Olney Springs

by Claudia Hall Christian

  “Can I bring you anything before you start?” Giovanni asked.

  “I just want to get it over with,” Sissy said. “Charlie has to do his, too.”

  Charlie nodded. They had to finish their videos early this morning so they could go to some video guy Ivan knew. Ivan had insisted that the videos be as professional as possible. Sissy and Charlie were stars. Everything they did should be treated as such. Ivan walked to her. When it was done, this video should look like a short film. He tucked a loose hair behind her ear. He lightly touched her chin before stepping back.

  “How do I look?” Sissy asked.

  “Beautiful,” Ivan said at the same time Charlie said, “Fine.”

  Sissy nodded. Charlie fidgeted in a way that showed that he was in pain. Ivan put his hands on Charlie’s shoulder. After years of teaching ballet, Ivan was skilled at relieving pain with his hands. After a brief moment, Charlie sighed.

  “We go to banya when we’re done,” Ivan said.

  He patted Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie looked up at Ivan with a fondness that made Sissy smile. Ivan nodded to Dale. Ivan went behind the camera.

  “Are you ready, my love?” Ivan repeated.

  Sissy nodded. For the briefest moment, she thought she’d forgotten the statement she’d been up all night memorizing. Her panicked eyes flicked to Ivan. He smiled. In his smile, she saw the strength of his belief in her and the memory of it all — dying on the sidewalk, the screaming ballerina, his statement that he was her husband, her father coming, Sandy’s demand that her soul return to this body, their fight for their lives, Olympia, watching the vignettes of his life, and the sprinklers watering the freshly turned gardens in the Castle backyard. Like a slideshow, the images flashed in front of her eyes. Ivan nodded, and Sissy took a breath.

  “My name is Mitzi Delgado,” Sissy said. “Everyone calls me ‘Sissy.’”

  She gave the camera a bright smile.

  “Not so long ago, I was shot by a man you paid to kill me and my sister, Noelle, to keep my brother from testifying,” Sissy said. “A minute before the bullets left the handgun, I was an up-and-coming ballerina. I had a contract at a prestigious ballet company in New York City, a dream I had worked my entire life to achieve. I’d overcome the death of my father to an Agent Orange-related illness. I’d survived a horrible eating disorder. I’d risen above my mother’s mind-bending mental illness. All through it, I’d worked and worked and worked to transform myself into a ballerina.”

  Sissy took such a large breath that her entire body moved.

  “All of that vanished the moment the bullets struck my body,” Sissy said. “I will never be the ballerina I once was.”

  Sissy gave the camera a sad smile.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen for me,” Sissy said. “I know how to work, so it’s likely that I’ll keep working to be a ballerina. But the truth is that one phase of my life is over. My next phase has yet to start.”

  Sissy nodded.

  “While my next phase is a mystery, I do know what will happen next for you,” Sissy said. “You will go to prison, where you’ll live out the rest of life.”

  Sissy touched her chest.

  “From my heart to yours, I hope it’s not too awful,” Sissy said. “I hope the sun will shine on your face. I hope you’ll have time to think and read. I hope your tortured heart has time to heal.”

  Sissy smiled.

  “You’re probably wondering why I want these positive things for you,” Sissy said.

  She gave the camera a long look before pulling off the shirt. She wore a peach-colored lace bandeau top that covered her breasts. Lifting her left arm, she pulled off the bandages from her injured side. Her left side still had a drainage tube. There were long red stripes of scars and dots of red scars where the ER doctors had stapled her back together. There were indented spaces where she no longer had ribs.

  “You will be with me for the rest of my life,” Sissy said. “There won’t be a day when you are separate from me. For better or for worse, your desire to avoid punishment married you to me and me to you.”

  She nodded.

  “I will carry you with me for the rest of my life,” Sissy gave the camera a sad smile. “Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I’ll see your handiwork. Every time I attempt to dance, I’ll feel the clench of your selfish actions. Every time I take a breath . . .”

