Fidelity Files

  It was a place I could be myself.

  Not anybody else.

  This week alone Ashlyn had been a lawyer, a grad student, a sorority girl, a research manager, and a flight attendant. It was nice to just be me again. Jennifer Hunter.

  There was only one problem.

  As I stared at myself in the mirror after stripping away all the mascara that covered my eyes and all the foundation that transformed my face, I couldn't help but feel like the girl staring back at me was becoming a stranger.

  Less and less familiar every day.

  And that was hard to ignore.

  I exhaled loudly and shut off the light, extinguishing the unfamiliar face with the darkness.

  I climbed into bed and snuggled under my white sheets. They felt soft on my skin. Like flower petals. I looked longingly at the pillow on the other side of the bed. Except for Marta's soft hands, it had remained untouched for more than two years. I reached under it and pulled out my tattered, stuffed purple elephant. The one I've slept with every night since I was twelve years old.

  And I remembered that first night like it was yesterday.

  SNUFFLES THE elephant had never been my favorite stuffed animal. He had been sitting on the window seat of my room since the day I was born, but I had never taken a particular liking to him.

  I inadvertently named him Snuffles when I was two, because I would see him in my bedroom after watching Sesame Street and would shrewdly remark that he looked a lot like Mr. Snuffleupagus. Except I couldn't pronounce the entire name of Snuffleupagus, so I would simply point to the purple elephant and say, "Snuffle." Which later was changed to Snuffles.

  But I had always favored other toys. Leo the Bear, Floppsy the Rabbit, Frank the Fish. Each night rotating them out, enjoying the variety and excitement of a new bed companion as I fell asleep.

  Snuffles never really made it into the mix.

  When my mom would tuck me in at night we would always go through the same selection routine, "the bedtime game," as we liked to call it.

  I would happily climb into bed and nestle under the covers of my Rainbow Brite comforter or My Little Pony sheets (depending on the age), and she would walk to the windowsill and stand purposefully in front of each toy like a drill sergeant making a daily bunk inspection. Her hand would linger approximately six inches above the head of each animal, and she would wait patiently through my series of resolute head shakes until my eyes would finally light up and my head would fall into an eager nod as she approached the chosen one.

  My mom would then pick up the toy privileged enough to be selected for cuddle duty and carefully deliver it into my outstretched arms.

  "How come you never pick Snuffles?" she would ask me every once in a while, as I consistently, night after night, allowed her hand to graze past the purple elephant, as it never received my legendary nod of approval.

  To which I would shrug and say, "I don't know. I just like the other ones better."

  And then from time to time she would pick up the lonely, neglected purple elephant and hold it close to her face, breathing in the smell of his soft fur. "You're making him feel lonely, though."

  I would simply roll my eyes and say, "Oh, Mom. He'll get over it."

  And then my mom and I would share a laugh as she brought over my friend of choice and lovingly tuck him in next to me before kissing me good night. As the years passed I became less and less interested in stuffed animals. And by the time I was twelve my mother couldn't pay me to sleep next to one.

  "Mom," I would say in a warning tone when every once in a while she would ask me if I wanted to play our beloved nighttime selection game again... just for old time's sake. "If word ever got out that I sleep with a stuffed fish named Frank, my reputation would be ruined."

  My mom would then shake her head and laugh. "I'll bet every single girl at your school has a secret animal that she sleeps with." But I never believed her. There was no way I was ever going to fit in with the popular eighth-graders at school next year if I was still acting like a five-year-old at home.

  BUT THEN one night, everything changed. Everything became different.

  And everything would remain different from that night on.

  My mom had gone away to visit my grandmother in Chicago, who I was told was having an operation on her knee.

  "Her knee is getting too old for her to use, so they have to give her a new one," my mom had explained to me as we drove her to the airport.

  "A new one?" I asked in a snotty voice, trying to maintain my usual "I could care less about anything my parents say" attitude.

  "Yes, they're going to take her knee out and replace it with a metal one."

  "They can do that?" I blurted out in amazement, and then quickly regained my cool. "I mean... that's kind of weird."

  "Fortunately for Grandma, they can," my mom said, reaching back and gently patting my own healthy knee.

  "Well, why can't I come?" I asked, folding my arms defiantly across my chest. As much as I wanted to be the cool preteen girl who didn't care where her mom traveled to or how long she would be gone, I still didn't like the thought of being away from her.

  "Because Daddy needs you to stay here and keep him company."

  I rolled my eyes and groaned loudly enough for both of them to hear. I so wished my parents would start talking to me like an adult and not a twelve-year-old. But deep down, my mother's comment made me feel needed. And I liked that. Without saying another word, I settled into the decision that maybe I should stick around and serve my civic duty as "only child."

  My dad had been married once before. A long time ago. He had a daughter with his first wife. But I rarely ever saw my half-sister Julia, except at large family gatherings. I didn't really mind our infrequent contact, though. I always got the feeling that she didn't really care for me all that much. Which was probably true. She was ten years older than me, and looking back on it now that I'm almost thirty, I can understand how the new baby from the new wife could be a bit of a downer.

