She ran her fingers across the card and waited for her heart to slow. Then she pocketed it and picked up the neighborhood directory, flipping expertly to the listing for Boyette, John and Zell. Their children were still listed under their names though none of them lived with them anymore. Bryte found that a little sad. She dialed the number, thinking as she did of Zell’s second son, Ty. She’d kissed him once, in the woods behind the lake, near the little circle of trees that Jencey and Everett used to disappear into. She’d kissed Ty because she was bored, because he was there, and because she was determined to get over Everett.
She listened to the sound of Zell’s phone ringing in the house two streets over from hers, thinking that no kiss had ever been powerful enough to break the spell Everett had over her, no desire had ever been as strong as the one she had to make him hers. She traced the outline of the card in her pocket. She’d made him hers; now she just had to keep him. But Jencey wasn’t the threat anymore. She’d become that all by herself.
CAILEY
Three days went by. I told my mom I would just stay with Zell since she offered, and it was better than being at home alone all the time since Mom was always working or going to the hospital to be with Cutter. It wasn’t so bad being with Zell, except for how she kept talking to people on the phone about Cutter. She went into another room and lowered her voice, but I could make out enough to know that 1) this was just about the most exciting thing that had happened to her in a long time, and 2) Cutter was not doing so well. But you know what she would say to me? She would say he’s doing just fine and that I should be able to see him soon. I hate when adults lie to kids.
I wanted to see Cutter, even if he was out cold and hooked up to a lot of tubes and machines. I wanted to see my mom. I wanted to get it over with, the look she was going to give me, that one of utter disappointment that made me wish she’d just yell at me already. I wanted her to say out loud that I’d ruined everything and that I might’ve cost her her job and the house we rented and who knew what else. I’d talked to her on the phone twice, but both times it was really fast, and she wasn’t going to get into it with Zell hovering nearby anyway. My day of reckoning would come later, and the thought of it made my stomach hurt.
Zell tried to occupy my time so I wouldn’t think about Cutter and how awful everything was. She had me help her in the kitchen and tried to teach me how to play cards and took me to the library to check out books on her library card. I told her I might lose the books, and she said well, then, she’d just pay for them if that happened, but she didn’t think it would. I was glad she got me the books. It gave me a reason to go to my room (which was really her son’s room) and be by myself. But if I stayed in there too long, she knocked on the door and asked me if I was OK and wouldn’t I like something to drink or eat. She was always trying to feed me.
I guess if I had to stay somewhere, it wasn’t the worst place I could’ve ended up even if she did put me in a room that smelled like a boy. Zell was nice, if a bit peculiar (I like that word), and her husband, John, was funny. We ate dinner together, the three of us at the table talking about the news and the weather and the things I always imagined families talked about around the table. And for just a moment, I would imagine that it would stay that way forever, that I could change into someone else completely—someone who grew up in a house like that one and not the eyesore of the neighborhood. But then I would feel terrible for thinking about myself, especially considering the fact that Cutter got hurt because I was only thinking about myself. In those moments I would whisper, “I’m sorry” and imagine that wherever Cutter was, he could hear me.
Late at night when Zell and John thought I’d gone to sleep, I would tiptoe to the window in their son’s room and stare up at the stars in the sky, wishing on every one of them just for good measure. And every wish I had was for Cutter to be OK. I thought only of him and not me, forcing my brain not to think about the coming school year or the friends I didn’t have or whether I’d ever fit anywhere. I promised whoever made those stars that if Cutter got better, I’d never care about anyone but him for the rest of my life. And, mostly, I believed it was possible.
ZELL
She’d hauled a stool out to the garden to get some weeding done and was awkwardly crouched on it, ripping weeds out down to the roots—an activity she found quite therapeutic—when she heard footsteps approaching. Before this summer, the footsteps would’ve been heavier, those of John plodding out, wondering what was for dinner or asking where was such-and-such, even though he’d lived in that house the last thirty years.
