Girls in Trouble: A Novel

by Caroline Leavitt

  Anne didn’t seem any different to Eva, though sometimes Eva swore Anne looked around the room woefully, as if she were looking for someone. “She’s not here,” Eva whispered. “She’s not going to be here. You’re with me, kiddo.”

  They got the temporary restraining order almost immediately, but their lawyer told them it was good for only ten days, that a more permanent solution would take more time, which unnerved Eva. It was George’s idea to call a locksmith, to put in new dead bolts on both the front and back doors. To get window locks put in every window, and an alarm system. “Now we’re safe,” he said, but Eva wasn’t so sure.

  Eva used to love this house, but now she could never stop feeling watched. She scrubbed the floors, scoured the walls, but it felt haunted by Sara. George would be talking to her, and she couldn’t help it, her gaze would suddenly dart to a corner.

  She was driving with Anne one day and the way the car seat faced to the back began to really bother her. “You okay back there, honey?” she called. The baby was silent. Eva slammed the car to a stop. Anything could happen at any time. Anne would vanish. Eva’s neck snapped back. She got out of the car and yanked open the back door. She looked into the car seat over at Anne.

  She kept replaying everything with Sara, how and why it might have gone wrong. In theory, open adoption sounded lovely, but with Sara, it had become a real nightmare. Her daughter was sleeping and safe, so why couldn’t she relax? What was wrong with her?

  George too looked more and more thoughtful. Every time the phone rang, he stiffened, the same way Eva did. He didn’t relax until he knew it wasn’t Sara. When the doorbell rang unexpectedly, he threw his napkin down, his face set. He strode to the front door, and then Eva heard his voice, low, measured, and when he came back, he looked sheepish. “Paperboy,” he said. “We forgot to pay last week.” He picked up his fork and stared down at his lamb chop.

  “You okay?” Eva asked. She didn’t have much of an appetite herself.

  He suddenly pushed his plate away. “I wish we could just move,” he said.

  Eva looked up at him.

  “I worry about you. I really do. I worry about us,” George said. “I wish I could just move my practice far away. You could teach anywhere. We could all start again.”

  Eva reached for his hand and held it. “How could we do that? Eventually, don’t we have to allow some sort of visitation with Sara?”

  “You’re asking me to do what’s best for Sara?” He looked at her askance. “What happens if she gets over here somehow? What happens if we’re not so lucky next time?”

  Eva folded her arms tight about her body. “Next time,” she said, horrified.

  “She took Anne! I read in the paper the other day about this case. A woman gave up her baby, and two years later—four years!—she admitted she had lied about who the father was. And the father came back, he wanted the baby. And Eva, they gave the baby to the mother. The birth mother. The courts said her rights superseded theirs.”

  Eva’s mouth went dry. “No, they didn’t.”

  “Do you remember Baby Richard?” George said. “Four years old. Photos of him screaming, being torn from his adoptive parents’ arms. And what about that case in Ann Arbor with the two-year-old girl? The birth mother came back, got the girl. Few years later, the adoptive parents divorced. So did the real ones. God knows how that little girl’s life is going to turn out.” He shook his head, defeated. “We can’t go on like this.”

  The phone suddenly began to ring and ring and ring. Neither one of them moved.

  “It’s Sara,” Sara’s voice belled out. “Pick up! Please pick up!”

  Eva looked at George. He stood up and yanked the phone cord from the wall.

  The next day, George went back to work. “I’ll try to make it half a day,” he promised. Eva put the baby to bed when the doorbell rang, and she peered out, and then opened it.

  Abby. In a pale green suit. A dark coat thrown over it. Her hair clipped back. Small gold hoops in her ears.

  “Please,” Abby said. “Please, may I come in and talk to you?”

  She let Abby in, motioning her to the couch. “Anne’s asleep,” Eva said.

  Abby looked down at her shoes, slim copper-colored high heels, and then back up at Eva. “Please. You already have a restraining order. She can’t do anything. Please. Drop the charges. Don’t prosecute Sara. Don’t ruin her life more than she’s already ruined it. She’s smart. She could go to Harvard. She could do such great things.”

