Keeping Lucy (ARC)

by T. Greenwood

  “God, I hope there aren’t bedbugs,” she said. “Are you itchy?” she asked Marsha. Marsha shook her head.

  “Let me see your back,” she said to Peyton. He bent over and she lifted his pajama shirt, revealing the knobby bones of his spine. His skin was unmarked.

  “It’s my head,” he said.

  “Let me see?”

  He bent his head to her, and she inspected his scalp. It took about two seconds to locate the sesame-seed-size louse. Then another and another.

  “Goddamnit,” she said. “He’s got lice.”

  “Oh, man,” Marsha said, coming over to inspect. “Do you think it’s from the motel?”

  “Let me check Lucy,” she said. She scooped Lucy, just waking up, into her arms and ran her finger gently through her hair. There, beneath her curls, was an infestation; her scalp was riddled with scabs.

  Ginny’s hand flew to her mouth. No wonder she hadn’t wanted Ginny to touch her head. Lucy hadn’t been itching at all, but she’d clearly been hosting this insect party for some time. That place, that awful place had left her infested. Like a piece of meat left out in the sun. She felt suddenly overwhelmed. This was all too much. She wondered why on earth Lucy hadn’t complained. Was she just so accustomed to feeling awful that she didn’t bother to cry?

  Marsha turned away from the window and plopped down next to Peyton. “Well, I saw a barber shop around the corner. We can take Peyton there and just get his head shaved. We could do that to Lucy, too, but she’s got such gorgeous curls.” Marsha tapped her finger to her lip, thinking. “Mayonnaise works. That’s what my mother did the one time we all got lice.”

  “Mayo?” Ginny said.

  “It smothers them. You put mayo on the hair and cover it with a shower cap. It makes the nits slip off, too.”

  “Nits?”

  “The eggs.”

  “Oh, my God,” Ginny said, shoulders slumping. “This is so disgusting.”

  “It’ll be fine,” she said. “I’ll take Peyton to the barber and grab some mayo from that little market on the way back. You stay here.”

  “Thank you,” Ginny said.

  “It’s just a haircut and some condiments,” Marsha said, shrugging.

  “No, for everything. This was supposed to be your holiday weekend, and you wound up with this,” she said and gestured to everything. The crappy motel, her two lice-infested children.

  “It’s nothing,” she said and winked. “Let’s go get you a buzz cut, Peyton.”

  They returned an hour later, and while they were gone Ginny had combed through Lucy’s hair, eliminating as many lice as she could. She put her own hair up into a ponytail to avoid any that might try to hitch a ride on her own head. Marsha gave her some little mayonnaise packets, the kind you get at a deli. Remarkably, there was a plastic shower cap and a couple of small shampoo bottles in the motel bathroom. Tonight, she’d put the mayo in Lucy’s hair and seal it all shut inside the shower cap. Smother those horrid little buggers. She and Marsha checked each other’s scalps, and by some small bit of grace, neither one of them was infested.

  The beach was teeming with families trying to soak up the last bit of summer. Ginny, of course, had not thought to bring a bathing suit when she left Dover, and one of Marsha’s would never have fit anyway. Marsha’s two-piece was hot pink, leaving very little to the imagination, and she wore a matching pair of big round rose-colored sunglasses. She could have easily been mistaken for a contestant in the pageant. As always, Marsha managed to look completely glamorous, while Ginny felt like a mom in lime-green pedal pushers and a loose embroidered smock top. She’d brought shorts for Peyton which worked as trunks, and she figured Lucy was little enough that she could get away with just wearing her diaper. With her blond curls, she looked almost like that little girl on the Coppertone billboard overlooking the boardwalk, the one with the dog pulling her bottoms down to reveal a tiny white heinie.

  They bought a couple of beach towels at a boardwalk souvenir shop as well as a big tube of suntan lotion. Settling on a rare open swath of sand near the water’s edge, Ginny felt her body relax for the first time in days. She tried not to think about Ab, or what might be hatching on Lucy’s scalp or in her intestines. As Marsha walked both children down to where the waves lapped the shore, she lay back, closed her eyes, and tried to let everything go.

