by Mira Gibson
Gertrude spent a painstaking moment trying to figure out how to introduce herself. Should she state her name, announce her credentials, clear her throat loudly? The longer she hesitated, the worse the interruption seemed, and it didn’t help that the girl was oblivious.
Deciding on taking a few notes first, she did what she could to scratch the pen noisily against the pad:
August 5th, Monday. Roberta (presumably) unsupervised. Unusual choice of dress. Abnormal. Sandy blond hair not like Doris’. No vehicles at the home.
It slipped her attention that she had crept towards the girl, but the trance of noting her behavior helped Gertrude forget herself, and as a result, a straightforward question tumbled out.
“Roberta King?”
The girl stilled then, turning her head, peered at her through a tangle of weeds like a mangy jungle cat wise to the threat of man. Gertrude was struck by her angular eyes, their indeterminate color, the narrow bridge of her nose, cheekbones high and sharp like those of starved, third-world children that Sally Struthers would advocate for on Gertrude’s TV—snow and static, as she made out her check, never more prone to the hardships of others than she was at two in the morning, the weight of her profound aloneness stinging her heart.
Reasoning it might not be her best move to reveal she was with Child Protective Services, and remembering her own advice, Gertrude smiled, but her lip quirked, causing her mouth to waver badly until she was sure she looked either scared or ill.
“I’m with the DCYF.” Her neck felt hot, her throat dry and raspy, so to compensate she tried to hold her notebook with an authoritative air. “You’re Roberta King, aren’t you? This is 118 Moulton Street?”
The girl straightened up from the planters. Her forearms were stained dark with soil, and examining her hands she said, “Yeah,” then smacked the dirt off and picked under her fingernails, paying no mind to the red dress hanging off her bony shoulders even after one strap slipped off.
Roberta was voluptuous and emaciated in the same breath—arms like reeds, legs two stilts, her breast bone ribbed, and though the dress held her loosely (low on the neckline, high on the thigh) Gertrude could see her lower abdomen sunk in with a concave curve. She had a Vaudevillian quality, as though she were a ghost from the 1920’s, displaced from her troupe, lost and downtrodden that her act wouldn’t translate in this modern time—I can tap dance and sing, step right up, it only costs a quarter.
Clearing her throat and tucking her notebook under her armpit, she explained, “I’ll be your new case worker-”
“I don't need a case worker.”
“I'm afraid you might.”
“You should be afraid.”
Her tone was high and melodic like a child’s, and not at all as chilling as her words.
“I'm not,” she said, feigning a thin smile.
Bluntly, the girl asked, “What happened to your face?”
Gertrude hadn’t looked at it and she didn’t dare imagine, though her hand had drifted up to her cheek, which she was now touching.
“It’s all brown and discolored.”
“Your last case worker didn’t have a chance to stop in for quite a few months. I’m wondering if we could get acquainted, get things up to speed.”
Her mouth was a wry smirk that Gertrude couldn’t read. But soon she turned, walking through the dying grass to the steps leading up to the porch. As she ascended, Gertrude realized Roberta was bare foot, which made her choice of dress all the stranger.
She joined Roberta on the porch, but hung back between the wooden pillars, noting their peeling gray paint and imagining them white decades prior.
Sinewy and precise in her movements, Roberta perched on the wooden railing, setting her left foot on an aluminum barrel, which Gertrude soon recognized was a keg of beer.
“Are your parents home?”
She frowned, giving her head a quick shake, stringy unwashed hair brushing her shoulders for a beat.
“You’re seventeen and have one more year of high school, correct?” She realized she sounded obvious, stating facts for confirmation. Whatever conversational grace she used to have, though she could envision it, was beyond her abilities. “Are you excited for your senior year?”
When Roberta snorted a disgusted laugh, which Gertrude hoped was her response to the question and not to Gertrude herself, she wondered if Roberta had known Doris. They were the same age and, according to the case file, attended the same school, Laconia High. Had they been friends? Rivals? Total strangers? Had they gone to the same parties or vied for the same boy?
