When You Go Away

by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

  Carl nodded, the phone rubbing against his cheek. Neither of Brooke's parents seemed a good bet right now. And while he would fight for Carly and Ryan to stay with him, Carl couldn't take care of Brooke the way Peri had before the switch flipped in her head. His life had been about being alone for too long, and he had to admit to himself that he liked it the way it was, tennis, puttering, beers with the guys at The Big C, occasional family moments if he was lucky, a date once in a while if he was even luckier. How did a disabled girl fit into that picture? If he was honest, how did two adolescents?

  "Dad?"

  "Yeah. It's going to be bad. We have to figure it all out. We can do that tomorrow at the hospital. We have time to figure it out. Keep a steady strain."

  "Yeah, I know. You always say that.”

  Carl nodded, realizing he didn’t even really know what it meant, just something his mother always said when he was having a tough time with his sister Janet or failing at math. The sound of the phrase calmed him, even now.

  “Well . . .”

  “God . . . Poor Peri. Oh, those poor kids."

  "Listen, you might want to search around for a lawyer,” Carl said. “I think we're going to need one."

  "I will. I have someone in mind. Kieran Preston. And I think I'll call over to the hospital and see how Brooke's doing."

  "Good idea. So tomorrow."

  "Ten, right?"

  "That's right. See you then." Carl hung up and wanted to go to sleep, a terrible fatigue passing through his body like wind. His calves were sore from tennis, and his back twitched from the strange position he'd found himself in during the sprinkler repairs. Damn that Trimble woman, he thought. But as he dialed Garnet's number, he wished he could go back to this afternoon when avoiding Mrs. Trimble was his biggest worry.

  "Garnet? Carl."

  "Oh, Carl. I've been waiting for your call. I tried to get a hold of Graham, but he's out of town--out of the country really--on business. His new--his new wife told me. He won't be home for a few days. But Blair said she would call him to ask about giving you the number. I told her it was an emergency, but she didn't listen. I wish Graham were here," she said all in one worried breath.

  "Garnet, I've got some terrible news."

  Her silence echoed into his ear, the huge house a rattle of space behind her. "No."

  "Peri left. We don't know where she went, but she left the kids."

  "Brooke?"

  "She left Brooke, too, and now Brooke’s in the hospital with an infection of some kind. The doctors think she'll be fine."

  "Peri did what?"

  He hadn’t been there for Peri for a long time, but at Garnet’s question, he felt a tightness in his throat, a readiness to speak fighting words. "I guess since the divorce went through, Graham stopped sending alimony. There was something about losing the physical therapist. He left town, I think. I don’t really know yet. But she also let some things go. I think the move pushed her over the edge."

  "Graham wouldn't have done that to his children," Garnet said with the same defensive sound he felt in his own voice. "Not to Brooke. That poor child. Not to her."

  Garnet’s voice cracked for an instant, a slim line in a china teacup, and he realized that they were more alike than he thought, both concerned for their grandchild. But he had to protect Peri. "Listen, Garnet. I’m getting this all from Carly and from a neighbor at the apartment complex. I don't know the whole story--where Peri is, why Graham or Peri did what they did. All I know is that things got so bad, Peri thought she had to hide and then she thought she had to leave. I'm not condoning it. I just don't know what's going on."

  "Those poor children. Where are Carly and Ryan?"

  "They're here. Asleep."

  "They should come and stay here. I have more room that you do. I could even bring Brooke here and get her all the help she needs. I can’t tell you how many times I offered to help. Why didn't Peri call me? For heaven's sake, Carl!"

  "Garnet, I don't know. She didn't call me, either. Or Noel. Or her old neighbors. But the kids are fine right now. Tomorrow, we'll find out more. But I have to tell you, there's a chance . . ."

  "What?"

  "That we might lose them. Who knows what the authorities will do."

  "Oh, my. That can’t happen! Where are you meeting tomorrow?"

  Carl imagined Garnet clacking down the hospital hallway, in fine leather pumps and matching handbag, pearls at her throat, steel in her eyes, the look that comes from having had what you want all your life. Knowing her, she’d get it, as she’d gotten her husband, house, and children, not that she’d had to work for them.

