The Dime Box

by Karen Grose

  TWENTY-TWO

  A s soon as he pulled into the laneway and parked the truck, Ian charged inside and flopped onto the couch of the main room, bottle in hand. Told to unpack his things, she spent the evening lugging around camping gear. Airing it. Cleaning it. Putting it back in the hallway cupboard, without comment or complaint. On top of a chair, her hand high inside, she pushed the last of many bags flat on the shelf when her wrist brushed a piece of paper. She pulled out a white envelope. Addressed to her, she jumped down and pulled out a kitchen chair.

  Dear Greta,

  I’m writing to tell you how sorry I am to have heard about your mother’s death. I can’t imagine the pain you’re feeling, and I’m hoping warm memories of your mother sustain you through what I’m sure must be a very difficult time.

  I knew your mom from a few years back when we worked together. In fact, you and I have already met. It was years ago and you were pretty young, so I’m not sure if you’d remember.

  If there’s anything I can do for you or if you have any questions you want to ask about your mom, feel free to get in touch with me.

  My deepest sympathies.

  Colleen

  Greta’s stomach lurched and she gulped for air. She hadn’t taken a single breath the whole time she’d been reading. Colleen. The lady who wrecked Sundays? Images of her parents and Colleen huddled in the back aisle of the old-fashioned candy store surfaced in her head. The woman had been nothing but trouble. She read the note again. How did Colleen know where she lived? She picked up the envelope and turned it over. The address was right. Her eyes shifted to the top left corner.

  Colleen Jones. Bracebridge Women’s Shelter.

  She gasped. Her mother had never told her where she’d worked when she first came to Bracebridge; this was another piece of her mother’s life she could claim. Her mood lifted, but quickly deflated again as she imagined what would happen if Ian found her in the kitchen with the letter. At first, she had no idea how she’d explain it, but then she reconsidered. Why should she have to? Addressed to her, her father had hidden it, so she didn’t care if he knew she had it. It belonged to her. She stormed down the hallway to confront him. Her stomach turned. Barely breathing, he’d passed out, sprawled over the length of the couch in his camping clothes.

  That week, up in her bedroom, Greta read Colleen’s letter a thousand times. Postmarked two years ago, shortly after her mother’s death, she’d had a lot of time since then to consider the stories her mother had told her about her life. She didn’t believe she’d lied outright; more likely, she’d left the bad stuff out. Now she had Colleen to talk to, she needed to fill in the missing pieces. Maybe she’d know where to find her old adoption papers.

  One morning after her father had left for work, she picked up the phone and dialed the number at the bottom of the page.

  A woman answered. “Bracebridge Women’s Shelter. Can I help you?”

  She slammed down the phone. She hadn’t thought about what she was going to say if someone answered. She collected her thoughts and dialed again.

  “Bracebridge Women’s Shelter,” the voice said. “How can I help you?”

  A chill surged through her veins. She felt hot, and then she felt cold, but this time she didn’t hang up. “Hello,” she said, her voice a whisper. It was shaking. “Is Colleen there?”

  There was a pause. “Colleen who?”

  She didn’t need to look at the letter; she’d memorized every word. “Colleen Jones.”

  “Hmm. I’m new on reception and I don’t see her on the staff list. Hang on, honey, let me check with the others.”

  The voice put her on hold. She waited for an eternity until it returned.

  “Still there, honey?”

  “Yep,” she said, slightly annoyed at the pet name. Still, she ignored it. It wasn’t the time.

  “Colleen’s off this week. Vacation. Leave me a number and I’ll get her to call when she’s back.”

  Greta didn’t hesitate. She rattled off her name and number. She wasn’t worried about her father intercepting the call—he was never home anyway.

  Waiting for Colleen to come back from vacation was the second longest week of her life. Only the week of her mother’s funeral felt longer. When the phone rang, she jumped and took a breath. She answered. She listened. She could barely contain her excitement.

  “Yes, I did. I finally got the letter,” she said, no thanks to her idiot father. An image of the envelope in her dime box appeared in her head, tucked away safe with the treasures she valued most. She listened again and started to count. One, two, three. Then her mind went blank. She’d spent hours poring over every detail of the conversation she wanted to have with Colleen but now had no idea how to ask any of her questions. Her well laid-out plan evaporated into thin air.

  She centred herself quickly to steady her voice. “You said if I had anything I wanted to know, I could ask…” She kicked herself for skipping over the small talk she’d so painstakingly worked through.

  “Absolutely. I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened,” Colleen said.

  Greta’s eyes stung and her mind flashed back two years. It would be too painful to let the conversation go backwards. She was stronger now and she needed to move forward. “So, I guess... First off... How did you know my mom?”

  “I met her here at the shelter before you were born.”

  Her mind swirled. That was where her mother must’ve worked when she first moved to Bracebridge. Another piece of her mother’s past slipped into place.

  “I’ve met you, too,” Colleen said, “twice, actually. You were probably too young to remember.”

  “Try me.”

  “First time in the hospital. You were maybe about three?”

  Greta paused. “Me? Are you sure?”

  “Didn’t your mom tell you?”

