A Katherine Reay Collection

by Katherine Reay

  There were about three other homes after that, but I was barely present. I had learned to hide well. I don’t mean to sound breezy about all this, but I actually don’t recall much outside the deep aloneness I felt when I was apart from my books. I tore pages out of some of my favorites and carried them around in my pockets.

  Maybe that’s why there were so many homes. I assumed no one could ever love me, but I didn’t give anyone much of a chance, did I? I would arrive, everyone hoping for the best, and then a few months later DCFS would get the call. “Sam has failed to connect again. Sam has failed again . . .”

  Then one day another call came. My mother had passed the reinstatement tests, and I was going home. Home? In the seven years we’d been apart, she had never contacted me, not once. Yet she worked to pass her tests and now wanted me back? I didn’t even recognize her when she came to pick me up. Nothing about her touched any feeling inside me.

  How did she fool them? That’s one question that still plagues me. Within weeks of my moving home, my mother was drugged out and incapable of caring for me. I played parent and went to school when I could. That’s when I found the library. I volunteered to shelve books one day, and the staff sort of adopted me and “paid” me with food and gifts of clothing. I loved it there.

  Then, about a year later, my father got released from prison. He’d been arrested that fateful day for armed robbery and assault, but with good behavior and early parole, he was back.

  My mother was happy. She hadn’t been alone—a line of men passed through our apartment weekly—but once he walked in the door, it was all about him. I called Mr. Petrusky over and over and begged to be moved.

  The last time we spoke he said, “Sam, you’ve got a mom and a dad and a roof over your head. That’s better than many.”

  But I couldn’t be in the same room with my father without fear choking me and sweat dripping down my back. I couldn’t breathe—physically couldn’t breathe. I learned to avoid the apartment, but when he expected me and I was late, he hit me.

  “Just a reminder, Sammy-girl,” he would whisper. “I’m boss here. You think you’re so smart, but I’m the boss here. Aren’t I, Sammy-girl?” Just writing that nickname, Sammy-girl, makes me want to vomit.

  The end came a month before my fifteenth birthday. My father came home and grabbed me by the arm. Without a word, he pulled me down the stairs and around to the alley. He shoved me into a group of greasy men. They were small and had hard eyes; they scared me more than all my father’s size and brawn.

  “Here she is. We square?”

  The tallest of the three grabbed me with one hand and felt me up and down with the other.

  “She ain’t worth a nickel.”

  Another sneered, “You owe me a dime, Joe.”

  “She’s worth more than a grand. She cooks, cleans . . . ,” my father begged the leader, who stepped back to appraise me. “She’s old enough, Fish. You can use her.”

  I knew “use her” had only one meaning, no matter when or where it’s said. I looked at him, but he avoided my eyes.

  “You’ll make at least a hundred a pop. We good now?” He nodded like it was done. Fish nodded back.

  The first guy was still holding me with only one hand. I twisted with all my might and wrenched his wrist backwards and I ran. I heard shouting and footsteps behind me, but I was fast. Within two blocks, I lost them. Within twenty, I lost me.

  I lived on the streets for a couple months before a cop found me. I was too tired and hungry to run, so I bit him. Detective Huber hoisted me over his shoulder and took me to Father John at Grace House without even processing me into the system. And there I remained—excluding my three-month venture with Cara and my few months at Ernst & Young—living without really living. Even the news of my parents’ deaths didn’t faze me: my father got shot somehow and my mother overdosed. Father John thought I’d feel safer knowing the truth about them, especially my father. But he didn’t realize they couldn’t hurt me anymore. Nothing could touch me.

  Only people in books had any appeal for me, and it’s been like that ever since. Dr. Wieland had me on an intense talk-therapy routine for a couple years, and I’ll admit it helped. He’s a good man, and talking eased some of the pain. But the characters remained. I needed them.

  Not anymore.

  They can’t save me. They certainly can’t write for me. Heck, they don’t even show up like they used to. And when they do, they don’t fit inside comfortably. They jar me and leave me feeling even more disconnected and alone. But without them, who am I?

