Nell would crumble just as silently. Facing the caseworker, a harried-looking older woman with an untidy bun and a cardigan that was pilling at the elbows, only her hands trembled. When the woman motioned for her to sit down in a gray metal chair, the plopping-down sound she made was not as loud as she feared.
“It says here that Mona Veenstra has left town,” Mrs. Van Dam said. “Can you confirm this?”
Nell nodded mutely. Procedure. That was the word Sally used. Nicer than murder, which was what it was. A roar rose in her ears.
“What makes you think the girl’s stepmother is gone?”
Nell tried to focus. “I saw her leave with a suitcase and she hasn’t been back.”
“I understand that you live right downstairs?” Mrs. Van Dam asked. “And that you work for the police department?”
Nell winced. That life lay in ruins.
“I’ve been suspended, actually,” she said, surprised that she sounded so calm. “Mrs. Veenstra and I had an altercation and the Sergeant is reviewing the details.”
Mrs. Van Dam nodded. “And the father says he’s made arrangements with you to watch the child…Mandy, is it? While he works.”
“That’s right.” Mr. Veenstra was switching to third shift. He’d offered Nell $25 a week to let Mandy sleep on a cot in Nell’s room. Nell would take her at seven p.m., already fed and in her pajamas, put her to sleep at eight, and give her breakfast in the morning before sending her back upstairs. It would be easy work for Nell. Too easy. She wanted the satisfaction of doing more.
“Tell me about that,” Mrs. Van Dam said mildly.
“Uh…” Maybe not so easy. Nell would be under the microscope now, something she hadn’t considered. Would the social worker make surprise visits to check up on her? To make sure there were locks on the doors, and milk in the refrigerator? What would she think of the Van Sloeten family? Here’s my sister. Pregnant teen. My mother. Adulteress. Oh, and my father? Drunk. My brother Lenny? Delinquent. Was Nell so damaged that she couldn’t take on a simple babysitting job?
“I haven’t started yet,” Nell mumbled, suddenly afraid to say anything. The wrong words from her and they might open a file on her family.
Mrs. Van Dam spread her hands in front of her. “Who lives in your household? What are the sleeping arrangements? What is your schedule like?”
“I have my own room. So does my mother and my sister.” Nell hesitated. Technically, Lenny did not live with them, so why mention him? “Mandy will sleep in my room. It’s very quiet. And...” She put on a bright face, as in here comes the best part!... “as I said, I have no job commitments at the moment. I don’t have a social life. I don’t go out evenings. My sister and mother both go to bed early.” She shrugged and laughed self-consciously. “It’s a pretty dull household, actually.”
Her heart was pounding as Mrs. Van Dam went on looking at her. If she didn’t stop staring, Nell would surely blurt out everything. Including the abortion plan. Then would Sally be arrested? Would they put some undercover cops on her tail and let her lead them to the lawbreakers who pretended to be doctors?
She ought to tell! But, really, what good would it do? Except for Lenny, no part of this Van Sloeten family saga was criminal. Yet. Mrs. Van Dam would only say something worthless. Might I suggest a member of the clergy to help? And Nell would laugh, one of those edgy, maniacal laughs. Oh, if you only knew!
“Well, we’ll be watching the situation closely. If the stepmother is gone, there shouldn’t be any more problems.”
Nell couldn’t hold back. “Getting rid of someone doesn’t solve anything!”
Mrs. Van Dam looked surprised. “How do you mean?”
She swallowed. She didn’t know what she meant. Maybe Sally was right. Why bring an unwanted child into the world? Just look at the stack of files on this woman’s desk. Each one no doubt full of the most depressing details. Kids like Mandy—beaten, neglected, murdered.
Nell’s own childhood hadn’t exactly been a picnic. As if to remind her, a wave of doubt and loneliness washed over her. The loss of her dad had seemed, at one time, ocean-deep, pushing and pulling her. But growing up was the tide receding. She was proud of the fact that she could shake it off. She thanked the Lord for her maturity. But Sally? Sally wasn’t equipped to raise a baby!
