The Book of CarolSue

by Lynne Hugo

  “We’re babysitting,” his mother inserted. “Church work for Gary.”

  And then it all blew up. Brother Zachariah snorted. “That what he told you? Just another lie. He owes me the damn money. And that there baby is his. He was fornicating again, and the poor girl had his baby, that’s what happened. Tryin’ to hide it. Wantin’ me to cover for him and his church. So y’all just pay me what he owes . . .”

  Gus and his mother stood a minute, apparently stunned, waiting for him to deny it. CarolSue came through the hall carrying the baby, who had the hiccups but wasn’t crying anymore. CarolSue held a pink pacifier in her free hand and a receiving blanket was draped half over her shoulder and half around Gracia.

  His mother erupted at Brother Zachariah. “You are disgusting. That’s not Gary’s baby,” his mother said. “Gus, get him out of here.”

  Gary inhaled and breathed out. All of it, everything, was gone now. There was nothing left to save except this one small grace. “Yes,” he said. “She is mine.” He held both arms out toward CarolSue as she approached with his daughter. “I’ll take her.”

  Chapter 26

  CarolSue

  A reverberation followed Gary’s words, as if a gong had sounded and spread, echo after widening echo, into the sudden silence. Zachariah and Gus were by the front door, Gus clutching that con man’s elbow to lead him out but stopping in his tracks, as surprised as the rest of us. Zachariah had an ugly, satisfied smirk on his face. I took a step backward, clutching Gracie and intending to take her back to the bedroom. What had I been thinking by bringing her out of the bedroom into this quicksand? I didn’t know whether to believe Gary.

  But then Gary was right there, and before I could get away, he had his hands on Gracie and was taking her from me. Believe me, I tried to hang on to her. “Let me just . . .” I started to say, and Gary said, “No, give her to me,” and I wasn’t going to scare her by having a tug of war.

  I kissed her head and wrapped the blanket from my shoulder around her and helped Gary get a good grip on her. Gracie didn’t cry.

  Gus was the one who seemed to get a handle on himself first. He stared hard at Gary and said, “Gary, that true?”

  Gary had his chin down against Gracie. He nodded and then found his voice. “Yes,” he said.

  Zachariah Barnes snorted. “Oh yeah. He makes a great daddy, don’t he now?” Louisa took a quick step and raised her hand. I thought she was going to fly at him and start slapping, slugging, punching. Gus put up an arm to block her.

  “Stay back now,” Gus said to Louisa. “Still looking?” Gus said then, glancing over to Gary, and I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  “Yeah,” Gary whispered on a long exhale, nodding.

  “Okay, then. Looks like you all have some things to sort out,” Gus said, his face inscrutable. “Louisa, I’ll call you later. Time to go, Barnes.”

  Seeing that Louisa was immobilized again, I managed to get out, “Thank you, Gus,” and went to close the front door behind them. I saw Gus put handcuffs on Barnes once they were on the steps, and I was glad.

  In the living room, my sister sank into Harold’s old recliner. She still hadn’t said a word. I can tell you this: For once, she didn’t have a Plan. She was usually a half dozen steps ahead of Gary. I couldn’t tell from her face how she was taking it. Honestly, I think she was in shock. Well, in fairness, I was too. And then a little bit of quiet jubilation set in. Gracie was my own family.

  Gus

  After Gus had taken Barnes to the station, given him his one phone call, printed and booked him pending arraignment, he turned him over to Jimmy for transport to county. He hoped the judge would deny bail until trial, but it wasn’t likely. At least Dalton, the prosecutor, would ask. He hated grifters, and there were already strikes against Barnes.

  He guessed it made some sense now, but oh boy, Gary’s announcement wasn’t going to set well with Louisa. He’d gotten a load of the shock on her face. Had Gary made up some malarkey and asked her, or more likely CarolSue, to babysit that afternoon? Oh wait. Wait. Wait. Exactly how long had that baby been there?

