Keeping Lucy (ARC)

by T. Greenwood

  “For Lucy. I think she has worms,” she said, mortified.

  Thankfully, Marsha was a nurse, unflappable, apparently even when it came to parasites. She simply nodded and reached for a little terra-cotta pot on her windowsill. “Add some thyme,” she said and grabbed a bulb of garlic from a little wooden bowl. “And garlic. If that doesn’t work, apple cider vinegar is a good remedy. But she really should see a doctor, Gin. Can you take her to Peyton’s pediatrician?”

  Ginny knew Marsha was right, but the logistics of all of this baffled her. Getting Lucy to a doctor meant getting Lucy home, getting her added to their insurance policy, making an appointment. Meanwhile, there were worms in the poor little thing’s digestive system. What she needed was immediate relief. She prayed this home remedy would do the trick.

  Ginny crushed the garlic and tore the thyme into bits, mixing it with the castor oil. She filled a spoon with the mix and attempted to feed it to Lucy, who was sitting on the floor, playing with an empty pot and a wooden spoon that Marsha had given her. Lucy resisted, of course, shaking her head and refusing to part her lips, but Ginny scooped her up, held her tightly.

  “You need to take this, sweetheart,” she said softly. “I promise it will make your tummy feel so much better.”

  “Maybe we can mix it with something?” Marsha reached into her freezer. “What about ice cream?”

  Lucy initially rejected the spoonful, but as soon as the sweet concoction met her lips, she began to nod. She lapped it up and then lurched forward as if she wanted more.

  Ginny complied, though without the medicine this time, and Lucy ate and ate until the ice cream was gone. There was melted ice cream in a ring around her mouth, her little pink tongue still sticking out. She clapped her hands together, smiling widely, and Ginny noted that her front teeth were badly decayed. She’d need to see a dentist as well as a doctor, Ginny thought. Thankfully, these were just her baby teeth.

  “Hey!” Peyton said. He’d wandered into the kitchen, tearing himself away from the TV. “Can I have some ice cream?”

  “Oh, honey,” Ginny said. “This was the last bite. And look, Aunt Marsha’s making spaghetti.”

  Peyton’s lip began to quiver, but he didn’t give in to his tears.

  “I’ll go get some more ice cream after supper, okay?” Marsha said. “Whatever flavor you want.”

  Peyton scowled and sat at the counter, arms crossed.

  As Marsha assembled the pasta and jar of sauce, Ginny realized that she was, indeed, starving. Other than a doughnut that morning, she hadn’t eaten anything all day, though truthfully, she was surprised she had any appetite at all given everything she’d seen that day.

  They sat together at Marsha’s kitchen island, eating. Lucy couldn’t hold a fork or feed herself, so Ginny cut the pasta into pieces and fed it to her as though she were an infant still.

  Afterward, she got the kids settled onto the couch in front of the TV and returned to the kitchen, where Marsha was finishing up the dishes.

  “Can I use your phone to call Ab? I’ll call collect,” Ginny said.

  Marsha shook her head. “Just call directly. It’s on me,” she said. “I’ll go to the market around the corner and grab that ice cream for Pey.”

  Ginny recalled her plan to lay out the facts first. Then make the appeal. She knew she first had to confess that she’d gone to see Lucy. He’d be angry, of course, that she’d lied about what she was doing in Amherst. But once he knew that the reporters had been right, that everything in that exposé had been 100 percent true, he’d have no choice but to bring her home. If he knew the horrifying evidence of the school’s neglect, there was no way he would insist that Lucy stay there. Even if she couldn’t bring her home right away, certainly there had to be better institutions, better schools where they could enroll her.

  She also had to believe that once he saw her, actually saw Lucy and held her in his arms, there would be no way he could do anything but love her. Suddenly it felt simple, easy even. She went from feeling hopeless to hopeful in a matter of seconds.

  The phone cord was long and stretched nearly the length of the tiny apartment. Ginny dialed and then walked all the way down to the end of the hall, where she sat on the floor with her back against the wall.

