It is the Sunday before we’re scheduled to leave for a halfway house placement. One more week at Desert Dunes High School, and we’ll move on again. I was hoping we’d end up in the same halfway house as Daphne and Kevin, but there’s no room there. The place we’re going is down near San Diego. If we’re there long enough, maybe we’ll see my mom when she works the Del Mar racing season. Alice and Kamille are already at the San Diego place. Of all people to end up with, Alice is about last on my list. She’s okay, I guess, but she can be hard to get along with.
What’s going to happen there is we’ll figure out how to live on our own. How to find a job, and take care of basic bills, that kind of thing. I hate to move Cheyenne again. She seems sort of withdrawn sometimes now. Like maybe she’s learning what I already know, that you can’t have special friends for long if you’re constantly on the move. Oh, well. One day at a time, as Trish is always saying.
I don’t exactly believe it though. This girl that I’m reading about takes one day at a time and her life gets messed up big time. She’s lots worse off than I am because of the drugs. I’ve never done drugs and I’m sure not going to start now. In my opinion that’s one of the worst things a mom can do—be a druggie or a drunk.
I’m bored. My homework is done. I’ve written in my journal. I miss Daphne. There’s no one here to laugh with.
“Come on, Cheyenne,” I say, picking her up from where she sits playing with blocks. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Walk! Wow!” she says.
I put her in the stroller and fasten the belt.
“We’ll be back in an hour or so,” I tell Trish.
I guess we’ll go to the park, but that doesn’t sound like much fun without Daphne and Kevin. Where else, though? The library’s closed. Cheyenne could use some new shoes, but I don’t have much money so it would only be frustrating to go shopping.
A block from the park I hear a car with a noisy muffler. Cheyenne and I both turn to look. I catch my breath at the sight of a gray Ford.
“Daddy’s car!” Cheyenne yells, excited, smiling.
For an instant I think it is Rudy, but see that the Ford is older, the driver is younger and darker.
“Wow! Daddy!” Cheyenne yells again.
As the car drives past us down the street and out of sight at the curve in the road, Cheyenne’s smile fades.
“Daddy?” she says, looking back at me.
“Daddy?” she says again, tears gathering in her deep blue eyes.
I pick her up out of the stroller and hold her close to me.
“That wasn’t Daddy. That was someone else.”
“Miss him,” she says. “Gramma?” she says.
“Gramma’s not here, either,” I say.
“Miss her,” Cheyenne says.
At the park I sit on the bench where Daphne and I sat on the day of our freedom time. It doesn’t feel like such a freedom time today. Two older boys, seven or so, are hogging the climbing structure, blocking Cheyenne’s way to the top.
“Mommy!” Cheyenne calls, frustrated.
I don’t feel like fighting it.
“Come on, let’s go down the slide,” I say to her.
“My turn!” she yells, pointing at the top.
The boys keep blocking her way.
I watch, knowing it would be a betrayal not to help her out. Reluctantly I get up and walk to the structure, looking up, hoping the boys will get the message. They don’t. They just sit stubbornly at the top. I climb up, until I am eye to eye with the biggest boy.
“It’s her turn,” I say.
“We were here first,” he says.
I look him in the eye. “Move, you spoiled little butt! Now!”
“You can’t make me,” he says.
I grab him by the wrist, surprised at my anger. I have an urge to yank him down, fling him to the ground. Quickly, I release him. He and his friend clamber down and run to the swings. I watch Cheyenne take the last two steps to the top, then I climb down. The boys watch me from a distance, wary.
There are families here in the park, lots of children with moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, uncles, cousins, aunts, and then there is me and Cheyenne. Just the two of us, alone.
I get Cheyenne and go to the pay phone. If it is Rudy, I’ll hang up. Irma answers.
“Do you still want to come get us?” I ask.
“Melissa!” she says. “How’s the baby?”
“She’s fine. Here, talk to her.”
I put the phone to Cheyenne’s ear.
“Say hello,” I urge her.
“Yo,” she says.
