Little Mercies

by Heather Gudenkauf

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Jenny whispered hoarsely, clapping a hand over her mouth, her eyes searching desperately for the restrooms.

  “It’s thataway.” The waitress pointed as Jenny slid out from behind the booth and stumbled away. Biting her cheeks and swallowing hard, she bumped from table to table, not noticing how the other customers recoiled at her approach. Jenny threw open the bathroom door and staggered to an empty stall, fell to her knees and vomited. Drops of perspiration beaded at her hairline and she gasped for breath. Again her stomach seized and she clutched the sides of the toilet trying to steady herself.

  Jenny sensed rather than heard the presence behind her, and her face burned with shame at being caught in such a private act in such a public place. One gentle hand pressed against her shoulder and another cupped her forehead as her stomach gave one final violent lurch and the last remnants of her breakfast erupted.

  Jenny was unfamiliar with such gentle touches, more accustomed to her father’s good-natured nudges and careless ruffling of her hair, but she had vague inklings of her mother and nestling against her on their old flowered sofa.

  “Shh, now,” a voice soothed, and Jenny realized that she was crying. A low, sad moan, thick with mucous and tears. “It’s okay, get it all out.” Jenny didn’t want to move her head to see who was standing behind her. She thought she could fall asleep right there, kneeling on the floor, next to the toilet, her forehead cradled so carefully in one cool, capable hand while the other rubbed her back in slow, rhythmic circles. Jenny looked behind her and saw the blue hem of a skirt that stopped just above a thick calf seamed with bulbous purple veins and was glad to know it was the nice waitress rather than some stranger. “Are you okay?” the waitress asked. “Do you think you’re all done?”

  Jenny closed her eyes; the sweat had cooled on her skin, causing her to shiver and the fine hair on her goose-pimpled arms to stand at attention. Her stomach burned slightly, felt hollowed out, empty. An ulcer, the doctor had warned last year when her father had taken her to the community health center after weeks of complaining about stomachaches. Jenny had a vision of her stomach with one perfectly round circle carved out, the red velvet pancakes she just ate wandering out of the hole and flowing into other parts of her body, floating aimlessly through her bloodstream.

  “You think you can stand up?” the waitress asked, and Jenny reluctantly nodded. She pushed herself up from the grimy linoleum and stood on shaky legs. The waitress made sure Jenny wasn’t going to fall over and then turned to the sink, wet a dishrag that she pulled from an apron pocket and handed it to her. “Wash your face with this,” she urged, and stepped around Jenny to flush the toilet. Jenny was impressed. The last time she had the flu, her father had gagged right along with her, tossed her bedding into the Dumpster behind the apartment building and spent the rest of the evening lying on the couch with a cold washcloth covering his eyes.

  “You want it back?” Jenny asked after she wiped her mouth with the rag. The waitress didn’t even hesitate or wrinkle her nose as she plucked the towel from Jenny’s hand and stuffed it back into her apron pocket.

  Jenny faltered as the waitress opened the door that led back into the restaurant’s dining area. “Do you want me to call your sister for you?” the waitress offered. “You can wait in here until she comes.”

  Jenny shook her head. “Nah, that’s okay. I’ll just call my mom, she’s going to be so mad at my sister,” Jenny lied. She bit her lip and looked up at the waitress apologetically. It was too much to ask for this nice lady to go and gather all of her things and bring them back to her hideout in the bathroom just because she ate too much and dreaded the long walk past the other diners back to the booth where her book bag rested.

