“A full-time mother? Really?”
“Yes, to my kids.”
“I see.” I didn’t see. I did not see.
“Please, sugar,” Thomas continued. “My mom won’t get off my case till we get her and besides she’s my kid.”
“No.”
God, help me not to feel judgmental. Leaning forward, I asked, “Thomas, do you love Bailey?” Help me not feel disgust. I thought of a Hasidic prayer taped on one side of my refrigerator: Lord, I know You’re going to help me, but help me until You help me. The thought of it usually made me smile. Not so much that day.
Thomas opened his hands and held them palm-up. “Yeah. I don’t know her too good, but she’s my kid. Of course I love her.”
“What does your love dictate that you do about her?”
Thomas tightened his palms into fists. “Jillian, honey? What will you let me do about her?”
“Leave her at your mom’s or find her a good home.”
A horrible image of Bailey sitting in a cardboard box on the tailgate of a pickup in the Walmart parking lot flashed across my mind. A sign hung around her neck. “Free to a good home.” I’d seen an old photo like that once in an online article. A woman sold all four of her children. Literally had them sitting on the front porch with a sign: For Sale. The article went on to say that each child was sold and that each one had endured hardships unimaginable.
Hurry, Lord. Help me. Help. Me.
Jillian looked at me. “Actually, Catherine …” Her voice had turned syrupy sweet. “I hoped you could maybe assist us. You must know some good people who would love to raise a little girl.”
I speared Jillian’s eyes with my own.
I stood. “Could you guys excuse me for a second? I’ll be right back.”
I slipped from the room without flinching. I had gotten really good at the not-flinching thing. What I would never be good at was the not-feeling-it thing. The “feeling it,” presented in my body as perennial colitis. Once I was in the hallway, I mad-dashed for the ladies’ room where I gulped in as much air as my lungs could hold. The inhumanity of it aside, I wanted a child so badly, and here this woman had the chance to raise such a precious little girl, and she was throwing her away like a waste can full of trash.
Where is the fairness in all this, Lord?
I heard the front door slam when I emerged, composed, a minute later, and I knew Bailey had arrived. My weighted heart smiled at the sound of Alicia making friends with her.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Alicia said, “did you get a good look at Mickey yesterday?”
Then I heard the playroom door open.
“Look at this. Mickey and the boys on a fishing trip.”
“Wow,” Bailey said.
I smiled, then slipped back inside my treatment room and into my chair. Jillian and Thomas hadn’t moved from where I’d left them, but the air in the room had grown heavier. “Thomas … I want to make sure you understand that before I left the room, Jillian asked me to place Bailey with some other family. Can you live with this? Are you willing for your child to go into foster care?”
Part of me wanted him to say no. Another part wanted him to say yes. Jordan and I had never certified to be foster parents. He had asked me about it, but I’d never come to terms with not having our own child. But for Bailey …
Jillian jumped in. “We weren’t actually considering a formal arrangement like foster care.”
“Jillian,” I said, my voice rising. “I was addressing Thom—wait. What? What do you mean by, ‘not a formal arrangement?’”
She looked away.
I decided to take another tact. “Thomas, what does Jillian mean?”
He shimmied on the sofa. He reminded me of my dad’s description of squirmy little boys: ‘wearing out his underwear from the inside,’ Daddy used to say.
“Well, maybe Jillian and I should talk more together at home before we talk to you about it.”
An eerie tingling started at my neck and crawled down my spine. “About what?”
“Sue worked.”
So, Bailey’s mother worked. So what? “Okay.”
“Well, you know when you work …”
I nodded. “When you work, what?”
“Well, when you work and you have a child…” he hesitated.
“Yes?”
Thomas fumbled. “Well, you know, when you work and pay into social security, and you have a kid, and you get yourself killed …”
I suddenly knew exactly where this was heading. “Mercy me,” I breathed the two words. “Thomas, you want to put your child with another family on a per-diem basis, and you want to collect and keep Bailey’s social security check?”
“Per what?”
“Per—per day.”
“I don’t.” He pointed at himself. “I want to bring her home with me, but the wife don’t want to.” He looked at Jillian.
I turned to face her. “Does the wife want to keep Bailey’s social security check?”
“I never signed up for any of this, but Thomas is her father. The check will come to him.”
“You are acknowledging that Thomas is Bailey’s father then?”
Jillian’s face turned crimson. “Don’t be sarcastic with me. I don’t deserve sarcasm. Like I said, I didn’t sign up for any of this.”
“Jillian,” I said quickly, although I pronounced her name differently in my head like a southern woman. They don’t cuss when they’re mad and want their child’s attention. They don’t have to. Instead, they add syllables to the names of their children. “Bailey didn’t sign up for this either. She’s a little girl who had no one in the world but her mother, and now her mother is dead.” I took a breath, another gulp to still my emotions. “Speaking of Bailey, I believe she’s waiting to see me. Thomas, what are you asking me to do for you?”
He cracked his beefy knuckles. “Can you buy me some time?”
It sounded as if he’d given this some thought.
“How’s that?”
