Concealed in the Shadows

by Gabrielle Arrowsmith

  “Happy birthday, Sydney,” Merideth greets excitedly. This annoys me. I don’t view my birthday in the same sense that Merideth does. Because I’m eighteen, today is the day that my application for guardianship of my sister can finally be tried. That’s the importance of today. Merideth’s wish shows that even though I’m eighteen, she sees this birthday as my special day, a day that comes just once per year where it’s all about celebrating me. I hope it is a happy birthday. What may be worth celebrating today is not something as futile as adding a year to my age.

  “Where’s Evvie?” I ask, without thanking Merideth or acknowledging her greeting at all. My eyes are scanning the coffee shop for a five-six, fourteen-year-old girl with long, light brown hair with a hard-to-accept splash of lime green. I don’t see her.

  I suppose that’s fine. I’m actually a little bit relieved now that I’m teetering with the decision to attempt escape given scenario four is the judge’s verdict. I waver back and forth, knowing that should she reenter the orphanage today, she could just as easily stay in the orphanage or be adopted by another acceptable person like Merideth. And then what need would there be to risk our lives?

  “She wouldn’t get out of bed this morning when I tried to wake her. I suppose she probably didn’t sleep much. I’m sorry, Sydney.”

  Her apology aims to point out that Evvie chose sleeping, in her house, over coming along this morning where she’d have the chance to see me. I know that Evvie skipped her overnight last week because of her new hairstyle. I suppose Merideth didn’t know the reason, and is now reading way too much into Evvie’s decision not to come again this morning.

  Could she really think that my sister prefers being with her to being with me? The proof for me lies right in the fact that Merideth had to suppose that Evvie did not sleep well last night. I know it for certain. I wish I could sting Merideth with that fact, but Evvie’s direction was very clear: Meri can’t know.

  “It’ll be good for just the two of us to talk, anyway,” Merideth says. Why? Evvie is fourteen years old and very mature for her age. She’s not a child. She knows all the options for today as well as anyone. There’s nothing to keep from her. “Would you like something to drink?” Merideth offers.

  “No thanks. I don’t drink coffee.”

  “What about a smoothie or tea? They have an amazing herbal tea that I think you would really…”

  “I’m not thirsty,” I interrupt. What does she know about me? My stomach muscles are tense and my jaw is equally sore from clenching my teeth. Relax. She didn’t mean anything by it. Maybe I’m reading too much into it as well.

  I definitely feel animosity toward Merideth because she gets to spend every day with my sister, who I rarely get to see. But this isn’t her fault. I should be grateful for all she’s done for Evvie and here I am snapping at her every word. Now I feel bad for being rude, but I’m too stubborn to apologize. Instead, I wait for Merideth to try again, which I know she will.

  “Look, Sydney. I care a lot about Evvie. I do,” she insists when I don’t look up from the sticky coffee stain on the bleach-white table. “I’m hoping for the best for her, which I think is going to be living with you in light of recent events.”

  I’m again insulted that Merideth doesn’t wholly identify Evvie coming to live with me as being unmistakably best for her. I raised her for twelve years of her life to Merideth’s two. How could I not be exactly what is best for her? Then for the same reason that I became angry about her comment, that she hasn’t seen me raise my sister, I let it go. She must only imagine what damage could have come from a small child trying to raise herself and a toddler under the influence, though slight, of a qualified lunatic. She never had the opportunity to see how well I did.

  I reluctantly bring my eyes to meet Merideth’s, and watch perplexedly as a tear slowly leaks from her eye. I revisit her last words. What did she mean by in light of recent events? Clearly I should have been listening to the latter part of her statement rather than allowing myself to be caught up by something not so significant. Could these recent events that Merideth is alluding to explain why Evvie was so upset in her message?

  “You didn’t get my messages, did you?” I did. Three of them, I think. But I didn’t listen to any. Clearly that was a mistake. Merideth reads that I’m clueless and continues, “Sydney,” she sighs, “my sister passed away.”