  “She stole our baby,” Eva said stiffly. “She put her in danger! Can you imagine what might have happened?”

  “But nothing did,” Abby said. “Sara didn’t take Anne to do evil. She’s young, she didn’t think. She made one mistake and, believe me, she’s paying for it.”

  “Does she know you’re here?” Eva said.

  Abby shook her head.

  “How is she?”

  “I can hardly bear it. She lies in bed. She cries.”

  “She should cry.”

  “She’ll be at college next year,” Abby said. “She won’t be anywhere near you.” Abby leaned forward. “You can’t prosecute her. Please. Don’t ruin her life. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything. I’ll make sure she goes to school in another country if that’s what it takes. She’s my daughter! You can’t imagine how we love her.” Abby folded and unfolded her hands in her lap. “The same way Anne’s your daughter and you love her.”

  “Don’t compare the two,” Eva said sharply.

  Abby was silent for a moment. “Please,” Abby said. “I’m begging you.”

  “I don’t know,” Eva said.

  “Drop the charges,” Abby pleaded. “I’ll do anything. I love her. And you did, too, once. You know you did.”

  Eva stood up. She remembered how she and Sara had once laughed so hard over a movie they had both nearly wet their pants. She remembered sitting on the chaises outside with Sara, sipping lemonade and talking for hours, and Eva felt so comfortable, she could reach over and rest her hand on Sara’s belly, and then Sara would rest her hand on Eva’s. For a moment, she felt a raw pang, and then she heard Anne in the other room, and the pang vanished. Fairy tale, she thought. A fairy tale with an unhappy ending.

  Eva led Abby to the door, opened it. The day felt chill, like any moment it might snow.

  “You won’t have to see Sara ever again,” Abby said. “I promise.”

  And then Abby was gone, and Eva realized that the whole time she had been here, Abby hadn’t asked to see the baby.

  chapter

  seven

  It felt safer for Sara to be in her room. She lay on her bed, headphones clamped to her ears. She couldn’t go to school until this was settled, but she filled out applications for early admissions to colleges in New York because her parents were pressuring her now to get away from the area, and every time she saw a required essay on “How have you changed this year?” she wanted to laugh, because how could she possibly write the truth?

  That night, she ventured out of her room, just to the kitchen to get some water. Abby suddenly appeared, in her bright yellow nightgown, her red hair in curlers. “Just getting some water, myself,” Abby said, filling her glass and then barely touching it before she dumped it out again. “Dry throat,” Abby said, her fingers tapping her neck. Sara woke up in the middle of the night, padding to the bathroom, and before she even turned a corner, there was Jack, belting his flannel bathrobe, his brown hair askew. “Did you need something?” he asked. “What can I get you?”

  They were watching her, and she knew it.

  Her parents had stopped lecturing her. Finally. They used quiet, calm voices, which seemed worse, more ominous, than the harsh, angry tones they had used when they had first picked her up at the police station, the two of them rushing in like a winter storm.

  There in that awful station, no one had to tell her then how alone she was. Eva and George and the baby had already left the station. She could feel it. By then, Sara couldn
’t have cried even if she had wanted to. She couldn’t move from the hard wooden bench, even though her muscles ached. She had botched everything. She hadn’t been able to get a job or a place to stay. She hadn’t had enough money. She hadn’t been able to save her own baby. That woman from the bus had cursed her, spitting out that Sara was a kid, a greenhorn who didn’t have a clue how to act like an adult, and every time Sara remembered it, she knew that woman was right. All her chances were over, and Sara felt something breaking apart inside of her.

  “What were you thinking? How could you do this?” her parents kept asking her.

  “You think Harvard wants felons?” Abby said. “You think Yale does? You can’t see them. You can’t even go near them. You could be arrested, do you understand?”

  They rode home in silence. Sara stared out the window, and at every turn she imagined how things could have turned out differently. If she had worn a dress. If she hadn’t bought peanut butter. If she hadn’t been a kid.

  Abby twisted around to look at Sara. “Everything’s going to be different now,” Abby said quietly, and all those bright its Sara had been thinking fluttered away on wings.

