Hideaway

by Nicole Lundrigan

  She put the plate on my lap. “You should eat something.”

  I took the sandwich and I tried to smile. It didn’t taste too good. The bread was dry and stuck in my throat.

  “You probably thought I was being rough earlier today.”

  I chewed and nodded.

  “I’m sorry you could think such a thing. But you need to trust Gloria.”

  I nodded again.

  She got real close to me. Her eyebrows were turned yellow now, too, and it looked like they weren’t there at all. “You got to understand, Bids. That’s not Rowan in the basement,” she said. “I know you think it is, but it’s not. So you can put that silly idea out of your head right now.”

  I looked at her through my chubby eyes. I didn’t know what she meant. I pinched my arm when I was in the basement. I knew it was real.

  “He came back, Bids, but he was different. Not normal. I didn’t know what to do.” She looked at her fingernails. They were painted a peachy color. “I just thought I’d give him a while. Keep him safe and sound, you know? I didn’t want him arrested and thrown in jail. Or some hospital for lunatics. I was trying to do the right thing.”

  I took another bite of my sandwich, but my cheeks were filling up.

  “Telly was supposed to come home. To help me figure things out.”

  I chewed and chewed.

  “I can tell you’re still confused.” She touched my arm. “Imagine Chicken, okay?”

  “Okay,” I whispered. Crumbs flew out of my mouth.

  “And I let him out to do his business. Simple as can be, right? But when he comes back, he’s this vicious wolf. Gone mad up here.” She tapped her hair. “And he’s run off and torn up everyone’s gardens. What could I do? If the dog catcher caught him he’d put that choke chain around Chicken’s neck and throw him in the back of his van. We’d never see him again.”

  I lifted up the sandwich, but I couldn’t take another bite.

  “He’s like an animal down there. It’s so frightening, Bids. Not Rowan at all. I mean, your brother did some terrible stuff when he was gone off. Really terrible things I can’t begin to try and explain. I’m fixing everything, but let me tell you, it’s not straightforward in the least.” She frowned. “I thought Telly would help, but that man messed it all up. And then that idiot tramp goes and tells everyone he’s drowned Rowan. Out in some stupid lake. Which was a lie of course, but how could I tell anyone? And after that, it got to be such a tangle. It was only supposed to be a couple of days until me and Telly got settled. Now that boy’s turned worse instead of better. I’m stretched to my limit. But because I’m Gloria, I’m not giving up.” She squeezed my hand hard. “I’m still trying to straighten everything out. Do you understand now?”

  I still didn’t know. Rowan was a wolf? He didn’t sound like a wolf. He sounded like Rowan. He called me Turtle. But he was knocking on the door. He wouldn’t stop. A wolf might do that if it was angry.

  “You’re thinking about that man who told all the lies?”

  I pushed the food into one cheek. I wiggled my arm away from hers. “Carl?” He put Rowan in the lake. But Rowan wasn’t in the lake. Or maybe he was and he didn’t stay in the lake.

  “Carl.” Gloria made a snort. “Doesn’t matter what he calls himself, he was a wolf. A nasty wolf. You listen to me real careful, Bids. That animal is exactly where he deserves to be. Even better than he deserves, if I tell the truth. And you know Gloria always tells the truth.”

  I nodded.

  “He hurt Rowan beyond what you can imagine.” She patted her chest with her hand. “I can’t even get the words out. None of this would be happening if that Carl man had stayed away. If Rowan had stayed away from him.”

  She was talking fast. I couldn’t hear it all. “Well?” she said. “You understand?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Good girl. You have to trust me, Bids. Gloria only wants what’s best for you. To look after you. That’s the truth, right?”

  “That’s the truth,” I whispered. The sandwich was a big stone in my middle.

  “It’s important you do everything I say. You have to listen to me. It won’t be much longer. I’ve just got that feeling.” She put both of her hands over her heart. “Telly called just now and wants to meet for a dinner. Don’t that sound lovely?”

  I sniffed. “When?”

  “Soon, I think. He didn’t say. But that can only mean one thing, right? Good news.”

  “Good news.”