  Sissy tried to take a full breath. She started to cough. Dale ran forward with her oxygen. For a full minute, she struggled to breathe. She pointed to the facemask and nodded.

  “What impact has this had on my life? All I can say is that it’s changed everything,” Sissy said with a nod. “You are now a part of my body and my life.”

  Sissy paused for a moment. She took a breath from the oxygen mask before pulling it away again.

  “I will never be free of you,” Sissy said. “So I want good things for you because I want to hope that there is hope that good things might happen for me.”

  She squinted her eyes and gave a quick shake of her head.

  “I will never be free of you,” she repeated.

  She put the mask over her mouth again and continued looking at the camera. After a few moments, Ivan shut off the camera. When she looked, Charlie and Dale were wiping away tears. Ivan gave her a sad smile.

  “How did I do?” Sissy asked.

  Unsure of what to say, the men simply nodded. Sissy nodded and got up from her seat.

  “Your turn!” Sissy said with a laugh.

  “Let’s take a break,” Ivan said. “From the smell of it, Giovanni is removing some delectable creation out of the oven.”

  With his words, Charlie got up and hugged Sissy. The two clung to each other while Dale and Ivan made their way to the kitchen. After a moment, Charlie pulled back. They walked arm in arm to the kitchen.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Thursday midday — 12:05 p.m.

  Nicole stood at the side of the small stage in the Marlowe School Auditorium. The principal, Mrs. Siegle, was talking about their first week of school. The kids were happy and excited because they knew something special was going to happen. Photographers with long-lensed cameras were along the back of the auditorium.

  “I want you to imagine for a moment,” Mrs. Siegle said. “Your parents have died or quite possibly abandoned you because they cannot feed you. You’re three years old or ten years old or even sixteen years old. Your entire life consists of trying to find food, shelter, warmth . . .”

  Mrs. Siegle looked out across the audience.

  “Then someone comes to you,” Mrs. Siegle said. “They tell you that all you there’s work out west. They tell you that you can work in a factory or on a farm. They tell you that you will be fed, clothed, and cared for. What would you say?”

  The auditorium was silent.

  “Yes!” Katy said at the top of her lungs. The rest of the children followed with a general cheerful “yes.”

  “Exactly right,” Mrs. Siegle said. “The Orphan Train relocated thousands of children, possibly as many as a million, from the cities of the east to the farms and factories here in the West.”

  Pictures of children on the Orphan Train flashed on the screen behind her.

  “As you may have heard, something special happened this week,” Mrs. Siegle said. “Our students Patrick Hargreaves, Katherine Roper-Marlowe, and their friend Noelle Norsen learned that one of these Orphan Trains derailed right behind the school.”

  Mrs. Siegle gestured behind her, and an image of the train track behind the school appeared on the large screen.

  “This week, three of our students discovered that there had been a train derailment behind our school,” Mrs. Siegle said, giving the official story. “Unable let such a big event go unnoticed . . .”

  “Because of the ghosts!” a boy’s voice came from the middle of the crowd.

  There was a general titter of laughter among the kids. Mrs. Siegle waited for them to settle down.

  “Our very
own — Noelle Norsen, Katherine Roper-Marlowe, and Patrick Hargreaves . . .”

  “Yay, Paddie!” an Irish-accented male voice yelled from the back.

  “ . . . decided to honor these children with a truly incredible work of art,” Mrs. Siegle said. “Now, I would take each of you there, but the space is too small. Instead, one of our local news stations has spent the morning videotaping the memorial. Let me tell you: It’s incredible. We have our own Sistine Chapel.”

  “Noelle? Katy? Paddie?” Mrs. Siegle asked.

  Noelle, Katy, and Paddie went up to stand with the principal.

  “From what I understand, Noelle had the inspiration and did much of the creative work,” Mrs. Siegle said.

  “We drew in some of it,” Paddie belted out.

  Unable to contain himself, he jumped up and down. Katy did a few jumps so he wouldn’t look weird.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mrs. Siegle said. “Noelle?”

  She gave Noelle the microphone.

