Make Believe

by Joanna Scott

  That so?

  Jenny had said the father was Kamon Gilbert, but Jenny said a lot of things.

  That so?

  She sure did. She’d open her mouth and out would come a curse, a foul exaggeration, a lie, an expression of contempt — at least that was Eddie’s experience back in the days when Jenny was still part of the family. She’d said a lot of things she didn’t mean. She sure did. Eddie had stopped trusting Jenny long before she stood in the kitchen and announced in a voice loud enough to be heard all the way across the lake that she hated Eddie Gantz, she hated him, she hated him!

  She’d said a lot of things she didn’t mean.

  She loved Mike, she loved Randy, she loved Tom, she loved Bruce, she loved Kamon. She’d been right about this: Marge and Eddie just didn’t understand her.

  How could a nice girl…? Marge wanted to believe that someone had killed Jenny. Eddie never spoke of his suspicion: that Jenny had killed herself.

  That so?

  Marge and Eddie had an obligation to bring their grandson back into the family, to raise him as one of their own, to provide for him, to teach him their values and secure for him a reasonable indemnity to make up for medical negligence. They were late in admitting their responsibility, guilty of their own brand of negligence, but they could make up for it, counter remorse with nurturing, and help the child to get past his early unhappy years.

  With the possibility of astonishing success speeding far ahead of him, Eddie pressed his foot on the pedal in an effort to catch up.

  As stipulated in Article 17 of the Surrogate Court Procedure Act, this Court is authorized to appoint a guardian of the person and/or property of an infant, and whether or not a written instrument of designation regarding custody exists, a petition for appointment of a guardian may be made by any person, including the child if he or she is over fourteen years old. The Act requires the court to consider whether the child, a person nominated to be the guardian of the child, or the petitioner is the subject of an indicated report filed with the statewide register of child abuse and maltreatment. The Act also states that letters of guardianship may not be issued to an infant, an incompetent, a felon, a non-domiciliary alien except in certain cases, and anyone else who is ineligible in the Court’s discretion.

  In the absence in the case before us of nomination by will, nomination by deed, or appointment, and given the limited anecdotal evidence permissible and lack of any non-testamentary document signed during the mother’s life, also taking into consideration the material support provided by the litigants for the first three years of the child’s life, the Court awards the deed of guardianship to Declarant I named in the Petition, one Marjory Gantz, also identified as the child’s natural grandmother, designating the Declarant the child’s standby guardian….

  This is what the judge would rule, or something along those lines, according to the optimistic lawyers, Paul Krull and Wilson Krull, who assured Marge that she had clear-cut rights to her grandson, despite the fact that the child did not know her, she’d only seen him once, asleep in a hospital bed, and she had willingly signed the form to release him to the Gilberts. The truth of the matter was, Marjory Gantz was the mother of the mother of the child and so could give him the love he deserved. Material proof was the money she’d sent Jenny, thirty thousand dollars total, unbeknownst to Eddie at the time, though now that he knew about the money he agreed that it was strong evidence of Marge’s maternal devotion. Meaning that in no time at all Marge would have the powers and responsibilities of a parent regarding her ward’s support, care, and education, she would take reasonable care of her ward’s property, and she would maintain sufficient contact with her ward to know of his capacities, his limitations, his needs, his opportunities, and his health.

  Meaning that there was shopping to be done, rooms to arrange, new toys to buy and old toys to be taken from boxes in the attic, pediatricians to call, appointments to schedule, luncheons to cancel, and much, much more.

  Marge stretched flat the pleats of the bedroom curtains to examine the cloth for dust, decided that instead of washing them she’d leave them up and in the spring buy new, cheerier curtains. Same with the wallpaper — tumbling roses wouldn’t suit a growing boy. The rug, a powder-blue soft pile, would last for a good long while, along with the bureau, a four-drawer unit high enough so that the boy wouldn’t be able to reach the metal frames that held photos of his mother: Jenny as a baby, Jenny on a tricycle, Jenny missing her front teeth, and Jenny at sixteen wearing a cardboard die for Halloween. That was the Halloween Jenny had staggered into the house at two A.M. in nothing but her leotards and a black turtleneck, having thrown her costume into Hadley Lake, she’d reported to Marge with an odd, hiccupping laugh, the laugh of a drunk. That was the Halloween Marge gave up any hope of disciplining Jenny. From then on she could do no more than wait up through the night for Jenny to come home, night after night, until Eddie convinced her that they would serve her better by ordering her to get out of the house and to stay out until she pulled herself back together.