But it wasn’t John. These footsteps were too light to be his, little fairy footsteps. She turned to greet Cailey, whose presence was fast becoming a fixture. John had warned her just last night not to get too attached. She’d turned from him, busying herself with stirring the beans until he gave up and walked away. It was good to have someone to take care of, someone to cook for.
Last night she’d made a big meal, the kind her mama used to make—country-style steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh corn, green beans, and sliced tomatoes. She’d even made biscuits, something she hadn’t done in a coon’s age. Cailey loved her cooking and ate like there was no tomorrow. Zell worried that the child hadn’t been fed properly and made it her mission to get some nourishment in her.
For dessert she’d made real banana pudding, only to learn that Cailey didn’t like bananas. But that was OK because she had some ice cream in the freezer, and John was only too happy to eat the banana pudding himself, though Lord knew he didn’t need it. She glanced down at her own belly, brimming over the top of her waistband, then looked up and gave Cailey a smile. She adjusted her wide-brimmed straw hat so she could see the child better.
“Have a good sleep?” she asked her.
Cailey nodded, chewing her lip and casting her eyes about like she was casing the joint.
“Give me just a minute to finish up here and I’ll make you some breakfast.” Zell turned back to the weeds, wincing as her knee protested the movement. The stool wasn’t really helping. She missed being able to kneel, missed getting her nose and hands fully immersed in the earth.
“I could help you with that . . . if you want,” Cailey offered. She moved closer, coming into Zell’s line of sight.
“Do you know about gardening?” Zell asked, unable to keep the surprise from her voice.
Cailey shrugged. “I helped my teacher at my old school. We were making a wildlife habitat. It was a class project, but . . . I moved away before we finished.” Cailey thought about it for a second. “That was two schools ago.” She shrugged as if it meant nothing, but Zell could see the lie in her pensive little face. She heard John’s warning again about getting attached, his words echoing from the night before. He knew her all too well.
“But you liked it?”
Cailey nodded. “I liked making a place for, you know, the animals and stuff. We planted special plants they could eat and made places for them to hide.” She shrugged again. “It was pretty cool.”
Zell’s voice was tight when she spoke, and she cleared her throat. “I bet you wish you’d seen it all finished.”
Cailey nodded, her eyes focused on the landscaping. She blinked a few times. “Yeah. My mom said we could go back one day, but . . . she never has time.”
“Is the school nearby?” Zell asked.
Cailey thought about it. “I think it’s like an hour away. Maybe.”
“Ah,” said Zell. She thought about her own life with young children, how overwhelming things had seemed then, and she’d been a stay-at-home mom with no outside responsibilities. There were so many things she’d intended to do with them, for them, but the time got away and then it was over. “I’m sure your mom would love to take you sometime.”
“Yeah,” Cailey agreed. “I know she would if she could.” She glanced over at Zell. “She’s a good mom.”
“She sure is, honey.” Zell had noticed Cailey’s penchant for defending her mom even though no
charges had been levied against her. The woman, Lisa, was clearly in over her head, cursed with more responsibility than she had resources to handle, exacerbated, Zell guessed from things that Cailey had said, by a tendency to pick cruel, freeloading men. Zell had seen it before. Her own sister, for example, was now living in Arkansas with husband number four. She wasn’t judging Cailey’s mom—at least she hoped it didn’t come across that she was. She was just trying to help. Somewhere deep inside her a warning bell went off, but she ignored it.
“Can I go see her?” Cailey asked, seeming to sense a weak moment, an opportune time to strike. Kids, Zell recalled, were exceedingly good at that. “I want to go see her and Cutter.”
Zell had spoken with Lisa just yesterday when she’d stopped by to see Cailey. Cutter was still touch and go. He was hanging in there, but not improving as they’d hoped. Lisa and Zell had agreed that it was best for Cailey not to see Cutter until he was awake. That was exactly how they’d put it, stringing the words until and awake together in an act of good faith—both of them wanting to believe that this kind of positive talk could make all the difference. Zell had said a little prayer for the boy after Lisa left, even though she wasn’t in a position to be asking for favors from the Almighty.
