These Things Hidden

by Heather Gudenkauf

  “It’s not the right time,” Bea says in a way that I know I should drop the whole topic, but I can’t.

  “Do you think they’ll remember you?” I ask. “I mean, your youngest? You haven’t seen her since she was born. Do you think in some way she’ll know who you are?”

  Bea laughs. “God, I hope not. The poor kid was born in prison.” More seriously she says, “I hope she has no memory of that horrible place. My sister has been a good mother to my kids. I want to be their mother again, but I may have to be satisfied with much less. Who knows, maybe eventually the past won’t matter to them, maybe they’ll be happy to get to know me again. Time will tell.” Bea fishes into the pot of pasta with a fork and pulls out a few noodles. Using her fingers she lifts the strands and tosses them against the kitchen wall, where they stick. “I can never remember if the noodles are supposed to stick or fall off. Oh, well.” She drains the pot of pasta and then hollers in her shrill voice, “Come and eat!”

  I wish that would be enough for Brynn. For us to just reconnect. Then what happened all those years ago won’t matter so much anymore. Brynn used to be proud of me; she used to look up to me. I want that again. I want her to be proud of me again.

  No, not even proud. I just want her to like me. I want to be able to tell her more about finding Joshua, about how much he looks like Christopher but has my hair. How, in a way, Joshua reminds me of her. The way he loves animals, the way he likes everything just so. And I want Brynn to tell me about her life. What her classes at school are like, whether or not she has a boyfriend, whether our parents drive her as crazy as they do me. I want to be a sister to Brynn, something I was never very good at. But everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they?

  Even me.

  Charm

  Over and over Gus tried to call Allison Glenn’s home and speak to someone about the baby. Finally, someone picked up the phone and Gus said, “I’m calling about the baby.” As Gus listened to the person on the line, his face turned a sickly gray color. “I understand,” he said, and hung up the phone.

  “What?” Charm asked. “What did they say?”

  Gus rubbed a shaking hand over his face and sat down heavily in a chair. “Turn on the TV,” he said.

  “What?” Charm asked, not understanding.

  “Turn on the TV,” Gus said again. Charm handed him the baby, turned on the television set and flipped the channels until Gus told her to stop. A newscaster was standing on the banks of the Druid River, a serious look on her face.

  “Gus…” Charm began, but the look on his face stopped her.

  “It was here, at the banks of the Druid River, that a man fishing with his grandson found the lifeless infant girl.” The reporter made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “Channel Seven News has just learned that a teenage female has been taken into custody in connection to this case. Because the suspect is a juvenile, her identity will not be released to the public. However, we can tell you that the individual in question was escorted from her Linden Falls home by law enforcement and then taken to a local hospital for an undisclosed reason.”

  Charm turned to Gus and looked at him blankly. “What does this have to do with the baby and Allison?”

  The baby began fussing, his thin arms flailing, and Gus brought him up to his shoulder. “There, there,” he whispered into his ear. “The unnamed individual taken into custody,” he said, nodding his head toward the television, “was Allison Glenn. And that little girl they found in the Druid is this little boy’s sister.”

  Allison

  Every day I walk into Bookends I’m so afraid that Claire or even Joshua will take one look at my face and suddenly realize who I am. Would this be a violation of my parole? Would they send me back to prison? For how reluctant I was to leave Cravenville, even the short amount of time I’ve been free has made me realize that I never want to go back. But though I search her face carefully, I can see no difference in Claire; she greets me happily, and we chat comfortably about everyday things.

  Each minute I spend with Claire I like her more and more. She talks to me like I’m somebody. She doesn’t talk down to me or look at me suspiciously because of my past. I like working at Bookends. I like the Kelbys. I know I should tell her that I suspect Joshua is my son, but I can’t. I don’t want to.

