Safe from Harm (9781101619629)

by Evans, Stephanie Jaye

  Phoebe would drop by right after Jo had left for dance—Jo went to dance class six days a week, and Phoebe seemed surprised each time to learn that Jo wasn’t there. Phoebe would ask if she could stay and wait for Jo. If I was home alone, I wouldn’t let her in. I won’t let any of Jo’s friends in the house if I’m home alone. There’s too many ways for that kind of situation to be misunderstood.

  If Annie Laurie was there, she would invite Phoebe in and Phoebe would visit with Annie Laurie, helping her with whatever job Annie Laurie was busy at. She would set the table, or help mate socks while Annie was folding clothes, or busy herself in the kitchen cooking alongside Annie. And they would talk and talk, my wife wearing something suburban like jeans and a button-up, and Phoebe in her black Emo Commando or some such outfit.

  By the time Jo got home from dance, Annie would have invited Phoebe to stay for dinner and Phoebe would accept. She was at our dinner table at least three times a week, and I was okay with that. At church Mark and Liz made vague comments about how well the girls were getting along and how Phoebe needed to have Jo over, but it didn’t happen. It was always our house. I never would have let Merrie or Jo spend so many nights away from home, but I’m that way, I guess. And I miss my girls when they aren’t there. I miss Merrie now that she’s at school.

  “You know that girl is coming here to see you, not Jo, right?” I asked, interrupting Annie Laurie at her computer she has a sweet business creating home schooling programs and was working at the kitchen table while I did the dishes.

  “Bear, her mom died.” Annie was still writing, words coming out of her mouth and wholly different words flying off the tips of her fingers. Neat trick. “She’s going to a new school and living in a new house with a stepmother who doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to be a mother to the girl. She seems to find some comfort with me and we should be grateful she’s coming here instead of acting out in a more negative way.”

  “What do you and Phoebe talk about?”

  “Ahh, let’s see. Whether or not Lady Gaga is a man—I’m voting no. Her costumes are too revealing to be hiding a secret like that. Whether or not Clements High School is a closed, elitist, exclusionary police state which I think it can be, sometimes. She wanted to know if you treat me nice all the time and whether or not I’ve ever thought about divorcing you and what would I do if you ever cheated on me.” Annie wasn’t looking at me but I could see her smile as she waited for the response she knew she was going to get.

  I slapped the dishcloth into the sink. “What?”

  “She did, too. She asked me right out.”

  “She asked you if I’d cheated on you?”

  Annie pushed back from her computer and came over to join me. She put a finger on my chest and tapped me for emphasis. “I told her nobody is nice all the time, not even preachers and certainly not me and of course I’ve thought of divorcing you, every woman has that thought when she goes into the bathroom in the wee hours and sits in the toilet because the seat’s been left up, and that you would never in a million years cheat on me because I’m all you can handle as it is and besides, my daddy keeps a gun. Phoebe tells me her granddad does, too. Generational thing.”

  Yeah. God gave me a houseful of women to keep me humble when I get up in the pulpit each Sunday.

  “You are a bad, wicked woman, Miss Foster.”

  Annie put her arms around me and linked her fingers behind my back. She didn’t squeeze the way she once would have. She knew I wasn’t up to that yet.

  “It’s been a long time since I was Miss Foster, Mr. Wells.”

  I kissed her. “Yeah, but you’ve always been a little wicked.” I bent my knees and put an arm around the backs of her legs so I could scoop her up and right away felt that incision protest. Instead I sat on the floor and pulled my wife down next to me. Baby Bear hurried over and pushed to be let into the middle. That dog hates to be left out. I rubbed my stomach where one bullet the size of a child’s pinkie finger did me more damage than the cumulative weight of hundreds of football players did over the four years I played college ball.

  “How long is it going to be before I’m me again, Annie?”

  “You’re you, now, sugar. You are still my Bear. It’s only been a couple of months. Give your body some time to heal.” She kissed the underside of my chin and I tilted my face to meet her kiss, and Jo walked into the kitchen to find her parents sitting on the floor necking, Baby Bear grumbling next to them. She got a glass, filled it with ice and water, called her dog to her, and, on the way out, suggested we get ourselves a room.

