The Circle Game

by Tanya Nichols

  “What is it?” she asked, but Bernie already knew. She should have told Crystal not to open anything from Social Services. She just didn’t think.

  “It’s from Joan Bennett. She sent a letter from your . . . your birth mother. I’m sorry Bernie, I just thought it was business. I didn’t read the letter.” She looked nervous, then added a slant confession that she did: “I didn’t know you were adopted.”

  Bernie could tell she was struggling, wanting to ask more, not sure if she should dare. “It does say personal and confidential in big red letters.” She held the envelope up and pointed to the stamped warning.

  “A lot of mail says that. You always told me that just means open me first.”

  Bernie smiled and remembered how she had instructed Crystal to ignore those stamps when she had represented an inmate at San Quentin. He sent her mail constantly, all of it marked personal and confidential. Crystal was right. That’s what she’d told her to do.

  “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you all about it someday.” She watched Crystal turn for the door, then stopped her, feigning lack of interest in the letter that she held in her hands, a letter from the woman who gave her life. “When are the Lunas getting in?”

  “A week from Saturday. I spoke to Angelica Corona this morning. She called to tell me that she’s picking them up at the airport, and they’re staying with her. She also said Mrs. Luna plans on staying with her until the case is over, through the holidays. I told her we’d be happy to pay for a hotel, but she said Mrs. Luna preferred staying in her home, where Carlos and Moochie could play.”

  “I figured that. Of course, you can bet Angie Corona will be keeping a tab for when this case settles, so let’s offer her expenses in advance. No one does something for nothing these days.”

  Bernie laid the envelope down on her desk and placed her hand over it protectively. She could feel her pulse quicken and breathed deeply, willing her heart rate to slow, relaxing her jaw, her eyebrows.

  “I’ll call her tomorrow and work something out.”

  “Good. Good. Hey, can you close the door on your way out. Thanks, Crystal.”

  It seemed fitting that the weather had turned chilly for this moment. She picked up the letter and moved to the red sofa. She grabbed her jacket and draped it over her knees like a blanket, hoping the warmth would stop her from trembling.

  Ten

  1968

  “Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

  Juicy opened her eyes. The nosey social worker was back before she’d had a chance to figure out how to get Ginny and escape. The drugs made her drowsy, and she’d fallen asleep again. “I’m not giving you my baby,” she said flatly. “I can’t do that.”

  “Okay, I thought that would be your answer, and she’s your baby, so, for now anyway, it’s your decision. But let’s talk about your options.” The heavy woman pulled the green vinyl chair from the corner closer to Juicy’s bed and sat beside her, hands neatly and unnaturally folded in her lap as if waiting for one of the nurses to serve her chamomile tea. “I want to make sure you completely understand your situation, and Ginny’s situation.”

  “Look, I told you what happened. What more do you want?” Juicy’s voice was hoarse and raw. Everything hurt; it even hurt to talk, so how the hell was she supposed to get up and find Ginny without causing some kind of commotion?

  “Yes, I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal. I’m afraid there’s a bit of an investigator in me, so while you were sleeping, I took a drive out to a bar, Fat Betty’s. It’s not too far from here, has quite a reputation. I even talked to Jimmy, the owner. His story about last night was slightly different than what you told me.”

  “He’s not going to say anything to make those guys mad. They go there all the time. He knows they’d kill him in a heartbeat if he said anything.”

  “Yes, I figured that out for myself. But Jimmy also mentioned that he’d seen you in there a couple of times before. He mentioned how funny it looked when you were pregnant, riding on the back of a motorcycle.”

  “So?”

  “He seems to believe that you were, well, more of a, shall I say, ‘willing participant’ in what went on in that trailer, that you were in the bar drinking with Freddie for some time . . . with the baby, too—that you even had her up on the bar in the baby seat. He has your baby seat, by the way; you left it behind.”