  He didn’t speak right away, listening to the sound of her waiting on the other end of the phone. She might expect too much, but she would be good to have in a meeting with officials, her upbringing teaching her all the rules of power. "At Mt. Diablo Hospital. At ten."

  "Could you pick me up? Could we go together? I want to see the children, and it would be good to show them that they have family."

  Until now, he realized, he’d never had to be alone with Garnet, all other events full of people and ceremony. What would he say? He’d have to dredge something up from his working days, smart and witty banter. But she should be there. He needed her with him as the doctors stared him down, wanting to know how this could have happened. How his daughter could have left her children. "All right. I'll be there about 9.30."

  "Nine twenty would be better. We can't be sure about the tunnel traffic."

  "Okay. 9.20.” Carl said goodbye and hung up, sighing, and putting his hands in his pockets. He walked back into the living room and moved toward a bookcase, picking up a framed picture of Peri and the kids, Brooke a wiggly, crooked child in Peri's lap, Carly and Ryan hanging onto her shoulders. No one tells you squat when you become a parent, he thought. No one says, "Your child will go crazy and abandon her children," or "You might have a disabled child who will suck all your energy." If someone had told him and then Peri these things, neither would have believed the words, life just something that spun out, marriage and children supposed to happen to everyone.

  Looking at Peri in this photo, her light brown hair blowing away from her face, smiling up at Graham who had taken it, Carl couldn't imagine her as she might look soon, her arms shackled, her body covered in loose orange jail clothes, her face drawn and pale. Or worse, gaunt and shivering in white hospital garb, her mind frayed beyond recognition. What would he have said thirty-eight years ago if someone had drawn out those pictures? Carl knew that as he had always done, he would have moved forward, not thinking, without imagining the worst because he had always put himself first and that's why this was all happening now.

  They sat like four pillars around the conference room table as Dr. Murphy, Dr. Eady, and Fran McDermott, the social worker, spoke. Ryan and Carly were in with Brooke, showing her the toys Garnet had picked up earlier that morning. When he looked at Garnet, Carl's veins contracted and his balls pulled tight under him as if the notion of manhood was contradictory in her presence. She'd been all right in the car, hugging the children and trying to distract them with chatter about her cat Eustace, but once they'd all seen Brooke and then the doctors launched into their discussion, her face froze as if the situation could not possibly be happening, not is she were involved. She had the tools to dissect him in a second, flaying him open and exposing all his mistakes. If it weren't for Noel and Rosie, Carl would fall apart under her gaze.

  Rosie was a trooper, a great gal, her arms folded, elbows on the table, asking questions. Noel was silent, steady, taking notes.

  "So what's the prognosis, Doc?" Rosie asked.

  "For the pneumonia, good,” said DR. Murphy. “She's responding well to the antibiotic. We've also been putting her on the ventilator at night. That will have to continue at home. But the pressure sores . . . "

  "Excuse me?" Garnet said.

  "Bed sores."

  "Bed sores!" Garnet stood up part way and then sat back down, pinching her lips
together and breathing out loudly through her nose. "What are you saying? She had bed sores?"

  All of them but Rosie stared at the doctor, and he flushed—younger and not used to such a case--, itching his shoulder again, turning to Dr. Eady who nodded.

  "Yes. Not bad. Again, we caught them in time. We are treating them as well."

  "What has to happen for someone to get bed sores? What does that mean exactly?" Garnet asked.

  Doctor Murphy threw a glance at Fran, and Carl rubbed his eyebrows. He knew what it meant. No one had been caring for Brooke. She’d been kept in one position for too long, with no physical therapy, no swimming, no outings. Maybe no baths or not enough. His own grandmother died at home, and in her last days, his grandfather had turned her carefully, three times a day, rubbing salve onto her skin, saying, "Round we go." Carl hadn't wanted to go into her room, not liking the smell or the blank look on his grandmother's face.

  "What happens is that a patient doesn't have his or her position changed frequently enough. And if there are other . . . issues, the sores can progress. I think that's a big factor here."

