The Unremembered Girl: A Novel

by Eliza Maxwell

  He changed his tactic.

  “Fine. You can’t protect Caroline. Or yourself, for that matter. You’re an old man, whether you like it or not.”

  But as far as tactics went, that one was the wrong one to take.

  “Boy,” Livingston said, drawing himself up to his full height, all five foot four inches. “I’ll have you know, I may be just an old man, but this old man can still whoop your ass.”

  “Dad, don’t be this way,” Del said.

  “No, sir. That’s the second time in a matter of days that you’ve taken that disrespectful tone with me, and I’m done with you, boy. You get your ass out of here. We don’t need help from the likes of you.”

  “Dad, she could be dangerous. Don’t do this.”

  “Maybe she is, and maybe she ain’t, but the day I can’t handle a slip of a girl is a day that you’re never gonna live to see, son. Now, you take your useless tin badge and get the hell out of here.”

  Henry and Del watched in shared frustration as Livingston marched himself back to the front door and slammed it behind him.

  “Damn that old fool,” Del spit out. “Sometimes I think I hate that man.”

  “Amen to that, brother,” Henry said with a sigh.

  “Look, stick as close to the house as you can,” Del said. “And try to get a name from her, where she’s from, anything. If you can do that, I’ll have a better chance of tracking down where she belongs, then getting her the hell back there and out of here.”

  Henry remembered the low rumble that had come out of the girl’s throat when she had felt threatened. He thought of the way she scooped the food from the plate to her mouth, like she’d never been around a spoon before. He had his doubts about being able to get anything useful out of a woman who was more wild animal than human.

  But he nodded all the same.

  All he could do was try.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  With a sensation of warm fullness in her belly that she barely recognized, her hunger was sated. For now.

  The room was worn, but clean, and smelled of sweet, delicious things.

  She wondered how long it would last.

  The woman leaned against the counter, glancing in the girl’s direction, but not pressing.

  “My name is Caroline,” she told her. “The man who helped you, that’s my son, Henry. There are more, but . . . well, we’ll get to that in time.”

  Hen. Ree. The girl turned the sounds over in her mind, feeling the shape of them.

  “Would you like to tell me your name?” Caroline asked.

  The girl was silent. Speaking—pushing words past her mind and out of her mouth in predetermined forms—was placing herself in the path of harm.

  It had always been this way. She’d long ago adopted silence. It was easy to do. No one asked her anything anyway. Until now.

  Caroline accepted her silence with only a glance over her shoulder. She was busy at the sink, cleaning the dishes. She didn’t come too close.

  The girl was glad.

  “That’s okay, if you don’t want to tell me,” she said, her eyes drawn to the world beyond the window. “Those men outside . . . my husband, my sons . . . they’re unsure right now about the best way to move forward. When a man is unsure of what to do, he becomes like a child, sometimes.”

  The girl listened to the rise and fall of Caroline’s voice, though the words spoken didn’t matter so much. Only the blanketing calm.

  “Don’t trouble yourself about them, or what they might say. You’re safe here.”

  Caroline wiped her hands on a towel and turned toward the girl. She didn’t move any closer, thankfully, but she did tilt her head, trying to make a connection with her eyes.

  The girl folded in upon herself, still hunched in the corner on the floor, looking away from those old brown eyes full of things the girl couldn’t understand.

  “You have my word,” Caroline added.

  Savoring the idea, the girl recognized that this woman was the only person ever to give her a gift.

  First the kindness, so unknown, and now her word, given so freely.

  She watched with her hair lowered in front of her face as Caroline laid the towel to dry along the edge of the sink.

  “I’ll be right back, okay?” she said.

  The girl didn’t speak, but forced her head to incline, a small recognition that the words had found a home.

  The older woman gave a tiny smile at her nod, accepting it as the gift it was intended to be.

  “Okay, then,” Caroline said. She moved toward the door.