  “It was just a beer. I hadn’t been out for weeks.” Juicy refused to respond to her mention of the baby seat. She knew where he’d found it, tucked under the table of that hellhole trailer, right where she had left it.

  “Yes, I know what it’s like with a new baby. I’m just not sure that taking a newborn to a biker bar is such a good idea, but again, that was your decision to make. You’re the mother. It’s the rest of the story that causes me such difficulty.”

  Juicy turned her head away, focusing again on the fading watercolor of escape. “I didn’t have any choice,” she muttered through clenched teeth. Why did she tell this awful woman anything? What was she thinking? It had to be the drugs. She wanted the IV out. No more drugs. She needed a clear head.

  “What Jimmy said was that you took Ginny out to the trailer with you and that on the way out there, you were laughing and seemed to be having a good time. Is that what really happened?”

  “That’s a lie.” Juicy slowly turned her head to see her adversary sitting calmly, a phony sympathetic grin on her plump, round face. “I went willingly because I didn’t have a choice. When I first went out there, I thought it was just going to be Freddie and me, that we were going to, you know, be alone. He didn’t tell me the rest of his plan until we were back there. What else could I do?”

  “There’s something else, something you didn’t tell me. It seems the doctor smelled alcohol on the baby’s breath, so they ran some blood tests. Why did that baby have alcohol in her system?”

  “Oh God,” Juicy moaned. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Did someone put liquor in her bottle? The hospital has the bottle, by the way. You brought it in with her things last night.”

  “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”

  “You know I can’t do that, so why don’t you just tell me everything?”

  “Why should I? You seem to have it all figured out.”

  “Don’t you see what a predicament your situation puts me in, as a representative of the state? My job is to look out for the child, not you. What’s best for the child has to come before what’s best for the mother, even if she’s injured, even if she’s been abused, even if she says she loves her baby. Just like I have to do what’s best for my own daughter, even when she doesn’t know what that is; I have to figure out what’s best for your daughter too.”

  “But I love my baby.”

  “Of course, you do. The sad truth is that sometimes I have to remove children from their mothers for their own good. If I think there is even a chance that baby might be in danger, I have to take her, even if her mother loves her more than anything.” She leaned her head toward the injured mother, peered directly into her sad, grey eyes. “Don’t you see that?”

  “I can see you’re trying to fuck with me.” Juicy felt trapped, tied down by an IV cord, weakened by sore limbs and sedatives.

  “I’m trying to give that baby a better life than living with a bunch of Hell’s Angels and rapists.”

  “They’re not Angels.” Juicy forced her legs over the side of the bed and managed to sit up. Her head was spinning, but she would get out of there. She would get her baby and go. No one could stop her.

  “Well, that’s an understatement.” She offered Juicy a hand to help her stand, but the gesture was ignored.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m trying to. Really, I am. What it comes down to, as far as I’m concerned, is you basically have three choices. One, you can tell the police what happened, so they can do their job and not waste their time chasing some phantom rapist who doesn’t exist, change your
life, and somehow manage to support and care for an injured baby. It’s a big job, and the going to the police part is probably very dangerous, but you can do that. Maybe those men won’t come after you or that sweet girl with a broken arm. Or two, you can keep lying to me, yourself, and everyone else, and continue to endanger that baby and see her hurt again, or, God forbid, worse, and eventually lose her to an overburdened foster care system where she might be shuffled from home to home for months or even years. Or three, you can make that hard decision to do what’s best for her right now. You can say, I’m not ready to take on this responsibility. You can say, I love her so much I’m going to give her up. You can give her the life she deserves and in turn, give a young couple the life they deserve, the life of a family. You can save your little girl from a life of drudgery and despair. It’s all up to you.”

  The social worker rose to her feet and paced as she continued her dissertation, occasionally pausing to press her fingertips together, bring them up to her lips as if saying grace at dinner.

