by Lynne Hugo
Her job was removing feathers from slaughtered bodies, to undress them, make them vulnerable even when hope was gone. Exposed. She couldn’t help but think about the moment the birds had come into the world, unknowing, unsuspecting. Even unafraid. But Rosalina knew enough to be terrified of what life could bring. She’d think like that and then shake her head to banish thinking. Here was what life would bring for one: If she didn’t get faster, she’d lose the job, and then what would she do? And even if she didn’t lose the job, she wasn’t safe. None of them were.
Some days, Rosalina daydreamed of Gracia. The daydream wanted to become a hope. The daydream was a voice in her head that said, Maybe you could go get her, and when she grows up, she will forgive you. And there was another voice that argued, You want to expose yourself? To shame her? You think these birds forgive you? What life can you give her?
It was cold, cold and damp on the processing floor, kept that way so the poultry would stay fresh. Rosalina stomped her feet to try to bring back the feeling. She’d lined the inside of her old shoes with newspaper, hoping it would keep them warmer, but then they were so tight she couldn’t feel her toes at all. She’d been taught that hell was fiery. Wrong, wrong, wrong, she thought another day, when thinking crept in again, and then she chastised herself. Be grateful. You are safe, Gracia is safe with the Reverend, her father. You can send money home to your own father. Do not be selfish. And then she was grateful again. At night she was careful to first give thanks in her whispered prayers, before she asked for love, health, safety, and education for Gracia, for her father’s health and safety, to be faster at removing feathers in her job, and the forgiveness of the birds.
CarolSue
Gary kept managing to stretch out the time Louisa had given him to find Gracia’s mother. I swear, he had a different reason every time he showed up and instead of flipping out, Louisa gave in. I’m sure it was because Gracie was so darling that Louisa was like pre-softened butter, and besides, Gus had been all tied up lately with some big “operation,” he called it, with the Feds. In the planning stages, he said, sounding important, as men like to.
Louisa was entirely annoyed that he wouldn’t tell her what it was about. “Like I’m going to take out an ad in the newspaper,” she said. “If I did, though, at least it would be grammatically correct. Not like that idiot editor, who can’t write a sentence without inserting an error. How are kids supposed to learn to speak correctly when what they read and hear is riddled with mistakes?” She was off and running on one of her favorite irritations then, forgetting how mad she was at Gus’s secrecy. For about three minutes, until she remembered, and got mad at him all over again. And then when she wore out that subject, she started on Gary’s inefficiency at finding Gracia’s mother. The lack of naps was, I realized, making her cranky.
“Sister, let’s make some special tea,” I said. “After all, it’s four o’clock, and it would be . . . refreshing, don’t you think? And seasonal, now that it’s a bit cooler outside, too.”
Louisa had the back door propped open, and the September air was lovely. Beth wandered through it into the kitchen just then, thanks to the available entry.
“Maybe Brandon . . . or Gary? . . . could put the screen door on? I saw it in the barn,” I said, keeping my tone as mild as I could manage. “We could have the nice air without needing to keep the storm door open with a chair.”
“Don’t criticize,” Louisa said. “Brandon’s in school, and Gary . . . he’d just start suggesting it’s time for him to move me to a home, where I’d have all the help and attention I need. Bless his heart, as you want me to say, but you know what I’d rather say. Only way he’ll get me out of here is feetfirst.”
“Gus would do it.” I don’t usually persist when Louisa gets going, but Beth was wandering toward the living room and now JoJo was approaching the door.
“She’s not bothering Marvelle, and for once Jessie isn’t trying to play with her. I don’t see a problem.” Nothing makes Louisa defensive quicker than a negative word about her chickens.
“I was just thinking we have a baby here and possibly . . . I mean, you know, sanitation.”
“Place wasn’t condemned when I was raising Gary,” she shot back. “And I managed not to kill him. Though I may now, if he doesn’t find that baby’s mother pretty soon. This is getting ridiculous. Pretty soon, she’ll be ready for college.”
