by Erica Boyce
She always shrugged when he said this. “I don’t mind it at all,” she told him. “Besides, I have to put my degree to good use.” In truth, on certain days, the kids were the only things keeping her together. They came to her with bright and sticky faces, asking simple, easily answered questions about where story hour was or who wrote a particular book. They smiled when she helped them. They splayed their chubby hands on the top of the desk while their parents checked them out. They giggled in corners together, and she couldn’t bring herself to shush them.
“Excuse me, miss? Could you tell me where your restroom is?”
It was an out-of-towner, that much was certain. Anyone else would’ve called her by name. She turned, and sure enough, there was a stranger by the desk. A woman. Heavily pregnant. She rubbed her belly with one hand in slow, constant circles, as if she were polishing silver.
“Oh,” Rebecca said. “Yes. It’s just around that corner.” She pointed over her shoulder.
“Thanks,” the woman said. She squinted slightly at Rebecca and hitched her pocketbook a little higher on her shoulder. Perhaps Rebecca had been staring at her stomach for too long.
She waited until the woman had waddled out of sight to exhale. No, it wasn’t the children she had trouble with. It was the mothers-to-be who brought a strange mix of longing and resentment to the pit at her core. When they smiled peacefully, when they complained sweatily, when they spoke smugly. She knew there was no logic to this hatred. It wasn’t as if there were a limited number of babies in the world and they’d run out before she got through the line. And, she often scolded herself, it could always be worse. She and Mack were otherwise perfectly healthy. Her doctor had been perplexed at her last physical, nearly a year ago. “I can’t believe you’re not pregnant yet!” he’d said.
She tugged at the locket resting at her clavicle, relishing the sting of the little gold chain pinching the back of her neck. It was an old-fashioned thing. Its face was a bit tarnished, darkened by somebody else’s fingertips. She liked that about it. Mack had slipped it around her neck while she was still half-asleep in bed before leaving for this latest scalloping trip. He would be gone for two weeks, one of five crewmembers on a massive vessel shucking creamy white scallop meat from shells bigger than his hand. She knew he only did these trips so that he could save up for his own smaller boat and start his own fishing business one day. And she knew that, logically, the big boats were no more dangerous than the small ones.
But still. At least the small boats came back every night. At least if he worked on a small boat, he would be at their kitchen table before supper so she could check him over for broken bones and wounds, set her hands on his shoulders, and think to herself, Not missing. Her father and brother were both fishermen in towns nearby. She was familiar with the space below one’s breastbone that thumped whenever word spread that someone else had been lost.
Mack knew all this. Hence the necklace, a silent metal kiss of an apology that she almost thought she’d dreamed until she woke up a few hours later and found it still there.
The library doors opened. “—can’t believe you’d let me win like that! You weren’t even running. You were barely even walking.”
“Ella. Inside voice.”
“Whatever.” Ella skipped up to the circulation desk. “Hi, Rebecca,” she whisper-yelled.
“Hi, Ella.” Rebecca tucked a smile back between her lips. “It’s okay. Nobody’s here right now except Addie over there. You don’t have to whisper.” She glanced at Lacey, who was leaning against the prehistoric copy machine next to the door.
“Ha! See?” Ella spun around to face Lacey. “Rebecca lets me do whatever I want when we hang out, unlike some people I know.”
Rebecca wasn’t sure if she should feel flattered or insulted to be used as a pawn in this argument. She decided diversion was probably her best approach. She leaned forward on her elbows. “I heard a rumor that we just got the latest Tamora Pierce book in and no one has checked it out yet.”
“Really?” Ella turned back around. Rebecca nodded, and Ella scurried off to the fantasy section, her arms pumping in an exaggerated speed walk. The first time Rebecca babysat for Ella last fall, she had brought a tote bag full of books. It was only after she rang the doorbell that she felt painfully uncool and wondered if she should’ve brought an iPad or some video games. But when she stacked the books on the Staybrooks’ coffee table, Ella had reached for Alanna: The First Adventure right away. It had been Rebecca’s favorite growing up, too.