“Why don’t you tell me a little about school? Your favorite subjects? Are you looking at any colleges?”
“Can’t you ask me the standard home visit questions and get this over with?”
Roberta’s candor made her realize she hadn’t even properly introduced herself and she stammered, hunting through her pockets for her identification.
“I didn’t mention my name: I’m Gertrude Inman. Here,” she said, as she used long strides to reach her, handing over a laminated ID card.
Surprisingly, the girl took great interest reading it over and eyeing it front and back before passing it back. Gertrude clipped it to her lapel and didn’t make a fuss that it hung crookedly.
“To be honest,” she started, taking a shy step or two backwards, “I’m not sure how standard this visit is supposed to be. I’d like to ask to come into the house, but if your parents aren’t here, I’m not going to. Your last social worker did you and your family a great disservice, even though I shouldn’t say that.” Gertrude adjusted her beret and noticed her scalp was sweaty. “I’d really like to talk to you about the tragedy, but I’m not supposed to open with those questions.” She stopped herself from going down that road, took a carefully measured breath, smoothing her hands down the front of her blazer and catching Roberta’s expression as it widened—slight smirk, brows rising, chin tipping downward. “So why don’t we spend a little time getting to know one another.”
“And then you’ll go?”
“I will, but I’ll be back. I need to speak with your parents, see the home, due diligence and all that.”
She started scraping her teeth against the inside of her cheek as though she was considering.
“Have you received any counseling after Maude...?”
Roberta's eyes turned flat and Gertrude made a mental note not to press that barrier again unless the girl indicated she was ready to go there.
“I’m a counselor, for what it’s worth. I live over on Opechee. We have the lake in common.” Her stream of consciousness approach had her cringing, but she told herself blathering on was better than standing silently. “I like swimming in the summertime. Do you swim?” She didn’t leave much of a beat for an answer. “Not too good at skiing, though I’ve been a few times. I think the Old Man in the Mountain looks weird. Have you seen it?” Not a breath of a pause for Roberta to voice her opinion. “They should’ve let him collapse into the ravine. I think deer are rats that kill people.”
“What?” Roberta was laughing, shallow and breathy trills of utter confusion in response to her ramblings.
As Gertrude launched into a tirade about how Wendy’s donations to her outfit made her feel—like a French performance artist and a sore thumb (though she mistakenly used the word toe) and a mistake to end all mistakes—it dawned on her that she was treating this home visit as if it were a therapy session with Dr. Hagstaff. And yet, as wildly unprofessional if not glaringly insane as she sounded—looking at herself from the outside in, mortified and begging herself to stop talking—Roberta seemed to be enjoying the show. Perhaps alarmed, her dark eyes frozen round and locked on Gertrude, her brow knit with a hint of sarcasm, smirking in a way that told Gertrude she was both apprehensive and amused, Roberta took on a relaxed attitude.
Sliding off the railing, bare feet soundlessly touching down, she asked, “Then why are you dressed like that?”
“I've been asking myself the same
question.”
As Roberta grabbed the keg’s nodule and started pumping, her mirror image reflecting in the window beside her, Gertrude studied her then the window, which was rippling as if it'd been hand blown—an ethereal girl and her grotesque twin.
When Roberta took the nozzle and aimed it inside a red, plastic party cup, filling it with beer, she said casually, “Left over from the party.”
It didn’t occur to Gertrude to stop her. She didn’t connect that a seventeen year old shouldn’t drink alcohol, or that drinking at all at ten in the morning was a sign of poor judgment if not alcoholism. In fact, nothing about Roberta gulping it down in one long haul struck her as even vaguely inappropriate.
Unnerved perhaps that her social worker hadn’t intervened, Roberta said, “Let me see your ID again.”