  Here I am getting angry over Merideth’s every comment while she suffers the loss of the closest person to her. “I’m sorry, Merideth.” This time it’s Merideth who stares absently at the table. “When? I thought she was getting better.”

  “So did the doctors. And then out of nowhere, she went,” she says, shrugging to make it easier on her. “It was just on Wednesday.”

  Suddenly I understand what this means, why Merideth called multiple times to tell me this. “Where will your nieces go?” I ask.

  “That’s what I wanted to tell you, Sydney.” I’m sorry now that I chose not to check those messages. “I am going to adopt Brynn. I’ve already applied for her. My sister’s brother-in-law and his wife are taking Mada, the little one. I had hoped they would adopt both girls, to keep them together and to give more options to Evvie, but with the girls being so young, they would have to give up having a child of their own. I can’t blame them for wanting to hold onto that. I don’t even have enough years left on my account after fostering four kids to keep Brynn until she’s an adult. It sickens me already, but I’ll be forced to give her up to the orphanage when she’s fifteen.”

  That sickens me too. It’s disgusting that anyone with a perfectly good family or guardians should have to live in the orphanage, with the county’s hope that couples or singles will choose to foster instead of having their own children. All to shave a number off the population count.

  It’s absolutely repulsive that Merideth could raise little Brynn so wonderfully, just to turn her over to only God knows what when she’s just a bit older than Evvie. Merideth’s recognition of what can befall a young orphaned girl helps me to make up my mind. With scenarios one and three now out of the picture, I’ll fight like mad to obtain scenario two, full guardianship of Evvie. If it’s denied and scenario four, that my teenage sister goes back to the orphanage, is the delivered verdict, I’ll do anything to get her out, and we’ll run together.

  “I told the girls about you,” Merideth says. She pauses to wait for my attention. “I wanted to inspire them to be brave, so I told them your story, what I know of it.” I don’t think she can know much of it, since I’ve tried to keep many parts even from Evvie. I suppose no secrets will be left undiscovered by the end of the case this afternoon.

  “I’m glad they have you, Merideth,” I tell her. It’s true, but I’m also sick over the limitations to my sister’s options. I hope this conversation comes to a close. I don’t want to be here. I want to leave. I don’t care to where. I just need to be by myself to digest everything and to plan a stronger case. I have to be liked by the judge and seen as a suitable guardian. There is no alternative.

  “Me too. It’s still not easy to see them have to go through this, but I can’t imagine…” she leaves the rest unsaid. I can. I don’t have to imagine. Evvie and I went through it.

  “You’re going to make a great mom.” Guardian, I correct in my head. I’m not going to be Evvie’s mom. It irritates me that she considers Evvie a little girl. She’s not. She just alluded to what Evvie and I have been through. No one stays a child through that. “I’m not talking about being Evvie’s mom,” Merideth continues, seeming to read my thoughts. “I’m sorry to take more of your already small potential family away.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to have any kids,” I tell her. “And you’re not doing it, they are.” Merideth’s face reddens at my boldness and she gives me a disapproving look. I’m not sure whether she’s more troubled by her own tie to where I just moved the conversation, or the fact that she’s hoping to hand Evvie over to my care, and here I am speaking slan
derous words freely. Both probably contribute to her frustration with me.

  “It may seem imperfect at times, but it helps ensure a future for all of us.” At first I thought Merideth was providing the cover that I don’t care to fabricate, but I sense some sincerity in her words.

  “Do you know everything you’re going to say to the judge to campaign for Evvie?” Merideth asks as she pulls her opened and running tablet from her purse and sets it on the shiny table. I wonder how many minutes of inactivity she has set her preferences to allow before her tablet goes to sleep. In Merideth’s world, you just never know when you are going to need it, and God forbid it not be ready that same instant.