“Soon, honey,” Zell promised. “I’m waiting for your mother to let me know the doctors have cleared Cutter for visitors.” When all else fails, blame it on the doctors. This was also something she remembered from raising her own children. The doctor said you have to eat that. The doctor said you have to go to bed now. The doctor said you have to have sunscreen or you can’t go swimming. The doctor was always a good scapegoat. Zell held her breath and hoped her ploy would work on Cailey like it did with her own kids.
“I wish those doctors would hurry up,” Cailey grumbled, sinking down beside Zell on the lawn.
“What if . . .” Zell spoke aloud, her mouth uttering the words even before the idea had fully taken shape. Cailey looked up, her face expectant, eager. Like most children, she knew that questions that started off with “What if” were usually good questions. “What if,” Zell continued, “you and I turned my yard into a wildlife habitat? It could be our little project while you’re here.” She watched Cailey’s reaction, hoped this wasn’t a colossal mistake. Something inside her said, You never learn. But something else said, Maybe this time will be different.
Cailey hesitated for just a moment, as if she were having an internal dialogue of her own. But then the eager, expectant look returned, and a grin broke out across her little face. Cailey’s genuine smiles were rare, and Zell let herself take this one in, because this one was just for her. “Yes?” she prompted, wanting to hear the word on Cailey’s lips.
Cailey nodded vigorously and the grin widened. “Yes!” she said. She sprang up and started sprinting away, then turned back to beckon Zell to follow her. “I know the website we have to go to!” she hollered from across the yard. “Come on! I’ll show you!”
Zell smiled and started the slow process of getting herself up off the stool, her knee already protesting with even the slightest movement. In a flash, Cailey was back at her side. “Here,” she said, extending her small hand, “I’ll help you up.” Zell did the only thing there was to do: she took Cailey’s hand and allowed the child to help her stand.
BRYTE
She sank down onto the cold tile of the laundry-room floor and willed herself to get a grip. She’d found the business card in the pocket of her shorts, rescued seconds before being thrown into the washing machine and destroyed by the hot water she was about to send pouring into the tub. Her heart pounding, she remembered and pinched it out of its hiding place, nestled there between the layers of denim, put there as a protective weapon on a night she’d felt vulnerable. She thought not of Jencey’s face, but of Everett’s as he looked at Jencey. She worried that Jencey’s return had put everything she’d created for herself at risk.
As a child, she’d wanted exactly what she’d grown up with. She wanted to replicate the life she’d known. She was the only one of her friends who felt that way, her teen years spent listening to various accounts of how the future was going to be different for them. Jencey wanted a big house. Everett wanted Jencey. Other friends wanted more religion or less, more freedom or less, more money (but never less), different politics, different traditions, different lives from the ones they’d been brought up in. She would listen politely, nod when appropriate, and make encouraging comments. But inside she was thinking, Is it wrong to want more of the same?
She loved her parents, her home, her neighborhood, even her school. She loved swimming with the same kids each summer at the pool, the big Fourth of July celebration that lasted all day and into the night, the way the sun’s rays glinted off the lake and the breeze rippled the water. She loved church on Sundays and takeout pizza on Fridays, the Christmas-card photos of friends and family members affixed to the refrigerator door for months after the holidays were over, and afternoons reading in the backyard hammock. She loved belonging to this place and these people. She knew she was lucky—many kids didn’t have what she had. What more was there to want?
Crouched on her laundry-room floor, running her fingers across the raised black letters, she waffled between remembering and forgetting, between who she was, then and now. She’d gotten exactly what she wanted, but it had come at a price she’d never expected. She stood, feeling restless and anxious, her heart beating much too hard for a stay-at-home mom doing laundry on an ordinary summer Tuesday.
