The Circle Game

by Tanya Nichols

  “What?”

  “Your husband. You said he was in Vietnam; how long has he been gone?”

  “Uh, six months, I think.” Her mom would spray the air with her perfume then walk through it. Juicy wondered where she’d learned that trick. Who taught her to just spray the air and walk through the mist of flowery scent?

  “So, has he even seen his daughter? Or was he already gone when she was born? She was born, in May, wasn’t it? That’s just five months ago—a bit longer than the time he’s been gone.”

  Damn it, Juicy thought, again pulling herself back to the sterile hospital room and the nightmare she was living. She should have said two months or three months, anything but six months. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Now there would just be more to explain. “Oh, yeah, he saw her, he left right after she was born, so maybe he’s been gone five months. That’s right, you see, I’m not thinking right, I’m so tired. It’s the medicine they gave me. Can’t we do this tomorrow? I’m supposed to rest.” She closed her eyes and prayed the woman would just leave, but she didn’t.

  “Is he in the Army? Navy? Marines?”

  “Uh huh, Marines.” She kept her eyes closed, wishing she could fall asleep and avoid these pestering questions. She wasn’t in any condition to be making up answers. She wanted to sleep and dream of White Shoulders and the days before Freddie, when the biggest lie she told was that her homework was done so she could go to the drive-in with her friends.

  “Well, I’m sure it’s not easy for you—being a single parent while he’s away.”

  Juicy didn’t answer.

  “You don’t have anyone to help you?”

  “No, it’s just me.”

  “You said you lived in Bakersfield. Do you mind me asking why you would live there if you don’t know anybody there? Was your husband stationed somewhere near there?”

  “Yes, he’s stationed there.”

  “Hmmm. That’s interesting.”

  Juicy felt trapped, pinned down by an IV line and suffocated by the nosy social worker. “Do you mind if we do this tomorrow? Please, I need to sleep.”

  “Linda, I’ll be honest. I’m not so sure that it was a stranger that did this to you. I don’t mean to harass you; I’m just trying to make sure that baby downstairs with the broken arm and scraped up face will be taken care of properly. Like I said, it’s my job to look out for her best interests. The doctors and nurses will take care of you, and the police will find whoever did this to you. It’s just, there are many things that don’t make sense to me. Why isn’t there anyone you want us to contact about your condition? Are you protecting someone? And why can’t you remember where you left your car, or what road you were driving on, or what kind of car your kidnapper was driving—and, I may be wrong, but I don’t know of a marine base in Bakersfield. And this is probably the most troubling thing for me; why did both you and Ginny smell of alcohol? The blood results aren’t back, and you may have a good answer, but these are all causes for worry. Maybe I’m overly suspicious, but I’m wondering if there isn’t more to the story than what you’re telling.”

  “Why do you care? I didn’t do this to myself, and I certainly didn’t hurt my baby.” Juicy was scared. This was not going as she had planned.

  “I care because if it is someone you know, like maybe a husband or boyfriend, it might, and probably will, happen again. Next time it might be more than a broken arm that your baby suffers.”

  She shook her head slowly and wiped her eyes. “There won’t be a next time.”

  “How do you know that?” Isabelle again let her fingers grace the injured girl’s forehead, extending her touch, offering a gentle hand.

  “I just do.”

  “Look, if you want to tell me about it, it will just be between us. I won’t tell anyone else. I promise.”

  There was a kindness in her voice, something Juicy hadn’t felt in a very long time, and she smelled like White Shoulders. Such a sweet smell, pretty and light. When she was small, her mother would stroke her hair like that.

  “I just want to help you. You can trust me.”

  “But you can’t,” was all Juicy could mutter, her words fading into the sterile air.

  “Linda, trust me,” Isabelle repeated. “I really can help you.” She played with the loose strands of Juicy’s hair, slowly, patiently. “Let me help you, dear.”