“Thanks for that,” Lacey said, stepping toward the counter. “You really took the heat off me.” She stared after Ella until she disappeared down an aisle.
“No problem.” Rebecca reached for a stack of blank check-out cards. She shuffled them once and tapped the edge of the stack against the counter, hoping it looked like she had an official reason for doing so.
“How’s the little kidlet doing?” Lacey asked. She said it quietly, as if asking permission.
“She’s good,” Rebecca said. She ached to brag about Ella’s latest drawing and the story they were writing together, to ask how Lacey had ever gotten Ella to go to bed on time. She longed to have those conversations she’d heard from so many mothers’ mouths, even though Ella was not her own.
Not twenty minutes before, though, Diane Staybrook had called the library. “It’s for you,” Addie had said when she transferred it to circulation, her eyebrows raised.
“Rebecca? Diane.” Her voice had been so tight, Rebecca almost feared it would snap and twang back through the phone to hit her ear. “Listen, I can’t really talk right now, but Ella’s heading over with Lacey. I couldn’t keep her away from that girl any longer. I need you to watch Ella and make sure she’s…make sure she’s safe, okay?” Rebecca had barely had time to agree before Diane hung up.
“That’s good. I really miss her,” Lacey said.
Rebecca looked up from the check-out cards, but Lacey was picking at a dried-up spot of something on the counter. Rebecca took the opportunity to study her face.
She’d heard the rumors, of course. For a week or so there, not a day went by when Mack didn’t come home from the docks with a new story about what had happened to Maureen Carson’s kid. She’d lived in Devil’s Purse long enough to know not to believe anything until she saw it with her own eyes.
In this case, she realized with a sinking sigh, some of those rumors might’ve actually been right. Lacey was not looking so hot. She’d lost a lot of weight since the last time Rebecca saw her, and there were purplish circles under her eyes. Her hair was greasy, and Lacey seemed to know it—she’d developed a tic of reaching up to cover her part every few minutes. This was not the shining-smiled girl whose photo showed up in the paper every year when the high school gave out their academic achievement awards.
“She misses you, too,” Rebecca said and impulsively reached out to touch Lacey’s hand where it lay on the counter. Lacey shrank back. Rebecca fiddled with her necklace again, and Lacey’s eyes followed her hand to her neck. Lacey’s lips pinched in just a hair, just for a moment, and her face grew pale. She gripped the edge of the counter.
“I’m sorry,” Lacey said. “I have to go.” She glanced behind her at where Ella was now sitting on the floor, leaned back against the dictionary bookcase, her head bowed over a book. A bone-deep sadness flickered across her face. “I really am sorry. I hate to do this to you, but do you, would you be able to—”
“I’ll take Ella home after my shift is over.”
“Really? Are you sure? It’s not too much trouble? It’s just that she loves coming here, she loves you, and I don’t want to make her leave.”
Rebecca’s cheeks warmed. “It’s completely fine. I was going to head out in an hour anyway, and their house is basically on my way.” Neither was true, strictly speaking, but Rebecca was dying to calm the buzz now rising from Lacey’s very skin. “Are you okay
?”
“Yeah.” Lacey shook her head a little. “Yeah. I’ve gotta go,” she repeated and bolted for the doors. They closed behind her with a solid, final click.
* * *
“Time for my cigarette break,” Addie said, one elbow propped jauntily on the counter. “You okay to hold down the fort for a few minutes?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“You sure? Everything copacetic?”
Rebecca nodded and pretended to type something into the computer. Copacetic was probably the latest offering on Addie’s word-of-the-day calendar. Addie leaned in closer as if to suck the gossip right out of her. Rebecca knew Addie had watched the whole exchange with Lacey from across the room and was dying for dirt. Rebecca squinted at her screen as though the empty search bar puzzled her. Addie sighed, tapped the desk once, and left.
