Little Mercies

  “I forgot you were afraid of dogs,” her mother said, returning to the back door and holding it open, allowing Jenny to enter. “Come on in, I have so many things to ask you.” Jenny watched her mother carefully as she stepped into the house and the smell of tobacco and a vaguely unpleasant but familiar odor she couldn’t quite name filled her nose. Jimmy, Jenny thought. It smells like Jimmy in here. Her mother seemed genuinely happy to see her, but she had that glazed, glassy-eyed look that her father had after a few beers and it was as if her words didn’t know where they started and ended, but butted into each other. “Please sit down. Can I get you something to eat or drink?” Jenny shook her head no, though her mouth was dry. “How about a glass of water? I’m going to have a glass of water.” Her mother was already reaching into a cupboard and pulled down two drinking glasses, opened the freezer, plopped in a few ice cubes and went to the sink and filled each with water. She turned back to Jenny and some of the water sloshed from the glasses onto her bare feet. With a heaving sigh, she laughed the same tinkling laugh Jenny had heard through the window. “I am so nervous. Are you nervous?”

  “Yeah,” Jenny finally said.

  “Me, too,” her mother said, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I missed you, Jenny.” Jenny couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop herself. She threw her arms around her mother’s middle, jostling the glasses, and what was left of the contents spilled over the two of them. She looked up at her mother’s face, her tears dropping onto Jenny’s face. Jenny poked out her tongue, catching one, and was surprised to learn that happy tears tasted just the same as sad ones.

  Chapter 33

  Seeing the troubled look on my mother’s face, I focus my attention on her. “What happened? Where would Jenny go?”

  “What’s going on?” Joe asks as he steps from the car.

  “I have no idea,” my mother says. “After we talked this morning, I went into the TV room to check on her. She made her bed to look like she was still under the covers and left me these.” She holds up a twenty-dollar bill and a piece of paper covered in a childish scrawl. Her chin is quivering with emotion, an expression I’ve seen on my mother’s face throughout the years. When I went off to kindergarten, when she and my dad dropped me off at college, when I got married, when my brothers got married, when I had children of my own. I realize then, what my mother already knows—has known for a long time. Motherhood is a procession of goodbyes. Some bittersweet and filled with promise and hope, some gradual, a gentle prying away of your fingers from something precious, some more violent, unexpected.

  I put an arm around her shoulder. “I’m sure she’s okay,” I soothe her; all the while my social worker alarm bells are clanging in my head. According to Joe, Billy Briard is still locked up in a county jail eight hours away.

  “You say you found out who Jenny’s mother is?” I ask Joe.

  “Deidra Olmstead,” he says grimly. I freeze. There is no possible way. When I don’t say anything he continues. “She’s married to James Olmstead.”

  I don’t want him to say the next name, but know it’s coming so I say it for him. “Madalyn Olmstead.”

  I take Joe’s silence as confirmation and shake my head trying to make sense of it all. “Are you sure that Deidra is Jenny’s mother? When I worked with her she made no mention of other children. There were no pictures, nothing that made me think that she had been a mother before having Madalyn.”

  “Hold on, got my notes right here.” He pulls a small, battered notebook from his jacket pocket and flips through the pages. “Jennifer Ann Briard born in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Father, William Briard. Mother, Deidra Flanagan.” He pauses. “The two never married,” he explains. “This Deidra Flanagan has the same social security number as Deidra Olmstead.”

  A hand flies to my mother’s face. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “You don’t think she would have gone back to her grandmother’s house to find her mom, do you?”

  “We can go over and check it out. Did Jenny even know that her mother was in town? I thought you said she only knew about the grandmother.”

  “Come inside,” she says in a brusque voice. “I’ve got to show you something.”

  Leah and Lucas must still be asleep. The house is quiet, except for the sound of Dolly’s feet clicking across the hardwood floors coming to greet us and the whispery riffling of pages as my mother flips through a book in search of something. “Here it is,” she exclaims, holding up a photograph. “I know I shouldn’t have taken it,” she says apologetically, handing it to me, “but she had two more, and I thought it might be important.”