  “I don’t need your help. I just need to get out of here. I just want to go home.” She pulled her head to the side, trying to pull away from the woman’s soothing touch.

  “We all need help now and then. There’s no shame in that. It’s my job to help people in trouble, and I’m pretty certain you’re in trouble. Maybe I could arrange for housing, transportation, medical care for the baby. She’ll need medical care after leaving here.” Isabelle shifted her focus to the girl’s slim fingers, gently stroking the back of the fingers, back and forth, softly.

  “She has a doctor.”

  “Who is that? Maybe I can get in touch with him. It would help to get her records and we need to send him the records of her care here. He’ll need to know about her injuries, document his file.”

  “He’s in Bakersfield. Can you please come back later? I’m too tired to talk.” Juicy was too nervous and emotional to keep up with all the lies she was telling to answer any more of the prying woman’s questions.

  “Sure, I can come back later, but…” she held the tips of Juicy’s fingers in her hand, a gentle, but firm, grasp, like a mother with her small child. “I’m afraid that until I get some better answers, I’m going to have to take some precautions with Ginny.” Her tone grew sterner, changing her to an annoyed mother chastising a rebellious teen. “You see, Linda, I think you’re keeping secrets and I can’t let that baby go while I have these suspicions about her welfare. It would be better if you would just talk to me, tell me the truth. I can help you and Ginny, but only if you let me.”

  The woman reached up again to lightly brush strands of hair from Juicy’s forehead, her fingertips barely touching the tender skin. She stroked the girl’s hair and whispered gently, “You’re safe now. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Let me help you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Oh, but you can. You need to think of that little girl, what’s best for her. You can’t just think of yourself now. You’re not in any trouble with the law—you’re just in a mess. We all find ourselves in messes now and then. I’m very good at getting people out of messes; trust me.”

  “I told you everything.”

  “Linda,” she leaned in closely and whispered in her ear. “I know you’re in trouble. I’m not the police. Let me help you; let me help your baby. All you have to do is talk to me.”

  The Demerol flowed through Juicy’s veins while a crippling helplessness plagued her. Her resolve was weakened, her ability to lie and deceive was crumbling fast. For the first time in weeks, someone was being nice to her, really nice to her, like a mother. She smelled good. Juicy wished her mother had been like this, willing to help, not just condemn. She needed a mother more than ever. She needed someone to care about her. To care about Ginny. As if a truth serum had been injected into the translucent IV line, Juicy began to talk, to place her trust in the hope of White Shoulders and soft hands.

  She cried as she told the woman how she had met Freddie at his sister’s birthday party a couple of years ago, how he’d given her a ride home on his motorcycle, how much she loved him. She told her how things changed once she got pregnant, that he was going to marry her, but now he never would, how he would hardly look at her as she grew bigger with the baby, how angry he would get at the slightest thing. When he got drunk he called her terrible names, like bitch and cunt and whore, but still, he loved her and always made it up to her. And finally, she confessed that Freddie had taken some money from an old paper sack he had hidden in the garage, money that didn’t belong to them. He’d given it to her to pay overdue rent, warned her that it would be bad if he couldn’t replace it before the next ride. She kn
ew whose money it was, and she knew he’d never replace it, but she took the roll of bills and stayed with him, hoping he’d find work, hoping the bad day would never come.

  In the end, Freddie had tricked her into going for a ride, telling her it would do her good to get out for a day, let the baby get fresh air. They ended up at the bar where he gave her over to his dirty friends as payment, lying to them, telling them she’d stolen their money. She should have known better than to go with him that day. He didn’t care if Ginny got out for fresh air; he didn’t love her. She closed her eyes when she told Isabelle Fierro how the men had taken turns with her, and how she hid the baby under the table the whole time. She did what she could. She had protected her baby. She wouldn’t ever let anyone hurt Ginny. She kept her safe. She kept her safe.

