Necessary Lies

  I got to my feet and hung up the phone, staring at it for a moment as though it might tell me what to do. Today was Tuesday. Could I keep Ivy here nearly a whole week? I’d have to. The one thing I wouldn’t allow to happen was for Ivy to end up as Paula’s client.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I looked up to see Ivy standing in the doorway holding her tray.

  I took the tray from her and set it down next to the sink. “Sit down, honey,” I said, motioning to the breakfast nook.

  She looked at the bench. “I don’t think I’ll fit,” she said. “This belly don’t fit too many places no more.”

  I saw that she was right. The table and benches were built snugly into the small space. “We’ll go back in the den,” I said.

  “You ain’t got no color in your face at all,” she said as we walked. “What did he say?”

  “He’s not there,” I said. “He’s on a cruise.”

  “Like a ship?”

  “Exactly.” I guided her back to Robert’s chair in the den and turned off the TV. “He won’t be back until Monday, so you and I need a plan.”

  She looked frightened. “If I go back, you said Nurse Ann will come take me away.”

  “You can’t go back,” I said. “First, Nurse Ann plans to take you to the hospital, and second, Paula—the caseworker taking over for me—will definitely think you should be sterilized.”

  “But what do I do?”

  “Well, you’ll stay here. That’s the one thing … maybe the only thing … we know for sure. You stay here until I can talk to Mr. Parker. The lawyer.”

  She hugged her arms around her baby. “I’m so scared,” she said.

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “I am, too. But we’re in this together,” I added. “You’re not alone.”

  * * *

  She watched TV while I made up the guest room bed. I’d have to buy groceries tomorrow. I hadn’t planned to shop this week, knowing Robert would be gone. I’d be happy with a bowl of cereal or a can of soup, but now I needed to cook. Maybe I could also buy some games for us to play or a jigsaw puzzle Ivy could put together.

  I was rooting around in the refrigerator for something to cook for dinner when I heard a car door slam in the driveway. I looked out the kitchen window to see my mother walking across the yard, carrying a white paper bag.

  “Mrs. Forrester!” Ivy called from the den. She sounded afraid, and I guessed she’d heard the car door, too.

  “It’s all right, Ivy,” I said as I walked past the den to the front door. “It’s my mother. I won’t let her in.”

  “Hi, Mom,” I said when I opened the door. I knew she was on her way home from work. Her reading glasses hung on a chain around her neck and the skirt of her green dress was creased.

  “I was at the bakery and saw that bread you like so I picked up a loaf for you,” she said, handing me the white bag.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I didn’t expect to see you home from work this early. I thought I’d have to leave it by the door.” She was peering past me, and I knew she expected me to invite her in.

  Instead, I walked out onto the porch and shut the door behind me. “My, it’s a beautiful day!” I said. “I had the afternoon off so I’ve been straightening up inside and didn’t notice how nice the weather is. Want to sit?” I motioned to the rockers. I couldn’t just tell her to go.

  She gave me a look that told me I was not behaving exactly like myself, but I ignored it and took a seat in one of the rockers.

  She sat down in the rocker next to me. “Where’s Angeline?” she asked. “Why are you doing the straightening up? There can’t be much to straighten with Robert gone.”

  “Well, he only just left,” I said, “and I decided to give Angeline the week off. I really don’t need her with him gone.”

  “Why don’t you have dinner with me all this week?” She looked excited by the suggestion. “I’ll cook. The only day I have to work late is Thursday. It’s better than both of us eating alone.”

  If Ivy hadn’t been with me, I’d welcome the invitation. My mother was lonely and I was a mess. We needed each other right now. But I couldn’t do it. I rarely lied to her, even when I was young. Our parents always listened to Teresa and me without judging. They made it safe to tell the truth. Today, though, I was going to have to lie.

  “Mom,” I said, “please don’t take this the wrong way, but this week I have so much to catch up on. Letter writing and all the things I don’t have time to do when Robert’s here.”

