The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

  “But you didn’t hear any shots.”

  Once again Abby squeezed her eyes shut. “No.” She shook her head firmly. “Everything was so quiet, a man was walking his dog but he turned the corner and it was quiet, and then there were the sirens, and shouting. But…I don’t really know what a shot sounds like, Sara.”

  “Popping, firecrackers, maybe. Anything like that?”

  “No. Definitely not.”

  “Of course, you might have been too far away.” Sara sighed again. “We don’t know if they shot anyone. Killed anyone. If they did…” Abby would be in very great trouble, and how much could I do to help her?

  A nurse parted the curtains around the bed. “Mrs. Elliott, Abby’s brother and sister are very anxious to see her. It’s fine with us if you and Abby agree.”

  “Abby?” Sara asked. “They’re very worried about you.”

  Abby nodded, and started crying again. “They’ll hate me for lying, and not coming to Doug’s show, and …everything.”

  “They’ll love you the same way they always do.”

  And they did love her; they were all over her, kissing and hugging her, and sitting on the edge of her bed until she winced with the pain from her arm and her bruises, and they moved to the chairs Sara had pulled up. Sara stood watching them. The nurse said Abby could be home that night, if she continued to improve, and then they would all be together again, in their house, feeling protected and safe. But until they knew what Sean had done, they were not safe. So far, the hospital officials had kept the police from Abby, but as soon as she was home, they would come to question her, and then Sara would find out what happened. A robbery, or a murder.

  The police were on the doorstep early the next morning. Abby, with a sleeping pill, had slept all night, but Sara had been tense and wakeful, and met the police at the front door feeling groggy. So it was that when Abby came downstairs in a workout suit, her arm in a sling, and the police seemed gentle, almost sympathetic, Sara felt dazed, even disoriented. Wake up, she told herself; if this is a trick, I have to be prepared.

  “How old are you, Abby?”

  “Fifteen,” Abby said after a moment’s hesitation. “Sixteen next month.”

  He nodded. Officer Pinder, Sara read on his badge. Midforties, short and plump, balding. If he had not been in uniform, he would have looked like a salesman in suits or ties at Saks. “Been driving long?”

  “Just… just this year.”

  “Enjoy it?”

  “What?”

  “You like to drive?”

  “Oh. I guess. I mean …yes.”

  “And your friends ask you to take them places?”

  “No! I mean, sometimes but not usually, because…” She took a deep breath. “They know I don’t have a license.”

  “Right. But this was special, last night?”

  Abby’s eyes, red and swollen, filled with tears.

  Officer Ryan, gray-haired, stooping, said, “I have a daughter your age, Megan, her name is. Junior in high school, pretty and smart and popular, but you know she’s got a guy she’s nuts about and sometimes she just forgets everything else. Me and her mother, her family, her friends, school, doesn’t matter what, this guy is all she thinks about, and she’s afraid to say anything or do anything that might make him mad.”

  No one said anything. “What I think,” Officer Ryan went on conversationally, “is that Megan’s a lot smarter than this creep and she knows what’s right and wrong, and if she disagrees with him and he gets mad it’s because he wants to do what he wants to do and the hell with Megan and what she knows is right, but she’s got this thing about romance and she’s afraid to lose it ’cause she might never get it again. Silly, isn’t it? Pretty girl, smart, young, lots of good guys out there waiting to meet her. She’ll figure that out one of these days; I just hope she dumps the guy before she gets in trouble because of him. Such a shame if she did; her whole life in front of her and all.”

  There was a long, exhausted silence. Officer Pinder wrote something in his notebook, then looked at Abby expectantly, waiting for an answer to his question.

  Sara stretched her hand toward Abby, then took it back. This was not a time when she could do anything. Abby was on her own.

  “So,” Officer Pinder said at last, “let’s say last night was special. For you and your friends. And how many friends were in the car with you? Like, maybe—”

  “SARA!” Carrie shouted, and came dashing down the stairs into the living room. “Sara, look!” She shoved a thin magazine in Sara’s face. “My stories! Three stories! They’ve been published!”

