Journeys - SF10

by Meagher, Susan X

  She finished making her drink and was about to go back upstairs when she heard it again. I guess I'd better bring the rockers in if the wind is moving them around that much. She switched on the porch light and opened the door to the sight of Jennie, curled in a fetal position, her backpack nestled against her chest for warmth. She looked utterly exhausted, and nearly frozen; her small body was covered only by a threadbare sweater and a pair of ripped jeans. Her head fell forward and she moaned softly as her sleep was disturbed.

  Ryan fell to her knees in front of her and wrapped her arms around her so tightly that she could feel every bone. She started to cry, twelve hours of mad anxiety unleashed in a torrent of emotion.

  Jennie cried too, nearly as hard as Ryan did. She was shivering so badly that Ryan finally collected herself enough to cradle her in her arms and carry her into the living room, managing to kick the door shut with her foot. They sank into the loveseat as one, Jennie clutching herself to Ryan as if she were her lifeline. Neither woman could stop crying, but Jennie slowly started to warm and her body stopped shivering from the cold. She finally managed to ask, "Why are you crying?"

  "Why am I crying?" Ryan looked at her incredulously. "I've been so worried about you! I love you, Jennie! Don't you know that?"

  "Y…Yeah, I guess I do," she mumbled. "You don't have to worry about me. I can take care of myself."

  Ryan grasped her by the shoulders and held her at arm's length, glaring at her with tears still running down her cheeks. "No you cannot! You're still a girl, Jennie, and you need adults to help you and guide you. If you had met the wrong person out there you could have been raped or killed. It's a miracle that you got this far in one piece!"

  "I did meet the wrong person," she admitted, her tears starting again.

  "What happened?" Ryan was frantic with alarm when she saw the look on the girl's face.

  "It was last night," Jennie said, her voice shaky and hesitant. "A guy picked me up in San Diego, and he made me smoke grass with him."

  "He…he made you?" Ryan asked, her stomach clenching into a ball of pain.

  "I didn't want to do it 'cause I promised you I wouldn't," she sobbed. "I haven't smoked since that last time." She looked at Ryan to make sure the older woman believed her and was met with eyes brimming with love and trust. Jennie pressed her face against Ryan's chest and allowed herself to accept some of the concern and compassion that radiated from her.

  After soaking up as much love as she could, Jennie continued. "I kept telling him that I didn't want any grass, but he put his hand on my neck and started squeezing." She pulled away from Ryan's embrace and tugged her sweater down to show livid purple fingerprints on her pale skin. "I thought he was gonna kill me." Her voice was soft and low, and Ryan could hear the same flat affect that she had often heard from teenagers who had been violated. Her stomach was churning so badly that she feared she'd be sick right on the floor, but she stayed with Jennie, offering as much comfort as she could.

  "I don't know what was in this stuff, but I got so high so fast," she mumbled. "It was sickening. I kept feeling like I was gonna throw up, but I never did."

  "Was the car moving the whole time?" Ryan asked.

  "Yeah. We were on Interstate 5, I think, but we were going the wrong way. He was going to take me to Mexico," she related. "He was drinking beer and smoking the whole time. I don't know how he did it," she said. "I could barely see, I was so stoned."

  "What happened then, Jennie?" Ryan's thin voice asked.

  Her face colored in shame, and her head dropped against Ryan's shoulder. "He started touching me," she sniffed. "I begged and cried but he grabbed my throat again and said he'd kill me if I fought him. So I just sat there and let him." She sounded so thoroughly disgusted with herself that Ryan just had to interrupt.

  "You did the right thing, Jen. You did exactly the right thing. You're here now and you're alive, and that's all that matters. No matter what you had to do-it's not your fault."

  "But I let him," she sobbed.

  "No." Ryan moved her body so they were eye to eye. "You didn't let him do anything. He was a cruel, violent adult who was drunk and high, and he forced you to do things that you didn't want to do. Anything--anything--you had to do to live through that is okay, Jennie."

  "Okay," she said quietly, nodding her head slightly. "You wanna hear the rest?"

