Little Mercies

by Heather Gudenkauf

  “No, thanks,” Jenny said offhandedly as the light jumped to yellow and she bent her knees slightly, looking to the left and right, getting ready to run.

  “Hey,” the woman said loudly, causing Jenny to hesitate and look over. The woman’s face was taut with concern, her eyes filled with something that Jenny couldn’t name. “I saw the pictures.” Jenny’s heart stopped. “Please,” the woman implored, “let me help.”

  Jenny’s stomach gave a sudden heave and she vomited into the street.

  The woman hopped from the car and hurried to Jenny’s side. “Please, let me take you home or at the very least call someone for you.” Miserably, Jenny clutched at her stomach and began to cry. “What’s your name?” she asked gently.

  “Jenny,” she wept.

  “Jenny, just tell me who I can call and I will.” The woman reached out and placed the back of her hand against Jenny’s forehead. “You’re sick. I can’t just leave you here.” The woman looked around helplessly. “Maybe I should call the police?”

  “No!” Jenny said emphatically. “Don’t call the police,” she begged. Jenny found herself actually considering getting into the yellow car, the entire time hearing her father screaming in her head, Don’t you dare get in that car, Jennifer Briard! Jenny ignored her father’s voice and dizzily climbed into the passenger seat.

  The woman drove slowly through the unfamiliar streets and Jenny sneaked sidelong glances at the waitress who introduced herself as Maudene Sifkus. It was so different than the rides with her father, who was always in a hurry, impatient to get to wherever they were going. He barely braked at stop signs and was known to shout out the window in frustration at nimrods, as he called the drivers who, in his opinion, nearly killed them both.

  “I live just a few blocks from here,” Maudene told her, hunched over and hands gripping clawlike to the steering wheel. They crept along slowly, pausing for what felt like an eternity at stop signs, though Jenny didn’t mind all that much. Initially, once Jenny had climbed cautiously into the car and got over the shock of learning that Maudene had seen the pictures from her backpack, Maudene mentioned that perhaps she should take Jenny to the police station. Jenny threatened to leap from the moving car—perhaps this was why she was driving so slowly—and Maudene promised to take her to her house. “My daughter has kids around your age.” Maudene didn’t take her eyes off the road as she spoke. “Eleven, right?”

  “Ten,” Jenny said automatically, and then mentally kicked herself. The less information she shared, the better.

  “Ten?” Maudene said in surprise. “You seem so much older. Very mature for your age.”

  “I guess,” Jenny said nonchalantly, but swelled a bit with pride at the compliment. “You got a husband?” Jenny asked before she could stop herself.

  Maudene was silent for so long that Jenny thought she must not have heard her. Jenny knew that old people could be a bit hard of hearing, so she sat up straighter in her seat and turned to face Maudene. “You got a husband?” she said loudly, enunciating each word very carefully, then saw the stricken look on Maudene’s face and closed her mouth. They drove along in silence until Maudene slowed the car and turned on the blinker as she pulled into a driveway.

  Jenny gaped at the sight. It was the sweetest house that Jenny had ever seen. It wasn’t big, but cozy looking with the welcoming glow of the sun shining through the thick trees. The steps leading up to the porch and the front door held pots teeming with flowers that were so bright they hurt her eyes. A flicker of movement from behind the curtains of the front window made Jenny’s heart catch in fear. Maudene never answered her question about a husband. Maybe he wouldn’t like the idea of Maudene bringing a little girl to their home. Maybe he was just plain mean. Jenny felt her stomach, sore from vomiting, clench again.

  “Come on in, and I’ll introduce you to my dog.” Jenny followed Maudene up the front walkway to the house, dropping her shoulders to avoid the low-hanging branches of an elm tree, its long, fingerlike limbs nearly brushing against her neck.

  “Watch your head there,” Maudene said, putting a protective arm around Jenny. “I need to get that tree trimmed. Someone is going to get their eye poked out.”

  “We have one of those in front of our school. No one is supposed to climb it, but they do. One kid fell out and landed on his head.” Jenny picked a leaf and rubbed it between her fingers, wishing that she had climbed the tree in front of the school. There were no trees to speak of near the places where she and her father lived. Narrow, weedy things that wilted beneath the weight of their own leaves. Maybe Maudene would let her climb this tree later, before she asked her to take her to look for her grandmother.