  “No.” She had no recollection of a hospital visit.

  “Your mom said you were an active kid. Went from crawling to walking to running in a blink of an eye.”

  She grinned. No wonder track had come so naturally. Apparently she’d been running forever.

  “You’d taken some type of fall down some hard, wooden stairs,” Colleen said.

  Greta knew those stairs all too well.

  “Cracked your head right open.”

  An icy chill went down her back. She thought of her mother splayed out on the kitchen floor. She pushed the image of blood out of her mind and focused on Colleen’s voice.

  “When your parents got you stitched up, the doctors said you were in shock. You wouldn’t talk. Wouldn’t even respond to your name. Didn’t cry. You just sat there. They did a CAT scan and found you had a nasty concussion. You scared your mother to death. She was so glad to get you back home.”

  Greta knew exactly what her mother would’ve felt. Home together meant not lonely. Home together meant safe. Except home was where the danger lurked. The feeling of loss weighed heavily on her heart.

  “I called your mom a few days later to see how you were doing and she was worried. You still hadn’t said a word. The doctors told her it would take time, but she wasn’t seeing a difference.”

  Dots began to connect in her mind. She reached to the back of her head, drawing her fingers along the long-knotted scar. Was that why she had lost so many of her early childhood memories? If it was, what was the big secret? Why hadn’t her mother told her? Every kid falls. Every kid has accidents. Unless it hadn’t been one…

  “Greta,” Colleen said, “you there? Still having trouble with your memory?”

  Greta laughed. “No. I spaced out for a sec.”

  “Do you remember the second time I met you? You were about six or seven and—”

  “Yep. The old fashioned candy store.” Greta blew out air into the phone. “But I thought you’d be at my mom’s funeral.”

  Colleen paused. “Sorry, I couldn’t make it. I was out of town.”

  “I guess that happens sometimes.”

  “How o
ld are you now?” Colleen asked.

  “Thirteen.”

  “A teenager, huh? That’s tough. What to wear. Who to hang out with. It’s not easy. And all those models out there looking like they were born perfect…”

  “I’m just trying to make it through Grade Eight,” Greta said, trying to keep the conversation on track. “Colleen, you know I’m adopted, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Did my mom ever tell you where she put the papers?”

  Colleen paused again. “Why would she tell me?”

  “You’re her friend, right?”

  “Yes. What did your father say about that when you asked?”

  “Nothing. He won’t talk about it.”

  An uncomfortable silence sat between them until Colleen cleared her throat. “On to high school next?” Greta guessed she wasn’t getting an answer. “Your mom spent a lot of time reminiscing about her high school days. So much so she made me feel like I’d been there with her.”

  She perked up. “What did she say?”

  “She went somewhere north of Hamilton. If I remember where, I’ll tell you.”

  Her heart pinched. Almost another piece of new information. Almost.

  “She was a big reader, your mother. She told me she was always getting called out for being a nerd.”

  Greta laughed. Her mother always had a book in her hand. “So she liked it?”

  “High school? I guess. Like everyone, she was scared of the older kids, the Grade Thirteens.”

  She couldn’t imagine her mother being scared of anything—only Ian.

  “They were half-bearded giants that shoved kids in lockers. You can imagine…”

  “What’s Grade Thirteen?”

  Colleen chuckled. “In the nineties, high school was five years for everyone. Everything’s different now. So many ways society can swallow you. If you don’t fit the mold. If you aren’t a cookie cutter version of somebody’s idea of perfection, you’re a freak. I’m sure you’ve picked up on these things by now.”

  Greta thought back to her conversations with Mr. K.

  “Don’t get obsessed with that,” Colleen said. “It’s a trap. It’ll snatch the colour from your life, sap the adventure right out of you.” She paused and laughed. “Listen to me rambling on. I sound like some sort of nut bar. Be strong is all I’m saying. Do your own thing.”

  Colleen had no idea how strong she already was, but nonetheless stored her advice away for later.

  “Whatever you do, your mom would be proud.”

  Colleen’s comment made her smile. “Thanks.”

  “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work. Call me if you need anything else.”

  Greta had other things she wanted to know, but she knew they’d have to wait for another time. She thanked her and hung up the phone.

  Detective Perez rose, dropped their empty bottles in the blue box beside the desk, and placed it by the edge of the door. “I’d like to discuss that scar again,” Detective Perez said. “Was it an accident?”

  Greta shrugged. “I told you, I can only guess.”

  The detective looked up over the edge of her glasses. “Don’t bother. Guessing in my line of work is as good as a no.” She paused. “Can I see it?”

  Heat rose up in Greta’s cheeks as she stood and leaned across the desk. “Give me your hand.”

  Detective Perez ran the tip of a finger along the side of Greta’s head, then drew it back and wrote in her notebook. “What about this letter? From Colleen?”

  “What about it?”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “No.” She fell back in the chair. “Why would I?” She had. It was tucked into her dime box with all her treasures from her mother she valued most. They were none of anyone’s business.

  “After you connected with this colleague of your mother’s—”

  “I felt calmer. Ian never mentioned or talked about my mother, so Colleen was the only living link to her that I had.”

