The Seventh Mother

by Sherri Wood Emmons

  Then I rose, hung my beautiful new nightgown in the closet, and pulled on a pair of sweats.

  By the time Brannon returned with Jenny, I’d cut the cheesecake into slices and topped each with a strawberry and a drizzle of chocolate.

  Jenny burst through the door and flew at me, throwing her arms around my expanding waist.

  “I can’t believe we’re gonna have a girl! I knew it! I knew it was a girl! Aren’t you happy, Emma?”

  And I was. Standing in my kitchen with Jenny’s arms around me and my baby safe in my womb, I was happy for the first time since Brannon had come home that night.

  I looked over her head to see him standing in the doorway, watching us. He winked and smiled at me, then mouthed, “I love you.”

  I smiled back at him, kissed Jenny’s forehead, and we sat down at the kitchen table to eat dessert.

  41

  Jenny

  “You should tell Emma.”

  Lashaundra’s eyes were wide and worried.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t. I mean, she’s pregnant and everything. I don’t want to worry her.”

  We sat on Lashaundra’s bed, the driver’s licenses from the check box spread out like a fan on the blanket between us. Emma had some errands to run, she’d said. I think she was out buying baby clothes, baby girl clothes. So I had come home with Lashaundra after school again. Down the hall, I could hear cartoons blaring from the television in the living room. Malcolm loved Curious George, and he loved to watch it with the sound up loud.

  I took a drink of my soda. Lashaundra just kept staring at me.

  “Seriously, Jenny, you have to tell Emma. I mean, what if your dad . . .”

  Her words trailed off, but her eyes never left my face.

  “My dad loves Emma,” I said. “He would never hurt her. Honest, Lashaundra, my dad would never hurt anyone.”

  “Then why does he have Jackie’s driver’s license in a box?” she asked. “Why does he have all of these?” She nodded toward the plastic squares on her bed. “Where did he get them?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t have any answers for her.

  “I don’t know,” I said finally. “But I’m sure there’s a reason why he has them.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . . I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they were expired or something. Maybe he was just keeping them in case . . .”

  I shrugged. In case of what? Even I knew that wasn’t an answer.

  I stood up and shook my head again hard.

  Lashaundra stood and took my hands in hers, holding them tightly.

  “Look, Jenny. You have to tell Emma, you know you do,” she said again. “Or we can tell my mom and dad.”

  “No! You can’t tell your parents. Promise, Lashaundra! Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

  She said nothing for a minute, just looking at me. Then she sat back down on the bed and picked up her laptop.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Googling Jackie,” she said. “Maybe we can find out where she is or . . . or something.”

  She held Jackie’s driver’s license in one hand and typed with the other.

  Jackie Marlin, Birmingham, Alabama.

  We waited while a list loaded, but none of the items was about the Jackie I knew.

  I drew a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed.

  Lashaundra just picked up another driver’s license and began typing again.

  Cara Montgomery, Knoxville, Tennessee.

  “Look!” Lashaundra pointed to an entry on the screen that read, Missing adults in Tennessee.

  She clicked on the link and began scrolling through the profiles there.

  “That’s her!”

  I recognized her as soon as I saw her.

  I stared at the picture of Cara, smiling brightly into the camera, wearing a blue sundress and long, dangly silver earrings. I remembered those earrings.

  “Missing since 2010,” Lashaundra read.

  “That’s when she lived with us,” I said softly.

  My stomach lurched, just looking at her picture. Cara had been so nice to me, and she was a really good cook. She made the best fettuccine Alfredo I’d ever had. And she always made garlic bread to go with it.

  Lashaundra stared at me hard for a minute. Then she began typing again.

  Briana Simpson, Erie, Pennsylvania.

  Several items came up this time. At the top was a newspaper article from the Erie Times-News. She clicked on the link and we both stared at the screen.

  LOCAL WOMAN’S REMAINS IDENTIFIED

  ERIE, PA—Police in Erie confirmed yesterday that the unidentified remains of a woman found near Dallas, Texas, on February 7 are those of a missing local woman, Briana Simpson.

  The remains found in Cedar Hill State Park, about 10 miles southwest of Dallas, were sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification for DNA analysis.

  An investigation into Simpson’s death is ongoing.

  The Erie woman had been missing since December 2007. Her mother, Linda Simpson, became a regular on local news programs in the years after her daughter’s disappearance. She made several pleas in the media for information on Briana’s whereabouts.

  Nia Michaels, a spokesperson for the Simpson family, told reporters today, “We are just heartsick about Briana’s death. We’ve always held out hope that someday she would come home to us.”

  Friends held a candlelight vigil outside the Simpson home last night, many holding signs with Briana’s picture and the words, “We will not forget you!”

  “It’s just so terrible,” said Candace Reynolds, a high school friend of Briana’s. “She was a wonderful person. I can’t believe she’s really gone.”

  I stared at the photo onscreen of a smiling, young blond woman. I hadn’t seen Briana since I was five years old, but I remembered her now. She’d had a guitar and a beautiful voice, and she sang me to sleep at night in the trailer when Daddy was at work.