  Mack and Doug were behind her; Mack was grinning widely. “Great writers always get pub—” He saw the police and stopped cold.

  “Sara, say something!” Carrie cried.

  Mack took a step backward, then another, looking everywhere but at the officers, who had glanced at him briefly, but now looked at him again, noting his reverse course with interest.

  Sara stood and put her arm around Carrie. “It’s wonderful and I want to hear all about it, but—”

  “Why are the police here?” asked Carrie in alarm as she became aware of them.

  “To talk about Abby’s accident. This is Carrie and Doug Hayden,” she said to the police, “Abby’s sister and brother. And her older brother, Mack Hayden,” she added, gesturing toward Mack, suddenly furiously angry with him… for what? What has he done? But she was too angry to sort out reasons; she could barely contain herself. “We’ll talk about this later, but right now I want you all upstairs, Carrie, Doug, Mack… all of you. Upstairs.”

  But Mack already had backed his way to the entrance hall. “Gotta get to work, guys,” he called. “I’m late. Back for dinner.” They heard the front door open and close.

  “Didn’t like the company,” observed Officer Pinder mildly. He looked at Sara. “Any reason for that?”

  “Not that I know of,” she said shortly. “Carrie, Doug, I told you, I want you upstairs. We’ll talk later.”

  “Why is Mack going to work on Saturday?” asked Doug.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care!” exclaimed Sara in exasperation. “How many times—”

  “Come on, Doug, they don’t want us here,” Carrie said gravely. The excitement, even the alarm over the police, had drained from her face. Her body slumped. Quietly, she laid the magazine on the table beside Sara, and put her hand on Doug’s shoulder to turn him to the entrance hall and the stairs.

  Sara, ashamed, said, “Carrie, I’ll read your stories as soon as I can. I’ll come upstairs when we’re finished here. I’m very excited for you.”

  “Okay,” Carrie said, and she and Doug went up the stairs.

  “So, Abby,” said Officer Pinder after a brief pause, “we were talking about how many friends were in the car with you. Four, maybe?”

  Abby had been looking at her lap the whole time. Now she looked up, her eyes wide in surprise. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “And maybe there was somebody special, a guy maybe, in front with you?”

  She looked at him as if he were a magician. Slowly, she nodded.

  “And where were they going?”

  “To a bar.” Her voice was dull, without volition.

  “To a bar.”

  Abby gave up. She looked at Sara, sitting near her, and said, “There’s too much…” Finally, as the silence became unbearable, she said, “They were going to rob it and send the money to their friends in Ireland because they’re having trouble and need help.”

  “Help in killing the Brits,” said Officer Ryan.

  “Occupiers…” Abby said weakly.

  “Sure. Only murder doesn’t get you very far, does it?”

  Abby began to tremble. “Did they…did…any of them…?”

  “Kill anybody? No. Lucky.”

  “Sara asked me if they…if they carried…you know.”

  “A gun. One of ’em did. Sean didn’t. Lucky again. For him.”

  “How did you know his na
me?” Sara asked.

  “We picked him up,” said Officer Pinder. “Got all four of ’em. Couldn’t get far without a car and driver. That’s why they wanted Abby.”

  “Didn’t care about her, though,” said Officer Ryan, shaking his head. “Didn’t give a damn—sorry, Abby—what happened to her. Bad scene.”

  “When did you get them?” Sara asked.

  “Right after Abby crashed the car. Three of ’em were runnin’ down the street hollerin’ like a tribe of Indians, and we found Sean a couple blocks away tryin’ to flag down a cab. Amateurs.”

  Sara, angry again, said, “So you knew all this. You put a fifteen-year old child through a grilling after she’s had a terrible accident, and been injured and frightened, and still may be in shock, but you put her through—”

  “We had to, you know,” said Officer Ryan, not unkindly. “Make sure all the stories match.”