  They spent the whole day on the beach, taking turns running to the boardwalk for snacks and drinks for the kids. Marsha’s skin turned a deep gold, but the exposed parts of Ginny only burned pink. Peyton contentedly dug holes and gathered shells and built castle after castle, only to pillage and plunder them with his tiny bare feet afterward. Lucy was more cautious and seemed tired, so she curled up next to Ginny on the beach towel and fell asleep. She slept on her back, legs splayed open like a frog ready for dissection; her joints seemed loose, her legs hyperflexible. Perhaps this was why she wasn’t walking yet; her muscles were simply too slack to hold her up.

  Ginny knew she needed to call Ab, to let him know that she was okay but that she was also serious about this. She had to believe that if he could just meet Lucy, just hold this sweet child in his arms as he held Peyton, that he would love her. That he would feel the same swell of emotions she had. That he would see how wrong his father had been and figure out a way to make everything right with the people at Willowridge. But even as she tried to imagine the conversation they would have, she could anticipate his arguments, how calculated he could be when he was trying to prove his point. Or, in this case, she suspected, his father’s point.

  She hated that he was so spineless against Abbott. That he hadn’t ever really wanted to be a lawyer, that he hadn’t wanted this life, and yet here he was, here they were, living it. She also knew that she was never going to bring Lucy back to Willowridge, that unless someone came and tore her out of her arms, she would never let go of her again.

  “How about we take you on that Ferris wheel?” Marsha said to Peyton, gesturing to the pier where a tall Ferris wheel spun.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” he said, jumping up and down, sand flying everywhere.

  They packed up their things and walked along the boardwalk until they got to the entrance to the pier.

  Ginny had never liked heights, and so initially she declined when Marsha asked if she should buy her a ticket, but then she felt a surge of bravery overwhelm her. She was different now, in some fundamental way she couldn’t describe, and so, just as Marsha was turning away from the ticket booth, she said, “Actually? Can you get a ticket for me, too?”

  All four of them fit into one of the ride’s buckets. She held Lucy tightly on her lap, and Peyton sat next to Marsha. Ginny felt her heart flutter like something winged in her chest as the vessel rocked back and forth and the ride operator pulled the lever, which made them start to slowly rise. As they lifted off the ground, a hush fell over them all, as the world below them slipped away.

  When Lucy pointed at the sky, at first Ginny figured she was gesturing to the beautiful lights flickering below, but then realized it wasn’t the earth she was concerned with, but the moon, just shy of full. Waning, she figured, since last night it had been bright as the sun through the crack in the motel drapes.

  “That’s the moon, Lucy,” she said, her throat feeling thick with the recollection of the night she was born. That blood moon and the nurse’s cruel accusations.

  Lucy’s face was aglow with delight. My God, Ginny thought, has she never seen the moon before now?

  “Moon,” Ginny said again and pointed.

  “Moon?” Lucy said.

  Lucy. Said.

  Ginny caught her breath.

  Marsha, who had been peering over the edge with Peyton, turned around. Ginny’s heart pounded in her throat.

  “Did she just say ‘moon’?” Marsha said.

  “Moon!” Lucy said again, her voice like the wind chimes on Marsha’s back porch. Sweet and high, like tinkling glass. Breakable.

  “Yes!” Ginny said, holding her tighter
and peering at the moon through tear-filled eyes. “That is the moon.”

  They made their way back to the motel room, and Ginny got Lucy’s hair slathered with mayonnaise and covered with a plastic shower cap. She was pretty sure she’d pulled every living critter from her scalp earlier, but this would ensure the demise of any she’d missed. The kids were exhausted from the beach; even Peyton, who, after excitement like this, usually fought sleep like a mortal enemy, was snoring within minutes of his head hitting the pillow.

  “I should call my mother,” Ginny said.

  Marsha nodded. “And I could use a drink. There’s a liquor store right around the corner. What’s your poison?”

  Ginny shrugged. Ab drank whiskey, neat, and would take any brand you had to offer. Abbott Senior’s drink of choice was Maker’s Mark, one ice cube. She thought of the way he swirled the viscous liquid around in his glass before drinking it. See this? he’d said to her once. These drips here, after you give it a spin? They’re called legs. The older the whiskey, the heavier and slower moving the legs are. Just like a woman, he’d added and winked at her.