  Gus thought all the way back to the bathtub for Marvelle. All the times Louisa had been too tired, or CarolSue hadn’t been feeling well. The baby toy for Jessie in the recliner. How he, a sheriff trained to look for clues, had been played. Damn. That baby had been there all this time. She must have known. Must have. He’d thought he could trust her. No wonder she’d been asking if they couldn’t start napping at his apartment.

  Gary was another matter entirely. Gus had smelled something off with Gary from the beginning, hadn’t he? As he thought back, he was disgusted with himself that he hadn’t put it together. A baby. Of course. Why else would Gary—with his history, too! Everybody knew why Nicole left him—be desperately looking for a young, vulnerable woman? And here Gary’s mother had weird baby stuff around her house, and duh! The great dumb trusting cop had gone on his merry way. It wasn’t even as if the pieces couldn’t have fit easily if he hadn’t been blinded. Had Louisa been laughing at him behind his back?

  Probably. If it were anyone else, he’d laugh at them. This was the kind of stupid stuff that was Jimmy’s lane, not his. And he’d laugh his ass off at Jimmy. Hell, he’d get rid of him if he could get somebody who could add two plus two.

  He looked around his apartment. His underwear was strewn around; he hadn’t gotten to the laundry in a while. Dirty dishes, too. Junk mail. The cartons his food had come in. Two burned-out lightbulbs. Rhonda would shit a brick if she saw the place. She’d have warned him to listen to his gut, too. Well, really, first thing she’d say was that Louisa was the best thing to happen to him in years. Damn. She’d say, Clean up this disgusting mess and talk to her. There’s two sides to every story. Yeah, that’s what she’d say. Yadda, yadda. That’s true, Rhonda, but that baby had been there the whole time. He could hear the argument in his head.

  So you sure Gary told his mother the truth? Rhonda challenged. Sons always tell their mothers the truth? You always told the truth? Don’t make me laugh.

  So, maybe that was true enough. But why wouldn’t Louisa have told me about the baby? She was keeping me at arm’s length way before this operation with the Feds came up. She coulda told me what was going on. Talked to me.

  Maybe ’cause you’re a cop? Or maybe she thought all you wanted to do was nap, not talk?

  Gus didn’t answer Rhonda’s ghost. He used to walk out of the room when she said stuff he didn’t have an answer for. She wasn’t playing fair. He couldn’t walk out of his own head. He never could win with her.

  He was mad, and for now he wanted to stay mad while he figured out what to do. He wasn’t of a mind to tell Gary that he’d found Rosalina, not when Gary hadn’t been straight with him. And he wasn’t ready to talk with Louisa. Not yet.

  You damn well ought to do something. If you’re not going to talk to either Gary or Louisa right now, which you know you should do, then why don’t you try just doing your job? Try being a cop. That baby is in your jurisdiction and right now so is the woman who may be her mother. Maybe you better go check this out, huh?

  Rhonda could be such a bitch. Since she’d died and taken up residence in his head, the annoyance factor was huge, but at least she couldn’t make him tell her out loud that she was right anymore. “All right already,” he muttered out of habit.

  * * *

  The Dwayne County Justice Center was housing the women, though Gus didn’t know how long they’d be kept there. This was all new, and everyone hoped, temporary, although the way things were going, more likely the new normal. Probably most would be transferred to one of the bigger designated federal places. They were opening all over, in jails that either had or had made room, to get the per diem from the government; and new, private contract ones. There was money to be made. The detainees would have to wait for an immigration court, although most all of them would be deported. They’d cry, they’d beg for asylum. Their stories about what they’d escaped
—gangs and violence, drugs, rape, poverty or persecution—were almost certainly true. But most applications would be denied. Some would have been here for years with jobs, families, paying taxes, staying out of trouble. Except their social security cards and their I-9 immigration papers were a hundred percent fake, and that would doom their hope of staying.

  Gus didn’t know any of this firsthand, didn’t know what really happened. One of the Feds had told him this, hard-jawed although his eyes were tired and he shook his head, as if he couldn’t decide what to feel. “Whatever,” he’d said, raising his shoulders after the raid, the lead of a handsome German shepherd in his right hand. The dog sat quietly at heel while the men watched from a distance. The agent, and two others with dogs at other points on the site perimeter, had waited to see that there were no disturbances while the workers whose papers didn’t match were loaded into the busses. There weren’t. “Above my pay grade,” he said to Gus. “I do my job. My family’s gotta eat.”