  “You wait right here and get your bearings and I’ll grab your bag for you,” the waitress said, reading her thoughts. “I’ll be right back.” Jenny watched the woman push through the door, the sunny fabric of her uniform stretching tightly across her swaying rear end like a waving flag. It was funny, Jenny thought, how different people could look in the front compared to the back. The waitress had an old, tired face and a young rear view. She remembered once, when she was little, she had gotten separated from her mother at Walmart. Jenny had looked anxiously around at all the knees that surrounded her until she found a set of tennis shoes and faded jeans that resembled her mother’s. She’d wrapped her arms around the familiar legs in relief until she was shaken gently off. Her heart had skipped in her chest when she looked up into the eyes of a bemused stranger who handed her off to a blue-smocked greeter who gave her jelly beans until her mother, out of breath and teary-eyed, rushed up to claim her. Her mother had swept her into her arms and covered her face with kisses, Jenny remembered, as she looked at her own pale-faced, red-eyed reflection in the mirror.

  Jenny turned on the water faucet and held her hands beneath the tap and ran her wet fingers through her long tangled hair, trying to force it flat. Like trying to tame a rabid squirrel with its tail caught in a light socket, her father laughed about Jenny’s unruly hair and Jenny had laughed halfheartedly right along with him.

  Jenny miserably waited until the waitress returned to the restroom with her backpack. When the door finally opened, Jenny snatched at the bag, set it on the sink and quickly inventoried the contents. Envelope, cell phone and clothes, all accounted for. Jenny slid her hand into the envelope, felt past the photos and letters to the cash and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Here,” Jenny said, and thrust the money toward the waitress, who looked down at her with an expression that she couldn’t quite read.

  “No, no,” the waitress answered, gently pushing Jenny’s hand away. “It’s on the house. We don’t make customers who get sick from our food pay for it.”

  Jenny wanted to tell her that it wasn’t the food, that the red pancakes were actually very good, that it was this day, her father’s fight and getting separated from him, the strange man on the bus, the letter, the pictures, that made her throw up. Instead she shoved the bill back into the envelope, stepped past the waitress, out of the bathroom, into the restaurant and out the main doors into the parking lot, fleeing the Happy Pancake without even a backward glance.

  The morning air was scorching but Jenny welcomed the relief from the frigid restaurant air. Traffic was still busy along the street and Jenny measured her options. There was a hotel just down the block and she knew how to reserve a room. She had done it several times when she was with her father and found that she needed to do the talking. It was easy, just tell the clerk that your father was getting the bags and your mother was changing your little brother’s diaper in the car. Look the clerk straight in the eyes and push the thirty dollars across the counter and wait for him to push back the key. It always worked.

  The problem was this hotel looked much nicer than the ones she and her father ever stayed in. It looked like it probably even had a pool. Jenny would have liked that, a hotel with a pool. She imagined luxurious fluffy white towels and a heated whirlpool.

  Her other option was to cross the street to the bus station and purchase a ticket back to Nebraska. She wondered if her father was in a hospital or maybe even in jail. When she returned she could use the cell phone to call one of her father’s friend-girls, one who hadn’t figured out that her father would never have just one friend-girl, and see if she could stay with her for a day or two. The thought of climbing back on the bus and the eight-hour ride back to Benton in the dark with a busful of strangers made Jenny’s stomach wobble again. She knew what she needed to do next. She would check around, find out where Hickory Street was. Take a bus or a cab there. Certainly her grandmother would be glad to see her, to actually meet her. And maybe, just maybe, her mother would be there, too.

  Chapter 11

  I check in one more time with the receptionist, hoping there is some kind of update on Avery. She shakes her head. “I know it’s hard to wait,�
� she says kindly. My red eyes and mascara-stained cheeks must have convinced her that I do have a soul.

  “I’m going to go outside and make a phone call. Could you...” I begin.

  “I will come out and find you the second the doctor comes out,” she assures me.

  I step through the automatic doors and a surge of heat washes over me and I immediately begin to sweat. I don’t think, I just press the button that connects me to Adam.

  “Ellen!” he says by way of greeting. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for two hours!”

  “Adam,” I interrupt. “I’m at the emergency room with Avery.” My social worker persona is trying to take over, but I don’t want it to. This is about Avery. This is my husband. “Please come. Please hurry,” I choke. “Please.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he says, and hangs up. I wonder if Leah and Lucas are with him or at the babysitter’s house. I hope they are with the sitter. I don’t want them to be afraid; I don’t want them to see me explain to their father what has happened to Avery.