Wait. The answer was like an eager hand shooting up. I can do it! Let me!
“Can I ask you something?” Nell said slowly. “How difficult is it to adopt a member of your own family?”
Mrs. Van Dam seemed confused. “It depends. As a single woman? Aahhh...” She clucked her tongue and grimaced.
Nell sighed. Being Old Nellie the spinster, dying alone of cancer, wasn’t punishment enough. No, she had to endure The System and all its stupid rules crushing an idea that was taking root, growing, spreading like a high speed film clip of a sprouting seed. Why should Sally kill the life inside her when Nell was so willing to love it and raise it and have it as her own?
“Are you assuming I’m single?” Nell asked.
“Well, yes, because you said...”
“But what if I was married?” She might just as soon imagine being a brain surgeon, or a rock star. What man would want her? It took only a split second for her to see her wedding, ruined by her dad crashing drunk down the aisle, hanging on her intended’s arm. Personally I never liked her much. Guess there’s no accounting for taste.
“I don’t follow,” said Mrs. Van Dam. “You’re not related to Mandy Veenstra, are you?”
Nell didn’t appreciate being grilled on the subject. “Unless you mean in the Christian sense, no,” she said primly. “No relation.”
“Then I’m not sure—”
Nell stood abruptly. “Mrs. Van Dam, you’ve been very helpful.”
The real question now was what single men did she know? It wasn’t like choosing a book off a shelf, running a finger along so many spines, deciding which was best to curl up with under the covers. She’d have to settle for a tattered copy. Cover torn off. Bargain basement price.
Who? Who did she know?
She turned and walked purposefully down the corridor, hardly noticing the drab aqua walls, the woman in the waiting room fanning herself with a copy of Reader’s Digest, the boy in overalls with a drippy nose. What she saw was herself, holding a baby, one hand cradling the soft, pulsing head, her arm tucked tightly around the tiny bottom. She was in her own kitchen, her own house, finding fulfillment in all the ordinary things.
All she needed was a man.
Back home, Nell moved deliberately around the house, waiting for the idea to dissolve into doubt. Instead, a peacefulness descended. A clarity so strong she found herself reaching for her diary. Not to question, but to plan. There were lists to make, under headings such as: Husband Hunting. What a Baby Needs. How to Convince Sally.
She brought the diary out to the front porch. Opening it, another list jumped out at her. One she had written weeks ago, when she first found out her father was in town.
What I Want To Know:
Where did you go?
Why didn’t you call?
Do you think about me?
Something caught in her throat and it came to her, momentarily, that she might be in the midst of a kind of breakdown, perhaps caused by seeing her father after all these years. She was no psychologist, but maybe that, followed by the shock of learning that the pastor was Sally’s father, then the news of Sally being pregnant, was making her delusional.
As she began to write, she noticed a man coming down the sidewalk, and something about him made her look twice. The walk! The little hop, the swing of the arm. Her father! She slammed the diary shut, feeling a tingle on the back of her neck, that breath of God that comes with coincidence too uncanny to explain. She wondered if her questions had somehow conjured this visit. He must be coming to see Sally, who was at school. Or her mother, who was at work. Maybe he was looking for Lenny, but Nell had no idea where Lenny was.
She watched and realized: h
e was looking at her. More than looking. He was seeing her. She smoothed her skirt and waited. Okay, they’d be alone. Just the two of them. She could say anything she wanted to him. But she could feel all the questions flying away, already up in flames. Was there anything she could ask that would make him say he loved her? She’d imagined that for so long, in so many ways, but now she didn’t think she’d ever hear it. Well, she’d live. Anyway, love was a funny thing. Not the steady stream of affection she’d always thought. Hadn’t her own heart changed? Hadn’t she felt, if only for a moment, that she could never love her mother again? Or Sally? Hadn’t she seen that hate and love were not so far apart after all? Just a wispy thread between them.
What he said now didn’t matter. He’d noticed her. If he didn’t like what he saw, it was his own damn problem. She watched him come closer, and when he was in front of Mrs. Dekker’s house she raised her hand and waved. She felt calm, ready. She opened her mouth, said “Hi Dad,” and it was like she’d been saying it all her life.
