Etched in Sand

by Regina Calcaterra

  When I finally break from staring after him, I notice Rosie’s doing the same. “Where’s he going?” Rosie asks. Never before have we seen a man so caring and capable.

  “He’s going to take care of Frankie so we can stay up together.”

  We lounge on the living room couch and love seat, gently taking note as Rosie begins to drop hints of a smile as I rest with my arm around her and play with her hair. The name Cookie never comes up. The word abuse is never spoken. The four of us sleep head-to-toe in the living room; and in the morning, Camille starts the coffeepot and sets out a box of gooey glazed donuts while Frank dresses Frankie and steps out to warm up the car. “Rosie, how about we head out to the mall and get you some warm, new clothes?” Camille says.

  Rosie’s eyes light up. She looks out the window at the car and then back to me. “Can I sit on your lap?”

  “Sure, lovebug,” I tell her, securing a lock of loose hair the color of sand behind her ear. “You remember the Smith Haven Mall, where we used to hang out when we were working on the farm?”

  She smiles. “Yes.”

  Cherie wiggles in next to Frankie’s car seat, and I close my eyes with my cheek against Rosie’s back the entire way to the mall.

  While Rosie and Cherie browse through the racks, Frank, Camille, and I powwow in the car. “I think we need to wait a few weeks to register her for high school here. We don’t want to make it easy for anyone from Idaho to track her down with the help of the school system,” Camille says.

  “I agree.”

  “And when we do register her, we don’t tell the school that she’s a transfer from Idaho. As far as they’re concerned, she’s just moved to a new part of Long Island.”

  “I know. We’ll work with her on dropping the twang.”

  “She’ll catch on fast,” Frank says. “She still talks like a Long Islander. ‘My teacha,’ she said—did you hear that? She’s still got Long Island in her.”

  The three of us laugh as Frankie coos and clenches his fists from his car seat—he, too, is in on our important scheme. When Rosie and Cherie are back with their bags a half-hour later, the mood goes quiet again. “What’d you get, cutie?” I ask Rosie.

  “Some jeans, a coat and sweater . . .” Her voice trails off. Frank calmly pulls out of the parking lot, onto the highway.

  At no point during the weekend do we ask Rosie what she experienced. There’s just no reason to make her relive it, and her silence has told us enough already.

  On the third day, Rosie and I move into Cherie’s studio apartment in Bayshore, but just as Rosie begins to feel comfortable with her new home, Camille calls us: She’s begun getting calls from Cookie’s brother, Nick.

  “Shit,” Cherie says. “What’d he say?” Rosie and I crowd close to her. She tilts the receiver so we can hear Camille speak.

  “Well, the first time, he called and informed me that Rosie was missing and the Idaho authorities think Regina is hiding out with her somewhere in Idaho.” Just like always, Cookie’s blame points straight to me. “I told him it was impossible since you’re at school and in fact you’d been in all your classes taking tests this past week.”

  “Good.”

  “But whatever you three do, it’s not a good idea to come by my house. Nick’s watching, and he’s looking to bite. Regina, you should head back to school.”

  “I will go back when the time is right.”

  “The time is right now.” Her firmness stuns me. “If Nick or the cops find out that no one’s seen you at class or in your dorm, he’ll figure out where you are and then we’re all done.”

  “Then who’s going to stay with Rosie while Cherie’s working at the deli?” I demand. “This child has been through enough, Camille. I am not leaving her alone and unguarded without one of us here.”

  “So it’s going to be the three of you smooshed together in Cherie’s tiny studio apartment?”

  “We’ve lived through way worse . . . or have you finally forgotten?”

  “Are you doing this for Rosie, or for yourself?” she says. “Fine, Regina, stay there. Just be safe. Nick will come pounding on Cherie’s door, and I’m afraid it won’t be pretty.”

  It’s the silent treatment between us for two days until she calls again. “Nick’s showing up at my house now, demanding to know where Cherie lives.”

  I wring my fingers.

  “Frank’s been answering the door. He keeps telling Nick to leave, that Cherie and I had a fight and aren’t talking. ‘The last Camille heard, Cherie was still living out of state,’ he tells Nick. But I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to hold him off.”

