by James Snyder
“Hello,” she told him. “It’s not so bad here.”
He was small and dirty, and she saw the too-familiar look in his eyes, trying to be a little angry about it, but mostly afraid. And in one brief flash, she knew exactly what would happen: most likely, what cottage group he would be placed, and what the boys there would do to him, and how he would reach the point he would have to find some way to fit in, to find his place, or they would take him away again, looking for another place to put him.
“Try and get him with Joe, ok?” she told Melissa.
“Sure,” she replied. “Promise me you’ll keep an eye on him for me.”
“Sure.”
Then Melissa’s cell phone rang, and Connelly stood there, watching the boy casting a cautious eye about himself, listening to her talking with someone named Mark.
Afterward, she asked her, “So what happened to Brad.”
“Old news, girl.” Melissa winked at her. “Mark sells sports cars. You know how that goes.”
She didn’t really, but she hugged Melissa again, and watched her take the boy’s hand and go up the steps into the big house. Then she turned away and went to find Eric and tell him who she saw.
Chapter 9
A Special Day
July. Each new day the blue sky sat atop them like a giant, still ocean. Everyone woke up a little early, eating an early breakfast, and then tried to get their chores done, before it got too hot, before noon.
She worked in the laundry, which was in a large red-metal shed behind the rec hall. Her job was to sort the towels and washcloths from the folding machine, and then do the count. That was separating them and tying them into stacks for each cottage, while another girl would rack them. It wasn’t so bad, because she was inside, with the giant ceiling fans turning high and slow overhead, listening to every different kind of music and talk—mostly Spanish—around her, and watch the hoppers of dirty linen rolling into the shed from one end, the racks of clean linen rolling out the other end.
Eric, meanwhile, had to water the garden, which he told her he liked, going out into the cool morning and see how things had changed overnight. The garden rows were long and straight, with the black soil running between the plants. And he told her how he would first walk down the rows, lifting up this and that leaf or limb to peek underneath and see what was growing. It reminded him, he said, of the walks he made with their mother, and how sometimes he pretended she was there with him, still discovering little things with him, and the look on her face when they did. It was that look he remembered most of all, he said. The way her face would soften, almost smiling, as her eyes opened wide and alert to see what was there, new and unexpected.
Then he would lay out his hoses and begin the watering.
*
On the 4th of July they had a special day. Everyone got up early and they ate a pancake breakfast, before the first red blisters of light appeared over the eastern fields. Then everyone rushed about getting their chores done by mid-morning.
By ten a.m. the rolling barbeque grills had already been set up out under the stand of elms, and there were to be fireworks that evening. Everyone was excited when the riding academy brought over two long trailers of horses to ride, and a watermelon farmer delivered a pickup load of melons, which they placed inside the walk-in cooler, until the afternoon.
There were volunteers from the different churches, and it was open-house as well, and the parking lot was soon overflowing. Connelly thought it almost like a carnival her parents had brought her and Eric to once. There were sack and foot races, and tug-of-war, and water games. She dunked both Anne and Joe Hardy in the dunking booth, with them pleading her not to; but she did, and then hugged them afterward, apologizing. Meanwhile, Eric was her partner for the sack race, and they won a yellow ribbon, which he pinned to her shirt, kissing her hot forehead.
After lunch they signed up for the horse ride. Eric got a pretty spotted horse, because he was older; but she had to ride an old brown horse that seemed more asleep than awake; and she kept talking to it, promising it sugar and apples if it kept up with the other horses, which it barely did. Meanwhile, they rode all the way around the big field, where she saw the rabbits and birds flushing from the thick wheat, and the black gliding hawks high above them.
After the ride they had to walk their horses around in the shade and give them water. She gave hers an apple, like she’d promised it, but the old thing didn’t seem so impressed, looking suspiciously at her sideways, and blinking at her, wanting more. So she gave it a carrot stick, and that seemed to satisfy it, its mouth moving comically sideways, as it ate the carrot.
In the hottest part of the afternoon they ate cold watermelon and homemade ice cream, sitting on the grass under the trees, and listened to the music groups from the churches that played on the little stage set up that morning. She liked the music, especially the choral singing (which she thought, if her parents were in heaven, they might be listening to as well), and Eric said he did as well; and she lay beside him on the grass, until she suddenly woke up, and one of the residents was on the stage, making announcements. She looked around and Eric was gone. She looked and looked and didn’t see him anywhere.
Evening was approaching now, and the res was saying everyone had to go back to their cottage for the p.m. attendance roster, and everyone moaned.
“All right, all right,” said the res. “But then you’re on free time, until fireworks over at the ball field. And don’t forget we also have movies and burgers and stadium dogs in the rec hall, till bed count.”
Now everyone cheered.
She found Yolanda and Beatrice, who were the only girls left from their original group, and they made their way slowly back to the cottage, singing one of the songs they’d heard on stage.
A gray van passed them and Yolanda said, “Mmmm—mmmm, there go another van from Patton State. Things be turning round here real quick now.”