Yanking it free from her lapel, her beret jostled off her head, which sent a hot rush of embarrassment across her skin. Sheepishly, she covered her bald side with her hand, extending her ID to Roberta, then quickly snatched up her hat, returning it to her head. She didn’t have to look at her to know Roberta had seen the light dusting of hair that curved around the left side of her head, the track of surgical staples that would forever remain there, and understanding this made meeting her gaze a challenge.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said softly. “At least your scars are on the outside.” She pumped the keg and refilled her cup. “When they’re on the inside, nobody knows.”
“You have scars on the inside?”
The wooden porch slats beneath her feet creaked when she shifted her weight, waiting for Roberta to respond.
“I wish they were scars,” she said, getting a bit lost in the foamy crust of her beer. “More like cuts that never heal.”
Treading carefully, keeping her tone gentle, and feeling the electric thrill of glimpsing into a young, wounded mind, she asked, “What caused the cuts?”
Roberta padded to the adjacent railing and glanced down at the plants hugging the perimeter of the house. “They’re all dying. No one waters them. The soil’s been raped of nutrients. They’re yellow and brittle.” She looked at Gertrude. “They’re supposed to have flowers. I’ve never seen flowers here.” After a brief moment sucking down her beer, she added, “It’s this place, the house. It’s killing them."
It was too abstract for Gertrude to grasp the thin thread connecting emotional wounds to dying plants, metaphors and symbolism too dynamic for her shattered brain.
“Maude’s lucky,” she concluded, her voice hollow, as she tore up a dehydrated branch. “She escaped.”
“What happened to her?”
Roberta’s gaze went soft, pupils dilating, as though she was receding into herself, floating away. Dissociating, Gertrude thought, but jotting it down, the impulse of which had strong hold on her, would risk the girl clamming up.
“She shot herself in the head,” she said easily, snapping her eyes to Gertrude, instantly present in her surroundings.
“Did you see her do this?”
Roberta clipped Gertrude’s ID to her dress where the spaghetti strap fanned out into the bodice.
“Where were you?” she pressed.
“Around.”
“Where were your parents?”
She frowned, eyes going soft again. “Don’t know.”
“How did Maude get access to a firearm?”
Throwing her head back, she let out a groaning laugh. When she leveled her gaze again, the light cut her eyes just so, revealing their color: muddy green, like a bog overwrought with peat and sphagnum.
“They’re everywhere,” she said once she’d sobered up from her guffaw.
Nearing her though cautiously, she asked, “Are they still everywhere?”
“I don’t even see them anymore.” It didn’t answer the question directly. “They blend in with the knickknacks and ceramics. They're camouflaged against the couch cushions and tabletops.”
“So there are weapons in the house?”
Airily, she twirled, saying, “I wouldn’t know. I can’t see them.”
“Roberta, it’s very important that you live in a safe environment. I’m here to make that determination. Now, I need a straight answer from you. Are there or are there not guns in the house? Your father was ordered by the court to remove all firearms and I need you to tell me if he’s done that.”
After a beat of vacantly staring once she'd turned around, Roberta swiftly rounded down the porch steps, beer sloshing from her plastic cup. “I want to ask you something,” she said without glancing over her shoulder to see whether Gertrude was following.
She was however, tracking after the girl, eyes traveling the length of her spine, something reptilian in the bones, like a dinosaur where her red dress scooped low towards the small of her back. Sickly, yet youthful like the plants.
When she passed the back of the house—its rough wooden edge demented from too many harsh winters—Roberta told her to wait there, as she disappeared under a long set of stairs that connected the backdoor to a ground-level deck. Beyond it was ten feet of sand then the lake’s shore where a dock jutted out into the water.
Though the sky was clear, the lake’s surface appeared choppy. Across the water, the landscape of Balsam firs interspersed with Maples looked like dabs of paint tapped carelessly over canvas. A warm breeze rolled in off the water. Deceivingly calm, she thought, not at all the killer it truly was. She wasn’t sure if she would ever set foot in that lake again, but had a feeling she wouldn’t.
Roberta jogged out from under the stairs and didn’t stop for Gertrude, who saw she had a photograph in her hand as soon as she slowed her pace to an out-of-breath trot around the front of the house.
