Barefoot Girls (63 page)

She looked back at Keeley. “You’re right. I never thought about it. Mary Ellen, remember?”

Keeley smiled and nodded. “You had to pick the biggest geek on the island. Just like your dad, always the friend of the underdog.”

Hannah heard that and remembered what Mrs. McGrath had said. So some of what she had said was true. She just didn’t understand that she, Rose, was the underdog he had adopted. “Geek? I was the geek, not Mary Ellen.” Well, a little. Poor Mary Ellen and her knock-knees and her hyper-critical ways. She had a good heart, though.

“No, dear. She was a geek. You were beautiful wonderful you.”

“You kept your promise about not hitting me. Not even once. Not even a spanking. I was so shocked when I heard about what Grandma did to you.”

Keeley smiled, but her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry I left you like I did. There’s no excuse for that. I didn’t even remember until the night of the fire. I don’t know how I was able to forget something like that.”

Hannah looked at her mother. She knew it was true, remembered the shocked expression on her mother’s face when she confronted her.  “Maybe you couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle it. I’m messed up, Mom. Did you know you left me all by myself for two whole days once?”

Her mother’s eyes grew wide. “What? When?”

“One time, I was five. It was when Grandpa died. Right after you found out. We’d had a big Ticker Bell party for me, remember?”

“Tinker Bell…,” Keeley said, looking at her blankly. “I…” Then her eyes grew even wider. “Oh,” she breathed out. “Two days?”

Hannah nodded.

“I thought it was one,” Keeley said and looked away, out the window.

Hannah waited.

Finally, her mother spoke, still looking out the window. “It was the last time I ever let your grandmother hit me. I went there to beg her, was certain we couldn’t survive without their financial help. Dad had always been good to me, well, at least when it came to money. But Mom…she never forgave me for being the one to live. It was like somehow she saw me as having a part in Sean’s death, like it was an either-or situation – his dying or my dying. Anyway, she punished me for it and that night was the last time I let her.”

Hannah felt a pang shoot through her, hearing the false toughness in her mother’s voice, the thing that covered up the vulnerable little girl she must have been once. “What happened?”

Keeley shrugged and looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap. “I let her beat me that night. When I asked for help she laughed and said that I was the Devil’s child and that she would never help us, that I’d better be prepared to be punished in hell. I asked her if hitting me would help her see that I was willing to be punished, and she said yes. I said okay, just please help us. I barely got out the words ‘help us’ before she was on me. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t run. Even when she went to get the frying pan. I should’ve run then, but I just…I wanted her to help us and I thought that if I let her get it out of her system, then maybe she’d finally forgive me. She knocked me out. When I woke up, I thought it was the next day, late afternoon. The sun was going down. She wasn’t there. I went home,” she said and swallowed. “Got home after you’d gone to bed. I thought it was one day.” She said the last in a wondering voice.

Hannah sobbed. “Oh, Mom. She could have killed you.”

Keeley looked up at her at last, her eyes filling with tears. “All I wanted was a little help. We were in such bad shape money-wise. She never gave it,” she said, and smiled weakly, her lips wiggling. “She just gave me my lumps.”

Hannah remembered how her mother had hidden out in her bedroom for over a week after she got back. Keeley must have called the Barefooters because they had all came and took turns at the house, bringing supplies, watching Hannah, while her mother hid in her bedroom. At the time, Hannah had thought her mother was angry with her. “I’m so sorry. And I’ve blamed you all these years.”

Keeley shook her head slowly and then faster, blinking back the tears and swallowing again. “No, let’s stop blaming each other. Right now. Never again, okay?” She looked straight into Hannah’s eyes, pleading.

Hannah, crying now, nodded. She thought of her mother at her grandmother’s funeral six years ago, how quiet and regal Keeley had seemed as she accepted condolences from the other mourners, how she could have lashed out, spoken the harsh truth about her mother and chose instead to rise above it. Even afterward, when her mother’s lawyer met with them both in his office and told them that all of the family money, Keeley’s rightful inheritance, had been left to her mother’s church, Keeley had only nodded and said, “Of course.”

