by Alex Behr
Cookie ripped it off. Molly’s striped dress was pulled over her knees. Bo-peep and the little sheep circled the base of a bedroom lamp. Molly had her fingers in her mouth. The light bulb was missing, exposing the socket. Molly had shocked herself. “It felt like hot pokes,” she said.
Cookie looked at the apple juice spilled on the rug, covering older stains.
How could she bring another daughter to this life? Maybe between loans from Bud and her mother she could get enough money to fix up her apartment and make it suitable for Gretchen, whose toes were so long and elegant, even at two days old.
She took Molly to the kitchen, checking for anything she might eat for dinner. She found ice cream, which would appease her daughter during the farewell.
Bud sat at his desk, transcribing a tape. His hair was thinning and gray, and his socks looked dirty sticking out from his sandals. “Can I bring you some food?” Cookie asked. “You don’t have any vegetables.”
That night, at the First Mothers’ meeting, Cookie gripped a coffee cup in the ceramics room that smelled of damp clay and glaze. Next door, she could hear square dancers doing the do-si-do. She let the coffee cool while women introduced themselves, some knitting, others staring with pinched eyes. They urged her to post to their website and donate to candidates who supported adoption rights. The circle they made with their metal chairs reminded her of being in Sunday school, trying to feel God’s presence from Bible songs and prune juice, only they were channeling their missing children.
Someone asked what she did for a living. “I’m a medical transcriber,” she said. Her job description stopped most conversations. Cookie was surprised that a lot of the women went on to have more children. She told them about the social worker who had helped her after the adoption, and why she had moved north from Berkeley to Portland—to get away from the hospital and everything associated with it.
The woman in charge of the meeting handed out a list of books and movies that people in the adoption world should avoid, like the children’s book Are You My Mother? Cookie rolled her eyes, as if a child would read about a lost, confused baby bird and be traumatized, as if that were all it took.
When Cookie was twelve, a robin had built a nest in a crook of a butterfly bush, its branches low and thick. The nest was made of packed dirt and branches, with strands of green plastic webbing hanging down. A cat climbed the branch and the robin flew to the fence. Did the bird watch? Cookie didn’t know.
The cat knocked the pale-blue egg out of the nest. It cracked open on the grass. The fetus was orange-yellow curled like a crooked finger. Cookie yelled at the cat and chased it away. She picked up the egg, and ooze covering the fetus spread across her palm. She dug a hole in loose dirt near the tree. The cat crept back and sat closely, its tail twitching. Cookie didn’t understand. The cat got fed every day from a can, so why did it have to kill?
The robin abandoned the nest because it was compromised. Cookie planned revenge. Before she could act, however, the cat ran away. She knocked on neighbors’ doors and put up flyers for her mom’s sake. For weeks, she went to the porch and scooped out cat food, imagining the bodies of beakless chickens in cat-food factories, getting chopped by mechanical knives.
Cookie finally saved money to take the Greyhound with Molly from Oregon to Berkeley. Her mother, Anne, still lived there. She seemed concerned for Cookie, that meeting Gretchen would be a bad idea. Gretchen’s parents insisted that Gretchen meet Cookie and Molly alone first, and they would join them later.
Cookie had chosen a restaurant she used to go to with Paul, back when he would follow her anywhere, back when he made her cassette tapes whose covers were inscribed with blood pricked from his thumb. He was too much of a good thing, she had realized. She had left him for Molly’s dad, another mistake.
The café in Berkeley had not changed in twenty years. It had large corner windows, and its deep benches invited long meals. Cookie recognized Gretchen, and she felt out of breath. At thirteen, Gretchen had wavy hair and light-brown skin, more like Paul than anyone in Cookie’s family. She seemed self-assured, wearing lacy, fingerless gloves and large hoop earrings. Cookie hugged her but sat across from Gretchen, unsure of the rules. There were no rules for meeting a teenager who had come out of your womb, who had kicked against your uterine muscles, whose nutrients she had sucked from you, like a parasite.
Molly determined her own rules. She refused to sit by Cookie. She climbed under the table and sat next to Gretchen. Gretchen poured out all the crayons for her to sort.
Cookie ordered cheese blintzes with applesauce for herself and a fried egg for Molly, resisting the impulse to criticize when Molly cut out the yolk and put it on the table. The refills were free, and the more coffee Cookie drank, the more reckless her questions became.