  “Vodka? Or maybe gin?” Marsha prodded.

  “You choose,” she said. “Just no whiskey.”

  “You got it!” Marsha said and slipped on her sandals and opened the door.

  “Shit,” Marsha said, standing under the buzzing light over the doorway, hands on her hips, staring at the car. “SHIT!”

  “What?” Ginny asked, walking to the door to join her.

  “How did I not notice this?”

  “What?” Ginny asked again.

  “Look!” she said, pointing to the front of the car. “Somebody stole my goddamned plate.”

  “Your plate?”

  “My license plate,” Marsha said as they circled around to the back of the car. “Both of them.”

  Sure enough, both the front and rear license plates were completely gone.

  “What do we do?” Ginny asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It must have happened when we were at the beach.”

  “Is there somebody we can call? We probably shouldn’t drive back to Amherst without license plates.”

  Marsha ran her hands through her hair and sighed heavily. “How are we supposed to get Massachusetts plates in New Jersey?”

  “I don’t know,” Ginny said. “But this can’t be the first time this has happened.”

  “You’re right. I’ll get the DMV’s number and we’ll call in the morning.” Marsha brightened.

  “Oh, crap,” Ginny said, feeling her heart sink.

  “What now?” Marsha said, almost laughing.

  “It’s Labor Day tomorrow. The DMV won’t be open.”

  “Goddamn!” Marsha said. “Well, fuck it in a bucket. Let’s get sauced then.”

  Ginny borrowed Marsha’s blue bottle of Noxema to lather on her sunburned arms and face. She turned the TV on low. It was Jerry Lewis’s telethon weekend. Barbra Streisand was singing. When she was finished, Jerry brought out a child in a wheelchair and beamed as he told his story and pleaded with the audience to contribute.

  Of course, Ginny had watched the telethon before. It was an annual event. But she had never thought before about the families he was helping. It also made her angry, once again, at Ab. Raising children who were “damaged” somehow was not impossible. Not shameful. Jerry Lewis had raised eight million dollars so far to help the families of these children who were suffering from this debilitating disease. She wondered how many of the children at Willowridge were also afflicted with muscular dystrophy. How many of those parents, like Ab, gave up on them?

  She picked up the motel phone and dialed the operator, asked to make a collect call to her mother, who accepted the charges.

  “Hi, Mama,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know we’re in Atlantic City for the weekend. Everything’s going fine, but we ran into just a little trouble. No big deal, but I think we may need to call the school and get them to extend the visit with Lucy.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Oh, just some car trouble,” she said. “Listen, I’m just checking in. I know this is expensive. Did Ab and his father show up yesterday? Did you send them back home?”

  “Honey?” her mother said.

  “What, Mama?” Ginny said, feeling her heart start to race.

  Her mother was quiet on the other line. “How is she? Your baby girl?”

  The fist in Ginny’s chest opened, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. “She’s perfect, Mama. She’s just perfect.”

  “Virginia,” her mother said, and Ginny held her breath. She never called her by her given name. “You need to get her back to the school tomorrow. There can’t be any delay.”

  “I’ll call Willowridge, Mama. If Ab won’t. I’ll take care of it.”

  She heard her mother draw a deep breath.

  “You okay, Mama?”

  “Did you sign any papers?” she asked. “At the hospital?”

  “At Willowridge? Just a logbook. I checked her out, just like I was supposed to.” She wondered if the receptionist had gotten in trouble maybe for her not showing proper ID. That woman, Sissy, had been so helpful and understanding. She hoped she hadn’t caused her any problems.

  “No, honey,” her mother said. “At the hospital when she was born.”

  That night was still such a blur. The blood moon, the cruel nurse, the baby whisked away before she even came out of her ether fog.

  “I didn’t sign anything,” she said.

  “Well, Ab did.”

  “I’ve got booze!” Marsha hollered outside the door.

  “What kind of papers, Mama?” Ginny asked and unlocked the door to let Marsha in. Marsha shrugged and mouthed an apology when she saw that Ginny was on the phone.

  “He signed Lucy over,” her mother said. “To the state. He said it was the only way they would take her.”