  Did you think you were helping someone worthy? Mrs. Conley might kick me out if she knew. Wouldn’t you? Her children are so innocent and trusting. And I’m a mess. I can’t be good for them. And that girl today . . . I wasn’t good for her. Seven bucks isn’t going to help her, and I, of all people, should have done more.

  I looked for her after I came out of Starbucks. I did that, at least. As I searched, I wondered about what I’ve become. I feel like Dorian Gray. He sold his soul for external beauty, and his face remained young, unlined and perfect. Only his portrait, hidden in an attic, displayed the horror and depravity of his life. I’m no better than he. My insides feel so horrid. But that’s not what I want or who I want to be.

  Isabella Conley gave me a book a few weeks ago with the most haunting and beautiful passage I’ve ever read. I found a character in it that offered me, not just understanding, but hope. But I don’t know what to do with it.

  The book is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis. There’s this boy, Eustace, a perfectly pugnacious little twerp, who turns into a dragon while thinking greedy, dragonish thoughts. But once Eustace recognizes his true state, as a real dragon, he starts to behave more kindly. He strives to change. But it’s too late and he’s too far gone. He can’t do it. He can’t tear off the dragon skin.

  Only Aslan, this amazingly huge and glorious lion, holds that power. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.

  But I’m still under that skin. It suffocates me, chokes me, and is killing me. There’s no Aslan in the real world, so there’s no hope. Mrs. Muir would say I’m wrong. She says there is hope in God and hope in Christ. They’ve invited me to dinner weekly since Thanksgiving and, during each meal, she drops hints and hope like bread crumbs for me to follow. But I can’t see it. I just feel swallowed by darkness.

  I promise to write at least once more when I figure out what to do. This isn’t your problem though, Mr. Knightley. Even a lovely apartment and new clothes can’t dress this up.

  Thank you for everything. You gave me my best shot. I’m the one who failed.

  I hate to do it, but I need to call Father John. He always has good advice, and I need some of that right now.

  Sincerely,

  Sam

  JANUARY 5

  Dear Mr. Knightley,

  I’m still here. After my last letter, I should have written sooner. I’m sorry if I worried you. Father John said it was disrespectful not to contact you immediately when I got to Grace House, but I was pretty hurt and depressed. I’m better now.

  First of all, belated Merry Christmas. I forgot that detail in my last wallow. Thank you so much for the beautiful book. I love North and South, but have never owned a copy. I inhaled it this weekend. Margaret Hale and John Thornton. Working class vs. gentry. Hopes and dreams. And the idea of one last fight—a final go at all that matters. It had me crying. It resonates more deeply now, which is part of my second point . . .

  It’s been a packed two weeks. Poor Henry Conley found me in my apartment Christmas morning, doubled over on the floor, sweating and moaning. I don’t remember that part. I do remember waking up in the hospital following an emergency appendectomy.

  After surgery, the doctors refused to release me to
my apartment alone, so I called Father John and went to Grace House. He thought I was coming to simply recover. But I was back for good—at least for as long as he’d let me stay.

  Kyle knew. I don’t know how, but he knew.

  “You ain’t comin’ back here.” He stormed into Independence Cottage within minutes of my arrival.

  “My options are limited, Kyle. Let me figure it out.” I unpacked my small duffel, feeling defeated and still in pain.

  “Your options are endless if you fight.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yeah, it is. What are you scared of? This ain’t the girl who whipped me ’round the track and you ain’t the girl who don’t let me quit.”

  “It’s ‘isn’t,’ ‘aren’t,’ and ‘doesn’t.’ At least use correct grammar.” I had a small spark left.

  “Make me. Show me what you’re made of.”

  “I’m not made of much, Kyle. Haven’t you figured that out?” Spark gone.

  He sat down, deflated. “So all that crap you told me was just that, huh? Crap. We don’t deserve no better. We can’t break through and find someplace to thrive? That’s what you keep saying, isn’t it, that we can ‘thrive’? It means more than grow. I thought it meant happiness.”