  They ascended the creaky wooden steps that led to the front door, Jenny hanging back a little. Maudene noticed the hesitancy and stopped. “You don’t have to come inside,” she said gently. “I can call someone for you, take you somewhere if you want.” Jenny didn’t answer, just looked uncertainly at the wooden front door inlaid with a rectangle of stained glass illuminated by a dim light from within the house.

  Jenny didn’t want to tell Maudene that she really had nowhere to go, no one to call, that the reason she got off in Cedar City was because there was a tiny chance that a grandmother that she had never met, had never even spoken with, lived in this town. “Is your dog nice?” she finally asked.

  “Dolly is very nice,” Maudene assured her. “I promise she won’t hurt you. She’ll probably come up and sniff you because she’s curious, but then she’ll go back and lay down.” Jenny nodded but didn’t move. “Do you want me to go in first and put Dolly in the bedroom?” Jenny thought about standing outside on the porch all by herself surrounded by the talonlike branches and low whispers from the swaying trees and shook her head no.

  “It’s okay. I’ll come in,” Jenny answered, pulling her backpack from her shoulders and holding it in front of her like a shield.

  Maudene slid a key into the lock and nudged the door open with her shoulder. “Dolly,” she called. “I have someone special for you to meet.” Dolly, from her post by the front window, eyed Jenny sleepily and Jenny responded with her own wary gaze. “Come here, girl,” Maudene cooed, and Dolly stiffly obeyed. Jenny tensed and instinctively stepped behind Maudene as the large dog approached. “Hold your hand out like this.” Maudene held out her arm, palm down, toward Dolly’s nose and Jenny reluctantly did the same, her hand shaking slightly. “She’s a German shorthaired pointer. Best dog ever,” Maudene said as Dolly sniffed the air around Jenny’s fingers and, as if sensing her trepidation, ducked and raised her head beneath Jenny’s hand. Jenny flinched and pulled her hand back as if burned. Dolly, wounded by the rebuff, skulked from the room. “Are you hungry or thirsty?” Maudene asked. “Can I get you something to eat?”

  “No,” Jenny said, cradling her stomach, still sore from earlier.

  Jenny knew she should thank Maudene for being so nice to her. It wasn’t that Jenny wasn’t thankful for the offer; it was just that there were so many things to look at in Maudene’s home that she got distracted. Jenny had never seen so much wood in one room. The walls were paneled halfway up the wall in coffee-colored wood. There were built-in shelves filled with books and knickknacks; there was a fireplace and columns that led to another room all made out of the same dark rich wood. Even the ceiling was lined with thick beams. Jenny had never seen anything like it.

  The telephone rang and Jenny watched as Maudene looked at it in surprise. “Aren’t you going to get that?” Jenny asked.

  “No one ever calls me at this time of the day,” Maudene responded as she glanced at the wooden clock hanging on the wall. “Probably just a telemarketer.”

  “Does that have a cuckoo in it?” Jenny asked, nodding toward the clock.

  “A cuckoo?” Maudene asked distractedly, looking at the telephone that had finally fallen silent.

  “Is that
a cuckoo clock? Does a little bird come out every hour?”

  “No, dancers,” Maudene said, turning back to Jenny. “It was a wedding present from my parents. It’s over forty years old.”

  “It’s pretty,” Jenny said, scrutinizing more closely the intricately carved clock in the shape of a peaked house. “When do they dance?”

  “Every hour. Come on, I’ll show you where you can put your things and where the bathroom is. And when you’re ready we can talk about what you want to do next.” Maudene led Jenny up the wooden steps that were intersected with a narrow, worn strip of carpet and once again the telephone began to trill.

  “Maybe you better get that,” Jenny, who found in her short life that phone calls most often meant bad news or a new friend-girl for her father on the other end, said nervously.

  “It can wait,” Maudene assured her as they continued up the steps. “You can put your things in the room that used to belong to my daughter.” Maudene opened the door and flipped a light switch, revealing an oddly shaped room painted pale pink. The ceiling was low, the walls were angled haphazardly and the headboards of two twin beds were situated into a narrow nook beneath a small bank of windows covered in white, lacy curtains. Jenny realized they were at the tippy-top of the house. “It’s so pretty,” Jenny breathed, running her hand over the pink coverlets that lay across the beds.

