by Lily Foster
What’s up stranger? I don’t reply because I cannot even fashion an answer to that question right now. We’ve barely spoken all summer, but now that school is back in session Daisy is reaching out to me again. She knows how to do this, knows how to make friends and keep them. But I’m a hopeless case, more content to sit alone in the library than to socialize with her and Sarah in the cafeteria or study hall. She probably thinks I’m just heartsick or something, just missing Simon. And I am heartsick, but my sadness is compounded by terror, panic and bouts of anger. So it’s better if I just stay away. It’s not like she can be my confidant. I can’t go to her for advice or a shoulder to cry on.
I wonder what Daisy will do when Monday turns to Tuesday, when this week turns to next week and then next month. Will Daisy ask questions, look for me? Will anyone?
At that moment it clicks into place. I see Miss Dawson walking into Mr. Vargas’s office. Did she set this all in motion? On Friday morning she called me down to her classroom. I didn’t bother to show up for Dance Ensemble tryouts the first week of school, and she’s been on my case ever since.
When I explain for the third time in two weeks that I have too much schoolwork to do, she confronts me. “Schoolwork, huh? I’m not buying it. With all that extra study time you should be acing your classes, but you’re not. We’re only a month into the school year and your teachers are expressing concerns.” I meet her eyes, nonplussed. I simply do not give a flip because I am so damn tired—all the time. “Your math teacher says you’ve barely scraped by on the first few quizzes and your English teacher says you haven’t handed in the last two assignments. What the hell is going on, Charlotte?”
I tug on the bra strap digging into my shoulder—a tactical error. My stomach is still flat, but I think my boobs have grown a full cup size over the past few weeks. She looks to where the fabric of my shirt strains over my chest and then her eyes soften.
“You can trust me.”
I can’t trust or depend on anyone but myself. I’ve long since believed that, but the past several weeks have confirmed my views on trust. I breathe in through my nose and look out the window. The silence is thick.
“All the girls ask me about this tattoo, everyone except you.” She reaches back with both hands and fixes an elastic around her long hair, making a top knot. One finger traces over the spot on her neck, the bird. “I always feed them the same generic line…That’s it’s about change, taking flight, and that the date signifies a turning point in my life.” Now she has my attention. “I don’t tell them anything more.” She pauses, her finger still caressing that spot. “During my sophomore year of college I got pregnant.”
I’m surprised but I don’t show it. My face is stone. Sure, I’ve been more emotional these past few weeks, but I am still Charlotte Mason through and through. I typically don’t wear my heart on my sleeve. And knowing Miss Dawson is just aching for me to break down and confide in her? That alone strengthens my resolve to give her nothing. Still, this decision is weighing on me like a ticking time bomb, so I don’t hold back from asking, “What did you do?”
“I felt like I had no one…Couldn’t tell my parents.” She’s working the similar circumstances angle. Nice try, lady. “And the guy…Let’s just say I didn’t know him all that well.” She cracks a sad smile. “I’m counting on you not to judge me.” I shake my head, reassuring her. “So…I fretted and waited until my days were literally numbered. I knew I had to make a decision. I considered everything, and I was very close to having an abortion, but I wound up carrying the baby to term. I lied to everyone. I told my parents I was cramming in extra classes and stayed in my off-campus apartment alone for the summer.” She rubs at her eyes. “I had to call myself a cab for the hospital when my water broke.” She looks to gauge my reaction, and even though I can barely draw breath I hold it together. “My baby…I gave her up for adoption.”
I am furious with myself as I reach up to bat one hot tear off my cheek. Just the word her does it to me. What is growing inside of me? A boy or a girl? Stop it, I tell myself as I school my expression. “I’m sorry, Miss Dawson.”
“Call me Grace.”
“Um, okay. I’m really sorry for what happened to you, but why are you telling me all this?”
“I just want you to know that if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”
“Thanks,” I stand, “but really, I’m fine.” Miss Dawson stays in her chair, studying me. As I reach for the doorknob, I turn back to her, unable to curb my now desperate need to know. “What happened to her, to your baby?”
“She lives with a family in New Jersey. The parents seem very nice. They’re wealthy from what I can tell. You know, the kind of people who can give a child every advantage.” In response to the question in my eyes, she says, “The adoption was open, and I spoke with them several times before I made the decision final. I know where they are but I’ve promised not to interfere in their lives. She’s growing up knowing she’s adopted but it will be her decision whether or not she wants to find me someday.”
I turn back towards the door, unable to face her when I ask, “Did you make the right decision?”
She barks out a cheerless laugh, and it feels like a direct hit to my gut. “I don’t know. I’ve had a decade to reflect on it and I’m still not sure. Maybe there is no right decision. Every option has consequences that weigh on you for years. It’s still painful, I can tell you that much. I just know I would have been better off if I had someone to lean on at the time.”
She lets that last sentence hang in the air. I want to tell her. The words are rushing up with my breath, pushing against my lips, begging to be let out in the open. I don’t dare turn back to face her. “Like I said, Miss Dawson, I’m fine.”