I got up and put the kettle on the stove. “You have to admit, she’s a sweetheart. You don’t want her stuck in some iffy foster home in Elmont, where we’ll never know if she’s okay.”
Louisa smiled in spite of herself. “Not saying she’s not a doll.” She scratched her neck and got up from the kitchen chair to pull down the tea bags and get out the bourbon. “Just a splash,” she said. “Will you join us, Marvelle?”
“Not like Gus could do anything right now but take her to Child and Family Services. Maybe not even in Elmont. Most likely transfer her to Indy, actually. She’d be a ward of the state in no time. Lost in the system. You know how that goes.” I spoke confidently, as if I knew what I was talking about. I was just making stuff up as I went along. I’d learned how to do that from Charlie, who could always sound like an expert on anything. Louisa had pointed out that married men do that all the time to impress their wives. Fortunately, Louisa didn’t expect that from me, and she nodded. Or maybe I’d said something that was true and she knew it. I had no idea and it wasn’t like I could ask her.
Speaking confidentially, however, the truth was I wanted that baby with me. Especially then, because I was stuck in Shandon. I’d called my real estate agent. I’d thought it would be easy, that I’d just tell him to take my house off the market because I was moving back to Atlanta and wanted my house. After all, it was mine. Charlie had left it to me free and clear. When Louisa suggested that Gary could babysit—even take Gracia to the church—I figured she was thinking that while she and Gus were napping, I’d be gloriously free to harvest winter squash and pumpkins, or clean out the garden beds (only slightly more rewarding than canning vegetables, which is like saying I’d rather kill fire ants with my bare hands than roll boulders up a hill covered with them). I couldn’t tell Louisa that, even though I used to be able to tell my sister anything straight out. That had been on the phone, though. Living together had changed everything.
It felt like a body blow when I heard that I couldn’t move home yet. I slumped down onto Harold’s old wingback chair and thought, I’m doomed. I’d signed an exclusive contract with the agent that put my house on the market for three months. I was stuck there, and I’d have to listen to the muffled soundtrack of a porn movie (what I imagined that must be like, not that I knew!) coming from the guest room, while Gary took Gracia to his church and stuck her underneath numerous portraits of Jesus, blond, festooned with a glitter halo, and supposedly walking on water or throwing money changers out of the temple—but in each, looking way more like Elvis in drag and stoned, having lost his guitar. I just knew poor Gracie would be traumatized for life.
But the earth tilted back when Gus got all wrapped up in this operation with the Feds and told Louisa he had to be at the station afternoons and evenings. I thought, This is a good sign, and then, Oh no, bless my heart, I sound like Gary, and that’s downright terrifying. One thing Louisa and I share: We don’t believe in signs. Until they suggest exactly what we want. But now I wouldn’t be stuck out in the garden. Or inside trying not to listen. I would be taking care of Gracia. She was sleeping right then, but I couldn’t help myself: I tiptoed into that bedroom to watch her sleep for minutes of gladness, breathing along with her, in and out, in and out with my beautiful Gracie, breathing out what we’ve lost and breathing in hope, she wearing the pink sleeper I bought her, and with the brown cuddle bear tucked next to her, that too.
Chapter 18
Gary
The timing couldn’t have been worse, like a weather map that showed two big fronts colliding. First, Gus had told him that for the time being he
couldn’t help him look for Rosalina anymore because his department was expected to provide local backup for the Feds, some operation they were starting soon.
“Drugs?” Gary said, although he’d not put much of a question mark on it. The opioid business had mushroomed lately, especially after there’d been the big heroin busts. The other possibility was the human sex trafficking, but Gary hadn’t heard too much about that moving through Elmont yet. Maybe, though.
They were at Shandon’s one café, and Margo, busty, narrow-eyed, and badly in need of smiling lessons, had already brought their coffee and donuts. Now she interrupted. “That be all?” she said, already tearing the check off her pad. Like Margo, the décor was aging badly, beige Formica tables chipped, and faux red leather chairs splitting here and there revealing dirty white stuffing. But it was Shandon’s version of Starbucks and the very big deal was that it now had Wi-Fi. Not that Gary needed it at the moment, though he’d come here to use the internet more than once.