  “I like it, too,” Maudene said with a smile. “Would you like to rest for a little bit?”

  “I’m kind of tired,” Jenny said, unable to stifle a yawn.

  “Well, you are welcome to take a nap.”

  Jenny slowly spun in a circle, taking in the crisp cleanliness of the room.

  “You make yourself at home and I’ll be right downstairs.” Maudene turned to leave but hesitated. “We’ll have to talk, you know, when you’re ready.” Jenny remained silent. “I know someone we can call and talk to about your situation. A social worker.”

  Jenny froze. An icy claw of fear scraped against the back of her neck.

  “But not until you’re ready,” Maudene said and quietly closed the bedroom door behind her.

  Jenny untied her father’s t-shirt that was wrapped around her waist, neatly folded it and set it on the bedside table. Wearily, Jenny sat down on the very edge of the bed, being careful to not let her grubby fingers touch the petal-pink blanket. Her eyes scanned the beautiful room and exhaustion and disappointment pricked at the tender spot behind her eyes causing tears to puddle. Social workers meant trouble and she knew that it was already time to move on, to try and find her grandmother on her own, but fatigue pinned her to her spot and she closed her eyes. Just for a minute, Jenny thought. Then I’ll go.

  When Jenny awoke, she felt a warm, moist breeze on her neck and pulled the sheet up to her nose. She wondered if someone had come into the room and opened the window. Jenny did not like to sleep with the windows open. Images of rabid dogs and free-floating vampires climbing through her window made her heart hammer in terror. She blamed her father. One weekend he insisted on watching a marathon of horror movies based on the novels of some writer who he said made a bazillion dollars scaring the shit out of people. Jenny tried not to watch. Turned her back to the television and busied herself with painting her toenails with the bright pink polish that she picked from the prize box in her classroom. It didn’t matter, though; cemeteries for pets and men with axes kept crowding into her brain.

  She looked toward the windows and found the curtains lying still against the panes. Then her bleary eyes fell to the side of the bed, where Dolly, breathing heavily, stood looking hopefully up at her. She sat up with a start, realizing where she was and a renewed sense of urgency to leave pawed at her chest and she swept her legs over the side of the bed. At least there wasn’t any white foam dripping from the corners of the dog’s mouth, Jenny thought to herself. “Go away,” she whispered at the dog, whose mournful eyes regarded her solemnly. Despite herself, she reached out and patted Dolly’s head, so dark brown it was nearly black. She ran her fingers beneath Dolly’s chin where a crop of white whiskers framed the old dog’s muzzle, and the dog raised her chin and closed her eyes in bliss.

  “Ah,” came Maudene’s voice from the open doorway. “I see that Dolly found you. You’ve been asleep for a few hours. You must have been tired.” Jenny wiggled her toes and closed her eyes, suddenly shy in the older woman’s presence. “When you’re ready to get up, come on downstairs and I’ll fix you something to eat. A sandwich, or I have some leftover meat loaf in the refrigerator.”

  Jenny, not used to being given any options for meals, except when they went to the Happy Pancake, where she swore she would never, ever eat again, usually could only find cereal or peanut butter and crackers, the meager provisions her father scraped together. Maudene, to Jenny’s surprise, was not wearing her blue-and-yellow waitress uniform, but was dressed in a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved t-shirt. “Thanks,” she said shyly.

  Maudene smiled. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you downstairs.”

  Jenny rummaged through her backpack hoping to find, by some miracle, a brand-new outfit inside. She didn’t want to go and meet her grandmother for the first time wearing her denim shorts with the hole in the pocket, and her favorite pink polo and skirt now looked faded and frayed. She thought of the envelope filled with money—maybe Maudene would take her to Walmart for new clothes for the occasion—but then she thought twice. Maudene said she was going to call a social worker and the last thing Jenny wanted was to find herself in some office with a stack of drawing paper and markers in front of her with a strange lady asking her about how she felt and if anyone had hurt her lately. Instead, she would use the money to take a bus or a cab to Hickory Street where her grandmother hopefully still lived.