  We now know it’s only a matter of seconds before Cherie’s ex–in-laws hand her number over to Nick. Every time the phone rings, Rosie and I jump up from wherever we are and huddle on Cherie’s bed, as though holding each other will protect us all from the assault of Nick’s voice on the answering machine.

  First, it’s Cherie, this is your uncle Nick. Call me.

  Then Cherie, this is your uncle Nick. We think Regina took Rosie. Call me back as soon as possible.

  Then the third message: Cherie, this is your uncle Nick, I’m coming over and will force my way in to talk to you. Pick up the damn phone right now.

  Rosie and I hide our belongings, throw on our coats and shoes, and I grab my denim satchel. We bolt out of Cherie’s place and take off down a back alley.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To a mall,” I tell her. “We need somewhere with a crowd.”

  From a pay phone I leave a message on Camille’s answering machine. “Camille, where are you? Listen, I’m taking Rosie to the movies at Sunrise Mall. Nick called Cherie’s three times today. We’ll be out—don’t panic if you can’t get ahold of us. Cherie’s at work, her boss wouldn’t let her talk.”

  The man at the cinema ticket counter has fat fingers and a slow pace. My eyes dart around the theater’s lobby as he paws our change out of his register. “Mister, can you hurry it up a little?” I tell him.

  He stares at me.

  “We’re going to be late for the show.”

  Finally, we sail past the popcorn concession and straight into the theater, in the far left corner. We sit through two viewings of Pretty in Pink, and I’m ready to sit through a third when Rosie stands.

  “Sit down!” I hiss. “What are you doing?”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “We can’t— Why?”

  “Let’s at least see another movie or something.”

  I glance around. “Well, hurry, so we can walk out with everybody else. Put up your hood and put down your head.” We link arms to hustle through the theater’s lobby, but the instant we turn the corner into the mall corridor, I see the worst possible thing: Nick comes running at us, accompanied by two mall security guards. As I yank Rosie into a semicircle spin, I spot Cherie a few steps behind them.

  Rosie and I race back into the cinema, down the aisle of an empty theater, and out the emergency exit. I push Rosie to scramble under a big metal garbage bin and then shimmy under next to her. “They’ll think we’re hiding behind something—not under something,” I whisper.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve done this before!”

  We lie there. It will be a miracle if the pounding of my heart doesn’t lead Nick right to us.

  Rosie rests her cheek on the cold pavement. “We have no control, Gi,” she says.

  Her return to using my nickname strikes me; softens me. “That’s why we have to get control, sweetie. We can’t let you go back with her. You’ll be fourteen in October, that’s only seven months from now. We have to get you emancipated, too.”

  “Where will I hide?”

  “With me up in New Paltz. I can rent a room in an apartment and we can live off campus.”

  Suddenly Cherie’s voice rings from the darkness. “Regina! Rosie!”

  “Close your eyes,” I whisper, near silence. “She’s with Nick.” It’s jus
t like when I was four years old living in the Glue Factory apartment. I ran away, and Susan called out for me. “Regina! Regina!” I rose from my hiding place and ran into her arms, then she carried me out of the woods and toward the street, right back to Cookie.

  We ignore Cherie’s calls. We stay silent and still. Minutes pass. Cars pass. Rosie passes her hand to me, and I lace my fingers through hers.

  After quiet falls around us, we shimmy out into the night. We walk through unlit parking lots on Sunrise Highway until I find a phone booth on a dark corner. Camille picks up on the first ring.

  “Regina.” She’s crying. “Where are you two?”

  “We’re fine. I’d rather not say where we are right now. But we’re fine.”

  “It’s too late, Gi. He said that if we don’t turn Rosie over to him, he’ll call the police and we’ll all be arrested for kidnapping. He said he’ll use that to have the courts take away Cherie’s visitation with her son and she’ll never see him again, and the courts will take Frankie away from me, too. Frank and I are just sick, we don’t know what to do.”

  “I’ll call my social worker tomorrow. Maybe she can help us.”

