The Beautiful-Ugly (The Beautiful-Ugly Trilogy)

by James Snyder

  Then one day Mrs. Morton came to check on her, and while she was there she told her that Mrs. Keleman had called her and told her she didn’t think it was a good idea if she wrote Eric, at least not for the time being. “Apparently, your letter upset him very much, according to Mrs. Keleman. So she wants to give him some time to get settled in. She said she would let you know when you can write him again.”

  She didn’t see what would upset him. She was only writing him what she felt, and what made her happy. What, she knew, would make them both happy. She didn’t understand it. And she thought they were lying to her; so the following week she wrote him another letter, and Anne mailed it. Two weeks later it came back with a large blue stamp on it that said: Return to Sender.

  *

  All through August different people interviewed her. She didn’t pay much attention to any of them, except Anne told her they were from other children’s homes, or people looking to foster, or, perhaps, adopt.

  “Would you like that to happen?” Anne asked her.

  “No.”

  She frowned at her. “Then what would you like to happen?”

  “To stay here. And bring Eric back.”

  “You mean, you wouldn’t like a real nice family to adopt you and make you part of their family?”

  “No.”

  One day a couple interviewed her. They were a very quiet couple, older than her parents, but not too old. The man was a big man, with a deep, slow voice; and the woman was small and talked in a voice so low Connelly had to lean forward sometimes to even hear her. Mostly it was the man that asked her questions, most of which she wasn’t sure how to answer; but near the end of the interview, the woman glanced at the man, then leaned forward and said, “Connelly Pierce, do you believe in the redemption of your soul through the Bible’s inerrant word?”

  “I don’t know.” She wasn’t sure what that meant.

  The lady blinked and smiled, sadly, as if she were sorry for her. “But you do believe in God, don’t you?”

  Connelly sighed and looked away, at other tables where people were talking. She looked back. “Sometimes, I guess. Like when I was with my mother at Mass, and she looked so pretty when she prayed. Like an angel. But sometimes not, because I’ve asked Him for things—to help stop things from happening—but He never answered.”

  She saw the man and women look at each other in a funny way.

  They left soon after.

  *

  They came back the following week and talked with her again. Not long. And they didn’t ask her about God this time. Instead, the man asked her if she was ready to have a new life. A new way of living that was so wonderful, she couldn’t even imagine. She didn’t know what to say. She just shrugged.

  Then he smiled and said, “There’s a whole world of things for you to discover, Connelly Pierce. His world is everywhere for us, just waiting to be discovered, if we know where to look. We just have to decide we want to do that. Each of us has to decide that.”

  He smiled again, while the woman only looked at her, unsmiling, as if she were at unease of something.

  *

  On Monday they came and took her away. Mrs. Morton was there to arrange everything for her. When she was finally ready to leave, Anne and Joe hugged her and told her they would miss her. Next, Yolanda and Beatrice hugged her. Everyone seemed to be crying. But she didn’t. She didn’t know what to think, or do.

  “You take care, little biscuit,” Yolanda said, wiping her eyes.

  Both of them ran away then, back toward the cottage, not looking back.

  Mr. Pete stood a little ways back, behind the others, smoking and saying, “So long, lil pilgrim, you take care now, hear?”

  She sat in the back seat of the car, and someone shut the door, and they drove away. Going down the long gravel driveway, they passed the same cows she had passed, arriving. She looked at the cows, standing by the fence, looking back at her. Then she sat back in the seat, holding tightly to Priscilla, fingering the golden heart necklace around her neck, and stared ahead, as they passed under the high overhead sign that said Pilgrims Mercy, pulled out onto the narrow farm-to-market road, and drove away.