  She glanced at her watch. It was nearly six o’clock, though in the life of an aspiring attorney the end of the workday, the end of a workweek, signaled little more than a possible break for a vending machine sandwich or a fortifying cup of coffee. She hoped to catch him when he had at least a minute to hear her out.

  As the phone rang, she recited her pitch in her head. She expected Sissy to answer and was startled when her husband’s voice greeted her.

  “Ab?” Her own voice suddenly sounded like it belonged to someone else.

  “Hey, Gin, oh, my God, I’m so glad you called. But listen, I am swamped here, can I give you a call right back? I want to be able to talk, but my father dumped a whole bunch of stuff on my lap, and I am drowning . . . give me an hour and I promise I’ll be all ears . . .”

  “No,” she said firmly, surprising herself.

  Silence. Then, “No?”

  “No. I need you to hear me out. Now.”

  She heard papers rustle, but nothing else on the other end of the line. Not even the typical exasperated sigh she’d grown accustomed to lately. He was listening, at least. She had his attention. “Okay?”

  “I went to Willowridge today,” she said, feeling as though she were floating away from her body. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But I needed to see for myself.”

  Still nothing on the other end. She could hear a clock in Marsha’s hallway ticking.

  “Did you . . .” he asked finally, softly, “ . . . did you see her?”

  Ginny’s chin began to tremble and tears welled up hotly in her eyes. She needed to keep it together, though. She took a breath.

  “Everything they said is true, Ab. Every single thing in that article; you wouldn’t believe what I saw. The neglect. She’s been sitting in her own waste. She has some sort of parasite. Her teeth are rotten. She needs to see a dentist, a doctor. They didn’t even know anything about a heart condition. There was nothing in her record. I think it was a mistake. And if not, then nobody is monitoring it.”

  She continued, Pandora’s box opened, all those wicked things flying out now. Escaped and dangerous.

  “Gin,” he said.

  “Please, just listen,” she said, summoning every bit of courage she had. “She’s safe with me now. I signed her out . . .”

  “You did what?” he said, the softness in his voice replaced by disbelief.

  “I’m supposed to take her back on Monday. But you need to figure something out before then. We can’t make her go back there. Those parents? The ones who’ve filed suit? They’re just trying to protect their children. I can’t just sit by; we can’t just let this happen. Not to our daughter, and not to anyone else’s child. We have plenty of money to take care of her, and with Peyton in school, I will have time to care for her . . .” Her plea came in a rush, and then she waited for his response, but he said nothing.

  “Ab? You can’t possibly think we should leave her there. Now that we know it’s as bad as the paper says?”

  “Oh, Ginny, you don’t understand,” he said. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “I understand completely. I saw it with my own eyes. What they are allowing to happen to those children, those human beings, is criminal. Even if she weren’t our daughter, even if . . .” Frustration and fury were like fire in her shoulder, in her hand as she gripped the telephone. “Please, ask your father to talk to his friend. The mental health commissioner, you said? Tell him that it’s all true, everything that reporter said. He can do something. He has to do something.”

  “Gin, it’s . . . my father. The firm . . .” His voice grew weak, and then there was nothing but silence. She thought for a moment he’d hung up on her when he finally spoke again. “We’re representing
the school.”

  She felt as if someone had just punched her in the throat.

  “What?”

  “In the class-action suit. We’re defending Willowridge.”

  She felt dizzy, trying to put together exactly what he was saying. The firm, his firm, was the defense team in this lawsuit? They were fighting against the parents who simply wanted a safe place for their children? It was absurd. Unfathomable.

  Ginny felt faint and was glad she was already sitting. Her heart was thrumming in her chest, banging against her ribs like someone trying to break down a locked door.

  “Ginny?” he said, but his voice trailed off as she lowered the phone from her ear. His voice grew farther and farther away. She stood up and made her way back to the kitchen, where she clicked the handset down, cutting off the call.

  “You okay?” Marsha asked as she came in the front door, clutching a half gallon of Rocky Road.

  Ginny looked at Lucy sitting, eyes bright, mesmerized by the TV.

  “What happened?” Marsha said. “What did he say?”

  She shook her head; she couldn’t articulate anything she was feeling. The betrayal was like a bomb had gone off, her body buzzing in the aftermath.