“Is there any secret you’d like to tell me?” she asked.
“I hate my name,” Gretchen said.
“Me, too,” Molly said. Cookie knew that anything this wondrous creature would hate, Molly would hate, too.
“It’s a good name,” Cookie said.
“I think it’s old-fashioned. I want to change it, but I don’t want to hurt my mom’s, I mean, Katie’s, feelings,” Gretchen said. Cookie patted her on the hand, reassuring her.
Molly finished crayoning the kids menu and gave it to Gretchen, calling her “sister.” Cookie let Molly empty packets of Sweet’n Low into her milk to keep her from interrupting or upstaging her.
“What was your childhood like?” Gretchen asked. She sounded polite, as if a therapist had asked her to show an interest.
“I have a secret I never told my own mom,” Cookie said, pausing to gauge Gretchen’s response. “On a dare, I stole a box of brownie mix. When I made it with my friend after school, it was delicious.” Sharing this transgression was like teaching Molly to say “Satan” when she was two, for Halloween. She got bored being a good mom. Gretchen laughed.
“I thought it might taste bad because it wasn’t paid for,” Cookie said. “Maybe it smelled better, I don’t know. But you shouldn’t shoplift. It’s not easy these days. You should be a good girl.” She poured more sugar in her coffee. “Don’t tell my mom that story when you meet her, either. And God knows don’t tell your parents. You can tell my dad, Bud, if you meet him. He’s an anarchist.”
Gretchen got milk on her upper lip, but Cookie didn’t tell her to wipe it off. She lacked the nerve. Gretchen’s phone rang once, and Cookie guessed she felt shy talking to her parents in front of her. She cupped her hand when she said, “I love you,” but Cookie heard.
Cookie asked what Gretchen liked to do. Horses. She liked to ride horses in Lafayette, east of Berkeley, she told her. She liked Taekwondo too. Cookie wanted to look at her feet, to see if they were still long and skinny. She tried to focus on the moment and not collect details for the next First Mothers’ meeting. Apparently, Paul had gotten back in touch with their daughter more than a year ago. He hadn’t forgiven Cookie enough to tell her.
“What should I call you?” Gretchen asked. “My parents said to call you what you want to be called. I don’t care. I have a friend whose mothers are gay. She calls them ‘Mom Denise’ and ‘Mom Lenore.’ It’s cool. Or kids with stepparents. Whatever.”
Cookie blushed. “I don’t know. ‘Frances,’ maybe? That’s my real name.”
“Call her ‘Mom,’” Molly said. “You’re my sister.”
That afternoon they went to Gretchen’s Taekwondo match with Gretchen’s parents. The demonstrations and sparring sessions were held in a high school gym, in areas marked off by tape and plastic chairs for the judges. Cookie didn’t want to like the couple, but Katie, Gretchen’s mom, gave Molly snacks and seemed sweetly spacey, as if she would rather be home making apple crisp. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and pearl earrings. The dad, Jim, wore similar glasses, with that habit of middle-aged, married couples, looking like siblings. He did a crossword puzzle and didn’t ask personal questions. They didn’t bring cameras like the other parent
s. For all anyone knew, Cookie could be a visiting cousin; she was only seventeen years older than Gretchen.
Gretchen took off her shoes for the match. Her feet were slender and her legs looked strong. Cookie didn’t want to feel like a breeder, evaluating her genes. She noticed Gretchen had written a “C” on the inside of her wrist. “The ‘C’ will bring me luck,” Gretchen said. “For ‘Cookie.’”
Cookie figured she would never return to this gym, so she showed Gretchen the tattoo on her stomach, of an octopus she had gotten after Molly was born. Cookie told her random things, seeing what might sink in.
Gretchen had her hair up in a ponytail, a mass of curls. Her belt was tight around her tall, slender body. When the match started she yelled and punched her opponent, a stocky girl with purple hair, who blocked her and punched her in the chest. Cookie stood up, wanting to defend her. Gretchen doubled over, losing more points.
In the next round, Gretchen and the other girl faced each other, balanced on the balls of their feet. Gretchen did a high roundhouse kick. It connected to the other girl’s mouth. The girl cried when the judges gave the match to Gretchen.
