Hurry Home

by Roz Nay

  I glance across at Chase, who’s fidgeting under the balloon.

  “She releases the parts of her life that are too heavy to carry,” I say. “She got herself in trouble as a kid, and it’s no surprise that even that story got twisted into being about me.”

  “After Chase told me about Pim, I found the death records. It was labeled accidental, but there was a description of that day. I can’t imagine what that was like for you, his sisters. It made me realize why Alex … does what she does.” He looks at Will sleeping on my chest. “And why this baby is so important. To both of you.”

  I’m trying to sift through what he’s saying, to figure out whose side he’s on, but I can’t. “What are you going to do about the drugs, Sully?”

  “I’m going to find the truth. It’s one thing to get into trouble, but it’s another thing to cause it on purpose. My job is to protect people, and right now, I think you need protection, Ruth. You and your son.”

  As he’s speaking, his phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket, stares coldly at the screen. A look passes between him and Chase that’s hard to decode. Then he shuts off his phone.

  “Was that my sister?” I ask. “What does she wa—”

  But I’m cut short when the door opens and a man and a woman enter. The woman is holding a baby seat, which she puts down onto the tray table. Something about their energy instantly makes my heart beat faster.

  “Can we help you?” Chase says. “I think you must have the wrong room.”

  But beside him, Sully whispers, “Morris.”

  “You know these people?” I ask Sully, a sickness gathering in the pit of me. “What’s going on?”

  “Hello, Ms. Van Ness, my name is Morris Arbuckle.” The man in front of me holds out a card with an insignia. I stare at it blankly until he sets it onto the side table, smooths down his tie. “This is my colleague, Minerva Cummins. We haven’t met before, but Minerva and I are child protection social workers.”

  “Child protection … like Alex.” The pieces slide into place and I turn to Sully. “What’s going on?” I jab a finger at him. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

  “Morris, I can guess why you’re here, but this is a mistake.” Sully’s voice is low like a growl, but the man holds up one palm.

  “Ruth, I was called here because there have been reported concerns about you and your baby’s safety and well-being.”

  “No, that’s not true,” I say, gripping Will tightly. He’s fallen asleep in my arms. I can feel the steady rhythm of his breathing against my throat.

  “From who? Who called you?” Chase says, stepping to my side.

  “I’m afraid that’s confidential,” Morris says. “At this time, we need to assess if it’s safe for your child to remain in your care.”

  My voice catches in my throat. “Alex is lying. You can’t trust her.”

  The woman behind Morris won’t look at me. Sully cuts in front of Morris. “What has Alex told you, Morris? Whatever it is, it’s not as simple as she’s making it out to be. I know she’s one of your team, but there are … discrepancies that you don’t know about. We have to slow down here.”

  Yes, I think, yes, investigate further, the way that nobody ever did for me before. Somebody finally help me.

  “Officer Mills, please stop making this harder. We just need to follow things through,” Morris continues. “Ruth, your baby has been cleared for discharge. It was a fast labor, but without complication, and so he’s leaving the hospital today, and we’re placing him into a safe-care home. The investigation process will take thirty days, but you’ll have visitation rights throughout, and we’ll meet again at a conference in our office at the start of October.”

  “No!” I shout, and Will wakes up. He lets out a cry and grips the front of my hospital gown. “I’m his mother. He’s safe with me!”

  “I know it’s upsetting, but we’re doing our jobs and what’s best for your child,” the woman says, reaching for Will. “Let’s try not to upset the baby.”

  I twist away from her arms, but my body is sluggish and sore. Will is crying harder now, his little voice shrill and scared.

  Chase is wide-eyed with panic, looking from face to face. “You can’t just—”

  Sully takes my hand, his eyes steady on me. “This is a mistake, Ruth. Someone’s set it in motion, but we’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise you. Right now you have to be brave.”

  Brave? My sister has betrayed me yet again, and I don’t know who I can trust. Tears roll down my face, and I scream as the woman takes Will out of my arms and straps him into the baby seat. He’s clutching the clothespin in his hand.