  She changed quickly, turning her back to Dolly who was watching her intently, and ran her father’s comb through her matted hair. She padded through the hallway to the bathroom with Dolly close at her heels and brushed her teeth, being careful to rinse out the sink. She had never seen such a clean bathroom, and Jenny had to wonder if anyone actually ever used it. She returned to the bedroom, made the bed, folded her dirty clothes and returned them to her backpack. Jenny wanted to bring her backpack downstairs with her but thought that Maudene might think it was weird that she carried it around with her everywhere. She looked around the room trying to decide where she could hide it. She couldn’t bring herself to look beneath the bed and the closet was too obvious, so in the end she decided to bring it downstairs with her.

  The walls that led down the stairs were filled with framed photos that Jenny hadn’t noticed earlier. There were dozens of them in various sizes. School pictures and family portraits, team pictures and wedding photos. Jenny thought back to the few pictures hidden in her backpack. Her father never had enough money to buy any of her school photos. Not even the package that had the words Best Buy! written next to it.

  As she came down the steps she heard the murmur of a television. A slightly sweet smell greeted her when she entered the kitchen and Jenny was surprised to find that she was hungry. After being so sick a few hours before, she thought she would never want to eat again. A small portable television was positioned beneath a set of kitchen cabinets made of the same dark wood that was found throughout the rest of the house and was set to a news channel. “I made corn muffins—how does that sound?” Maudene asked.

  “I’ve never had them,” Jenny said honestly. “They sound gross.” And after a beat she added, “But they smell good.” Jenny looked at the table, set just as it was at the restaurant with plates and napkin-wrapped silverware and small glasses filled with milk. She and her father usually ate standing up or sitting on the edge of the bed while they watched television. Maudene set the golden muffins, steam rising in curls from the basket that held them, on the table.

  “They’re delicious with butter and strawberry preserves, if I do say so myself,” Maud
ene said, nodding toward a small covered dish and a bowl of quivering red jelly. “Help yourself.”

  Jenny sat down at the table and reached for a muffin, singeing her fingers and hastily dropping it to her plate where it bounced and tumbled to the floor. Jenny quickly bent over and retrieved it before an ever-present Dolly could snatch it away. “Sorry,” she said, righting herself and carefully setting the muffin on her plate. Maudene hadn’t even noticed. She was staring intently at the television, where a woman reporter was standing in front of a hospital saying something about the heat and a baby. Maudene stood, walked toward the television and bent down close until her nose almost touched the screen.

  “Oh, no,” Maudene murmured. “Oh, dear God, no.”

  Chapter 13

  Adam rushes into the emergency room just as Dr. Nickerson steps into the waiting area. She reaches out to shake Adam’s hand and introduces herself. “We have Avery stabilized and her core temperature is down to one hundred and two degrees. We will have to watch her very carefully. More seizures are a real possibility. We are moving her to the pediatric intensive care unit. The biggest concern now is if any organ damage occurred. Being subjected to such intense temperatures can be especially dangerous for the kidneys. We’ll do further blood tests as well as check Avery’s urine to look for muscle breakdown, infection and electrolyte abnormalities. Avery is in and out of consciousness right now and when she opens her eyes she appears to be quite confused.”

  Adam looks bewildered and keeps looking back and forth between Dr. Nickerson and me. I squeeze his hand trying to convey through my touch to be patient, that I will explain everything after Dr. Nickerson leaves. “This is a critical time for your daughter right now. We have her on an IV of cool liquids and oxygen as a precaution in case she stops breathing again.” I bite back a gasp and Adam lightly shakes his hand from mine. “We don’t know the long-term effects, if any, that this will have on her. Time will tell.” Adam has stopped looking at Dr. Nickerson and his gaze remains fixed on me. “Dr. Campbell is the nephrologist who will be monitoring Avery’s kidney function. She’s the best in the state,” Dr. Nickerson continues. The weight of Adam’s stare lies heavily on me and if I look at him I’m afraid of what I’ll find in his face. “Perhaps,” Dr. Nickerson says, looking back and forth between Adam and me, “you’d like a quiet place to talk?”