Keeping Lucy

by T. Greenwood

  “I’ll call my sister,” Marsha said. “Theresa.”

  “In Florida?” Ginny asked. “Why?”

  Marsha paced back and forth across the small space, thinking aloud.

  “We’ll drive to Weeki Wachee, stay with Theresa. In case they send someone after you.”

  Ginny shook her head. This was ridiculous. All of it.

  “What about your job?” Ginny asked. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow night?”

  “Somebody’s always breathing down my neck, hoping for overtime. I can get somebody to cover my shifts this week.”

  Despite the booze, Ginny felt remarkably sober, her head clearer than it had been since they first got to Willowridge, if that was possible.

  “But then what?” Ginny asked. “After we get to Florida?”

  “Then Ab knows you are serious. That you didn’t fucking sign up for this shit, and either he’ll do what’s right and get her out of that school or…”

  “Or?”

  “Or…” Marsha said and trailed off. “Let’s not think about ‘or.’ Let’s think about sunshine and oranges and Disney World. Did you know that Disney World is opening in the beginning of October? We’ll take the kids. Peyton would love it! To see Mickey Mouse in person?”

  “October?” Ginny snorted, and the gin burned in her nostrils. “He’s supposed to start school on Tuesday.” The momentary fantasy slipped away, replaced by the reality of Catholic school: of bake sales and homework and bullies like Christopher.

  “It’s first grade,” Marsha said. “What’s he going to miss if he doesn’t start right away? Coloring? Some cutting and pasting?”

  “Marsh,” she said and sighed. She set the plastic cup on the counter. She did not need another ounce of booze.

  “I need to think about Lucy. I still don’t know what her health status actually is.” This, of all things, scared her the most. While there had been nothing in Lucy’s file, the fear of some lurking heart defect troubled her. She knew so little about this disability. About what, besides the mental and developmental delays, Lucy might suffer from. Once, not long after Lucy was taken away, she’d gone to the library and asked for a book on Down syndrome. But she’d read exactly three pages before her eyes filled with tears and she felt faint. She’d left the book on the table where she’d been sitting and cried all the way home.

  “I’m a nurse,” Marsha said. “And believe it or not, I can do more than change bedpans and use a thermometer. I’ll keep a close eye. She’ll be fine.”

  Ginny nodded, the alcohol now making her feel sleepy. The fatigue of the day, of Willowridge, of everything consuming her. “I think I need to lie down.”

  “We’ll leave early tomorrow,” Marsha said somberly. “My aunt Pepper lives in Virginia. We can go there first.”

  “But what about the missing plates?” Ginny asked. “We’ll get pulled over the second we get on the road. Maybe we should stay here until Tuesday, when the DMV opens, so we can get temporary plates at least?”

  “Plenty of time for Ab to figure out where we’ve gone. I have a better idea. Give me that?” Marsha said, gesturing toward the bottle of gin. She poured a couple of fingers into her empty cup and threw it back. “Can you hold down the fort for a few minutes?”

  “Where are you going?” Ginny asked, suddenly awake again. Drunk, but buzzing and alert.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  “It’s not really safe out there,” Ginny said, thinking of the hookers, of whatever other illicit things might be happening under that brilliant moon.

  “It’s fine. I’m fine. Plus, I’ve got this!” she said, grabbing a metal emery board from the counter, holding up the daggerlike nail file. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” With that, she slipped out the door.

  Ginny, spent from the sun and the gin, had little energy to protest. She felt woozy when she stood up, and realized she’d probably had far too much to drink. She stumbled and bumped across the room and peered out through the space between the drawn curtains. The moon was still there, illuminating the parking lot. No sign of Marsha anywhere.

  She sat down on the bed and watched Jerry Lewis for a few more minutes, and then she lay down next to Lucy in the kids’ bed. Lucy’s hair was still wrapped up inside the plastic shower cap, and she smelled like a turkey sandwich. She stroked Lucy’s back and despite her best efforts to stay awake, she found herself dozing off just before a loud banging startled her awake.