  With effort tinged with fear, the girl opened her mouth and formed the shape of a word in the back of her throat. The sound that came out wasn’t what she’d meant it to be, hardly a word at all, but it caught on the other woman’s ear.

  Caroline stopped and turned back to her.

  She tried again.

  “Girl,” she said, a little stronger this time, clearer, though still quiet as a moth’s wings.

  Caroline cocked her head to one side and pushed the gray hairs that had fallen onto her cheek behind one ear. Two small, deep lines appeared between her brows.

  “Girl?” she repeated back to her.

  The girl gave a small nod.

  “That’s what people call you?”

  Another infinitesimal nod.

  “Do you have any other name?”

  This time she shook her head, short and quick, back and forth.

  “Hmm,” Caroline said, hiding her thoughts behind a mask. “In that case, would you like another name?”

  It was the girl’s turn to tilt her head to one side, mulling the question.

  Caroline waited.

  An unvoiced need was growing inside the girl.

  She nodded twice, her eyes wide.

  Caroline cleared her throat, looking like she was fighting back her emotions.

  “Good,” she said. “I’m sure we can do better than that.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Mama?” Henry called. There was no reply. The house was silent, save for the whisper and clicks of the ceiling fans.

  “Mama,” he called again, louder this time. It wasn’t worry, not yet, but it would be soon, if he didn’t hear her voice.

  With a bump followed by footsteps from the bedroom in the back of the house, he relaxed somewhat.

  “Hush now, son. There’s no need to shout. My hearing is just fine, thank you,” she said in a low voice as she came down the hallway.

  “Where is everybody?” he asked. Henry had stepped into the shed and loaded up his truck for the deliveries he’d have to put off until he was comfortable leaving his mother alone with their guest.

  “Alice came by and took Del on home. I think he wanted to change out of that silly tie. I’ve asked them to join us for dinner tonight, though. A peace offering of sorts. I’m not sure where your father’s stormed off to. He was a bit . . . let’s say miffed, when I let the girl lie down in Mari’s room.”

  “Mari’s room?” Henry said, incredulously. No one used Mari’s room. Not ever.

  “The child was dead on her feet, Henry. Would you prefer I let her rest in your room?”

  He held up his hands, a white flag to his mother’s defensiveness.

  “No, no. Just surprised, that’s all.”

  He thought of Mari’s lace curtains and the pale-blue quilt on the bed, the way it had looked when they’d shut the door after clearing it out following her death. Pristine. Empty. A room without an inhabitant.

  “I threw a sheet over the bed,” Mama said, with a glance in Henry’s direction.

  Henry thought of the sour odor of abandonment that surrounded the stranger and couldn’t help but feel that was wise.

  “Livingston was less than pleased, I take it.”

  His mother patted him on the shoulder. “You’ve always had a gift for understatement, my boy.”

  “Mama, Del said there might have been some sort of incident out at the shack.”

  His mot
her’s back went up. “Livingston mentioned it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he did,” Henry said. Mentioned it loudly, no doubt.

  “Two things, Henry,” she said, holding up a finger in his direction. “One, we don’t know what’s happened to bring this woman to our door, but she very clearly needs our help.”

  “Mama, if—”

  She raised a hand to cut him off. “I’m not done. You hear me out, because this is the last time I plan to say this. I am not, nor have I ever been, the kind of person who is willing to turn a blind eye to someone in need. I would hope that I’ve raised you well enough that you wouldn’t either.”

  She stopped and looked him square in the eye, plainly judging the effect of her words. After a moment, Henry nodded.

  “Good. Now, secondly, even if this unconfirmed report is true, even if a man was, in fact, attacked out there and that girl is the one responsible for that . . .” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of Mari’s bedroom and sighed. “At the risk of sounding like I’m taking potshots at your entire gender, Henry, I feel the need to point out that a woman very rarely attacks a man without a good reason. Now, I might be jumping to conclusions here, but the fact that it wasn’t officially reported to the police tells me I’m probably not.”