Nell took her mother’s lipstick tubes, one by one, from the makeup bag in the drawer and lined them up on the counter. Candied Almond. Pink Pansy. Softest Mauve. She chose one called Persimmon and carefully applied it, then blotted her lips with a folded piece of toilet tissue.
Seeing her dad had boosted her confidence. You wouldn’t even call it an official visit. Just wanted to say hi, he’d said. Have yourself a nice day. But he was sober. That alone was intoxicating.
Outside, she forced herself to step lightly and swing her pocketbook a little. See? Carefree. That’s how she’d look to anyone who saw her. Not like a woman with a hare-brained scheme to snare yet another man. As if the debacle with Pastor Voss had taught her nothing. She’d been so foolish then. This time her eyes were wide open. For one thing, she was not in love. She’d even had to ask Mrs. Dekker what’s Gizzy’s name? It was Gerald Ten Harmsel, and that was ok. She could see it: Nell Ten Harmsel. She didn’t know much about him, but she had noticed a thing or two. He carried white labels with him to replace names that were peeling off mailboxes, writing them out carefully in pleasing block letters. He liked to announce the arrival of catalogs and magazines. Time to order spring bulbs! he’d call. Holiday cookie issue just in!
Not exactly presidential commendations. But it was at least as much to go on as her Victorian-era sisters would have had. Back then a woman got some starchy chit-chat and a few turns about the drawing room and voila! she was engaged. Even today, in some parts of the world, a girl might not meet her betrothed until the wedding day. Not that Nell believed in arranged marriage. But, really, there were worse things. Like being alone. Or standing by watching innocent lives destroyed.
She’d simply present the possibility of a union to Gizzy. As long as she wasn’t drippy or emotional, she’d have no reason to be embarrassed. If he wasn’t interested, so what? She’d keep looking. His loss.
She popped into the Salt Shaker on the way and picked out a giant wedge of blueberry pie with a crystal crust of sugar on top. As she waited at the counter for the waitress to wrap it, she took in the lunch crowd, the regulars arguing amiably about the Tigers, some girlfriends gossiping over salads and cigarettes, businessmen who tucked napkins over their ties. For a moment she had a sickening sense of being invisible, then the waitress handed her a white bag and said, ‘bye hon, and she was back in the game. She felt it again—the optimism, like a sip of something bubbly.
Pie in hand, she walked the remaining blocks to Gizzy’s house. It was a small red brick bungalow near a busy intersection. Beside the front steps lay the twisted frame of his bike, a reminder of the wreck her life had become. She’d brought on his accident with a simple wave. Hi! Over here! Sally had done much the same and brought on a different disaster. Hey Dad! Remember me? Wanting to be noticed. What trouble it caused!
She took a deep breath and knocked.
When she heard his crutches thumping toward the door, she fought the urge to run. There was only time to breathe a quick please, God, please spare me complete humiliation before the door opened and there he was. She noticed the black hair springing off his forehead, the bushy eyebrows that were really quite nice.
“Hi,” she said. He was wearing flimsy cotton shorts, his right leg jutting out in a cast that went from the ankle to above the knee, his left leg bare and hairy. On top he wore a regular button-down shirt, so the effect was one of being undressed. She felt herself blush. She had never seen an undressed man before.
“I brought you some pie.”
“Oh! Well...marvelous. Look at that!”
He kept nodding. A little stupidly, Nell thought. Then it occurred to her, he might not know who she was. Should she tell him? It’s Nell VanSloeten. You know. You’ve delivered my mail for three years? Or maybe he’d heard The News and didn’t want to socialize with her family anymore. Or he could be numb with pain, distracted by the throb in his leg.
“So…” she said, offering up the Styrofoam box with both hands.
He laughed. “I would take it, but…” He motioned down at his crutches.
“Oh! Of course.” She was such an idiot, holding it out like that.
“Come in,” he said. “You can set it in the kitchen.”
She managed a smile. “That’s right. You sit down and rest that leg.”
