Everybody's Daughter

by Marsha Qualey

  They poured blood-red paint over their bodies and on the snow. On the fence they hung a large sign saying NUCLEAR WASTE WASTES LIVES. While Sandra’s companions chained themselves to the fence, she returned to the car. Her instructions were simple: connect the two wires that dangled from the steering column and enter a three-digit code on the small console taped under the dash. She did this, then locked the car and joined her sister and her friend. Just as the guard approached, Sandra chained herself to the fence.

  The guard was irritated but civil. He had seen many protesters before. He wandered over to the car.

  “Now this isn’t a good idea,” he said. “There are people inside the plant who are almost done working for the day, and they’ll want to leave and go home. So why don’t we just move this car and get on with business? You don’t want to stay out long in this cold, anyway.”

  Sandra looked into the distance. A quarter-mile away, a freight train was coming into view, a low, dark snake crawling over the snow-covered grassland. She could feel the ground shake slightly as it grew closer. She turned to the guard. “We’ll stay as long as we want to stay. There’s a bomb in the car. It will go off if you start or tow the car.”

  The guard peered inside. He tested the door, shaking the handle. “Bombs are a little extreme for you people, aren’t they?”

  “We are doing what we must do,” said Sandra.

  “So will we. Ladies, we will get a locksmith and open the car. We will get a bomb expert and defuse the bomb. We will get a hacksaw and cut you loose from the fence. We will get a deputy and put you in jail.”

  “That will take time.”

  “And that’s all you want—time for the television crews to get here from Minneapolis and put you on the evening news. I suppose you called them from the cafe down the road?”

  The women didn’t speak. That was exactly what they had done.

  “You protesters are all alike,” the guard said as he walked away from the car.

  The explosion whipped Sandra and her friends against the fence. Shards and slivers and spikes of glass and metal scraped their faces and ripped at their clothing. When the air was still, Sandra opened her eyes and saw the guard on the ground. He was covered by smoking debris. Sandra saw no movement, no life at all in his body. She went limp in her chains.

  The bomb was a small one, and they had never meant it to be detonated. “A deterrent,” Sandra had called it. “It will deter anyone from ending our protest until we are ready to go.”

  As the medics carried Sandra to the ambulance, she covered her face with her hands and wept.

  *

  The Woodies responded to this crisis as they had to all others: those who were at the store stayed there, and those who were not came when they heard the news. Two things woke Beamer late the next morning, the sun shining through the curtainless windows of her brother’s room and the sound of her mother and Daniel and some others singing in the kitchen. One of you crazies killed someone, Beamer thought, and all you can do is sing.

  She unzipped the sleeping bag, climbed out, and stood for a moment in her T-shirt and underwear, looking at her sleeping brother. “Don’t wake up, little brother,” she whispered. “Big sis is rather indecent right now.” She thought she remembered a Dear Abby column about brothers and sisters sharing bedrooms. Abby had thought it was pretty sick, and asking for trouble. I should dig that up and show it to Mom, Beamer thought as she left the room, moving quickly across the hallway to avoid being spotted by any wandering Woodies. She quickly and quietly dressed in her room—Daryl’s children were still sleeping—then went into the kitchen.

  Beamer nodded and mumbled greetings to everyone, took two of the rolls someone had brought, sipped from the glass of juice her mother handed her, then went downstairs to the store. Peter, Sue, and Jenny were seated by the wood stove. Beamer looked in the back room for her father but only found Maud and Jeffrey waxing their skis. Their ten-year-old daughter, Alissa, was asleep on a pile of coats. Beamer went back into the store.

  “Where’s my dad?” she asked the others.

  Peter rose and refilled everyone’s coffee mug from the pot on top of the stove. “He drove Daryl to St. Cloud. They’re going to post Sandra’s bond as soon as it’s set, then bring her home when they can.” Daryl had squandered his profits from the sale of Woodlands on a sauna and hot-tub business. For all his accounting skills, he had never made a success of it. Beamer didn’t ask, didn’t need to ask, who was providing the money for Sandra’s bond. When it came to their friends in need, her parents’ pocketbook was open and full. It was the sort of thing they liked to do.

