“Oh God, Shirley, I’m so sorry.”
“I wanted to leave,” she said. “I even started packing up my suitcases. But Della started to cry, and I had to sit down and rock her a bit. And I realized then, I already had two babies, and I didn’t know where I could go that he wouldn’t find me. Besides, I didn’t think I could support myself, let alone the kids. I never had a job, you know. I didn’t even finish high school. And Damon made good money.”
She sighed. “I stayed because I couldn’t figure out how to leave.”
“Where are your children now?” I asked.
“Well, Jasper is still at home. You met him. He’s in the seventh grade. And he misses his daddy something awful. I don’t know what to do about that. Of all my kids, Jasper was Damon’s favorite. And even though he was hard on Jasper sometimes, Jasper really did love his daddy.”
She paused and blew her nose into a napkin. Then she took a deep breath and plowed ahead.
“My Lucy is a senior up at the high school. She’s already applied to college at the University of Kentucky. I’m sure she’ll get in. Lucy is my smart one.
“And then Della, well, she lives up in Cincinnati. She doesn’t come home very often. She didn’t even come for her daddy’s funeral. She’s mad at him still, I guess. He was plenty hard on her. She inherited Damon’s stubborn streak, so she caught it a lot. And she’s pretty mad at me for staying with him.”
“What does she do?” I asked.
“She works in a day-care center. Della loves the little ones. She’s married and got three of her own. They’re six, four, and two. She’s a good mama, Della is.”
“She must have learned that from you,” I said, smiling at her. She just looked so beaten down and anxious.
“Lord knows I wasn’t a good mama,” she said. “If I’d had some sense in me, I’d have taken the kids and run a long time ago.”
She took another deep breath.
“Lucas, he’s my fourth, he’s in Louisville. He’s a plumber and he’s got two kids. And Maryanne and Julie live in Florida. They share an apartment in Jacksonville. They don’t come home much, either. But I did get to go down to see them once, a couple years back. They live a block from the beach, so they’re happy.”
She sighed. “I did the best I could to protect them, but I guess I didn’t do a very good job.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “You were a victim, too.”
“But I was their mama. My job was to protect them.”
“Maybe things will get better, now that Damon’s gone?”
She nodded. “I hope so. I miss my girls something awful.”
She sipped her coffee and swiped her hand across her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to complain. A lot of folks got it worse than me.”
“So,” I said, smiling at her. “What are you going to do now?”
She smiled back. “I’m not sure. I’ve got enough money to stay in the house till I die, if I want to. Damon was a good provider, I’ll say that for him. And I don’t want to move Jasper away from his friends, especially now. I was thinking I might try to get a job, just to have something to do, someplace to go, you know?”
I nodded.
“What kind of job?” I asked.
“Lord God almighty, there’s the problem.” She smiled but her cheeks reddened again. “I got no skills at all. I can’t type or use the computer. I don’t know who’d hire me.”
“Shirley Rigby!” Resa’s voice made us both jump.
“Don’t you let me hear you go on about having no skills,” she said, slamming her hand down on the table. “You got lots of skills. You can sew. You can cook. You do the prettiest flower arrangements anyone ever saw. What you do with those flowers at the church every Sunday, that’s surely a gift from God himself. I bet Rosie O’Hearn would hire you at the flower shop, if you asked her.”
“Do you really think so?” Shirley looked startled.
“Honey, Rosie is always talking about what a gift you got with the flowers. You call her up, and I guarantee you she’ll give you a job.”
Shirley smiled. “I wish I had your gumption, Resa. I always envied you that.”
“Well, it’s never too late to grow a spine,” Resa said firmly. “With Damon gone, you can do what you want to now. Why, you could even go back to your church, the one you grew up in.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Shirley’s voice wavered. “Damon would have a fit!”
“But Damon ain’t here, is he?” Resa asked. She poured more decaf into my cup. “Damon don’t get a vote no more.”
Shirley sat quietly for a long minute.
“Do you really think I could just go back?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
“I know you can.” Resa smiled and put a hand on Shirley’s shoulder. “You can do whatever you want now, honey. Ain’t nothing holding you back anymore.”
“Order’s up!” Harlan’s voice called from the kitchen.
“Hold your horses!” Resa hollered back. She winked at me and smiled.
“It would be something to go to Mass again.” Shirley’s eyes were fixed firmly on Resa’s back. “I haven’t been in more than twenty-five years. I expect a lot has changed since then.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” I said.
She smiled at me.
“I’m glad I called you,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”
“I’m glad, too,” I said. “It’s nice to have a friend.”
35
Jenny
As soon as I got home from school every day, I ran to my bedroom to check the drawer and make sure the photo album was still there. Most days I sat in class half wondering if I’d just dreamed it up, conjured it out of thin air. Maybe it wasn’t real at all.
But there it lay, safely tucked beneath my sweaters. I wondered if I should tell Daddy about it. In fact, I had almost decided during algebra that day that I should give it to him. It was his, after all. And I shouldn’t have been snooping through his things. I knew that, too.