Beatrice said, “That’s the only thing good about being a fat, ugly, psycho white girl. Nobody wants to add me to their collection. No turnin’ and churnin’ for me.”
“Turnin’ and churnin’,” Yolanda sang, starting to sway, and Beatrice joined her—with Connelly between them, swaying back and forth together. “Turnin’ and churnin’, oh turnin’ and churnin’.”
Now Beatrice hugged her. “I just hate the thought of someone taking our girl away.”
Then Yolanda hugged her as well. “Ain’t no one getting our little biscuit without a fight, girl.”
Connelly felt warm and good inside, thinking about the day, winning the ribbon with Eric, the horseback ride, the feel of the two girls’ arms around her now, making her feel protected and wanted again. After the count she went over to Eric’s cottage, looking for him. She saw the other boys coming out the screen door, heading for the fireworks. She asked them if Eric was inside.
One of them shook his head. “Res already picked him up. They went over to the office.”
“The office?” she said. “What for?”
Another boy, passing by her, said a little meanly, “‘Cause that’s where they take you when you’re being turned, I think.”
She stood there, unmoving, watching them walk away, laughing and talking among themselves, leaving her behind. Turned? What was he saying—turned?
Next, not really thinking about anything at all, not believing any of the thoughts that were gathering inside her head, she began to run toward the big house. She ran past everyone, also laughing and talking and going to see the fireworks, across the lawn, and around the corner of the house—and then stopped.
Mrs. Morton’s long white sedan was parked there, along with another car that looked familiar to her, but she couldn’t recall. Then she remembered the couple that interviewed them several weeks before: the Kelemans or Kelemers. It was their car parked beside Mrs. Morton’s car. And she tried to understand everything that was coming inside her head now, even as she didn’t want to understand.
Then she saw Anne comin
g down the steps toward her through the dusky evening. And suddenly she knew. She knew everything.
“Connelly,” she heard Anne saying, coming up to her, “there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Where’s Eric, Anne? Where is he?”
“Mrs. Morton’s here, Connelly, and the Kelemans are with her.”
“Where’s Eric?”
She was standing there, looking up into Anne’s face, when she saw her reach out to touch her, and she pulled back.
“He’s not going with them, Anne,” she said. “I won’t let them take him.”
“It’s just for a while, darling, until Mrs. Morton can make other arrangements.”
She stared up at her, disbelieving. “There are no other arrangements, Anne. You know that.”
“Connelly—” she began.
But she didn’t hear anything else. She ran around her, toward the house, feeling nothing now, really seeing nothing. She must have been crying, because she had to wipe her eyes, which were blinded, and then wiped them again, running. She reached the stairs and ran up them without stopping, pushing open the big front door and rushing inside, leaving the door open behind her. There were people there—visitors, she saw, and some of the residents and home kids, and they all looked at her. She ran across the great room to the offices on the other side. She looked in one, and there was someone else there—another resident and caseworker, talking. She ran to the next office and opened the door…and saw them all: Mrs. Morton and Joe, sitting in armchairs before the couch, upon which sat the Kelemans, with Eric between them.
Smiling, Joe said, “Hello, Connelly, we were just talking about you.”
“You’re not taking him,” she said, looking at the Kelemans. “You’re not taking him away.”
“The Kelemans can only take care of one of you, Connelly,” she heard Joe say.
Overcome, she burst into tears again, throwing her hands up over her eyes. There were people around her now. She heard Anne and Joe talking to her; someone had their arm around her. Then she heard Mrs. Morton’s voice say, “I have children from the state hospital that must be placed, Connelly. You understand about the other children, don’t you?”
“I don’t care about them,” she said. Now she was holding Anne, tightly, her arms around her, saying, “Please, Anne. Please.”
Only then did she feel the other hand on her. She heard his voice, whispering in her ear, “I’ll come back, Con. I promise. No matter what, I’ll come back and we’ll be together again. I promise. I promise.”
She couldn’t say it. What she was really feeling and thinking. That was—if they took him away from her now, that would be it. It would be forever, forever lost, just like her firefly without its glow. Like her parents dying. She felt that. She knew it. But she couldn’t say that to him. She only turned and pulled him to her, feeling his thin arms and his body against her. She felt him crying, as well, and held him tight against her.
Finally, she made herself look at him. Her parents’ death had taught her that, so quickly, it seemed. And Melissa and Anne taught her. How some things happened that could not possibly happen, but they did. And it was all right to feel bad about them, feel horrible inside. But then you started over with something else. You didn’t go on with what you had, because that was over. That was gone. Instead, you started over with something else, they said, because you had no other choice, little by little, first by saying good-bye.
So she said, “I love you, Eric. I’ll always love you.”
She saw him nod and say, “Me too, Con.”
“And we’ll be together again, because that’s what mom and dad wanted, isn’t it?”
He nodded again.
She said, “But let’s not say good-bye then, because we are going to be together again. And they won’t be able to stop us then.”
“All right,” he said. She saw him hesitate and then say, “So why don’t you go sit on our bench for a while.”
