I could tell I had wounded her badly in the disagreement and she was still keeping her distance. I felt it would be unwise to introduce the issue myself, and felt I would get further by simply being warm and supportive and waiting for her to make the next move. We chatted pleasantly enough. Most of the conversation centered around her preparations for leaving the ranch. Sheila was going to be changing from the small, self-contained school room at the ranch to a large Broadview high school, and she was curious about what kind of curriculum would be offered. We discussed the merits of various courses of study and I mentioned the advantages of selecting a curriculum that would enhance her college placement.

  This was the first time the subject of Sheila’s life after graduation had been raised. She was now a senior and such decisions should have been looming large, but I had thus far never been included in many conversations regarding her academic future. This was partly because school was the one area where Sheila seemed to be managing well on her own, and partly because Sheila’s present was so chaotic that it was hard to divert any attention to considering her future. To my shock, Sheila stated that she had no intention whatsoever of going to college after she graduated.