  So as far as I was concerned, it was just Mom, Dad, and me. And I had absolutely no complaints about that. I enjoyed being an only child. Most only children beg for siblings, but after seeing how much Julia resented me, I was content not having any.

  But as it turned out, my dad didn't really need me there to keep him company. He had to go to a business dinner that same night, and instead I was stuck with the babysitter, a twenty-year-old college student named Elizabeth who my mother had recruited from my summer camp two years earlier. She had been a counselor there and, as my mom explained to me after a lengthy discussion with the camp director one day, was "very responsible and trustworthy."

  "Why do I have to have a babysitter?" I argued with my dad.

  "We've been through this, Jenny," he warned. "You can stay home alone when you're thirteen, but not twelve."

  "I'll be thirteen in nine months!" I shouted back. "I don't really see how nine months can make all that much of a difference."

  But there was usually no arguing with my father. And I would have called my mom and let her argue for me, but I knew that she wouldn't have taken my side on this one. Thirteen had always been the magic year to look forward to in my life. It was when I was promised to have my own phone line, my own TV, and the ability to stay home without a dreaded babysitter there to tell me what to do.

  For the most part, Elizabeth was perfectly nice and pleasant to be around. And I always admired her good looks and sense of style, hoping that one day I would grow up to look and dress similarly, but at this stage of my life she represented another chain that locked me to my youth while all my friends were being allowed to grow up.

  And to make matters worse, Elizabeth would send me to bed at ten o'clock. She never let me stay up late. You would think that being not so far removed from the awkward preteen years herself she would be empathetic to my struggle and understand the pure exhilaration you experience when you're allowed to stay up past your normal bedtime. It was like every five minutes
of forbidden awake-ness was equivalent to five extra years tacked onto your age.

  But she would simply wait by the door as I got into bed, switch off the light, and then hurry back downstairs, eager to return to whatever show was blaring from the TV, and, of course, whomever she was blabbing to on the phone.

  After she left I would usually sulk in my bed for about five minutes before drifting off to sleep to the faint sounds of her laughter and gossip mixed with late-night infomercials.

  The night my mother went to Chicago started out like any other night Elizabeth was hired to watch me. She stood in the doorway, waiting as I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin.

  "Five more minutes," I tried to negotiate for the tenth time.

  "Good night, Jenny," she said vacantly, and then turned off the light and closed the door behind her.

  I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, my arms crossed, my whole world on the verge of collapsing, and, in truth, missing my mom terribly. I knew she wasn't coming home for another three days, and it saddened me to think about that.

  I exhaled my frustration loudly, and then reluctantly turned onto my side, tucked my hands underneath my pillow, and tried to fall asleep.

  I must have dozed off for nearly two hours, because when I was awoken by distant voices and muffled giggles, the clock on my nightstand said it was midnight.

  I turned my ear toward the door and listened as the sounds became more and more intrusive. I rolled my eyes and groaned softly. Another late-night Elizabeth gabfest.

  Most of the time, I was able to drift back to sleep despite the noise, but tonight was different. Tonight it seemed incessant. And unusually irritating. So I climbed out of bed, quietly opened my door, and tiptoed down the stairs, determined to put a stop to this annoying interference. But as I grew closer to the living room I heard something I had never heard before. I stopped and listened. It was the distinct sound of a male voice, coming from the next room.

  I smiled mischievously as I continued to tiptoe my way down the hallway, hoping to catch my so-called "responsible and trustworthy" babysitter with an uninvited male visitor in the middle of my parents' living room.

  I felt a surge of sinful exhilaration flow through my body, knowing full well that once I caught her in the middle of doing something inappropriate while I was under her care, it would be the end of her. That would certainly teach my parents to leave me alone with a lovesick college student.

  Maybe they'd finally decide to loosen their death grip on that stupid "not until you're thirteen" rule, and next time I would finally be able to stay home by myself.

  I placed my palms flat against the hallway wall and stealthily stuck my head around the corner of the living room, ready to jump out and scare them enough to send the unwanted guest packing.

  But what I saw in that room sent me into a spiral of shock. It was a cold-blooded numbness like nothing I'd ever experienced before, not even when my friend Sophie and I found that videotape in her dad's closet. The one with naked men and women doing what we only assumed to be things that were done on TV and no place else.

  But unlike the videotape we had found, which neither one of us was able to bring ourself to shut off, I had no trouble tearing my eyes from the sight that lay in front of me.

  With a rush of sheer panic I spun my head back around the corner and shot up the stairs, careful to tread lightly so that the sound of my bare feet on the wooden steps wouldn't draw attention.

  The last thing I wanted was to be discovered, seeing what I had seen.

  The stairs seemed to go on forever. As though there were ten times as many as there had been when I came down less than a minute ago. When I finally reached the top I crept into my bedroom and silently closed the door behind me. The room was quiet. And I managed to drown out the whispered voices and muffled moans coming through my door by focusing on the sound of my heart thumping loudly in my chest.