  Her first thought was that it was Ab. That he’d found her. Her heart sank again. The police. Dear God, Willowridge must have called the police already. But how had they figured out where she and Marsha were?

  Feeling like she might be sick, she crept to the door and peered out the peephole. Marsha was standing in a pool of light, a halo of yellow surrounding her, like an odd sort of angel. She banged again, and Ginny quickly unlocked the dead bolt. Marsha rushed into the room and slammed the door shut behind her, breathless. She leaned her back against the door, and a slow grin spread across her face as she held up a Virginia license plate.

  “What is that?” Ginny asked stupidly.

  “What does it look like?” Marsha said, tossing it onto the bed and pressing her hand to her chest.

  “Are you okay?” Ginny asked, motioning for Marsha to sit down. Marsha plopped down and flopped backward on the empty bed. Then she laughed and sat up.

  “What did you do?” Ginny asked.

  “When I went out earlier, I noticed a Dodge Dart just like mine parked out in front of another one of the rooms. Same exact color, even, but with Virginia plates.”

  “Oh, my God, Marsha!”

  “I figured it probably belonged to the people staying in the room in front of where it was parked, so I went to see if the room was dark, and it was. I used the nail file and helped myself to the rear plate. I was going to try to get the front one, too, but a light came on in the room, and I freaked out. But now at least we’ll have a plate on the rear of the car. Most cops won’t pull you over as long as you have rear plates.”

  “But it’s not a Massachusetts plate.”

  “No, but it was on a blue Dodge Dart, so if we do get pulled over and they call in the plate number, the car will come back as a match.”

  “But you have a Massachusetts driver’s license!” Ginny said.

  “Because I just bought the car from my sister in Virginia, Officer,” Marsha said, batting her eyelashes. “God, Ginny. I just crept around like a fucking cat burglar and stole somebody’s license plate. You could at least be grateful.”

  Ginny felt queasy. Her lip quivered. She could count the arguments she and Marsha had had over the years on one hand.

  “Unless you have a better idea, I think maybe we should just try not to worry. I promise I’ll drive like your grandmother so we don’t get pulled over to begin with, and if we do, we’ll figure it out then.” Marsha looked suddenly exasperated, frustrated with Ginny.

  “I’m sorry, Marsh,” Ginny said. “Thank you.”

  Marsha’s mouth twitched, but she nodded. “No problem. But we really should get out of here early tomorrow. Before those folks wake up and realize that they’ve only got one license plate.”

  * * *

  When the buzzing alarm clock went off at 4:30 A.M., just three hours later, Ginny felt like a small animal had curled up inside her mouth and died. Her head was almost too heavy to lift from the hard motel pillow, and her stomach turned.

  Marsha bolted out of bed and flicked on the small lamp on the nightstand, the bright light making Ginny’s temples pound. No wonder she never drank.

  She thought she would just roll over and go back to sleep. The conversation from the night before, the plans to flee, felt almost like a slippery dream in her memory.

  She felt Marsha’s hand on her shoulder. “Hey, sleepyhead. Let’s rock and roll.”

  Ginny opened her eyes, the pounding above her brow now nearly audible. She rolled over and saw Lucy next to her, her eyelashes brushing her soft c
heeks, and the nausea became a wave of love, and she knew that Ab had left her with no choice. This was not a decision. This was nothing but a mother bear’s efforts to protect her young. That urge she felt, that deep protective rumble, was undeniable.

  Silently, they dressed and packed up their belongings. Marsha loaded the car in the dark and affixed the new plate to the rear of the car, and then they each carried one of the sleeping children, settling them into the backseat. Peyton woke briefly, mumbling a little before settling back into his dreams. The shower cap on Lucy’s head had come off, and her curls, greasy with mayo, were matted around her face.

  “Maybe I should rinse her hair first?” she said to Marsha.

  “You should let her sleep. And besides, the sun will be up in just a little bit,” Marsha said nervously. “Can we do it on the road? Or maybe once we stop tonight?”

  Marsha was right. It could take them an hour to leave if she had to wake Lucy up and coax her out of the car and into the tub. Ginny would just need to give her a nice long bath when they got settled again tonight.

