The Age of the Child

by Kristen Tsetsi

  She was so ashamed that she’d almost put her own needs first that she was harsher than she meant to be when she told Gabriella frankly that anyone who would knowingly put their future child in danger of living in a state shelter probably wasn’t the kind of person who should keep that child.

  “By ‘person,’ do you mean me?” Gabriella said.

  “I mean—I mean anyone. But if that’s the kind of thing you would do, then y—”

  Gabriella laughed a full-throated, melodious laugh, and then told Lenny she hoped they would stay friends for a long time. Still smiling, she tucked the flaps of her robe more snugly into the belt knotted under her breasts. She stayed quiet for a long time, her smile slowly fading.

  Her child would never see the inside of a state shelter, Gabriella said. She would run with the baby in her arms until she found the ocean, and she’d walk them both to the center of it before she would allow that to happen.

  “If you took the baby, I know you would choose a safe place, a good place,” Gabriella said. “But a child doesn’t forget, even then. It never stops wondering why.” She flicked her fingers, as if annoyed, when she realized she was stroking her scar. She put her hand in her lap. “From the moment I woke up in front that little animal hospital to the moment I woke up in your basement this morning, I never stopped. I really don’t want to quote your friend, but I don’t want to do this. I have to.”

  Lenny remembered Xavier’s praise of sacrifice. That Gabriella felt obligated to raise a child she’d never wanted probably meant the licensing bureau would find her more than qualified to do it.

  “Do you really believe you’ll pass?” Lenny said.

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “If you don’t?”

  “Do you think I’m going to walk into the ocean?” Gabriella smiled. “I might, that’s true, but first I’ll run. We aren’t so far from Canada, and my car is fast. I can tell you this: We’ll be together. Always. Or at least,” she laughed, “until it’s old enough to want to leave me.—You’ll help me, then?”

  Lenny made quick mental notes of what that would involve. First, they’d have to go to the drug store for a pregnancy test. The pharmacists should overhear Lenny urging Gabriella to buy it while Gabriella pooh-poohed the possibility of being pregnant. As soon as the positive line appeared in the window, Lenny would drive her to the bureau, whose records would show the date of the test purchase, the time the positive result automatically logged, and evidence that Gabriella had come to register immediately upon learning she was pregnant. When asked to speak, Lenny would go on about Gabriella’s irregular periods and say many nice things about her character, and that would be the end of it.

  “Okay,” Lenny said. “Yes. I’ll help y—”

  “I remember you, now.” Millie, centered in the kitchen doorway in socks and an oversized t-shirt, pushed her wild hair away from her face. “You were the drop who smelled up the van. It reeked for days. Did you know that?”

  Gabriella shrugged. “How could I?”

  Lenny still didn’t remember collecting Gabriella, whose head slanted at an awkward tilt as she looked at Millie.

  “Oh! Oh my, yes,” Gabriella said. “Yes, yes. I remember you, too! You were the one—You scrubbed your...”—She paused to mimic the motion, smearing her thumb and finger on her hip, disgust on her face—“…to wipe me away. That was you!”

  Millie marched into the kitchen and pulled a scone from the plastic bag sitting next to the toaster. “It’s so charitable of Lenny to extend her work with drops into their adulthood. Perhaps if I’d been a worthless, unloved discard she’d have been equally enthusiastic about helping me pass my evaluation.”

  Until then, Lenny had never once been tempted to tell Millie about what her mother had done. It hadn’t even occurred to her. It was too low, too cruel. And now, because she was tempted, so very tempted—the sentence was fully formed and ready—she knew she couldn’t trust herself to be right.

  She thought of her dad, what he would say.

  He would say Millie hurts plenty already.

  “I helped you as much as I could,” Lenny said.

  Millie stomped out with her scone. Seconds later, the secret door in the foyer closed hard with a whoosh and a solid click.

  THIRTY FIVE

  Lenny and Gabriella had been gone for seventy-seven minutes.

  Millie blew a thick smoke cloud into the shade. Across the field, the dead vines netting her porch entry glowed rich brown, still unbroken. She flicked her cigarette into the drain pipe runoff and lit another.