  Chapter 11

  Her New Family

  She knew instinctively it was not going well for her there. She knew all the signs by heart: the changing parade of doctors and counselors and caseworkers; the changing array of medications they gave her, trying to break her down, trying to make her give in to them. She knew it all so well, and ignored it, which she also knew, in the end, would not be good for her. At some point, she realized, they would give up on her. May had already done that. But when that happened, she knew there was only one thing left to do. They would find a place for her. And not just any place, either. But a special place. A special hospital where they put special cases like hers, and then forgot about them. They would put her someplace they didn’t have to deal with her anymore, and they would keep her there for the rest of her life. Like the story she read once about poor Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife. The Beautiful and the Damned, as she recalled. Anyway, they would put her there, and she would grow old there, and, if she were lucky, maybe one day she would be consumed by fire there, just like poor Zelda was, in the end.

  She knew this now, very well. And it was as if she were watching it happen to someone else—not to her at all—but someone else entirely. Like reading the book about Zelda, she was seeing this happen, and it was about someone else. It had to be someone else. Because there was no her now. She didn’t exist any longer. Somewhere along the way, she had actually seen herself starting to fade about the edges. And then the fading continued inward, until her entire self was fading and fading, till no more. The invisible girl now. Right before her eyes. No more.

  So when they came and talked with her, and gave her their various pills and liquids in those tiny white paper and clear plastic cups, she could only laugh deep and hard inside herself. How stupid they were! How stupid! Doing all this—for what? Can’t you see there’s no one there? Can’t you see that? She’s not there anymore, and you’re doing all this? For what? Why don’t you go help poor Zelda instead? Pull her from those flames before it’s too late. Can’t you hear her screaming for you? You put her there, and now she’s screaming for you to help her. Why, I can hear her screaming right now. You fuckers. You absolute fuckers locked her there, and then forgot her, and now she’s screaming for you to help her.

  Meanwhile, the girl in the bed next to her cried all the time and read from her tiny, blue-leather tome of Gospels. And at night, when Connelly turned her back away and curled herself into a little ball to try and sleep, she could hear the whispers, pleading and fervent, behind her. Sometimes, to try and make herself sleep, she followed along, almost subconsciously, against her own fading will, never missing a beat: “‘Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?’” She held her breath, listening, letting her mind go, when she whispered: “‘Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.’” And then she grimaced, shutting her eyes and waiting…

  They lived along the farthest fringe of that hot endless valley city, in a brand new neighborhood, in a brand new two-story brick home, with a wooden plaque over the door that read: The Cardswell Family. Below it was another plaque: God Bless This Home.

  “Noah made those in woodshop,” Mrs. Cardswell told her in her quiet, sad voice. “Aren’t they pretty?”

  The brick the house was a funny, muddy-yellow color. The three of them stood there, at the edge of the small dry square of yard grass, looking at it.

  “They call it squash,” Mrs. Cardswell said sadly. “Apparently, the original buyers saw this brick in a catalogue and thought it looked unique. Then, when the contractor built it, they thought it was the ugliest thing they had ever seen, and told the developer they’d changed their mind, and they forfeited their entire deposit.”

/>   “We got it for a steal,” said Mr. Cardswell, smiling broadly and winking at her.

  Mrs. Cardswell sighed.

  The two-hour ride there from Pilgrims Mercy had been uneventful. Connelly sat in the back seat, holding Priscilla, staring out the window, and occasionally turning to observe the two back heads of her new foster parents. They seemed all right. They were quiet and polite, calling each other Mother and Father, just like the Gundersons had done, and everyone listening to the radio, where a man was yelling: “The time draws near, Sisters and Brothers! The time is creeping and crawling its way to our doorsteps—and are we ready? Are we right with our lives and with the Lord for that moment? That beckoning? Are we?”

  She could occasionally hear one or the other of them whispering something. At first, she thought they were whispering to each other, but then she realized they were whispering to themselves, or perhaps to the man yelling on the radio, she wasn’t sure. But they both sat there, perfectly straight before her, whispering and hissing little words or sounds she couldn’t make out. And after a while she just turned away, ignoring them and the shouting man, and stared out the window again.

  Once, Mr. Cardswell stopped and put gas in the car. While the gas was pumping, she watched him go around the car and carefully clean all the windows, which were already clean, and then check something under the hood.

