Entering Normal

by Anne Leclaire

  You’re a disappointment that just keeps going on, her mama said. I don’t know how you can let yourself settle for so much less. Well, shit, nothing Opal could see about Melva’s life was anything you’d want to sit up nights waiting for.

  SHE REACHES ACROSS THE TABLE AND PICKS UP ANOTHER order form. The child in this snapshot is pretty in a blank-faced way that reminds her of Suzanne Jennings before she latched on to Jitter Walton and began prancing all over town in his letter jacket. This one she is supposed to make into a Roaring Twenties flapper. Honestly, where did these people come up with their ideas? The most successful projects are those where the parents or grandparents leave the costume decisions to her. Usually she can look at the photo of a child and just know what to do. Sometimes a serious face can hide the temperament of a clown. And this one—this pretty child who looks like she is slow in the department of serious ambition—Opal can see that behind the blank stare this is a child who wants something more.

  But then, everyone wants something more. Sometimes the longing is empty, a nameless yearning, but if you’re lucky, you can put a name to it. Billy for instance, once wanted to play basketball for the Tar Heels. He wanted to be famous. Now, if she can believe him, he wants to marry her.

  Opal’s “something more” is a real family. Not a family that sticks together out of habit or because it looks good to outsiders, like her parents, or one where you stay there because you have to, out of duty, like Billy wants. She wants a family that stays together because every person knows that is absolutely where they belong, a family where people care for each other. This is exactly what she plans to have with Zack. She knows that she will be a better mama than Melva.

  She sets the doll aside and heads for the kitchen. Her period’s due in about four days, and she has a serious case of the munchies.

  Plus she’s horny.

  In spite of her best intentions to once and for all be done with sex, hearing Billy’s voice has set things moving. How can sex do that to you? Stir an ache so deep it’s almost like something growing inside? Make your skin feel too tight?

  She pours herself a glass of Coke and combs the cupboards for something sweet. She rejects a jar of applesauce, shakes out a handful of Fruit Loops. She would kill for a brownie about now—can almost feel the velvety weight on her tongue. Cereal just doesn’t cut it. Her craving for chocolate reminds her of being pregnant. It had been lemon then. Cake, candy, sherbet, pudding, anything with citrus.

  The kitchen clock reads 10:40. The Stop and Shop is open for another twenty minutes.

  She climbs the stairs to Zack’s door and listens to the sound of his steady, deep inhalations. The blanket is still tight up over his chest where she had tucked it earlier. She considers waking him, bundling him up for a quick trip to the store, then thinks of how it will be such a hassle later, trying to get him settled down and back to sleep. It seems like way too much work. Maybe she’ll just forget the whole thing.

  Or she could slip out by herself.

  Not once in five years has she left Zack alone. Not even for five minutes.

  She weighs the need for brief moments of freedom—for chocolate— against the risk of leaving him. The trip out to the store and back won’t take more than fifteen minutes. Total. Round trip. What could go wrong?

  She picks her way through the webbing of twine woven across the floor to his bed.

  “Zack?” she whispers, then, a shade louder, “Zack?” He does not move. She recalculates the time it will take. Twenty minutes tops. What could happen to him asleep in a locked house?

  She searches for a sign and finally decides she will say his name five times—one for each year of his life—and if he doesn’t wake, that is the sign he’ll be all right alone while she runs to the store.

  “Zack?” she whispers. “Sugah? Zack?”

  He doesn’t even twitch.

  “Zack.” Louder this time. Then two more times before she picks her way back across the room.

  Simple choices. A hunger for chocolate. Such an ordinary thing. How could she have foreseen that it is the beginning of all the hurt and sorrow that is to come?

  AS SHE DRIVES ALONG MAIN STREET SHE CAN—EVEN IN THE shadows beyond the streetlights—pick out the library, the town hall, the bank. The realtor told her they are constructed of granite cut from quarries on the outskirts of the village, adding that early in the century the quarries had been a major industry in Normal. Opal thinks it gives a real solid touch to the town. This is a place that could give a person roots. She passes by the Catholic church, also forged of stone, and then the Methodist and Baptist churches, these of clapboard, with soaring steeples that pierce the sky. The Halloween decorations haven’t been removed yet, and there are cornstalks at the base of every lamppost along the main street. A farmer’s wagon with a scarecrow in the driver’s seat sits in the center of the square adjacent to a statue of a uniformed man on horseback. The bed is heaped with pumpkins.

