by T. Greenwood
Sitting in the back office at the Walgreens, Crystal had hugged her knees to her chest and imagined herself in Ty’s old kitchen, Lucia making cocoa from scratch at the antique wood-burning stove top. She knew that Lucia was in California, in a different house, a different life, but the smooth calm of her voice brought her back to that warm kitchen. A dog at her feet and the smell of cloves and bay leaves.
When she first found out she was pregnant, Crystal told Lucia first. Before Ty. Before her own mother even. She’d gone to the house when she knew Ty would be at soccer practice and sat at the counter like she had so many times after school. Now that Angie was older, she had things to do after school; the house was too quiet without her. But Lucia was always home. Always in the kitchen ready to talk.
Crystal had broken down as she told her about the test, about the baby. About her fears of losing Ty. But instead of looking horrified, like her own mother would just days later, Lucia softened and moved toward Crystal instead of away. She enclosed her. Held her. Enveloped her. Inside her bangled arms, Crystal felt safe. She knew that, at least for now, everything would be okay.
Crystal had looked up from her knees at the boxes and boxes of meaningless crap stored in the stockroom, and Lucia offered what Crystal had prayed she would.
“You can come here. You can come be with us. Ty is living in the dorms. We have an extra room. As soon as you establish residency, you can go to school. One of the community colleges.”
“I shouldn’t have given her up,” Crystal cried, her entire body racked with pain from the hole Grace left when she was born. “I did the wrong thing.”
“It’s okay. Crystal. You have a family that loves you.”
She didn’t know which family she was talking about, but it didn’t matter anymore. She had somewhere to go.
And she started to think that maybe it was possible for a mother other than your own to love you just as much, if not more. Her whole life, Crystal’s mother had given her nothing but ultimatums. Conditional love. Love with strings. Lucia, on the other hand, was patient and understanding. Made no demands. Crystal had wished a hundred times that Lucia could adopt her. Funny how the world works.
She didn’t tell her about the other Grace. She wasn’t even sure then about what she should do. What she did know was this: Here was her chance to save a little girl. To make her world right. To be a mother to Grace when her own mother had clearly failed her. She only had to look at those photos to know that something had to be done. She thought about Grace’s mother, wandering the aisles pocketing trinkets. Stealing all those incidental things that no one would miss. Wasn’t this the same thing?
But now, as she turned that giant beast of a car onto the interstate, accelerating through the whiteout with someone else’s child in her backseat, now that she could smell that child smell of Cheerios and Play-Doh, hear the sound of tiny lungs inhaling and exhaling, she worried that maybe she was losing her mind.
The little girl was looking out the window, her face concerned.
“It’s a big storm,” Crystal said. “But this is a very safe car,” she said, feigning cheerfulness. Her entire body rocked with nausea. She’d kidnapped a child. She’d stolen someone’s little girl. And it had been so easy. How could it be so simple? She’d called this morning and pretended to be her mother. Told the woman that Grace’s sitter was coming to get her. That there had been a family emergency. And the sitter’s name? the secretary had asked. Crys, she had started. What a fool. Chris Johnson.
“What is that?” Grace asked.
“What?” Crystal said. She looked in the rearview mirror again. Grace was leaning across the seat toward the opposite window.
“That smoke?” she said, pointing.
Crystal turned back around and looked out her own window. From the interstate, she could see down into the valley where Two Rivers lay nestled. Plumes of black smoke curled up from the whiteness.
“It looks like a fire maybe,” Crystal said.
“There was a fire at my grandpa’s house,” the little girl said. “You shouldn’t smoke cigarettes.”
Crystal’s phone vibrated on the seat next to her. She reached for it before it could shimmy across the seat and onto the floor. Her mother’s name flashed across the display. She thought for a moment about answering, but then sent the call to voice mail.
Elsbeth and Kurt stood in a crowd of parents held back by the police tape that circled the entire periphery of the school, a bright yellow ribbon enclosing a horrific package. How many “gifts” like this would he receive? First Pop’s house. Now this. It struck Kurt as ridiculous how readily and unthinkingly the parents obeyed the flimsy boundary. How easy it would be to duck under, crawl over, or even just break through the tape. The only thing stopping him was what was on the other side of the tape. What was inside this particular package: from where they were standing, they could see an entire wall blown out, a classroom’s contents spilled onto the snow.
Flames reached like liquid blue and orange fingers through the black smoke into the cold sky. The sound of ambulances was muffled by the snow. The white sky reflected the red and blue lights. The air was so thick with smoke, Kurt could barely breathe. And it was still snowing, still freezing. Elsbeth’s skin had lost all of its color: her lips blue, her skin like snow itself. His own face stung, his bare hands were numb, and his legs felt electrified, ready to detonate. His children were possibly somewhere inside that burning mess, and there was nothing he could do.
