Juno's Daughters

by Lise Saffran

Arm in arm on the deck and draped in whatever clean clothing they could find, they made a curious picture against the gray sky and tree-covered ridges. The wind whipped their long hair around their faces. They stood silently and watched the diving birds. As the temperature dropped each fall, the gulls, ducks, auklets, and grebes became desperate to get their fill of the Pacific herring moving through the Sound in huge schools. The auks had short, strong wings, and they dove down into a bait ball, filling their beaks with silver fish and driving the others to the surface for the gulls. Their calls filled the air.

  Smoke was rising from the chimneys of the houses tucked away in the trees on the islands they passed. Pleasure craft and fishing boats rocked in their moorings. The stands of trees were shadowed in the mist. Out on the deck with the water crashing against the hull and the waves reaching out to touch the private coves on the smaller islands, the city seemed remote indeed. It was not a dream exactly, but something far, far away.

  When the boat passed Lopez Island and entered the narrow channel to San Juan, the engine slowed and the rough wind grew gentler.

  “We should go and get in the truck,” said Jenny. She gave both girls’ arms a slight tug.

  Frankie pulled away. “Not yet.”

  Jenny sighed. She leaned against the railing and watched Friday Harbor come into focus. The rows of boats. The walkway along the water dotted with restaurants and shops. The commercial life of the town lay hidden behind the hill rising behind the terminal, where cars were waiting to board the ferry: Mary Ann’s antique store, the wine bar, the grocery, the gas station, the bookstore. Their home.

  Lilly narrowed her eyes and leaned over the railing to get a better look. “Is that Phinneas?”

  Jenny followed her gaze. “On the dock?”

  “Nu-uh. There.” Lilly pointed at a tall thin figure in a long flapping coat.

  “You’re right.” Jenny stared ahead as the boat slowly drew closer. “He’s not alone, either. Chad’s with him. And Sally.”

  Lilly pulled her hair back and tied it with a bandanna. “Dale and Peg are there, too. Hey, I think that’s even Stu Barnes.”

  They got closer and Jenny could see still more people whom she recognized: Winifred Calloway and the Burtons from Waldron. David. She did not see Mary Ann and knew, without a moment’s doubt, that it was because she was in the cabin waiting for them.

  Frankie turned and pressed her face against Jenny’s chest. “They’re all going to be so mad at me.”

  Jenny grabbed Frankie’s shoulders and held her away from her body so that she could see her face. “What are you talking about? Why?”

  “For causing so much trouble.” Frankie would not meet her mother’s eyes.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Lilly. “They love drama. Especially Dale and Peg.”

  “They love you,” said Jenny. “They’ll be relieved that you’re home safe.” She pulled Frankie back into her arms, both to comfort her and because she could not say the word safe while looking at the scabs and bruising on her daughter’s face.

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone, okay?” Frankie’s hand moved to her damaged face. “I don’t want them to see me.”

  Jenny touched her lips to the top of Frankie’s head. “But they want …”

  “Please?”

  “Okay.” Jenny rubbed her back. “I’ll tell them. Let’s go inside.”

  They walked single file through the warm air of the interior to the windowless stairs that led below deck. Other passengers were already behind the wheels of their cars and waiting for the boat to dock. Frankie curled up into a ball on the seat between Jenny and Lilly and put the hoodie over her head like a tent. Light flooded the passageway around the cars and the uniformed crew member, a woman with her brown hair in a ponytail, waived first the bicyclists, then the motorists, off the boat. David saw Jenny’s truck first and jogged toward it, with the others following. Jenny pulled out of the line of cars and stepped out to meet him, with the engine running and the two girls inside.

  He pulled her to him in a bear hug. “You’ve got Lilly, too,” he said, waving at her.

  Jenny said, “Only for a while.”

  The others crowded around her, reaching out and rubbing her hair and her back until she began to feel like the Buddha that had once stood in the Westcott Bay Sculpture Park, worn smooth from so many hands. Except that it was she who had been blessed by them, she thought, and not the other way around.

  “Thank God, Jen.”

  “We were so worried.”

  “How is she?”

  Jenny shoved her hands in her pockets. “Exhausted.”