  “I still believe that . . . for you.” I started crying. Will I ever stop crying?

  “But not for you?” he asked.

  My jaw dropped. It was true. Not for me. I’d never felt such loss, as I realized that all my dreams were gone. I couldn’t pick up the pieces of a single one.

  His voice softened as he continued, “What does it take to get you there?”

  “I don’t know,” I cried. “Kyle, I don’t know. There’s all this inside me: shame, lies, and fear. It has filled me up and there’s no room for anything good and bright. I used to bury it and hide it away. It doesn’t work anymore and I can’t sleep. I can’t eat . . .”

  “Get it out.”

  “How?” I looked at him as if he held all the answers, and I sincerely hoped he did.

  “Write it. No lies. Only truth.” He crossed the room and tossed me my laptop. “I want to tell you about the Hoffmans.”

  I held the computer. “Am I to write something?”

  “Type what I say.”

  He sat on the bed as I moved to the desk and opened the laptop. He started talking, not to me, just talking. I typed.

  “The first night I arrived at their house, Mrs. Hoffman made a huge spaghetti dinner and told Brian to clean the kitchen. I was the guest that night. When he came up ’round midnight, I was still awake. He looked hard at me and said, ‘I’m sorry you’re here.’ I thought he was a jerk. It took me a couple days to get it . . .”

  Kyle talked and I typed. Later that night, something he said struck me, and I shared a nugget from my past.

  “Mr. Putman used to do that to me. He’d pull my hair to drag me across a room. It hurt, but never left a mark.”

  “Lots of stuff don’t leave marks.”

  “And did you know . . .” Soon there was no form or structure. We shared tidbits, whole horrors, and food Hannah brought from Grace House’s kitchen. She was wise enough to never say a word.

  I kept typing and recorded almost every line of our two-day conversation. There was no hiding, no pretending. At the end, he looked at me exhausted and wide-eyed—we’d stopped only for a little sleep in over thirty hours.

  “I’m done with that, Sam.”

  “Me too. I can’t live there anymore. Where do we go now?”

  “I don’t know.” Kyle looked so young. It was like his childhood came back to him. He’s just a fourteen-year-old kid and now he looked it.

  Kyle didn’t know where to go next, but I did. I had the beginnings of an article that needed to be edited into my final project for Johnson: the 5,000-word feature due January 14.

  Kyle and I had gotten all this out and, to start our road to freedom, we needed to fling it far. If Johnson wanted passion, this was it. If I wanted to stretch, here was my chance. If I wanted to live, here was my lifeline. And, without doubt, here was my voice.

  “Can I use it? For school?”

  “You want to hand this in for a grade?” Kyle’s eyes rounded with shock.

  I understood. This is not what anyone would submit to a high school English teacher.

  “Something like that. It’d be a newspaper article. Like the features we read in the Tribune on the weekends, but this won’t get published. It’s for my professor.”

  “You need it?”

  “I do.”

  He was silent for a moment. Emotions played across his face. And rather than beg, I stayed silent too. It was a big decision. His decision. This was raw stuff—this was his life. Kyle took a deep breath and caught my eyes. “You can have it.”

  Rather than think about it, and let fear stop us, Kyle and I committed. We started editing our lives and thoughts down to the essentials: what we survived, what we feared most and loved best, what we felt others needed to see, and what we knew we could no longer carry. It took us a week of nonstop work. I couldn’t even stop to write and tell you what we were doing. If I had left that place of purging, I might have quit.

  Not Kyle. Once he committed, he was all in. He hounded me constantly. “No, Sam, that’s not how that feels and you know it. Tell it right or stop.”

  The honesty he demanded scared me. I don’t know what drove him, but I think he did it for me. Maybe that’s what love is—sacrificing yourself to save another, taking the insult or taking the hit. Kyle did that. His story was so raw in places that I stopped typing. He heard the silence and glared at me. “Can’t take it, Sam? That’s why we’re here. Keep going.” And he was the same with my story. “Keep typing what happened. The Putmans locked you in a closet. You gotta feel something.”