  “We’ll play the video, and you can tell us all about it,” Mrs. Siegle said.

  “Um . . .” Noelle thought she was going to pass out. She took a breath but was too panicked to speak. Her eyes flicked around until they caught Teddy’s. His eyes were focused only on her. Nash was sitting next to Teddy, and he was mouthing her first words.

  “I wanted to say first that we felt really badly for these kids,” Noelle said. “They died so far away from their homes and their families. We wanted to celebrate their transition from this life to whatever is next.”

  Noelle kept her eyes on Nash. His eyes flicked to Noelle’s right. She turned toward the screen, and the video began.

  “We did that!” Paddie said.

  Noelle smiled at him and Katy.

  “We sure did,” she said.

  Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Nine

  Victim’s Statement

  Friday morning — 9:35 a.m.

  Tink stood with her belly pressed up against the wooden railing that split the courtroom in half. They had set up a microphone on this side for people to read their victim’s statement. Only a few people had agreed to give victim’s statement. Noelle was too busy with her new painting to attend, so Tink was the obvious choice to go first — after Sissy’s amazing video, that is.

  Everyone had gasped when Sissy pulled off her bandages, even Tink. The moment Wanda started to cry, the tension in the courtroom shifted to sorrow. By Sissy’s last “I’ll never be free of you,” even the judge looked sad. Tink had to dry her eyes and hurry up to the microphone right after that.

  Tink cleared her throat and opened her mouth. Her eyes flicked to the defendant.

  And it all came back — all of the horror, all of the terror, all of the pain, and more than anything the oppressive, horrible, overwhelming bubble of aloneness. Like she was underwater, Tink gasped for breath. She remembered the hour she spent standing outside the breakfast place where Charlie and his new family were eating. From her spot in the frozen of unwantedness — the sidewalk outside the restaurant — she’d watched their entire meal. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt for fear of blowing it for Charlie. She’d just stood there and watched. She would never have said anything — never.

  That was just a few hours after she’d woken up from being beaten nearly to death. The single thought that dragged her through the entire ordeal was that, if she’d died, she would never see Charlie again. And then, there he was! Her Charlie appeared out of nowhere! It was like a gift from the Gods. There he was!

  Tink had figured that she could just crawl off and die now. And she would have if Sissy hadn’t stopped her on the sidewalk. She would have died alone if she hadn’t had that big seizure and Charlie’s new dad hadn’t helped her, if she hadn’t gotten a hospital bed at Denver Health and all that surgery and stuff to fix what those boys had done to her, and if Charlie hadn’t come to see her when she was in the coma and . . .

  Tink swallowed hard. Her feet were standing in the courtroom. Her belly was pressed up against the wooden bar. But her mind was back there. She felt the buzz of a seizure peeking over the horizon. She gasped another breath.

  She felt a hand on her elbow. She looked to see Blane. Then, like a train, the images of what had happened next flashed through her brain: the way Charlie had looked at her at that dinner, whichever dinner it was and then he kissed her like he really meant it and even said he loved her; and Sissy became her good friend; and then she met Wanda, who she loved like a sister; and they found Ivy, her soul sister; and Charlie! Then she got adopted — no, it was more like GETTING ADOPTED!! and Mack and the new baby they were now calling, “Wyn,” and Heather and Blane and the bed she woke up in, and Charlie’s face just a few minutes before when he told her that he believed in her and he loved her.

  Tink’s mind crashed into her body that was standing in the courtroom. She straightened her back.

  “I’ve been asked to go first because I was your last,” Tink said. She felt her feet on the ground. “I want to speak for myself and for all of the girls and boys who can’t speak for themselves. For them, and for myself, I have only three things to say.”

  Tink looked at the defendant for a brief moment.

  “First,” Tink said with a wide grin. “Despite all of your efforts to the contrary, you did not kill me.”

  She held up a picture of her body in the bed at Denver Health. Her entire body was covered with bruises and abrasions. The injury to her head was still bleeding. She was bleeding from her most private places and under her left breast where they’d tried to cut it off. The defendant winced at the image of her destruction.

