Finding Noel

  Macy looked back at the front door. She could run away from these ugly, mean people, but to where? She had no idea where she was. She lifted her plastic bag.

  “Why you carrying a garbage sack?” Ronny asked.

  “Nun’ your business,” Macy said.

  He looked at her ornament. “What’s in your hand?”

  “Nun’ your business.”

  He moved toward her. “Give it to me.”

  Macy looked him in the eyes. She let the sack fall to the ground, then balled her fist. “Touch it and I’ll knock you clear into tomorrow.”

  Ronny paused, uncertain of whether or not she could but pretty certain she’d try. Macy had fought bigger boys. Boys at the drug rehabilitation centers who wanted to do things to her or her sister. She had won some of those fights, or at least made enough trouble to deter them. But there were times that she lost and they did what they wanted. She had never felt so vulnerable as when she was being protected by the state.

  Ronny, ashamed at being backed down, walked out of the room. Macy followed Sheryl to the bedroom. It was a box of a room, cramp and cluttered, the floor littered with clothes and foam rubber chunks from a cushion the dog had gotten at. There was a bunk bed in the corner of the room.

  “You sleep on top. Unless you wet the bed. You wet the bed?”

  “No.”

  “Better not.”

  Sheryl left the room. Macy threw her bag on the top bunk, then looked around for a place to hide her ornament. Another world, another uncertainty. One thing she knew for certain—she would leave the first chance she got.

  Macy has decided to find her sister which might be a little tricky seeing how she can’t even remember her sister’s name. I have a feeling that somehow her journey will involve me. I can’t imagine a better travel companion.

  MARK SMART’S DIARY

  I showed up at the Hut a few minutes before seven. I parked next to Macy’s car in the back lot and entered by the employee’s entrance, a black metal door decorated with bumper stickers. I had my guitar slung across my back, its bright yellow strap crossing my chest. Macy had been waiting for me and smiled when she saw me. She took my hand, leading me to the same office where I had made the phone call. This time a man, mid-forties and balding, occupied the desk.

  “Jeff, this is Mark.”

  Jeff glanced up at me. “Pleasure,” he said with impersonal cordiality. “You got a big crowd tonight.”

  “Thanks for letting me play.”

  “You betcha,” he said. “You know any Christmas songs?”

  “Not for the guitar.”

  “Maybe you could learn some.” He returned to his calculator.

  Macy led me out.

  “Christmas songs?” I said.

  “He’s trying to push holiday gift sales. Just be glad he didn’t ask if you could play the Star Wars theme.”

  “I’m glad for all of us.”

  In the corner of the room was a black vinyl-upholstered stool set behind a chrome microphone stand. The mike was plugged in to a small suitcase-size amp. A light on the amp glowed amber.

  “I have something for you.” She lifted a flyer from a nearby table. It read:

  Guitar Lessons from Mark Smart

  Reasonably Priced

  Call 445-3989

  “I assumed you were reasonably priced. If you’re not, you can just write ‘un’ in front of ‘reasonably’. I put my own number down until you get a phone.”

  Again I was amazed at her thoughtfulness. “Thanks.”

  “Let me know if you need anything else. Knock us dead.”

  As she went back behind the counter, I unlatched my case and lifted out my guitar, leaving the case open for tips. When I thought no one was looking, I dropped in a five-dollar bill of my own. Priming the pump.

  I straddled the vinyl stool. Nearly every seat in the place was taken and everyone seemed content in their own conversations, unaware of my presence. I felt like I was intruding. Maybe they’d tip me not to play.

  I adjusted the chrome microphone stand, then tapped the microphone. It was dead. I found the switch and turned it on. There was instant feedback, a shrill screech that brought the place to a standstill, like the amplified sound of nails scraping across a chalkboard. I lunged at the mike and shut it off, nearly dropping my guitar in the process. If I had wanted to be unobtrusive, I had just blown it. I glanced over at the counter and Macy was grinning.