  “Is this Jenny?” I gasp, knowing that it is. The photograph is from an old Polaroid camera, the kind of camera that was once often used in hospital emergency rooms to document evidence.

  “I found it in her backpack when I first met her at the restaurant.”

  In the picture Jenny, several years younger, was beaten viciously. “You think the mother did this?” Joe asks, taking the photo from my mother and examining it closely.

  “James Olmstead did this,” I say. “The son of a bitch did this to her. Joe, did your guy in Nebraska say if there was abuse?”

  “Don’t know for sure. Mom and Jenny said no. Said that Jenny fell down some stairs. No one bought the story, but the police didn’t have much to go on. Human Services was called and was able to remove Jenny during the investigation and she was in foster care until her father, Billy Briard, was contacted to come get her, took one look at his little girl and, according the cop I talked to, was sure it was Olmstead. Would have killed the guy if he could have gotten his hands on him. Jenny stuck to her story about falling down the stairs but Briard threatened to file for full custody and Deidra didn’t argue. She and Olmstead disappeared and Jenny’s been living with her dad ever since.”

  “She stayed with him?” my mother asked in wonder.

  Knowing that she was talking about Deidra staying with James, I nodded. “It happens more than you would think.”

  “I can’t believe a mother would let this happen to her child.” She presses her fingers to her eyes as if trying to rub away the image. I know my mother doesn’t include me in this particular category of mothers, that what happened to Avery is much different, but I can’t help but feel judged. I am one of those mothers.

  “Listen,” Joe says, “I’ll call this in and have the patrols keep an eye out for Jenny. I’ll let you know when I find out something.” He places the photograph back into my mother’s hand and steps from the house. “What’s the matter?” Leah stands at the top of the steps. Her hair is messy from sleep, but her eyes are wide with alarm. “Is Avery okay?”

  “Avery’s fine,” I assure her. “It’s Jenny. She’s left. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

  My mother has hung up the phone and hands it back to me. “He said he’ll call us later.”

  “I thought her dad was coming to get her,” Leah says, but there is an uncertainty in her voice and I know she knows more.

  “No, he’s not coming. He can’t come,” my mother says. “Do you know anything at all, Leah? It’s important.”

  Leah shrugs. “She said something about finding her mom or knowing where her mom was, but I thought she was just making it up.”

  “Oh, God,” Maudene says weakly, and sinks into a chair. “What if her stepfather is there?”

  “Why?” Leah asks fearfully? “What’s wrong? Did something bad happen?”

  “We don’t know,” I tell her honestly. I turn to my mother. “Can you stay with the kids while I go over to the house?” She nods. “Do you have the address? When I knew the Olmsteads they lived over on Washington Street.”

  “On Hickory Street,” she says. She looks skeptically at me. “I don’t think you should go. Joe said he’ll call if he finds out anything. It could be dangerous and you’ve got enough going on right no
w.”

  “Mom, I’ve thought about Madalyn Olmstead every day since she died. I have to go.”

  She nods thoughtfully. “Then I’m going with you. Jenny’s my responsibility. Can we call the Arwoods and see if Lucas and Leah can stay with them for a bit?”

  “Okay, that should be okay. I’ll give Diana a call.” To Leah I say, “Can you go get Lucas up and you can spend the day at the Arwoods’.” Leah quickly comes down the steps and hugs me.

  “I wasn’t very nice to Jenny,” she whispers tearfully. “Will you tell her I’m sorry?”

  “You’ll be able tell her yourself.” I hug her back. “Remember, Leah, you never know what a person is going through in private. Jenny’s had a really hard life.” She nods and I kiss the top of her head. “Now go get your brother.”