  “Where are you taking him?” I sob.

  “He’ll be in a foster home for a month while we can find everything out,” she says.

  “Do something!” Chase says to Sully.

  “You’re getting it wrong, Morris.” Sully has both hands on his hips, but he still lets him pick up the baby seat, lets him leave the room with my baby, my son. The sound of Will fades down the corridor as I sway in bed, my vision flooding with ink-black stress, my throat jagged with bile. Chase puts his arm around my back to steady me, but my shoulders give out and I fold against him, darkness sweeping in like a sedative. All I can see is the sad balloon Chase brought me earlier, floating above our heads.

  ALEX

  I’ve been pacing in front of the bay window for an hour. Still there’s no news from the hospital. Morris promised me he’d email when it was done, so what is taking him so long? I stop, press the heels of my hands into the sockets of my eyes, and exhale. Relax, Alex. Be calm. This part of the plan is inevitable. There’s no stopping Morris when he’s following the rules.

  I take a long, restorative breath and check my email again. This time, when I refresh my screen, the phone dings. It’s happened. Morris has come through. Relief floods me, and I all but sink to my knees.

  Suddenly the front door bangs open and Chase barrels into the loft. He’s sweaty with hurry, his clothes crumpled and creased, a blond mess of stubble all over his chin. He’s so far from the smooth guy I first met in the grocery store that it takes me a few seconds to register him.

  “What have you done?” he shouts from the doorway. He’s demented and angular, completely unhinged.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Is this why you wouldn’t come to the hospital with me this morning?” He slams the door behind him, and the whole loft shudders. “Because you knew what your boss was going to do? How could you do that?”

  “Slow down! How could I what?” I say.

  “Have Ruth’s baby taken away from her. Your boss just waltzed into the hospital room and took him.” He swallows, devastated. And he’s right: It is upsetting. For everyone. He’s just had so little experience of this kind of thing.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “You planned this.” He points at me while he heads to the tap and drinks water straight from the faucet. “I’m getting the hang of you, Alex. You’ve had this planned all along.”

  “You make me sound like a criminal mastermind. I’m a child protection worker, Chase. I knew Ruth couldn’t look after a baby the minute she announced she was having one. And I will always prioritize the safety of a child. It’s my job. I know you think the world is a beautiful place, but it’s not. You have no idea of the things I’ve seen.”

  He smashes the faucet off. “Ruth told me everything about you. Your whole ‘good girl’ story about your past—and the wildness of your crazy, drug-addled sister—all of it was lies. I know you got pregnant at fifteen and blamed it on the wrong guy. I know you had an abortion, and that’s why you can’t have kids. And that all happened to you, not to your sister. You lied to me.”

  “Chase,” I say, reeling as if slapped. “You’ve been listening to the wrong—”

  “Stop it,” he says, his voice breaking into two. “Stop playing this game with me. Don’t you care at all about who I am? I wanted to build a l
ife with you. A forever one.”

  He’s visibly shaking. I had no idea he’d come at me with such force.

  “You’ve ducked and you’ve dived,” he goes on, “given me slipperiness and half-truths while I … I handed you everything. You know what I’ve realized, Alex? You’re the virus.”

  “Excuse me?” I say, both hands on my hips now. “Have you completely forgotten what she did? She stole cocaine, Chase, from a felon, and she brought all of it into our home.”

  His eyes brim with hurt. “You denied moving those drugs. But you did it. And you threatened some guy who came to our house, Alex. You hurt him.”

  I can feel the heat gathering in my cheeks.

  “I wasn’t lying,” I say, but Chase only groans. “I wasn’t! I thought she’d made the drugs up, but then I saw her with them.”

  “If that’s true, you’ve known about them for a while. Why didn’t you report them sooner, if you were so worried about her fitness to parent?”