  "Anything you want to tell me is fine, Jen. Anything at all."

  "We started to get closer to the border, and they had these barricade things up that you had to go through. His hand was…in my pants," she said with a voice full of self-loathing, "but I jerked myself away from him when he slowed down to go through. I opened the door and jumped out and rolled down this embankment."

  "Oh, God," Ryan moaned, pressing the child to her body in an automatic reflex. "Are you hurt?"

  "A little," she admitted. "I started running through all this really sticky sharp stuff that was growing down there. I don't know how long I ran, 'cause I was all high. I finally got exhausted and found a big drainage pipe, and I just stayed there until I came down. It took a really long time, and it was light out by the time I felt like I could walk again."

  Ryan pulled back a little and noticed that Jen's clothes were not threadbare, they were ripped and torn from the scrub she had run through. She grasped one of her legs and pulled her pant leg up, grimacing when she saw hundreds of deep scratches and cuts lancing her fair skin. "Jen, do you want me to take you to the emergency room? You're awfully banged up."

  "No, no," she said her agitation beginning to come back. "It's just some scratches. Really, Ryan."

  "Did anything else bad happen to you? Did anyone else touch you or hurt you?"

  "No. I just hitched the rest of the way. A truck driver picked me up and took me all the way to L.A., but I couldn't get another ride for a couple of hours. A really nice lady picked me up in Glendale, and she took me to Valencia, then another trucker brought me here. I still had my Muni pass, so I took a bunch of buses, and finally got here."

  "Why didn't you ring the bell, Jennie? Do you really think I'd want you outside freezing?"

  "I didn't want you to get mad," she mumbled.

  "Oh, Jen, we've got a lot of work to do here. I've got to somehow convince you that I really do love you and only want what's best for you-even when it's inconvenient for me."

  "I know that," she admitted. "Sometimes I just get scared."

  "I know," Ryan soothed. "We just have to work at making you not so scared." She patted her and said, "Let's go upstairs. I'll make you a nice warm bath with some baking soda in it. That should help with your cuts."

  "But we'll wake Jamie up," she said, with no small amount of alarm.

  "She loves you too, Jen. And she'll only care that you're safe-not that it's four a.m."

  By seven a.m. Jennie was clean, warm, and fed, and all of her more serious scrapes had been treated and dressed. Ryan tucked her into the bed in her room and went back into her own bedroom. She looked longingly at her own bed, but banished the tempting thought and sat down at the desk to start making phone calls. When she related all of the details to the social worker, they agreed that Jennie had to go to the police to make a statement, but they also agreed that time was not of the essence, since more than 24 hours had passed and Jennie could not recall many details of her attacker's description or his car.

  "When she wakes up, will you bring her down to my office, Ryan? I'll have her placed in one of the emergency shelters until we decide what to do with her."

  "Can't she stay here until you figure out a solution? We have a spare room and I'd take her to school every morning."

  The woman sighed and said, "I don't think I can do that, Ryan. We'd need Mrs. Willis's permission for an arrangement like that, and I'm sure she wouldn't give it."

  "What about Safe Haven? For God's sake, it's the only place she's agreed to stay!"

  "I know that, Ryan, but it's far more expensive than a foster home, and we're uncomfortable pu
tting that many children into a single home."

  "What if I paid for her? I'd be more than happy to pay the entire bill."

  Sheila laughed, the sound rather unpleasant. "Do you have any idea how much money that is?"

  "It doesn't matter. I'm…quite well off. It wouldn't be a problem." Well, that was the winning entry in the 'things I swore I'd never say' competition.

  "Well," she hedged, "It's not unheard of to have a family pay for a private placement. I suppose it's possible to have a non-related individual do so. I'd have to have Mrs. Willis's permission, though."

  "Do you want to call her, or do you want me to?" Ryan asked, ready and willing to resort to any means necessary to get Jennie back into the home.

  "I'll do it," Sheila sighed. "I'll call you later, Ryan." Ryan started to hang up but she heard her say, "Wait!"

  "Yeah?"

  "I forgot to say thank you," she said. "It's not very often that I run into someone willing to go this far out of their way for someone they're not even related to."