  She imagined them, as she had several times over the last seventy-seven minutes, arriving at the bureau smiling, their arms linked. Lenny would pull open the door for Gabriella and lead her to the receptionist, where she would introduce herself first. “I’m Lenny Mabary,” she would say. “Exemplary citizen. Daughter, as you must already know, of the famous author Margaret Mabary and the well-known humanitarian contractor Ernie Aronne.”

  Gabriella is a good person, Lenny would say. Gabriella is a model carrier. Gabriella is a friend of Lenny Mabary.

  However, Gabriella was anything but a model carrier. She was a matured drop and nothing more who until the night before had been prepared to drop her own. The only reason she’d changed her mind, Millie was certain, was that her delivery date was imminent and she was afraid they would discover her once the child was dropped. There would be no evading Exile. Gabriella no doubt believed keeping it would present at least the possibility of freedom.

  Fortunately, the evaluators were careful judges (until confronted by a unique specimen, obviously) and would identify her immediately as a candi-date for Exile.

  Millie spent a good amount of time fantasizing about Gabriella’s exile. Because she didn’t know the precise procedure or protocol for transporting prisoners, she skipped past that part and placed Gabriella directly inside the facility.

  The bureau’s presentation hadn’t covered apprehension or conveyance, but had, following Eugene’s segment, given way to a virtual tour of the facility’s interior: its unfathomably unsanitary community waste chamber; the dramatically named Rooms of Eternal Night; deep kitchen pots over-flowing with mealworms and mysterious intestines, respectively; and Reflection and Repentance Hall, where—Millie assumed for effect—they had spent the most time.

  Reflection and Repentance Hall was a spacious, high-ceilinged cell with painted blue walls displaying rows upon rows of visages of the dropped (as well as those who were differently abused). May Cheney explained that the high stained glass windows streamed “in memoriam” light directly onto certain faces at specific times of day throughout the year. For example, first light on the summer solstice shined on the face of Thaleia Robinson, whose manner of death on June 21 nearly rivaled that of Chester Walton, who received the sun at precisely 2:37 p.m. on the anniversary of his death. And so on.

  Only one image was kept separate from the others. The boy was rumored, but not confirmed, to be the younger brother of the facility’s overseer, a man known as “the Rectifier.” The boy’s face hovered in the center of the room and acted as a scanner, recording the arrival of prisoners ordered to make their way to it (“In any way they choose,” May Cheney said, “whether walking, crawling, or rolling.”) across a floor of retractable, but not retracted, spikes.

  “The Rectifier’s dedication to punishing those who mistreat children is resolute,” May Cheney had told the class, her chin pointed high. “I know the Rectifier personally. Having now seen what is by all accounts a brilliant manifestation of his unique vision, you may be surprised to hear that I deem him to be a sensitive, loving human being. Accordingly, he shows not an ounce of mercy to those rightfully put in his charge.”

  Millie doubted Gabriella would be compelled to roll across the spikes. According to May Cheney, the Rectifier reserved that punishment for the worst offenders.

  She finished her cigarette, took the stairs to the top floor, and looked through Lenny’s belongings to pass
time. She opened her dresser drawers, which Floyd had never permitted her to do, and found pants in one of the lower drawers and shirts in another. In the shallow top drawer, she found a square newspaper cutout lying atop Lenny’s cotton underwear and unpadded bras. It was a portion of a half-off coupon for free range, cruelty free beef, but it had been expired for months. She turned it over.

  Governor won’t fund hormone alert system despite proven hacks

  By Millicent M. Oxford!

  The sob that overtook her was so sudden she had no time to put down the article before covering her face, the story a flimsy barrier between her eyes and her hands. She touched it to her wet cheeks, her forehead, her nose to breathe it in, and then held it up and skimmed the damp text for a particularly insightful sentence or clever combination of words that had made Lenny treasure it.

  Nothing stood out. The date also held no significance, as far as Millie was concerned.

  It was possible, then—more than possible, actually—that there was nothing extraordinary about it at all but for the fact that Millie had written it.