  All that week, Abby took off work and stayed at home, going out only to bring Sara’s bike back. Every time she looked at Sara, her face was so sad, Sara wanted to die, but Abby didn’t lecture her. She made mac and cheese that Sara barely picked at, and once she knocked on Sara’s door. “I’m watching a wonderful old Bette Davis movie,” Abby said. “Come watch it with me.”

  They both curled on the couch in the den, watching Bette’s evil sister (who was really Bette in a dual role) steal the man she loved away from her. At the end, when the good Bette got her man back, Abby swiped a finger across her eyes. “Well,” Abby said. “That was nice. I like a movie where everything turns out all right in the end.”

  “Her sister still drowned,” Sara pointed out, but Abby waved a hand.

  “She was evil. She had to drown to give her sister the happy life she deserved,” Abby said. “Sometimes sacrifices are called for.”

  Sara picked at a tuft on one of the couch pillows. Abby pushed Sara’s hands away.

  “Love conquered all,” Abby said, “everyone lived and learned.”

  Afternoons, Sara watched old movies with her mother, but mostly, she stayed in her room, reading. Madame Bovary. Anna Karenina. Women with ruined lives. Books she hoped might make her own plight seem less horrible to her, but as she got to the ends, she felt panicked. There was no escape for these women. Instead, there was a kiss of poison. Instead, there was a final leap in front of a train. Sara flung the books down.

  She didn’t eat, didn’t even want to shower. “You’ll always be in our life,” Eva and George had told her, and now they had a restraining order. At night, she couldn’t sleep. She sat up and tried to read, but the words blurred on the page. One night, she heard noises in the house and she got up. Abby and Jack kept their bedroom door closed, but tonight it was open. The light was on. She crept by the room, leaning against the wall.

  Abby was sitting up in bed, crying quietly. Jack, in his robe, was sitting beside her, rubbing her back, quietly talking to her. Sara tried to listen, moving a bit closer, and then she saw that Jack had his arms about Abby and was stroking her hair back, behind her ears. And then Abby lay down, and Jack covered her with the blanket, murmuring something so soft it was almost a lullaby. Then Jack walked toward the door, and shut it, and for a moment Sara saw his face, and he looked so sorrowful that she drew back.

  In the morning, she came down to breakfast, not knowing what to expect. But there was Abby, already dressed, setting out vitamins for everyone, fixing breakfast. There was Jack, downing juice. “Did you sleep okay?” Abby asked cheerfully.

  “Sort of.” Sara hesitated. “Mom, I heard you crying last night.”

  Abby pulled at her collar. “Just tension. Don’t they say it’s healing to have a good cry? You ought to know that from all those Psychology Todays you used to love.”

  “No, you were really crying,” Sara said.

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about—” Jack said.

  “It’s a hard time,” Abby said quietly. “But it’ll get better.”

  Sara did as Abby asked. She didn’t try to call anymore, didn’t try to see Eva or George or the baby, but it wasn’t because she didn’t want to. The truth was she was afraid, and not just about going to jail. What if she called and they hung up on her? What if she went by the house and they slammed the door on her? They couldn’t shut her out from her own child, could they? “Hope was the thing with feathers,” ‘Emily Dickinson said, and now Sara could feel those wings beating inside of her. If she couldn’t have custody of her child, she could still see her, even if it was a supervised visit. And she could still see Eva and George.

  Eva was sorting laundry, hoping the mindless work might soothe her, but instead, her nerves frayed even more. This was insane. She had to do something. Striding to the kitchen, she picked up the phone, and though she had promised herself she wouldn’t, she called the adoption agency again. “Did you find the father? Did he sign?” Eva asked.

  “We don’t have the adoption surrender yet,” Margaret admitted.

  “What if you can’t find him?”

  “The courts can terminate his rights. But even after that, they’ll still try to let him know, usually with one of those legal listings at the back of some newspapers.”

  “The back of the paper! Nobody reads those!” Eva said.

  “Well, don’t be so fast to think that’s a good thing. It’s a doorway for the father to enter later. He can say he didn’t read the listing, he didn’t know about any of it, that he wasn’t being neglectful. And then you could still lose her, because no matter what, the courts always favor the biological parents.”