  “Second,” Tink said. “I have healed from what you did to me. While I may have seizures for the rest of my life, everything else has healed. Everything. I can go to the bathroom when I want to. I can make love, if I want to. I have beautiful white caps on the teeth you broke. All of the bones have healed. As for the seizures, I haven’t had one in a month.”

  Someone in the back yelled “Yay!” and the crowd applauded. The judge banged the gavel and warned the crowd again about outbursts like that.

  “And finally,” Tink said. “For myself and all of the kids who cannot speak for themselves, you do not have the power to hold me back. Yes, our brief encounter was violent and horrific. Yes, you raped, battered, and humiliated me. But that’s about you. Not me. Our brief moment has passed. You’re nothing more than a bad memory, a nightmare, which will soon fade into nothing.”

  Tink gave him a beautiful smile.

  “I’m over you,” Tink said.

  To her satisfaction, the defendant blushed. Tink nodded. For the first time, possibly in her entire life, Tink felt proud of herself. She looked at Blane, who put his arm around her and led her back to their seats. The people around her patted her back or squeezed her arm. Ivy and Delphie hugged her. After they sat down, Blane grabbed her hand to hold it tight.

  The next person went up to the microphone, and Blane and Tink settled in to listen.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Friday afternoon — 1:35 p.m.

  After an emotional morning, they’d eaten lunch and were now shuffling back into court. The afternoon session would start with Charlie’s video and end with Ivy’s victim’s statement. Tink looked at the back of the couple in front of her. They were the Logans. Their daughter had killed herself after what had happened to her. They and their son, Tim, had spoken about what an amazing girl she’d been. Tink promised herself that she would never forget their daughter.

  Tink glanced at Blane, and he gave her a knowing smile. At lunch, Tink had talked about her growing desire to help girls like her. She wasn’t yet sure what that might look like, but she was growing pretty sure that this is how she wanted to spend her life. Blane had been all for it. Tink smiled and they went to their assigned seats.

  The judge called the court to order and announced Charlie’s video. He reminded everyone to be quiet. Tink had already seen the video, so she braced herself for the parts that were hard.
>
  The video screen was dark for a moment.

  The screen opened with Charlie rakishly sitting in a cloth Director’s chair in the middle New York workout room. He was wearing shorts and a tank top with one knee over the armrest of the chair and one arm over the back of the chair. Behind him, the skyline of New York sparkled. From this distance, he looked like a handsome young man. The camera zoomed in.

  Charlie’s body was covered in red scars. Some were straight, tight lines from surgery. Others were open holes from the beating he’d received. More than a few scars looked like jagged lines that had been drawn on his alabaster skin. His beautiful chestnut hair had been shaved to show the scar on his scalp. At Charlie’s insistence, he hadn’t completed getting his teeth fixed. Charlie cracked a broken-toothed smile.

  The camera moved down one scarred leg and the other. It showed the scars on his arms and the web of gruesome scars under his arm. The camera caught the subtle bruise where Charlie’s cheekbone was still healing. It swept over the scar on his scalp before moving back. The camera was still close enough to still see the scars over Charlie’s entire body.

  “My victim’s impact statement?”

  After a long pause, Charlie gave a cocky grin. He smiled for what seemed like a full minute.

  “Chicks dig scars.”

  Charlie closed his mouth and looked straight at the camera. After a moment, the screen went black.

  For a moment, it seemed like no one dared move. The tension in the courtroom was as tight as a drum.

  The defendant dropped his forehead to the table.

  And the moment passed.

  The judge called the next person from the victim’s list.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Friday afternoon — 2:15 p.m.

  Wanda waited a minute before the girl in front of her moved away from the microphone. The girl looked so frail that Wanda gave her a big hug. The girl cried a little bit against Wanda’s shoulder before the girl’s father took her arm and helped her back to her seat. Wanda’s dad, Erik, gave her a little push and Wanda stepped up to the microphone. She looked down at the sheet that she’d printed her speech onto.