  “Ready, Freddy?” Marsha asked. Ginny looked back at the empty room they were leaving behind. At least in there they had been safe. The idea of heading out on the road with a stolen license plate and a stolen child filled her with fear, but she nodded. “Yep,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Seventeen

  September 1971

  The highway was blessedly free of cars this early in the morning (or late at night, depending on how you saw it): this exquisite limbo between midnight and dawn in which the rest of the world slept. Ginny’s headache dissipated with the fog that had settled over the highway, and after about an hour her shoulders began to relax, the muscled knots in her back to untangle.

  They planned to stay just outside Roanoke that night with Marsha’s aunt Pepper, her mother’s sister. Marsha assured Ginny that they would be safe there. That her aunt had no idea that they were on the run. The very idea of this made Ginny almost laugh. Two days ago, she’d been a housewife, and now she was a fugitive? It all was so ridiculous, absurd.

  Pepper apparently had a big farmhouse with plenty of rooms, and when Marsha called her from a pay phone along the Jersey Turnpike, she said she was happy to host her favorite niece for the night.

  Ginny had heard Marsha talk about her aunt Pepper before, but she’d never met her.

  “She’s a lesbian,” Marsha said. “Just so you know.”

  “Oh,” Ginny said.

  “I mean, in case you were wondering.”

  “Okay,” Ginny said.

  Ginny didn’t know any lesbians. At least she didn’t think she did. There was one girl from their high school class that students had whispered about. She refused to wear skirts and kept her hair short. She was on the track and field team and could throw the javelin farther than any of the boys. But Ginny wasn’t athletic and didn’t have any classes with her, so she’d never even spoken to her. That probably didn’t count.

  “Does she have a girlfriend?” Ginny asked. Was that what a lesbian’s lover was called?

  “Yes,” Marsha said, checking her reflection in the mirror. “Her name’s Nancy. They live together.”

  Ginny tried to imagine what it would be like being in love with a girl instead of with Ab. What a day would look like in a household run by two women. Would one of them play the part of the man: going off to work, coming home after a couple of drinks at the bar, expecting dinner on the table? Or would they both putter around the house all day? Housework would certainly get done faster if there were two women running things. And child care. Already, she’d noted how much more of a help Marsha was than Ab had ever been with the kids, and Marsha didn’t even have children of her own. It seemed to Ginny that women just seemed to have a natural affinity for that: for knowing when to coddle, to discipline, to soothe. Marsha also seemed to intuit exactly when Ginny needed her to step in, particularly with Peyton, whom Ab just seemed to get more riled up. She had felt many times that she was raising two boys, the way they both misbehaved. Sometimes, he even seemed more playmate to Peyton than father, than husband, even. Yes, certainly, raising children would be easier with another woman.

  But when she tried to imagine what happened after the lights went off each night, her mind drew a blank and her cheeks flushed. She tried to think about how two similar bodies might find happiness together, but the logistics of it felt confusing and a little shameful.

  She was so self-conscious about her body, especially after her pregnancies, the embarrassment keeping her from enjoying sex the way she had early on. No matter how many times Ab told her he loved her curves, the extra weight she’d put on made her feel as if she’d somehow failed. She insisted on having the lights out and refused to remove her bra, afraid for him to see her now heavy breasts that were at the mercy of gravity. He was earnest in his lovemaking, but it was, honestly, something she endured rather than enjoyed lately, silently reflecting on those extra pounds rather than on any pleasure she might be experiencing.

  She knew there were women out there who loved sex, who felt comfortable in their own skin. Marsha talked about sex the way Ginny talked about food. With desire and longing. Marsha seemed to assess men the way men studied women: their bodies something to be admired or scorned.

  “Did you see that ass?” Marsha would say in disbelief at some poor sucker’s backside before he was even out of earshot. “I bet he’s got a small dick. The ones with big necks always have small dicks.”