  At three-thirty Joshua flies into the bookstore. His normally pale face is blotchy red and his lips are pinched in anger. Odd winks of light are reflecting off his skin and clothing. When I look more closely, I see that he is speckled with tiny bits of orange glitter. Joshua is intent on trying to pick the bits of glitter from his arms, but only succeeds in transferring it to another part of his body. Jonathan comes in behind Joshua, a mix of frustration and bewilderment on his face. Claire steps out from behind the counter. “What’s the matter?” she asks with worry.

  “Josh had a tough day at school,” Jonathan says, “that involved glue and glitter.”

  “What happened?” Claire says, and Joshua scowls and folds his arms defiantly in front of him.

  Jonathan notices me standing there for the first time. “Hi, Allison,” he says. “His teacher said in art class they were sprinkling glitter over the glue they had spread on construction-paper leaves that they had drawn and cut out. Of course Joshua got glue on his fingers, which is, as we all know, worse than baths, sand and haircuts all rolled up into one, and then he got glitter on his hands. I’ve got to give the school credit—Mrs. Lovelace helped Joshua wash the glue off his hands, but of course, then his hands weren’t completely dry and that drove Joshua nuts and things went downhill from there.”

  I watch as Claire winces in anticipation of what is coming. Joshua is scrubbing furiously at his arms and begins to cry. “Stop it, Josh!” Claire says sharply. “You’re scratching yourself.” Joshua whips around so that his back is to all of us and continues to scour at his arms. I don’t know if I should jump in and try to help or go back to examining the alarm system and pretend I don’t notice the tantrum.

  “So according to Mrs. Lovelace,” Jonathan continues over Joshua’s cries, “Joshua crumpled up his leaf, getting more glue and glitter on himself. Then, in a rage I’m certain was something to behold, he grabbed the canister of glitter and proceeded to fling orange glitter around the room. All over the other children, their projects, the teacher and himself. Joshua—” Jonathan lifts his arms in exasperation “—was escorted out of the room.”

  “Oh, Joshua,” Claire says in disappointment. As she lays her hands on his thin shoulders, he sits down and begins to cry even harder.

  Without thinking I go to my knees, near enough to Joshua for me to be in his line of vision. Momentarily, his crying slows and he warily watches me from the corner of his eye. I speak before he can continue his tirade. “Joshua, it sounds like you had a rough day.” He turns away from me and begins to cry again, but this time with less steam, so I plug onward. “I bet you’d like to get that glitter off you right now.” This stills him. He is breathing hard, but I can tell he is listening, so I move a little closer to him and continue in a low, calm voice—the one that comes in handy when talking to Flora at the halfway house when she’s angry. “I bet you didn’t know there’s a magic kind of tape that is used especially for removing glitter.” I stand and go back behind the counter, pull open a drawer and retrieve a roll of masking tape.

  Joshua eyes the tape with suspicion. “That’s just regular tape,” he informs me.

  I casually shrug and say, “It looks like regular tape. We can try it, if you want to. Or it’s okay if we don’t—you can keep the glitter, if you’d like.” I set the tape down on the counter. This is one thing I learned in prison—whenever possible, give a person a way to save face.

  He thinks about this for a moment and then, surprising us all, stands. “Okay, I’ll try it.” I tear a piece of tape from the roll and fold it back on itself so that the sticky side faces upward.

  “Do you want to try it yourself,” I ask, “or would you like your mom or dad to do
it?”

  “Will it hurt?” Joshua asks fearfully.

  “Not a bit,” I reassure him.

  “You do it, then,” he tells me. It comes out as an order.

  “Joshua.” Claire raises her voice in warning.

  “Will you please use the magic tape on me?” he tries again.

  “Sure,” I say. “Now watch closely, it’s pretty amazing.” Carefully, gently, I rub the folded tape over the sleeve of his T-shirt and then show Joshua the orange glitter it has picked up. “Cool, huh?” I say, smiling at him. He smiles back. And there it is, our connection. It’s subtle, just a glimmer—more of a sputter, really—but it’s there. I can’t say that he recognizes me, but a link, thin and fragile, has been made. I look up at Claire and she is smiling at me with a newfound respect. Then I look to Jonathan, who is also impressed.