  "Other issues such as?" Noel asked, his pen still on the pad.

  "Age for one, though that isn't a concern with Brooke. Malnutrition is another."

  "Are you telling me Brooke is malnourished?" Carl asked. Again, he noticed Rosie looking away. She saw this last night, he thought. She already knows how bad it is.

  "Yes. She's underweight. There is also quite a bit of atrophy, which could be from her illness and lack of therapy as well as lack of nutrition."

  “Peri did this?” Garnet asked.

  Carl looked at his shoes, imagining for a second he was on the tennis court at the service line, reading himself for a serve.

  “Not necessarily,” said Dr. Eady. “The feeding tube can be difficult. And if she hadn’t been seeing her doctor, getting weighed and so on, the mother might not have known about the weight loss.”

  “Not known? Not known?” said Garnet. “Brooke is skin and bone!”

  “If you see a child every day . . . Well, if the kids were feeding Brooke,” Dr. Murphy began.

  “You don’t know what Peri’s been through,” Carl said. “How can you pass judgment when your son—“

  “We can’t know anything until we talk with Peri,” Fran said, interrupting.

  None of them said a word. Carl let the words in the room knock against his head: malnutrition, feeding tube, atrophy. How could this have happened, he thought. What had he been thinking? No one, not even Peri, could take on a child like Brooke without help.

  When Noel's cell phone rang, Carl flinched, his heart his pounding. Noel excused himself and went into the hallway, closing the door behind him. Carl wished he could leave too, stand up, push in his chair and say, "Well, this isn't about me," and get into his Corvair and blast back to Oakland. If he got back home soon, he could finish up with the sprinklers and make it up to the court by 2.30, setting the record straight by teaming with Ralph again and soundly whipping Ramon and Bob. Later, he'd call up Mary, the gal he’d met last month at the Piedmont Bridge Center, and ask her for dinner. Who knew? Maybe he'd get lucky.

  "What are we going to do?" Garnet asked, looking first at the Fran and then Carl, her eyes so dark he couldn’t see her pupils.

  Fran cleared her throat. "We have to make some further inquiries, but it's likely Brooke will be taken from the mother's home."

  "And the other children?" Carl said.

  "The other children as well, though it seems to me since they have family willing to take them, that will be an option. There's always the father, of course."

  Carl looked back hard at Garnet, who turned away, her lips tight. "But not Brooke?"

  "She's special. She has needs. Again, we have so many loose threads here. The father and the mother aren't able to confer on this, so we have to plan slowly without them. My main job though is to try to keep the family together. That’s the bottom line."

  "My son will not tolerate this kind of discussion. He is a good father. He has no idea what has been happening to his children. Once he finds out, of course he'll want them."

  Carl snorted. "I beg to differ, Garnet. Where has Graham been for the last year? From what I know, he's not laid an inch of flesh in California. If he had, none of this would've happened. He knew where they'd moved to--and you wouldn't even give me the number."

  "Your daughter did this. Not my son." Garnet pulled her purse toward her, hugging it to her chest as if everything inside it could separate her from Peri and Carl and their terrible habits of running away. "And how can you criticize him?"

  "Please, folks . . ." Fran began, when Noel pushed back into the room.

  "Dad. They've found her. They've found Peri. She tried to break into Graham’s house. I'm going to Phoenix. Now."

  Without fighting again, Carl and Garnet managed to agree that Rosie would drive her and the kids back to Piedmont, while Carl stayed to talk with the police officer about Peri. Noel had left minutes after bursting into the conference room, driving home to make a plane reservation and hightail it to SFO. Before the cop showed up, Carl went into Brooke's room and sat by her, the nurse smiling and leaving the room.

  "Ba," she said, her eyes wide.

  "That's right. It's me. How are you feeling, Honey?"

  "Ga. Dare i Ma?"

  "She went down to Arizona visit your Daddy. She's going to be coming home, soon. Your Uncle Noel went to get her."