“Please hug me again,” Keeley said, trying valiantly to smile, sadness fighting in her eyes. “Hugs are magical.”

Hannah fell into her mother’s arms and felt a flooding warmth fill her. It was true. Hugs and kisses had a magic that no words or promises could match. She spoke into her mother’s hair, her mother’s fierce embrace crushing the air out of her lungs, needing to know the answer to one last question. “Do you believe in God, Mom?”

Keeley laughed, her laugh loud and bawdy as always, though rougher sounding from what her lungs had been through, “Of course I do. Well, I didn’t always, but that was a long time ago, before you. You know, God is right here, right now, with us? But also everywhere else, too. Isn’t it amazing?” She squeezed Hannah even more tightly.

Zo burst in the room at that moment, rolling in her rented top-of-the-line electric wheelchair and holding a bunch of daisies in the crook of her arm, “I’m sorry I’m – wait a second! Damn! How do I get in on this love-fest?”

Keeley, releasing Hannah only partially, reached out one of her arms. “Come on, Zo! Dog pile on the daughter!”

Chapter 66

Zooey noted that many more people snuck into Keeley’s hospital room than were allowed, clearly bypassing reception. The five of them – Ben, Amy, Pam, Zo, and Hannah - tried to keep quiet, but Pam had brought a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and their laughter grew so loud that in spite of the room being a single and the door being shut, they were found out. Luckily, visiting hours were almost over by then.

The nurse that came to shoo everyone out was nice at least, an apple-cheeked Jamaican woman with a beautiful lilting voice, not one of those hard Nurse-Ratched types. But she was firm. “All right, everyone out. Visiting hours are almost over anyway. Mrs. Cohen, I’m surprised. You know that two visitors is our maximum. Two at a time.”

“Oh, Sonia, can Zo stay? Pretty please?” Keeley put her hands together in prayer and made her sad puppy-face. “I need to talk to her for one more minute?” Seeing Sonia tilt her head back and forth in reluctant agreement, Keeley went on, “Ben, honey, please don’t be mad – I’ll call you to say goodnight.”

Ben made a tsking sound and leaned over to kiss her. “Of course. You talk to Zo. I’ve got to get back to the city anyway and get some work done. I’ll be back tomorrow morning and we’ll break you out of this place.”

They all kissed and hugged Keeley, Pam getting weepy when it was her turn and making Amy exasperated. “Oh, come on! She’s fine! Look at her!”

“I know!” Pam wailed. “I’m so happy!”

“Then why the hell are you crying?”

“Why the hell aren’t you?”

They were still bickering after Hannah got her hug and kiss and the four of them left though the door held open by Sonia, who waited patiently and without comment through the whole scene. When the last of them had filed out, Sonia leaned into the room. “Now, you’ve got fifteen minutes and then it’s time to go. And, Mrs. Cohen, let me remind you that you are still a patient of this hospital until you’re released.”

“Sonia. Why won’t you call me Keeley? After all this time!”

Sonia shook her head. “Because if I did, all would be lost. You’d get your way every day. Just like you did with Tammy. You’ve got a reputation now. I’m on to you, you charmer you.” She said the last with a satisfied chuckle and closed the door.

Zo sat in her wheelchair beside Keeley, wondering what this was about. Everything was out in the open at last; they could finally relax. She could hug and kiss Hannah with abandon, say exactly how she felt without having to worry about what it might look like, what truth her behavior might reveal. There was a peace in Hannah’s eyes now – that conflicted look gone - that made Zo both happy and regretful, the old late-night doubts verified. Well, what was done could not be undone. They would just have to move forward and do the best they could.

Keeley had turned and looked away, out the window where the darkness was only touched by the silvery light of the streetlights below, night having fallen while they were distracted by their celebration. She said, “You know, I never claimed to be a perfect parent. I did the best I could. At least, I thought I was doing a good job.”