  I spend the next thirty minutes with Joshua in the children’s section of the bookstore, gingerly removing the glitter from his shirt, pants and even his shoes. The glitter that clings to his fingers, face and hair is a different story. Joshua is scared to let me put the sticky tape directly on his skin. “It will hurt,” he tells me, his thin face serious but expectant at the same time.

  “Well, it’s up to you,” I say. “You can leave the glitter where it is or we can try and use the magic tape to get it off your skin. If you think it hurts I can stop.”

  “Could I try it?” he asks hopefully.

  “Absolutely,” I tell him, and show him how to fold the tape. He presses it lightly against his skin, pulls it away and closely examines the glittery pattern left on the tape.

  “That didn’t hurt,” he says matter-of-factly, and continues to work until his hands are glitter free. Joshua allows me to help with his hair and face as long as I promise not to pull too hard and to stop immediately if he asks me to. He closes his eyes and raises his face to me and the whole time I am working I am absorbing his long face and pointy chin. I memorize the bluish veins of his closed eyelids and the light fringe of eyelashes that fan out against his skin, the way his thin lips are pursed beneath his upturned nose, so much like Christopher’s. When I reluctantly tell him that I’m finished, he asks, “Can I see?” and runs off to the bathroom where he can look at himself in a mirror. I go back to the front of the store where Claire is helping a customer. Joshua emerges a few minutes later, smiling broadly. “It worked,” he tells Claire. “Maybe I can take some of that tape with me to school.”

  “Sure,” Claire says. “But I bet if you ask your teacher, she probably already has some. What do you say to Allison?”

  “Thank you,” Joshua tells me shyly.

  “You’re welcome,” I respond.

  “Mom, can I get something to eat?” Joshua asks, looking to Claire, and my heart clutches with something I can’t name.

  “Go get some crackers from the back room,” she tells him. “Wow,” Claire says, looking at me with admiration. “You did a great job with him.” I blush. “Where did you learn how to do that?”

  I shrug as if it’s no big deal. “It’s always good to give a person a choice. Then they don’t feel so trapped.”

  Claire shakes her head. “I’ve read that in about every parenting book, but by the time I think of it, Joshua is in throes of such a tantrum, it’s too late. I’ll have to give it a try next time.”

  I look awkwardly down at my feet. “Is there something you want me to do? Shelving books or something?” I ask.

  “You know what would be a great help?” Claire says, looking toward the bulldog standing at the front entrance, his breath forming a foggy Rorschach blob on the glass door. “Would you mind taking Truman outside for a quick bathroom break? I don’t really want to leave Joshua right now.” She smiles at me apologetically. “I know this isn’t normally in the job description for working in a bookstore, but Truman and the store are kind of a package deal.”

  “No problem,” I tell her. “Truman’s great. I can’t have pets where I live.” I run to grab my jacket from the back room. When I return, Jonathan is gone—back to work, I guess—and Claire and Joshua are already immersed in a book together. I clip the leash onto Truman’s collar and we head out into the cool September air. I lead him to a patch of grass along the sidewalk in front of the store and wait patiently so he can relieve himself.

  I feel it on my back, as soft as a falling leaf. Someone’s gaze. I turn to find the source is Claire’s husband, sitting in his white truck looking at me, his face unreadable. Before I can stop myself, I raise my hand in a spastic wave. As if he is trying to hold it back, he smiles, too, and waves in return. He puts his truck into Drive and slowly rolls forward, and for a minute I think that he is going to stop to speak to me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls away from the curb and drives away and I stare after him a long time, well after he has turned the corner and is out of sight. Wondering if somehow he knows who I am. But he can’t know. He can’t.

  Truman is yanking on his leash so I turn to lead him back to Bookends and see Joshua standing at the front window, watching as the gray exhaust from his father’s truck swirls about me.