  “What did Ab say?” Marsha said. “Are you taking her home?

  She only knew she was never taking Lucy back to that place. And that now, she couldn’t take her home, either.

  Twelve

  September 1971

  Ginny called her mother after getting Peyton settled into bed. As always, he fell asleep quickly and easily after only a few moments. She had put Lucy into the second bedroom, where Ginny planned to sleep with her that night, before returning to the telephone.

  “Mama, I need to tell you what happened today. At the school . . .” she started. She hoped that her mother would have some advice. Shirley, while not always the warmest woman, was logical. Reasonable and rational to a fault. If Ginny could count on anything, it was this.

  She relayed the conversation with Ab, explained the awful predicament she was in. She told her about Lucy, and her mother listened, withholding her thoughts. At least for the moment.

  “I know you don’t have room for all three of us. We’ll stay at Marsha’s,” she offered, anticipating her mother’s concerns about how she might accommodate them all. “For the weekend anyway. I’ll need to go back to the school on Monday to get her discharged.” She had no idea what that would entail, how complicated it would be to get her released from the school. Without Ab’s help, she imagined, it might not be as simple as a phone call saying they no longer needed the school’s services.

  She’d need to get her to a doctor, of course. A dentist. She thought about asking her mother if her pediatrician, the boisterous and friendly Dr. Rogers, who had seen her through childhood bouts of measles and mumps and various and sundry poxes, still made house calls.

  But after that, she had no idea what she should do. Pray that Ab came to his senses? She tried to imagine what he would he do if she just returned home with their daughter. Would he really turn them away? Imagining that scenario made her stomach turn.

  She had hoped, quietly anyway, that her mother might offer her a solution. She was nothing if not pragmatic.

  “Ginny,” her mother said, her tone somber.

  “Yeah, Mama?”

  “Ab called here about an hour ago.”

  Ginny’s heart flew to her throat. She knew he would come around. That he would see how crazy this was. Defending the school that had allowed their own daughter to suffer this sort of neglect was unconscionable. The heaviness in her chest lightened, and for the first time since she’d spoken to him she felt like she could breathe.

  “He said to tell you he’ll be here in the morning,” her mother said.

  Tears filled her eyes. He was coming. To see Lucy. To fix this awful mess. How could she have doubted him?

  “He and his father,” her mother added.

  “What?”

  “His father. They’re coming tomorrow to pick you up and to bring the baby back to Willowridge.”

  “No,” Ginny said, shaking her head slowly. Like Peyton at the beginning of a temper tantrum, she felt the hissing rage, the seething, steaming anger rising to the surface. “What did you tell him? What did you say?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, and for a moment Ginny worried the connection had been cut.

  “I told him maybe he should talk to his wife about this first.”

  “And?”

  “And he said he and his father would be here by ten tomorrow.”

  “What do I do, Mama?”

  “You want my honest opinion?”

  “Of course,” Ginny said, though she knew exactly what her mother would say before she said it.

  “I think you should go home. These are powerful people, Ginny. And he’s your husband. Peyton’s father. He loves you, but this is serious. Take the baby back to the school. Go home.”

  Ginny felt sick, swallowing past the aching, swollen lump in her throat.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do that, Mama.”

  Thirteen

  February 1964

  Ginny should have known it would be a disaster.

  But Ab had pleaded with Ginny to come home with him over the long holiday weekend that February. He wanted her to meet his mother and father. “They’ll love you as much as I do,” he said. “Please?”

  She finally agreed, but as she got dressed that morning, she worried over every detail. Ab had told her not to change a thing, to wear what she would normally wear. Assured her that they would love her even if she arrived in a potato sack. She thought a potato sack might be better than her worn woolen skirts and moth-eaten sweaters. Her pearl necklace was made of paste, and every pair of stockings had at least one snag and run, tracks stopped only by sticky globs of nail polish.

  “You look stunning,” he said as he rushed to open the car door for her.

  The drive to Dover normally took only a couple of hours, but she’d had to stop to pee three times, the skirt, a size too small, squeezing at her bladder. By the time they pulled up the long drive to the house, she felt like she might burst.