“Where are the kids?” a woman screamed as she came running from her car, which she had pulled off the road, not bothering to slam her door shut. Kurt could hear the radio blaring inside. She was wearing a baggy pair of flannel pajama bottoms and Ski-Doo boots, a bright green parka. She looked like she’d just rolled out of bed. She ran to the woman in the orange vest, the one who had been standing there with a clipboard, taking parents’ names, and said, “I’ve got a first grader, a third grader, and twins in the fifth grade in there. I need to go in.” She clearly didn’t know the rules, these stupid rules to which the rest of the mob was mindlessly in obedience.
The clipboard woman’s phone rang. “Hold on a second,” she said, her voice like corn syrup, too thick, too sweet. She glanced down at her cell phone and then moved away from the crowd to take the call.
“Can you believe this?” the woman in the pajamas said, turning to Kurt, as if he had some sort of explanation. Like he had any control over the situation. Her face was pocked with acne scars, her teeth bad.
Kurt went up to the woman in the clipboard and said, “Excuse me, ma’am?”
She shook her head, glaring at him, and returned to the call.
The currents in both of Kurt’s legs were hot. Relentless.
“That was Principal Cross,” she said, admonishing him. “All of the children are being escorted in small groups to buses to be transported to the high school. Principal Cross has said that there will be a list of the students’ names posted at the municipal building’s doors next door, along with the children’s locations. There will also be a list of the students who have been taken to the hospital. If your child’s name is not on the list, they have not yet been accounted for.”
“What do you mean not accounted for?” Kurt hissed.
“I mean, they may still be inside the building.”
“Come on,” Kurt said to Elsbeth, grabbing her hand and leading her away from the crowd, which was growing now in both size and volume. Mothers with young children were weeping into each other’s arms, fathers were rumbling angrily. Kurt wondered how long it would take before the angry mob stormed the burning building.
“Who did this?” Elsbeth asked as they ran through the snow to the auditorium on the back side of the building.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean who set off the bomb?”
“What makes you think it was a bomb? It could have been a gas leak. A furnace explosion.”
“The school’s in lockdown, Kurt,”
she said, her eyes widening in horror. “That means someone did this on purpose. And they haven’t caught whoever did it yet. There could be more explosions. Whoever did this might still be in there.”
Kurt felt the world go soft then; his blood, which had been running through the exposed wires of his veins, suddenly felt slow and liquid. Like liquor. The world tilted underneath his feet, and he struggled to keep from dropping to his knees with the weight of it all.
“I’m sure the kids are out. We’ll just go check the list. They’re probably at the high school,” he said, knowing even as the words exited his mouth how phony they sounded.
The mob at the front of the municipal building was almost as big as at the school. A couple of volunteers were trying to get people into two single-file lines. It was like herding cats, though, herding a hundred hissing, scratching, wailing cats.
He and Elsbeth stood waiting, Elsbeth squinting her eyes and leaning forward as if she might be able to read the fine print from twenty feet away. They moved slowly forward, most of the parents finding their children’s names on the list and then nearly collapsing in relief.
Finally, they got to the front, and Kurt stepped toward the sign with the names of the children who had been taken to the hospital. He quickly scanned the list and was relieved to see that neither Gracy nor Trevor was on it. He was elated as he made his way to the sign, where he searched for K names to see where they had been taken. He ran his finger down the list, searching for Trevor. Searching for Gracy. Nothing. He figured he had somehow missed them and started over again.
“Please hurry,” the woman behind him whispered.
He turned on his heel and got close to her face. “You can wait another goddamned minute while I find my kids.”
She looked at him, both terrified and simultaneously offended, and something about her fear made his skin prickle. How dare she?
But they weren’t there. Neither Gracy nor Trevor was on either list. Which meant they were still inside the building. Somewhere inside that burning wreckage, where whoever was responsible for this might still be wandering around.
Just then Principal Cross came out of the building, her hair a mess, her cheeks flushed red. She teetered on her high-heeled pumps as she made her way across the icy pavement. She held up a bright blue megaphone. “Parents,” she said, smiling. Smiling. “Thank you so much for your patience during this emergency situation. We are doing everything we can to make sure that all of your children are safe. If they have been injured, we are doing our best to get them out of the building and taken to the appropriate facilities for treatment. Thank you.” Without giving any further explanation or answering any questions at all, she turned on those high heels and disappeared back inside the building, ushered by some guy who looked like he might be a janitor or something.
“Stay here,” Kurt said to Elsbeth, who looked bewildered, shaking her head in disbelief at the closed door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Please just stay here. I’m going to find them.”
Elsbeth reached for him, clung to him, and then it hit him again as though for the first time. She’d screwed someone else. Their children might be dead, and she had fucked some asshole named Wilder from Florida. He pulled away from her silently and started to run back toward the school, his legs grateful for the running. The pounding of his head, of those words, of all the terrible things that might be about to unfold, echoed in the pounding of his feet on the hard-packed snow.
Instead of taking the shortcut, past the school, Trevor walked the long way home. He knew the sooner he got there, the sooner he’d have to explain. The sooner all hell would break loose. And so he took his time, despite the blistering cold and relentlessly falling snow.