By the time Gertrude trekked back, Roberta was pouring another cup of beer.
“I should’ve mentioned earlier,” said Gertrude, huffing up the porch steps, “you’re too young to drink.”
The girl ignored her statement, nearing her with the photo she’d retrieved. It looked damp and soil-stained, as Roberta stood directly beside her so they both could look.
A family portrait.
“I buried it,” she said, perhaps making an excuse for its decomposed appearance. “They don’t let me have anything to myself unless I hide it in the dirt.”
Gertrude noted the photo was recent. Roberta looked the same except for her clothing, which in the photo amounted to a cropped halter-top and cut-off jeans. Standing to the left of her sister was Maude. Her mouth was straight and her eyes looked dead. Gertrude hadn’t seen her before. The case file hadn’t included a photo of the girl, who, according to this portrait, appeared sour. Her eyes were dark and wide set under a prominent brow, but she had Roberta’s nose. What struck Gertrude most distinctly about Maude, as captured in the split-second snap of the camera, was that she seemed furious—mouth a taut snub, arms folded, leaning away from her mother as though Zhana were diseased.
She could feel Roberta’s eyes on her.
“Do we look happy?”
Her tone didn’t sound confrontational, but rather curious as if she were obsessed with fragments she couldn’t make sense of.
“No.” After glancing at Zhana—her broad smile, bright eyes, the camera loves me! And then Charlie, a stiff man with a cop’s rigidity, who seemed to have no awareness of the family he was posing with, she asked, “Can I hang onto this?”
“If I can hang onto this,” she said, flicking the DCYF ID clipped to her dress.
“What? No.” Then, off Roberta’s darkening mood, “I’m sorry, but you can’t.”
Roberta's expression hardened, as she walked backwards to the keg. She didn’t take her glare off Gertrude as she found the spigot and lifted the already high hem of her dress, exposing the crotch of her black underwear.
Observing her do such a thing was jarring. But when Roberta placed the spigot flush between her legs and pinched the lever, causing beer to flow like piss, a dark chill washed over Gertrude.
The girl was acting deranged.
>
Feeling strangely in danger, Gertrude hurried down the steps, forgetting the photo in her hand and abandoning her ID. She crossed the gravel driveway briskly, all the while sensing Roberta’s burning glare on the back of her head.
When she got in her car, she couldn’t start it fast enough. But though she twisted the key in the ignition, the engine wouldn’t turn.
Chapter Four
It sounded like the mechanical chortle of some old grouch on his deathbed defying the inevitable, as she held the key into the On position for the fifth time. She flipped it off to let the car rest then twisted again only to hear the same horrid grinding, which she quickly put an end to. She didn’t want to flood the engine, a notion that gave her hope only because it was a glimpse into all she’d known about cars. But when she wracked her brain for the specifics, what might be causing this problem, the particular cause at the root of this symptom, there was nothing there, only a murky sense that in her prior life she would’ve been able to fix it.
She cranked her window down for a little fresh air and avoided the steering wheel’s advice, SMILE! then popped the hood. Before climbing out of the car to investigate, she glanced through the Maples. Roberta didn’t appear to be in the yard or on the porch, which made the prospect of standing in plain sight less demoralizing. The girl’s outlandish behavior, the phallic nature of her demonstration, caused remote agitation in Gertrude, like a fever, low-grade, but apt to climb. Certainly, Roberta was peculiar and shouldn’t be left unsupervised. But the question remained whether or not her parents were fit guardians worthy of caring for her. Ten minutes with the girl hadn’t even scratched the surface. She needed to get inside that house.
Maybe being stranded would work out in her favor. If Zhana or Charlie King returned, she could speak with them, get a feel for their aptitude in being responsible caregivers, and perhaps confirm the home had been properly stripped of firearms. Then she could develop a steady routine of bimonthly home visits, focus on her rehabilitation, and not risk a minor’s welfare because her mind was a jumbled version of its former state.