“Anything.”
Leah stood, her shoulders curved slightly, and walked toward the kitchen, the blankets dragging behind her. She returned carrying a basket and motioned for Therese to look inside. When she did, Therese stumbled back, the air escaping her lungs. She made a pitiful coughing sound.
“This is Frances. I named her that because it means free.”
“She’s beautiful.” The baby’s eyes moved back and forth between them, but other than that she was silent.
“And I want you to take her.”
Therese looked closer into the basket. She could tell by the smell that her diaper needed to be changed. The baby turned her head toward Therese’s touch in a reflex she immediately recognized. Hunger.
“I will look after her until you feel better.”
“No,” Leah shook her head. “I want you to take her. For good.”
It was the strangest moment of silence Therese had ever experienced. As the people on the television moved quickly back and forth, Leah handed her a basket with the quietest baby she had ever seen tucked away inside.
“You’ve been through a lot. I’ll take care of her until you are ready to take her back.”
“No. I cannot protect her. I cannot take care of her. Ever.”
Therese shook her head partly to make sure that she wasn’t dreaming but also because of the sparks that were randomly dancing up her neck. “Everyone is scared to take care of a baby. It’s normal.”
“Nothing about this is normal.” Leah thrust the basket toward Therese. “You promised you would do anything I asked.”
“She is your child. It’s what you have always wanted.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have known that I couldn’t. I should have known it. I can’t take care of another person. I cannot protect her.”
Leah was speaking too fast, and then she began to move her head back and forth, like she wanted to shake out the image that was stuck inside. When that didn’t work, she began to twirl her hair, and Therese wondered if that was what she looked like when she was a little girl, when she was innocent and beautiful . . . before she was broken.
As though she had read Therese’s mind, Leah stopped twirling and instead started pulling so intensely that tufts of curl came out, twisting around her fingers like the twigs that make a bird’s nest. She made a sound, maybe it was a word, Therese wasn’t sure. She fumbled for something on the table, then slipped a cigarette into her mouth, and Therese watched the lighter shake in her hand. She blew out thick streams of smoke, and soon everything in the room felt like it was covered in gray.
“Please don’t break your promise.” She dropped the lit cigarette into an ashtray and began to rock back and forth. Therese set the basket on the floor gently and sat down beside Leah. She reached out to her friend, who was so wrapped up in her blanket, she reminded her of a mummy. She tried touching her, but there was no response, so she searched for the words to explain that what she was asking for was ludicrous.
Suddenly, Leah’s hand made it out from inside the wrapping, and she pulled Therese in close. Her words were crackly, like they were burning her from inside. “I need some time, Therese. I’ll call you when I’m ready. Please. You are the only person I trust.”
Therese didn’t respond because she was too busy wiping away the tears falling down her cheeks, making it hard for her to see. She wanted to shake her, to somehow make her understand what it was she was asking, but instead she said nothing. Then Leah stood and walked to the kitchen, the blankets trailing behind like the train of a dirty, shredded wedding dress.
Therese picked up the remote control and turned up the volume so loud that all she could hear was a man calling her down to the Auto Mile for a great deal on a Jeep. She hated herself, but in that moment she actually considered leaving everything behind and running. She fought the desire to simply disappear instead of trying to figure out why she felt cracked open, as though what had happened to Leah had also happened to her.
No matter what she did, she could not stop shaking. She thought about her father, the first person to walk away from her without a second thought. Was it because she wasn’t worth it? Was that why he hadn’t chosen her? Then there was Leah, who had always been there for her, yet never asked for anything in return. Leah, who loved her unconditionally.
She stamped out the cigarette that Leah had left smoldering in the ashtray. She could hear Leah crying in the kitchen, steady and low and so constant she knew that it would last a very long time—if it ever did end. She stood in the living room for what seemed like hours.
When Leah didn’t come back, she finally walked out of the house, carrying the basket with the quiet little baby inside, the phone number for the car dealership still ringing in her ears.
She laid the baby, still in her basket, across the floor of the backseat of her car. All she could hope was that maybe Leah would come to her senses. She turned on the radio, trying to find a song to match her mood, but nothing fit, so she turned it off and instead listened to the sound of Matilda’s stroller shifting in the trunk. Even though she knew it was about to happen, each time it slammed into one side, it startled her. She turned the radio back on to muffle the noise. Frances remained quiet.
Nausea began to creep its way back up her throat as she pulled into the driveway and saw Tim’s car parked ahead of her in the middle of the day.
When he should have been at work.
She opened all the windows and turned off the ignition. She decided to leave the baby in the car until she could figure things out. She looked in the rearview mirror, looped her hair behind her ear, and then thought about how to explain to Tim why it was that Matilda had been left alone with Barbara.
As she unlocked the front door, a delicate tingle danced across her arm, but she ignored it, slapping the air as though she was shooing a fly. When she walked inside, she saw that he was kneeling on the ground and Matilda was sobbing, but that wasn’t what caught her eye.