She and Ella were alone now. Somehow, Ella was so engrossed in her book, she hadn’t noticed that Lacey’d been gone for half an hour. Rebecca tucked her hair behind her ears and left her desk.
“Ella?”
She looked up. Rebecca started to kneel before she realized that Ella was probably too old to find it particularly soothing. She stood, knitting her fingers together behind her back. “Lacey had to go. I’ll take you home when I get off work at 4:30, okay?”
Ella drooped. The book fell to the floor, and Rebecca resisted the temptation to pick it up and smooth the bent pages. “I knew it,” Ella mumbled into her lap. She turned her face up again. “Is she sick? She is, isn’t she? Is she dying? Mom said she had to go out of town to see some old family member, like a great-uncle or something, but she never would’ve missed going to college for that. And she looks so skinny, and she couldn’t even run one single block. So she must be sick. Just tell me, is she?” Ella stared up at her.
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said, grateful it was the truth. She wouldn’t have to step into the tangle of the stories another woman told her daughter.
“She’s definitely sick,” Ella said, nodding to herself and watching the door. “I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry, Rebecca.” She picked up her book and started reading.
Rebecca managed to turn around before she had to smile.
At 4:30 on the dot, Ella stood in front of the desk. “Ready?” she said, sliding her book across the counter.
“Ready.” Rebecca took the book and scanned and stamped it, pleased as always with the firm finality of the stamp under her hand. The past twenty minutes had been a sudden flurry of patrons asking for the Wi-Fi password and demanding books they didn’t carry or that were already checked out. Addie was no help whatsoever, responding to even the simplest questions by smiling sweetly and sending the customer directly to Rebecca. When Rebecca looked over at her, exasperated, Addie gazed steadily at her phone. Punishment for failing to spill the details on Lacey, no doubt.
“All right, Rick, I’m off,” she called to the evening librarian, who was wolfing down a granola bar in the back office. He raised one hand in a salute. Addie perked up and reached for her pocketbook, even though her shift was nowhere near over. Rebecca turned her back hurriedly and touched Ella’s shoulder. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go.”
When they were safely out of sight of the library and Addie, Rebecca shoved her fists into the pockets of her coat. Ella picked up a stick and began running it over every chain-link fence they passed. The rattling shot straight up Rebecca’s neck.
“When is Mack getting back?” Ella asked, kicking at a pebble on the sidewalk.
“Tomorrow evening.” Rebecca took a deep breath. So close.
“Cool! Maybe he can come to the park with us next week.”
“Maybe.” Her fingers found an old gum wrapper in her pocket and balled it up so tightly, the foil dug into her skin.
Mack didn’t know about her babysitting job. She knew he would take it personally, the fact that his wife felt like she had to work two jobs. He would start signing up for more trips, farther and farther away, so he could “provide for his family.” She would roll her eyes at him if she weren’t so afraid for him.
After her doctor had recommended a specialist, she had come home to tell him on their living room couch. A chill spread over her scalp from the drafty windows, countering the anxious heat on her cheeks. They’d bought the house, a small one, shortly after their wedding. In the years since, they’d discovered the leaky joints hidden behind its skin of white vinyl siding and shiny brass doorknobs. She pulled a blanket over her shoulders.
“Dr. Graham said our best chance for conceiving would be to see a reproductive endocrinologist,” she said, carefully enunciating each syllable.
“Okay,” he said and reached for her hand.
She almost wanted to shake him in that moment and demand he show some fear or excitement or anything at all. Instead, she dug the remote out from under the cushion and tried to calm the roil in her stomach.
It didn’t matter, anyway. That night, she stayed up late, scanning infertility forums and reading through blocks of impenetrable text in the bare-bones health insurance policy they paid for themselves. They wouldn’t be able to afford the copays for the required fertility testing, much less any treatments that came after that.