  We did.

  • • •

  When was it that things started to go bad with Phoebe? I’m clueless about so much that goes on in my girls’ hearts. The question is, when did I finally notice that Jo didn’t want Phoebe coming over anymore.

  Merrie and Jo have never much dealt with jealousy. There’s a four-year difference between the girls, so they weren’t competing with each other for friends or honors and each had their successes in very different fields. I look back at that sentence and I wonder how true it is. Were my girls ever jealous of each other? Annie and I don’t play favorites, but there are other arenas. I mean, you don’t really know your children, do you? You don’t really know what’s in their hearts. You only get the bits they choose to share with you. And when they do share something with you, ahh, be careful, careful with that treasure. Don’t use it on them, don’t make it a tool to teach them a lesson, don’t you ever bring it up and throw it back at them. Or it may be a wearying long time before you are ever trusted with something precious again. And serve you right, too.

  It could be I missed it when Jo started to show signs that she wasn’t comfortable with all the time her momma was spending with Phoebe. By the time things reached a point where I couldn’t miss it, it was all out there.

  This is how it happened. Things with Phoebe had gone on about a month, Phoebe always coming to our house, and Jo never being invited over to Phoebe’s. Not that I know of. On the few weekends when Jo’s friends were over, Phoebe was there, too, sticking out among all the fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds. But Jo and her friends weren’t coming to our house anymore, the way they had for years and years. Lately, they gathered at Cara’s house. They never seemed to be here. Phoebe, on the other hand, was always here.

  And then the day came when Jo got a letter from The School of American Ballet telling her what supplies she should bring with her for the summer program. I put the envelope next to her dinner plate, and for the first time in weeks, my girl was full of conversation over dinner. She would need some new pointe shoes, new ballet shoes, leotards and unitards and a robe, not the one hanging in her bathroom, that was too babyish, she wanted some new wrap skirts, and a body-wrap sweater—could she have one of those? And could she and Annie go shopping this Saturday? In case they had trouble finding something. That way there would be plenty of time to find it someplace else.

  Phoebe looked up from the ratatouille she and Annie had made together earlier.

  “What about a new shoe bag?”

  Jo said, “I’ve got a shoe bag.”

  “Ummmm, yeah, it’s got dancing bears on it. Bears in tutus.” Phoebe gave a snort to indicate what she thought of tutu-wearing dancing bears.

  Jo’s face pinched. “My nana made it.”

  “When you were about five. But whatever.” Phoebe peeled off the melted cheese, rolled it into a tube and ate it with her fingers. “If you want, I could go with you Saturday and help you choose stuff—I know how they dress in New York.”

  I’ve been to New York. Lots of times. There is no “how they dress in New York.” They dress every way in New York. There is no style that is not on exhibit in New York. Not one. Besides which, Jo would be spending six days a week in pink tights and a black leotard.

  “That’s okay.” Jo pushed her plate away, which just thrilled me. We’d only re
cently gotten Jo to eat a decent dinner, now here she was pushing away food again. I raised an eyebrow at Annie and she pretended not to see me.

  “It’s no problem. I’m free Saturday.”

  Jo put her plate on the floor and Baby Bear scarfed up the eggplant, tomatoes, mushrooms and onions and left the red and green peppers on the plate.

  “I know,” Jo said. There was a paragraph of meaning weighing those two words down.

  Phoebe’s tone changed. “You know what?”

  “I know you’re free.”

  I made a lot of noise getting up and gathering dishes and the red-pepper grinder, the black-pepper grinder, the Italian herbs grinder, the sea salt grinder.

  “Can I get anyone anything?” I asked. “Should we rummage through the freezer and see if there’s any good cake left in there? I know we’ve got Fudgsicles. I’ll have a Fudgsicle. Get anyone else one?”

  Phoebe’s eyes slit. “How do you know I’m free?” Which, come on, was just asking for it, though that doesn’t make it okay that Jo gave it to her.