  Sara stopped and thought for a minute. Through her grogginess, she knew he was right. Her anger faded, and she was able to think about what was even more important. She looked at Abby and smiled, telling her silently that no one would think she gave Sean away; he had been arrested before she even got to the hospital. As dangerous as Sara felt Abby’s code of loyalty to be, at least as an unconditional principle, she knew it was bedrock serious to those in high school, and since Abby had not betrayed anyone, it would be easier for her to get past this, get over Sean, return to her circle of friends, regain confidence in herself.

  “What did they do?” Abby asked, her voice steadier now.

  Officer Ryan snorted. “Not much. Scared the hell—sorry, Abby— out of the bartender; he ducked behind the bar, and when three of the kids jumped the bar and started beating him up he managed to get to the alarm switch. The kid with the gun never used it, lucky for him, they got the hell—sorry, Abby—out of there and took off for your car. Sean hadn’t been behind the bar, so he was ahead of the others. Stupid, you know. There was a lot of money but it was all in the safe and it was armed; as soon as he opened it without disarming it, the alarm would have gone off. Amateurs.” He snorted again.

  “Attempted robbery, though,” Officer Pinder said. “It’d be worse if they’d used guns, but still there’ll be a price to pay.”

  In a small voice, Abby said, “For me, too?”

  “Well, sure,” Officer Ryan said. “Driving without a license, that’s a violation punishable by a fine. You should a learned that in driver’s ed, right?”

  Abby, as if mesmerized, nodded without taking her eyes off him.

  “Not a misdemeanor, though,” he went on, “so it’s a fine, not jail. Unless you skip showing up in court. Not a good idea. My advice, get a lawyer. Somebody to come with you to court. See, this ticket”—he produced a book of tickets from his pocket—“has a you must appear. Got that? And we’ll write in a date. You show up for that, Abby, you’ll probably get a lecture, a fine, I don’t know how much, and then you’re okay. Just don’t do it again.”

  “But,” Abby said haltingly, her voice low. “I drove …I mean, they were committing a crime.”

  “Right. But maybe you didn’t know what they were going to do. Why would they tell you? Guys don’t trust girls to keep their mouths shut. Right?”

  “But Sean did—” Abby caught Sara’s sharp look and the quick shake of her head. “Oh.” She was silent. She hated to say that anyone didn’t trust her to keep a secret; everybody did trust her. But this time was different; she could see that. “I just gave them a ride?” She had meant to say it straight out, but it came out as a question.

  “Sounds like it to me,” Officer Ryan said. “Sounds like they went off and left you alone, and you didn’t see them anymore, so you didn’t know what they were doing. Worst I can see, driving without a license, damage to private property, nobody killed.”

  Sara held out her hand to the officers. “I’m sorry I was angry.”

  They all shook hands gravely. “Tough time all around,” said Officer Ryan.

  “Be okay now,” said Officer Pinder to Abby. “Long as you’re a little more choosy picking your boyfriends,” said Officer Ryan with a wink.

  “And it’d be smart not to drive again, even with your permit, until you get that driver’s license,” said Officer Pinder, picking up his hat.

  When they were gone, Sara dropped back into her chair, drained and exhausted. Abby sat on a hassock beside her. “Sara, I’m sorry, Sara, I’m so sorry, I’m always saying that, I do so many things wrong. You’re so wonderful to me, but I mess everything up. I’m ruining your life, I’m a cross you have to bear, like the albatross in ‘The Ancient Mariner,’ I don’t know how you can ever forgive me but I’ll make it up to you, I promise, I’ll figure out a way… Sara!”

  Sara was laughing, a kind of wild laughter that shocked both of them. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she said, calming down. “I’m not laughing at you.”

  I’m not laughing at anyone, she thought, it was hearing Abby exaggerate her apology, sounding exactly like Reuben. He always smiled when I told him he was doing that. Oh, damn, damn, Reuben, I miss you.

  She laid her hand on Abby’s bowed head and stroked her hair. “The one you’ve really let down is yourself, sweetheart. You have a good mind and you know how to use it, but you decided to ignore all that; you thought you were in love, so everything else seemed irrelevant. Abby, look at me.” She waited until Abby looked up. “When you’re sure something is right or wrong, and love tells you the opposite, something is wrong with the love, not with what you believe. It’s a poor kind of love that demands that you diminish yourself by giving up what you believe. If you remember that, you’ll have learned the most important lesson from all this.”