Mrs. D. had told him that he needed to talk to his mom and dad. To explain all of the things that were messed up inside his head. The things about those boys, about what they had called him. About what Ethan had done to him that day behind the Walgreens. He needed to tell her about Gracy, about how afraid he was. About how confused he was, about how sad. It made him sick just thinking about how he might explain. He knew it would kill her. That she would hate him. That she would think he was a monster. But he was so tired of the secrets; exhausted from the lies. He knew that whatever came of it couldn’t be any worse than the hell he was living in.
The snow was still coming down, and the entire world was covered in a thick layer of white. He could hear police cars and ambulances the whole way home. He thought about fires. About accidents. He tried to shove those bad thoughts away, but there was hardly any room anymore. Those spaces were already filled. By the time he got to the house, his entire body was numb from the cold. And surprisingly, the numbness made him feel stronger. He knew he could handle almost anything. If his dad took him out to the shed, he might not even feel the belt.
His mom’s car was in the driveway, but his dad’s truck was gone. He felt his shoulders relax. But when he got inside the dark kitchen, he realized the house was empty. The only sign of life was the lingering smell of coffee and the blinking light of the answering machine. Where was she? Where would she have gone without her car? He steeled himself to find out what disaster those messages might carry.
He immediately recognized Mrs. Cross’s voice, and his heart sank. “Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, this is Mrs. Cross from Two Rivers Graded School. I’m certain you are aware of the situation at the school right now. I need you to call me immediately. The police commissioner will be in touch shortly. He has some questions regarding Trevor.”
His whole body began to quake. He deleted the message.
“Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, this is Sergeant Jenkins with the state police. I understand your son and daughter were both away from school today. We need to speak with your son as soon as possible, as he is a person of interest in our investigation. We’ll be sending a patrol car by. Please be prepared at that time for your son to be taken to the station for questioning.”
Trevor was out the door and running before he could listen to the last message. He ran until it felt like he had inhaled the entire blizzard, until his lungs and heart were nearly frozen in his chest. He didn’t stop until he had leapt across the frozen river, climbed the bank, and was inside the caboose.
He’d never even managed to get the darkroom set up. The enlarger he’d stolen on Friday sat in the corner like a hulking, sulking skeleton. The chemicals were frozen, the safe light and timer good for nothing. He’d been such a fool to think he could have this. That he could ever make anything beautiful out of this life. There wasn’t light enough in the whole world to illuminate the good parts of him.
He tore down the sheet metal he’d put up on the broken windows, slicing his left hand on the rough edge. He winced and clutched his hand to his chest. Crying, he went and picked up the enlarger, carrying it out to the embankment and hurling it into the water, his hand dripping blood on the snow. Back and forth. He made his way from the caboose with everything he’d worked so hard to collect. And one by one, he threw everything into the river. By the time he was back inside the caboose, his hand was bleeding heavily, and he was starting to feel light-headed. He knew he needed to stop the bleeding, but as he looked around the empty car, he couldn’t find anything that would work. He couldn’t go back to the house, though. He’d rather die than go back there. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew that he was being held responsible.
He pulled his coat tightly around him and curled up on the ratty old mattress on the floor. He tucked his hand tightly between his knees, hoping the pressure would stop the bleeding, and put his face down into his coat so that his own hot breath might keep him warm. He was safe here. No one would find him. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure the images he’d cared about so much, tried to recollect when he could see the promise of beauty, that distant shimmering hint. But no matter how hard he tried to fill his mind with light, all he could see was Grace.
“Are we here?” Grace asked as they hurled thro
ugh the blizzard.
What a funny question, Crystal thought. Of course, we’re here. Wherever here was.
“Not yet,” Crystal answered.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Grace said.
“Right now?” she asked.
Crystal pulled over at the first rest stop they came to, which was only about thirty miles outside of town. There was one eighteen-wheeler in the lot and no other cars. Most people knew better than to be out on the road on a day like this. She was glad. She had hoped to get out of state before she had to pull over. She figured if she just kept driving, she could be in California in a few days. Lucia would know what to do. She could help her fix this.
She opened the car door and the wind slammed it shut after her. She wrapped her unzipped coat around her tightly and went to the other side of the car. Grace had unbuckled herself and was looking at Crystal expectantly.
“My mom always carries me when there’s snow on the ground,” she said, reaching her arms out.
“Oh,” Crystal said and leaned over her, picking her up and easing her out of the car and into her arms. She was heavy, and as she lifted her, Grace’s head hit the door frame.
“Ow!” Grace howled and then started crying loudly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Crystal said and felt her chest tighten. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
She examined Grace’s head, and there was already a small egg forming there. She touched it gingerly with her fingertip, and Grace winced. “I want my mom,” she said quietly.
The wind was howling, and Crystal ignored her.
“I want my mom!” she said again, this time right into Crystal’s ear as she clung to her neck.
Crystal walked as quickly as she could toward the rest area. She used her one free arm to open the door and took Gracy inside. There was, thankfully, no one there. The last thing she needed was for Gracy to start crying about her mother. When she felt Grace’s grasp loosen, she lowered her down to the floor.