  She smoothed my hair. “Don’t you worry, Bids. If you don’t misbehave again, those…Well, you know, they won’t drive over and take you. Of course I can’t be certain, sweetheart, but I don’t think so. Okay?”

  Tears started coming out again. I couldn’t stop them. I could just see the men standing at our happy, happy door. They would be tall and angry and they would grab my arms and my legs and they would throw me in a dark trunk of a car. They’d probably grab Jenny the Head, too. Then we’d disappear forever. It’d be cold and wet and smelly. No one would find us. Me and Jenny the Head would be like Rowan. All disappeared. He wasn’t on the bottom of the lake, though. He was a wolf in the basement. Maybe I’d turn into a wolf too. Instead of a turtle. Jenny the Head would stay the same.

  “Do you trust me, Bids?”

  I nodded.

  “Who do you love the best?”

  “You.”

  “Say it.”

  “I love you best, Gloria.” And I did. Inside my heart it was mostly Gloria in there. A tiny, tiny, tiny secret bit for Aunt Erma. None for Telly because he didn’t help Gloria. Or Dian, even though she was nice. I didn’t know how much was for Rowan. If any. He was so bad he wasn’t even Rowan no more. Carl killed him dead. But in a different way. Maybe he was on the bottom of the lake and he mostly died and he crawled out and came home. He was probably dripping and rotting and falling apart. Like in my dreams when Shar and Darrell rowed me out. He could be that way. He could. I didn’t know.

  * * *

  —

  Later there was a knock on our door. I was in the kitchen because Gloria let me out of my room. My legs went funny. I thought it was the men coming for me, but when Gloria answered it was only Shar. Gloria told her I was sick.

  “Caught a cold,” Gloria said. “Can’t keep enough tissues in the house.” I put my hand on my head. It was warm. I was probably going to start sneezing any second. Then she called out to me. “Bids! You got company.”

  When I went to the door Darrell was there too. He had a black T-shirt and jean shorts and black boots with laces. His ear was still red.

  “Hi,” I said. I rubbed my nose. “I got a cold.”

  Gloria put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me in. She was warm and soft.

  “Yech,” Shar said. “You better not snot all over me.”

  Darrell bumped her. “Don’t be a dick, Shar. Say what you got to say.”

  Her eyes rolled around. “Aunt Erma told me I got to say sorry.” She tapped her foot and stuck out her lip. “So, there. Sorry. I said it.”

  Darrell smacked her in the head. “There’s something seriously wrong with you.” Then he looked at me. “We’re sorry, Maisy. For the board and everything. Shar was just joking around.”

  “For what?” Gloria said. She took her hand off my shoulder. “What board?”

  Darrell coughed. “Um. They—they were just being bored, Mrs. Janes. Then Shar got rude and told Maisy to get home.”

  “She said that, did she?”

  Shar pulled her lip in.

  “Well, Maisy won’t be needing to go over there no more. I’m going to have to stop my shifts at Stafford’s until I figure things out. And you can tell that to your mother, Darrell. Exactly what I said.”

  Shar took a big step back. Darrell scritched his head. “I’ll let her know, Mrs. Janes. And I’m sorry she took off. I came to check on her, I did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Followed her down to your house.”

&nb
sp; “You were here?”

  “Yeah. I knocked on the door for ages, and then I saw lights go on inside, so I figured she was okay if she was home.”

  He smiled at me. My insides got a tiny bit warm. I looked at Darrell’s arms and I could see his muscles. I bet he was strong. He wouldn’t be scared of a wolf. Maybe if he went down to the basement he could open the door and wrestle Rowan out. I smiled back at him and tugged on Gloria’s sleeve, but Gloria started to close the door.

  “I don’t got nothing to say to you, Sharlene. I hope I don’t see you coming back here for a very long time.”

  Shar’s mouth dropped open and I saw her two gray teeth.

  “But thank you, Darrell. I appreciate you trying to look out for Maisy. She got to go back to bed now.”

  Click. Our yellow door was closed. I could hear Shar and Darrell stomping down the steps. Darrell told Shar she was a real bonehead. Shar didn’t say nothing back.