  Jenny had never tried to keep her pregnancy a secret; rather, she’d used it as a wedge, a taunt, a sign of her independence, and though she’d gone ahead and spent the money Marge sent, she never so much as thanked her. But Eddie kept assuring Marge that her prodigal daughter would come around, and she believed him because she wanted to believe him. So she went on waiting for Jenny to provide the opportunity to forgive her, and though it never happened, she couldn’t bring herself to stop waiting.

  Now she was waiting to become the guardian of Jenny’s child. He would sleep in Jenny’s bed someday, or that’s what was supposed to happen; Marge would touch her lips to his forehead and kiss him good night, a scene far less believable to her than the imagined scene of Jenny’s contrition. This child she didn’t know, her own grandson, Kamon Michael Templin. He belonged here, Eddie had insisted, right here, in their home on Hanks Lane. Now it was just a matter of gaining legal guardianship. And as soon as they’d done this, they could commence proceedings on behalf of their ward to seek compensation for medical malpractice, a necessary suit given how the poor child had suffered, though the exact details of the case — what was done, what was said and by whom, the child’s current medical condition, his prognosis, the estimated medical expenses — whatever they’d need to know in order to file a claim against the hospital was not yet known and may never be known. But Marge hardly cared about all that, for what mattered was the flesh-and-blood child, the child in person occupying space in their house, the child, Bo, lying one day soon in Jenny’s place on Jenny’s bed.

  Marge pulled the fitted sheet tight. She’d already thought to put a plastic sheet over the mattress in case the boy was a bed wetter. And she’d found the metal rail in the attic to secure against the bed so the boy wouldn’t roll out during the night. It was the same metal rail she’d used when she’d moved her own children from crib to bed. She had saved many of the children’s clothes as well, their stuffed animals, their pull toys and Wiffle balls and board games, all arranged neatly up in the attic.

  She prided herself on her ability to keep things in order, though she had no illusions about her limit. Jenny’s death had been beyond the limit, and Marge would have fallen apart completely if it hadn’t been for Eddie.

  What would I do without you, Eddie?

  But Eddie Gantz didn’t like anyone to feel beholden to him, so Marge kept her gratitude to herself. She trusted Eddie as if he had no private self, as if he were always on display, like a mannequin behind glass, always reliably there, without secrets, solid and unchanging, inspiring Marge to pull herself back together with his own example. When she couldn’t do it on her own, he’d stepped in to help, providing for Marge just what she needed most: a child to replace the one she’d lost.

  Marge hadn’t even considered the possibility. That Jenny’s child should be raised by Kamon Gilbert’s parents had seemed right at the time, since the Gilberts had been involved in the child’s life from th
e start. Besides, Marge had lost her common sense when she lost her daughter, and she’d spent her waking hours thinking up nonsense to explain Jenny’s accident, nonsense in hindsight, though at the time it had all seemed logical, beginning with this obvious proposition: Jenny could have been involved with drugs. And if that was true, then Jenny would have known drug dealers. And maybe she hadn’t liked what she’d seen and had made a point of telling someone, who told the dealers, who labeled Jenny a threat and killed her to silence her forever, almost killing Bo along with her. Jenny had been run off the road on a rainy April night, forced by another vehicle to careen into a tree. Such things happened. If such things happened to others, they could have happened to Jenny. Why didn’t the police investigate the matter properly? Because they must have had something they, too, wanted to keep hidden. Drugs, illegal weapons, conspiracy, corruption. What couldn’t happen these days? The unimaginable was possible, and nothing terrible happened accidentally. There was no such thing as an accident — life could not end violently without the propulsion of evil.