  “Mother, would you like something to drink?” he finally asked, leaning inside through his open door.

  “I certainly would!” Mrs. Cardswell said, happy-voiced, as if that was the most wonderful idea.

  “How about an ice tea?”

  “Ice tea would be just fine, Father.”

  “How about you, Connelly?” he said, now looking back at her.

  “No thank you,” she said.

  Mrs. Cardswell turned and looked back at her, smiling.

  Mr. Cardswell said, “Young lady, when we interviewed you, you said you liked strawberry soda. I’ll bet you’d like a strawberry soda.”

  She didn’t really, but somehow she felt she should say yes, and nodded.

  When he walked away, Mrs. Cardswell said, “Connelly, Mr. Cardswell enjoys buying things for us. That’s one of the ways he tells us he loves us.” Still smiling, she turned away.

  Soon, they were driving down the road again, sipping their sodas and listening to the yelling man.

  *

  Now inside the squash-colored house everything seemed cool and neat. Oddly, they made her stand in the front room, at the base of the stairs, as, one by one, they called their children down to meet her.

  “Rebecca,” Mrs. Cardswell said, and a pretty teenage girl descended the stairs from somewhere above, dressed in a long beige skirt and white, long-sleeved blouse, black pumps, and around her neck—backdropped by the whiteness of the blouse—hung a tiny gold cross from a gold chain.

  “This must be Connelly,” she said, smiling and coming up to her and embracing her. She held her at arm’s length, her eyes flickering over her, as if trying and failing to fix upon some point. Then smiling again, a little sadly. “Welcome to our home, Connelly.”

  She stood aside.

  Mr. Cardswell said, “And now Matthew.”

  A boy younger than the girl, but older than Eric, appeared and came down the stairs and shook her hand. “Hello, Connelly,” he said, glancing at her and away.

  He went and stood by the girl.

  “Noah,” said Mr. Cardswell.

  Connelly was surprised to see the same boy she had just seen coming down the stairs. They were twins, she realized, as this boy shook her hand, his eyes cast down, saying nothing, and stepped to the side.

  “And finally our little Suzy,” said Mrs. Cardswell, sighing again.

  A chubby girl, perhaps a year or so older than herself, came down, giggling in her pretty yellow dress, and her yellow ponytail swinging behind. She awkwardly hugged her and announced: “You’re staying in my room. We each have a bed. You have my old bed, because mommy and daddy bought me a brand new bed, with a new princess spread.”

  Connelly looked at her, not knowing what to say; only knowing she wanted so badly to be back at Pilgrims Mercy with Yolanda and Beatrice, and with Anne and Mr. Pete.

  Next, another curious thing happened. With no one saying a word, everyone formed a circle there, at the base of the stairs, taking the hand next to them. Rebecca quickly and silently took Priscilla from her, and set her down on one of the steps, then took her hand. Suzy held her other hand. Suddenly everyone was bowing their heads, and, remembering the prayers she said with her mother at Mass, she did the same.

  “Father,” said Mr. Cardswell, “we thank you for this blessing you have brought us. It was through your guidance we were given the need of one of those lost and abandoned, and now pray we are fulfilling that need as you requested. Oh Lord, we ask your blessing of our home and family, and we ask you to bless the newest member of our flock, little Connelly Pierce. Oh Lord, ours is not to question why you took it into your heart to call home her mother and father; only to ask that you now fill this young heart and soul with your presence and love, as you have each of us. In Lord Jesus’ name, amen.”

  “Amen,” said everyone else around her.

  Now everyone stood looking at her, everyone smiling, as she looked down at the squash-colored carpet, unsure.

  “Mother, why don’t you go grill us some boloney and melted cheese sandwiches,” Mr. Cardswell said, rubbing his hands together.

  Everyone seemed suddenly excited by this, moving about her. The twins disappeared back up the stairs. Meanwhile, at Mr. Cardswell’s direction, Rebecca and Suzy grabbed her hands to show her around her new home. Instantly, in some unfamiliar, uncomfortable manner, she now felt she was part of the family; everything in the past being swept away by some unseen momentum; the new future arriving and surrounding her, smothering her with its pressing novelty.