  She kissed Abby on both cheeks, and stood up. “I’m going out for a while. Please tell Carrie and Doug they can come out of their rooms now; they probably feel as if I banished them. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what I did. You can tell them everything is all right now.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just for a drive. No place special, just…”

  “Away. From all the problems I caused.”

  “Abby, don’t start that again. Think about what I said. Take care of Carrie and Doug. Take a hot bath. Make pizza for lunch. My cell phone is on if you need me.”

  “We won’t call you. You need lots of time to yourself.”

  Sara gave a small laugh, and kissed her. “I love you and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  In the car, she drove without planning, winding through neighborhoods, content to be slowed down by stoplights and stop signs, rather than turning onto a highway. If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there.

  Her thoughts drifted over everything that had happened since Doug’s show, not even twenty-four hours, but seeming infinitely longer. Now, retrospectively, she wondered how she had gotten through it all with that stony determination that almost eliminated emotion. Did all parents somehow manage to switch to a kind of autopilot in dealing with crises, and then, when quiet returned, suddenly feel flooded by exhaustion and anxiety, unshed tears and a silent scream that too much was going on and there was absolutely no room or energy for one more problem?

  But there had been room, and energy; she had handled it. And pretty well, she thought, with pride as well as wonder. Better than one might have expected from—to use Officer Ryan’s word—an amateur.

  Maybe I’m getting used to turmoil, she thought wryly, seeing a kaleidoscope of images of all that had happened over the spring and summer: Mack, Donna, Pussy Corcoran, Donna’s husband, Ziggy, Abby’s car, Carrie’s leather journal, Doug’s show, Abby’s accident. And Reuben. All through spring and summer: Reuben. And of course, Reuben’s wife.

  Suddenly, she remembered Carrie. She had left without congratulating her, without reading her stories, without paying any attention to her at all. I’ll read your stories as soon as I can. I’ll come upstairs when we’re finished here. I’m very exci
ted for you.

  She was at a stoplight. Carrie, I’m sorry, she thought. I really am sorry. I just had to get away and I totally forgot… What a rotten excuse. But it’s the only one I have. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.

  “There’s too much…” Abby had whispered to her. Too much, too much, Sara echoed in her thoughts: too much, and it was all running away from her. She couldn’t understand it. They had had such an ordinary life; now it seemed to be spinning out of control, too complicated, too swiftly moving for her to feel she could connect with it, much less somehow have control over any of it. Did this happen to other people? Could any ordinary life become tumultuous and bewildering? Or had she done something wrong, leaving her family open to miscalculations and events piling on each other until they became problems, even crises, that seemed almost too much to comprehend or manage?

  Foolish, she thought, but foolish or not it was real. Mother would say I need a vacation. She smiled to herself. Probably. It’s been a long time. Well, for today, this drive is my vacation: away from everything for a while.

  But not entirely. At some point she had taken an entrance ramp to an expressway, and now she realized she was in an area faintly familiar. Her gasoline gauge was low and she left the expressway, stopping at the first station, looking for the name of a town as she filled the tank. There was none that she could see, which did not bother her since she had no destination, and, driving on, she turned corners through neighborhoods, piqued by their familiarity, until she came to a chain-link fence and knew exactly where she was even before she saw the construction sign and a road sign pointing to the nearby town of River Bend.

  She had not been here since the weekend they had driven to Galena and witnessed the first demonstration. The land inside the fence had not changed; no work had been done on Carrano Village West. But how could it? Someone is preventing it.

  She found the opening in the fence where she and Reuben had walked onto the property, and, leaving her car, followed the same unmarked path into the fields. The grasses had lost the fresh green of May and were turning September sere and brittle, but flowers still bloomed among them, autumn flowers now, spikes of intense reds and yellows and purple luminous in the long rays of the early-afternoon sun.