by Karen Hesse
Celia sets the pace and we continue slowly, over rugged terrain, for another two days, eating what I have left in my backpack, until we reach an abandoned place deep in the woods.
There’s an old sign over the front door. “School of Hope,” it says.
“Home sweet home,” Celia declares.
“I’m not sure about this, Celia.”
But Celia is sure.
She’s finished walking.
The paint, where there is paint on the school’s exterior, is chipped and dulled to a dirty gray. Several mismatched windows reveal stained shreds of curtain. No stack for plumbing, no chimney for a stove. I think this is what realtors call “rustic.”
The glass in one of the windows is missing. I approach cautiously and peer inside.
“No one here,” I announce. “Probably hasn’t been for a long time.”
“Shocking,” Celia says softly.
I ignore her sarcasm. “I think we can get in through a window.”
But Celia lifts a rock from the ground. I think she’s going to use it to break more glass, but she studies it instead, puts it back down and picks up another. She lowers the second rock and after scanning the ground with her eyes, she begins to explore the level surfaces of the schoolhouse.
“Hah!” She sounds quietly triumphant. Jerry Lee’s tail wags.
Celia holds up a key she’s found on a ledge above a window.
The lock is stiff and it takes some effort but the key eventually turns and the door opens.
Rodents and birds have been the sole students at this school for some time. It smells foul. Dried animal droppings litter every surface. We have nothing to sweep with, nothing to scrub with. Still, using what the surrounding woods offer, boughs, and leaves, and brook water, using our ingenuity, we begin to bring order.
The entire structure consists of two rooms, each about ten feet by twelve. One of the rooms contains a rusted metal bed frame with a stained piece of plywood suspended on the narrow rim where a box spring and mattress might go. The mattress and springs are gone, but I am so grateful for this bed frame, dismal as it is, set at an angle in the middle of the floor of an old country schoolhouse.
Celia and I hardly talk.
We just work together, making the abandoned schoolhouse habitable.
By the end of the day the outside looks unchanged.
But inside, a sanctuary emerges. I gather armfuls of fresh grass and cattails from nearby. We pile them inside the metal frame on top of the plywood and I spread my old blanket over, tucking it in on all four sides.
When the sun sets, wordlessly we agree to share the bed. We sink down, grass spilling over the sides. The blanket emits an almost human sigh beneath us.
I am so hungry. Our bed makes me long for green salad.
And my fingers itch for Jethro’s bear, nestled inside my backpack. But the bear hasn’t been out since Celia and I started traveling together.
Unable to fall asleep, I grieve for my empty hands.
I grieve for not finding my parents on the way to Canada.
I grieve, worrying I may never find them again.
Celia, still on our makeshift bed, sits up and inhales the fresh air wafting through the open door. The schoolhouse, on this sunlit morning, has begun to take on the scent of girls with wind-blown hair, with seeds in their pockets, with road-hardened feet.
“I’ve got food,” I say and empty my backpack of the bits I’ve gathered from several kitchen gardens: baby lettuce, baby peas, baby radishes.
We devour the tiny pile of food.
“When did you have time…?”
“I went out early, while it was still dark.”
Celia’s wild, thick hair strains to free itself from the rubber band confining it. “Who would build a school out here in the middle of nowhere?” she asks, nibbling a small, peppery radish.
“We’re not as far off the beaten track as you think,” I say. “Once you get out beyond these woods it’s small farms, some houses, a little town called Sutton. Maybe, a long time ago, kids followed a path to school here, but there are no paths leading here now.”
And if we’re to remain hidden and safe, we’ll have to keep it that way.
Hunger drives me out of bed each morning, hours before dawn. I explore the area while Celia sleeps. She has no interest in coming out with me. Or even in going out on her own.
Celia says she’s walked enough. She’s not taking another step.
From all appearances the Canadian government remains stable despite the chaos in the U.S. But Celia and I are here illegally. Even with my passport I would be thrown out of this country. I’ve crossed the border without asking permission, I’m here for an indefinite period, and I’m wanted by the police in my own country.
It feels safest to keep as low a profile as possible, traveling a different route each day.
This early in the season, the vegetable gardens are barely producing. I make my way to Sutton, instead, and creep up to a Dumpster behind a small café.
A woman, about ten years younger than my mother, surprises me in the act of lifting the Dumpster lid. She has padded up behind me so silently.
I freeze, certain she will turn me over to the Canadian police.
When I open my mouth to plead for her silence, she holds up a hand, a gesture that signals me to wait, and she flies back through the rear door of the restaurant.
I have no idea what she wants but I can’t risk finding out. I flee the moment she turns her back on me and run from Sutton empty-handed.
Consequently, Celia and I have little to eat the rest of the day.
I think about using what few coins remain of my money to buy food, but it’s American currency. It would give us away instantly.
Celia is so pale; she seems to grow thinner each day. I feel like I’m responsible for her and that scares me. In the past, I’ve blown it big-time when it comes to being responsible. I always screw up. Until now my parents have bailed me out, made things right again, as right as they could. But my parents aren’t here now.
And somebody has to keep Celia alive.