  *

  As the days passed, she found each of them had their own manner, even as they tried very hard to somehow seem the same.

  At night, little Suzy tried to lie perfectly still in her new bed across the room and go right to sleep.

  “I don’t want to talk,” she whispered. “Father says nighttime’s for sleeping. That’s what God made night for, so we shouldn’t talk, because He can hear us.”

  “Who can hear us?” Connelly asked, rising up on her elbow.

  “Shhh—God can. He can hear us now.”

  She saw her lying perfectly still on her back and not moving.

  Connelly lay back down, sighing and remembering how, at night, all the girls in the cottage would talk until no one had anything left to say. Of course, Beatrice talked the most, trying to make everyone laugh, which she usually did, but everyone talked until they were tired, and then they always went to sleep, until somebody had a nightmare, or Sara acted up.

  “I don’t see anything wrong with it,” she said to herself.

  “Shhh,” Suzy said, otherwise motionless.

  Mornings, before she did anything else, Suzy would kneel by her bed and pray. Connelly watched her, snuggling in her own bed with Priscilla. In their bathroom Mrs. Cardswell had placed her own glass and toothbrush, and her own tube of toothpaste, opposite Suzy’s. “Don’t ever use my things,” Suzy told her. “Father says clean habits are the sign of a clean mind.”

  “At Mercy,” Connelly told her, brushing her teeth, “if you didn’t have something, like a toothbrush or something, you just used someone else’s.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Suzy said, looking over at her, with the toothpaste foam covering her mouth.

  Meanwhile, there seemed to be a rule for almost everything. The first morning, Mrs. Cardswell told her, smiling, “You just follow Suzy and you’ll be fine. She’s God’s perfect little soldier, aren’t you, Suzy?”

  In their bedroom, Suzy told her how she should act: To always be polite, and say yes sir and yes ma’am. And, if she wasn’t sure about something, to always ask permission first.

&nbs
p; “Father says people who have to say they’re sorry are sorry people,” Suzy told her.

  Connelly was amazed at Suzy’s doll collection. Dolls covered the bed and small divan in her bedroom, and there was a glass-door cabinet in the corner where she saw small painted porcelain dolls, and dolls carved from wood, and, according to Suzy, real ivory from elephants.

  “Mother and father were missionaries before I was born,” she told her. “They went to Africa and South America and other places I forgot, and they always brought home dolls. And now I have all of them. Rebecca doesn’t like dolls. Just remember—don’t ever touch any of them. Father says some of these dolls are irreplaceable. That means they can’t be replaced.”

  Connelly lay on her own bed, holding Priscilla, thinking how she didn’t care about ever touching a single one of them.

  Suzy looked at her and Priscilla and said, “That’s the ugliest doll in the world, Connelly Pierce. Where on earth did you get it?”

  “From my parents.”

  “Well it’s ugly as sin. It looks like it has some sort of disease. Like cancer or something. I hope it doesn’t get my dolls sick.”

  “It won’t.” She rocked Priscilla against her body.

  One day they brought home a new doll for her. Mrs. Cardswell came with it into the bedroom. It had long golden hair, and said things to her if she pushed a button.

  She thanked her for it, and laid it beside her on the bed.

  “You can give me that dirty old thing, Connelly,” said Mrs. Cardswell, indicating Priscilla, “and I’ll get rid of it for you.”

  “No thank you,” she told her. “She would miss me too much.”

  Mrs. Cardswell looked at her, surprised. “Well, I guess, at least you have a choice now.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Cardswell,” she said again.

  Mrs. Cardswell looked down at her. “Connelly, Ron and I talked about it. You can call us Mother and Father if you’d like. Would you like that?”

  She nodded, although feeling funny about ever doing that.

  Mrs. Cardswell stood there a moment longer, as if she wanted to say something else. But then she just turned and went out of the room, saying nothing.