“Hello, Cheyenne, oh, my baby,” Irma says.
“Gramma!” Cheyenne yells, smiling a huge smile.
I take the phone back.
“Irma?”
“Tell me where, I’ll leave right now. God, I’m so relieved to know Cheyenne is safe.”
Irma is crying, but sort of laughing, too. I notice it is Cheyenne she’s been worried about, not me. Oh, well, at least Cheyenne has a gramma who loves her.
“I’m not sure how you should get here. It’s Desert Dunes.”
“Give me cross streets, I’ll look it up on the map.”
I tell her the two streets. “And it’s Prospector’s Park,” I say.
“I’ll be there. Probably in an hour and a half, I’m not sure how long it’ll take, but I’m leaving.”
“Will you bring the carseat?”
“Yes. I’ll get it from the garage.”
We always kept the carseat in Rudy’s car. It’s funny to think of it sitting unused in the dusty garage.
“Don’t tell Rudy you’re coming for me,” I say.
“He’s not here right now,” Irma says. “He’ll be home later.”
Back at the shelter I get our things out of the stroller and repack important items in our backpacks—as many items of clothing as I can stuff in, plus my journal. As much as I didn’t like writing in my journal in the beginning, now it’s like a friend to me. I want to keep writing in it because it helps me think things through.
I go into the empty office and get my papers from the file cabinet, then write a note for Carla, thanking her, telling her I can’t exactly explain it but I’ve got to go back home for a while. I seal the envelope and put it on the dresser where I know it will be found. When I don’t show up for dinner tonight they’ll probably look in our room.
“We’re going back down to the park,” I say to Trish on our way out.
“Don’t you want the stroller?” she asks.
“We’ll just walk this time,” I say.
Trish looks at me rather suspiciously, but says nothing more. At dinner tonight I will be a topic of conversation. Trish may mention she thought something was funny when I didn’t take the stroller. And then they’ll find the note.
Maybe I’m wrong to go back, but I’m just not up for the halfway house, another group of strangers, and watching Cheyenne get her hopes up that the next gray car is her dad’s, the next chunky woman is her gramma.
It is nearly dark when I see Irma’s burgundy Honda slow down in front of the park. Cheyenne and I take off, waving, our backpacks bumping up and down as we run. Irma spots us, stops the car, and gets out.
“Cheyenne!” she calls.
“Gramma!”
Cheyenne runs faster, full force, into Irma’s outstretched arms.
“My baby,” Irma says, laughing and crying at the same time. She picks Cheyenne up and carries her to the car. I follow behind, aware that Irma has not greeted me so warmly. In fact, she’s not greeted me at all.
CHAPTER
8
As usual, Cheyenne is asleep in her carseat by the time we’ve driven two miles.
“You called just in time, Melissa. I was getting ready to file a kidnapping report against you.”
“What do you mean, kidnapping?”
“You know. Kidnapping. And child endangerment, too. I was just waiting for my next paycheck so I coul
d get a lawyer to file charges.”
It is as if Irma is speaking a foreign language, that’s how hard it is for me to understand what she’s saying.
“Child endangerment? Cheyenne wasn’t in danger.”
“That was an awful thing you did, taking the baby away from us. After all I’ve done for you, too. You’d have been out on the street if it wasn’t for me.”
Irma reaches across me and gets some tissue from the glove compartment. She dabs at her eyes.
“I’m so disappointed in you. Your own mother didn’t want to be bothered with you, and I took you in and then you steal our baby away from us.”
“How can I steal my own baby?”
“She’s not just your baby. Rudy’s name’s on that birth certificate too, you know.”
In the off and on glow of headlights and streetlights, Irma’s face looks hard, and set. Even at stoplights she doesn’t turn to look at me. I hadn’t expected her anger. If she’s this angry, what will Rudy be like when I see him?
I should reach back and unbuckle Cheyenne—be ready to get out at the next stop light. Run with her back to the shelter. I look around for familiar landmarks. Nothing. We’re in the middle of nowhere and I wouldn’t even know which direction to run.