  Gloria locked the door. “I really wish that didn’t happen.”

  “What?”

  “People. Coming onto my property like they got a right. Thumping on my door. Busybodies, nosing around. I hate that. I really, really do. Puts a lot of pressure on me.”

  I frowned and nodded.

  “And you,” she said. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t ‘huh’ me, miss.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed until my knuckles crunched together. “Don’t think I don’t notice what you’re doing. I can see you making goo-goo eyes at Erma’s son. Why don’t you go up and kiss him right on the mouth? You scared? Is that it? Yeah. You’re scared. Well, you look like a real simpleton, you know that?”

  My cheeks got warm.

  “Maisy Janes. You answer me. Do you know how stupid you look?”

  I nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “I look stupid,” I whispered.

  “That’s my girl.” She stopped squeezing my hand. “You listen to Gloria and you’ll grow up decent. Not like some moony-faced ninny, tripping over her own feet.”

  I looked at Chicken, but he went and lied down in front of the basement door.

  “And that dog is ridiculous,” she said. “Old and ridiculous.”

  That night in bed I heard the tapping again. I knew it was Rowan down there. It made my middle feel worse. What if he got out? What if he was sad, too? Could a wolf be sad? What if he stopped being bad and Gloria didn’t know? If I was brave, I would go down there and check. But I wasn’t brave. My head was full of ideas and they raced around and crashed into each other. It made me fuzzy and sick to hold it in.

  Gloria came in my room and heard the noise. “Nothing normal acts like that. No one would say otherwise.” Then she told me I had to turn off my brain. I had to put all my bad thoughts in a huge box and shut the lid down tight. “That’s what regular folks do,” she said. “When they got troubles in their life.” I wondered if Gloria did that too. I wondered if the basement bathroom was her box. She kept the lid on tight and didn’t see Rowan no more.

  She gave me an extra giant spoon of green cough vitamins, but I still couldn’t sleep. The tapping wouldn’t stop and my box wasn’t working. I tried to put Rowan in there. I tried to sit on the box in my head, but the lid kept popping off. And when I looked in Rowan wasn’t a horrible wolf at all.

  He was waving at me and smiling. “Hello, Turtle,” he said.

  ROWAN

  Gloria came. And Gloria went. Every time she brought beans I tried to talk to her, pleaded, but she just kept saying, “Like I said, Telly has to choose. When he wants you out, you’ll be out.” I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. I know I ran away, but couldn’t I just apologize?

  For hours and hours I tapped the pipe that ran along the corner and disappeared into the ceiling. Willing Maisy to come back. Why wouldn’t she let me out? Was she angry too?

  I waited and waited and sang and counted and swore and dozed and dreamt and woke and waited and waited and sang and swore and slept and dreamt and waited and watched, but nothing changed. The room did not dissolve around me. I did not find myself in my bed upstairs. I did not discover Maisy’s face smiling at me, delighted I was home. I did not feel my fingers tangled in Chicken’s warm fur.

  The cement stayed cement.

  It seemed Gloria hadn’t been there in a while, but I couldn’t be certain. I just knew my stomach had an acidic emptiness. Cramps pierced my intestines. I noticed the smooth edges of my shinbone, my ribs. My muscles quivered when I tried to stand up to get a drink. Though I tried not to stand up very often.

  I saw movement in the corner of my eye. I leaned over and squinted. A tiny blur of color skidded over the linoleum and slowed in the shadow behind the toilet. A centipede. He was still, silent, but as I slid forward I could see his two antennae moving in the air. He was sensing. My invisible antennae were moving, too. Ever so slightly.

  Before, if I’d seen this in the shed, I would have stomped. But now I realized how neat this rust-colored creature was. His skinny legs all moved in perfect unison. A flurry of energy. I wondered about his life. Where did he come from? Did he have a family? Was he just trying to get away from them all? Did he sleep during the winter? Did his legs ever get tired, or did he just ignore the hurt and get on with it?

  I bet he ignored it. And just kept going forward.