He’d asked Gus if he could join him during his morning break because he didn’t want Gus at the church, especially not with that foghorn of a voice, and he didn’t want to call attention to himself by going to the station again.
“Nope,” Gus said to Margo, because he didn’t appreciate being hurried. At the same moment, Gary said, “Yes,” not wanting to spend for more than coffee. Margo sighed heavily. “What else you want?”
“Dunno yet,” Gus said. “We’ll let you know.”
“Piece of work, that one. She hasn’t caught on yet that I tip her when she smiles,” Gus confided after Margo moved on. “Doesn’t get a lot of tips from me.”
“Huh,” Gary said, thinking, Maybe that’s why she doesn’t smile, although he had to acknowledge that he used to tip her regularly and she didn’t smile at him, either. He didn’t tip anymore, though. The payments to Brother Zachariah for back taxes and penalties were sucking up his and the church’s meager funds. He couldn’t afford the Wash Away Your Sins Hand Sanitizer he’d been bringing his mother since Gracia had been there in spite of there being an internet special going on. He’d thought that was important for the baby, and it was a big discount, but even so, it was too much now.
“Anyway, that’s the way it is,” Gus said. “I’ll try to give you a hand when this is done, but I don’t know how long this operation will be. Maybe not long. Once word gets out, they scatter.”
“Drugs?” Gary repeated, assuming again it must be. Later he’d know it was just that he wanted it to be something that simple. Simple for him.
“I can’t talk about it, son. Not drugs. And you can’t say a thing, understand me? Nothing. Are you . . . uh . . . giving any people . . . shelter?”
“Huh?”
“You housing any . . . needy . . . people in your church?” Gus not only sounded impatient, he put air quotes around needy.
Where did that come from? Gary wondered. “We don’t have that kind of facility. I mean, we could maybe try . . .”
Gus shook his head, used his hand like a broom in the air to flick that answer away. “Not what we’re talking about here, son. You’d best step up your own efforts to help that person you’re concerned about. That’s all. I can’t be doing that at this time.”
“I . . . uh . . . don’t know what, how to do that. To find her, I mean.” And Gary had put his palms up, frustrated. He’d closed his eyes then, and had the impulse to let the truth spill from him. Just confess, beg Gus to tell him what to do. It would be such a relief not to carry this alone.
But he stifled the impulse. Because if there was one thing Gary knew for sure, it was that people love to talk. And people love to start a story by saying, Promise you won’t tell anyone? It’s way more satisfying than keeping the promise you yourself made not to tell anyone. And for one, he couldn’t delude himself that Gus wouldn’t be more loyal to Louisa than to him and blab her son’s private business to her right off, for the dating points he’d get for it. And for two, what if Gus said something around the station? Connie, the dispatcher, had come to his church. Twice. What if she was thinking of joining? She knew people. She was on that radio all the time, too. Anyone could listen on the police scanner. He knew that because Brother Randy did it as sort of a hobby. Wouldn’t that just be juicy for him to hear Connie drop how the preacher has a secret baby?
The morning light streamed through the café windows now as the sun inched around, southeast, and up toward noon. Gus was seated with his back to the street, and Gary couldn’t make out his facial expression, as he was increasingly backlit.
“Well, son, don’t you have something to go on? I mean, where is she from? Immigrants usually gravitate to people from their home countries, you know, and to get . . . papers.”
Gary was nonplussed for a moment, then he thought he knew. “Oh, like a fake . . . license?”
Gus sighed. “A license doesn’t really help them get a job. Look, this isn’t an appropriate conversation, given the circumstances with my job right now. I’m sure you can. Figure. It. Out.” And Gus had said it just that way, as if Gary should know what he was talking about. Which he didn’t. But then he had to pretend he did.
“Oh yeah. Got it. Okay, thanks. But when your project is done, I mean whenever, do you think you’d be able to give me a hand again? If my efforts haven’t been . . . haven’t worked?”