But then I thought about all the times I had asked him about my mother, all the times he could have told me about her, all the times he’d lied about not having any pictures. By the end of that class, I had changed my mind. If he discovered the album was missing from the box, then he could just ask me about it. In the meantime, I could hardly wait to get home and look at the pictures again.
“Do you have any homework?”
Emma stood in the doorway, her hand on her lower back. She looked tired. She always looked tired anymore.
“Um, not very much,” I said, shoving the photo album back into the drawer. “Just some algebra problems.”
“Well, I can’t help you with those,” she said, laughing. “God knows, I’m math-impaired. If you need help, your dad can help you after dinner.”
“What are we having?” I asked.
“Beef Stroganoff with noodles and creamed peas,” she said.
“Do you need any help?”
“No, sweetheart, I’m good. You get started on your homework.”
I heard her banging pans around in the kitchen. I didn’t want to look at the photo album there in my room. What if she walked in again?
“Emma?” I called. “I forgot I have some English homework, too. I have to read a couple chapters in my book.”
“Okay,” she called back. “What are you reading?”
“Bridge to Terabithia,” I yelled back.
It’s true, that’s what we were reading in class. But I had finished the entire book the week before.
“I never heard of that.” Emma appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Is it good?”
“Yeah, it’s good,” I said. “I really like it.”
“That’s good.” She smiled.
“I think I’m going to read up in the attic again. Is that okay?”
She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows.
“Are you sure? Last time you were up there
it set off your allergies.”
“I’m sure. It’s a good place to read. Quiet and . . . well, it’s really quiet.”
“All right then.”
She pulled the cord to bring the ladder down and disappeared back into the kitchen.
As soon as she was gone, I pulled the photo album from the drawer, grabbed the blanket and pillow from my futon, and climbed into the attic.
For a while I just paged through the album again, staring at the pictures of my mother. She looked so young. I had never asked Daddy how old she was when she had me. Or how old she was when she died. She looked like she was just a kid herself, holding me in the rocking chair. Hailey. Her name was Hailey. . . . Hailey what?
I stared hard at a picture of her sitting at a picnic table in what looked like a park. I sat in a car seat on the table in front of her. She was holding my toes. She was my mother. And I didn’t know her middle name. I didn’t even know what her last name was before she got married to my dad.
I stared hard at the box where I’d found the photo album. I knew I wasn’t supposed to go through the boxes in the attic. Daddy had been pretty clear about that. In fact, he’d told me several times to stay out of them.
But maybe there were more pictures in that box, maybe even something with my mother’s name—her last name, her full name. She had to be more than just Hailey. And she was my mother. I had a right to know her name, didn’t I?
I pulled the box open and stared down into it. Then I picked up the folder that lay on top of the stack and opened it. Income tax returns from last year . . . boring. I set the folder aside and opened the next and then the next one. More tax stuff, something from an insurance company, the title to the trailer. I sighed. Maybe there was nothing interesting in there, after all.
Then I found a big brown envelope addressed to Daddy. I opened it, and pulled out a stack of papers. At the top of the first page I read, St. Elizabeth/Coleman Pregnancy & Adoption Services. What was this?
I sat down in my blanket nest and squinted to read the small type on the first page.
Dear Mr. Bohner,
Thank you for your inquiry regarding your birth sister, Jennifer Adele Bohner. Our records indicate that she was adopted in 1992. According to state law at that time, the adoption records were sealed, so we cannot give you any more information about her. What we can do is put a letter from you into her file here, where it will remain in the event that she wants to find out more about her birth family.
I am sorry we cannot be of more help to you. I understand that you were separated in the foster care system, and that you want to locate your sister. But she was only four years old when she was adopted, and she may have no memory of her early years. Be assured that she was placed into a stable home, with qualified, loving parents.
If you wish to include a letter in her file, please forward it to me at this address.
Sincerely,
Kendra Parkinson
I stared at the letter for a long time. Jennifer Adele Bohner . . . that was my name. And that was Daddy’s sister’s name? Daddy had a sister? Why hadn’t he ever told me about her? And foster care. I knew he’d been in foster care after his mom was killed. I heard him tell Emma about it once, although he’d never talked about it to me. But he’d never even mentioned a sister . . . a sister with the same name as me. My head ached from all the questions I couldn’t answer.
I looked through the rest of the papers in the envelope, but all of them were from before the letter I’d already read—Daddy’s first letter to St. Elizabeth’s, which got returned because it had the wrong address. His next letter and a reply saying there was a fee to do a search for Jennifer Adele Bohner. Then another letter with a photocopy of a check stub from a bank in Alabama. That’s where we lived with Trish. Did Trish know that Daddy had a sister? Was I the only one who didn’t know? Did Emma know?
I shoved the papers back into the envelope and stood up, feeling sick and kind of dizzy. What else was in the box? What else did I not know about my mother, and my father, and the aunt I’d never even heard of? I reached into the box for another folder, but Emma called from downstairs.
“Hey, Jenny? Can you come down here and help me with something?”