  I try to call my mother one more time, but again there is no answer. Next, I dial Joe, knowing that he’s at the police station. Ever since the first day we met, amid the tragedy that was the Twin Case, we’ve been good friends. Joe is now a detective with the Cedar City Police Department, and I wonder if he has heard about what has happened to Avery. As soon as he picks up his phone, I know that he hasn’t. “Hey, stranger!” he exclaims. “How’re you?” There is a happy lilt in his voice that he unknowingly reserves just for me. Sometimes I think Joe might be a little bit in love with me, but I choose to ignore it. I don’t want to lose our friendship.

  “Joe,” I begin, “I left Avery in the car. I didn’t know. I didn’t know!” I am quickly losing the fight to keep my emotions under control. I do my best to explain the events of the morning, but even to my own ears, it sounds unbelievable.

  “Hang on,” Joe finally interrupts. “Where are you right now?”

  “At the hospital. They aren’t telling me anything. I don’t know what’s happening.”

  Joe is quiet for a moment and I know his detective mind is itching to ask me a thousand more questions. To his credit, he doesn’t. “I can be there in ten minutes,” he finally says.

  “No, no.” I shake my head. “Don’t do that. Adam is on his way.” Even across the telephone line I can almost feel Joe bristle. “Thank you, though. I just wanted...” What do I want, I wonder. “I just wanted to let you know,” I finish lamely.

  “She’ll be okay,” Joe offers kindly. We both know that this is not an absolute. In our lines of work we have seen way too much to ever believe that things always turn out just fine. Still, my heart lifts for a moment. There are successes: the father who goes to anger management classes, the mother who regularly attends AA, the families reunited. “Give me a call when you can,” Joe says, “and I’ll do some checking around here.”

  I thank him and hang up the phone, wondering, after the fact, what he would need to check on at the police station.

  With shaking hands I call Kelly, my best friend since third grade. Kelly lives in Cedar City and stays home with her four boys, all under the age of six. There was a time when Kelly and I would talk nearly every single day, no matter how busy our lives got. This isn’t the case any longer. Kids, work, laundry, our husbands always seem to come first. Still, we make a point to get together once a month for breakfast at a local bakery. Some months we only have half an hour to spare, but still we meet, exchange the high and low points of what is happening in our lives, hug and then go back to our insane lives.

  “Kelly!” I exclaim as soon as she answers, but that is all I can say. I find it impossible to once again put into words what has happened. But Kelly is a master at prying information out of people, a remnant of our high school days when Kelly was the editor of the school newspaper.

  Who, what, where, when, how? Kelly asks, listening carefully as I respond in equally short, staccato answers. Avery, heat stroke, van, this morning, I don’t know, I say between sobs.

  “I’m calling Nick to come home to be with the kids,” she says. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she assures me.

  Then it hits me, a quick strike to my solar plexus. Leaving a child locked in a hot car is neglectful, abusive, criminal. I could be charged and arrested for child endangerment and if the unthinkable happens, if Avery dies, I could be charged with worse. I could lose my entire life, my family, my career. “I didn’t know,” I whisper. Then again more loudly, “I didn’t know.” Passersby give me curious glances but keep moving. “I didn’t know she was there!” I plead to no one in particular, my breath coming now in ragged gulps. I feel light-headed, dizzy, and clutch at the wall to keep from falling.

  “Shh, now,” the receptionist from the emergency room is at my side, trying to hold me up, keep me from collapsing to the floor. “Dr. Nickerson is ready to speak to you. She has word about your daughter. Come quickly.”

  Chapter 12

  Jenny spied a small convenience store and stepped inside to ask the woman behind the counter where Hickory Street was located. “It’s not too far from here, just about two miles,” she explained, pulling out a small map of the city and highlighting the route that Jenny would need to take. “Do you have someone here with you?” the woman asked, worry lacing her voice.