  “Because you’re always here, that’s how I know.” Jo used her napkin to wipe tomato sauce off Baby Bear’s chops.

  Annie held her wineglass up. “Bear, could you pour me half a glass and then you and I will do the dishes and let these girls get on to their homework. Don’t you have a quiz tomorrow, Jo? Go on upstairs and start studying, sweetie. We’ll see Phoebe out.”

  Phoebe leaned over the table and gave Jo a look that was meant to curl her ears and melt the rubber band holding her hair back. “And is that a problem?”

  Jo is small, but she is fierce, and in her younger, unfettered days, I had pulled her off much bigger girls, and not a few boys, several times. She once attacked an umpire who made an unfavorable call during her softball game. I hurriedly cleared the rest of the china and glassware off the table and held myself ready. Just in case. Baby Bear was at the ready, too. He knew something was stirring.

  But my girl has grown up a lot. She doesn’t use her hands to fight anymore. She’s gotten deadlier.

  Very softly, but clearly, she said, “Not the first fifty times, it wasn’t.”

  Phoebe flushed and Annie cried out, “Oh, Jo!” as Jo stomped out of the kitchen and upstairs, Baby Bear on her heels. We heard a door slam.

  Annie was next to Phoebe, her hands on Phoebe’s cheeks, caressing, pushing a lock of the dead black hair back. “She didn’t mean it, Phoebe, honey, Jo didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  Which was a lie because there wasn’t any other way to take it than just the way Jo had meant it.

  Phoebe stood up from the table without answering Annie Laurie or looking at her. I’d tried to busy myself at the sink but glanced up and was stricken to see a film of tears in Phoebe’s huge blue eyes. Black eye makeup was puddling under those eyes. I put the dishcloth down and walked over to the awkward, discomfiting girl whom I had not really ever given a chance. I put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Y’all need a cooldown period, that’s all, Phoebe. Give Jo a couple of days and—”

  Phoebe jerked her shoulder out from under my hand. She walked over to the back door, picked up her backpack from where she had dropped it four hours ago when she got here, today, and the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, slung a strap over one shoulder, and opened the door.

  “Oh, Phoebe.” Annie was near tears herself. She tried to pull Phoebe back, holding her elbow. Phoebe shook her off. “Please stay for a bit, sugar. We’ll talk.”

  But Phoebe shook her head and walked out into the May twilight. Annie followed after her, trailing down the driveway, offering love and comfort in the form of excuses and explanations for her daughter’s behavior. I stuck my head out the kitchen door and watched the mortified Phoebe set off down the sidewalk.

  From the great, deep well of my wisdom, I came up with this. “Let her go, Annie Laurie. Give them some time to cool down. It will all be okay.”

  • • •

  What was said between Annie and Jo, I don’t know. My girls and me, we talk. I take in everything they’re willing to let me have. With Annie and the girls, though, there’s a whole level of communication going on that I’m not privy to. So I don’t know how Annie handled the blowup. My bet is she ladled on some guilt. Annie is friends with everyone. She likes everyone. Every woman is beautiful, every man is well-meaning and every kid is gifted and talented. When someone is mean to her, she comes home cross, takes two aspirin with a glass of wine, and in an hour she’s telling me how the whole thing was a misunderstanding or else it was all her fault. I love that about her but I don’t expect it from Merrie and Jo. You have to be born that way, and they weren’t. Me, either.

  • • •

  A week after Jo had so conclusively ended her friendship with Phoebe, I saw Liz walking past the church offices, her arms full of workbooks. I caught up to her and took the books from her arms.

  “Let me get those, Liz, I’ll walk you to your car.” She gave them to me. They were heavy. She should have had a cart.

  “How is Phoebe settling in,” I asked. Phoebe may or may not have told Liz and Mark about the quarrel with Jo—if she hadn’t, I didn’t want to. But if she had, I needed to say something.

  “Don’t ask if you don’t want me to tell you, Bear.”

  I said I wanted to know.

  “Good. Can we find a place to sit? I need to tell someone and Mark shuts down when I try to talk to him. And I don’t want to tell any of the women here. I know this situation makes me look bad.”