It was the Red. Starting from her nose and streaked down the front of her shirt.
The tingle turned into stabs that shot up through her neck, making it hard to swallow. Barbara sat on the couch, whimpering. “I’m so sorry,” she cried, but Therese’s focus was locked on Tim.
“What the hell happened here?” she yelled, an angry, scared quiver in her voice.
Tim turned to her and then back to Matilda and then covered his face with his hands.
He tried to hide from her but he wasn’t fast enough. She recognized the look in his eyes. The one she had seen that night in the shed. The one she had tried so hard to forget.
Barbara pushed herself off the couch and shuffled to his side. Tim brought his hands down and his face was white. Suddenly, all Therese could think about were triangles, and even though she did not understand what had happened, she waited.
For Tim to make his choice.
He stood, and she thought he was walking toward her. He reached his hand to her, like he wanted her to pull him out of whatever it was that trapped him. She could feel her arm slowly lifting, too, extending in his direction, but then something happened and he flinched and whatever was between them snapped. He turned away, and then it was so quiet she wondered if she had simply imagined the whole thing. Maybe none of it was really happening.
But then he spoke. “Take her and get out and don’t ever come back.”
He said it quietly, with resignation and a sense of calm that made her stagger backward.
She took Matilda into her arms. Later, she wondered why her daughter never made a sound. She started to walk and then turned back, but he was facing the window, his neck arched in such an unnatural position that she wondered if it was broken. For the second time that day, she waited for the person for whom she cared to come to their senses. When he didn’t, she hugged her child close to her and walked away from the little red house.
In the car, she fumbled with the keys, her fingers numbed by the need to escape and her vision blin
ded by the most profound betrayal she had ever experienced. Her panic mixed with images of Leah. Broken bones and bloodsplattered shirts swirled through her mind, and then it became hard to breathe, the tightness so intense that her insides felt like they were falling in on themselves.
A day that was suddenly beautiful turned gray, and even though no rain fell, lightning lit up the sky. Tears came and then her body filled with such ache that she could not sit up. The clouds turned black, and she saw Matilda lean toward the basket and whisper something to the little baby inside. She turned away, and when she looked back in the rearview mirror, this time Matilda was looking at her.
Therese replayed the look—the intensity—in Tim’s eyes over and over in her head, and she knew that is where he tucked away the anger he usually kept hidden in the shed. Had he finally lost control of what he’d been holding back? Had she pushed him too far? Had he allowed himself to hurt Matilda? And what was Barbara apologizing for? She wasn’t sure what the truth was anymore, and it didn’t really matter because, in the end, he had made his choice. Matilda was staring at her, waiting for her.
“It’s going to be okay, Matilda. I will always take care of you. You and Franny.”
She hadn’t realized Matilda was barefoot. She watched as her daughter extended her foot into the basket and saw the little baby inside reach for her toe.
She didn’t know why she did it. Maybe because she could not think of anything else to do. But she started telling Matilda about the wonderful life they were going to have. At first she stumbled, but then it became easy, like she was reading lines from a script. And once she finished, she made sure that Matilda understood that everything was going to be just fine. She drove for hours, making sure that Matilda believed.
And then, eventually, she believed herself.
Matilda
The bus pulled into a gas station. People got off to stretch their legs, but I didn’t. I stared out the window, watching a woman pump gas. What if I slid into her backseat, told her I was an orphan, and had nowhere to go? The woman slipped the nozzle back into the slot, got into her car, and drove off.
I rolled my sweatshirt into a ball and tucked it into the side of the window and then dug inside my backpack and found the envelope Daryl had given me. Three twenty-dollar bills and a screwdriver wrapped neatly into one of his drawings. A superhero with dark, straight hair that looked oddly familiar.
The bus started up again and I leaned against the window, the vibrations shimmering through the glass, making my nose itch. I sunk into the hum of the engine and felt temporary relief. The bus hurtled forward and I pretended it was taking me somewhere exotic—that when I got off I would be greeted by pretty brown women placing flowered necklaces around my neck.
The bus stopped.
Stillness surrounded me. The need to move pounded inside and I dug my fingernails into the armrest.
“Go,” I whispered, my breath forming a circle of vapor that almost immediately disappeared. As if on command, the wheels began to turn and again we were pushing forward. I leaned back, this time falling into a half sleep. I tried to focus, but my thoughts became muddled, so I closed my eyes, grateful to disappear inside the lull of the roar.
Therese
The truth was that she had grown to love Franny.
Maybe more than she should have allowed herself.
The day she left Tim, she drove around for hours before finally ending up at her mother’s, who asked questions that Therese ignored. Partly because she was tired, but mostly because she didn’t really have any answers.
That first night, she and Matilda slept together in her childhood bedroom, and they made a bed for Franny inside a dresser drawer. The days passed, and, even though it was hard, she enjoyed the simplicity of taking care of a baby, watching as her mouth opened the moment a bottle was near and the way her skin smelled after a bath. Mostly she liked how Matilda helped take care of Franny and how effortlessly they settled into their new lives.