No, she couldn’t know for sure that I was pregnant, and even so, I can’t bring myself to believe she would out me to my guidance counselor, to my father or to anyone else.
“Christian, how did Dad find out?”
He makes me wait. He bites into his candy bar, chewing it open-mouthed like a donkey. After the third or fourth bite, he finally speaks around the mouthful. “He found the love letters you wrote to your baby daddy, moron.”
I stare out the window, my heart hollowed out and vacant as we continue our northbound ascent into the Upper Peninsula.
Simon
It’s been nearly two months since I left her.
Thankfully my brother Mike doesn’t question my shitty outlook on life, my silence or my poor appetite. He probably thinks I’ve dropped nearly ten pounds because I’m still grieving. And I am still torn up over Timmy, and also homesick for Mom, but it’s the loss of Charlotte that has me this way.
I wish I could put her out of my mind. I really do, because this hurts too damn much.
During the day it’s not as bad. I’m busy with classes, playing catch-up a lot of the time because my school district didn’t have the kind of enrichment programs that most of my fellow freshmen have benefitted from. I’m struggling in Calculus, and my Microeconomics class, while it seems like a refresher course to my peers, is full of language and concepts that are entirely foreign to me. So I read the assigned text twice, take copious notes during the lectures and then review them over and over. I read in between classes and during the few breaks I get at my part-time job.
I get back from the warehouse by midnight—quarter to one at the latest. I feel filthy by the time my shift’s over, so I slip in and out of my dorm room quietly to shower, trying my best not to wake my roommate. Then I collapse into bed, weary knowing that I’ll be repeating the same routine tomorrow.
That’s when it hits.
Sleep should come quickly but it doesn’t. I toss and turn, willing myself not to go there. But I do, every damn night.
The opening scene is always the same, a need to quench the desire I feel for her, to be with her the way I used to be. Sometimes that morphs into a fantasy, one where Charlotte is here with me. We struggle through classes side by side, both of us w
orking hard and barely making ends meet, but we’re happy. We laugh sitting across from each other as we eat dinner off paper plates, we tease and play in that way people in love do, and we fall asleep at night with our limbs tangled together. When it’s good like that, sometimes I can manage to drift off in the middle of it. But then there are the other nights, the ones when my thoughts take a dark turn. And I fall asleep eventually, but the nightmares can wake me up, sweat pouring off my body, teeth clenched and my fists pounding the mattress. In those dreams Charlotte is crying. Someone is hurting her because I’ve left her alone and defenseless. Sometimes it’s a faceless monster, sometimes it’s Wes, and sometimes it’s her brother.
Charlotte always denied it, but I know her brother. He’s an angry fuck and I’m convinced he lays hands on her. She swore up and down that it was only words, he never hit her, but her denials never sat right with me. It wasn’t a regular thing, but there were bruises, ones she couldn’t explain away. Bruises that ringed her upper arm like someone was squeezing, or the kind of black and blue you’d get if you took a bad fall on your ass. She wasn’t clumsy so I didn’t buy the trip and fall stories, even though she delivered them stone-faced.
The worst part is the helpless feeling. It’s like my hands are tied behind my back in those dreams. She calls for me but I can’t find her. She’s scared and she’s lost. I can hear her voice but it’s getting farther and farther away. I can’t get to her. I never reach her. I’ve lost her forever.
It’s after one of those restless nights that I break down.
I decided when I left that a clean break was the only way to do this. I wouldn’t contact her. Even though I knew it was cruel and she’d wind up hating me, it was better that way. It was the only way she’d move on, forget me. So I got a new phone with a brand new number. Chicago area code—big, important man I am. And I wiped my memory clean every friend and acquaintance I ever made back home. Knowing my mother and Henry were out of that town made cutting ties even easier. But I can’t rid myself of the memory of Christian Mason or the lock on Charlotte’s door.
Early that morning, as I was fixing to open the bedroom window and crawl out the way I came in, something drew me back to her bedroom door. The screws weren’t flush against the wood. You could see she’d put in some effort, but she wasn’t strong enough to secure them all the way in. I walked into the hallway, hoping for a confrontation, but it was still dark outside so it was an empty gesture. I knew that.
So today I dial the number and ask to be put through to his extension, not exactly sure what it is I’m going to say.
“Guidance office.”
“Mr. Vargas?”
“Yes. Who’s calling?”
I pull my collar away from my neck, even though I’m sporting an old, stretched out tee. “It’s Simon Wade,” I say, trying to calm my nerves.
“Simon! How are you, kid?”
“I’m doing all right.”
He sobers, morphing into concerned mental health provider mode without delay. “You’re settling in, doing all right? Tell me about life out there in Chicago.”
“It’s good. Different. Classes are hard.”
“The workload is heavy.”
Vargas is still using that mirroring technique. I don’t call him out on it, or even mind the slightest bit, because he’s good, doesn’t sound like a damn parrot. He’s nothing like the counselor I saw for a few sessions as part of some sham family support program at the prison.
“I’m handling the work, Mr. Vargas. And thanks for hooking me up with Professor Westfield. He’s been checking up on me, making sure I have everything I need.”
“I’m glad. He’s a great contact to have, Simon.”