  Boys had been drawn to Marsha ever since sixth grade. And Marsha loved the attention. Reveled in it. Ginny knew Marsha had had at least a half dozen lovers. She’d been called “easy” in high school, though having a reputation never seemed to bother her. “Why eat only vanilla ice cream if you had a choice of all the flavors?” she said. Ginny’s mom called her “wild.” But as far as Ginny was concerned, Marsha was just a girl who didn’t care what anybody thought, a girl who did what she wanted. Did that make her wild? If so, then what was Ginny? Domesticated, she supposed. Tame.

  Later, after high school and nursing school, the hospital proved to be a virtual playground for Marsha, filled with so many handsome doctors. Of course, some of them were married, and she drew the line there. But most of the interns and residents were single, having stayed bachelors during the grueling years of medical school. She’d dated at least three residents before she met her current flavor of the month.

  “Are you going to call Gabe?” Ginny asked. “Is he going to be upset about you leaving?”

  “I am not about to start making life decisions just because a man’s good in the sack,” Marsha said dismissively.

  Marsha had rolled her eyes as she relayed poor Gabe’s puppy-eyed pleading, but Ginny also sensed that Marsha might have a little snag in her heart as well, saw her touch the simple gold necklace with a tiny gold heart charm she knew he’d given her for her birthday.

  * * *

  The sun came up just as they were skirting around Washington, D.C.

  “The Kennedy Center is opening in D.C. this week,” Marsha said. “I heard Jackie O. is skipping out, though.”

  There’d been a whole lot of clamoring on the news about why she’d chosen to skip the event. But Ginny understood. How very strange to be a woman aligned with such a powerful and beloved man. Now that he was gone, who was she in the world but a ghostly reminder of his absence? That poor ethereal woman carrying the burden of an entire country’s grief. Ginny would have stayed home and read a book in her pajamas instead as well.

  Marsha did not seem daunted by the city traffic, though it put Ginny on edge. Several times she had to force herself to stop gripping the dashboard as Marsha zipped in and out of traffic. She caught herself a half dozen times glancing in the side-view mirror, hoping there weren’t any highway patrolmen behind them.

  When the traffic finally thinned and they barreled into Virginia, she started to relax. The kids had woken up by then and Peyton was complaining that he was hungry. If Ginny had be
en thinking, she would have had Marsha pick up some snacks while she was at the liquor store the night before, but as it was, the only thing resembling food was a mushy apple in the bottom of her purse. Hardly an adequate breakfast.

  “We’ll stop soon, little man,” Marsha said, peering in the rearview mirror at Peyton. “You look like you might need some pancakes?”

  “Pan-a-cakes!” Peyton squealed and clapped his hands. Lucy studied him with the same quiet curiosity that she seemed to have about everything. She was a thinker, Ginny thought. An observer of the world.

  About a half hour later, the sun crested the Blue Ridge Mountains all around them, and they found a roadside diner, with a sign on the attached gift shop that advertised THE PEANUT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.

  “You hungry?” Marsha asked Ginny.

  Ginny was ravenous. The alcohol seemed to have worked its way out of her system, leaving a hole behind. Her stomach growled.

  “You?” she asked Marsha. Marsha was always on some sort of diet or another, though she never talked about it with Ginny, who had struggled with her weight since the third grade, when, for some inexplicable reason, her teacher had weighed each child in the class, announcing their weights to the entire class. Fifty pounds! Sixty-two! And then a horrified yet oddly triumphant ninety-six! as Ginny stood, mortified, on the scale.

  Marsha was a fruit cup, cottage cheese, dry toast kind of girl. And it showed in her flat stomach and shapely legs. Ginny admired her self-control; most of her own diets lasted no more than a day or two.

  “I’m actually feeling kind of queasy still,” Marsha said. “Gin gets me every time. But I could use some coffee.”

  They got the kids out of the car and made their way into the diner. It appeared to be a locals-only sort of place, and all heads turned as they walked in.

  The waitress behind the counter hollered, “Sit anywhere y’all like!” as if they couldn’t read the chalkboard sign saying the same thing.

  The tables were covered with red-and-white gingham oilcloth, and the seats were upholstered in matching red vinyl. A low-hanging ceiling fan spun the smoky, oppressive air. There was the distinct smell of peanuts throughout.