She looked into his eyes, wiping her own eyes with her hand, understanding. “All right.”
“And don’t cry.”
“All right.”
Softly, she kissed his lips again. Then she pushed away from him, going between Joe and Anne, out the door. But once she was out of the house, going down the steps, she did cry again, crying hard as she ran, all the way out to their bench, and crying there with her head down, and her arms folded around her.
She was still like that when she heard the first explosion, then another, larger one. She sat up now, raising her head and looking back through the trees, toward the ballpark, and seeing the reds and blues and golds and greens bursting into the black sky.
She stood up now and began to walk slowly out into the wheat field, leaving behind her and Eric’s spot. That night she walked a long way into the field. She wasn’t afraid. It was very dark, but she didn’t care. She even heard noises—things scurrying about her—and kept going. Until she found a spot where something had pushed the wheat down and she lay down there, rolling over and staring into the night sky, afire with all the bursting colors she could imagine, wondering why it had to happen so, just when things were becoming a little nicer for them again. Why? Then she remembered she had asked herself nearly the same thing when her parents were killed. Why? Because they weren’t bad people. They weren’t mean at all. They were just trying to have their little family. And they were killed. She thought then how her mother might have told her she could ask God about that. And, in fact, she had once, in the deep night, out on the Johnsons’ dusty couch beside Eric. But nothing happened. Nothing or no one told her anything. Now it was the same thing. Why? She listened and only heard the insects around her. And the final burst of fireworks, before the long, deep silence ensued.
But nothing else.
Chapter 10
Fostering Out
The rains everyone wanted finally came. A front moved in off the Pacific Ocean, and it rained softly and steadily for almost a week. The things that had been brown and withered began to show hints of green again. But when the sun returned, it was even hotter than before.
“I don’t think we’ll ever get it right,” Mr. Pete told her, sitting beside her on the bench, having a smoke. “First it’s too hot, then it’s too wet, and now it’s too hot again. I guess we may all as well just settle down and live with it. Nothing else to do.”
He laughed his rumbling laugh and smoked, but she didn’t say anything. She watched him wipe his face with the towel he had around his neck.
She said, “Are you married, Mr. Pete?”
He looked at her sideways, and she was afraid she had said something wrong. But then he winked at her, and got that little smile around his mouth he did sometimes, and said, “Oh, lil pilgrim, I had me a fine woman. Married forty-three years, and she found a different way to fuss at me every single day of’em.”
“But you’re not married now?”
He looked at her and tapped the side of his head with his finger. “Right here I am, darling. Now, the missus died almost ten years back, but I’m still married right here. Always will be: tasting all her good cooking; seeing her first thing in the morning, with her long pretty fingers wrapped around her coffee cup; the sound of her voice; the sound of her in another room, putting things in their place. I’m still married, baby. Always will be.” He looked away, smoking.
“Well, I’ve decided I’m never going to marry,” she said. “I’ve decided, one day, Eric and I are going to have a house somewhere, a big house near the ocean, where it’s cool, and I’m going to have a kitty, and he’ll have a dog, and we’ll go walking by the water every day, and no one will ever separate us again. Ever.”
She sat there.
Finally, Mr. Pete said, “Well, lil pilgrim, there’s all kinds of ways to live a life. And I can’t say one’s any better or worse than another. I think just the living’s enough. Just figure out which way you’re headed and go there. Everything else is just more gravy on the rice, as my missus would say.” He chuckle
d again, field-dressing his cigarette and going back to work.
*
Once, in August, Eric wrote her a letter, saying he was doing okay, the Kelemans were okay. They had two sons, both older than him, and one of them let him ride his bicycle sometimes. The school he would go to in September was not that far from their house. He could walk to school, he told her. And Mrs. Keleman said she would buy him some new pants, or he might get some clothes from the older boys, he wasn’t sure. He never watched TV now, because someone else was usually watching it, and all they watched were dumb comedy shows, which he hated. But he read a lot. The library wasn’t far away, either. So he mostly stayed in his room and read. He missed her, he said. He missed her a lot. And he told her to take care of herself and to be careful. And don’t forget mom and dad. Ever. I love you, Con.
Eric.
She wrote him back that same day. She told him how everything was going at the home, and everyone that said hello, and how much she missed him too. She missed him so much, it was almost worse than before, when Melissa told them what happened to mom and dad. It was almost worse than that. But soon school would start again, and she would have something to do. She would work hard in school, even though she wouldn’t have Mrs. McDonough this year. But she could still go talk to her anytime she wanted. Then she told him about her dream: the big house they would live in one day, on a high hill looking down on the ocean, and everything they would do there. That was the only thing that made her happy now, thinking about that. I can’t wait, Eric, she told him. I can’t wait for that to happen.
Love, your sister, Connelly.
Then she put four large X’s below her name for kisses.
Anne mailed the letter for her, and then she waited and waited, but he didn’t answer her back. So she wrote him another letter, asking: What’s the matter, Eric? Why won’t you write me? Why?
Anne mailed that letter as well.