  * * *

  Gus was familiar enough with the Justice Center, though, so going there wasn’t any big deal. Not that it was his habit to visit anyone who was incarcerated. Once they were booked, he was typically done, except when he went to court as the arresting officer and for sure, he wouldn’t be doing that for any of these cases. He’d had the standard employee tour, years ago, so he’d seen the bunks, the cafeteria, and the rec yard. It was grim then, and no reason to think it had changed. Loud. No privacy. Nothing to see but gray concrete and steel. And other bodies, crowded in, too close. Gus couldn’t have worked as a guard there.

  Even now, the sound of the door clanging shut bothered him. He showed his ID, signed in and asked for an interview room. Had to leave his sidearm, of course. The woman behind the glass—she wasn’t one that Gus knew—punched Rosalina’s full name and detainee number into a computer. She pressed a buzzer and Gus proceeded through another set of doors. He was waved through rather than searched and went to the interview room he’d been assigned, to wait. He’d thought maybe they’d make him use one of the booths with a glass separator and speak through a phone, but was gratified that it was a naked room, just a table and a couple chairs. Good. It would be a little easier to read this Rosalina without scratched-up Plexiglas between them.

  He waited about five minutes for her to be brought in. She looked young, small, frightened. Her orange jumpsuit was too large, and there were slippers made of something like cardboard on her feet. He noticed this because of the strange scuffling noise they made.

  “You speak English?” he said.

  “Not great,” she said.

  “Your name?”

  “Rosalina Gonzalez.” She had a widow’s peak in her forehead, large brown eyes that were listless and dull, high cheekbones under olive skin. Hair pulled into a lank ponytail. Gus tried to see her with Gary’s eyes and couldn’t. If it was true about the baby, what hadn’t Gary been able to resist?

  He thought to put her at ease. “This isn’t about your case or anything. Not really official. I know somebody who’s looking for you. I mean, if I’ve got the right person. You know a Gary Hawkins?”

  She tried to guard it, but he saw the answer on her face.

  “You don’t need to be scared,” he said, trying to be kind. He tried to think how to phrase the next question and wished he had planned it ahead. He was damn good at interrogations and under his usual circumstances would have known exactly how he wanted this to go. “Uh. He maybe has something belongs to you? That you should get back, I mean. Rightly.”

  She shook her head.

  “No?” he asked.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “He doesn’t have something of yours?” Now he was incredulous.

  Her face was shuttered. “No.”

  Gus sighed. He closed his eyes for a moment to think. Opened them and leaned across the table. He spoke softly. “Rosalina, did you have a baby a while ago? Because Gary Hawkins suddenly got himself a baby, I guess he’s been hiding it at his mother’s, see? His mother and his aunt taking care of it. And all this time, he’s been searching for you. He’s had me searching for you, not as sheriff, but as a family friend. I gotta put two and two together and figure maybe you’re the mother of that baby.”

  She was silent as her eyes filled. Her hands held each other tightly in front of her on the scratched table.

  “Am I right?” Gus persisted.

  “How is the baby?” she whispered.

  “Looked fine to me. Only just saw her the once, for a minute.” He nodded. “Fine. Good.”

  The smallest light of a smile crossed her face and then she closed that, too, into a shadow in Gus’s memory. He was sure, but not of what to do.

  “She should be with you. A baby needs her mother.”

  “They will send me back,” she said. “After court.”

  “Where? Your I-9 . . . fake?”

  “Honduras,” she said, and did not answer the rest. Gus knew anyway.

  “A baby needs her mother,” he repeated, because he believed it. He’d needed his and he hadn’t been a baby when she left.

  But he saw her hands shift, the one on the bottom shifted to the top, even though she shook her head. “More . . . needs to be safe.” He could see she was trying not to give way to the tears that had made it to her cheeks now. Her nose was running, and of course there was no tissue in the room.