I sighed and returned the envelope with the adoption papers to the box, then patted the tape down. Of course, it wouldn’t stick. I’d pulled it apart too often. I would have to get some tape and redo it, once I was done looking through the stuff inside.
Emma stood in the kitchen. Her face was so pale I could see all of her freckles more clearly than ever. She smiled weakly.
“Would you please open the fridge and get me the ground beef, butter, an onion, the mushrooms, and the sour cream. Wait!” she yelled as I reached for the refrigerator door. “Wait till I’m in the other room, please.”
She ran out of the kitchen, holding her nose. I stared after her, wondering why she couldn’t open the fridge on her own. Then I pulled out the things she needed and set them on the counter. When I had closed the fridge door, I called to her.
“Okay, they’re out.”
She walked cautiously back into the kitchen, still holding her nose. Finally, she took a sniff, gagged, and ran to the bathroom. I could hear her throwing up in the toilet.
“Are you okay?” I called.
After a couple minutes, I heard the toilet flush and Emma walked unsteadily back into the kitchen.
“I guess the morning sickness has finally kicked in,” she said. She smiled a little and sat down at the table. “Could you pour me a glass of water, please?”
I poured the water and set it before her.
“But it’s not even morning,” I said.
“I know.” She took a tiny sip of her water and grimaced. “I guess my body doesn’t know that. I was fine until I opened the refrigerator. The smell set me off. God! I don’t know what that smell is. I never smelled it before. But it’s awful.”
“I didn’t smell anything,” I said. I rose and started to open the refrigerator to smell again.
“Don’t!” Emma’s voice froze me.
“Please don’t,” she repeated more softly. “I think it’s because I’m pregnant. I read that pregnant women are hypersensitive to smells and taste. I guess the fridge is going to be a problem for me.”
She rose, her hand on the table to steady herself, then abruptly sat back down.
“Okay,” I said, hands on my hips. “You tell me what to do, and I’ll cook the Stroganoff.”
She smiled. “Thank you, honey. That would be a big help.”
That’s how I had the first of many cooking lessons. Over the next couple months, Emma dictated from the kitchen table or sometimes from the living room, while I constructed our meals.
“I honestly don’t know what I would have done without her,” she told Daddy that night. “I guess we’d have been eating out.”
“You did a great job, Jenny.” Daddy smiled at me.
I tried to smile back, but it felt fake, even to me. I kept thinking about the photo album, the letters from the adoption agency, the aunt with my name.
Thankfully, Daddy didn’t seem to notice if I seemed different. He was worrying over Emma, coaxing her to eat some peas, drink some milk, take one more bite of Stroganoff. After we’d eaten, he rose and pulled Emma to her feet.
“Off to bed, you,” he said firmly.
“I’m okay,” she said, but her voice was tired.
“No, you’re not,” he insisted. “You go to bed. Jenny and I will clean up the kitchen.”
She protested a couple more times before finally trudging off to bed.
“Okay, kiddo,” Daddy said. “Let’s get the dishes done, and then you can start on your algebra.”
Daddy washed the dishes while I dried and stacked them.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I guess I’m kind of tired, too.”
“How’s school?”
“Okay.”
It was quiet after that
, the first time I ever remember that I couldn’t think of anything to talk about with Daddy.
Actually, I had plenty I wanted to talk about, lots and lots of things I wanted to ask him. But I couldn’t do it. One time I even opened my mouth, but no words came out.
Finally, I dried the skillet, put it in the cupboard, and yawned.
“I think I’m going to do my algebra in my room,” I said.
“Do you need any help?” He smiled at me, the familiar smile I’d known all my life.
“No,” I said. “I’m good.”
I kissed his cheek and returned to my room, closing the door behind me. I could have used his help on a couple of the problems, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. It felt almost like I was afraid, like if I asked him about an algebra problem then I’d blurt out questions about my mother, my aunt, the photos. And then he’d know that I’d been in the boxes. And maybe he’d move them out of the house, and I’d never get the chance to look through them all.
Maybe he’d get really mad at me. Or worse, maybe he’d get really mad at Emma for letting me go into the attic.
So I stayed in my room and did the best I could on my homework. When I’d finished, I opened the drawer and pulled out the photo I had removed earlier from the album, the one of my mother holding me in the rocking chair. I put it under my pillow, turned out the light, and squeezed my eyes shut. But it was a long time before I finally fell asleep.
36
Emma
“You look like hell.” Resa tilted her head to look at me. “Are you okay?”
“The morning sickness has finally kicked in,” I said. “I’m okay, just really tired.”
“Kind of late, isn’t it? You’re almost three months now, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “I guess I’m a late bloomer.”
“Well, what the hell are you doing here?” she asked, shaking her head at me. “Why aren’t you at home on the couch with your feet up watching soaps?”
“We need the money,” I said, staring down at my belly, which was just beginning to pooch out. “I’m going to need some maternity clothes pretty soon. Plus, I think I’ll feel better if I keep busy. It seems like just when I lay down to rest, that’s when it gets worse.”
The Seventh Mother Page 19