  Not surprising that Mark didn’t want to hear Liz complain about Phoebe. Annie gets testy with me when she thinks I’m criticizing the girls and the girls are half mine. I stacked the books near the front door and we went to the kitchen for some coffee. Liz fetched a carton of milk from the fridge that had PICKERSLEY-SMYTHE written on it in permanent marker, which was an indication of how often she was up here at the church, working away at one project or another. She shared her milk with me, rinsed both our spoons and put them in the dishwasher. We found a bench in the great hall and sat down. That’s more private than you’d think. You can be seen, but you’ll notice anyone coming long before you can be heard.

  Liz laid her purse across her lap. It was the size of a carry-on and had more zippers and pockets than a fighter pilot’s survival vest. She blew across the surface of her coffee, tasted it and set it on the floor next to her. She put a hand on my wrist.

  “Point one, thank you for asking about Phoebe. No one does. They take one look at her and they don’t know what to say.” She blew out a puff of air. “Mark doesn’t know what to say and she’s his daughter. I don’t see anything of Mark in Phoebe except those eyes. I swear she’s mainly Jenny’s, though it’s too bad Phoebe didn’t get her mother’s looks. Jenny didn’t have a brain cell in her head but she was pretty, if you like that kind. Pretty crazy, too. I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

  I told her if she needed to blow off some steam, it was okay to do it with me. I try to be a safe place for people to come to. I tasted my coffee and was relieved that it wasn’t one of Rebecca’s pots—her coffee is so strong it eats a hole through my stomach.

  Liz touched her nose with two fingers, smoothing it from bridge to cheek. Her phone made a brrrr. “Just a sec.” She pulled her phone out of her purse, pulled up a text message, tapped out a reply, dropped the phone in her purse and zipped it closed. She picked up her mug, blew across it again, tasted it, approved, and sipped some down.

  “Point two—I have done everything imaginable to make Phoebe’s transition easier. At Mark’s insistence, Phoebe moved in two weeks after Jenny died. So she’s been with us a month but it feels like a year. Mark stayed at Jenny’s place for those two weeks because it took him that long to persuade her to come. You can imagine how excited I was about that.” Another puff of air, this one with an eye roll. “Wh
at he should have done was leave her there. She would have been happier. I would have been happier.”

  “She said something about living with her grandfather—that wouldn’t have worked? At least until she could have finished out the school year?” Being yanked out of your school and home so abruptly—that would make any teenager hard to deal with.

  Liz’s fingers flew out in exasperation. “Uh, yes, she could have if Mark would have let her. He says Jenny’s father is a crazy drunk and he wouldn’t leave a good hound with the man”

  I thought that over. “Liz, isn’t Phoebe just finishing her junior year? That’s . . . yeah, I’m going to go with Mark on that one. It would be hard for me to leave one of my girls on her own that young.”

  Liz tilted her head down and looked up at me like I must be kidding her. “Bear, for all practical purposes, I was on my own at sixteen. It could have been a confidence-building experience for Phoebe. She has some money. Jenny had a life insurance policy and I don’t need to tell you that Jenny didn’t feel the need to pay Mark back any of the money he’s been sending their way since we’ve been married. I want to invest it for Phoebe but so far, she won’t let me. If she’s going to stay with us for the next year, Phoebe should get DeWitt out and let me sell that crackerbox they lived in, too. It’s really mine—I’ve explained that to Phoebe, but she doesn’t want to hear it—”

  I said, “Whoa. You lost me. You own the house Phoebe lived in?”

  Liz waved away the question. “It’s complicated and that’s not the point here. The point is her dad doesn’t have anything to give her—if she’s going to college, she’ll have to do it on her own.”

  Mark and Liz live in the most expensive neighborhood in First Colony, but Mark wasn’t going to be able to help his daughter through college? Huh. Were Toby and Tanner, those golden twins, going to have to work their way through, too? If Liz had been voicing to Phoebe what she was now voicing to me, I could understand why Phoebe might be seeking out a different mother figure over at my house.