  The house. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It was twilight, but she could still see make out the grand Colonial with a hundred shuttered windows and two large columns flanking the doorway. It could have been Gatsby’s house. It could have been Tara in Gone with the Wind. Each window glowed with the warmth of light, chandeliers glittering through the glass.

  Ginny sat staring through the passenger window, gaping at the architectural wonder before her, for at least a minute before Ab nudged her gently and said, “It’ll be fine.”

  “Come in, Mr. Abbott,” the housekeeper, Rosa, said, ushering them in.

  “Rosey Posey!” Ab said, squeezing the small woman, kissing her cheek with a loud smack.

  Rosa gently cuffed the back of his head. “You’re late. Your mother is having a, how you always say, conniption?”

  “Yes! A conniption fit. The best kind. Which way to the gallows?” he asked and winked.

  “I no understand gallows. Missus is in the kitchen.”

  Mrs. Richardson was fussing over a glass bowl, plump shrimp clinging to the side like children at the edge of a swimming pool. She was just as beautiful as Ginny had pictured her. She was at least five or ten years younger than her own mother, with shiny black hair streaked with one silver strand at her temple. She looked like an older Anne Bancroft. Wide-set brown eyes and a square jaw. Clearly, Ab had gotten his good looks from his mother.

  “I ordered these shelled and deveined,” she said accusingly, looking quickly up from the platter to Ab.

  “Mother,” Ab said, squeezing Ginny’s hand. “I want you to meet Virginia.”

  Virginia. No one in the whole world called her Virginia except for her dentist.

  “Call me Ginny!” she said, thrusting her hand out as Mrs. Richardson finally looked up.

  But Mrs. Richar
dson did not accept her handshake, as her own hands had just been worrying over the, apparently, fully veined shrimp.

  “Sorry,” Mrs. Richardson said, gesturing with her chin to her hands. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Virginia.”

  Ginny slowly lowered her hand to her side and tugged at her skirt, which suddenly felt not only too tight but too short as well.

  “Your father was supposed to be here. To meet your girl,” she said. At this, Ginny’s heart fluttered a bit. “But he’s stuck at the office. Virginia, don’t ever marry a lawyer. You’ll spend your whole life alone.”

  Ginny’s mouth twitched. She didn’t know whether Mrs. Richardson was teasing or dead serious.

  “Why don’t you have Rosa show Virginia where she’ll be sleeping,” Mrs. Richardson said to Ab. To Ginny, she said, “And you can freshen up before dinner.”

  Rosa led her to a dormered bedroom at the top of the stairs. The walls were a slate blue, and there were two twin beds with identical red-and-blue plaid spreads. Two matching desks faced the windows, though there was no paraphernalia to indicate recent usage. Unlike the rest of the house, the wooden floors here were scuffed and scratched. It struck her that this had likely been Ab’s childhood room, perhaps the one he shared with his brother, Paul, before he passed, though why two boys would share a room in a house with so many bedrooms (six or seven was Ginny’s guess) was beyond her. Marsha and her sisters had shared a room growing up, purely out of necessity, but given a choice (and amenable real estate), they would gladly have separated.

  Ginny looked at the closed door, listened for any sounds of life outside, and, hearing none, tiptoed to the closet, turning the glass knob carefully in her hand. The door opened with a slow groan and she winced, furtively glancing back at the door.

  She didn’t know what she was expecting. Ab’s dead brother’s clothing, still hanging from the rod? A baseball uniform still smudged with grass and dirt? Or maybe banker’s boxes filled with all the history of his life, filed by year?

  The closet was empty. Just a half dozen wire hangers, some with the paper dressings of the dry cleaner, Lewandos, still affixed. The shelf above the rack was empty, save for a stack of extra blankets. The floor was clear as well; not even a neglected dust bunny huddled in the corner. Not a bit of evidence of the room’s former inhabitants. Not a scrap of proof that two boys once shared this space, maybe even searched the sky through that window looking for constellations. Something about this weighed heavy on her, a sorrow more profound than if the room had been preserved, their childhood entombed inside.