  “Regina, he wants Rosie at his house tonight, or else he is calling the cops on all of us.”

  “Jesus Christ, he’s sick!” I wring my forehead, trying to work out a solution. “Let me talk to Rosie. I’ll call you back.”

  I gently place the phone back in its silver cradle. I can’t quite bring myself to look at Rosie. It’s 1986, five and a half years after we were separated for the last time and placed into different foster homes. Today she’s the same age I was when I made the decision that ruined her life with my unfounded faith in my social worker and the system. If I tell our story, I thought back then, no one in their right mind would ever return any of us to Cookie. As good as the government has been to me, it let Rosie down. Even worse, I let Rosie down. How could I promise her that the same county system that deserted her five years ago would suddenly decide to help her? We’re poor. We have no connections and even fewer resources, and we’ve learned not to trust anyone who says You can trust me. We’ve had to put our faith in the people who treat us coldly, who attempt to prey on our vulnerabilities and take advantage of us; but in the end, no one can really save us from our own hard reality. Every single one of us has had to climb out of our childhood and help ourselves. It was true for Cherie and Camille; it’s true for me; and now it’s true for Rosie.

  “There’s nothing else I can do,” I tell her. Hot tears spring to my eyes.

  She glares at me in a way that’s both hopeless and accusing. “Call Camille,” she says. “Let’s get it all over with.”

  There’s a throbbing silence between us as we wait, and wait, for Camille’s car to pull up. “I’m freezing,” I say. “Are you cold?”

  Rosie says nothing. I clamp my arms around her in an effort to stay warm, until I realize it’s me who’s shivering.

  After a lifetime of waiting, Camille’s headlights finally cut through the night. Rosie takes a step toward the car. “Wait,” I tell her. “Let me see who’s with her.” I walk out in the open concrete lot, peering into Camille’s window.

  “Get in,” Cherie sighs. “We’ll stay at Camille’s tonight.”

  I flag Rosie toward the car, waiting for Cherie and Camille to rip into me. But the only sounds are the hum of the motor; the click-click-clicking of Camille’s turn signal in the night. I lean up toward the front seat. “Can somebody turn on the radio?”

  Neither Cherie nor Camille budges.

  In the morning, Camille finds me dialing the kitchen phone. “Who you calling?”

  I hesitate. “The social worker.”

  She comes to me and braces my shoulders. Looking in my eyes, Camille says, “Gi, honey: We’ve done all we can. She has to go back to Idaho.”

  There’s a ringtone in my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Harvey, it’s me. Regina.”

  Camille sighs, rubs her temples, and goes to the cupboard to pull out a can of coffee. I tell Ms. Harvey everything—how we tried to rescue Rosie after social services in Idaho triggered Cookie to lash out; how Nick was chasing after us and we need to keep Rosie with us. “Ms. Harvey, can you call the police in Idaho and tell them how social services put Rosie in danger?”

  “Regina, you kidnapped a minor across state lines. That’s against the law, and because Rosie’s guardian lives in Idaho, no. There’s nothing I can do from here.”

  I shoot a glance to Camille and react the only way I can think: I slam the phone back on the wall and storm outside in my bare feet for air.

  The storm door claps shut behind Camille. “None of us likes this, but sweetie, we all have so much at risk—especially Rosie. We have to take her to Nick’s.”

  “The hell we do.”

  “Gi, we’re out of options.”

  Rosie steps onto the front porch and folds her arms tight across her chest. Cherie steps out behind her.

  “We’ll tell him that you’ll only stay there as long as Cherie and I stay, too,” I tell Rosie.

  “Fine.”

  “Then Regina and I will drive you to the airport,” Cherie says.

  Nick’s Dobermans charge the door when we ring the bell, and I steady Rosie in her terrified reaction. Cherie and I grab Rosie’s hands and walk into Nick’s home, taking in the stained walls and carpet, the smell of mildew combined with wet dog and urine. With his hands that are perpetually filthy from his job in printing, Nick wrangles his dogs from pummeling us, while his docile wife attempts to coax them from his grip. Then he turns his lips down and points his finger in my face. “You,” he says. “This is all because of you. You have always thought that you were better than us, you think you’re so high and mighty. If I could, I would beat that smugness right off your face, Regina. You need to be brought down a few notches, you snotty bitch, and I could still do that to you.”