I’ll do what I can.
For days I’m afraid to return to Sutton, afraid to venture out at all, afraid the woman from the restaurant has reported me. That the Canadian police are watching for me.
I plunder a garden not far from the schoolhouse. The vegetable plot sits like a small brown package in a field of green grass. Moving through the young lettuce and onion plants, I take only a handful of greens, then slip inside the barn searching for anything else.
I find root vegetables left over from last year and “borrow” a dented pail to carry back to the schoolhouse the lettuce and onion greens, four withered potatoes, and six soft carrots.
Celia eagerly falls on the carrots. We make a meal out of raw, desiccated vegetables, and fresh lettuce and onion tops.
“Why aren’t you with your parents?” Celia asks.
I tell her we were separated. That I was out of town when all this started. I’m not sure why I’m afraid to tell her the truth, to tell her I was in Haiti. I think maybe she won’t approve. Maybe it makes me sound too rich, too spoiled. I don’t know what made me think I could help down there, anyway. I bathed dusty toddlers in plastic buckets. I braided thick hair and buttoned thin shirts. I spooned cornmeal mush into bowls. I did what I could. But the kids did ten times for me what I did for them.
Celia gnaws on a raw, soft potato. When I ask her why she isn’t with her parents, she shrugs and keeps gnawing.
I’m getting to know those shrugs pretty well. And the uneasy silence that follows them.
I offer a potato to Jerry Lee. With one sniff he refuses my generosity, asking to be let out instead, where he chases down his own food.
I roam the countryside alone. Celia never comes.
She has no idea where I go. She just knows when she wakes, there’ll be food waiting.
Though I’d like his company, Jerry Lee never leaves Celia’s side. Except to
eat. The only time he ever left her was the time he retrieved me from the porch and got me to follow him into the woods. And he only did it then to save Celia’s life.
Several days in a row I fail to find enough food to satisfy us. Celia has trouble holding down the little I do manage to bring.
Even Jerry Lee doesn’t seem to be eating enough.
I want to go back to the Dumpsters in Sutton. It’s the way I’ve learned to survive. But Canada will surely deport me if I’m discovered. And then Celia would be left alone, not knowing where I am.
My feet bring me back instead to the farm where I found the withered carrots.
To my surprise, instead of police, what awaits me in the barn, in the place where I found (and stole) the dented pail, is a bar of soap, two men’s button-down shirts, a pair of overalls, a pair of green trousers, and a paper bag filled with pods of fragrant green peas.
The clothes are worn and patched. But they’re clean. I gather them into my arms and the smell of fresh laundry gives rise to a wave of homesickness. I stand in the barn, frozen for a moment, aching for my mother.
Is it possible these have been waiting for me? Is it possible someone is trying to help?
Quickly, I gather the clothes, the soap, the peas and head back to the schoolhouse before sunrise.
Celia sleeps deeply.
I shake her shoulder. “Look what we’ve got.”
She’s startled by the sudden wakening and swats at me.
After swearing for a minute, Celia pulls herself together.
She is amazed at what I’ve brought.
We hold the clothes up to ourselves. They won’t fit either of us but it doesn’t matter. We’ll make them work.
“I’m using the soap before I put on new clothes,” I say.
I draw Celia far enough from the schoolhouse to wash in the cold, clear brook that runs nearby. We put on our fresh things. Then sit on the schoolhouse step in the June sunshine, drying off, warming up, side by side.
“Celia, if I don’t come back some day…”
“You’ll come back.”
“But if I don’t, it’s because I’ve been caught…”
“I know,” Celia says.
“Will you be able to manage?”
Celia looks up at the sky. She nudges me with her bony shoulder. “You’ll come back.”
“But if I don’t?”
Celia gets up and disappears inside the schoolhouse with Jerry Lee.
Conversation over.
“What are you thinking about?” Celia asks later, sitting down beside me on the edge of our bed.
She’s feeling better now that she’s washed, in clean clothes, with a little food in her.
I’m thinking about my parents and their packages to Haiti. How the boxes arrived filled with clothes, food, crayons, workbooks. I’d call home the moment the boxes came and let my parents listen to the sound of the children opening them. It delighted my mom to know that of all the gifts she and Dad sent, the children loved her photographs the most, especially the ones of our cat, Romulus. She’d write these comical notes on the back in her very silly French, like “Bonjour, ma petite souris. Je voudrais a manger votre queues,” as if Rom were calling the children his little mice and telling them he’d like to eat their tails.
“I’m thinking about my mom,” I say. “She’s a photographer.”
“Is that what those pictures are?” Celia asks.
I nod. “Ever hear of Parker Hughes? She’s kind of famous.”
Most people get pretty excited when they find out who my mother is. But not Celia.
“What kind of name is Parker?” Celia asks.
“What kind of name is Radley?” I answer.
“Good point. Anyway, your mother’s pictures are good,” Celia says. “I like the ones of food…”
“Wait a minute. How do you even know about the photographs…”
“I’ve seen you looking at them. I was curious,” Celia says. “I went through your pack. I like the bear, too.”