  “This can’t be true all the time.”

  “A lot of adoptive parents consider offering an open adoption to the birth father. It’s worth it rather than risking losing a child.”

  “Forget it. Absolutely not,” Eva said. “Two people to worry about instead of one!”

  “We’ll find him. His rights will get terminated. You just enjoy your baby.”

  But Eva couldn’t help worrying. She couldn’t risk the adoption not being legal. Not with the way things had been going. She hung up the phone and then she did a truly stupid thing. She got out the phone book and looked up Danny’s last name in the phone book and then dialed. Maybe he had come home. Maybe his mother knew where he was.

  “Yes?” A man’s voice.

  “Is this Dannv Slade?”

  There was a clip of silence. “No, it’s not. How can I help you?”

  “Is Mrs. Slade there?”

  “Hang on.”

  The phone clattered and then a woman’s voice answered, dry with fatigue. “Yes?” she said.

  “Mrs. Slade.” Eva introduced herself casually, as if she were about to try and sell Frances some magazine subscriptions. “I’m looking for Danny. I was just checking whether he was aware that he needed to sign papers saying he knew about the adoption.”

  “Who do you think you are calling me?” said Mrs. Slade.

  “I’m just looking out for everybody’s best interests,” Eva said.

  “He doesn’t want a baby. He’s a baby himself. I already told the agency this.”

  “But to avoid any problems, he needs to sign the papers. Do you know where he is?” She hated the desperate way she sounded.

  “My Danny doesn’t want anything to do with that baby or that girl.”

  “Where is he?”

  Frances cleared her throat. “Those papers will be signed. And you don’t need to call here again. Ever.”

  Two days later, Margaret at the agency called. “The father signed the papers!” she said, exultant. “We’re on our way!”

  Eva fit her fingers into the rungs on the dial pad. “He did? You’re sure?”

  “Yup. The server told me. Signed without a fuss. The server caught
him just as he was on his way out to catch a plane. Beefy blondish guy. The mother was there, too. And the server told me he was asking all sorts of questions about what would happen if he didn’t show up at the hearing. That’s usually a sign that the father isn’t going to show, which is very good for us. The courts take no-show to mean no interest.”

  Eva’s fingers released from the dial pad. One of the numbers moved a little and for a moment she heard the dial. “So I can stop worrying, right?”

  For now.

  Eva hung up the phone. She should be thrilled, but the more she thought about it, the more unsettled she became, like she was a glass of champagne and every bubble was going flat. Beefy and blondish guy, Margaret had said. Eva went to the closet where the big blue box was, filled with the initial correspondence she had had with Sara. She never even looked at it anymore. Opening it, she riffled through the contents. Letters. Photos. A notebook she opened that seemed to be a baby journal Sara had started. It all seemed like such a long time ago. And then Eva pulled up a photo of Danny, the one she had been looking for, and she didn’t have to study it very hard to see that Danny’s hair was dark like the richest milk chocolate, that he was thin as a whippet. Her pulse speeded up. She rifled through the pictures, digging deep to the bottom of the box. And then she pulled out another photo. Danny again, standing with one arm slung about an older woman in a bright orange dress, and on the other side of her, his arm around her, too, was a boy two heads taller than either one of them. A big boy. A blond. Oh Jesus. Danny had a brother.

  Reeling, Eva reached for the phone to call George. When the hygienist said he was busy, Eva said she didn’t care. “Get him,” she ordered, and when George got on the phone, she talked so fast, she was out of breath.

  “I don’t think Danny signed,” she said. “I think his brother answered when I called the house—”

  “Eva, you didn’t—tell me you didn’t.”

  “I never spoke to Danny. His mother never told me where he was. Or even if he was here in town.”

  “Maybe he was out. Maybe she didn’t want him talking to you. You don’t know for sure Danny didn’t sign. The server could have confused him with someone else he served that day. And if something was wrong, it would be the family that was in error. Not us. And there’s still the hearing. If he didn’t sign, let him show up. We won’t lose her,” George said quietly. “I won’t let that happen.”