  “Hmm.” My mother looked out at the sidewalk where a little boy was riding a bicycle with training wheels. “I guess I’m too used to having evenings to myself,” she said. “Ever since your father died, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to crave a little time to yourself. I have too much of it.”

  I reached over to rest my hand on hers. I felt horribly cruel. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “How about we pick one night this week to do something together?” Ivy would have to be left on her own one night. I thought I should make it later in the week so she’d be more comfortable and trusting. “How about Friday night?”

  “We could go out to dinner and a movie,” she said, her eyes lighting up.

  “Something to look forward to.” I smiled. I loved her so much. I hated that I couldn’t tell her what was happening. It would have felt so good to pour it all out to her, but I didn’t dare. I’d have to keep everything to myself until I spoke to Gavin.

  We chatted a while longer about her day at work and a party her neighbors had thrown, and I was glad she didn’t ask me about my work or my marriage. Or, to use my powder room! Halfway through our conversation I started wondering what I would do if she did ask, and my nerves began jangling all over again.

  “Well,” she said finally, standing up. “I’d better get home and leave you to your straightening up.” She kissed my cheek. “Let’s talk before Friday night and decide what movie to see,” she said.

  “Okay, Mom. Thanks for the bread.”

  I watched her walk to her car and then went back in the house to find Ivy cowering on the sofa.

  “You were gone so long!” she said. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back.”

  “It was just my mother,” I said. “Nothing to worry about.”

  I sat down on the sofa to watch the soaps with her, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate. I’d have to do the worrying for both of us.

  48

  Ivy

  At long last, I knew how rich people lived. I was in a palace. Everything was clean and shiny and pretty, like nobody really lived here at all. I had a bathroom upstairs all to myself. The only other bathroom I ever been in was at school, and even that one was a tired old place compared to Mrs. Forrester’s. Last night, I had a bath in a real bathtub instead of trying to fit me and my big belly into our galvanized tub, and the hot water came out of a faucet like at school, instead of me having to heat it up on the stovetop.

  Mrs. Forrester—she told me I could call her Jane, but it seemed wrong and I couldn’t do it—had bubble bath powder she put in the water. She left me alone and told me to relax and take my time. The only problem was I couldn’t relax. Every minute, I expected Nurse Ann or that Paula social worker to come busting into Mrs. Forrester’s house and take me away, so I was watching for them. The street was right quiet, so any car I heard go by, I was at the window, peeking out real careful so I didn’t get seen, making sure it wasn’t somebody coming to get me. When Mrs. Forrester’s mother showed up yesterday, I was sure it was all over.

  I went to bed in her special room for guests after we watched more TV last night. We saw a show called Twilight Zone where there was ghosts in the desert and that got me thinking about Mary Ella coming back as a ghost, but I didn’t say anything to Mrs. Forrester because I could tell she didn’t believe in spirits. Then we watched a funny show with a man named Red Skeleton, but neither one of us laughed. I was thinking too much about Mary Ella and I thought Mrs. Forrester was fu
ll of nerves about what we were doing. That made me even more scared.

  There was a lock on the bedroom door where I slept, but Mrs. Forrester said she didn’t have no key for it so I couldn’t lock it. That feeling of not trusting her came back then. This was her own house and she didn’t have a key? Did she want the bedroom door unlocked so they could come in and take me away in the middle of the night? I didn’t sleep too good. I cried because I thought I’d never see Henry Allen again. Then I cried more, thinking about Nonnie alone at our house, and when I finally did fall asleep I kept dreaming of Mary Ella coming back as a ghost.

  The next morning, Mrs. Forrester went to the store and told me to keep the doors locked and stay away from the windows. I watched for her to come home and made a plan. If she had that Paula social worker or Nurse Ann with her when she came back, I’d go out the back door and run away. But when she came home, the only thing she had with her was a bunch of bags full of food. I never saw so much food come from a store. I was going to help her put it away, but she didn’t want me to do nothing. She brung a chair from the dining room into the kitchen so I could sit and talk with her while she put everything away.