  “Hello there, little friend,” I whispered. I stayed very still. I hoped he would move closer. My insides filled up with want. I hoped he would know how badly I needed him to take a single coordinated step in my direction. He was the first living thing I’d seen in forever. Gloria didn’t count.

  “What’s it like out?

  “Is it still summer?

  “I’m happy you’re here.”

  The antennae flickered. He was listening. He was listening to me.

  “Where did you come from?

  “Can you sneak upstairs and see if Maisy is okay?

  “Can you tell someone I’m here?”

  Then the lights snapped out. Darkness shrank around my face, my skin. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I knew he was still there. The room did not seem as empty as it had before. He was probably thinking about all my questions. I might have overwhelmed him, but I couldn’t help it. I moved my fingers around in the blackness. Delicately touching the walls, the floor, the cold porcelain of the toilet. I couldn’t find him.

  Next time I woke, the lights were on again. That was how Gloria did it, flicking the switch outside the door. No pattern to when or why. My centipede was near the yellow base of the toilet. His feathery legs were pulled inward. He wasn’t moving. He looked much, much smaller. I knew he was dead.

  I hadn’t cried at all. But I cried then.

  MAISY

  Gloria did what she said. She stopped going to work at Stafford’s. They told her they didn’t mind because of what she went through, and now she could spend some time at home. All day long she watched me. If I went outside she watched me through the window or the sliding doors. If I read a book, she watched me from Telly’s chair. She even waited outside the bathroom when I was going. Seeing her there when I opened the door made me jump.

  “People’re going to wonder, Bids, why you’re always so twitchy. Worse than a rabbit. Like you got bugs under your skin. You need to know Gloria’s got everything under control.”

  One morning, Gloria told me to go into the basement for a can of tomatoes. She said being afraid was silly and there was no reason for it. She stood at the top of the steps and I went down the steps fast and yanked the string for the light bulb. The fan made its noise, so I couldn’t hear Rowan. My legs wiggled. I found the tomatoes and raced back up.

  “Good girl,” she said. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  After I ate lunch I had to go get a dish. Square and glass. She didn’t watch this time. I couldn’t find it, so I had to poke around. Rowan still didn’t make no sound.

  Before dinner, I went to get some beans. I found a can in the
box at the bottom of the stairs. I took it out, but I stayed there. I closed my eyes and listened as hard as I could. I think I heard noises from behind the bathroom door. Maybe Rowan was singing. Or maybe he was growling. Like a wolf. Shakes went up my back. I ran up the stairs.

  “See? I got full trust in you, Bids.” She hugged me when I gave her the can. “And you got to have full trust in me. He’s not going to hurt you. I won’t let him. You’re Gloria’s girl!”

  She opened the can and poured the beans in a bowl. She took them down to the basement, not even warmed up. When she came back up the phone started ringing, and Gloria let out a sigh and said, “It better not be work. We agreed.” She answered it, and I knew she was talking to Telly because her face got shiny and her eyes got shiny and she kept trying to make her hair go smooth.

  “Of course,” she said. “That works perfect for me. I can make it happen. That’s what Gloria does.” She put the phone down and smiled big. “This is all so rushed.” She used her hand for a fan. “So rushed. He don’t give a girl much time to primp!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He wants to meet. Your dad. In two hours. Dinner, I think. Maybe dinner.” She pinched my chin. “Can you manage with a bowl of cereal, Bids?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone, but I don’t got much choice. Watch TV, get a snack. Go to bed at a reasonable time, darling!” Her arms were waving around. Then she stopped. “If anyone knocks on that door, you do not open it. You hear me? You never know who it could be.”

  I nodded. I knew. It could be a man in a car.

  It was almost dark when she left. She was wearing her new peachy dress and her hair was done in fat yellow curls. Through the screen door, I watched her walk to the top of the circle. The lights from the bus came and went. Then she was gone.

  I took the rope off Chicken. Gloria kept him tied to a chair so he couldn’t go wherever he liked, even though he only went to the basement door. He scritched and scritched. He barked at me. Then he flumped down next to it. I went and patted him. I sat down next to the door too. I made a tiny bark.