We drive for miles, not talking. Irma’s got a Mexican station on, with Mariachi music. It’s peppy and upbeat, the opposite of how I’m feeling.
By the time we get to Pomona, things are looking more familiar. It is late, and for once the freeway is not all jammed up. My stomach is growling from hunger. I wish I had at least thought to put a couple of apples in my backpack.
Irma sighs and turns off the radio.
“You know, Rudy lost his job because of you.”
I stare out the window, wondering what’s going to come next.
“Mr. Murphy was using Rudy every day on that remodeling job, even giving him overtime, but Rudy was so stressed out over you kidnapping Cheyenne that he just lost it.”
“I didn’t kidnap my own baby! I took her to a safe place!”
“Well, all I know’s Rudy’s out of work and it never would have happened if you hadn’t run off with the baby.”
“So Rudy lost his temper and did something stupid and you’re blaming it on me?”
“I know my son! He doesn’t just go around throwing hammers through windows for no good reason!”
Irma wipes tears of anger from her cheeks, still keeping her eyes on the road ahead. It’s weird. I never had hopes that Irma would love me like a daughter, or any of that fairytale stuff, but I never thought she’d hate me. Now, it’s like she hates me.
“If Rudy threw a hammer through a window it’s because he decided to do that, not because I made him.”
“Oh, I suppose that’s going to be your attitude now. You’re not responsible for anything,” she says, oozing sarcasm. “Rudy’s been sick with worry over you. Carrying your picture wherever he goes, driving around at all hours, asking strangers on the street if they’ve seen you . . .”
Irma turns off the freeway and into familiar territory. I can see the tower of Hamilton High School from here and I realize with a jolt how much I’ve missed this familiar school and all that goes with it—friends, classes, teachers, the Infant Center.
“Rudy’s been so upset over you leaving—you’ve made him crazy.”
“I’m responsible for my own behavior, not Rudy’s,” I say.
Irma lets out a snort of derision. “You’ve picked up so much bull shit along the way you smell like a cow pasture.”
I won’t cry. I won’t cry. Over and over again I think those words. I take deep, cleansing breaths, the way I learned to do at the shelter. How stupid I was to call Irma.
“You have a little tiff and you go running off to some home for battered women. You girls today are so spoiled! Let me tell you, I didn’t go running off with Rudy every time his father got a little mad on. I minded my mouth and stuck it out. Children belong with their fathers just as much as they do with their mothers.”
“Well, that’s why I’m coming back,” I say.
“I didn’t want to take a baby on, at my age,” Irma says, again dabbing at tears. “But Rudy insisted and then, I loved her so much, that sweet little thing . . .”She is crying full out now, and I worry that she can’t see where she’s going.
“Then you took her away from me, with no warning . . .”
“We’re back, Irma. We’re back,” I say, trying to be as reassuring as possible.
“But I don’t trust you anymore. The least little thing’ll come up and who knows what you’ll do . . .”
Rudy is sitting on the front porch, smoking, when we drive into the driveway. Even in the dark I can see his wide smile. He runs to the car and opens my door, taking me by the hand and guiding me out. He is laughing.
“I knew you’d come back. I kept telling Mom, she’ll be back, just wait.”
He gives me a big hug and says he’s missed me. Then he opens the back door and gently gets Cheyenne from her carseat. She stirs.
“Hi, Baby,” he whispers.
She opens her eyes wide. “Daddy!” she shrieks. “Daddy!”
We all laugh, even Irma. Rudy carries her and her backpack into the house and Irma and I follow.
“Phew!” he says, laughing.
Rudy puts her down on the couch and gets a diaper and baby wipes from her backpack. He cleans her up and kisses her belly, then he puts a fresh diaper on her. He puts her on the floor and she takes off running into the room where we kept all her toys.
“Mary!” she says, carrying her baby doll out to show me.
“Mary missed you,” Rudy says.
“Miss ’em,” Cheyenne says, walking into the kitchen.