  “Oh my God.” I venture a few steps toward him. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t have all the information on everything she’s done. I saw her with the tin just this week—that’s why I reported it now. And that’s why they’re placing the baby with me, here, where he’s safe. It was Morris’s call, not mine.”

  He blinks at me for a few seconds like I’ve grown a second head. “What? You’re the one taking Will? You’re the mystery foster home?”

  “We are. It’s your home, too.”

  He seems to stumble and has to steady himself with one hand on the countertop. “How can you—? This is your sister you’re doing this to!”

  “Exactly. You don’t know this world, Chase,” I say, inching closer again. “You’re only freaking out because you’re out of your element.”

  “I’m not doing this to Ruth. My apartment isn’t available as a foster home. Get out of my house,” he says.

  A line in the sand. Who’d have thought he’d stand up to me like this? Well, it’s not that easy, I’m afraid.

  “You can’t kick me out,” I say. “If I don’t have stable accommodation, Will goes to a random family in the foster-care system. He’ll likely get bounced around all over the place. Do you really want that to happen?”

  Chase stands tall, his jawline set. I can almost see his mind whirring.

  “Look, I don’t want to fight with you,” I say, edging forward a little more. “What I’m doing may look harsh to you, but it’s all for my nephew. The child comes first. It’s just like the Floyds at work and that boy I saved, Buster. Those parents were drug uses, too. Unreliable people do and say unreliable things. And the child has to come first.”

  Chase pauses, and his shoulders relax a little. He’s getting it. He’s catching up. For him it must be such a difficult leap into a cruel world.

  He looks me right in the eye. “Whatever happened to that baby? What happened to Buster?”

  “Simple,” I say. “I saved him.”

  A strange look comes over Chase, a look I’ve never seen before and can’t interpret. “I never realized how far you’d go … to protect these kids.”

  “If I didn’t, no one would.” I lower my head, wondering if I can round the counter yet and hug him.

  Chase scratches at his stubble. “I guess it’s hard to pick out the reliable people. I’m not very worldly that way. It leaves me wide-open.” His face is so sad. Maybe he’s finally seeing the world for what it is.

  “It’s a tricky business,” I say, moving forward until I’m standing in front of him.

  He puts his arms around me. Yes. I’ve got him. He’s with me still.

  “I’m sorry, Chase,” I say. “I’m sorry you had to come to terms with all of this. Your innocence is sweet. It’s what I love so much about you.”

  He grips me close. “I didn’t mean it when I said you had to move out.”

  I bury my face in his chest. “It’s been such a … a difficult week.”

  “Yes,” he says. “There’s a lot to … sort through.”

  “Welcome to my world,” I say.

  We stay together like that for a while, Chase holding me tight in the kitchen. Even after everything that’s happened, it’s going to end up okay. We’re back on track. And as I stand, letting Chase sway me, I hug the most important fact of all to myself. In only a matter of hours, Morris will bring Will over.

  RUTH

  Two hours after Family Services has stolen my baby, the hospital discharges me and Sully drives me home in his cruiser, a blanket over my knees. He takes me to his house, puts me in the spare room, lets Gravy sleep on the bed with me, even though I think he has rules about that kind of thing.

  “I’m right next door,” he says, “if you need anything.” He pauses, his face racked. Then he pulls the door shut until it clicks.

  The spare room is painted flint-gray, like pictures I’ve seen of stone walls in Scotland. There’s an antique chair in one corner, and a black-and-white photo on the wall of a crow in a winter tree. For two days, it watches me while I try hard to sleep and eat. The only lifeline I still have to my son is the breast milk Family Services say they’ll allow me to send to him, so I need to keep my body going. They’ve exchanged my living child for a breast pump, and they expect me to be okay with it. Morris hasn’t even come by to pick up the milk yet. All night long I worry about what Will is being fed.

  By the third day, Sully forces me out into the kitchen, where I sit and watch the rain, the bony trees beginning to rattle the windows. With my eyes open or closed, all I can see is my son. The chocolate-brown of his eyes, the soft curl of his hands. My desperation to see him is like a thirst. Everything about me is parched.