  Not since she’d last contributed a piece of writing to the folder hidden in her childhood closet had Millie felt so valued. She returned the article to its spot, patted it down, and slid the drawer closed with a light sigh, then resumed exploring the second floor in a peculiar emotional state, wandering almost drunkenly into to the attached bathroom. She opened a soapstone jewelry box she’d long known held a mere four pieces of jewelry. One of the rings had always drawn her, a smooth, foggy emerald set in a silver water lily. Its individual pointed petals flowered from the band. She slid it on and wore it downstairs to the den (a stack of framed Margaret Mabary book cover prints inside the hutch), the dining room (soft cloth napkins and sparkling silver utensils—to include a set of curious, miniature, three-pronged forks—in the sideboard drawer), and the kitchen (food in the cabinets, wine in the pantry).

  The foyer’s stone floor should not have been inviting, but Millie sat there comfortably, half-dazed, with a wine glass filled to the rim. She listened for the sound of gravel under Lenny’s car tires, the groan of the garage door rolling up the rails. Ten minutes passed, and then twenty. In that time, Millie considered another cigarette, but it was unpleasantly hot outside. She also considered telling Lenny what she’d found, ultimately deciding it would be unwise. Lenny would misunderstand what Millie had been doing in her bedroom.

  Millie jumped to her feet at the dull crunch of grinding rocks. She emptied her glass in the kitchen sink and hurried back to the foyer, anxious to hear about Gabriella’s arrest—how many had taken her, how they had taken her—and Gabriella’s reaction. (She’d likely screamed. Gabriella always screamed about something.) After a frustrating moment of unmet anticipation when the garage door didn’t open, Millie heard the slam of a car door. A second one followed.

  She marched to the peep hole and slammed her eye socket flat to the wood. The prospect of seeing a triumphant Gabriella bounding up the stairs alongside a jubilant Lenny enraged her.

  Two middle-aged figures in dark purple double-breasted suits filled the fisheye lens, one of them—the woman—with an outstretched arm reaching for the doorbell.

  Millie took a careful step backward. “Westminster Chimes” flooded the house. Using the sound as cover, Millie ran to the hidden door. She pushed and pushed at the wood panel. It bounced and bounced without opening. The doorbell’s melody stopped, and Millie froze. She expected Jenny and Andy to scramble out barking so she could make another attempt, but they were evidently unperturbed by visitors.

  A single beep echoed through the foyer and bounced off the high ceiling, and Millie realized she’d been so intent on getting to the basement that she’d missed hearing the arrival of Lenny’s car.

  The ensuing beeps were entered with painful slowness.

  Millie counted seven. There were eight.

  Lenny apologized with uncharacteristic volume for the delay in entering her code.

  “I declare, I hardly ever forget it,” she said on the other side of the door. “Police must make me nervous. Heehee! I sure do hope my dogs don’t jump on you when you come in, Officers…?”

  Beeeeep.

  Millie slipped into the coat closet two seconds (she counted retroactively) before the front door opened. It was a sizeable closet with plenty of room to hide, but to better eavesdrop she concealed herself behind the lightweight jackets hanging closest to the door. If they decided to search, no one spot—behind this jacket, tucked into that coat—would be more or less effective against the aggressive sweeps of determined arms, after all.

  “Detective Merriweather, Detective Davis,” the woman responded to Lenny’s leading question as they invaded the foyer. “Child Welfare and Licensing, Special Division.”

  They were looking for one Millicent Oxford, they said, and they understood Lenny owned the property listed as Ms. Oxford’s permanent residence on her licensing application. Yes, they said when Lenny asked, they’d tried there first. (They must have driven past at the same time Millie would have been outside, had she gone outside. She’d never appreciated a missed cigarette more.) As they interrogated Lenny about Millie—Did she appear to be pregnant? Did she have any known hacker acquaintances? When had Lenny last seen her? (“Gawsh, I reckon it was eons ago!”)—their voices gradually quieted as, Millie surmised, Lenny led them away from the door to the basement. Not far enough away for Millie to not hear them from the closet, however, though she had difficulty believing what she was hearing when Lenny asked the detectives if they’d like to search the house.

