I don’t expect this answer that makes my stomach roll.
I hear Mrs. Murphy open the front door and Toni comes in. “Hey, Connors.”
“Hey.”
“The Red Sox again? You know,” she says to Mr. Murphy, “I hear there’s an exhibition game—the Sox versus a bunch of blindfolded kindergarteners in body casts. The Sox may actually have a chance.”
“Can someone please tell me why,” Mr. Murphy begins, “I have to put up with this in my own house? It’s an injustice, you know that?” He reaches under the couch and pulls out a white bag. “Good thing I’m such a good sport! Come here, girls! I got you each a little something.” He pulls out two baseball hats. First, he hands Toni a pink Yankees hat.
“Pink? You got me pink?”
“Yeah. I thought it would be nice on a pretty girl like you.”
Wow. I didn’t think anything could stop Toni from talking, but that does. Miracle.
Then he hands me a green Boston hat with a cream-colored shamrock on the brim. “I thought I’d get you the Irish one, ye young lass, Carley Connors!” he says. It makes me smile. I really like how it’s Irish. The bright green reminds me of the trees. And besides that, I feel like I’m a part of something special.
As I put on the hat, I think about my conversation with Mr. Murphy. I think how he really does need to come home. How his family needs him.
I also think that maybe I’m not supposed to be able to save my mother. Maybe I’m supposed to save myself first.
CHAPTER 45
On the Line
Mrs. MacAvoy waits outside for me. I go to her car and get into the backseat.
“Hello, Carley.”
“Hey.”
We pull away from the curb. “So, you know why I’ve come to take you to see your mom today?”
“Because I’m her one and only? The love of her life? The light in her days?”
She sounds kind of sad. “Well, I guess you’re still angry.”
And I think how I’m not, really. Not like I used to be. The Murphys calm me, I guess. “Sorry.”
“Why did you run from your mother’s room?” she asks.
“Training for a marathon.” I don’t know what it is about this woman that keeps me from giving her a straight answer.
She sighs, long and deep. “Well, she wants to see you. There is something that she really needs to tell you.”
Well, I guess it’s my lucky day.
I march into my mother’s room and ask, “What’s going on?”
“So, that’s the way it’s going to be, then?” my mother says, never taking her eyes from the TV.
“Hey, last I heard, you were done with me.”
“Carley, you’re not the smartypants you think you are. If it weren’t for me—”
“Yeah, I know,” I interrupt. “All those things you did for me? Cooking dinner for me. Giving up all those parties and dates.” I point at her and slap my knee. “Oh, wait. You didn’t give up any of that stuff. Not once.”
“You’re hopeless. Just hopeless.”
My mother calls me hopeless a lot when I’m not what she wants me to be—more like her. I have always curled up inside when I’ve heard it, but now I know that she’s wrong.
“Carley, it’s not that I don’t love you,” she continues. “You do know I love you, right? I know I made mistakes. But I… I love my girl so much.” She starts to cry. “Please. Please remember that always.”
There’s something about her voice I’ve never heard before, and it worries me. Almost like she is pleading with me. Pleading with me to never forget that she loves me. It sounds like good-bye.
“Maybe you belong with these Murphys,” she says.
And I thought I did until I hear her say it. I do love them. So much. But… “Mom. What are you talking about? You’re just going to put me out with the trash?”
Her voice is never quiet but it is now. “There’s a difference between putting out the trash and letting a bird out of its cage.”
“What cage?” I panic because I know when my mother means business. “Mom. Remember how you’d hold Oreos over your eyes and they’d leave brown circles and you’d look like a raccoon? Remember how funny that was?”
Her whole face softens. Her body relaxes. Then I see everything stiffen in her and her eyes almost close. “Did you ever think that raising a kid is hard? That maybe I just can’t anymore?”
“You can’t mean that!”
She stares into my eyes like she’ll never look away. “Listen, Carley. I wanted you to come because…”
“What?”
“Never mind that. You’ll have… They’ll be…” Then she looks away quick. Her tone becomes cutting. “Listen here, Carley. I have a life of my own in Vegas. One that doesn’t involve a kid following me around. I’m all ready to sign the papers.”
I run again. Down the stairs and through the lobby, right by Mrs. MacAvoy, and out the doors of the facility. Me running and her trying to keep up. Out of breath, she asks, “Carley, what happened?”
We get into the car. “Nothing. I want to get back to the house.”
She stares at me for a while. Trying to figure if she can get it out of me, I guess. Finally, she turns and starts the car.
When we arrive at the Murphys’ house, I jump out of the car and burst through the front door and into the kitchen. Mrs. Murphy spins around and panic falls onto her face. “Are you okay?”
“No. No, I’m not okay!” I scream because I know she’ll let me. “My mother. She’s signing me away to foster care. Forever.”
“What?” Mrs. MacAvoy asks, coming into the kitchen.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Mrs. Murphy says.
“You’ve met me. Of course it makes sense. You can’t wait to get rid of me too.”
She tears up. “You know that isn’t true.”