  Ryan smiled and said, "We are related. She's my sister."

  When Jamie came home from school, Ryan was just going down the front walk to head over to volleyball practice. "Two questions," she said after giving her a quick kiss. "One, where's Jennie? And two, why do you look happy?"

  "Same answer to both," Ryan said, giving her a very tired smile. "I just got back from taking her to Safe Haven. She's going to stay there."

  "Stay there…like permanently?"

  "Well, no. The social worker took pity on me when I started to cry," she admitted.

  "What?"

  "I offered to pay for Jennie to stay at Safe Haven." She gave Jamie a half-anxious look and said, "That's okay, isn't it?"

  Shaking her head, Jamie said, "I'm not even going to dignify that ridiculous question with an answer."

  Ryan gave her an adorable grin and said, "Sorry. Anyway, Mrs. Willis won't hear of it. She wants Jennie in a foster home. So now we're going to go through the whole fiasco of having a hearing to determine a permanent placement for her. It's a fucking mess."

  "So why are you happy?" Jamie was sure she'd missed something vital in the explanation.

  "Well, until they have the hearing, Jennie can stay at Safe Haven. I'm gonna work on Mrs. Willis between now and then." She gave her partner an evil look and said, "I can be very persuasive."

  "That's an understatement," Jamie chuckled.

  "Oh, I called those therapists that Anna recommended. Jen's got an appointment tomorrow with a woman who specializes in helping troubled kids. She claims she doesn't need any help, but I want her to have someone to talk to about that scum-sucker that molested her. It's gonna prey on her mind if she doesn't have someplace to vent her feelings about it."

  Jamie threw her arms around her partner's neck and gave her a very enthusiastic hug. "You are such a good person."

  "Me? What did I do?" Ryan asked.

  Jamie released her and stepped back to look at her closely. "You really don't know, do you?"

  "No," she said blankly. "Anyone would have done the same thing."

  Jamie impulsively tossed her arms around her waist and squeezed her tight. "God, if that were true, this would be a wonderful world."

  Part Eight

  When Jamie got out of bed on Wednesday, she began the refrain she had finally stopped when sleep had overtaken her the night before. "Are you sure that making dinner for us all is something you want to do?"

  "Yes, dear," Ryan replied patiently. "I want you to attend your father's speech. I would like to go too, but I really can't get out of practice. I've already checked with Jennie's housemother, and she says it's perfectly fine if she eats with us. I don't know why you're stressing about this."

  "I don't know," she said, a little embarrassed to be caught in her nervousness. "I guess I'm just anxious about seeing my parents together. I feel like there's always a chance that something will go wrong and they'll be feuding again. This is also the first time Daddy's eaten with us, you know. What are you going to make?" she asked.

  "Something appropriate to the day," Ryan replied mysteriously.

  Jamie snuck another peek out the window and said, "I don't know what goes well with 43 degrees and driving rain, but I trust you to make the correct decision."

  Ryan joined her at the window and gave her a hug as they watched the rain pelt down in sheets. "'Tis a bit of a sickener," she agreed. "When I was a kid in Ireland my grandmother would look at weather like this and say, 'Sure and there's a break in the clouds just over the hills. You go out and play, Siobhan, but wear your slicker.'"

  "God, she was that much of an optimist?"

  "Not at all," Ryan laughed. "She would have sent me out in a hurricane just to keep me from being underfoot!"

  When the Evanses came in through the back door a little after seven p.m., the rain had tapered down to a steady drizzle, but the wind was absolutely bone chilling as it whipped off the Bay. "I'm freezing!" Jamie cried as she ran up to receive Ryan's warm embrace.

  She was wearing a cream-colored turtleneck with a dark green wool sweater and a pair of tan corduroy slacks, but her light jacket obviously had no insulating properties. "Where are your winter clothes?" Ryan demanded. "No hat? No gloves?"

  "It was raining so hard when I left that I thought the biggest issue was staying dry. This is the only rain jacket I have."