  I glare at Nick and his wife, who’s hovering behind him like a wilting weed. “Thank God you weren’t able to have any kids—now we know for sure how you would have raised them!” I pause, for effect. Then I say, “Nick.”

  “I am your uncle, goddammit!” he howls. “Uncle Nick! You should respect your elders!” His cragged forehead’s broken out in sweat.

  “Nick,” I tell him calmly, “you have to earn respect. It’s not just given to you. You never did a thing to help us. You only made it worse by siding with Cookie. You, like her, do not deserve my respect.”

  “Get the fuck out of my house, you lying whore.”

  “Nope,” I tell him. “If Rosie’s here, then I’m here.”

  Nick stares at me. Then he stares at Cherie. Cherie stares down at the floor, reminding us all she has a custody fight for her child to worry about. “You’re staying here tonight,” he says. “And tomorrow, the kid goes with me to the airport.”

  “So do we,” I tell him.

  Nick wraps his hand into a fist so hard the knuckles crack. “Jennifer, take these sluts to the back room,” he says. With her eyes, his wife begs us to save her. She points us down the hall, into the room next to theirs.

  “It smells like slime in here,” I tell my sisters. Rosie’s gaze is fixed in worry on the bed, where scattered about are pictures of hairy, naked women. “I’m not sleeping on that thing.”

  “You think the floor is much better?” Cherie says.

  “Cherie, help me put the sheets on the floor. We’ll sleep on top of them with Rosie in the middle. We can cover up with our coats.” The next morning, after we leave the sheets in a heap on the floor, we walk out to the driveway where Nick’s leaning against his rusted Camaro. “What the fuck took so long to get ready? You three dyking it out in there?”

  We march past him, toward Cherie’s car.

  “What the hell—you two don’t actually expect me to believe you’re going to drive this kid to the airport.”

  Cherie opens her car door. “Rosie’s riding with us, Nick. If you want to
be there to see it, you’ll have to follow.”

  “You cunts—”

  I swing around. “Shut the fuck up, Nick, you fucking ignorant, stupid prick!” I walk up to him and get in his face. “She’s riding with us, you got it? You Calcaterras are nothing but a bunch of lowlife scumbags!”

  “And you’re one of us,” he says.

  I wrap my arms around Rosie’s shoulders. “In name only.” I use my body to nudge Rosie inside the car, resisting my instinct to tackle Nick and beat him senseless. In the backseat I keep Rosie cloaked, as though trying to protect her now could still do some good.

  Even deeper inside the airport with the March chill left outside, I feel Rosie shivering. We escort her all the way to security, where she glances back at Nick and takes off her coat. Her action strikes me as symbolic: In the end, the only thing we were able to do was keep her warm with that coat, and now she’s giving it back, knowing what was meant to protect her here will bring her harm when she gets where she’s going. The only prayer she has to survive Cookie’s reaction will be to pretend this trip to New York never happened.

  Cherie and I both reach out and take the coat, which seems to weigh four hundred pounds. This was supposed to be Rosie’s forever rescue, and I’ve failed her yet again.

  The crowd of travelers at the gate fills in around us. In response, Cherie’s actions seem to pick up with a pace of urgency, but for Rosie I’m calm and gentle as ever. As she hugs Cherie, her limbs move as though they’re weighed down with lead, as if any part of her that’s lively or able to feel love is dead. I take her cheeks in my hands, staring into her sculpted face, her eyes that show she’s seen too much. Everything about her seems older than it is. “Mia bambina amore,” I whisper.

  Suddenly, she throws her arms around me and buries her face in my hair. For a moment, I can feel her resisting sobs; and then she whispers: “Je t’aime.”

  The other travelers seem somehow empowered by the luggage they’re carrying onto the plane, but Rosie approaches the ticket counter with nothing . . . because she came with nothing. Cherie and I grip her coat between us. A loose, sandy curl flips over her shoulder when she looks back and forces a smile.