  Phinneas started toward the truck. “I bet she is.”

  Jenny reached out and grabbed his arm. “Wait.”

  “What?” Phinneas turned. His hair under the knit cap was growing long and his pointed beard stretched almost to the round collar of his sweater. His eyes were bright with alarm.

  “She doesn’t want to see anyone right now. She just wants me to take her home.”

  The last of the cars leaving the ferry climbed the hill past the knot of people and the idling truck. Jenny stood in the center of the circle, just steps from her children, and watched anger and worry and sadness spread like cracks through their faces.

  Peg looked toward the truck. “Of course,” she said. “She can have all the time she wants.”

  David kicked at the curb like a small boy, his face awash with confusion and pain. “Is there something …”

  “Let us at least make sure that you get home okay,” interrupted Phinneas.

  Chad added, “I dropped off some halibut and Mary Ann has it in the oven.”

  “We won’t even follow you down the driveway to the house,” said Jim Burton.

  Dale said, “We’ll keep going on Cattle Point.”

  “It will be like an escort,” added Sally.

  Peg nodded. “You can call us if you need us.”

  Jenny looked at each of their faces in turn. “Thank you.”

  Jenny opened the door and climbed up beside her girls. Frankie shifted under the hoodie, but she did not so much as peek out. Jenny watched as her friends found their cars and then she pulled slowly out into First Avenue. One by one they pulled out behind her, following at a respectful distance.

  Lilly turned in her seat to look at the parade of vehicles: a late eighties Honda with mud on the wheel wells, a dented truck, a VW camper van, a Jeep, and a Subaru Outback. She said, “What are they doing? They aren’t all coming home with us, are they?”

  Jenny slowed for their road and put her blinker on. The cars passed them, one by one, on the right.

  Lilly waved out the window and they flashed their lights in return.

  The truck rumbled to a stop at the driftwood log.

  Frankie lifted her head. “Are we home?”

  “Yes, hon. We’re home.” She took in Frankie’s red-rimmed eyes and tousled hair. Her cheeks were rosy from her time spent under the hoodie. “Mary Ann is here.”

  Frankie said, “That’s okay. I don’t mind Mary Ann seeing me.”

  Mary Ann appeared in the doorway. She did not wait for them to unload their things but walked briskly across the path and grass and took Frankie in her arms. She held her tightly. Frankie’s eyes were squeezed shut.

  “Lilly,” said Mary Ann. “Go in the house and set the table.”

  Lilly obeyed without even her customary rolling of the eyes.

  Jenny and Mary Ann stared at each over the top of Frankie’s head. Jenny did not realize how close she was to complete collapse until she looked into the older woman’s eyes. She swayed on her feet. All the lamps were lit in the front room and Lilly was laying forks onto napkins. The kitchen smelled like rice and butter. There was a bowl of salad on the counter and Mary Ann had put a pitcher with daisies on the table. Jenny craned her neck and saw several slices of grilled fish steaming on the broiler pan.

  “Look, Franks. Halibut. Your favorite.”

  “I’m not hungry.�
�� Frankie broke away from Mary Ann and headed straight for her room.

  Jenny started to go after her, but Mary Ann stopped her with a gentle touch to the arm. “Let her rest. You look like you need to eat something.”

  “Hey,” said Lilly, looking beyond Jenny to the porch. “Where’s Mom’s loom?”

  Jenny and Mary Ann both glanced at the empty spot where the loom had stood. The small end table was there with a bowl of water still sitting on it, and a few scraps of yarn littered the floor. Jenny glanced back at Mary Ann and started to say something.

  Mary Ann pulled at a thread on her napkin. “It’s at my house. I know you told me not to be here, but, well, I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it.”

  “Do what?” asked Lilly. She sat down and began loading her plate with salad.

  “It’s okay,” said Jenny. She gave Mary Ann a quick peck on the cheek. “Frankie’s home now.”

  They both knew without saying so that there were circumstances that might have stretched even this friendship to the breaking point.

  Mary Ann handed Lilly a pot of rice to put on the table. “I’ll ask David to bring it back over tomorrow.”