It’s as if she has to check out every nook and cranny, looking for familiar things.
Now that we’re in the house, Irma’s face has lost the hard, stony look she had in the car. She sits in the recliner, feet up.
“What a long drive,” she says.
“Well, it’s over now,” Rudy says, smiling at me. “It’s all over now.”
I feel an old warmth rushing through me as I see Rudy’s glowing smile and the tender look in his eyes. Maybe everything’s going to work out.
“Come to Gramma,” Irma says, reaching toward Cheyenne.
Irma helps Cheyenne climb into the chair. She kisses the top of Cheyenne’s head.
“Your hair smells good,” Irma says.
Well, I think, at least she knows I’ve been keeping Cheyenne clean. And one look at her chubby little body and anyone can tell she’s been well fed. Child endangerment! What a stupid idea!
My stomach growls again, so loud Cheyenne laughs and points to me. I’m starving, but I can’t bring myself to say so. And in spite of the growls, neither Irma nor Rudy offer anything to eat. Well, I can wait until morning. It won’t kill me.
Cheyenne is not so shy about asking for food. She points in the direction of the kitchen.
“Juice. Cracker,” she says.
Irma gets up and goes to the kitchen. She puts Cheyenne in her high chair and gives her juice and crackers. I get a container of bananas and cereal and bring it into the kitchen. Irma watches while I feed Cheyenne, then says goodnight.
Rudy runs bath water and together we bathe Cheyenne. It’s nice to be where she has her own clothes. She laughs when she sees her favorite Minnie Mouse pajamas.
Cheyenne clutches Mary in one hand, sucks the wrist of her other hand, and is fast on her way to sleeping by the time we walk out the bedroom door. I can tell she is happy to be in her own crib, with her own bird mobile.
Rudy sits on the couch in the living room, his arm resting on the back, as if expecting me to nestle in beside him. I sit in Irma’s recliner, flipping through an old magazine, feeling awkward now that we are alone. Where will I sleep? How will things be? Will I ever be comfortable enough here to go to the refrigerator and help myself to something to eat?
It is so quiet in here
I can hear Rudy take a deep breath, then sigh. I glance up from the magazine I’m pretending to read. He is leaning forward, looking at me, eyebrows raised, as if he’s expecting me to say something, or do something. I look back at the magazine and turn another page.
“Missy,” he says, in a whisper.
I close the magazine and look up.
“Come sit by me.”
We watch each other, neither of us moving. The air between us seems heavy, almost solid.
“Please,” he says, patting the couch on the cushion beside him.
I walk through the heavy air and sit beside him, breathing in his familiar scent of soap and cigarettes.
“I love you,” he says.
His words, his presence, draw me to him with a force stronger than caution. He holds me tight, whispering.
“I didn’t know how much I needed you ’til you were gone. Stay with me, Missy, don’t leave me again. I won’t hurt you, I swear, I’ll only love you. I learned my lesson. I learned my lesson.”
It is as though somewhere deep within me a dam bursts, releasing floods of sorrow and loneliness. Shaking and sobbing, I bury my face in Rudy’s chest.
“Hold me,” I say. “Don’t let me go.”
“No, never,” he promises, and I know that all of my questions about belonging are answered. I belong with Rudy, wherever he is, that’s where I belong. Rudy and I, and Cheyenne—a family of people who belong together.
Rudy stands and pulls me to him, kissing me tenderly on the lips. He takes my hand and leads me into his bedroom where Cheyenne sleeps soundly in her crib, still clutching Mary. He pulls me to him again. This time his kisses are more insistent. He pulls my sweater up and puts his hand inside my bra. I cling to him, wanting to get closer, to lose myself in this moment.
We move to the bed, grappling with buttons and zippers until I feel Rudy, hard, pressing between my legs.
For a fleeting instant I wonder if a week off the pill means I could get pregnant, then I open to Rudy, taking him in, thinking nothing else, feeling nothing else, only Rudy. Rudy. Rudy.
Baby Help Page 8