  “My grandma,” Jenny said with confidence. “She’s waiting for me in the car.”

  Jenny didn’t know what she was going to do if she couldn’t find her grandmother and didn’t really want to spend the money she knew it would cost to stay in a nice hotel. She was suddenly very tired and the later she checked in at a hotel the more questions about where her parents were could come up.

  Jenny referred to the map the woman had given her and started walking, deciding that she would keep an eye out for an inexpensive motel just in case her grandmother had moved. Very quickly the straps on her too-small flip-flops began rubbing the skin between her toes until she finally decided to take them off. The sidewalk was rough and hot from the day’s heat and Jenny carefully scanned the ground in front of her for bits of broken glass and sharp-edged pebbles.

  She heard the beep of a car horn, not as insistent as the bleat of the car that almost smushed her earlier in the day, but still... Jenny looked up and whirled around ready to spew forth a few of the choice words that her father often muttered and then quickly apologized for when she saw the familiar face peering at her through the driver’s-side window of a small, yellow car with rounded edges that she and her friends at school called slug bugs.

  It was the nice waitress from the Happy Pancake and Jenny couldn’t help but smile, and then stopped herself, suddenly suspicious. Maybe the waitress had changed her mind and was coming to collect the money for her red velvet pancakes, even though she told her that she didn’t have to pay. Maybe the restaurant manager told her to get the money or call the police. Jenny thought quickly. She could make a run for it and dart down a side street. She was a fast runner, even without wearing any shoes, and was confident she could ditch the old lady and her yellow car. Jenny glanced around at her surroundings. The busy main street seemed to go on forever and the nearest intersection was almost a football field away. Plenty of time for the lady to call the police if Jenny started to run. Her other option was to just pay her the money for the pancakes and hope that the waitress would be on her way. Once again Jenny slid the backpack from her shoulders and reached into the envelope, peeling off a twenty from the wad of bills.

  “Hey, there,” the lady called through the car window. “You okay?”

  Jenny nodded and shoved the money into the open window of the car, releasing it so that the bill fluttered down onto the woman’s lap and, without a word, continued marching down the street, her flip-flops hanging loosely from each thumb. “Oh, no,” the waitress called after her, “that’s not why I came
to find you.” Jenny didn’t slow her stride, hoping the woman would get the hint and just drive away. Instead, the yellow car crept along slowly, keeping pace with her steps. “I was worried about you. Can I call someone for you?”

  “No, thanks,” Jenny said as breezily as possible, “I’m meeting my sister just down the street here.”

  Jenny could feel the woman’s gaze upon her and knew that she didn’t believe her. While Jenny knew she was a pretty good liar, she also had a good sense of who truly believed what she was saying. The bullshit-o-meter, her father called it. Dust off that bullshit-o-meter, her father would whisper to her when a landlord or the guy at the pawnshop was trying to pull something over on them. Jenny walked more quickly; she was now only a short distance to the corner.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” the woman called. “I just want to talk to you.”

  Jenny slowed her steps, but not to make it easier to have a conversation with the lady. If she timed it just right she could reach the corner as the light was turning and dash across the street, leaving the woman and her yellow car stuck at the red light.

  “What’s your sister’s name?” the waitress asked. “I could call her for you or your mother if you’d like.” Jenny, despite herself, warmed at the thought of the woman thinking that Jenny actually had a mother to call. A mother who would be worried when she didn’t come home on time, who kept her dinner warm in the oven, covered lightly with tin foil. Her friends and teachers back in Benton knew that her mom wasn’t around, some even knew why. A lot of kids didn’t live with their dads or even see their dads, but at least they all had a mom, even stepmoms. She was the girl without a mother.

  “Nah, I’m good,” Jenny answered, looking intently up at the traffic light, resting stubbornly on green.

  “Can I at least drive you somewhere? I don’t like leaving you out here by yourself on the street,” the woman pleaded.