  The single traffic light is set on blinking yellow, and she slows even though there isn’t another car in sight. There is something she likes about being the only one on the street. It reminds her of being a child and the nights she would wake and creep downstairs, going from room to room in the dark, listening, as if the secrets of their house would be revealed at night.

  She continues past a small row of shops that occupy two entire blocks of the village center, by large clapboard houses with brick walks that lead through boxwood hedges up to narrow porches. Several of these buildings have been converted to businesses. One is a funeral parlor, another an insurance firm, a third the day care where she has enrolled Zack.

  She passes the police and fire stations—lights on inside—the Creamery, which is open, and a diner, which is not. There are a dozen cars in the parking lot of the ice cream shop—couples, she imagines, who have stopped after catching a movie. She is swept by the sudden yearning for the simple pleasure of a Friday night date, for the carefree feeling of being young. She drives on past the corner occupied by Ned Nelson’s service station and swings into the supermarket parking lot.

  At this time of night there is a small crew on, sweeping floors and stocking shelves. Dorothy Barnes is the only cashier.

  Opal heads directly for the bakery aisle and is debating between the brownies and eclairs when a voice breaks into her deliberation.

  “Got a sweet tooth?”

  The first thing she notices is the scar on his cheek, so raised and wide it looks like no one bothered to stitch it up. The second thing is that—scar or not—he’s about the best looking guy she’s ever seen. She feels a little jolt and for a moment is alive to possibilities .

  “Me,” he says, “I’d go for the brownies. I bet you’re Opal.”

  She manages a nod. Merciful God, he is good looking.

  “Ty Miller,” he says, holding out a hand. “I work for Ned over at the station.”

  The moment their hands touch, just like that, Opal can feel her heart swell in its cage of bone, can feel her pulse race. No mistaking the spiking of chemistry. She sees trouble coming, stretching ahead like ten miles of bad road.

  “I’ve seen you when you’ve come by the garage,” he says in a deep voice, a voice with the hint of song to it, the kind of voice that can thrill you later just by recalling it. She knows for sure she hasn’t seen him before. Like she could forget.

  She wants the brownies but because he has suggested them, she grabs the box of eclairs. “Gotta go,” she says. “Nice to meet ya.”

  “You’re out late,” Dorothy says. “Where’s that boy of yours?”

  “Sleeping,” Opal says. “With the sitter.” Her hand still feels tingly from Ty Miller’s touch.

  “Count your blessings.” Dorothy nods toward the rack of tabloids at the end of the counter. “I’ll tell you, my heart goes out to her.”

  “Who?” Opal says. Her heart has still not returned to its regular beat. He must think she’s an idiot, racing off like that. Gotta go. Jesus.

  “H
er. You haven’t heard about it? It’s been on the news for the last day and a half.”

  “Our television isn’t hooked up yet.” Opal looks back over her shoulder, but Ty is nowhere in sight.

  “It’s tragic. Makes you wonder what the world is coming to.” Dorothy points to the headline above the photo of a young woman: Distraught mother begs: Please return my sons. “It’s a crazy world. Something like this happening.” She reaches over and grabs the paper off the rack, folds it open to the centerfold. “Those are her boys.”

  Opal wants to look away. The older of the two children is a sweet-faced boy with huge brown eyes. He looks the same age as Zack. There are other pictures: a child’s birthday party, a full-color photo taken in front of a Christmas tree. Opal searches the four smiling faces—mother, father, boys—but can not detect the slightest omen in that photo of any trouble to come.

  “Kidnapped,” Dorothy announces, dragging the box of eclairs over the scanner. “In Texas. By a Mexican. He jumped right into her car when she was stopped at a red light.”