  I felt tears of fear and disbelief well up in my eyes as I allowed my body to crumple to the ground, trying desperately to make sense of what I had just witnessed. Trying to figure out what it meant and what it would mean for the future.

  In the darkness of my bedroom the same image repeated in my mind. Like a scene from a movie, being rewound and played over and over again, without any signs of stopping.

  It was Elizabeth, on the couch, her head tilted back on one of the throw pillows, her trendy top casually thrown onto the nearby coffee table. Her bra was red and black, like the kind I used to see in the Victoria's Secret catalogs that I would steal from the trash compactor after my mom had taken them from the mailbox and thrown them away. And the hand that was gratifyingly caressing up and down her bare stomach and ravenously around the sides of her slender waist... was my father's.

  He was kissing her in a way I had never seen him kiss my mother. Like he was devouring her. But yet, her satisfied moans were agonizingly similar to the ones Sophie and I had heard on the videotape, and it made me believe that she didn't exactly mind being devoured.

  When my parents kissed, it was tender and sweet. A gentle brushing of the lips that lasted maybe a second or two, three if they were saying good-bye before one of my dad's business trips.

  But there was nothing tender and sweet about what my father was doing downstairs. His lips weren't even closed. They were open, and so were hers. It was almost like the way the eighth-graders kissed in front of their lockers, but much more adept.

  Sophie had found out a few years before that it was called "French kissing." And I remembered asking my mom about it when I was nine years old. She laughed and explained, "Some people just like to kiss with their mouths open."

  "Why?" I asked, clearly not understanding why anyone on earth would want to do that. At age nine the inside of a mouth was merely the place where chewed-up food lingered before it was swallowed. Far from an "erogenous" zone.

  My mom shrugged, amused by my curiosity. "I don't know. Maybe because for some people it feels good."

  Now, suddenly the thought of my babysitter, Elizabeth, making my dad feel good with her open-mouthed kiss made me bolt up to my feet and grasp desperately for the light switch on the wall.

  The bright glow was a welcome salvation. It chased away all the lingering images and brought focus to the happy and joyful landmarks that were scattered about my room. The posters on my wall illuminating the envied influences of Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, and The Party. The Madame Alexander doll collection my mom and I had started three years ago after she had given me my first one for Christmas. My pink boom box with the latest Debbie Gibson tape inside... exactly where I had left it after Sophie and I had choreographed a dance routine to the song "Electric Youth."

  Then my eyes found their way to my nightstand, with the framed photograph of my mom propped up on top of it. It was a picture my dad had taken while she was pregnant with me. She was sitting in the backyard of our first house, lounging on one of the chairs. Our dog, Casey, who was then only a puppy, was making her laugh by determinedly attempting to climb onto her lap. It wasn't a particularly special picture. But I had found it in my mom's photo box a few years before and asked if I could frame it and put it in my room.

  I picked up the frame and held it in my hands.

  That night I felt an emotion for my mother that I'd never felt before: pity. She had always been the wise one, the one who knew everything about the world and all the things in it that she needed to protect me from.

  And tonight, as I stared at the picture, it was clear to me that our roles had suddenly been reversed.

  She was now the one who would need protection. And I was the only one who could give that to her.

  I grew up that night.

  In one accidental glance that revealed a side of my parents' life I never knew existed, in that one glimpse at the complexities of an adult relationship, I knew I had taken a giant step closer to becoming an adult myself. A step I always naively assumed came with a private phone line and a later curfew.

  I
placed the picture down and climbed back into bed. Not daring to shut the light off again, I tried desperately to ignore the distant sounds that continued to find their way from the shadowy living room, up the long staircase, and through the small crack under my closed door.

  THREE NIGHTS later my mom came into my room to kiss me good night for the first time since she had left. "Sweet dreams," she said, walking toward the door and resting her hand on the light switch.

  I suddenly sat upright in bed. "Mom?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Play the game," I requested softly.

  She cocked her head to the side and smiled at me. "The bedtime game?"

  I nodded.

  "But I thought you were too old for that," she teased, moving toward the windowsill.

  I looked down at my lap and fidgeted with the edge of my comforter. Then, with a rush of unexpected strength, I picked up my head and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm not," I said confidently.

  The smile on her face brightened up the entire room as she took her usual place in front of the first contestant. It was exactly as I had remembered it. My mom played the game with the same flawless delivery as she always had. It was like we hadn't missed one single night in all those years.

  She started in front of Leo the Bear. I obstinately shook my head. She raised her eyebrows curiously, and with one step to the left, moved on to the next contender.

  Frank the Fish?

  I shook my head.

  Floppsy the Rabbit? Always a popular choice.

  I shook my head again.

  I knew exactly whose turn it was. And he had waited long enough.

  When she reached Snuffles the Elephant, I nodded triumphantly and reached my arms out for him to be brought to me.

  "Well, isn't that an interesting change of heart?" my mom said with genuine surprise, as she carried him over and placed him tenderly in my awaiting arms.