  Brooke smiled, a flick of muscles under her thin skin, and flung her arm out to him. Carl took her wrist in his hand. How soft she was, how warm, a slight fever still burning inside her. She was nothing but bone, and he sucked his cheek between his upper and lower cheek. Malnourished. He pushed down a moan that hovered in his throat.

  "Ba!" Brooke said, turning toward him. "Ba, ba, ba!"

  And then it came anyway, beyond his control, his eyes filling with tears. This poor child, he thought. And as he held her arm, reaching with his other hand to rub her smooth hair, he didn't know if he was thinking about Brooke or Peri.

  "So you didn't know where they were living?" The detective leaned against the wall, writing in his notebook.

  "No. She had kept us all in the dark in the months before the move. Her family and friends. And, well, our relationship has seen better days. But not even her brother knew. And they are as close as can be, but he travels a lot on business. She promised to call him but never did."

  "It was two months since anyone had heard from them?"

  "Just about. Noel and I had been calling around. Finally, I went out to their old neighborhood to talk to people she was close to. They didn't know, but then Mrs. Candelero got in touch."

  The detective continued to write, and Carl wanted to take the notebook from him. What he'd said condemned his daughter to some punishment. But this man could never know what it had been like for Peri, alone with Brooke and no help, two other children to care for. "Listen. I don't think she was in her right mind. It's like she went into some kind of depression or something. She'd changed since the divorce, and then her ex didn't send alimony regularly and there was some confusion with the therapists. I don’t know. You've got to understand that Brooke is severely disabled. I think my daughter just . . . lost it."

  Nodding, the detective wrote a bit more and then looked at Carl. "That's what I'm hearing from Phoenix. We do have to investigate this as neglect and endangerment. We have no choice. But her mental state will have a bearing on the charges."

  "Charges."

  "Yes, sir. When she gets here, we'll take her into custody. I’ve talked with your son and the social worker, and I don’t think it will be traumatic. He’ll bring her to us when she’s released from the hospital. And then the court will decide if she will be arraigned or sent to a psychiatric facility."

  Carl stared at the floor, his chest tingling. For the first time in years, he wished Janice were here to help him cope. One thing about Janice, she'd been a champ in a crisis, whisking
the kids to the emergency room after bike accidents and backyard mishaps, calling the principals at school to complain about schoolyard squabbles and teachers' inconsistencies. Maybe they'd found they didn't really like each other after the four-month courtship and wedding ceremony and honeymoon at South Lake Tahoe, but she'd been a good mother, a reliable mother. Peri sure needed her now.

  "She was a good mom," Carl found himself saying, realizing that Peri had been just like Janice until the divorce. "She had those kids involved in everything. Brooke had speech and physical therapists and whatnot. A teacher came to the house to help her learn to read. I guess there were money issues . . .." He stopped, seeing the detective was folding up his notebook and slipping it into his jacket pocket.

  "Thanks, Mr. Randall. I'll be in touch." The detective handed Carl his card and held out his hand. "I'm sorry about this."

  Carl shrugged. "Me, too."

  Parking the Corvair alongside Garnet's Piedmont estate, Carl turned off the motor and sat watching the wind flicker through lime green sycamore leaves. Garnet’s husband had died when Graham was in college, but she was trapped in the years of her marriage, closing down shop, life, stuck in time as it had been. That pissed Carl off. Real Estate was about change, the deal, what was available, how to make it available. Garnet didn’t move, even though he used to try to shake her up with jokes and stories. After a few years of social events, he’d given up. Who needed it? Who needed her?

  But in better years, they'd all gathered here for big Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthday dinners, Garnet and her children and grandchildren, Carl and Peri and even Janice and Noel sitting alongside them at the 12-foot long table, passing food prepared by the cook and served by a maid. After dinner, Carly and Ryan had run around the upper floors playing hide and seek with their three cousins, children of Graham's sister Marcia, who lived in New York. After dinner, they'd settled in one of the living rooms, drinking eggnog or brandy or Peet's decaf, listening to music and talking about jobs and school and the economy. At later parties, Brooke sat on Peri's lap, gurgling and twisting, Garnet ignoring the uncouth sounds.