  “God.” Zack. Had she locked the door when she left? She tries to visualize herself turning the key.

  “He forced her out of the car at gunpoint,” Dorothy continues. “Then he took off with those two poor children still sleeping in the backseat. The mother was on the news this morning, crying. Pleading with the man to bring back her boys.” She holds up the paper. “You want this?”

  “No.” The last thing in the world Opal wants is anything to do with the paper or the tragedy it holds, as if the disaster could leak out, taint her.

  Dorothy takes a ten from Opal, hands her change. “That’s Texas for you. Course I’m not saying the same thing couldn’t happen here. You just never know. The world’s turned crazy. I blame it on drugs.”

  Would Zack even wake if someone broke in?

  “We’ve started a collection.” Dorothy indicates a coffee can by the register. Someone has cut a slot in the plastic lid.

  “Collection?”

  “For a reward. There’s a fund. We’re sending a check at the end of next week.”

  Opal stuffs her change through the slot.

  FOR SURE SHE LOCKED THE DOOR. SHE SEES HERSELF DOING it. The light at the intersection of Main and Maple blinks yellow, and as she slows, she imagines Zack in the backseat, imagines a man approaching the car, wrenching open the door, pointing a pistol at her, sliding into the seat beside her, ordering her to drive. Could she stay calm? Would she panic? Would she dare try anything heroic? That sort of thing works in the movies, but in real life, would it be too dangerous? How could you be sure you wouldn’t end up killing everyone in the car, including the child you were trying to save?

  The newspaper image of the little boys and their frantic mother plays in her mind. Then Zack’s face flashes in front of her. How far would she go to protect him? What would she risk? Everything, she knows. Certainly her own life. At least that.

  Her hands are shaking by the time she pulls into the driveway. She has trouble with the house key, the door locked after all.

  Inside the quiet is broken only by the hum of the refrigerator. She sets the pastries on the counter, checks the clock. It’s 11:15. She hasn’t been gone for more than half an hour. She heads for the stairs, and halfway up she hears him.

  He is on the floor at the top of the landing, his face puffy from tears.

  She takes the remaining stairs two at a time. Sweet Jesus. She’ll never leave him again. Not for a minute. A second. Never.

  “What happened? Zack. Sugah? What happened?”

  “Where were you?” he accuses.

  “Downstairs,” she says, lying automatically, sinking to the floor by his side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

  “I called and called.” He gives a shuddering breath that collapses into little ragged hiccups.

  “I’m sorry, sugah bun.” She will never, ever leave him alone again. Ever.

  “I fell,” he announces. The twine from the cat’s cradle entangles his feet.

  “It’s okay, Zack. I’m here now.” She tightens her embrace and he yells. It’s the pain yell, not the sad yell.

  “What is it, Zack?”

  “My arm,” he says. Tears brim.

  “Let me see,” she says. In the glow from the downstairs light his arm looks fine, but when she runs her fingers over it, he cries out.

  “Okay,” she soothes. “Okay, sugah, I won’t touch it.”

  She carries him to her room, careful not to touch the arm, and settles him in her bed, quiets him with two baby aspirin.

  “I’m thirsty,” he whimpers. “I want Tigger.”

  She finds the toy on the floor by his bed, brings it to her room, tucks it in beside him, gets him a glass of Coke.

  Later, when she is sure he won’t waken, she turns on the bedside lamp. His arm looks okay. There are no markings. But when she strokes her fingers over his forearm—really barely touching the skin— he whimpers in his sleep.

  Months later, when everything begins to fall apart, she comes to believe it was not leaving New Zion that set the nightmare in motion. Not the string of lies she told, lies as tangled as the web of twine that tripped Zack that night. Not even Ty Miller. These things were just complications . The beginning was this night. It was the one grievous error of leaving Zack alone while she went to out to satisfy her hunger.