  Ryan shook her head in mock anger and tightened her embrace. "How did you ever survive having this scamp in the house for 18 years?" she asked Jim and Catherine as they were taking off their perfectly adequate rain gear.

  Ryan went to hang their things up in the mudroom, and when she returned Catherine gave her a hug and a kiss as usual, but Jim just extended his hand. Jamie was peeking in the oven, so Ryan lightly slapped her hand and said, "Uh-uh-uh, no peeks!"

  "Ooo, but it smells so good," Jamie said, trying to get past her larger partner to take another look.

  Ryan didn't move an inch as she tweaked Jamie's nose and said, "Set the table, and I'll not only let you look at it, I'll let you eat it. I'll go let our other guests know that you're here," Ryan offered as she left the room.

  "Guests?" Jim asked. "Someone other than Jennie?"

  Before Jamie could reply, Ryan returned with Rory and Jennie in tow. Both Jim and Catherine looked pleased to see Jennie again, and when it became clear that Rory bore him no ill will, Jim relaxed and took on his normal demeanor.

  "Jim was giving a speech at Cal today on a bill he's proposing to fund research grants in the pure sciences," Ryan said. "I really wish I could have gone," she added. "I'm very much in support of your plan."

  "Thank you, Ryan," he said, surprised at himself for not guessing she would be interested in his bill. "It's always nice to hear that one of my constituents is supportive."

  Catherine accepted a glass of the Pinot Noir that Ryan was pouring and commented, "I wasn't aware that you liked to cook, Ryan."

  "I do, actually," she said. "I'm not terribly creative, but I'm pretty adept at executing old family favorites. Tonight's dish is a Casey heirloom," she added in her adorable brogue.

  "Casey?" Catherine asked.

  "My mother's mother is a Casey," she informed her. "She got this recipe from her grandmother on her father's side. So technically I suppose it's a Ni Mhuiri recipe, but it came down through the Caseys."

  "I'm going to hazard a wild guess that that's a Gaelic name," Catherine said with a smile.

  "Yep, one more unpronounceable name. I can only thank my mother for naming me after her father's family. Almost everyone can pronounce Ryan." She opened the oven, took out a large enameled Dutch oven, and carried the dish over to the table. Trotting back over to the lower oven, she removed a tray of fluffy biscuits and put them into a basket with a warming stone hidden beneath the gingham napkin that covered them.

  As Jim passed by on his way to his seat, he gave Ryan a smile. "Thank you for cooking for us, Ryan. We both appreciate it."

  Ryan's natu
ral ebullience took over, and she placed her hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze. "My pleasure," she smiled.

  When they were all seated, Ryan looked around the table and asked, "Anyone mind if I lead grace?" When no one voiced a complaint, she extended her hands and gripped Jamie's and Jennie's. Looking at Rory, she began, "It's fitting that we're sharing a dish that came down from our mother's family. Today would have been her fifty-second birthday, and I know nothing would make her happier than to have at least some of us gather and think of her. She's never far from my thoughts, and I thank God every day for having given her to us. We didn't have her for long, but we had every bit of her for every day that she was with us. I suppose all we can hope for out of life is that we love and are loved well while we live, and that we're remembered fondly when we're gone. She was all of that and so much more." She lifted her glass and toasted all of the guests, then got up halfway to lean across Jamie and kiss Rory. "One thing that pleased her more than anything was to have people enjoy the food she prepared, so let's eat heartily in her honor!" she declared.

  As Ryan removed the lid to the heavy pot, every eye went to the dish to try to figure out what the delectable aroma was. "Nothing warms a cold body like a bowl of Irish stew," she declared as she began to ladle the stew into the earthenware bowls.

  Everyone made over the dish enthusiastically, with Jim passing along some very sincere-sounding compliments. As they ate, he asked Jennie, "Are things settling down for you, Jennie?"

  "Yeah, things are pretty good," she said, her sunny disposition shining through. "I like the girls I'm living with, and the housemother has always been nice to me."

  "How about school?" he persisted.

  "It's okay," she said noncommittally, shrinking a little bit in her seat.

  He noticed her reticence and decided to follow up. "What exactly are you taking?" he asked.