  For a moment, there was silence in the room as if the words needed some time to settle down and soak in. Finally, the older woman spoke. “But Ginny did get hurt, didn’t she?”

  “I couldn’t help that,” Juicy whispered, her voice hoarse and weak. “I’d do anything for her. I love her more than anything.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that.” The social worker rose to her feet and paced around the room for a moment, as if she were searching for something. “Linda, I want to offer you a chance to give that baby more than you possibly can at this point, and in the meantime, you can give yourself a second chance, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll be blunt, because I know even now you’re planning to get the hell out of here and I don’t want to have to do something that can be avoided. I think you should consider letting a good family adopt your baby and give her all those good things you want for her. It’s about Ginny, what’s best for Ginny. You’re still just a girl yourself.”

  “I can’t give up my baby. I love her too much. There’s no way. You said . . .” Juicy’s breathing grew labored and her heart pounded in her throat as a crippling fear seized her.

  “Oh, I know how much you love her. That’s why I think you should consider it. It takes the greatest kind of love to sacrifice your role as mother to give your child a better life than you can at this point.”

  Shaking her head from side to side, fueled by fear and rage, Juicy refused the older woman’s proposition. “No, I could never do that. Never.”

  Isabelle continued her case, ignoring Juicy’s agony, ignoring her pain. She prattled on, her words a dissonant chant. “I know a lovely couple who would be happy to give your child a home, the kind of home that child deserves. The husband is a professional man. He makes very good money. His wife works, too. She’s a secretary, but she would be happier with a reason to quit her job and stay home, to give her undivided attention to caring for a baby, to a family. They have a lovely home, two stories, and a nice yard just waiting for a swing set or playhouse. They just don’t have any children, and apparently aren’t able. A child is just the thing they need. You’d be making a family, a real family. You’d be giving the greatest gift possible, not only to the couple who wants children, but to Ginny. You’d be giving her a life and future that, sadly, is one you are not equipped to provide.”

  “But, she’s my baby. Mine.” Frustrated, angry, and frightened yet again by a situation out of her control, Juicy grasped the bed rails and silently prayed for the pushy woman to go away. “I’m her family. I’m her mother. She stays with me.”

  “I know that, dear, and I also know you want what’s best for her. It takes great sacrifice to make a true family. We all have to sacrifice sometimes.”

  Juicy shook her head and rolled over onto her side, turning her back on the woman’s unrelenting efforts to take her baby away, to give her to strangers. The heat of the woman’s hand rested upon her shoulder, a stinging reminder of her lingering presence. With a violent shudder, Juicy jerked her arm away.

  “Wouldn’t you love for Ginny to grow up in a house with a mom and a dad? In a nice home in a nice neighborhood?” The mature woman’s voice stayed calm, oozing with irritating sincerity and compassion. “Can’t you imagine her riding her bike on sunny afternoons, opening piles of presents on Christmas, sleeping safe in her bed in a room of her own, a room with toys and books and a closet full of clothes. Can you give her all that?”

  “Who’s to say I can’t?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’d like to. I just know how hard it is to be a single mother, working all day, up with a baby at night, never enough money, as you know. That is how you ended up here, a lack of funds, right? I also know how often women end up back with the very man who hurt them.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going back there.” She rolled back to face the social worker and met her piercing gaze.

  “Where will you go, then?”

  “I don’t know. Home maybe. To my folks’ home.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize your parents were willing to help you out. Yet you haven’t even called them to come for you? Are they here?”

  “No.”

  “They live back east, you said. Do you want me to call them for you? It might take them a while to get here.” The woman’s needling and prodding was relentless.

  “No. I’ll do it. I just don’t want them to worry.”

  “I’m sure they’d want to know what happened to you.”

  “No.” Again, she avoided the gaze of the woman on her right and focused only on the watercolor that hung on the wall. A river scene with drippy trees and a yellow sky, just how she felt. “I haven’t actually seen them for a while. They don’t know about Ginny, but they will love her. I know it.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “They just hated Freddie.”