She ventured timidly inside, past the front room, which looked shabby and cramped, a miss-mash of books and clothes and electrical parts and ….old radios? Was he was one of those eccentric bachelors, up all night fiddling with a screwdriver, hunched over a flickering light bulb, reading diagrams? And the kitchen! Dishes filled the sink and the linoleum was peeling along one wall. There was a funny smell of stale coffee and bacon grease, and on the counter sat an open jar of peanut butter with a spoon stuck in it.
She put the pie in the refrigerator, careful not to look too closely at the wrapped plates and cardboard containers lurking inside. Returning, she saw that he was easing himself into a chair. He motioned for her to sit, but she shook her head. She was too nervous. Besides, if she sat too close he might notice the largeness of her thighs. Instead, she tried to lean casually against a little half wall that jutted between the foyer and the living room. She carefully crossed her legs at the ankles and clasped her hands like she’d seen Doris Day do. She wobbled. It wasn’t easy.
There was a pause before he cleared his throat.
“How’s your sister?” The careful way he said it gave him away.
She felt her pose sag. “So you heard.”
And he didn’t even know the worst of it!
He nodded. “That’s got to be rough, finding out about her dad that way. If you want, tell her I’m thinking of her. And praying for her.”
A Christian man! She’d take it as a sign.
“I just wanted to say how sorry I am that I called out your name like that,” she said.
He shrugged. “I’ve always been a klutz. This isn’t the first time I broke my leg.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I did a back flip off a trampoline when I was nine. That’s why I like delivering mail. If I don’t walk a lot it starts aching real bad.”
She would know just what to do! Soak it in Epsom salt, rub it with alcohol, wrap it in a warm towel. This reminded her that she was sort of auditioning here, whether he realized it or not.
“Why don’t I get you that pie?” she said. “You should enjoy it now, while I’m here to help.”
She found a clean plate in a kitchen cupboard and set the pie on it carefully. As long as she was there, she opened a few more cupboard doors and took a quick look. No alcohol. Another good sign. And there was more satisfaction in the way Gizzy wasted no time digging in. Who knew taking care of a man could be so rewarding? While he ate, Nell took the opportunity to look more closely at him. How many years had he been delivering their mail? It seemed forever, but this was the first time she’d ever studied him. His neck was beginning to fold over his collar. So he was a little fat. She was no broomst
ick herself. The important thing was that he had a good government job. Most likely he had a wonderful sense of civic duty. The two of them in their uniforms, what a handsome couple they’d make!
Couple. The word made her shiver. Couples held hands. They hugged and kissed and called each other sweetie or honey bunch. They had sex.
Her knees began to shake. Maybe it was the clutter around her that caused it; the memory she kept tidy and polished and tucked away crashed before her. It was that last day with her dad. Lenny’s birthday, ten years ago, when she’d seen him on top of her mother in the bedroom.
“What was he doing?” she had asked her mother.
She could still see Prudy’s pained look. “He wanted to do a private, loving thing that two people do when they’re married,” she said. “But he wasn’t doing it in a loving way. He was being very mean. You saw how he was being.”
“Was he trying to multiply?”
Nell was ten years old and she knew all about that. The Lord said go forth and multiply, and that was when two married people rubbed together with their clothes off.
“Not exactly,” Prudy said. “He wanted to do that same thing, but not to multiply. Just for fun.”
Fun? Nell still recalled the surprise of that idea. And the cold finger of fear that followed.
How could she be sure a man would never hurt her that way? She hadn’t worried about it with Pastor Voss because he looked and acted so gentle. But Gizzy was a big man. A man who disemboweled appliances!
He chewed and swallowed a big bite of pie, then burped softly into his napkin. Suddenly Nell was repulsed. Men were so crude, with their dirty dishes and unwashed clothes. Their drinking problems and lustful ways! Even her brother Lenny was disgusting, always popping his knuckles, picking his teeth, or passing gas.
“I’d better go,” she said, frantically backing toward the door.
“Hey, what for? Stay awhile.” He looked genuinely disappointed. It was almost enough to stop her.
Hello Loved Ones Page 31