  Jenny let herself be led to the table and seated before a plate of fish, salad, and rice. Mary Ann sat across from her.

  Lilly ripped a piece off the loaf of bread and stuffed a hunk of it in her mouth. “I’m so starving you’d think it was me that lost my cookies on the ride.”

  Jenny reached for the food that Mary Ann had so lovingly prepared. She willed herself to eat it.

  “Trinculo called,” said Mary Ann.

  Jenny stopped chewing. “Andre? When?”

  “His name is Andre?” Lilly rested her elbows on the table and looked at each of the two women in turn. “I can’t believe I didn’t know that was his name after all this time. Even after we …” Her voice trailed off.

  Jenny looked at her sharply.

  Lilly blushed and averted her eyes. “We didn’t do all that much, actually.”

  Mary Ann spread butter on a piece of bread and tucked it next to the rice on Jenny’s plate. “Earlier this afternoon. He said that his phone had been stolen from his apartment and that he had been trying to call you from his friends’ house in Queens.”

  Queens. She remembered the woman’s voice on the answering machine and flushed. Now that she had a chance to put this together with what Lawrence had said about the breakin at Andre’s, she did not need to check a directory to know that 718 would be the area code for Queens.

  Lilly pointed at the untouched piece of fish on her mother’s plate. “Are you going to eat that?”

  Jenny pushed her chair back from the table without answering. She fished in the pocket of her jeans for the phone she had kept there, except for a brief window in the hotel when it was charging, since Frankie had gone missing. Frankie’s silver dolphin charm emerged from the depths of her pocket along with the phone. Jenny considered dropping it into the dish by the door where she kept her keys and then changed her mind. Whatever luck it might have brought them, and they had been lucky indeed, she wanted just a little more.

  She slipped through the door to the porch, scrolling through the missed calls until she found one with the 718 area code. It was the first of four missed calls. She pressed the button, her heart hammering while she waited for an answer. The phone rang once and then twice. With it still pressed against her ear, she crossed the dark garden to the fence that was supposed to keep out the animals. She closed a hole in the chicken wire large enough for a rabbit to slip through.

  “Hello?” It was a different woman’s voice this time.

  “Hi. This is … my name is Jenny Alex …”

  “Oh, Jenny! Marcie and I have heard all about you. Andre’s not here, though. He left this afternoon.”

  “He did?” Jenny’s heart lifted and fell and then lifted again, as if it were a balloon in the hand of a running child. Marcie and Marcie’s companion, this woman on the phone, had heard about her? Andre was gone?

  “Sure. He’s on his way.”

  Jenny straightened. “On his way where?” She turned to look at the bright windows of her small house. She could see Mary Ann moving in the kitchen. Washing dishes.

  “Well, out to Washington State. At least that’s what I thought.” The woman held the phone away from her mouth. “Dre went back out to Washington, didn’t he?” she called to someone in the room.

  Jenny heard a muffled response and then the first woman’s voice speaking back into the phone. “Yeah. That’s where he went. His plane was going to leave about six o’clock.”

  “Thank you.” Alone in the moonlight, Jenny pulled a sunflower toward her as if it were a person and kissed it square in the middle of its yellow face.

  When Jenny came back through the door she found Mary Ann holding her plate out to her again. Lilly had eaten the fish, but her rice and salad remained untouched.

  The older woman urged, “You should eat something. It will help you sleep.”

  Jenny took the plate, although eating was the furthest thing from her mind. “Andre’s on his way out here.”

  Mary Ann said, “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  Jenny smiled. “I can’t help it. He’ll probably arrive sometime tomorrow morning.”

  Lilly walked by carrying a glass of orange juice. “Precisely when all the hard work has been done.”

  Mary Ann and Jenny both watched her disappear into her room.

  “That gives you plenty of time to get some rest,” said Mary Ann.

  Jenny shook her head. “I won’t sleep.”

  “Yes,” said Mary Ann. “You will. Because …” She went into the kitchen and returned with an open bottle of wine and a water glass. “You are going to drink.” She poured the glass half full and set it before Jenny on the table with such force that the yellow liquid sloshed.