  “Uh huh, I think I can see why.”

  Juicy was tired of the questions, eager to be alone so that she could figure out what to do. “Look, I really need to rest now. You need to leave.”

  “Of course, you do. I’ll be back later this evening, after you’ve spoken to the detectives. I won’t tell them what you and I talked about just yet, but I’m sure they’ll have the same questions I had. Probably more.”

  “What if I don’t want to talk to the cops? Do I have to?” If this woman told the cops what happened and they went after Freddie and the guys, she was as good as dead and then what would happen to Ginny?

  “Oh, I don’t think you have much choice in that.” The woman stood and took the girl’s hand in her own one more time. “But if you change your mind, I can probably take care of that for you, too. I’m on pretty good terms with the authorities.”

  “No doubt,” she muttered angrily.

  “Get some rest, Linda.” Juicy flinched as the woman gripped her hand tighter as she leaned in closer, adding, “That’s not your real name, is it?”

  Juicy didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and waited for the smell of White Shoulders to be gone and silently prayed that the freight train pounding through her veins would halt, but the roar of pain and violence rumbled on like a falling echo, spinning and bouncing, refusing to be silenced.

  Nine

  2005

  On Monday, before answering emails and phone calls, Bernie telephoned Joan Bennett to say she’d taken the advice to write a letter to her birth mother. All morning Bernie had weighed her decision, arguing with herself as she showered, reassuring herself as she applied mascara. Simply mailing the letter would not do any harm, she reasoned. There was no commitment by mailing a simple letter. She wasn’t necessarily going to meet her other mother face to face. It was just a short note, the door cracked open, but not enough to get a clear view of what was inside. She could always change her mind later, let it end with that one piece of mail. By the time she backed her car out of the driveway, the letter was as good as sent.

  After carefully addressing the plain white envelope to Joan Bennett, she would wait another hour before actually putting a stamp on the letter, and then another before dropping it into the outgoing mail basket on Crystal’s desk.

  Just before noon, Wayne, the chatty mailman, picked up the pile of
white envelopes, most of them generated by Crystal, and offered his usual greeting as he passed her office door. “Morning, Counselor.”

  “Morning, Wayne.” It was done.

  Once the letter was on its way to somewhere unknown, Bernie forced herself to put the whole business of her curious past out of her head, to focus on the stack of unanswered interrogatories and files spilling over from her desk to stacks on the floor. If she’d learned anything in her years as a lawyer, she knew the snail’s pace of red tape and government procedures. It would take weeks for her letter to go through all the proper bureaucratic channels: probably first reviewed by some secretary, then Joan Bennett, then photocopied before it would finally be mailed off to the unknown mother with an official cover letter explaining the content. Meanwhile, in Fresno, California, she had several cases and people that needed her attention, including Carlos Luna.

  In some odd way, the mailing of the letter was a catalyst for manic-like activity. As if a director had called action and the slap of the clapboard marked time, Bernie propelled herself forward. With unleashed energy, a pounding soundtrack played in a loop, pushing her onward to the next scene. Running on overdrive, with all synapses firing automatically, not a breath of hesitation, Bernie grew lightheaded and dizzy with a strange sense of urgency not typical of her.

  When she paused long enough to sit and enjoy the view of a hummingbird buzzing outside her office window, Bernie was overcome with wistful nostalgia. She recalled again that summer day on the Kings River, fishing with her father. After hauling in his empty line, he pulled off his shoes and waded out to his knees in the slow-moving river. “Come on,” he’d called to her. “Don’t be afraid, Sweetheart. There’s nothing in here that can hurt you. It’s no different than swimming in that silly pool at home, just bigger, is all.”

  They swam and splashed each other, then floated on their backs, drifting with the current. When they finally crawled up the muddy bank laughing together, they were startled to see how far they had traveled, the abandoned poles and bags resting back where they’d first waded into the green water.