  I moved the microphone a safe distance from the amp, danced my fingers through a few silent chords, then started lightly picking until it felt good, and I started into a song. At first some of the customers glanced over at me but just as quickly returned to their lattes and conversations. My first song, a James Taylor number, received polite applause. At least no one threw anything. I played a couple more songs, and with each one I brought a few more of the customers in. About a half hour later I felt confident enough to speak to the crowd.

  “I’d like to play something I wrote. This is a song for my mother.”

  Several of those at the closest tables turned their chairs toward me. I played the song Macy had heard me practicing when she came to my apartment. This time when I finished, everyone in the room clapped. I looked over and even the workers were watching. Macy gave me a thumbs up. A couple of women, one blond, the other a redhead, got up to leave but first walked out of their way toward me. The blonde dropped three dollar bills into my case. “That was great,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said the other. “Will you be here next Thursday?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m just filling in for someone.”

  “We know,” said the blonde. “We’re regulars. We hope you come back.”

  “I’ve been thinking of taking guitar lessons,” said the redhead. “Are you taking new students?”

  “Of course he is,” said the blonde. “Why else would he have a flyer?”

  “If you give me your number,” I said, “I’ll call and we can arrange a lesson.”

  She wrote her number down on a napkin and handed it to me.

  “She was hoping you’d ask for her number,” the blonde said.

  “You’re going to be walking home,” the redhead told her friend. She turned back to me, “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  They left the café.

  By the end of the night the bottom of my guitar case was littered with bills and silver coins. I had exhausted my repertoire and was playing the same songs from earlier in the night, but the place had mostly cleared out except for Macy and a woman behind the counter. At midnight Macy locked the doors. I put away my guitar and counted my tips, stuffing the wad into my coat pocket. When Macy had finished cleaning, she came and sat next to me, bringing me a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream. “Everyone liked you,” she said. “Even Jeff was impressed. He said you can come back.”

  “I’d love to.”

  “How’d you make out on tips?”

  “Almost fifty dollars.”

  “That’s really good. I think Carlos usually does twenty-something.”

  “I don’t think people like Carlos.”

  “No. He’s about twenty years past his prime. You’re a good replacement.”

  “And two people asked about lessons.”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s my flyer. It was…compelling.”

  “It was compelling.” I laughed. “Can I take you to dinner?”

  “How about breakfast? I’m craving pancakes.”

  “Pancakes it is.”

  We drove to a nearby IHOP. I ordered fries and Macy ordered a large stack of buttermilk pancakes, which she drowned in a sea of maple syrup. It was amusing to see someone that small with such a large appetite.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said the other night,” Macy said. “I’m going to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Find my sister.”

  “Cool. So where do you start?”

  “I called the DCFS this morning. I have an appoi
ntment with a caseworker tomorrow at ten.”

  “What’s DCFS?”

  “Division of Child and Family Services. They’re the ones who took me from home.” She looked down and cut a piece of pancake. “Do you know what I really hate? I hate that I can’t even remember her name.” She shook her head emphatically. “I can’t remember my own sister’s name.” She lifted the fork to her mouth.

  “Maybe there’s a reason,” I said.

  “Like because I was only seven?”

  “Or maybe being separated was so traumatic, you blocked it out. I did a paper on this in high school. It’s called repression. The more traumatic the experience, the more likely it is to happen.”

  She finished chewing. “You should be a psychiatrist.”

  “I have too many issues.”

  “All psychiatrists have issues. Why do you think they became psychiatrists?”

  We finished eating, I paid the check and we went out to our cars. We had driven separately so we said goodbye in the parking lot.

  “Thanks for breakfast.”

  “Thanks for everything you did for me tonight. That was a lot of fun. I don’t know how to repay you.”

  “I should make you give me a cut of your tips,” she said, smiling. “But I’ll settle for a discount on guitar lessons.”