  By suppertime—she called it “dinner” and made tuna noodle casserole—I wasn’t feeling too good. I felt like I might even throw up, so I only ate a little.

  “Nerves,” she said to me, and I reckoned she was right.

  After supper, we played cards in the den. We sat on the sofa, me at one end and her at the other and put the cards on the cushion between us. Nonnie taught me and Mary Ella how to play rummy long ago, but Mrs. Forrester had to remind me how to do it. I was bad at it because I didn’t have no concentration at all.

  I told her I’d been nervous when she went out to the store and she said she didn’t think she’d have to leave me again for anything, except Friday night she was going out with her mother. She had to do that, she said, because her mother’s feelings would be hurt if she didn’t spend time with her. She was a real kindhearted lady and I started feeling really good about her again.

  “What about your daddy?” I asked. She talked a lot about her mama but never said nothing about a father.

  “He died a few years ago,” she said.

  “Was it a accident, like with my daddy?”

  “Yes.” It was her turn to put down a card, but she just stared at the cards in her hand like she wasn’t really seeing them. She looked up at me. “I lost both my father and my sister,” she said. “Just like you.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I thought of her as a lady with a perfect life, especially now that I seen her house. I felt like anybody could look at me and know I lost too much. I never would of guessed she had, too. “What happened?” I asked.

  She held her cards upside down on her knee and leaned back against the arm of the couch. “It was only a couple of years ago,” she said. “My father had bought a used convertible … do you know what that is?”

  “Ain’t got no roof?”

  “Right. It was early summer, so I was home from college and Teresa—my sister—just graduated high school. We were going for a drive, like we did sometimes on Sunday afternoon. Daddy liked to drive out to the country. Find a farmer’s stand and buy some fresh corn or strawberries or whatever was in season. This was a special drive, because of the new car. So we drove out your way. Grace County. Do you know where that KKK billboard is not far from you?”

  “I seen a couple,” I said, picturing them.

  “The one closest to where you live,” she said. “We’d just passed it and a deer suddenly ran into the road right in front of us.”

  “Oh no!” I knew a boy at school who got killed when a buck crashed through the windshield of his car. It was terrible.

  “My father swerved and I guess he was going too fast and the car hit one of those ditches along the side of the road and we … well, I’m not sure if we hit the trees and then flipped over or vice versa, but the car ended up upside down in the woods and all of us were thrown out.”

  She turned her cards over again but I knew she wasn’t seeing them. I knew exactly how she felt. “I was all right,” she said. “I didn’t have a scratch on me, though I was sore for days. My mother wasn’t badly injured, either, but I didn’t know it at the time because she was unconscious. I thought both she and my father were dead. Teresa … my sister … she was alive, but she was bleeding from a cut on her neck. So when someone’s bleeding you’re supposed to put pressure on the wound. I knew that, so I took off my shirt and pressed it on the side of her neck to stop the bleeding. But the thing is, we were in the woods and nobody could see us from the road. So I didn’t know whether to keep holding pressure on her neck or go out to the road and wave someone down for help.” She waved her cards in the air. “It was … I don’t know, the most horrifying moment of my life. So I stayed with her, holding pressure on her neck and hoping someone could see us, but no one came and my mother and father weren’t moving at all. I finally decided I had to run out to the road and get help. I left my sister and ran down to the road, but it was minutes before a car came by. It was a truck, actually. A farmer’s wife. She went back into the woods with me, but by then, my sister was gone.”

  “Gone?” I asked. “You mean…”

  “Dead,” she said. “She bled to death.” She looked down at the sofa, running her hand over the cushion. “I blamed myself for the longest time, thinking I made the wrong choice, even though everyone told me I did the only thing I could have. It took me a long time to believe that. I’m still not sure.”

  I nodded. “I keep thinking I could of grabbed Mary Ella’s arm and pulled her back,” I said.

  “You couldn’t have,” she said. “She took you completely by surprise.”