  “Of course I felt something. It was horrible. I felt subhuman, you know? I mattered less than their dog.”

  “I know . . .”

  I don’t think that either of us has ever cried so much in our lives. We gave up on day two trying to hide tears from each other. And eight days later we had it: our lives compressed and edited into 5,000 words that I prayed would push us forward. It wasn’t the Christmas break either of us anticipated, but maybe it was the best we’ve ever had.

  And I’m proud of it. I’m proud of us. This is the first honest and powerful thing I’ve ever done. And to share that with Kyle was amazing. Neither of us could have done this without the other. I felt us change during the week. Kyle’s shadows drifted a bit, and his whole demeanor took on more boldness and confidence.

  And me? I feel stronger and lighter. The tight dragon skin is thinner. Perhaps even peeled back in places. Peace is creeping into my thoughts. And I’m sleeping. The nightmares come with less urgency and force, and I’m able to wake myself up. I can’t tell you how good that feels.

  I took the Metra north to the Muirs’ yesterday afternoon. They’d left for Florida before Christmas and didn’t know about my appendix. Mrs. Muir was devastated she hadn’t been here to help. She insisted I come to them for the weekend, and I knew it was time to come clean.

  I started my story as we sat around the kitchen table eating chocolate cake. Mrs. Muir got up (still listening) to get us milk. She does that. When the professor and I start on something serious, she gets up and makes tea or cookies or putters nearby. At first, during Thanksgiving, I thought she did it to avoid our discussions, but now I think she does it to give space. It diverts attention, thereby freeing the conversation. Or maybe it’s to offset the professor. He never gives space.

  At one point last night he leaned across the table—fork paused in front of his mouth—and focused his hawkish eyes on mine for about two minutes. He didn’t breathe and the fork didn’t move. I looked at my plate and pushed cake bits around while my mouth blabbed on. I was too scared to look up. Until you and Kyle, I’ve never shared my story. It’s not the world’s “normal,” and I still fear judgment. Most days I feel cast off, dirty, a
nd not worthy. Won’t others feel the same about me?

  I found that sticking to the facts was the easiest approach. I could have been reciting a grocery list for all the emotion I revealed. The professor caught that and responded in kind. He wanted to know everything and demanded new facts, new details.

  “Why did they return you to your mother? Why didn’t she lose rights to you?”

  “I had a social worker, Ms. Saunders, who said just that. She vehemently protested my return, but Mom passed the tests, and the state believes that the maternal bond should be upheld. And she seemed stable.”

  “What did Ms. Saunders do?”

  “She was removed from my case. She said they wouldn’t let her stay because her opinions were ‘counterproductive.’ That’s when Mr. Petrusky took over.”

  “They stole your single advocate? What did Petrusky do?” The professor leaned so far forward that Mrs. Muir put a hand on his arm. Chagrined, he settled awkwardly back in his chair. He looked like a tiger forbidden to pounce.

  The professor can be critical at times, and his wit is so sharp that it startles me, but I was wrong to believe that any of that comes from a judgmental place. He was very kind and wanted to know everything, not to dissect it, but to share it. Once I understood that, my fear vanished, and we talked long and comfortably into the night and finished off the cake, a roasted chicken, and tons of salad.

  As we headed to bed, Mrs. Muir prayed for me. No one has ever done that before. Sure, the Muirs made references while saying grace during my weekly dinners, but this prayer was only for me. As we got up from the table, she came over and hugged me. She then prayed that I would feel safe and loved forever, and that God would take away my pain and leave strength and compassion. Sometime during the prayer, I felt the professor’s hand rest on my other shoulder.

  Part of me wanted to back away at the end and quip, “That was nice, but He doesn’t pay attention to me.” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I want so badly to believe that God cares, that all this matters to Him, that all this pain has a purpose and that none of it tarnishes me forever. That longing is there, and a single word last night might have blown it away.