Not My Mother

by Miranda Smith

  “Close the blinds,” I say.

  Des pulls the tassel beside each window, until the blinds are flat from floor to ceiling.

  “They’re the ones I don’t get,” she says. “They’re not impacted by any of this. Don’t they realize real people are hurting?”

  “They don’t care, Des.”

  She sits next to me, her arms outstretched across the table. “Whatever they say about Eileen doesn’t matter. Your mom is the best friend I’ve ever had. She doesn’t have it in her to do the things they’re saying.”

  Des is loyal to a fault. I feel the same way. Unless…

  “Do you think she did it?” I ask, dryly. I can’t ignore the fact that the police wouldn’t have made a move after so long unless they had solid evidence. “Do you think she was so desperate for a baby she kidnapped me? Attacked my mother? Killed my father?”

  “The only mother you’ve ever known is Eileen.”

  “I know that. But do you think she did it?”

  “I don’t know.” It hurts her to say this. Again, she’s honest. “If she did, I’m sure she had her reasons. Either way, it won’t change how I feel about her.”

  The timer behind the counter dings. Des seems thankful for an escape. She might wear her emotions on her sleeve, but she’s not one to talk about them. Beside me, Ava is now asleep. I’m happy the fruit thrown against the glass hasn’t disturbed her the way it did us. None of this bothers her the way it does us. Oh, to be so naive.

  When Des returns, she has two plates. She places one in front of me.

  “Mushroom and pepperoni. Your favorite. Now eat.”

  I stare at the greasy toppings, the molten cheese frayed at the edges. The smell is tempting, but Des got it wrong. This isn’t my favorite pizza. It’s Mom’s. And I still don’t think I can eat.

  6 Eileen

  Then

  I was used to people looking at me and wanting something. My father demanded respect. Albert Crawford recognized my naivety. When Cliff, the scrawny line cook at Buster’s, looked at me, there wasn’t anything self-serving about his gaze.

  It was the way he spoke to me, too. Inquisitive. Interested. He wanted to know more about me, and I felt I could tell him all the little thoughts in my mind. Even the dark ones. I could tell him without fear he would use the information against me, manipulate my trust to fulfill his own needs.

  So, I’d tell him about the awful events I saw growing up. With only a little shame, I told him about my first relationship which ended after my arrest. I was overwhelmed by his acceptance, unafraid he might judge me. Cliff didn’t judge. He cared. He listened. He understood.

  And he told me about himself, too. Our breaks at Buster’s were supposed to be ten minutes every three hours, but we had memorized the lunch schedule. We knew when it was safe to stretch ten minutes into twenty, and we’d fill the extra minutes with conversation. Like me, he came from a long line of screw-ups. Raised by parents who had no business parenting, in a neighborhood whose inhabitants did anything but act neighborly. He’d found his way out, as I had, but the consequences of those experiences followed him, like a mangy mutt tracking a scent.

  There was a darkness inside him I liked because it reflected a part of myself. The screw-up. He’d tell me about his life, about the particular things he felt shaped him. Unfortunately, his schoolmates were as oppressive as his family members. Cliff and his younger brother had been selected to attend a nearby private school, a scholarship program reserved for the poorest of the poor. By his own admission, Cliff fit the bill. What was meant to introduce him to a better life only provided a glimpse into more cruelty. The students there were mean to him, never wasted an opportunity to remind him how low he was.

  The khaki pant pricks. That’s what he called them. They weren’t just his tormentors at school, but afterwards, too. They’d follow him along his walk home, daring to enter the secluded alleyways from which their privilege protected them. Even though they were the same age as Cliff, in the same grade, wearing the same clothes, their worlds were entirely different.

  “I used to hate them,” Cliff said, sitting on that dirty stoop behind Buster’s.

  “What would they do when they’d follow you home?”