Another sigh from Gus. He picked up his coffee cup and waved to Margo, who was in no hurry to respond, Gary noticed. While she sauntered in their direction, making a point of stopping at other tables apparently to ask if there was anything anyone wanted. Between tables, she shot Gus a look as dirty as the café windows, which he completely ignored.
“Did you want something?” She flipped her bangs out of her eyes.
“Warm this coffee up, will you?” Gus said to her, then added with slightly exaggerated courtesy, “Please.”
That warranted him another dirty look before Margo turned around without responding.
“I took her out. Once,” Gus said. “Years ago. Big mistake, as you can see.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Big, big mistake. Don’t know what I was thinking. Boobies point straight at the ground, for one. Nothing like . . . uh, um . . . anyway . . . you got anything else on your mind? Say, uh, any issue like, uh, parking safety for your services?”
“It’s gonna get tight soon,” Gary said, “but I think we can get by for a while.” If only that were true, there might be more donations coming in. More tithes even. He didn’t know how he was going to handle the building fund accounting.
“Okay, well, let me know when you need some traffic control,” Gus said. Margo approached with a coffeepot holding what was obviously the last—old—bit of bitterness in it.
“Never mind. We’ll take the check now,” Gus said.
Gary left the café with a headache and a vague commitment from Gus that he’d help if Gary “still needed it by then.” Whatever that meant.
Now he told himself he had to do it and went to his mother’s. To his huge relief, she wasn’t there, only CarolSue with the baby. “She’s at the grocery store,” CarolSue explained. “I could have gone with her and taken Gracie, but, you know, it’s so cold in there, the way they crank up the air conditioning. Way colder than it needs to be now that fall’s coming on.”
“Can I hold her,” Gary said, not really a question, reaching for the baby. She was on CarolSue’s lap in the living room, Jessie the Lab at her feet, and Marvelle, his mother’s haughty cat, no favorite of Gary’s, staring him down from her throne, the top edge of the blue wingback chair. She flicked her tail at him. Gary did not like Marvelle for the simple reason that she caused him to have thoughts he was sure Jesus would not like if He happened to be paying attention at the moment.
CarolSue seemed reluctant to hand Gracia over to him, but she did. “You’re doing a real service to the Lord,” he said as he took the baby. Careful to demonstrate that she’d be safe with him, he cupped the baby’s head in his hand as he settled her against his chest
. “I know this has been a lot of extra work for you, and it must wear you out. I appreciate that you’re helping the church, Aunt CarolSue, and I hope you remember the Lord sees good works.” His aunt, who definitely looked tired, started to interrupt then, but he talked over her, afraid she was going to say they just couldn’t keep the baby longer.
Carrying the baby, who waved an arm and made little sounds that didn’t sound like a protest, Gary walked over to the window. He wanted some time alone with the baby, truth be told, but it wasn’t like he could say that to his aunt. What reason would he give? But he wanted to study her face. Who knew what the future held? He wished he could bless her on her way. He realized right then: Of course! One thing he could do. He could baptize her. He’d have to check the internet on how to do that with a baby. Probably the full-body dunking wasn’t a good idea, but maybe it would be okay if he didn’t hold her underwater the usual length of time.
“I’ll try to be more help. I’m doing everything I can to find Gracia’s mother. I’m sure this won’t be much longer.” Not that he had any idea if that was true. “But in the meantime, I can pitch in and give you some respite. I can take her, some afternoons. We can find something to do, won’t we, pumpkin?” The last he directed to Gracia with a smile. Then he looked at CarolSue and was struck at how bereft she appeared. When she realized he was looking at her, she sat up straighter.
“She’s fine here, Gary. Your members need you at the church, I’m sure. Meetings and such. Don’t worry about it. We’re doing fine.”
“That’s really good of you. I worry about you and Mom. Tomorrow is supposed to be a really good day. Indian summer. I’ll come get her and take her for a walk.”
“In what?”
“I’ll get one of those stroller-things that looks like an umbrella. Or a regular one. I’ll go to the thrift shop when I leave here. They always have baby stuff.”