  The male officer, Davis or Merriweather, said that if Lenny said Millicent Oxford wasn’t in the house, then Millicent Oxford wasn’t in the house. Lenny’s impeccable reputation had been confirmed for them when they’d learned she, Lenore Mabary, had just that morning delivered an unlicensed carrier, one Gabriella Dahl, to the Parent Licensing Bureau.

  “Oh, pish,” Lenny said. “It was a huge ol’ mistake, is all. The little chicken had no idea she was pregnant, bless her heart.”

  “In any case,” the female detective said, “we wouldn’t think of searching the home of a woman of such righteous action.”

  “You did more than that,” the male detective said. “You said…you said…Where is it? Here, here it is. You said, uh, ‘Gabriella Dahl is a person of strong character and unmatched kindness.’”

  Millie snorted in the dark, then slapped her hand to her nose.

  “I did say that,” Lenny said. “It’s absolutely true. Gabriella Dahl will be a beautiful parent. If anyone should be trusted to raise a child, it’s Gabriella.”

  “Sal,” the man said, “didn’t she also give a referral to Millicent Oxford some months ago? You did, didn’t you, Ms. Mabary? Before she failed her evaluation.”

  “Mm,” Lenny said. “Hm.”

  “Yeah, you said…Uh…Now, where is—? Here. Said, ‘I reckon she’ll be the best mamma imaginable to any little baby.’ Any chance you’d help her hide out somewhere? Make sure she’s the one who gets to be that baby’s mother?”

  “Lord, no,” Lenny said. “I’d ‘a’ turned her in in a second if I’d seen hide or hair of her.”

  “But you did give her that referral,” the female said.

  Millie wondered if she could get away with smoking. Perhaps, with a jacket stuffed into the gap at the bottom of the door…? No. She would wait.

  That referral was months and months ago, Lenny said. Millie had tricked her, Lenny said, but, “I know better, now. Why, I’d be kickin’ down your door to give ‘er to y’all, given the chance. I can’t imagine what that poor child will go through with Millie as its mother.”

  “She is pregnant, then,” the female said.

  “Now, I can’t rightly say,” Lenny said. “But if she’s anywhere, maybe y’all should check—Texas, I think it was? I think her ex-boyfriend might ‘a’ moved there. She really has no one else who cares about her here.”

  The detectives expressed th
eir appreciation for Lenny’s valuable information and took their time leaving. As soon as the door closed, Millie burst out of the closet. Lenny jumped.

  Millie popped a cigarette in her mouth and pulled out her lighter. She intended to take a long, harsh, satisfying drag the second she stepped out the back door.

  Lenny slapped the lighter from her hand. “Not in here!”

  “I know.”

  Lenny looked at the closet door, and then at Millie. Millie looked at the closet door, noticed she’d left it open, and closed it.

  “I had to say those things,” Lenny said.

  “What things?” Millie said around the filter.

  Lenny scratched the back of one hand, and then the other. “Anyway,” she said, “it worked. I don’t think they’ll be coming back.”

  Millie picked up her lighter.

  “I guess you’ll be leaving soon,” Lenny said.

  Millie had said she would leave after the police came looking for her, yes. She’d meant it at the time. However, at the time she’d not given any thought to where she would go.

  Hugh was a possibility. She could convince him to take her back, even with a different man’s offspring—provided she could show it to him after it was born, when he could be affected by whatever he might personally find irresistible in a baby. In the meantime, staying at Lenny’s was her only option. She certainly couldn’t live in her own house with all of its rooms accessible via visible doors. What if Davis and Merriweather had lied to Lenny about their trust in her? They might possess the dedication to watch Millie’s house for days. Weeks. What if she absent-mindedly turned on a light while they skulked around her property in the dark? What if she needed something on the main level one morning at the precise moment they happened to peer inside her window?

  There was, above all, the pregnancy to consider. What did she care about the admiration of those she didn’t know in a town she’d never lived in? All this time, she’d been awaiting the day she would walk among the faces that had given no signs of recognizing her work for the Daily Fact, faces that would shower her with (deserved) validation in their automatic expressions of awe and envy.