  Henry had nothing to say to that. He couldn’t fault her logic. He didn’t like it, not even a little bit. But she had a point. Somehow, that didn’t ease his tension.

  “I’ll be staying close to the house, until we know the whole story,” he said. His mother started to speak, but it was Henry’s turn to put his foot down. “And I don’t want to argue about it.”

  She finally nodded, granting him this small measure of reassurance. And small it was, indeed.

  Mama suddenly looked very tired. The air of capability that she was normally so careful to keep in place slipped for just a moment, and Henry got a glimpse of the exhaustion and pain she was carrying around. It squeezed the breath from him.

  “I believe I’ll rest for a little while myself,” she said, her words no longer propped up by the strength of her convictions. “It’s chicken tonight for dinner.” Henry could have howled at the banality of the words. She patted his arm again, and turned to find her own bed. “Don’t be late,” she called over her shoulder. “You know how your father gets.”

  Not my father, he heard echoing in the distant caverns of his mind, but the thought lacked its usual vehemence as he watched his mother shuffle down the hallway.

  Along the way, she passed the room where the girl rested.

  If Henry or his mother had chosen to look into the room, they would have been struck by the contrast of the filthy person curled up on the bed and wearing rags to the clean sunlight streaming through the windows.

  Henry’s brows would have drawn together in concern for what the future would bring and what part this unnamed girl would play in it. Caroline’s thoughts would have been more inclined toward empathy, leaving the practicalities to sort themselves out.

  Neither would have noticed the shallow breaths that indicated the girl was still awake, listening intently to their words. Neither would have seen the knife from the kitchen that the girl had slipped between the folds of her clothing, then held tightly to her heart as she lay on the bed.

  But neither chose to look, and the girl finally gave in to a sleep that was deep and dreamless, her grip on the handle of the knife never loosening, even then.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “What the hell’s going on around here, Henry?” Alice asked later that day. “Del said Caroline’s taken in a homeless girl?”

  They were out at the shed, where Henry was filling jars with the lemon drop vodka that was so popular at the local bar. He’d save a few for Ms. Watson too. He knew she liked it.

  “‘Homeless’ might be too kind. She’s more feral than anything else,” he said to his sister-in-law over his shoulder.

  “You’re not kidding, are you?” she asked with a look of disbelief.

  “Nope,” he said.

  Alice chewed on a fingernail, her worried face echoing his own feelings on the matter. “Henry, I realize that nobody likes to talk about it,” she said after a moment, “but I know you’re aware what the doctor said about the cancer.”

  He nodded. “That without treatment, it would spread? Yeah, I know.”

  She watched his face, not unkindly. “Have you considered . . . I mean . . . ,” Alice trailed off.

  “What? You think the cancer’s affecting her judgment?” he asked, genuinely surprised.

  “Well, cancer’s unpredictable,” she said. “There’s no way to know where it’ll spread. Lungs, lymph nodes . . .”

  “Her brain? Is that what you’re trying to say without coming out and saying it?”

  Alice looked at him apologetically. “Well, it’s a possibility.”

  Henry thought about it for a moment, but only a moment. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not unless old-fashioned Christian charity can be chalked up to brain cancer. Her mind’s as sharp as it always was. It’s the rest of her I’m worried about.”

  Alice sighed. “Have you tried talking her into chemo again?” she asked.

  Henry turned back to the sterilized jars on the rack. He didn’t want Alice to see the helplessness on his face. “Me, Livingston, the doctors. We’ve all tried till we were blue in the face. She won’t have it. Not again. She says she’d rather have three months of better-than-nothing over a year of living hell.”

  Alice nodded. “I can’t say I agree with her, but I understand, I suppose.”

  Henry had tried to understand too. He really had.

  “Ovarian cancer, at this stage, is nearly impossible to get rid of entirely,” the doctor had said after the cancer had come back. “But more chemotherapy can prolong your life, Mrs. Doucet.”