  “For you it’s free.”

  “No, you have to charge me something.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I insist.”

  “Then you can pay me in hot chocolate.”

  “How about once a week I make you dinner and then we have a lesson?”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Well, don’t be too sure. You haven’t tasted my cooking.”

  “It’s got to be better than mine.”

  She smiled. “It’s a deal then.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be waiting. Good night.”

  We hugged. As we parted, I said, “Tell me something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you come back to check up on me?”

  She thought about it. “I don’t know. I just liked you. And you’re pretty cute.” She smiled and climbed into her car. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  I waited until she’d driven off before starting my car. I’d known her for just four days and I was already falling in love.

  When it comes to hurting children we cannot claim ignorance. Every adult I’ve ever met has once been a child. And some have become more so.

  MARK SMART’S DIARY

  NOVEMBER 30, 1975

  Macy sat in the back seat of the car, pushed up against the door. She was dressed in a red and green plaid Christmas dress with puffy sleeves and a skirt that flared out like a bell. It was the first time she’d worn a dress since she had come to the Hummel home. It was also the first time Mrs. Hummel had taken an interest in how Macy looked. She had scrubbed her cheeks so hard they were still red.

  The four children in the back seat of the Dodge Charger were all dressed up in what Irene Hummel called their “Sunday meeting clothes,” which was peculiar since they never went anywhere on Sunday, church meetings or otherwise. To Macy it felt like they were playacting and these were the costumes.

  Macy’s adoptive father, Dick, was driving. Dick Hummel was a baker at a midsized supermarket. He was a quiet man, low-key and unemotional, and the one person Macy got along with at home. Macy sensed that he felt sorry for her—or perhaps for both of them. In spite of their age difference, between them developed a peculiar camaraderie not dissimilar to that among victims of any disaster.

  Unfortunately he was rarely home. Macy didn’t blame him for being gone so much. She wouldn’t be there either if she had a choice. She once asked Dick if she could go to work with him, but Mrs. Hummel vetoed it. “It’s just her little scheme to get out of her chores,” she said. Mrs. Hummel always acted funny when Macy spent time with Dick.

  Macy’s thoughts were suddenly broken by an elbow to her ribs. “If the judge asks me, I’m going to tell him we don’t want you,” Bart said.

  “Me too,” said Sheryl.

  Macy turned back to the window. “Fine with me,” she said.

  When they walked into the courthouse, the social worker who had taken her from her father was there to greet her. Macy hadn’t seen her in almost a year, not since she had sent her to the Hummels’. Now she acted as familiar as family. More playacting.

  “You look so nice,” she said to Macy, a smile plastered across her face. “What a special day. You are so lucky.”

  There must be another meaning to the word that I don’t know, Macy thought. Then she had a hopeful thought. Perhaps the judge would ask her if she wanted to be adopted. She would tell him that everyone was mean to her. That Mrs. Hummel yelled at her all the time and sometimes slapped her and made her do more work than the other kids. Maybe then they’d let her go back to her father.

  “We have a surprise for you,” the caseworker announced with a broad smile. “Your sister is going to be adopted with you.”

  Macy’s heart leapt. Finally something good had happened in her life. “You mean we get to live together?”

  The woman’s smile disappeared. “No. I meant she’s just being adopted at the same time. We thought you would like that.”

  Ten minutes later Macy’s little sister came into the room. She was immaculately dressed in a navy velvet dress, her hair perfectly groomed and pulled back with a silk ribbon. She was flanked by two well-mannered little boys dressed in matching navy suits and clip-on neckties. They looked like small replicas of their father, a handsome, well-dressed man in a navy pinstriped suit with a crisp white shirt and silk necktie.