I feel a black fury descend. “I would never go through your things…”
“I know,” Celia says. And shrugs. “Anyway, your mom’s pictures, they’re really good.”
I want to smack her. I want to scream at her. I want to go to my room and slam the door in her face.
And then I look at the tiny two-room schoolhouse and the possibility that it might all collapse with the slam of a door.
And I start to laugh.
“My mom made the bear. Knitting’s a hobby of hers. She says it calms her. But the bear’s not mine. It’s just on loan from a friend.”
“I wouldn’t mind borrowing it myself from time to time,” Celia says. “Actually, I already have.”
I’m torn between feeling really pissed at her for touching my things, and moved by the fact that she’s drawn comfort from them.
“I would have thought you were too old for dolls,” I finally manage to say.
“Yeah, I can see how you’d think that.”
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Nineteen. I’ll be twenty this summer. You?”
“Seventeen. Just a baby.”
“Just a baby,” Celia echoes.
I look to see if there is any meanness in her eyes and am surprised by the tears there instead. She turns away, gets up, and goes to the door to let out Jerry Lee.
Seeing the way Celia sleeps so deeply in our grass and cattail bed, seeing Jerry Lee look less and less wary when he hears anything moving outside in the woods, my own caution begins to subside.
Instinct tells us we have found a safe haven here, in Canada, under the shadow of the rugged mountains of southeastern Quebec. Is it possible my parents have found safety here, too? That in my wanderings I’ll find them or hear of them?
There’s not always food waiting for me at the farm nearby, but there’s always something. Our Lady of the Barn is reliable in her care though she doesn’t always know what we need.
What we need most is food, every day. We need food.
I am resentful on the days when no food is left for us. How quickly I revert to the spoiled child I was at home when my mother prepared every meal. On the days when Our Lady of the Barn doesn’t come through with nourishment, I have to hustle to find enough to eat, often risking a heart-pounding race in and out of Sutton.
Sometimes I arrive too late to raid the trash there.
Observing from a hiding place, I notice how all the people on the streets of Sutton seem to know each other. I eavesdrop on their conversations. They’re so relaxed. Not a soldier, not a cop in sight. It’s so different from what I left behind in Vermont.
But these people would take note of a stranger in town, particularly one who came only to raid their garbage.
I am neither brave enough nor stupid enough to risk stealing food from Sutton in broad daylight.
But today there is no need. Today Our Lady of the Barn has been more than generous.
I find a pail of ripe strawberries.
A soft blanket.
A pair of shears.
“Thank you, O Lady of the Barn,” I whisper, gathering her gifts. “Thank you!”
As I slip through the approaching dawn I look toward the house, trying to make out the figure of our benefactress. But there is no hint of her.
After Celia and I have eaten the strawberries, tossing three to Jerry Lee and watching him leap and snap the ripe red orbs out of the air, the sun is well up. With the pair of shears, Celia and I give each other haircuts out on the step of the schoolhouse. The breeze takes our locks scudding away amid the tall grasses and weeds.
We head down to the brook, and using the soap, we shampoo the stubble that is left on our heads.
Celia is better at cutting hair. Back at the schoolhouse, when I look at my reflection in the bowl of my spoon I am a pixie-headed stranger.
Celia does not complain but she looks as if I’ve cut her hair with an eggbeater.
“It’s not your fault,” she says
. “It’s my hair. It has a mind of its own.” She rolls her eyes and we laugh.
At last we are free of all that weight, of its smell, of its itch.
Along with the hair, the rest of our reserve falls away.
I don’t have to ask. Celia simply starts talking. My starved ears savor her every word. My brain, at full attention, memorizes each thing she says, each story she tells. It’s as if she’s heard my questions all along. Now she’s finally ready to answer them.
“I’ve got two half-sisters back in Windsor,” Celia says. “I had a brother, but he died.”
“Your parents?”
Celia shakes her head no. Her chin juts out, a little gesture of defiance or self-control … I’m not sure which.
She stretches as if dislodging some memory. “How about you?” she asks. “Sisters? Brothers?”
“Only child,” I say. “It’s good. You don’t have to share.”
“Sharing was never the problem,” Celia says.
“What was the problem?” I ask.
Celia raises her eyebrows. “Not remembering my father. Having a drunk mother. Then having no mother at all.”
“Sorry,” I say.
Celia shrugs. “Stuff happens.”
But stuff like that never happened to me.
When there is no food waiting in Our Lady’s barn, when I am too late to slip safely in and out of Sutton, I forage for food in the woods near the schoolhouse. I never manage to bring home enough to fill us. But at least there is almost always something to chew on.
“The plants are just a little different here,” I tell Celia, gnawing on a sassafras twig. Its root beer taste helps keep the hunger at bay. All of those walks I took with my parents so many years ago must have made some impression. More and more I begin to recognize plants, develop a sense of what is edible, what is not. When I’m uncertain, I hold whatever I’ve found … a leaf, a mushroom, a berry, a root … against the underside of my arm, then against my lips, then on my tongue. Only after that will I take the smallest bite.
Celia has trouble keeping certain things down. I think it’s my fault, though I never seem to get sick.