“Can you take care of Bailey until I can meet with my pastor and pray with him? Can you make sure she is all right until God has time to change Jillian’s heart toward her?”
I didn’t even have to think, to pray, or ask Jordan. “Yes.”
“Really? You’ll look after her for me? You will do that for me?”
No, but I’d do it for her. “I will.” I stood there a minute. “But we need a plan. I know Bailey being your responsibility is a huge surprise. If we work together, surely there is a love in your heart that could create a place in your home for your child.”
“She’s not mine.” Jillian remained adamant.
“Thomas,” I continued, ignoring her, “like I said, we need a plan. I expect to see you in here twice a week until her situation is resolved.” My mouth said all the right therapist words as my heart screamed, I’m taking her home with me.
“Twice a week?” He sent an indignant look at Jillian. “How much will this cost?” She motioned for him to be quiet. She heard what she came to hear.
But Thomas didn’t know when to stop talking. “I work long hours.”
I pointed at the floor. “If you expect me to take care of your baby—you will be here.”
Jillian made eye contact with her husband and mouthed, “Texas Crime Victims.”
The fullness of it registered on Thomas’s face. Goody-goody. Someone else would foot the bill. “Yes ma’am,” he said.
Jillian stood, Thomas followed. “Catherine,” Jillian said, “you used to pray with me when I was so upset. Would you pray for us now?”
She had to be kidding.
“Yes,” I said.
We formed a circle of three and closed our eyes. “Father,” I said, “You are merciful in all Your ways. Only when we depend on You and call on Your name will we make the best decisions. Guide Thomas and Jillian as they make room in their hearts for Thomas’s child. Amen.”
I reached for the bag containing Bailey’s clothes and left the room.
/> As I walked, Thomas dragged Jillian to the front desk. Just then Bailey spied me through the window in the playroom door. The door opened, and she dashed into my arms. From this protected position, she peered up to say, “Hi, Daddy.”
She ignored Jillian. Jillian stomped out the door in a huff, her heels clomping across the cement porch. I cocked a brow in understanding. Jillian didn’t want the child, but she didn’t want to be snubbed by her either. Part of me wanted to understand … part of me didn’t. Bailey wasn’t snubbing anyone. She simply didn’t know her stepmother.
What she did know was that Jillian didn’t like her. Period.
Chapter 9
The next day, Bailey decided she wanted to go to Dairy Queen. She seemed to like spending time in places she’d frequented with her mom. I had nothing to offer of Sue except the familiar smell of greasy fries and a loving tug on the tiny merry-go-round—one that had seen better days.
I watched her spin round and round with no clue what she was thinking. But she appeared to feel safe for the moment—with her back snuggled against the crossbar and her knees pulled into her chest. She raised her face to the sun and released the music of her laughter. I sensed that—in her mind—it wasn’t me sending her in a dizzying circle. She let go of the bar and raised her arms.
“Be careful,” I said. “Stay in the middle. We can’t have you falling off.”
She startled and glared at me. “I forgotted it was you,” she said. “I need my mommy.”
“I know. It’s okay, sweetheart.” I slowed the merry-go-round. “Want to sit on the bench for a bit?”
“I’m dizzied.”
“Good reason to sit on the bench, then.” I smiled, but my heart bent in half. I stilled the motion of the wheel, then reached for her hand. She didn’t take it.
Bailey stood from the wheel and placed her hand on her tummy. “I don’t feel so good.”
“I know.” I touched the top of her head.
Her lips quivered. “How?”
“Just guessed.”
“You’re a good guesser.” She sucked her bottom lip.
We ambled toward a nearby bench. “Want a snack?”
“When I’m done being dizzied.”
I smiled. “Smart girl.”
Her eyes turned teary. She hopped on the bench and sat for a while, staring into space. I sat beside her as my cell rang.
Jordan. He didn’t usually call during work hours. “Hey.”
“I didn’t think you’d answer. Just took a chance. You must not be with a client now.”
“I am, but the little one needed a minute.”
“I’ll let you work. Your mom called my office and said she hadn’t spoken with you in over a week.” He paused. “Baby, I promised you’d dial her soon.”
“I will. And I love hearing your voice. Later?”
“Later,” he said and ended the call.
Bailey peered up at me through heavy green eyes. “Can we go to my mom’s grave now?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“Yes’m.” I’d had Alicia look into it for me. “I do,” I said.
“Hello.” Again Bailey called out to the gate-keeping statues as we entered the cemetery. “I like angels,” she said. Her eyes glowed with innocence.
“Me too.”
“We need them.”
I peered into my rearview mirror and found her eyes focused on me.
“I need angels more now,” she said.
“Me too.”
“Really? I need them more because my mom is dead. How come you do?”
“Because I have a new friend who needs me to help her, and I can use all the assistance I can get.” I lifted my chin and smiled.
“Me? Am I your new friend?”
I smiled again. Why could this child not be mine?
Bailey smiled easily, but what would happen when we reached the cemetery? Could she handle seeing her mom’s grave for the first time since the funeral? I took a deep breath. What if she had another panic attack? Seeing the fresh mound over a loved one can drop an adult to the ground, sometimes accompanied by bouts of severe nausea. But for a child … I didn’t know.