  Charm

  Charm is sitting in the empty bathtub, fully clothed. It seems to be the only place she can go and not hear the rattle of Gus’s chest. She knows she should be brave, should go out there and sit with him. She’s going to be a nurse, after all. But all of her training could not prepare Charm for this. Gus is dying in a way that no one should have to—even the meanest person in the world should not have to suffer the way he is. He is suffocating, slowly, painfully, right in front of her and there is nothing she can do to help him, even though he looks up at her desperately. She imagines his blackened lungs squeezing in his chest, desperate for air. The pneumonia settled in so quickly. His skin has turned a sickly gray and his whole body has wasted away until he’s just bone. He reminds her of those pictures of concentration camp survivors that they saw in history class. The only part of him that isn’t thin is his face and neck. There he is all puffy. Sometimes it’s hard to find him in that swollen yellow flesh, but once in a while he smiles and she sees him again. The fun, energetic Gus who came to every school event Charm ever had, the one who taught her how to shoot free throws and how to make kolache. Now he looks like a stranger.

  Charm considers calling her mother, but isn’t sure what she would say to her. Charm has only truly needed her mother two other times in her life—when her mother’s sicko boyfriend cornered her while Reanne was at work and when Allison left Joshua with her. Both times, her mother wasn’t there. I could use a mother now, Charm thinks. Someone to help her take care of Gus, to tell her that everything’s going to be okay. Unfortunately, Reanne Tullia is not that person.

  Charm climbs from the bathtub and looks at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are bloodshot and little crevices are forming around lips that she knows she keeps perpetually pinched in worry. I look so old, she thinks. I am twenty-one and I’m starting to look like an old woman.

  Charm told her instructors at school that she needed to take some time off so she could help care for Gus. They were very understanding. She knows that the next time she returns to class will be after Gus’s funeral.

  She reluctantly leaves the refuge of the bathroom and goes to Gus. His eyes are slightly open and she pulls a chair up to the bed and sits next to him. Charm carried his old TV set into his bedroom and they watch silly sitcoms and old reruns of police dramas. It doesn’t really matter what they watch, just as long as the volume from the television covers up the teakettle wheeze that comes from his chest. When Gus starts one of his coughing fits, Charm carefully helps him sit up and rubs his back in small circles, like she saw him do with Joshua when he was with them. Charm pats Gus’s back over and over and whispers encouraging words to him, as if he is now the baby. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Get it out.” Gus clenches and unclenches the blankets with his thin, skeleton hands. When the hacking finally stops Charm gives him a sip of water, fixes the pillows behind his head and gently replaces the
oxygen mask over his nose. She sits back down again until his breathing calms and he falls asleep.

  Jane arranges to have the people from the hospice program come in and Charm is grateful. They are very nice and helpful; but it’s still Charm that Gus looks to. It is Charm his watery blue eyes follow around the room as if begging her to help him. He speaks nonsense much of the time and he calls Charm by her mother’s name, which physically pains her. Doris, the hospice volunteer, tries to tell her that it is Gus’s cancer and all the pain medicine that makes him talk like this.

  Fall has come to them hard and angry, expelling sharp slashes of rain, like spit. It rains all the time now. She finds it depressing, sitting in the little house day after day. Charm wants to go back to school, but she can’t stand the thought of leaving Gus at the house with strangers. She knows that he could die at any moment and is determined not to desert him, like her mother did. She wants to be there with him until his eyes close and don’t open, until he doesn’t have to struggle for every bit of air.

  Gus’s double bed has been replaced with a hospital bed. It makes it easier for the hospice workers to care for him and change his sheets. Makes it easier for them to wheel him out when he dies, Charm thinks to herself. He looks like an empty cocoon lying there, his skin cobweb-thin and pulled tight against his bones. His coughing has quieted and he lies so still that at times the gentle rise and fall of his chest are her only indication that he is still alive.

  Charm wonders if her mother knows that Gus is dying and if she cares. She wonders what she will do, where she will go, what will become of her. Though she has always been independent, without a true mother or father, she always had Gus.