  “Whistle and holler. Call me names. I’d ignore them half the time. Getting in a fight with one of them would have ended my free ride at Peppermill, even if they were the pricks who started it. Their parents’ generosity is what paved my way, you know.”

  He shook his head, sliding the rolled cigarette from behind his ear. He didn’t light it right away. He twiddled it between his fingers. Cliff rarely smoked, really.

  “So you just ignored them?”

  “For the most part. Against my better judgment.” Cliff made this face. It was hard to tell whether he was proud of his tolerance, or ashamed of his inaction. “There was only one time I fought back.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They knew they weren’t getting to me, right? On one hand they liked it, I guess. They wouldn’t know how to handle themselves if I actually turned around and popped them a good one. They were just bored. They’d waste a good twenty minutes after school following me around, and they’d never get a rise out of me. One day, they were at it again. We made it three or four blocks away from school. I turn down the alley leading to my neighborhood, and they’re snickering and whispering the whole way. I keep walking, like I always did, like I wasn’t fazed by their little games.

  “There was this bum crawled up asleep by the dumpster. They usually didn’t sleep that late in the day, but fall was creeping into winter, which meant the nights were becoming less and less tolerable. He probably curled up to take in the sunlight and fell asleep. Anyway, the khaki pant pricks are only a few steps behind me. They see this guy, sleeping on the pavement. They stop. I keep going, like I always do. But then, their laughing gets louder. I’d about forgotten about the bum next to the dumpster.”

  “What happened?”

  Cliff’s face was somber, his tone level. Like he was stuck in this moment, this memory from long ago. The intensity in his expression startled me.

  “I had to backtrack a couple of steps to see. One of the guys, Ben I think was his name, pulled his pecker out and was pissing all over the guy.”

  I raised a hand to my mouth. “He didn’t.”

  “To this day, I can’t tell you what happened. It’s like I blacked out or something. Next thing I know, I’m standing over ’ole Ben. He’s got blood streaming out both his nostrils, and in my hand, I was holding some plank I’d picked up from a broken crate.” He stopped, looked up at me. I recognized his shame. It’s the same I felt every time I told the story of my arrest. He was afraid he’d lost me. Afraid my judgment had taken over. “Growing up where I did, fighting wasn’t anything new. I know it was wrong, though.”

  “No. What you did was right. They were messing with that guy for no reason. You stood up for him.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “What about his friends? What did they do?”

  “They stood there and watched the whole thing. They were afraid to intervene. Hell, when I backed away, it’s like they were afraid to touch him.”

  “Is that why you ended up leaving Peppermill?”

  I knew from previous conversations he’d never graduated. He dropped out and earned his GED.

  “That’s the craziest part about it. All that night and the next morning, I kept waiting for my slap on the wrist. It never came. My teachers didn’t mention it. The students didn’t. Ben didn’t come back until the following week, after the swelling in his nose went down. Even he didn’t say anything to me about it. Or his friends. It’s like they knew they’d crossed a line. Me beating up Ben may not have been the best move, but they weren’t wanting to admit what they’d done either.”

  “You must be an all right guy if that’s the worst thing you’ve ever done.” I smiled, tucking my chin to my chest. “All you were doing was standing up for a guy who wasn’t i
n a position to defend himself.”

  “I guess you’re right.” He looked up at the sky, perhaps searching for forgiveness, still rolling the cigarette between his fingers. “Thing is, I think about that day all the time. I think about those guys. It’s like I still see them everywhere. Whenever some guy in a snazzy car drives through my neighborhood or some douchebag with shiny shoes slums it at Buster’s for his afternoon lunch. I want to just start beating his face in. I know they’re different guys, maybe even good guys… but that’s not what I see.”

  His honesty was refreshing, yet startling. “You wouldn’t do that, right? Unless they deserved it?”

  “Right.” He laughed, nervously. “You only give someone a beating that bad if they deserve it.”