  “An innocent child doesn’t deserve to be stashed under a dirty kitchen table while her mother takes on an entire motorcycle gang. She doesn’t deserve to be fed a bottle spiked with whiskey. She doesn’t deserve to be tossed from a car like a bag of garbage. She doesn’t deserve to have a broken arm, cuts and bruises at four months old. She deserves a home with two parents, decent parents, who will love her and each other more with a child in their home.”

  Like a Pentecostal preacher begging his congregation to see the light and turn to Jesus, she pleaded her case, knowing just when to pause for a heart wrenching moment, allowing the flock to feel the weight of all that sin. A moment to be persuaded. Another moment to drown in years of guilt, to wallow in them to the point of tears. Her voice softened, and she lifted Juicy’s trembling fingers into the palm of her soft hand. It was the final desperate altar call, the helping hand of a loving God who has the power to destroy in a bolt of lightning or rumbling earth. “Do what’s best for that baby. I will help you. I will help her. If you’ll just let me. Let me help you. Otherwise . . .” Her voice trailed off, leaving the alternative to Juicy’s own imagination.

  Juicy gritted her teeth, laid back down on the bed, and began to cry. Her moans were like a sorrowful song, a grieving mother, a wounded animal trapped and dying. “But I love her. I love her more than anything in the world. You don’t understand.”

  “Then give her the life she deserves. Give her to a stable couple who will give her every opportunity and privilege possible. They will give her what you can’t, and you will give them more than you can imagine.” She reached out to take Juicy’s hand, but the girl jerked it away again, repelled by the touch that had once comforted her.

  “The thing is, Julie—that’s your real name, I found that out, too—I’m in a bit of a predicament. Like I said, I have to do what’s best for the baby. And knowing what I know, I’m not sure that sending an infant with a broken arm off to live with the very parents that caused that injury is best for her.”

  “I told you it wasn’t my fault.”

  “How you see it, I’m afraid, is not what matters. What matters is that it happened, and it happened while she was in your care. And if you were to leave here with your baby, where would you go? Back to your house? Where all your things are, I would imagine, and that is also where Freddie is. Freddie, the baby’s father, the man who fed you to the wolves and tossed his baby out on the road. The one you’re not willing to press charges against. So you go home and he’s there, and he’s sorry, full of promises to change, to be better. What then? What will he do next?”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Meanwhile, what about Ginny? She needs medical attention, food, clothing, care. You also need to heal. I see these kinds of cases every day. You won’t make it on your own. Not with a baby, you won’t.”

  “I can’t just give her away.”

  “I know it’s difficult. But trust me, you’d be making the greatest sacrifice for your child.”

  “Go away.”

  “I’ll go away. But, you should know the police are in the hall waiting to talk to you. I asked them to let me have a word with you first. You see, I wanted to give you an opportunity to do the right thing. If you persist in lying to the authorities, I will assume your intention is to protect Freddie and his gang and place Ginny at risk, in which case I’ll feel duty bound to inform them of the true facts and remove her from your care while the matter is being investigated.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Oh, but I can.”

  “This is blackmail.”

  “No. Blackmail involves money. But perhaps we should talk about money. Do you have any money?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “Well, I know this is highly unusual, but I have been told by the parents looking to adopt a baby that they would be willing to pay a bit of a bonus to the mother for her struggles. I think they said they had ten thousand dollars for that purpose. That would give you a nice start. Enough to start fresh somewhere new. If you get far enough away from here, you might turn your life around.”

  “So,” Juicy sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with a corner of the sheet, “what you’re saying is you’re going to take her away no matter what, but if I let these people adopt her, you’ll give me money?”

  “Basically, yes.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” she screamed. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “I’m someone who tries to solve problems.” Her spine stiffened, and her chin lifted defensively, ready for any blows the girl could manage. Her terse words shot out rapidly, leaving no room for interruption. “I’m someone who is in a position to help you, to help Ginny, and to help a man and woman who want children, but can’t have them. I’m someone who can see that you are hurt, young, poor, and in a volatile relationship, a relationship that should not involve a baby, a relationship that could end in a bigger disaster than this. Give yourself a future. Give Ginny a future. I’m someone who can make that child’s life better than you possibly can.”