  Jenny motioned to Beamer to take an empty seat by the stove. Beamer shook her head and went outside. A wall of cold air hit her. She pulled her turtle-neck up to her chin, stretched her sweater down over her hands, and tucked her hands under her arms. The bright sun reflecting off the snow was blinding. Beamer closed her eyes and leaned against the giant fish. “My house is crawling with people, Wally. There are people in my room, my kitchen, my store. Probably someone is sleeping in the bathtub. And they all want something: a place to go, someone to listen, bail money, food. I could use a bomb myself.”

  Her mother appeared at the door, carrying one of Daryl’s girls. “Bea, you really should put on a jacket when you go outside.”

  “Gee, Mom, do I have one? You mean you haven’t given them all to some needy beggar?”

  “I could use your help now,” Mrs. Flynn said, ignoring her daughter’s comment.

  “With all these people, you need me?”

  “With all these people, I especially need you.”

  Beamer smiled. Her mother seldom exhibited impatience with the people she loved. This was nice. “Tell them to go home.”

  “That’s the problem. They think that’s where they are.”

  During the morning the shop was beset with phone calls, usually from friends who knew of Sandra’s connection to the commune and were calling to hear the latest news. By afternoon, however, the newspaper and television reporters had discovered the connection and begun their siege. The bombing was big news, and the commune in Sandra’s background gave the story flavor. With the appearance of the first reporter at the store, the Woodies called a quick conference to discuss a unified response. Beamer’s mother was chosen as spokesperson for the group, and many reporters—Beamer counted seven at one point—spent a futile afternoon trying to get the others, especially Daryl and Sandra’s daughters, to talk. “Keep those girls away from the reporters,” said Beamer’s mother. “Don’t let anyone with a tape recorder or a notepad come near them.”

  So Beamer and Johnny guarded their charges carefully. After a late-afternoon snack eaten beside a bonfire, the four were resting against a huge snow dune next to the lake when they spotted an unfamiliar woman walking unsteadily through the snow toward them.

  “Look at that, Beamo,” said Johnny. “All this deep snow and she’s got shiny high-heeled boots on.” Beamer and the others lay on their stomachs on top of the dune and watched the woman approach.

  “I like the down vest,” said Beamer. “Fur-trimmed. I hope there aren’t any hunters out today.” She stood. “What do you want?” she called to the woman.

  The woman halted. “Rae Ramone, St. Paul Pioneer Press. The children—I really would like to see the children. You have them, don’t you?”

  “Please go,” Beamer shouted. “Get ready,” she whispered to Johnny. He told the little girls to stay down and handed them each a candy bar. They settled back into the snow and munched happily. Johnny started making snowballs.

  “I won’t be a bother,” said Rae Ramone. “I won’t frighten them. Just for a moment, please.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Then you, how about you? You’re Merry Moonbeam, aren’t you? That’s a marvelous name. You must have a lot to say.” The woman began walking toward them again. Johnny stood next to Beamer and handed her his stocking cap full of snowballs.

  “Please stop,” Beamer
called.

  “This won’t take but a minute,” said Rae Ramone. “And I promise you—”

  The barrage of snowballs began, each one on target. Rae Ramone teetered on her high heels and somehow managed not to fall. When one of Johnny’s shots knocked off her beret she started swearing, a string of crude epithets that Beamer seldom heard, even from the men who frequented the bait shop and fish houses.

  “Listen to that,” Beamer said loudly. “That woman shouldn’t be allowed near children. What a mouth!” Rae Ramone swore again, but kept walking toward them. Beamer smoothed the snowball in her hand until it was hard and icy, then she let it fly. It smacked the reporter’s chest and knocked her over. A heel snapped off her boot as she fell. Beamer sighed. “A little violence now and then does us all good,” she muttered to Johnny. “Let’s go back to the house,” she said to the girls, and they walked silently and quickly past the fallen Rae Ramone.