  “Did it change things?”

  “My marks went up. I made friends. I kicked ass in track.” She thought back to the way the team had dominated the season and how, on the day of the big race, she’d jumped to the front of the pack as soon as the starting horn sounded, hit her stride, and tore through the route she knew by heart. It was no surprise she crossed the finish line two minutes ahead of her competitors. “I won the championships. Even though everyone said they knew I would, to me, it was a big deal.”

  “I’m sure it was.” Detective Perez paused before she sat down. “But what you’ve told me doesn’t make sense, Greta. If you knew so much more about your mother then, that she’d gone to seek help at a woman’s shelter before you were even born, why—”

  “I hadn’t figured that out yet.”

  “But this Colleen told you she worked with her.”

  “I thought they were colleagues. My mom called her an old friend.”

  Detective Perez put her hands on her desk and leaned forward. “You didn’t put it together?”

  Greta stopped and took a deep breath. Had she? Had she thought of the implications? She’d only been thirteen. “I don’t know. No. Maybe. Probably a bit. Maybe I didn’t want to face the fact Ian was beating the crap out of my mom before they ever adopted me because that would mean—”

  The detective’s voice rose. “But why wouldn’t you tell someone? It would have corroborated your story that your father killed your mother.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  G reta wanted to strangle the detective with her bare hands. “I did tell someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Who the hell do you think? Officer Pappas.” She pulled her coat and purse from the back of the chair and stood. “This whole thing is stupid. Talk to him later. I’m going home.”

  Detective Perez’s voice hardened. “No, you’re not. And I’m losing patience. You brought him into all this. Sit back down and explain to me what you told him about your mother.”

  She’d picked up and dialed the phone in the kitchen.

  “You said I could call, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have new information.”

  “Is your father home?”

  She pulled up a chair and placed it in front of her. “He’s at work.”

  “Then we’ve got a bit of a problem.”

  “What’s that?” she said.

  “I can’t talk to you without him there.”

  A knot formed in her stomach. She put Officer Pappas’ card down on the table. She didn’t want Ian anywhere near them. They’d done that once and it had got them nowhere.

  “You’re kidding me,” she said.

  “The law’s the law,” he told her.

  “Can you break it?”

  “No.”

  “Ignore it?”

  “No. And I can’t change the law either.”

  She put her head in her hands. “Is there any other way?”

  “Not that I know,” he said.

  She hung up the phone and shut her eyes, defeated. There had to be.

  During the last day of the school year, Mr. Katz pulled into the Kearney precinct. It was an ancient brown-stoned building, surrounded by dried-out old ferns, squatting low to the ground. The parking lot was to the right. There were four spots; two were taken. He turned into an empty one and shut off the ignition.

  “I’m not saying a word,” he said from across the front seat.

  Greta frowned. “I don’t need you to.”

  Mr. K. got out of the car and made his way along the path. She fell instep beside him, trying to keep up. He stopped at the front door. “I’m standing in loco parentis,” he said as he swung the glass open.

  Greta examined the pavement around them and, seeing nothing, walked by. The moment they stepped inside, her eyes watered and she swallowed the sick from the back of her throat. Was that sweat? Rancid tuna fish? She had no idea. Either way, the place stunk.

  Officer Pappas appeared from around a corner. “G
reta, Mr. Katz, welcome.” He extended his hand and motioned them forward. Dressed in chinos and a long-sleeved collared shirt, there was no sign of a black vest or a gun. They followed behind him through a narrow corridor to the back of the building.

  “Sit in there.” He pointed to a room on his left. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Greta pulled a chair up to the table, her fingers landing in soft gum underneath. She wiped them on her jean shorts and stared out one of three white-framed windows to the depths of the forest. Thick with trees, the leaves drooped, and lost in thought, she wiped the sweat off her forehead. Two minutes later, Officer Pappas strode back in the room with a middle-aged woman wearing a red dress. Her gray hair was wafer-thin, as fine as mist. He introduced her as a child advocate.

  “So I hear you’ve got new information?” Officer Pappas said, smiling after they sat at the table.

  Greta nodded. Her hands shook so badly, she kept them tucked down at her sides.

  He opened a small-spiraled book. “What have you got?”

  She steeled herself and took a deep breath. “My father hit my mother.”

  “You’ve seen this happen?” he asked, writing it down.

  She nodded. Then she explained he’d hit her, too. The woman looked at her from under hooded eyelids.

  “When was the last time?”

  Greta thought back. “Maybe three years ago?”

  Officer Pappas and the child advocate glanced at each other, saying nothing, but Greta noted she gave him a muddy look. He leaned forward in his chair and put his elbows on the table.

  “I’ve looked into this every which way since Sunday. I’ve talked to your neighbours. They’ve got nothing. Neither does Minister Marchello. I’ve searched for your mom’s medical records, and—”

  “We don’t have a doctor.”

  “At the hospital—”

  “I went. She never did.”

  He sighed. “I dropped by the walk-in clinics to see if she’d been at one of those.”

  Greta scoffed. “Ian would never allow it.”

  “So where did she go?”