Zo reached for Keeley’s hands that were twisting together on her lap. “Of course you did. You were wonderful, valiant really. After everything, your mom, I was constantly amazed by your strength. And you wouldn’t even take any money from me, you big goof. It would have been nothing for me and it-“

Keeley shook her head sharply, still looking away. “Let’s not talk about money. I needed to do it that way. Needed to feel like I was earning my own way. I didn’t mind taking money from my parents because I felt like they owed me. They did owe me. But you didn’t owe me a thing.”

A lump came into Zooey’s throat. She said softly, “No, I did owe you. I-“

“I think that maybe we were wrong to do what we did. It was wrong of me to take Hannah. She was yours. I just wanted, I needed, something to hang on to, someone that needed me, really needed me. But it was a mistake. I was in no condition to raise a kid. I made mistakes, Zo. Big mistakes.”

Zo sighed. When had she actually become Zo? But she knew. When she and Keeley became joined at the hip raising Hannah, something shifted and that inner-aloneness finally went away. Then she was a real Barefoot Girl, one of their tribe, fierce and fun, strong because of each other. “Every parent makes mistakes, Key. Every single one. Even my parents made mistakes, and both of them loved me so much. I was their dream-come-true child and they made mistakes anyway. It’s just the way it is.”

Keeley turned and looked at Zo, her face strangely strained and shaking. “No, these were big mistakes and I have to tell you. And you probably won’t want to talk to me ever again after I tell you.”

Zo shook her head, putting up her hand. “No. I don’t want to hear. Don’t you dare say a word or I’m leaving. You think I didn’t doubt our decision every day? You don’t think there were times I wanted to grab up Hannah and have her all to myself? But sharing her with you was the best, most generous thing I’ve ever done. It saved me from living a life of self-hate, of guilt for what I did. I got to enjoy Hannah instead of resenting her. I got to forgive myself.”

Keeley leaned forward, a vein pulsing on her forehead, her face turning red. Zo had never seen her friend look so upset, the intent look in her eyes almost frightening. “Please. You have to listen. I did something-“

“No. Don’t tell me.”

“I have to! Listen to me!”

Zo pushed a button and started to roll backwards. “I will wheel myself out of here right now.”

Keeley reached for her and started to cry. Keeley, she-of-no-tears, crying! “Please!” she wailed.

Zo stopped. She was shocked, felt a cold inner breeze. “What? What can you say that will be of any benefit to us? Do you really think that telling me this horrible thing you did will fix anything? When I told you what happened with Michael, it was because I had to. I had his child inside of me. I never would have burdened you with what I did otherwise. You don’t have to tell me. And if you do, if you insist, you risk destroying everything we’ve built, you risk our family. Because that’s what the Barefooters are to me: my family. The only family I have. Do you really want to take that away from me?”

“But-“

“But what! Listen to me,” Zooey said, rolling forward again and taking Keeley’s hands. “Whatever you did, whatever it was, I forgive you. I forgive you right now.”

“How can you? I-“

“I can because I have to. I can because I want to. This time you have to honor me. Hannah is my child. I have the right. We’ll still take care of Hannah together, but I assume responsibility going forward. I will do everything I can to make her life a happy one from now on. And guess what? I’ll probably make mistakes. Heaps of them. But what matters is love. Do you love Hannah?”

Keeley blinked and swallowed, nodding. “Of course I do. I love her like crazy.”

“Good. Don’t you see?”

“What?”

“Love is all that matters. We do the best we can in this crazy world, we make our stupid mistakes, but if we have love and we show it to each other, nothing can be that wrong that it can’t be fixed.”

Keeley swallowed again and laughed a little. “You’re a big silly mush, aren’t you?”

Zo chuckled and nodded before getting up on her good leg, leaning down and wrapping her arms around her best friend while saying a silent prayer: one of gratitude and fear and hope. She was sure someone was listening.