  I realized that day, sitting in that dirty alleyway behind Buster’s, this was the first time anyone had looked at me in a long time and seen me. Not seen the screw-up or the criminal or the extra mouth to feed. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have told me that story. And although I didn’t tell him the truth about what was going on in my life then—that I was struggling to get by, hoping I’d still have the same job and apartment come Christmas—I felt like it was the happiest I had been in a while.

  “Break’s over,” Jamie said, swinging the door wide so that it smacked the brick.

  Cliff took his cigarette, still not smoked, and tucked it behind his ear. He scrambled back inside, leaving me alone with Jamie.

  She leaned against the building. She pulled out her own cigarette and lit it immediately. “You feeling it yet?”

  “Feeling what?”

  “Butterflies. You two have been flirting back and forth for weeks.”

  “You think?” I had little experience with guys. I wasn’t sure if they liked me, if I liked them, or if we were just passing the time.

  “He’s into you, that’s for sure.”

  I couldn’t hide the smile on my face. It seemed to ignite a chain reaction through the rest of my body, my bony frame filling with warmth.

  “When I hired you, you said you didn’t have a boy problem.” She smiled. Like she was looking for the same acceptance from me I found in Cliff.

  “I still don’t.”

  She raised her chin. “The three of us should get a drink after work. It’d be good to get out, maybe act my age for a change. Who knows? Maybe you two will hit it off.”

  “I’d like that,” I said, practically floating back into the building. I was on track to make friends, maybe even more. I couldn’t help but think Buster’s, and the people inside it, had come into my life for a reason.

  Maybe it was fate. I thought that then. I still think that sometimes.

  7 Marion

  Now

  In the morning, I have a brief moment of ignorance. All I hear is the ocean crashing into the shore on the other side of my patio. I hear Ava through the baby monitor, wrestling with the covers in her crib, starting to wake. I smile.

  Then I remember yesterday. Everything that happened. Everything I was told. All the things I still don’t know. And I remember Mom is gone. She’s being detained at the jail, and I’ve still not had the chance to speak with her.

  I stumble into the kitchen and turn on the coffee machine. I’m alone, and yet the usual quiet of the morning seems disturbed. There’s an unusual background noise seeping in from outside. I walk to the window and push back the curtain. A cluster of news vans are parked on my street.

  Shit. The press. Like Carmen said, Baby Caroline was once a big news story. A cold case people aren’t likely to forget. I pull the curtains tight, making sure no one can see inside. I retrieve my phone to call Carmen, but there’s already a text from her.

  It reads: Stay calm. I’m on my way.

  Just then, Ava lets out a cry. Not an upset wail, more a curious caw that asks, Did you forget about me? I’ve been so enveloped in my own problems I’m neglecting her.

  I walk into her room. She is standing in her crib, bouncing in anticipation of being picked up. I immediately go to the windows in her room, making sure they are locked and covered. Her bedroom doesn’t face the street, but I feel an unusually strong urge to protect her now that I know there is a horde of tragedy vultures outside our complex.

  The minutes spent waiting for Carmen to arrive pass slowly. The entire time I’ve been with Ava—holding her, rocking her, cleaning her—I’ve felt guilty. Aside from me, Mom is undoubtedly the most important person in my daughter’s life. She’s nowhere to be found now, and I’m not sure when I’ll see her again. I realize Ava is too young to understand what is going on, and yet, I believe she can sense Mom’s absence. I know I can.

  When Carmen arrives, she walks into the living room wearing red slacks and a silk, sleeveless blouse. I would guess she has been in court again, but Carmen often dresses like a raven-haired Grace Kelly in a classic film. Confident and sleek, yet feminine. Her chic aura scatters when she collapses on the couch, overcome with exhaustion. The past twenty-four hours have clearly taken an emotional toll.

  Before I close the door, Rick, Carmen’s assistant, walks in carrying a briefcase. That’s his title, at least. Over six feet tall and two hundred pounds, Rick looks more like he stepped off the football field than out of the courtroom. He’s basically a private investigator Carmen enlists when she needs information on people. I can only imagine the amount of digging he’ll be tasked with when it comes to Mom. More than thirty years’ worth.