  “They can’t deny you access to your son,” Sully says through the first week, putting cup after cup of coffee in front of me that I struggle to drink. “They might have removed him, but you have a right to see him. I don’t know what’s taking Morris so long.”

  Alex. She’s what’s taking him so long. I found out that they placed Will with her the same day they took him away from me, that he’s there with her at the loft, and when Sully told me that, I felt sick to my stomach. The only hope at the moment is Chase, who seems to have fooled Alex into thinking that he’s still on her side. He’s a spy for us. But he’s fighting an uphill battle. Everyone has played into Alex’s hands. Even me. I came to Moses River so intent on mending things, so certain that, in spite of all that had gone wrong in the past, sisterhood was an inescapable bond. I wanted our relationship to change, and it has. It’s found all new ways to get worse.

  Seven days have gone by since I got out of the hospital, when Morris finally shows up at Sully’s front door. He stands on the front step, holding a black umbrella over his head as the rain pounds. Once we’ve gotten Gravy under control, Sully invites him in. But Morris shakes his head.

  “I can’t stay, I’m afraid. I just popped by to see how everyone’s managing.” His eyes dart from me to Sully. “And to tell you that Will’s fine. He’s absolutely fine. Thriving. But if you’ve got any breast milk at all, I’d be very happy to drop it off.”

  “Access visits, Morris,” Sully says, as I hurry to get all the glass jars I’ve stored for Will in the freezer—I’ve drawn a love heart on each one in red Sharpie.

  “Do your job properly. This mother has rights.”

  “Yes, well, she does and she doesn’t,” Morris says. He takes the jars, his smile tight. “I’m working on it. Leave it with me.”

  But as I head into the second week without my son, I hear nothing. Feel nothing. I’m given nothing to hold on to.

  The following Tuesday—nine days since I’ve been living in Sully’s house—he makes me chicken soup from scratch while I sit at the kitchen table. It’s lunchtime, although markers like that seem to have lost all purchase with me.

  “Did you shower this morning?” Sully doesn’t turn. The muscles in his back move under his shirt as he stirs. “You have to keep going, Ruth. It’s not just enough to eat fo
od and drink water. I know it’s hard, but all the basics are really important. You have to keep your head up.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “I need my son. I need Will.” I think of the smell of his hair when he slept against my throat, how his fingers gripped the front of my hospital gown when they pulled him away.

  Sully stops stirring and turns. “We’re going to get him back. You have to believe me. We’re going to find a way.”

  I nod, my mouth pasty, and toy with the saltshaker on the place mat. Sully said he would dig into the things Alex has done, but clearly his investigation isn’t yielding anything we can use. He isn’t saying so directly, but it’s been over a week now, and the inference is he’s not making headway. I try to swallow, but my throat feels gummed. Any minute now, he’ll hand me a bowl of soup and the steam that rises to meet my face will be nauseating.

  “Hasn’t Eli said anything at all?” I ask.

  Sully shuts a cupboard door firmly. “He refuses to make a statement. So far I haven’t been able to get him to admit to anything that’s not already on his file.”

  My blinks feel heavy. “When will Morris let me see Will?”

  Sully shakes his head by the stove. “Normally you’d have had access by now. Alex is blocking you.”

  By my feet, Gravy lets out an ancient sigh.

  Sully sets a blue ceramic bowl onto the table, watches me wait to look down at the soup. “Give it a try, Ruth. Think of it all as fuel, and not just for breast milk. If you’re going to fight for your son against someone as manipulative as Alex, you’re going to need gas in the tank.”

  Sully is trying to help. Never before have I had his caliber of person on my side, even though I suspect most of what he’s doing is simply an apology. He told me he’d encouraged Alex to report me. But when he admitted that, it wasn’t anger I felt toward him. I just felt a part of a great, collective exhaustion. Alex reeled him in, just like she did with the rest of us, and now all we can do is try to fumble our way home.