“Carley, I don’t know what just happened with your mother,” Mrs. MacAvoy says, “but I do know she wants you back. You know she was beaten so badly that they weren’t sure she’d even live, never mind walk. I mean, it’s a miracle that she’s doing as well as she is.”
“Let’s put her face on Mount Rushmore, then.”
“Listen, Carley. She risked her life for you. From what I understand, the charges against her were dropped because they got Dennis to admit that she hadn’t helped him. When your mom realized that he was going to seriously hurt you, she tried to stop him, and so he beat her too.”
And then I remembered. Finally, I remembered.
“Mom! No!” I screamed as I looked back over my shoulder. Dennis charged me and my mother’s grasp on my ankle tightened. Dennis kicked me and the room spun.
My mother stood, but stumbled. She shrieked, “No! No! You monster! You leave her alone!” I heard scuffling around the room. My mother hit Dennis with a vase. He yelled and swore and my mother cried. Then he really hurt her.
Not long after, I remember someone else screaming, “Get down! Get down on the floor! Now!” It must have been the police talking to Dennis. I heard them wrestle him to the floor. I heard him swearing, saying this was a family matter and to mind their own business. I heard the clicking of the handcuffs.
Someone knelt in front of me, but I was too tired to open my eyes all the way. Someone with shiny black shoes and a sad voice.
That was when I wondered if people like me go to heaven.
I turn to Mrs. MacAvoy and Mrs. Murphy, but I’m afraid to open my mouth.
“You know, Carley,” Mrs. Murphy says, “your mom knew what she was doing. She put her life on the line for yours. That’s what a real mother does.”
“A mother who really loves you, Carley,” Mrs. MacAvoy adds.
CHAPTER 46
The Giving… Uh, I Mean… The Living Tree
Later that night I sit on the front steps. It’s warm out and the trees blow back and forth. I think about how they bend in the wind but rarely break.
I think about heroes. How they do the hard things that no one el
se can do.
I think about Mr. Murphy and his deep sandpapery laugh and how he risks his life so strangers can live. What kind of person goes to work every day not knowing if he’ll come home?
And most of all, I think about Mrs. Murphy—the way she gives everything, does everything, holds us all up. Meeting her makes me feel like God has started paying attention. The way she reached in, pulled me out, dusted me off, and said that I only need to be the great person that I am.
I hear the door open behind me. It’s Mrs. Murphy.
“Mind if I join you?” Mrs. Murphy asks.
“Sure.” I move over.
She sits next to me. “So what’re you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Do you mind if I ask about what?”
“My new book. It’s called Giving Tree Meets Chainsaw and Becomes Coffee Table.”
“Oh boy.” She takes a deep breath. “So we’re in that kind of mood, huh?”
“I thought you’d think it was funny.” I wait before I finish, trying to decide if I should. “I still hate that book, though.”
“I understand.”
Mrs. Murphy’s soft expression makes me think how the tree in that book shouldn’t be a stump; it should be bigger and greener from loving the little boy.
“So, are you nervous about seeing your mother again tomorrow, now that you know what really happened?”
“Well… yeah. I guess, a little.” I think about my mother and all that happened that night and how I misjudged her. How she risked herself to save me in the end. How she must have been afraid and did it anyway.
There’s a long silence. Finally I ask, “I’m never going to see you again, am I? I mean, assuming I go back to my mother like Mrs. MacAvoy predicts. I won’t see you again.”
“Well… Mrs. MacAvoy thinks that you need some time to realign yourself with your own mom. Without… the distraction of us. It’s for your own good, she says.”
“But no one would have to know! I could call you secretly. Or you could call me?” I know her answer even as I suggest this. The woman who loves rules would never break one as big as this.
“It’s for your own protection.”
“That’s garbage.”
“It will take time, Carley. Be patient with yourself.”
That sounds hard.
“I’ve been thinking, though,” she continues.
“Yeah?” I don’t look at her.
“I hope you go to college.”
“College? You’re kidding me. People like me don’t go to college.”
“You mean bright, creative people?”
“My mom would never let me do that.”
“If you wanted to go, your mother wouldn’t be able to stop you. True, it would be harder, but there are scholarships and grants. Talk to the counselors at your school. They can help you navigate all of that. But you have to take charge. You, Carley.”
Can I imagine myself doing that? I’m afraid to think of the future. And then I think of Daniel. How I stood in the driveway giving him a speech on courage. About being afraid and doing it anyway, because you can’t score points if you don’t take shots.
“And you know, Carley…” Her tone wraps its arm around me. “I know that you’ll find it difficult to leave us… but try to think of it not as leaving us but as going to something new. Maybe you’ve learned some things here. You know, about what you want.”
I look at her.
“You can have this for real, you know—not just wishing you could have what others have.”
How does she know I think about that?
“You can go to college. Have a career you love. You can find yourself married to a goofball Red Sox fanatic.” She laughs. “You may even find yourself chasing three wild boys. You can make this life if you want it. Any life that you want.”
“But… I want this family.” I wish I could lean on her.
“I know,” she whispers.