  Merideth waits expectantly for me to tell her everything I’ve prepared, every detail that has been floating around in my head the last few days. She acts as if she wants to help me plan but I see through that to her desire to edit my tongue. Merideth does love my sister, and she doesn’t want to see her back in the orphanage any more than I do, but I don’t want Merideth’s help. Evvie’s my sister, and I’m going to handle this myself.

  “I have to think about that, now that my options have changed,” I say carefully. I don’t want Merideth to become sensitive or to somehow feel that she’s caused this predicament by adopting her niece. I may not particularly like her, but I would never want her to feel guilty for making that choice. She has a responsibility to family. I understand that very well.

  “Well, you have a little over an hour,” she says, glancing down at the time on her tablet before returning it to her purse in the same way she found it. “Call me if you need anything. Evvie and I will see you at the courthouse at noon.”

  My eyes lock on the coffee stain on the table again. Meredith lingers for a moment, awaiting an official goodbye, but I don’t offer any, or acknowledge her departure.

  I watch her cross the street and head toward the rail station. When I’m sure she’s not looking back at the translucent windows of the coffee shop, I slide out my tablet. I filter through the contents of my small bag to find my smart pen. I only purchased it a little over a year ago, but already it is an anomaly amongst tablet accessories. Most use speech-to-text technology or perhaps short-text if they want to type to keep their thoughts confidential. For me, there is something therapeutic about placing the pen on the screen and forming letters. I have more success organizing my thoughts this way.

  I also take pride in the fact that I know the proper strokes for writing letters by hand, and can do so quite legibly. Before it became too old to find any longer, I used a tablet pen that intelligently studied my writing strokes to predict the letters, and then the words, that I was writing. It created a font unique to me. Instead, this pen automatically changes my writing into one standard, preset font to make communication more universal. Just what the world needs, more technological monotony and less creative expression.

  My tablet isn’t succeeding in deciphering my markings, which aren’t letters at all, but simple lines, curves, and dots as I try to muster an outline of my plan.

  “Ah! Oh, that’s just great, look what you did!” An overly-made-up woman is turned and yelling at a teenage girl who stands with her back to the lady as she waits in line at the brewer and talks with her friends. She is wearing a large backpack, which I presume to have bumped and upset the woman’s space as she was holding her tall thermos under the brewer to fill.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll get you another one,” the young girl offers, moving her wrist toward the scanner at the side of the brewer.

  “Yeah, well, you should pay for both orders, and atonement for the burn I’m going to have on my arm.” The veins in the woman’s neck are bulging as she exaggeratedly wipes coffee from her arm with a wad of napkins.

  “I’m really, really sorry,” the girl repeats. “I can transfer money to you if you want.”

  “I doubt you’re thirteen, and I don’t have the time to wait for you to explain your carelessness to your parents so they can approve the funds. I guess it’s your lucky day,” the woman snarls.

  “I am thirteen,” the girl states as she bashfully extends her arm, palm side up, toward the fuming woman, “…and my parents don’t have to approve my transactions,” she responds nervously.

  I’m suddenly reminded of an old film that my mom used to watch where a woman teaches her friend how to politely reach for her purse, which then carried credit cards and paper money, but to take too long fussing over finding the money so that the man would offer to pay. There was no such thing happening here. When the girl stretched out her hand, she sincerely intended to offer payment for her accidental bump into the foul woman.

  The woman continues to gripe about the spill as she turns and scans her own wrist for another double serving of coffee.

  No longer in the mood to order their own beverages, the girl and her two friends make their way toward the door, one mocking the woman to her red-cheeked friend, and the other speech-to-texting the ordeal as her new status on her TabFile, the principal social profile linking all tablet users.

  “Don’t check it; it’s just me,” the updater tells her friends as their tablets alert them that a friend within their circle has just updated their status. Through the turquoise glass doors I watch each of them pull out and unfold their tablets anyway, speaking their way through icons as they cross the street. Moments later, they are reading, or listening to, their friends’ update and laughing girlishly.