  The room fell silent. Juicy drew her knees forward and squeezed them hard, ignoring the pain that shot through her back and stomach, digging her fingers into her flesh, then covered her face with her hands. Finally, she reached for the pink plastic cup on the rolling table, took a sip of water and a deep breath. She licked her chapped lips and brushed a lock of hair behind her ears.

  “How soon could I get the money?” She choked on the words and her face and neck flushed crimson. “If I do this, I need to get far away from here. And I have to go now.”

  “I can give you the money tomorrow. In cash, of course.”

  “And you know these people?”

  “Very well. I know them very well. Your baby will be in an excellent home. She will be loved and cared for.”

  “Can I meet them?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should know as little as possible. I can take care of the paperwork, but it will take a couple of days. Meanwhile, I can put you up in a hotel, under my name. No one will find you.”

  “Oh God, I can’t. What kind of mother just sells her baby?”

  “You’re not selling your baby. You’re giving her a better life and her new parents are simply rewarding you for your courage. It’s a noble thing.”

  No words came out, only a shattering sob as she nodded her head quickly, wiping her nose with the back of her trembling hand. She had agreed to the unimaginable. There was nothing lower than where she had fallen in two short days.

  “You’re doing the right thing.”

  “What about the cops?”

  “You still have to talk to them. Whatever you tell them is up to you. If it were me, I’d tell them the truth, whatever that is.”

  Juicy nodded again, her head heavy in defeat. “I want to see Ginny one more time. I have to kiss her good-bye.”

  “I don’t recommend it,” Isabelle said, eager to set things in motion, “but I suppose that c
an be arranged. Pull yourself together, and I’ll let the nurses know that you want to go see her.”

  When the door closed and Juicy was finally alone with her decision, she turned her face to her pillow where she cried and sobbed uncontrollably until a startled nurse came in to calm her, offering her an injection to ease the pain and anxiety. She was the lowest of low, the worst possible kind of whore. What happened at Fat Betty’s was nothing compared to what she did in this very room. She watched the nurse inject the drugs into her IV and waited for the drugs to carry her away. The edges of the room softened as her eyes grew heavy, and then it was easy to breathe. There was no pain. There was nothing.

  Eleven

  2005

  Bernie gently pressed the letter to her chest. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back and tried to imagine the woman who had sat and written the words, words meant for her. The sudden lump that rose in her throat and the tightening of her stomach confused her. In her hands, she was holding the same paper that her birth mother had held only days before. She was preparing to read a message from the woman who had carried her in her womb, the same woman who had brought her into this world, but given her away as an infant. For years, she had blamed this stranger for everything wrong in her life, but now she was as giddy and nervous as a schoolgirl receiving a note from the boy across the room.

  Bernie reminded herself that she simply had unanswered questions and wanted information from her mother, not some melodramatic, tear-filled mother-and-child reunion. She didn’t need a mother at this point in her life. Twenty-five years ago, when the only mom she’d known was taken away, she needed a mother to hold her and love her through the pain. Noni did that. Noni was the one who cared for her as a mother. Her fingers lightly touched the paper, feeling the words before reading them.

  The stationary was a pale pink with a single long-stemmed rose across the top. Pretty, she thought. Bernie studied the handwriting, an even cursive in blue ink that flowed slightly to the right, flawless and beautiful, just like she’d been taught in third grade. These letters could easily be the same example of cursive handwriting that floated around the classroom near the ceiling, which meant the writer’s penmanship was similar to her very own script. Was there some genetic connection in handwriting styles? Or, did they both just follow the rules of cursive prescribed by some unknown handwriting authority?