  Her words felt like a fist to Ginny’s chest that knocked the wind out of her. She couldn’t speak. She sat down at the foot of the bed.

  Marsha raised an eyebrow in concern. Ginny shook her head, and her brain seemed to clang inside her skull like loose marbles.

  “He gave up your rights to her. Your parental rights. When she was committed.”

  “Committed?” He’d said she was going to be enrolled. Enrolled in a special school.

  “You don’t have custody of her, Ginny,” her mother said. “And if you don’t get her back to the school by tomorrow, they can arrest you for kidnapping.”

  Sixteen

  September 1971

  The kids were both asleep, but Ginny was afraid they might wake them up, so she and Marsha huddled in the Pepto Bismol–pink bathroom, where Marsha poured the gin in the motel’s plastic cups. She’d also bought some tonic water, a plastic squeeze bottle of lime juice, and a bag of ice, which she dumped into the plugged sink. Ginny sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat, head in hands.

  “Bottoms up,” Marsha said, handing Ginny the makeshift cocktail.

  Ginny felt tipsy after only a single drink, but she allowed Marsha to pour a second for her.

  “What are you going to do?” Marsha asked softly after Ginny explained the conversation with her mother.

  “I don’t know,” Ginny said. “Ab told my mother they won’t discharge her. She doesn’t even belong to us anymore. We gave her up.”

  “She’s your daughter,” Marsha said. “You never consented; if you’d been conscious, you never would have agreed to this. You didn’t give her up; Ab did.”

  Ginny sucked in a deep breath as if she were about to go underwater.

  “But if I don’t bring her back tomorrow, I could . . .” she started. “Ab told Mama I could be arrested.”

  Marsha turned to her. “And if you do bring her back?”

  Ginny shook her head. The idea of returning her to that place now was inconceivable. “I can’t.”

  “Then don’t,” Marsha said, not bothering with tonic water this time.
Instead, she just threw back a hefty shot of gin, grimaced and shook her head.

  Ginny followed her lead and relished the heat in her chest. It seemed to embolden her. Empower her. She felt suddenly invincible. Rage at the injustice of everything turning into kindle for a new sort of fire.

  “I’ll call my sister,” Marsha said. “Theresa.”

  “In Florida?” Ginny asked. “Why?”

  Marsha paced back and forth across the small space, thinking aloud.

  “We’ll drive to Weeki Wachee, stay with Theresa. In case they send someone after you.”

  Ginny shook her head. This was ridiculous. All of it.

  “What about your job?” Ginny asked. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow night?”

  “Somebody’s always breathing down my neck, hoping for overtime. I can get somebody to cover my shifts this week.”

  Despite the booze, Ginny felt remarkably sober, her head clearer than it had been since they first got to Willowridge, if that was possible.

  “But then what?” Ginny asked. “After we get to Florida?”

  “Then Ab knows you are serious. That you didn’t fucking sign up for this shit, and either he’ll do what’s right and get her out of that school or . . .”

  “Or?”

  “Or . . .” Marsha said and trailed off. “Let’s not think about ‘or.’ Let’s think about sunshine and oranges and Disney World. Did you know that Disney World is opening in the beginning of October? We’ll take the kids. Peyton would love it! To see Mickey Mouse in person?”

  “October?” Ginny snorted, and the gin burned in her nostrils. “He’s supposed to start school on Tuesday.” The momentary fantasy slipped away, replaced by the reality of Catholic school: of bake sales and homework and bullies like Christopher.

  “It’s first grade,” Marsha said. “What’s he going to miss if he doesn’t start right away? Coloring? Some cutting and pasting?”

  “Marsh,” she said and sighed. She set the plastic cup on the counter. She did not need another ounce of booze.

  “I need to think about Lucy. I still don’t know what her health status actually is.” This, of all things, scared her the most. While there had been nothing in Lucy’s file, the fear of some lurking heart defect troubled her. She knew so little about this disability. About what, besides the mental and developmental delays, Lucy might suffer from. Once, not long after Lucy was taken away, she’d gone to the library and asked for a book on Down syndrome. But she’d read exactly three pages before her eyes filled with tears and she felt faint. She’d left the book on the table where she’d been sitting and cried all the way home.