  Beamer tucked the girls into bed that night and marveled at how quickly they fell asleep. They have absolutely no idea what’s happening, she thought as she watched them shift and turn until they settled into a deep, still sleep. The girls had been told almost everything, but it seemed to have little impact; they regarded their visit to the bait shop as a lovely adventure.

  Beamer brushed back the hair from Kari’s face and pulled the nightgown down over her rump. She zipped up the sleeping bag and repositioned Kari in the center of the cot. Then she turned to tuck in Teresa, who was sleeping in Beamer’s bed. She sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed her hand over the little girl’s head. Beamer leaned against the headboard and closed her eyes.

  Teresa had been the last child born at the commune. Beamer had witnessed Teresa’s birth, had been nine years old when she sat quietly in a corner of a room while her mother, Daryl, and the midwife tended Sandra. Births were common by then, and Teresa’s was no reason for a party. Besides, the Woodies all agreed, it was spring and few people could be spared from work.

  Sandra had pounded on her husband to relieve the pain and Beamer had pushed herself deeper into the corner and covered her eyes. Her mother had finally pulled her away from the wall and displayed the baby. Tired and proud, Mrs. Flynn said, “Here’s our new girl!”

  Beamer looked at the wet, messy newborn. “She’s not ours. She doesn’t belong to us. She’s theirs.”

  “Beamer!” Her mother’s voice was sharp.

  Beamer looked at Sandra. Sandra nodded and winked.

  Now the little girl shifted and pushed a bare leg free of the covers. Beamer opened her eyes, blinking away the memory. As she straightened the covers, she studied Teresa’s face and saw Sandra’s. “Oh, you are your mother’s daughter,” murmured Beamer.

  Sandra had been the first outsider to join Woodlands. Only nineteen years old when she arrived, she had already spent three years hitchhiking across the country, surviving by working odd jobs and living in a series of urban communes. She had read about Woodlands in an underground newspaper.

  Though they welcomed her warmly, the Woodies were apprehensive and concerned that any newcomer might unsettle the group’s unity. Finally, after several sessions of group consultation, she was invited to stay.

  Daryl was soon interested, and they were married within a few months. It was the first wedding at the commune, and the Woodies celebrated it with a daylong party which began with the lakefront ceremony. Beamer was the flower girl. As the group of friends waited by the still, clear lake, applauding and cheering, Beamer laid a path of wildflowers before the approaching barefooted couple.

  It was Sandra who urged the Woodies to expand their activities beyond the commune. “You can’t make a difference in the world by hiding in the woods and talking to yourselves,” she chided. “Things can be changed. It will happen, but only if we work at it. We must put our faith into action.”

  The Woodies agreed, but how to do it?

  “Food co-ops are starting up everywhere,” she said, “and they can’t get good peanut butter.”

  The Woodies pounced eagerly on Sandra’s suggestion. Yes, they said, we’ll import peanuts and make and sell natural, healthful peanut butter. A service to co-ops! Let’s put our faith into action!

  The business was successful, but for the newly inspired Woodies, it wasn’t enough. They rolled on: Build a greenhouse! Grow and sell chemical-free plants to shops and markets! Put our faith into action! Open our nursery school to poor children in the area—playmates for Beamer and the others! Put our faith into action!

  Teresa’s leg sprang free again. Beamer replaced the cover. “Faith into action,” she said, picturing the words that, with the opening of the peanut butter business, had been carved in the mantelpiece over the dining hall fireplace. She kissed her fingertips and laid them on Teresa’s brow. “Faith into action,” she repeated. “Well, one of them finally took it too far.” She rose, turned off the light, and left.

  The kitchen was empty. She poured herself a soda, then called Andy. He answered on the first ring.

  “I was wondering if I should call,” he said, “so I’m glad you did.”

  “It’s been crazy out here.”

  “You sound tired.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, get some sleep, and we’ll talk tomorrow.” They said goodnight. Beamer felt cheered and soothed by the thirty-second conversation.