  “Jenny?”

  Lashaundra was staring at me now, her eyes round.

  “Are you okay?”

  I wasn’t okay. I was shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm and feeling like I might throw up.

  I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes tight, remembering Jackie and Cara and Briana and Ami and Trish.

  “What about Trish?” I said, sitting up and shaking my head. “Look for her.”

  Trish Alexander, Topeka, Kansas, Lashaundra typed.

  Nothing came up on the screen. I sighed with relief.

  “I guess no one is looking for her,” Lashaundra whispered.

  “I have to go!”

  I stood and started grabbing the driver’s licenses from the bed, shoving them into my backpack.

  “Hey, wait!” Lashaundra said. “Don’t you want to look up the others?”

  “No. I just want to go home.”

  “Jenny, wait. You have to tell Emma now. You know that, right?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I pulled my jacket on and ran from the room.

  “It everything okay?” Mrs. Johnson called from the kitchen as I ran through the living room.

  “I have to go home,” I yelled.

  I slammed the door behind me and ran through the parking lot of the apartment complex.

  Don’t think! Don’t think! Don’t think!

  I repeated it to myself with every step pounding onto the sidewalk.

  By the time I got home, I was out of breath and sweating, but I felt really cold.

  Emma wasn’t home and the front door was locked, so I went around to the back of the house and pulled the spare key from under the doormat. I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and then locked the door again behind me.

  I stood in the kitchen for a long time, just trying to feel my feet underneath me. Then I sank into a chair, staring blankly at the yellow painted walls, the ceramic canisters on the counter, the little chalkboard stuck on the refrigerator. Emma kept a
running grocery list on it. Just then, it read: bread, tomatoes, toothpaste, onion powder, laundry soap, basil.

  There. That was my world. That was normal. That was real.

  Emma’s grocery list on the fridge in our kitchen, where we all lived together, that’s what was real. Me and Daddy and Emma were a real family, just like I’d always wanted. We were a real family and we lived in a real house and I went to a real school, just like I’d always dreamed about. Daddy loved Emma and he loved me. And Emma loved me. Emma was having a baby, a baby girl. I would be a big sister soon. That’s what was real.

  I breathed in and out deeply, again and again, just staring at the grocery list.

  “This is real,” I said out loud. “This is our house, our kitchen. Emma and Daddy and me . . . that’s what’s real.”

  I closed my eyes and rested my head in my hands on the table. It would be okay. Everything was fine.

  Then Briana’s face floated before my closed eyes. And Cara’s. And Jackie’s. And Ami’s. And Trish’s.

  They had been real, too. Each of them had been part of my family, at least for a while. And now . . . where were they?

  Briana was dead.

  That was real.

  I opened my eyes and stared hard at the refrigerator, but not even Emma’s grocery list could erase the article Lashaundra had found online.

  Briana was dead. Cara was missing. And Jackie and Trish and Ami and . . . what was the other woman’s name? What had happened to them?

  I reached into my backpack and pulled out the driver’s licenses, looking at one after another.

  Laura—that was her name, the one I couldn’t remember. Laura Parker.

  I stared at the photo on the driver’s license, but no memories came to me. The date on the license was 2005. I was just two then, and my mother was still alive.

  My mother . . . a wave of nausea swept over me, and I barely made it into the bathroom before I threw up in the toilet.

  My mother died when I was three.

  That’s what Daddy had told me, anyway. She died of the flu. We lived in Greenfield, Indiana, in an apartment with a field out back where she painted beautiful pictures of a tree.

  Except . . . except the letter from her mother, from Imogene Wright in Indianapolis, Indiana, had been addressed to Mrs. Hailey Bohner on Pippin Road in Cincinnati.

  Daddy had never said anything about us living in Cincinnati.

  I stood and walked unsteadily back into the kitchen. I stared hard at the driver’s licenses on the table, each of them a mute scream inside my head. I grabbed a knife and tape, dragged a chair into the hallway and stood on it, pulled the cord that released the attic door, and climbed the ladder.

  I opened the big box first and dug through Daddy’s clothes to pull out the smaller box with the lockets and letters. I resealed the box and turned to the one I’d opened first, the one I’d found the photo album in. I cut the tape and pulled out the folder with the letters from the adoption agency. I looked through some other folders, but didn’t see anything interesting. So I resealed that box, too.

  I opened box after box, but they were filled with clothes and other things, nothing I was interested in. I sealed each one after I’d opened it. When I had looked through all the boxes, I took the things I’d pulled out—the box with the lockets and the adoption file—and I climbed back down the ladder. I put the knife and tape away, closed the door to the attic, and dragged the chair back into the kitchen. Then I sat down to wait for Emma.

  I had no idea what I would say to her, but I knew I had to show her what I’d found. Maybe she would have some explanation for it all. Maybe Daddy had told her all about the adoption stuff and the driver’s licenses. Maybe . . . but probably not.

  When I heard Emma’s key in the door, I stood and then sat back down immediately. My legs were shaking so hard they wouldn’t even hold me up.