  “Marion.” Rick nods, then sits beside Carmen on the sofa, placing his case on the floor.

  “Get any sleep?” she asks.

  “Not enough. Still trying to wrap my mind around everything.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but police officers will be arriving soon. They’ll start asking questions. I’ll tell you everything I know, but it’s important we go over what you might say to them, too.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “Have you ever heard the name Sarah Paxton?” she asks, sitting upright on the couch.

  “No,” I answer, honestly. “Not until yesterday.”

  “Good. That’s good. Was your mother ever called anything else when you were growing up, that you can remember?”

  “No. Eileen Sams. I’ve never known her under any other name.”

  “Okay. Has she ever told you anything about your life before moving to North Bay? Do you remember living anywhere else?”

  In the wee hours of the morning, I sat in bed trying to remember the exact same thing. We moved here when I was a toddler. I don’t have any memories before that time. It’s more like glimpses, a sensory connection to a certain song or smell. I don’t remember where we lived. When I was older, I asked Mom. She said we moved around a lot, usually based on her ability to find work. When something didn’t pan out, we’d pack up and move again. Then we found North Bay, our perfect place, she said, and stayed.

  I tell Carmen all of this. She nods as she listens, taking notes. “What about New Hutton? Did she ever mention having lived there?”

  “Never. She always said we lived in small towns. I think one might have been Ringold. Maybe East Ridge.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t remember any people from these places?”

  “My first memory of someone aside from Mom is meeting Des at The Shack.”

  Our first week in North Bay was spent in a motel. I have vague memories of it; the vending machines right next to our room made it hard to sleep. I think the main reason I remember our first week here is because it was my first time seeing the ocean. I’d never seen anything so big, so beautiful. It’s like the landscape washed away any fragmented memories I had before.

  After the week at the motel, we moved into the upstairs apartment at The Shack. Des hired Mom to work at the restaurant, which at the time was called something else. It would be another two years before Mom and Des decided to revamp the place together, making Mom a partial owner.

  “Can you write down all the places your mom said you lived before North Bay?” Carm
en pushes over a notepad and pen. I’d forgotten I was in the thick of an interrogation, preparing for an even bigger one.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Everything you say needs to be clear. It’s okay if you don’t remember all the details. You were young. But you don’t need to change anything you say. Got that?”

  Carmen has been in full lawyer mode since the party, but there is a part of me that longs for her friendship. That longs for someone to tell me everything will be okay, even if it won’t be.

  “You’ve told me a little bit about your father before,” she says, her tone softer. “But I need you to tell me everything you know. Specifically, everything your mom told you about him.”

  “You know she’s not said much,” I say, looking down at Ava. “She said they weren’t married. They were young. He left before I was born.”

  “Has she ever given you a name? Told you anything about his family?”

  No and no. Not for lack of trying. When I was younger, the idea of not having a father didn’t bother me. I’d never known a family unit outside the one I had with Mom. As I got more involved with school, I realized something was off. Most of my friends had a dad. Even the ones with absent fathers knew something about them. Their mothers at least referenced them from time to time, calling them scumbag or deadbeat.

  Mom actively avoided talking about my father, or any other family members, for that matter. Grandparents: dead. Father: gone. No siblings. No aunts and uncles. No cousins. It’s like Mom and I were the last two standing. Like we’d been plucked out of nothingness and placed in North Bay. But saying that definitely wouldn’t help Mom’s case.

  As a teenager, I was more vocal with my questions. Every time Mom and I had a fight about curfew or her ironclad rules, I’d bring him up. It’s like I could use this person I’d never met against her. I knew this was hurtful, which during an argument was my aim, but I also hoped she might tell me something about my father in a fit of passion and rage, this man I knew nothing about.