She hobbled back to the bleachers. She had a half-moon-shaped indent of the other girl’s teeth on her foot. Katie put ice on it and comforted her. Gretchen suddenly lost her adolescent confidence and seemed like a young girl, in her pain and desire for her mother. Their connection was primal; even Jim seemed excluded. Cookie held Molly between her legs, keeping her out of the way, but Molly relaxed into the maternal prison—her magic prison.
That night at her mom’s house, Cookie lay down with Molly on a futon, which smelled of dust and cats. Molly asked whether they could live with Gretchen, but Cookie said no. They talked about Molly’s birth, from an egg, like baby birds and kittens.
“How many eggs are in you now?” Molly asked.
“Two.”
“Why? I don’t want you to have any babies.”
“I won’t have any babies,” Cookie said. She had gotten her tubes tied after Molly was born, but Molly, of course, didn’t know that.
“Where are the eggs?
“In my uterus.”
“Where is your ‘universe’?” Molly said.
“Under my belly button,” Cookie said.
Molly frowned. “I don’t want you to have any more babies. I already came out of your egg. I want Gretchen.” After Cookie turned on a Mickey Mouse nightlight, Molly pulled up Cookie’s flannel shirt to touch her navel and the octopus tattoo, which stretched over her womb. The black tentacles protected the eggs that grew and dissolved into nothing.
AFTERWORD
In 1976, the spring of fifth grade, near my hometown of Falls Church, VA, a stranger had tied Kenny to a tree. His corpse was found a few days later.
Foot down on bike pedal, then I breathe hard uphill. My hands are lined with black grease. I finally have a ten-speed! Shift gear. Bike freezes. The chain has fallen off again. Goddamn it. Fix chain. Head off. The wind rushes in my ears. I’m twelve. In seventh grade. Most of my body is vague mush except for blood and menstrual cramps.
Construction workers whistling at girls like me on bikes. Drivers honking and whistling at girls like me on bikes. Pants riding up our butts.
Dry eyes. Split lip. Stitches. Scabs. Boils. Snot. Snarled hair. Body odor. Scratches. Coughing. Phlegm.
Autumn. 1977. Seventh grade. Queen Bee, follow me. In this case, Carey Mallon, the instigator, was Queen. She had brown eyes and wore her blonde hair in a bad-girl shag.
At twelve, glasses and all, I inserted myself into a two-girl friendship, with their tacit permission; I wasn’t a threat. I’d left my stuccoed home where people were sorting nails, screws, rivets, and washers into the plastic drawers of a toolbox, or cleaning the gunk out of the vegetable drawer. Our dog lay in the grass with stray gnats for company.
I climbed up to a low branch by the churchyard. The limbs had deep grooves in them. They had no opinions. I wasn’t too removed from the days when I believed the sun could see me. I still believed God could see me; I liked to twist the cord around my large cross from choir.
Carey got bored on the tree so we found a younger boy to torment. We stole Randolph Dunn’s skateboard and skated down Buxton Street. Girls were good at stealing. We slipped blue eyeshadow packets up the sleeves of our polyester jackets; we grabbed 7-Eleven matches to smoke our mother’s cigarettes. We wanted speed and we found it; we liked to sled on snow days with older boys who tried to ram the weaker kids into parked cars. On fall days like this, we skateboarded or rode bikes. We were in an adolescent tribe and wouldn’t leave until we started to date and molder in smaller packets. Then we’d be forced to listen to Dark Side of the Moon for the millionth time with guys who carved pot pipes in shop class. Older teenage boys would soon pull us into their orbit and flatten us. But not yet.
Speeding down tree-lined, gray streets made us hungry, so we made macaroni. It was good. I liked food. All day we ate—creamy macaroni, cake, icing, caramel apples, soda, crackers, squirtable cheese, fried baloney, Pop Tarts. If I could spoon something out of a jar, life was good.
The Smolinski boys and Eric rode on their bikes up to Carey. Eric pinched Carey’s butt! She said, “My butt is swelling.” I feared the boys with pimples would end up being my partner during the Virginia Reel, or animal ones would throw rocks at me again. I knew about sex from reading Rich Man, Poor Man from the library and Penthouse “Forum” letters stolen from friends’ dads and older brothers. Sometimes women rode bikes without wearing underwear. They rode toward dates with a diaphragm stuck up them (though how that piece of throat was supposed to be useful in a vagina still confused me). My cousin punched me in the stomach after I asked him what wet dreams were like. I knew my body. The boils. The smells. The lines on my legs from dragging a rock across my thighs when I was lonely. Wet bathing suits wrinkled my nipples. And now Carey’s butt was swelling—Eric liked it.