  Mentally preparing himself for the months of sickness and pain that the second round of treatment would bring about, Henry had done a double take when his mother had smiled gently at the man.

  “Thanks, Doc, but I believe I’ll pass.”

  It had been easier to come to terms with her decision four months earlier when she had said the words. And to be fair, Mama had seemed to be doing well. She tired easily but insisted on continuing to do the things she’d always done for as long as she was capable.

  Thinking of the exhaustion he’d glimpsed in his mother earlier, he was keenly aware that she was living on borrowed time.

  “She was resting, but I’m sure she’s up by now. Why don’t we go up to the house, and you can judge for yourself her mental state?”

  “Henry, you know I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

  He nodded. “No worries, Alice,” he said, holding the door of the shed open for her. “I almost wish I could blame it on a brain tumor. But the truth is, she’s just a good person. A better person than me, and definitely a better person than Livings—”

  Henry stopped in his tracks, and his mouth hung open at the sight that greeted them. There wasn’t much that left Henry flabbergasted, but seeing the girl from the woods in the chicken coop, with her dark, ragged clothing flapping about her, clutching a hatchet in one hand and one of Mama’s broody hens in the other brought him up short.

  “Oh my—” Alice gasped by his side, bringing a hand to her mouth.

  The hatchet came down on the neck of the chicken with a gruesome thud.

  “God,” Alice breathed out.

  Oblivious to the dust and blood, the girl dropped to the ground right there in the coop and set to plucking the unfortunate animal, ignoring the squawking and the ruckus the rest of the hens were making at the deadly stranger in their midst.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Alice’s face was pale when Henry held the front door for her.

  They could hear Livingston’s perpetual carping from the direction of the kitchen and followed the sound. They arrived just in time to see Henry’s mother slam a bowl onto the counter in an uncharacteristic show of temper.


  “Enough,” Mama said, loudly interrupting her husband, who’d gone somewhat red in the face. His thinning hair was standing on end, as if the frustration of dealing with his wife’s pigheadedness had overloaded his circuits, sending a jolt of electric current through him.

  “We’ve been married for seventeen years, Livingston Doucet.” Mama gestured with the large knife in her hand. “And I’ve been a damn good wife. I dare anyone to say any differently.”

  “Caroline—”

  “Shut up and listen to me, Livingston. I don’t have a lot of time left on this earth, and I’m getting awfully tired of people interrupting me. And that goes for all of you,” she added, waving the pointy end of the knife around the room, first at Del, who was leaning against the counter with his hands in his pockets, then to Henry and Alice in the doorway. When she was sure she had their attention, Mama went on.

  “Now, I’ve put up with your opinions and your loud mouth and all your posturing because I know that, deep down, you are a good man. Are you intending to prove me wrong today?”

  “You’ve got to realize, Caroline, that you can’t just drag up with a wild girl in tow and expect to put her in Maribel’s room,” Livingston said, pleading now. He looked around at the rest of them for support, but Del was suddenly unduly interested in his shoes.

  Alice met Henry’s eyes uneasily, then glanced back over her shoulder, clearly thinking about the girl in question, who was, as far as they knew, still relieving Mama’s prized laying hen, Mathilda, of her feathers. Mathilda won’t need them now anyway, Henry thought. Seeing how she no longer has a head.

  Unaware of the carnage in the chicken coop, Mama crossed her arms and faced down her husband.

  “Frankly, Livingston, I find it more than a little bit offensive that you’ve pushed me to this, but might I remind you that this is my house? Mine. It was mine before we got married, and it’s mine still. And if you don’t calm yourself down, then I swear to the good Lord above that I will change my will today and leave it to the Second Baptist Church when I go.”

  “Now see here, Caroline . . . ,” Livingston blustered. But the stony look on her face never wavered. “You wouldn’t . . . ,” he trailed off.