  Or such had been the tenor of Marge’s thoughts during the months following Jenny’s death. Crazy thoughts. She might as well have been wishing for Jenny to rise from the dead. But now she had something better than an angel. She had — would have — a flesh-and-blood grandson to raise.

  “I don’t think you should be doing this.” Ann stood in the doorway, her tight-jeaned, stocky figure backlit by the sunlight shining through the hall window. Ann in Jenny’s place, Ann wearing a black sweatshirt that had once belonged to her sister, Ann standing where Jenny once stood when she was sixteen years old and had arrived home at five in the morning to find Marge waiting for her in her room.

  “So would you have him raised by strangers?”

  “They’re not strangers to him. Listen, Marge, I’ve spent time with Bo, I know the kid, I —”

  “Yes, and you will help him to adjust. A familiar face — he’ll need you.”

  “Marge, listen.”

  “I’m no fool. I know your sister hated me.”

  “She didn’t hate —”

  “She would have come around eventually. Forgiven me. Until then … Jenny would have wanted Bo here, at home, her own home. The child belongs with us.”

  “The Gilberts are family to him. They’re all he knows.”

  “Sit here. Come over here, sit. Now tell me: Did your sister ever say to you something like in the event … in the event…? Did she ever indicate her desire regarding —?”

  “She didn’t think she was gonna … oh, come on, Marge. The last thing she was thinking about would be leaving him to someone else. But you just don’t go grab him by the collar and say, You’re coming with us, buddy. He won’t want to stay here.”

  “Of course he won’t. He’ll have to get used to us, over time, and with your help. He’ll be fine, Ann, soon as he stops and takes a good look at us, at you and me. He’ll see his mother in us. The blood in his veins — that’s our blood. My only regret is that I did not take him in at once. Such indifference … well, there’s cause for condemnation. I’m to be blamed, I offer myself for blame, for your hard judgment, but not because I’m bringing home my flesh-and-blood grandson. You may blame me for waiting so long to do it.”

  “I don’t blame you, Marge, and to tell the truth, I want Bo here as much as you do. I can’t say whether or not Jenny would have wanted it. But the kid won’t want it. He’s better off where he is, with the family he knows. Family, Marge, flesh and blood. Kamon was his father.”

  “How can you be so sure? Jenny did a lot of things we never knew about. And now she’s left her boy behind for us to raise.”

  “Whatever. You can think whatever. But promise me this, Marge. If he doesn’t want to stay, you won’t keep him here.”

  “He won’t want to stay, you’ve said so yourself. Our job will be to convince him —”

  “Over time, okay, but think of him, I don’t know, think of him like, like, like a cutting from one of your rosebushes, you know, transplanted, and if he doesn’t take, if we’re not right for him, then we bring him back, okay? Okay, Marge?”

  “Yes, if he doesn’t take. But we must give him time.”

  “Enough time, but not so much that, you know what I mean? Now let me give you a hand with the bed.”

  Sorrow had made Ann kinder. She would grow kinder still with the arrival of her sister’s child. Ann, with her cropped hair dyed ink black, her square face, purple lipstick fattening her lips, her boxy arms and legs — yes, she was calmer than she’d been before Jenny’s death, more attentive, less eager to move out, less available to the boys who tried to lure her away. When Ann wasn’t in school she hung around the house and stayed close enough to Marge to keep her within hearing, reminding Marge of both her daughters when they were small, the way they used to clutch her skirt or sleeve, the way they’d follow her with their eyes, fearful of losing sight of her and therefore losing her forever.

  Although in this way she hadn’t changed: whenever the phone rang, as it did when Ann was tucking the crease of the bedspread underneath the pillow, she’d dash for it.

  Leaving Marge to smooth the spread flat while she thought about how some night soon she’d be smoothing it over the warm mound of a child. The rise of the bony knees. The soft belly. The eyes searching her face. Here in this room, the room with a sloped ceiling and a single window looking over the backyard, the room where Marge could still hear, if she listened carefully, and if the rest of the house were completely silent, the sound of Jenny humming. Residue of life, the sound of a voice still hanging in the air, sensation lingering on, still real enough, apprehensible — such was the power of memory.