  She went downstairs. Her mother was sitting by the stove in the store, knitting and talking with the few remaining Woodies. She looked up and smiled. “All asleep?”

  Beamer nodded. “They were pretty beat. I’m going to bed now myself.” The Woodies chorused a goodnight. Beamer’s mother just smiled slightly, then mouthed a silent “Thank you.”

  Beamer climbed the stairs. She lay awake for a long time, until she heard the last of the friends leave and her mother go to bed. She pictured her mother calmly knitting, cooking, answering questions throughout the day’s chaos, and she wondered how deep the calm truly was. Then she put it all out of her mind and fell asleep.

  Chapter 4

  Beamer and her brother usually rode the schoolbus. On winter mornings it wasn’t even light when they waited by the highway. For nearly an hour the bus meandered between the scattered hamlets and isolated country homes, collecting children. They stood in groups or alone at the side of the road, some of them already cold and exhausted from walking from their homes to the stop. The winter afternoons were already growing dark when the bus let the last two riders, Beamer and Johnny, out at the store.

  Beamer had long ago discovered that if she tried to study or read on the bus she would get sick, so she spent the time chatting with the people around her—who were younger and less interesting each year—dozing, or staring out the window. Twice a day, five days a week, nine months of the year. She knew the route well. Beamer was now the only high school student on the bus. The others had either started driving themselves or had dropped out of school.

  Beamer had once begged to drive. “It can’t be because you don’t trust my driving. You let me drive on some of my dates with Andy.”

  “That’s only fair,” said her mother. “There’s no reason why he should always have to come out here to pick you up.”

  “Well, why not to school?”

  “Why waste gas when the bus goes anyway?” said her mother. “Besides, winter driving is no joke.”

  “Forty miles a day?” said her father. “Forty miles of burning fuel and spitting out carbon monoxide just for your personal convenience? I’m surprised, Beamer, that you even ask.”

  Beamer had begged only once. When decisions were made in her family, they were assumed to be final.

  The addition of Daryl’s children changed everything.

  “You can take the car this week,” said her mother on Monday morning. “Teresa and Kari have never taken the bus to school, and that’s the last thing they need to cope with now. Can you imagine—Sandra used to drive them every day, and the bus went right past their door?”

  “Imagine that,”
said Beamer.

  Her mother handed her the car keys. “They’re yours for the next five days. But lose them, dent the car, run out of gas, or pick up any hitchhikers during the week, and you die. By my hands.”

  Beamer deposited the girls and Johnny at their school, then drove to the high school. It was a new, sprawling, one-story building on the edge of town. She parked, shouldered her backpack, and jogged across the slushy parking lot. When she walked into the airy atrium-commons, she was besieged by friends, acquaintances, strangers, and one or two sworn enemies. She had almost forgotten she was news.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said repeatedly. The first warning bell rang and the crowd thinned. Beamer trotted across the commons, then sprinted down a long hall. Andy and a few friends were leaning against the wall by her locker.

  “Good morning,” Andy said, kissing her lightly on the lips.

  “Oh my God,” said Sarah, “I don’t believe it. His lips touched hers.”

  “He must have forgotten his vows,” said Tyler.

  “Saint Andrew is a mere mortal,” said Wendy. “I’ve always suspected as much.”

  During the first week of school Andy had said in a senior seminar on personal relationships that he thought waiting for marriage to have sex wasn’t such a bad idea. The statement had quickly become school myth, and because of the ensuing teasing Andy had long since regretted his words.

  Beamer threw a sharp look at Sarah. She could almost feel Andy’s tension, and she knew he was having murderous thoughts about narrow-minded North Woods idiots. The second warning bell rang, and the others left. “I want to hear the whole bomb story at lunch,” said Sarah over her shoulder.

  “Softball game,” said Beamer. “Besides, haven’t you read the papers? It’s all there.” She waved to her friends as they moved away, then turned and reached into her locker. Andy stroked her back as she leaned over.