It seems like too much. How could I do all these things she says like it’s nothing? I gather the strength to really look at her. “I don’t want to go. Please don’t make me.”
“Not up to me, sweetheart.” She swallows her tears, I think. “And it will be awful when you go. But I’m so happy you’ve been a part of our lives, Carley. It’s better that we all met each other than not, don’t you think?”
I nod.
“Yeah,” Mrs. Murphy whispers, looking up at the dark sky.
I can’t stop thinking about the college thing. “I guess I’d like to be a teacher,” I turn to her. “Help kids like you did.”
“It’s just a matter of making a decision and following through. You’re smart enough and special enough to pull it off.” She bumps my shoulder with hers, and I think of Toni.
She takes a deep breath like she’s getting ready to lift something heavy. “Remember that friend I had in foster care who had a rough time? That… was me.”
“But you seem so normal!”
She laughs again. “Well, I like to think so.” She looks me in the eye. “Carley, it wasn’t my fault I was in foster care. When I was young I had this crazy idea that it was, but when I got older, I realized I didn’t have that kind of power. My parents did.”
“Were you in a house like this?”
“I bounced around foster care for four years. Not optimal situations. But it forced me to decide what kind of life I wanted. And I went after it when I was old enough.”
I feel betrayed. “You should have told me.”
“I wanted your stay here to be about you—not me.”
Wow.
We sit for a long time until she asks, “What’s that mischievous smile about?”
“Well, I was thinking that… maybe if I go to college and do become a teacher someday…”
She waits for me.
“. . . Maybe I’ll be someone’s hero. You know, like Michael Eric’s sign. I know. That sounds dumb, huh?”
She puts her pointer finger under my chin and lifts my face to look her in the eye. “That’s not dumb. Not at all. I have no doubt that you’ll do whatever you put your mind to.”
All of a sudden, I just have to stand. And something I’ve never known before grows inside and rises up through the center of me.
I stand tall, looking back at Mrs. Murphy. “I’ll have a happy life someday,” I say. And they’re more than just words. My insides are steel. Unbreakable. “It won’t always be like this for me. Someday, I will have a happy life. I swear I will.”
Her eyes tear up. “That’s right, Carley. And don’t you ever settle for anything less.”
CHAPTER 47
One for the Murphys
I stand in the doorway to my mom’s room, holding a package of Oreos, and I watch how she’s all curled up with her back to me. How we must look alike that way.
“Mom?” I ask.
She jolts a little but doesn’t answer me. I step into the room.
“Mom? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me what really happened that night? Is it true? Did you save me?”
I hear her crying. Harder now.
“Mom, it’s okay. Why didn’t you tell me?”
She rolls onto her back and sits up. “Oh, Carley, I don’t know. I guess I thought you’d remember. And… to tell the truth…” She clears her throat. “Then when I first saw you again, I hardly knew you. I mean, you were dressed so nice and your hair and…”
She stares at her lap and cries some more. “That MacAvoy woman told me that the family who had you really took to you. That you were doing real good and making good marks in school and had a best friend.” She looks at me. “And I just thought that…”
I wait as she goes silent. Finally, I ask, “What, Mom? What is it?”
“I thought it wouldn’t make a difference what I’d done helping you that night. Not after what I’d done before. Oh, Carley. I can’t believe I did that.”
I stuff my hands in my pockets.
“And I thought that if those peo
ple wanted to keep you, that…” She puts her hands over her face. “That you would have a better life without me.”
“But you’re my mom!”
She lets out a bunch of air all at once. “Then you don’t want that Murphy woman to be your mom instead?”
The wind’s been knocked out of me, but I try to smile. “She would never call me at school on my birthday.”
She laughs through her tears. “Oh, my Carley, I’m so sorry I missed your birthday!”
For the first time, I am too. “So, you couldn’t walk, huh?” I say, staring at her legs under a white sheet.
“No, but I can walk now. I’m just about done with the walker too. They say they never seen someone work as hard as me. I should be out in a week or so.”
A week? I only have a week? “So we’re going to move back to Grandpa’s?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking on this hard, and I think we’re Vegas girls, you and I. We have to be in a place where there’s life, things going on, you know? My cousin will give me cash for the condo. It will work out finer than fine, Carley. You wait and see.”
Leaving Connecticut? My head tells me my mom is my home, but the rest of me says I belong here with the Murphys and my best friend.
“So start collecting your things,” she says. “We’ll be heading back soon. You’ll see. It will be great. It will be just like it was.”
I back up against the wall.
As I walk into the kitchen, Mrs. Murphy looks up from the counter to see how I am, and it hits me again how much I will miss her. She says, “Hey. Are you doing okay? How did it go? Is your mom doing better?”
I like how she asks how I am before everything else. “We worked things out.”
“Good. That’s good news, Carley.”
“Yeah.”
“You know, Carley, if I could talk to your mom, I’d thank her for raising such a great person. She’s made mistakes, I know. But she’s obviously done something right too.”
I blurt out, “My mom is probably going to being released next week. Then she wants us to move back to Las Vegas.” I focus on her face to see if she cares.