When Diane Staybrook called her two weeks later looking for a new babysitter, it seemed too good to be true. She decided she would save in secret and surprise Mack when she had enough to cover an appointment, some testing, and maybe an IUI or two. She told herself he would be thrilled then, when getting pregnant seemed like a real possibility again.
It was a little embarrassing, taking a job that had previously been held by a high schooler. But what choice did she have? Jobs were hard to come by here, especially in the off-season. Her only other work experience to speak of was volunteering at the local hospital when she was a student—“candy striping,” her mother called it every time she drove her the thirty minutes from their house to her shift. She had worked in the maternity ward, blithely holding back women’s hair as they labored, unaware of how long she would have to work to take their place one day. Theoretically, she could reach out to her contacts at the hospital and see if there were any administrative openings, but she shuddered at the thought of being surrounded by pregnant women and blissful new families all day.
No, this was fine, she thought as she followed Ella up the Staybrooks’ front steps. Before they’d even reached the door, Diane opened it.
“Hi, Mom,” Ella said, squeezing past her through the doorway.
“Hi, Ella-Bella.” She ran one hand over the crown of Ella’s head as she passed. “Everything go okay?” she murmured, tilting forward over the threshold.
“Yes, everything was fine. She was great.” Rebecca had texted Diane to let her know what had happened with Lacey. Diane hadn’t responded—Rebecca assumed she was busy on a conference call or something.
“Good. Good.” Diane settled back on her heels and tucked a stray hair into her French twist. “I know I shouldn’t worry so much. Ella’s such a good girl. And so is Lacey. Or was, anyway.” She pulled her hand over her face, dragging her cheeks down ghoulishly. “She’s just so…troubled,” she said through her fingers.
Rebecca backed up one step. “Well, anyway. She was great,” she repeated. “No trouble at all.”
“Oh!” Diane’s hands flew up. “Here, let me pay you.”
“No, no,” Rebecca said, but it came out rather weakly. “It really was no trouble. She just read quietly while I worked.”
“Don’t be silly.” She reached into her back pocket. “Never turn down a chance to get paid twice for your time,” she said out of the side of her mouth, holding out her hand.
“Thank you,” Rebecca said miserably. She took the bill without looking at it and slipped it in with the gum wrapper.
“See you Monday!” Diane wiggled her fingers and closed the door.
Rebecca turned toward home.
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Chapter Four
“You’re home early,” Maureen said, peering over her glasses. “Is everything okay?”
“Yup,” Lacey said. Her head throbbed. “Be right back. I’ve really gotta go to the bathroom.” She bit her lip and turned before her mom could ask any more questions.
Safe in her room, Lacey eased her bureau away from the wall and knelt down to the hand-sized hole Matt had helped her cut in the drywall there one night while her mom was out. She used to keep her kit under the mattress, but she knew she needed another spot to use for emergencies.
She groped around the stud until she found her diary, then pushed the bureau back into place. Maureen had taken her bedroom door off its hinges, but she hadn’t gone so far as to remove the door of the bathroom connected to her room. She wedged a towel under the door and checked twice to be sure it wouldn’t open before sitting down on the closed lid of the toilet seat.
The diary was a cheap, plasticky pink thing her grandmother had given her for Christmas when she was around Ella’s age. It had a dinky lock on it; she’d lost the key long ago and had to pop it open with an unbent paperclip. She’d written in it exactly once, an imagined conversation between her and the cat who lived next door at the time. Still, she felt a twinge of guilt every time she opened it and saw the pages destroyed, hollowed out into a hiding place.
It was nothing compared to how she felt when she saw the pictures lying there. Two tiny, carefully cut faces—Maureen and Lacey—bent a little at the edges from being held in the locket. Her mom hadn’t asked yet where her high school graduation gift had gone. “It’s not that Tiffany’s stuff some of your friends wear,” Maureen had said almost shyly as Lacey unwrapped it. “But my mom gave it to me when I graduated, and I figured it was time to pass it down.” Lacey had hugged her tightly around the neck, and for just a second, she forgot about the beetle and all her secrets.