“Yeah.”
He lets us stew in silence for a few moments before prompting, “Tell me more.”
“Just working my ass off, that’s all. It’s good, really.”
“Ok.” He lets it hang in the air, waiting on me to elaborate. When I don’t, he says, “I’m glad to hear it. No pressure, but I’m counting on you to be my success story. I’ve got my hands full with college applications now. Hoping we’ll have another graduate heading your way in September.” He chuckles. “Next September’s more likely. The talent pool isn’t too promising this year.”
“Oh, yeah?” I press, praying I’ll be rewarded with some mention of her name. “Who’s talking about Northwestern?”
“The only one who has a shot is a junior…Adam Brown. You know him?”
“No, doesn’t sound familiar.” What the hell? I know she has the grades to make it in here. “No one else?” Oh, fuck it. “Charlotte Mason isn’t looking to apply?”
“Ah…Charlotte moved. I didn’t know you two were…friends.”
“Moved?”
“You heard me right.”
Now I’m the one who goes silent as I process what he just said. “When did she move?” He gives me nothing. “Look, Mr. Vargas, I’m not asking you to break confidentiality or anything, I just want to know when…It’s important.”
“I believe it was a few weeks ago…near the end of September.”
“After the school year already started? Where did she go?”
“I don’t have that information. And even if I did, you know I wouldn’t be at liberty to share it with you.”
“I just…That’s weird, right? To leave a few weeks into the school year?”
“Well, it’s not typical but it happens.”
“So her family up and left? Sold their business?”
He sighs. “Simon…”
“I know, I know.” I take a deep breath, still reeling from the shock. “Mr. Vargas, can you do me a favor?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Please, can you just make certain that she’s all right?” He doesn’t answer. “Please?”
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
“I…I don’t know. I just have a feeling something’s wrong. Can you just do this for me?”
“You don’t have a way to contact her?”
Yeah, I could call her, but I’m an asshole. “No, sir, I don’t.”
“I can try to reach out to her. I’ll try, that’s all I’m promising.”
After taking my number, he ends the call. And I can’t wait any longer. Fishing my phone out again, my hands are trembling and my mind is racing as I struggle to remember the number I purposely didn’t put into my new contact list. It rings once before I’m hit with the standard no longer in service message.
That night, the vision is devoid of shadows or murky details. Charlotte is there, clear as day. She’s looks to me with fear in her eyes before being pushed up against the brick at the rear entrance of the diner back home. I can hear her gasping for air and crying. He has her caged in with his body, pushing his face up into hers, one rough hand on her jaw. I growl and go to pull him off, but I can’t move my arms or legs. He turns around to laugh at me. I wake up with my heart pounding, mouth bone dry and pulling for breath.
The face that turns to laugh at me is my own. I am the one hurting her.
Chapter Fifteen
Charlotte
“How far along are you?”
My aunt wears her gray hair in a braid that reaches the middle of her back, and she dresses like a cross between Pocahontas and a folksinger circa 1968. She wears a Native American style poncho, a long flowy skirt and earthy-looking sandals. Several beaded bracelets circle one wrist, and a cigarette dangles from the fingers of her other hand.
Christian just asked her where to leave my bag without saying hello first, and Janelle is busy ignoring him, looking me over from head to toe instead.
“Seven weeks.”
Janelle nods and takes a long drag off her cigarette before stubbing it out on a plate. She looks in Christian’s general direction but not at him. “Put it upstairs, last door on the left.” Janelle’s lack of interest in getting to know her nephew is beyond odd, and I figure this doesn’t bode well for me.
We stand i
n silence as we wait for Christian to come back down, listening awkwardly as the heavy stream of his urine hits the bowl and the toilet flushes. I notice the faucet never turns on to indicate that he’s washed his hands, and his lack of manners embarrasses me in front of this stranger. Christian, vulgar and unashamed as per usual, is still zipping his fly when he hits the bottom stair.
He looks to my aunt, lifting his chin. “I’ll be heading out now.”
She stands back, nodding once.
He turns to me then, shaking his head and smirking. Palm up, he demands, “Give me your phone.”
“What? It’s mine…I paid for it.” My plea is whispered even though I’m itching to scream out in protest.
He reaches around me and snatches it out of my back pocket before I can react. “Be good, Charlotte.”
God help me, but I wish a fiery car crash, a flesh eating disease, or death by a pack of crazed pit bulls on my hateful excuse for a brother. I hate him for the years of indifference, for the cruel comments he’s directed my way, and I hate him for leaving me here with this cold woman.
And then there were two.
As we stand there staring at each other in silence, I wonder if Janelle is fixing on going the duration of my stay without actually speaking to me.
The standoff ends when she crosses the room, turning the lock once Christian is good and gone. “You should get on up to bed now,” she says, surprising me when I take in her soft smile. “You’ve had a long drive. Tomorrow you and I will sit. Don’t worry,” she adds, “we’ll get this all figured out.”
I’m sure my mouth hangs wide open before I have the sense to reply, “Yes, ma’am.”
I attribute this sudden onset of morning sickness to my new surroundings rather than pregnancy.