  “Hey!” she said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were at Lashaundra’s.”

  “I came home,” I said.

  “Well, you’ve got to see what I bought!”

  She opened a bag and began pulling baby clothes out, little ruffled dresses and a bonnet and some sleepers.

  “Aren’t they adorable? I know I probably spent too much, but I . . .”

  She stopped and stared at me.

  “Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

  “I’ve been in the attic,” I said. “And I found some things you should see.”

  “Jenny! You promised me you wouldn’t go up there again. Your dad will be furious!”

  “Emma, wait. Just look at this.”

  I opened the small box and pulled out the lockets, all tangled together.

  “What are those?”

  She sat down at the table and took them from me. I watched as her eyes widened and her face grew pale as she read the inscriptions. When she finally looked up at me, I saw tears in her eyes.

  “He got the same locket for all of these women? The same one he got me?”

  I nodded.

  “There’s more.”

  I pointed to the driver’s licenses laid out on the table.

  Emma’s hand was shaking when she picked them up. Her face paled even more.

  I handed her the envelope with the letters then. She didn’t say anything, just took them and began reading.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”

  Tears dripped onto the letter my mother had started to my grandmother.

  “Lashaundra and I Googled those women,” I said, fighting back my own tears. “Cara is listed as a missing person. And . . . and Briana is dead. They found her body in Texas. That’s where we were when she lived with us.”

  Emma stared at me, her mouth open. She began crying harder, dropping her head into her hands. Her shoulders shook and a low moan rose.

  I rose and walked around the table, and draped my arms around her.

  “What should we do?” I asked.

  She raised her head and looked at me.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said, her voice shaking. “We have to get out of here now, before your dad gets home.”

  She rose and steadied herself against the table.

  “It’s four fifteen,” she said, looking at the clock. “Brannon won’t be home for a couple hours. We’ll pack some clothes and go . . . somewhere. Oh God, Jenny. Oh my God, where will we go?”

  “We could go to the Johnsons’,” I said.

  “No.” She shook her head. “He’d find us there. We have to go someplace he can’t find us, until . . . until we figure out what to do.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight.

  “You go pack a suitcase,” she said. “Bring some clothes and your laptop, and whatever else you need.”

  I stood staring at her stupidly.

  “Hurry!” she yelled. “Do it now!”

  I ran to my room and pulled my suitcase from the closet. I shoved clothes into it, then my toothbrush and toothpaste. I pulled the photo album from the drawer and put it in the suitcase. Finally, I stuffed Bugsy Bear in it and closed it.

  I dragged the suitcase into the kitchen. Emma was on the phone.

  “Yes,” I heard her say. “And we have to go now, before he gets home.”

  Who was she talking to?

  “Okay, thanks. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  She hung up and turned to me.

  “Do you have everything you need?”

  I nodded.

  “Good girl,” she said. “Give me five minutes to pack my stuff.”

  She disappeared into her bedroom, the one she shared with Daddy.

  I sat down at the table and stared at the grocery list on the refrigerator. This house, this family, my school . . . all of them were gone now.

  Emma reappeared with her duffel bag and backpack.

  She laid a note on the kitchen table. It read:

  Brannon,<
br />
  I just got a phone call from my sister, Clarissa. She ran away from her husband in Arizona. She’s in Atlanta and I’m driving down there to get her. I’m taking Jenny with me. We’ll be back tomorrow or the day after.

  I’m sorry I didn’t get to tell you before we left. Don’t worry about us. I’ll call you later tonight.

  I love you,

  Emma

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  We carried our things to the car, got in, and Emma pulled out of the driveway.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “First, to Shirley Rigby’s.”

  I stared at her.

  “Why are we going there?”

  “Shirley left her husband once, and she went to a place not too far away, a convent where the nuns live. They let her stay and were very kind to her. She’s calling them to ask if we can stay there, and I have to get the directions from her.”

  A convent? We were going to a convent to stay with nuns?

  “It will be all right,” she said, turning to look at me. “We’ll be all right. Don’t worry, Jenny, you’re safe with me.”

  When we got to the Rigbys’ house, Mrs. Rigby was waiting on the front porch. She ran across the lawn and hugged Emma tight when she got out of the car.

  “I talked with Sister Frances, and they’re expecting you,” she said. “Here’s the map; I’ve marked the route for you.”

  “Thank you, Shirley. You’re a good friend.”

  “You call me when you get there and let me know you’re okay.”

  “We will.”

  Emma turned to get back into the car and Mrs. Rigby caught her by the arm.

  “Wait,” she said, reaching into the pocket of her sweater. “Take this.”

  She shoved a handful of cash into Emma’s hand.

  “Oh, Shirley, I can’t take that.”

  “You take it! You take it and go now, and be safe.”

  Emma hugged her again and got back into the car. She was crying now, and so was Mrs. Rigby.

  “God bless you!” Mrs. Rigby called as we pulled away from the curb. “Be safe!”

  42

  Emma

  I handed Jenny the map Shirley had marked for me.

  “Can you read a map?” I asked.