  See how it can be done: the indentation of Jenny’s head recreated in her pillow, the scent clinging to Tiny Monkey, pieces missing from a puzzle, the plaster showing through where she’d peeled back the wallpaper, rocks in a shoe box, Ann waking up from a late nap crying, the kitchen door snapping back into place and Tony calling, “I’m home!” and still the dishes from lunch had to be washed and oh how Marge’s chest ached from bronchitis and she couldn’t stop thinking about the magazine article, the one written by a mother about the death of her young child from leukemia, the photograph of the smiling girl and words like courage, fortitude, and hope strewn messily about. See how it’s done: sinking onto the bed, lying in the place where your daughter used to sleep, feeling the warmth she left behind seep through the sheets and the bedspread and your blouse, feeling yourself sinking — Jenny! — sinking — Jenny, come clean up your room! — sinking happily because you knew you were the luckiest woman in the whole wide world.

  Oh, but what kind of luck was she remembering? Fisherman’s luck, lady luck, a stroke of luck, good luck, a lucky streak, a lucky break, collector’s luck, happenstance, or fortune? Was it new luck or luck that had been previously overlooked, the force of cunning, scorned luck, luck dispensed by a divinity, shared luck, impossible luck? Was it luck that can be invoked with a rabbit’s foot or luck that springs from the shards of a broken mirror?

  Maybe it was the kind of luck understood as the given condition of things. Maybe Marge’s idea of luck could best be compared to a large body of water that defines and sustains the land — an ocean dotted with islands, the water invisible behind the horizon, a place where storms are born, where chance is spun into experience.

  Luck is not something that can stand in for faith, and Marge wouldn’t have pretended otherwise. But later that day, when she was stepping out onto the dock shared by all the houses along the lane, having come for no other reason than to gaze at the gray water and consider the vital changes about to occur in her life, she made a dangerous mistake: she’d taken a single rock from the old shoe box full of rocks, a dull piece of shale, a perfect wishing stone, and instead of keeping it to give to her grandson she wished aloud that he would learn to love her, and she tossed the stone into the lake.

  And to think what we’ve done for this boy all his life long, m
aking sure he had everything he needed, watching out for him from the get-go, Jenny on the birthing table cursing Kamon, our Kamon, while a nurse held one leg and I held the other and said, Give your lungs a rest, girl, save your strength. I was there. Where was her own mama? Sitting at the hairdresser, I bet you, having her hair dyed pinky blond, happy to forget she had a daughter who was having a child of her own, a no-good daughter who couldn’t keep her hands out of the pants of no-good black boys, and look where she landed, in a hospital room up in the city with black ladies on either side holding her legs apart while she howled, hating our Kamon because he wasn’t there, hating him with all her might because he was already dead and she was lit up inside, burning out of control, hating him, damning him to hell, not knowing what she was saying and forgetting it soon as her son slid out, slippery as a kitten still in its sack, and there she is loving both Kamons like her life depended on it, crying because she’d lost one and gained another, while I’m trying to get used to the fact that the baby’s not his daddy all over again, not fat and red and bellowing like Kamon had been when he came out of me, not bright-eyed, no, Kamon Junior was scrawny, color of a lemon, and he wouldn’t open his eyes for three days, wouldn’t even take his mama’s titty in his mouth right away, like he didn’t much care for things as he found them, reminding me of you, Sam, when I got to wake you early for one reason or another, you in your drowsy mood, too tired to care about anything except being tired. But just like you, Sam, our second Kamon bided time for a while, gathered his strength while he grew brown and one day announced to the world, HERE I AM AND I’M GLAD OF IT! rattling Jenny with his roar, those gums clamping like he was trying to suck the blood from her along with her sweet milk. And that’s just like you, I got to say, so strong in your wanting, chock-full of happiness when you get it and taking for granted the getting, like every barbecue potato chip had been made exclusively for you.”