What I did know was that whatever happened I’d be there to help, to comfort, to soothe—mostly I would just be there.
“This is it. This is where we turn,” Bailey said as we weaved toward the grave. Just as I glimpsed a fresh grave with wilting flowers, Bailey yelled, “Pull over.” She unfastened her car seat before I could hit the brakes. “This is my mom.” She bolted from the car as I jerked to a stop.
“Bailey,” I screamed. “Don’t move another step without me.”
She complied.
“Sorry,” she said.
“You scared the living daylight out of me. Don’t ever leave the car without my say-so again.” My heart thumped against my chest. I took her hand, and we crossed the grass to her mother’s fresh-turned grave. I watched Bailey closely.
I’d never seen a child so comfortable in a cemetery. She skipped among headstones as though she were hop-scotching. This little one shocked me … and few people did. Father, stay close and work through me as I handle whatever comes next.
We reached her mother’s plot together. Bailey pulled her hand loose from mine then ever so gently laid herself down and stretched across its width and length. She breathed into the dirt. She kissed the ground.
“Hi, Mommy,” she cooed. “I love you. I miss you. Are you okay?”
All heaven and earth stilled to listen.
I thought I would keel over on that very spot. I approached the grave without making a sound. Bailey appeared to need this time alone with her mom.
“I’m sorry for what Josiah did to you. Are you in a better place? I think a better place would be here if you stayed with me. I wish I coulda made Josiah not hurt you.”
There. That was the guilt I’d so feared she’d experience. This didn’t feel like the place to speak with her about it. But there’d be days ahead of us set aside to discuss her inability to have saved her mom.
She lay there a long time, whispering many things into the mud and fading flowers. Finally, she looked at me, her face covered in dirty patches. A leaf stuck to her forehead. “Would you like to meet my mom?”
“Yes.” I felt planted in the ground, but I managed to move closer.
“This is my mom.” She gestured toward the dirt. Then, “Mommy, this is my friend, Miss Katie, who needs help from angels. Her mom always tells the truth.”
I knelt beside her, choking on raw emotion. “I’m very pleased to meet you,” I spoke to the ground. “Please trust me to see to your baby girl.” I ran my hand through my hair, not knowing anything else to do.
Bailey smiled at me. “She does.” She leapt to her feet and brushed herself off before wandering among the other graves. She checked to see who had flowers and who didn’t. She started tugging on a concrete angel that stood three plots to the right of her mother’s.
I stepped over beside her. “What are you doing, girlfriend?”
She pulled hard at the statue. “Getting an angel for my mommy.”
“I like your idea, but I’m not so fond of your method.” I waited to see what she would do.
“How come?” She continued to struggle with the structure.
“Bailey, this is a beautiful angel, but it doesn’t belong to you.”
She continued tugging. “It’s not for me. I want it for my mother.”
I laid my hand on her arm. “Please let go.”
She turned her wrist to rid my hand. “No.” Dirty and determined, she continued to wrestle with the concrete statue. “I need your help,” she strained. “It won’t move.” She turned then put her hands on her hips and looked at me.
“I can’t help you take something that belongs to someone else.”
“I don’t like you anymore if you won’t help me.”
“Well, I still like you. We, however, will have to buy an angel from the ang
el store—actually the statuary store—for your mother.”
“I don’t have enough money,” she said, pulling at the angel again. “Josiah says if you don’t have money, you just have to be ’sourceful.”
“Josiah took lots of things that weren’t his to take.”
She shrugged. “Well.”
“He was a bad man,” I said.
She backed away from the angel. She scrubbed her dirty hands together. “But I don’t have any money, and my mom needs this.”
“I have money.”
“Then can we go to the angel store?”
“Yes, but not today. Very soon, though.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She slipped her dirt-crusted hand into mine. “I still like you.”
We ambled back to the car; I helped her inside, then we drove toward the front gates.
From the back seat, Bailey said, “Does anyone know where I live?”
My stomach prickled, but here sat my chance. “I wondered if you might want to spend a few days at my house.” I glanced at her, trying to sound casual.
“With you?”
“Sure. Why not?” I twisted around and smiled, then returned my watch over her from the rearview mirror.
“Okay, but I’ll have to ask my …” She paled, then opened her mouth again, but no sound escaped. Her olive-green eyes turned to saucers. She was Hansel and Gretel without a breadcrumb to her name.
I stopped the car, got out, then pushed into the back seat and reached for her. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I released her from the car seat restraints and pulled her into my lap.
“I don’t know who to ask,” she cried.
Soothing and rocking her, I pulled her against my chest until her breathing slowed. Rubbing her back, I said, “Why don’t I make a few calls and let your father and grandmother know we’ve decided to have a sleepover at my house.”
She sniffled.
I lifted her and pulled the seatbelt around, then dug a tissue from my purse. I handed it to her, but she’d already wiped her nose on the back of her arm. I grinned then cleaned her arm. I had witnessed that behavior from her father earlier.
She scooted more comfortably against the back of her seat. “Will we have other people for the sleepover?”
The Children of Main Street Page 9