The same neighborhood, but dark. Halloween. There were shadows and men in cars who might kidnap me and harm me with long, hairy fingers. I wore my Joan of Arc costume—a robe, tunic, and a cardboard sword and shield. Despite my fears, I joined the horde whose fierceness was brief, hormonal, terminal. New hordes would always take over, and they’d obliterate the ones that came before.
Tom Clinton had a bottle of orange juice and vodka. Kerry Kerrico and Rob Arnold attacked us with shaving cream bottles. Tommy Green broke the glass on a lamp post with his baseball bat, and we threw eggs at parked cars. I took off my Joan of Arc robe because I thought it would get slit by a knife.
I headed home alone for eight long blocks, my bag full, my eyes straining at the bushes, the shadows behind the trees, and the ache of a headlight coming around the corner. How much time did I have till it reached me? Time enough to run to a house. What if the people in that house were bad, too? I didn’t trust anyone.
At the end of fifth grade, in 1976, Kenny had met a man and a boy at a food mart. That’s what I thought. His mother, a single mom, worked at the mall, at the makeup counter of J.C. Penney. Maybe Kenny sat a round plastic table by some trashcans, flipping through a comic book. His bangs fell in his face. The man, a stranger, asked him if he liked bikes. The man bought the boys ice cream. The man’s son was quiet, but seemed nice. They went out to the woods behind the mall. They were going to ride racing bikes. Any boy would do that.
We sat on the Spoffords’ back porch, and I let the relish and ketchup and mustard from my hot dog drip on my fingers for a long time before I licked them off.
Mrs. Spofford told us what had happened. I’d lived in Cambridge, MA, the year Kenny was killed, with my parents and younger sister and brother: another blond boy like Kenny. But now we were back in my hometown.
Girls whispered what happened, too. I heard he was tied up to a tree, raped, and strangled, and the little boy was right there. His name was Billy. He saw everything. Kenny was left in the woods (his death site now paved over for the commercial glitter plunder of Tyson’s II
shopping mall).
The murderer’s name was Arthur Goode. When Arthur took Billy and tried to get yard work from a lady in Falls Church, the woman recognized Billy as the missing boy from the TV news, called the police, and Arthur was arrested.
But maybe Kenny wasn’t picked up at the mall. Maybe he was on a newspaper route and Arthur talked him into taking a bus out to the mall. Serial killer blogs are full of errors. One says Kenny was nine. But we were both eleven. We’d been in kindergarten together, back when I was so shy I barely spoke.
“He was in my class,” Denise said, years later. “He was at Seven Corners, on his bike. The guy who lured him into his van, I think with a puppy? I remember the news when he was found. I was very scared.”
Tom—the kid who’d brought vodka out on that Halloween night—said Kenny was walking to school and either got into Arthur’s car or was abducted. And Kenny was found naked with a belt around his neck and a severed penis in his mouth.
Was that mutilation true?
At the end of fifth grade, Tom and the other kids had passed around a poster-sized card to sign for the family.
Tom said, years later: “He was pretty quiet but was a good kickball player. He always wore a jeans jacket. It could have been any of us.”
Denise remembered, “He was a cute, floppy haired kid. I liked him. Not ‘liking,’ liking.”
Goode was executed on April 15, 1984, for the murder of the first boy he’d killed: a boy from Florida. For his taunting of the parents of the two boys he killed, Goode was the most hated man on Death Row. Even Ted Bundy stole his cookies.
In my hometown, no one talked about Kenny in sixth grade, seventh grade, or any other grade. We talked about him only as adults. The boogieman knew what boys wanted—what we all wanted—speed. Bikes. Woods. And he left us all with fear. We rode our bikes on the fastest routes through town: especially an abandoned railroad line paved over into a bike trail. Before good health infected America, the trail was often empty. We couldn’t see who was around the corner or in the weeds by the polluted creek. Or running out from under the bridge. Or climbing out of a cement drainage pipe.