  I pause to hug my mother, as well. It’s strange, I’ve thought of my father, who died over a year ago, every single day since, but I could go days without calling my mother, without giving her more than a passing thought. How lonely she must have been, what a welcoming presence Jenny Briard must be to her. In one fell swoop I’ve nearly lost my daughter and my mother. I am so ashamed.

  Chapter 34

  As her mother mopped up the water that had spilled to the cracked linoleum floor, Jenny took a moment to look around the kitchen. It was old, like Maudene’s, but had few of the homey touches that Maudene’s kitchen had. The grubby white refrigerator held no photographs, no recipes clipped from magazines. She had hoped, secretly, that maybe her mother would have hung up one of the many pictures she had drawn for her mother when they had lived together. There was nothing but a Chinese take-out menu held to the refrigerator with a Fred’s Muffler Mall magnet.

  “Sit down,” her mother invited as she set a newly refilled glass of water in front of her. Jenny sat in one of the mismatched chairs around the round kitchen table and shoved her backpack beneath her feet. Her mother sat opposite her, pushed a small plate filled with Oreo cookies toward her. “Remember how much you liked these?” she asked.

  Jenny nodded, remembering. Before Jimmy came along she used to twist apart the chocolate cookies and scrape her teeth against the white filling, then nibble away at the remaining disks. It annoyed Jimmy. Just eat the damn things! he’d shout. It took all the fun out of eating them so she stopped. They sat in uncomfortable silence and she reached for a cookie.

  “Is your dad here? I mean is he in town?”

  “No.” Jenny shook her head. She wasn’t sure how to explain. She didn’t want to rat her father out, so she quickly changed the subject. “I thought you were in jail.”

  Deidra’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Did your father tell you that?” she finally asked.

  “Yeah. He said you and Jimmy ran away, were probably in jail and not ever coming back.”

  A red flush crept its way up her mother’s neck, but she didn’t speak.

  “He said if you or Jimmy ever stepped foot in Benton again he would beat the snot out of you both for what Jimmy did to me.” Jenny found that once she started speaking, she couldn’t stop. She was surprised at the lack of emotion in her voice; it was like she was sitting at the kitchen table telling her mother what she did at school that day. “He said that kid beaters were just about the worst thing a person could be. The only thing worse was someone who watched the guy beating the kid and not doing anything.”

  Deidra looked down at her lap. “You came all this way to tell me that?” Deidra finally said, looking Jenny in the eyes.

  “No. I came to see my grandma. But I guess she’s dead.”

  Deidra abruptly stood and walked to the window. Head bent low, she clutched the edge of the counter, knuckles white, trying to steady herself. “She died last year. She left me the house. I never thought I would own a house of my very own.” Then she turned back to Jenny, her face pale and pinched. “Remember when it was just you and me? We lived in that little apartment in Valentine? You were about three? Do you remember that at all?” Deidra asked hopefully. Jenny squinted and looked up at the stained ceiling, trying to remember. Wanting to remember. “It was just an efficiency apartment, but we made it cute. Remember we stuck those stars that glow in the dark on the ceiling? When I put you to bed at night you had to wish on every single one of those stars.”

  “I think I remember that,” Jenny said. “Was the blanket on the bed blue?”

  “Green, I think.”

  “Green,” Jenny agreed. “It was definitely green.”

  Jenny wanted to ask why she had to let Jimmy come into their lives, why she allowed the memories of Jimmy to crowd out her memories of the green blanket and the stars on the ceiling. It wasn’t fair.

  “Where did you say your dad was? Is he waiting outside in the car?” One hand flew up to her brow and she smoothed a few loose strands of hair back into her ponytail.

  “I’ve been staying with a friend,” Jenny answered, busying herself with twisting apart a cookie and scraping her teeth across the cream filling.

  If her mother thought this was odd, she didn’t say so. “How long are you in town for?”