  Noel screamed when she saw her sister. “Macy,” she cried. “Macy, Macy!” They ran to each other, colliding in the center of the room. The Hummels and Noel’s parents, the Thorups, kept their distance, sitting on opposite ends of the vestibule. Noel had had trouble dealing with Macy’s absence and a child psychologist suggested to the Thorups that they allow the two girls to spend some time together. Mrs. Thorup contacted Mrs. Hummel to discuss the situation, and what started as a simple request escalated into a shouting match between the two women. Mrs. Hummel would not allow Macy to see her sister. The dislike the two families felt toward each other was palpable.

  “Don’t go ’way,” Noel said. Macy held her tightly, both of them oblivious to the adults who watched from both sides of the room.

  “I won’t, Sissy.”

  The two little girls sat together on the tile floor, and for that time, all was well with the world; Macy made faces and Noel laughed.

  Twenty minutes later the caseworker came into the room. She said to Mr. and Mrs. Hummel, “The judge is ready to see you.”

  Mrs. Hummel impatiently bounded from her chair and walked to Macy, putting her hands on her shoulders. “C’mon,” she said.

  Macy looked at her sister and began to cry. “I don’t want to go.”

  “No, no, no!” Noel screamed at Mrs. Hummel. “She’s my Macy. You can’t have her!”

  Mr. Thorup walked up to take her. “Come on, honey. Macy needs to go now.”

  Noel erupted in a piercing scream. “No! Don’t go!” She grabbed tightly onto Macy’s waist. “Don’t go! Don’t go!”

  Irene Hummel looked at the man as if the situation was his fault. “We need to go,” she said. “Control your daughter.”

  The man glared back at her. “Give her a break, lady. They’re sisters.” He gently lifted Noel by the waist. “Come on, hon.”

  “Macy! Macy! Don’t go!”

  Macy began crying. “I don’t want to go.”

  As Mr. Thorup pulled, Noel clutched all the more desperately to the skirt of Macy’s dress. He stood awkwardly in the center of the room, holding the little girl horizontally as she screamed loud enough to be heard anywhere on the floor, and city employees looked out of their offices to see the commotion.

  “Muzzle that brat,” Irene shouted.

&nbs
p; “Someone should muzzle you,” the man said under his breath.

  Mrs. Thorup walked over, glared at Mrs. Hummel, then gently pried Noel’s fingers loose from Macy’s dress. Noel screamed even louder and grabbed frantically for her sister. The instant Macy was free of Noel’s grasp, Irene pulled her away and pushed her toward the judge’s chambers as the little girl, restrained by her father, screamed and swung her arms wildly. “Let me go! Let me go! I want Macy! I want Macy!”

  Macy was still whimpering when they got to the door. Irene Hummel dug her fingernails into Macy’s shoulder. “Stop crying.”

  As Macy entered the mahogany-paneled room, her sadness quickly turned to fear. The hearing wasn’t held in a courtroom, but in the more private judge’s chambers. The judge didn’t wear a robe, just a crisp white shirt with a bright blue necktie with yellow and red sailboats. He looked like a kind man, with pictures of his own children and grandchildren strategically placed around his office. He smiled pleasantly at Macy and she could tell he liked kids. He’ll understand, she thought. If she got a chance to tell her story.

  Mrs. Hummel sat close behind her, her knees touching the back of Macy’s chair.

  The judge looked over his desk at her, softly tapping his brass pen on the leather desk pad, “Hello, Macy.”

  “Hi,” she said timidly. Her fear escalated. She wanted to hide. She wanted her sister back.

  The judge leaned forward, his gaze fixed only on her. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  Under the pressure of his dark eyes she just nodded.

  “We are here because the Hummel family would like to adopt you into their family. Do you know what ‘adoption’ means?”

  It means you have to go someplace you don’t want to, Macy thought. Again she nodded. The ambient sounds of the room grew loud and drowned out everything else—the brass, glass-domed clock on the shelf, the growling of Mrs. Hummel’s stomach—the judge was speaking and she heard words here and there like the tuning of a radio.

  “Do you know …change your last name?…no longer …Macy Wood …Hummel?”