  Jenny took a sip, then a gulp. “What if Frankie gets up in the night?”

  “I’ll be here,” said Mary Ann.

  Jenny took another large pull on her wine and then, suddenly dizzy, she took a small bite of rice. Mary Ann watched her take a few more bites and then drink the rest of the wine like a nurse watching a patient take her medicine. Then Jenny stumbled into bed.

  The morning sun was bright on her face when Jenny awoke and she was sweating under a heavy quilt. She padded into the kitchen in her socks to find Mary Ann sitting in the armchair by the door with her eyes closed. When she was awake the brightness of her friend’s eyes and her easy smile distracted Jenny from the lines spreading over her face. Mary Ann’s hair was more gray than blond now, Jenny could see, and the grooves alongside her mouth and etched into her forehead were thick and deep. She tiptoed to Frankie’s room and inched the door open. The shock of black hair visible on the pillow and the curled lump underneath the blanket reassured her that her younger child was still asleep. She glanced at the clock on the mantle and saw that it was already eleven-fifteen. From the hallway she could see that Lilly’s door was ajar. Both her bed and her room were empty.

  There was coffee on the counter, though the pot was cool. Jenny poured the coffee into a saucepan and turned on the burner. She pulled the milk from the refrigerator and noticed that there was a bowl with milk and a few soggy cornflakes sitting in the sink.

  “How do you feel?”

  Jenny turned to find Mary Ann’s eyes open. The older woman’s head was still back against the top of the chair and her legs were stretched out over the footrest.

  Jenny stirred the coffee with a wooden spoon. “Where’s Lilly?”

  “In town.”

  “I don’t know why I even bothered to ask.” She reached for a mug and tipped the saucepan to pour the coffee into it. “Frankie’s been sleeping for over fourteen hours.”

  “She was up for a while.”

  Jenny carried her coffee to the table and turned her chair to face Mary Ann. “When?”

  “At about midnight. We sat and talked. I made her some warm milk with honey in it. Then she
went back to sleep.”

  “What did she say?” Jenny sipped her coffee.

  “I heard most of the story, I think. How she handed her backpack to some boy and he ran off with it. She talked about this group of kids, Tinker Bell and Rash. A boy named Lightning. She says this Pyro character was diagnosed with some kind of illness, occasional explosive syndrome or something like that, and thrown out of his house when he was fourteen.”

  Jenny snorted. “Syndrome or not, he was a violent, aggressive jerk.”

  Mary Ann added softly, “He wanted to have sex with her and hit and kicked her when she said no.”

  “Jesus.” Jenny thought of the bruises on Frankie’s hip and felt her stomach turn. She remembered how she had stood over a sleeping Pyro and it was all she could do not to wail out loud for having missed her chance to do him harm. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  Mary Ann sighed. “You’re her mother. She wants to protect you.”

  “I wanted to protect her, too.” Jenny pushed the heels of her palms against her eyes. “And I ended up doing a fine job with that, didn’t I?”

  “She got away, Jen. Little Frankie fought back and got away.”

  Jenny chewed her lip. “She made excuses for him,” she said. She met Mary Ann’s eyes and wondered if the older woman could see her panic. “The police officer kept telling her that whatever happened wasn’t her fault, but I could tell that she didn’t believe a word of it.”

  “Maybe you have to believe it, too,” said Mary Ann gently.

  Jenny straightened. “How could I possibly think it was her fault? She’s a child.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Jenny stared at her hands. How well she could remember standing on Mary Ann’s doorstep all those years ago with her children and her life and little else and finding herself fully taken in by that gaze. Those green eyes in the face of her friend had been her salvation once. She forced herself to look up. “What do you mean?”

  Mary Ann’s face softened. “What I mean is that maybe you have to believe it. Maybe in order for Frankie to forgive herself you have to show her how to do it. You have to believe, you know, that it’s not your fault.”

  Jenny buried her face in her hands. She was not, it had to be said, Juno. Whatever powers she possessed were of the distinctly human kind. “I don’t know,” she said in a very small voice. “I don’t know if I can do that.” She did not need Mary Ann to tell her that for Frankie’s sake, and for her own, she had to try.