  “They’d keep her until you’re being sent . . . and then I could bring her to you. I’m pretty sure I could make that happen,” he said.

  He watched her take that in. Best not to press her more now. Let her maternal instincts eat away at her. It was no big deal for him to come back. “Think it over, Rosalina. I can help you with this. Not as a cop. I’m a friend of Gary’s mother, Louisa. That’s where the baby is. They’re good people. She’s getting lots of love, for sure.”

  “Gracias,” she started, and then caught herself, nodded. “Thank you.”

  After he left, Gus would go over the conversation in his head and think maybe he shouldn’t have told her about the love.

  What if she didn’t know about that? If Gus worked on Rosalina about how the baby belonged with her, then maybe his life could go back to normal. Even though CarolSue had moved in, there wouldn’t be a baby there anymore.

  That what you want, asshole? Gus had thought his way into being plain mad at Louisa. He could stomach CarolSue keeping anything from him. After all, they’d hardly had time to become friends on their own. But Louisa? He’d thought he was more than a good nap to her, that they had trust between them. He wouldn’t have, couldn’t have hidden something big, something important like this from her. She’d even sort of lied to him, most likely, those times when she’d said CarolSue was sick, or she herself was “tired out.”

  It was the sort of question that Rhonda would have made quick work of. She’d have told him exactly what he wanted, and even though it pissed him off to no end, she’d be right.

  Chapter 27

  CarolSue

  Gus’s tires had been loud, chewing the driveway pebbles on the way back out, as if he wanted to be heard. I’d sneak-watched anyway, standing to the side of the living room window to see for sure that Barnes was in custody and in that car, leaving. Then we all slumped into the stunned, reverberating silence, the kind that follows an explosion. As I’ve said, I feared Louisa was in shock. Gary still had Gracie, and much as I wanted her back, I didn’t push it, not wanting to find out where the lines of authority would be drawn. “Hey, sweet baby girl,” he murmured into the dark cap of her hair, as he shifted her and lowered himself onto the far end of the couch. “I’ve got you.”

  I figured my sister must be split down the middle, dying to blast Gary with, I tried to tell you a thousand times that “Brother” dude was a con man, but would you listen? but unable to form that sentence because the words were crowded out by the other ones elbowing their way to the front: What? All this time that baby is my own granddaughter and you didn’t think it would be a goo
d idea to tell me?

  She sat there for a good five minutes, we all did, Louisa definitely giving Gary The Look. She’d learned it from our mother, and it could wither a plant, believe me. I was actually hoping that Gracie would start to cry so there would be an urgent need for me to get her a bottle or something, but no, she just kept looking around and playing with her hands like they were the most fascinating objects in the universe. I don’t know how she stood the tension. I was about to break, when Louisa finally spoke.

  “CarolSue, can you please make us some special tea? Make it really . . . special.” Then, in her steely tone, the one she used to use on unruly fifth grade boys, she spoke to Gary. “You . . . bring me my granddaughter.”

  I headed for the kitchen but looked back to see Louisa with her arms outstretched, and Gary, who’d gotten up and brought the baby across the room, about to put Gracie in them.

  In case you’re wondering what’s wrong with that, it’s this: I was the one who’d loved and wanted that baby from the first day. Not him, not her. Why was I relegated to make a big pot of special tea while my sister was in there bonding with a baby that was already bonded to me? I didn’t take well to being shoved aside, but I hid it.

  “Did you make the tea extra . . . special?” Louisa said when I carried the tray in ten minutes later.

  “We’re real low on Wild Turkey now, let’s put it that way.”

  “Okay, then. CarolSue, look.” She shifted her face from me to the baby, stretched faceup in her lap. “She does have Harold’s chin, doesn’t she?”

  I nodded but said, “I actually think she looks like Mom. Around the eyes, and eyebrows.”

  “Ohhh. Hadn’t thought of that. We’ll have to get out her old albums anyway.”

  I noticed that Louisa was rather pointedly ignoring Gary, so I spoke to him. “Gary, you want some tea?” Even though Gary always said no because he wasn’t sure if it was a Sin, I was thinking he might make an exception, given what was going on.