  Jenny felt something beneath her breastbone splinter. Her mother wasn’t going to ask her to stay, wasn’t going to pack her bags and run away with Jenny. Her mother was going to stay right here with Jimmy in the house that was now her very own. “I’m going back today,” Jenny said, blinking back tears and already reaching for her backpack. “Do you think you could give me a ride to the bus station?”

  Deidra gave a sad little laugh. “I own the house, but not the car. Lost my license a while back. Jimmy has the car.”

  “That’s okay,” Jenny stood. “It’s not too far, I can walk.”

  “It’s two miles from here. Too far to walk on a hot day like this. I can call a cab and I can go with you to the bus station.”

  “Thanks,” Jenny murmured, trying to tamp back the disappointment curdling in her chest.

  Her mother pulled out a phone book from an overstuffed drawer, flipped through the pages and then lifted the receiver on the light blue phone that was affixed to the wall. While Deidra dialed, Jenny covertly memorized her mother, knowing that it could be a long time before she ever saw her again. She tried to find herself in her mother’s long limbs and tapered fingers, but found that she had her father’s blunt, thick hands. She ran her tongue across the gap between her front teeth noting how her mother’s front two teeth did the same. Their hair was the same shade of brown, their eyes nearly the same green hue.

  Her mother hung up the phone, giving Jenny a shy smile. “He’ll be here in just a few minutes. Do you want to stay in here or wait outside?”

  Jenny shrugged. “Outside, I guess.” Once on the front steps, Jenny breathed out, deeply glad to expel the unpleasant smell that coated the inside of her nose.

  Deidra lowered herself onto the top step and Jenny followed suit, their bare knees touching. “Tell me about school,” her mother said. “What grade are you in now?”

  “I’ll be in fifth this fall.”

  “Do you like it? I always hated school. Never was good at reading and math,” her mother recalled.

  “Me, either,” Jenny agreed. “The teacher is always saying ‘pay attention’ or ‘ask if you need help.’” Jenny warmed to the topic and raised her voice in a mimicking falsetto.

  “Yeah, but art class was okay. I liked to draw.”

  “Me, too. Art’s fun. But nothing else.”

  “You guys still living in Benton?” Deidra wondered.

  Jenny wasn’t sure how to respond. They didn’t really live anywhere anymore. “Dad’s thinking about moving to Dubuque. It’s a great town,” Jenny explained as if she had visited many times. “It’s right on the Mississippi River. We might buy a houseboat.”

  “I went there a few times when I was a kid. They have a trolley built into the side o
f a bluff. I went up and down that thing until I ran out of quarters.”

  “Maybe you could visit us,” Jenny suggested, casting a sideways glance at her mother, whose eyes were fixed on the end of the street.

  “Maybe,” Deidra said distractedly. “There’s the cab.” She stood and waved to the cab that pulled up next to the curb. “You wait right here for a sec,” she told Jenny. “I’ll be right back.”

  Jenny stood, reviewed the contents of her backpack one more time and tried to think of how to say goodbye to her mother. Should she just say, See you, and walk away? Were hugs appropriate? Her mother seemed to like the hug she gave her in the kitchen, but maybe she was just being polite. Jenny finally settled on saying, It was nice to see you again. Take care. She would offer her hand to shake like she had seen her father do. She decided to forgo adding, Shit, man, it’s been way too long, the way her dad did when saying his goodbyes.

  Deidra rejoined her on the front steps. “Come on, let’s go,” she said breathlessly. Her mother was already moving toward the cab, purse hanging from her shoulder, a small rolling suitcase thumping down the steps behind her.

  “Hey,” Jenny called after her. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

  Her mother turned to face her, still standing at the top of the steps, a tentative smile playing at her lips. “I’m going with you, Jenny, if that’s okay. I’d really like to go with you.”

  Chapter 35

  After we drop the kids at the Arwoods’ house my mother and I are back in her car, making our way to Hickory Street. I look at my watch and realize that I’ve missed the appointment with my attorney. I quickly dial his number on my cell and as soon as he answers begin to apologize. “I’m so sorry,” I begin.