  “I know that’s the truth, but it don’t change how I feel.”

  She sort of smiled at me. Then she got up and opened a cupboard by the TV and I could see a big box inside. She moved some things around in the box and then came back to the sofa with a picture in her hand. “Teresa and I were two years apart, like you and Mary Ella, only I was the older sister.” She handed me the picture. Mrs. Forrester looked almost like she looked now, but her sister … her sister made me think of Mary Ella. The picture didn’t have no color, but you could tell Teresa’s hair was the same curly blond as Mary Ella’s.

  I looked up at Mrs. Forrester. “She looks a little like Mary Ella.” I said.

  “I know,” she said.

  I looked at the picture another minute. Mrs. Forrester and her sister was both smiling. Both of them happy girls. Maybe happier than me and Mary Ella ever was. “You and me,” I said, “we both got the same kind of hurt inside us.”

  She nodded, and suddenly, just like that, I knew I could trust her with my life.

  * * *

  I thought I’d sleep good that night, feeling safer and all, but as soon as I got into bed the sick feeling came over me again and I started getting a bellyache. I slept for a while, but the pain kept waking me up. Finally I got out of bed to go to the bathroom and when I stood up a puddle of water came out of me like I peed myself, though I knew I didn’t. I was so embarrassed, though. It went all over the pretty rug and I had to figure out how to clean it up before Mrs. Forrester seen what I done. I walked real quiet to the bathroom, but on my way back to the bedroom with a towel, I saw her coming out of her room, tying a robe around herself.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  My belly hurt so bad I couldn’t stand up straight. “I got a bellyache,” I said. “And water come out of me on your rug. I’m sorry. It ain’t pee, though, honest.”

  Her eyes got real big. “Oh no,” she said. “I think you’re in labor.”

  I remembered that word from when Mary Ella had Baby William. “No, that ain’t it,” I said. “It’s too soon. I think I just—”

  “Come back to bed.” She put her arm around me, but a pain gripped my belly so hard I couldn’t take a step. I moaned and my face and head felt hot and sweaty. Mrs. Forrester
talked to me, but I wasn’t really listening. All I could think about was the pain. And then, quick as it came, it left, and I stood up straight.

  “It’s gone,” I said. “I ain’t never felt nothing like that before.” I didn’t want to say that maybe her tuna noodle casserole had gone bad, but that’s what I thought. Except I remembered I felt punk before supper, too.

  “Okay,” she said. “Come back to bed.”

  She walked me back into the bedroom. “The puddle’s there somewhere.” I pointed to the rug at the side of the bed but the room was dark and she probably couldn’t see.

  “Don’t worry about the rug,” she said. “I need to know if you get that pain again. I’m going to stay here with you for a while and you let me know, all right?” She sat down on the other side of the bed from me. It was like the way me and Mary Ella shared our bed, only I was on the wrong side. Would I ever sleep in that bed again? Could the lawyer make it that I’d be safe at home without always worrying about someone taking me away and cutting me open?

  “Was that the first pain you’ve had?” Mrs. Forrester asked.

  “Ever in my life?”

  “No, honey. Tonight.”

  “I felt punk,” I said. “And I had a bellyache, but that was the first awful pain. I don’t know what’s happening to me with all that water coming out. I should mop it up.”

  “I think your water broke,” she said. “That’s what they call it when you’re going into labor. Getting ready to have the baby. Your water breaks.”

  I could tell she was scared. She said all them things real calm, but her voice wasn’t like it usually sounded. And if she was scared, I sure was scared.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer right away. My eyes was getting used to the dark and I could see her head leaning back against the headboard. She was looking up at the ceiling. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Right now, we just wait to see if you get another pain.”

  We waited a long time. I slept off and on and when I woke up, my belly felt like it was turning inside out and Mrs. Forrester wasn’t in the room. I grabbed fistfuls of the blanket in my hands, trying not to scream, it hurt so bad. Then finally, I had to let it out. “Jane!” I screamed. “Jane! Help me!”