She palmed the card and walked it back to its original spot in the drawer. But before she could hide it away again, she paused, taking one last look. She took in the name, then the phone number, then the e-mail. Could it still be the same? Would it hurt to try?
She took a deep breath and reached for her cell phone, charging on the desk where she left it each night. She gave herself a pep talk as she entered the numbers on the card into her phone’s keypad. This was about a job, and that was all. She was doing her due diligence in the face of the repeated requests from her former employer; she was just being smart. Her heart hammered as the line rang and rang and rang. It went to voice mail, and the minute she heard his voice, she hit “End”—a reflex. This was wrong and dangerous and stupid. She stood there panting as if she’d run a marathon, her insides churning. She paced back and forth a few times in front of the desk, calming herself, still holding her phone.
This morning before he’d left for work, Everett had said he was going to make an appointment at the clinic, that they couldn’t keep putting it off. He’d brushed aside her objections, put his hands on her shoulders, and with a serious look told her that he’d be with her every step of the way. He’d never understand that this was the last thing she wanted. She would do anything to keep from hearing the same verdict, the same options she’d heard before. And going back to work could stop that from happening.
She looked down at the phone, debating placing a second call and this time not hanging up. If you do this, she coached herself, everything could change. But everything was going to change anyway. She pulled up her recent calls and hit the number again. She cleared her throat as the phone rang, readying herself to leave a message. There was that voice, strangely familiar even though it had been years since she’d heard it last. She smiled at the sound of it, then began to speak after the beep.
“Hi,” she said. “This is Bryte Lewis. We met several years ago at the ATXS show, at the cocktail party. I’m not sure you’ll remember, but you mentioned I should call if I was ever looking for a job, and I am. So, if you can, I’d love to talk to you about it. I know tomorrow is the Fourth, so you’re probably not even working this week, but if you can give me a call, my number is—” The beep sounded, and she was cut off.
A voice inside her said, This isn’t just about a job. But she ignored the voice, pushing it into that place deep within her where the truth resided. She watched as the phone’s screen returned to a photo of the three of them at Easter, all dresse
d up. She’d put Christopher and Everett in adorable matching pastel bow ties. She exhaled loudly and considered calling back to leave her number. No, the number would show up in his list of incoming calls. If he wanted to respond, he’d figure it out.
JULY 2014
JENCEY
The impact of a little body landing on the mattress jolted her awake in her old bedroom, never changed since her departure, a pastel wonderland with its boy-band posters and various other accoutrements of the teenage female. Her girls were fascinated with the time capsule that was her old bedroom, holding long-since dried-out bottles of nail polish up to her with a kind of wonder. “Mom,” Pilar had asked, astonished, “you wore glitter nail polish?”
She supposed it was astonishing to a child who’d only seen her mother with French manicures, which was what all the women had back in her old neighborhood. She’d taken the bottle of nail polish from Pilar’s hand and studied it for a moment, seeing in her mind’s eye sitting with Bryte on her bed, doing one another’s nails. Bryte was always so careful, so serious about the polish being just so. She’d been fastidious then, and—from what Jencey could tell—was still that way. She was just as serious and careful in her devotion to her home, her cooking, her son, and Everett. Jencey tried not to think about those few moments alone she’d had with Everett after dinner. There were things she’d wanted to say to him, but didn’t dare, the unsaid words still rolling around like marbles in her mind.
“Get up, Mom!” Zara hollered, shaking the mattress as violently as her small body could manage, her shrill voice too loud and piercing on the cusp of a sound sleep. Jencey had been dreaming she was in the woods by the lake, but there was someone else there, too, someone she didn’t know, but who knew her—the presence disturbing, threatening, and all too real. She tried to shake off the dream even as she pulled back the sheets so Zara could snuggle under with her. She hugged her daughter tighter and kissed her head several times, the action warding off any lingering bad mojo from her dreams. Zara giggled and wrenched away. “Mom, we have to get ready for the parade!” she scolded.
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