  CHAPTER 9

  ROSE

  AS SOON AS NED DRIVES OFF— EARLIER THAN USUAL since he has a backlog of jobs—Rose gets out the Hoover and starts vacuuming, an unnecessary chore since the house is spotless. All she does every day is housework, over and over, room after room, a mechanical occupation that produces a gleaming house. This past week, she has finished up the fall cleaning: screens taken down, hosed and stacked overhead in the garage; windows washed; curtains laundered and ironed; summer cottons washed and packed away; woodwork scrubbed; kitchen cabinets straightened. This ritual cleaning used to fill her with pleasure, but now she does it mindlessly, without even the dim satisfaction of accomplishment. With just the two of them, the place hardly requires it.

  She scratches the spot on her belly. No question it’s worse this morning. Earlier she checked in the hand mirror and saw a definite ring of red encircling the mole. No use pretending there isn’t somethinggoing on there, but she is more determined than ever not to let Ned know. If he had a clue, he’d have her at Doc’s before she could say Jack Robinson.

  We’ve got the future to consider, Rosie, he’d say, thinking about that day in Florida when they wouldn’t have to shovel snow or pay state taxes.

  Rose doesn’t care about the future. All the future she had died with Todd. She knows that when a loved one dies, people say things like “a part of me died, too,” but a real part of her died in that crash with Todd: The part that goes on to tomorrow. The invisible cord that stretches out like a stream through time, linking one generation to the next. In that one encapsulated moment when Jimmy Sommers spun his pickup into the old elm on the corner of High and Church her future was ripped away. And the hard and bitter truth is that there is no way on earth she can ever reclaim it. Of course, this is the last thing on earth that Ned wants to hear.

  You’re holding on to grief, he accused her last year. What else do I have, she asked him. You have me, Rosie, he said. You have us.

  It isn’t enough.

  She carries the Hoover into the dining room and slides the floor attachment wand onto the end of the hose. She is bending over to plug in the cord when a loud banging at the back door makes her jump. She’s pretty sure who it is. Who else could it be, banging like a wild person? She tightens her grip on the cord and closes her eyes, as if this could make the person outside disappear. Two days ago she saw the boy urinating out by the maple tree. Urinating. She can’t be expected to put up with this. At the kitchen door, the urgent knocking persists.

  She stands perfectly still, but beneath her feet she can feel the floor tremble. The shifting of a continental plate.

>   “Mrs. Nelson. Mrs. Nelson.”

  If Rose knew a sign for warding off affliction, she would have made it. Instead, she opens the door. Opal Gates stands there, her face so twisted it is nearly ugly. Her hair sparks out wild. She carries the boy in her arms. His face is pale as flour.

  Rose wants to turn right around, shut the door and hide in the safety of her home.

  “Zack’s hurt,” the girl says. “His arm. I’m afraid it might be broken.”

  The McDonalds’ dog yaps in the distance. Crows pick at the turf by the front walk. Grubs, she thinks, although it is well past the season for them. On the street, a black sedan drives by, slows, circles the cul-de-sac, passes again.

  “I need to get him to the emergency room. Will you drive us?”

  “I—” It has been five years since she has so much as touched a steering wheel. “I don’t have a car.”

  “We’ll take mine.”

  Rose steps back.

  “Please. There is no one else I can ask.”

  Ned, Rose thinks. I need Ned.

  The morning of the accident, Ned was there faster than she would have thought possible. John Denton came to the house to inform her of the accident, and when he took one look at her, he phoned right over to the garage. Ned took over, shoring her up, driving them to Mercy, speeding the entire way although all she could think was that he should drive—must drive—faster. In the end all that reckless speed proved futile.

  I can’t. “I don’t drive,” she manages.

  “I’ll drive. You hold Zack and point the way.” The girl doesn’t wait for more argument. Still carrying the boy, she lopes across their yard to her car, sending the crows flying.

  “Don’t run,” Rose says. “It will jar his arm.”

  The car floor is a mess, just thick with Coke cans and fast food wrappers and Lord knows what else. Rose uses her toe to nudge them aside. As Opal transfers the boy to her, she braces herself. Even so, the familiar weight of a small body against her stomach catches her off guard. Before she can steel herself, a knife blade of something distantly akin to pleasure catches her. She tightens her mouth, stiffens her arms.