She called Leah once a week, but Leah never answered. She sent letters that always came back unopened. Soon weeks and then months passed, and she stopped reaching out to Leah. She didn’t want to admit it, but she felt relieved. The way that Matilda cared for and protected Franny made Therese feel as though she had delivered on her promise that night in the car.
There was just one nagging fear that crept up on her, mostly at night.
She kept expecting him to show up or to call. She spent hours devising her plan, rehearsing her words, and sometimes she would stare out the window, convinced someone was out there watching, but she was never sure. The more time passed, the more relaxed things became. And then one day, without realizing the moment when it happened, they became a family.
Her mother finally stopped asking questions and just enjoyed having the house full of children that she had always wanted. Matilda and Franny were inseparable, and except for when Franny’s hair curled like Leah’s or when she would draw in her sketchbook, Therese forgot the real reason they had all ended up together. There was no question that she had grown to love the little girl, but she should have been more careful. Maybe if she had listened to her instincts and not gotten so comfortable, she would have been able to anticipate the moment when everything would change.
It was Franny’s ninth birthday, and Therese had just finished wrapping presents and was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper, and there it was.
Barking at her. Taunting her.
The obituary she never expected to see sent her into a tailspin. There was a photo, too, but it was dark and blurry and the size of a dime. She wanted to lick her finger and rub it out like a spot of dirt, but she couldn’t and she didn’t and now Barbara was dead and Tim was free.
Free to come and find them.
Despite the nightmares that tormented her, Matilda never spoke about what went on in that little red house. So many years had passed that Therese herself wondered what had really transpired when she found Tim standing over her silent and bloodied child. She made sure that Tim was a topic never to be discussed, deciding quickly that she could provide just as adequately as any father could, reminding herself that she had turned out just fine without one. She told herself that it was her job to protect her children and that she could not risk another encounter. She grabbed a pad of paper and began scribbling down her plans when the phone rang, shaking pictures of escape out of her head.
“Therese?”
The voice was familiar, but it sounded like it was coming from somewhere very far away.
“I am calling because today is her birthday,” Leah said.
Therese didn’t respond, mostly because the blood pounding so loudly in her ears made it so she could barely hear.
“How is she?”
Therese thought about Jeeps. “She’s beautiful.”
There was silence on the other end, but Therese could hear Leah breathing. Slow, steady breaths designed to contain something she wasn’t ready to let go.
“He started doing it to me you know. When I turned nine.”
“I know.”
“How is Tim?”
Therese coughed, the morning’s coffee rising in her throat. “Gone.”
“I’m ready now.”
Therese shook her head, wishing Leah could see her through the phone.
“Therese, I want her back. Please. I want to protect her. I need to.”
Whatever Therese had managed to keep at bay all those years suddenly came crashing down around her, and she felt her lungs flood. She coughed again, gagging on her insides, willing herself not to break in half. She thought about fighting, about calling a lawyer, but she knew she could never win.
“Therese, I will never forget what you did for me. How you saved me. How you saved her. Please, can I have her back?”
Because it wasn’t a real question, there was no need for an answer. She wanted to shout, to cry, to hang up the phone and pretend none of this had happened, but then the swirling around her head stoppe
d long enough for her to notice that Matilda had just walked into the room. She looked up at her for a second and smiled. Then she watched as her daughter picked up the newspaper and folded over the obituary section so she could read the comics.
“Okay,” Therese whispered.
And that was that. As easily as Franny had slipped into her life, she slipped right out. She didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to give her up. Even though she never really forgot to whom she belonged, she couldn’t help but love the quiet baby from the basket who grew into a little girl that experienced life more intensely than anyone she had ever met. She loved her even more because of what she had done for Matilda, and she knew that part of Franny belonged to her, as well.
It was hard driving to Leah’s. So much time had passed, and she felt frozen and stiff inside. But when the door opened and she saw Leah’s face and they touched each other, everything that had grown hard and rough suddenly softened. Leah took her up to the bedroom, which was painted a beautiful green and dotted with fairies.
“This will be her room.” Leah looked older, and instead of the innocence Therese remembered, her beauty felt chiseled. They sat together holding hands and sometimes crying like they had so often before.
“I’m different now,” Leah said.
Therese nodded as she sat in the living room, stirring her tea and watching the sugar collect at the bottom. She remembered how dark this room had been the last time she was there, but now it felt filled with light.
Leah looked out the window before she spoke again. “Do you think she will ever forgive me?”
Therese put her hands in her lap and looked down. “It won’t matter.”
Leah was still looking out the window, but when she turned back to Therese, her eyes were closed.
“She will love you too much to care.”
They talked about how to reveal their secret, and it was Therese who finally hatched the plan to just, simply, disappear. She wanted to vanish—maybe she had always wanted to vanish. Secretly, she wondered if she envied the choice of the father she never knew, but she told herself it was mostly because she could not imagine saying goodbye. Leah did not argue. Perhaps she thought it was best, as well.
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