Getting Somewhere (14 page)

I
T IS NIGHTTIME
so Cassie walks. It is as if the days, with their activity and human chaos are so full of all the things Cassie doesn't know that she must find a time and a place for what she does. At night, she goes over and over those things in her mind, a desperate effort to preserve their worth and dignity, but it feels like pawning family heirlooms only to discover their mediocrity. Cassie knows every president and every vice president of the United States but, until a week ago, she had never seen or eaten popcorn. She has a map in her head of the county she lives in, where it is located in the state, the country, and the world, knows the date of incorporation of every town in it, where the rivers and dams and highways can be found, but before she came here, she didn't know that the law requires children to attend school. She knows how to make a pie, fix a toaster, and provide nursing care to an elderly woman, but she has never played a game with other children or even met someone her own age until now. She's never seen a movie, used a computer, or played a video game.

The list goes on and on, fills Cassie with a feeling that the word “regret” is far too small to describe, a suspicion that her fundamental difference from everyone else is insurmountable. She has tried to reach back far enough to recover the joy she once squeezed from the darkness. But now, it's like a monster has hurtled out from under the bed, knocking Cassie down with the firm and bitter conclusion that she has lived in the promise of that childhood guise for far too long. It's an illusion, pretending to herself that she might still be essentially normal, that Gram was still taking care of her instead of the other way around, that Gordon loved her as a carefree girl instead of a woman, that any memory she can dredge up could possibly set her free.

She knows all of this, in part, because of what she has been hearing in the sessions, and especially today, what Ellie said about being a mother ringing and ringing in her ears. But mostly she knows because it is not working anymore. It is as tedious as the passages she read over and over again to Gram about Corfu from the travel book she hasn't touched in weeks. Instead, the nights are gradually and insistently asking for the real story.

The very young Cassie, the one she has tried to maintain, is gone, surrendering Cassie to a more recent, more disturbing rendering of herself. She now sees a different Cassie, at nine, at eleven, at fourteen, remembers different nights, confusing nights, darkness that brought only fear and shame. She remembers it all clearly as if a shroud has been yanked away, all the way back to the first time, even before Gram got sick. She hears his voice as if he is standing beside her.
We'll just take a ride,
Gordon had said.
You need to get out.

She can feel the dirt and gravel collected on the floor pressing into her knee as she climbed up to the seat, the truck too tall for her to step directly into. She can smell the green corn and the fresh-cut hay rushing past her open window as she rode, the force of the wind pushing her arm back. And then he insisted she sit on his lap, that he would teach her to drive, placed her hands on the steering wheel with his own on top while she guided the truck past sleepy farms with barking dogs, over swamps with dense willow thickets blanketing both sides of the road, through mile after mile of woodlands with the headlights bouncing off the trunks of ancient oak trees.

Then, the lake. In the heat of the summer, it was an excuse to get cool. He would never bring a swimsuit for her but instead carefully removed each item of her clothing and folded it neatly beside him where he sat on a picnic bench in the deserted clearing that must have once served as a boat access. She started out just paddling around in the shallow water at the shoreline, but gradually, over time, she learned to jump and then dive off the decrepit dock into the dark water below. Cassie doesn't know when he started to put his hands on her as she rose out of the water onto the stony beach, can't place exactly when the trip itself became shorter, Cassie always in the driver's seat with Gordon gazing out the opposite window as if she were the one determining their destination, when the purpose for their night travels became clear, the only driving directly to the lake, the only swimming a brief dip for Cassie to wash the mess and smell away. She told herself she hated leaving Gram like that, even though Gram never woke up at night, but that was the only objection she could muster, never refused or indicated in any way that she didn't want to go, even hurried to get the dishes done and Gram in bed while Gordon tapped his fingers against the page of the newspaper that he always brought and always took away with him.

Then, one night, the sweep of headlights startled Cassie as she climbed out of the water, hurried to dress. A policeman stepped out of his car and sauntered casually over to Gordon sitting on the picnic bench, took the hand that had been resting on the holster of his gun and extended it to Gordon's, the two men shaking hands like old friends.

“My niece,” Gordon had said. “She likes to swim.” The policeman had told Gordon that few knew about this place anymore, but the ones who did were rarely up to any good, suggested a more public swimming place might be wiser, and Gordon had nodded, acting grateful for the advice. And that was the end. They never went back,and Gordon started staying later at the house, waiting until Gram was snoring in her room, taking Cassie into her own and leaving just as soon as he was done. Cassie had missed the one chance she might have had and, for almost two years, never set foot in the truck or swam in the lake or went anywhere at all until that last walk before she was arrested.

Cassie is convinced she will never be able to forgive herself. She could have stopped it. She should have known how wrong it was. She acted like a child, did everything she could to stay one when all the evidence made it clear that her childhood was over. And then, when she got another chance to recognize herself as something other than an unsuspecting child, when she could have actually learned the mothering part, she threw it away. Even now, when she could be learning what she needs to know to make her way as a woman in the world, she can't talk, can hardly participate, flinches whenever someone gives her any attention, avoids rooms where the others are gathered, finds herself running out each night into the darkness as if the person Gordon made her is the only one she knows how to be.

Cassie is undone by this sudden fury. She has never in her life raised her voice to anyone and now she would give anything to shout, to scream, to rant and rave until her throat is raw. She picks up rocks from the pile Grace has made at the corner of the north field and lofts them again and again, always back at the pile, too afraid to launch them out into the night and ruin the order that Grace has worked so hard to establish, even though that is exactly what she would like to do, create a chaos that matches the one in her head.

Angry, angry, angry. At herself. At this place for being the very mirror that shows her what she is. At the dark that won't swallow her up as it once did, that, instead, spits her out night after night onto the ground, shivering with the truth. What to do with it? She fights, she resists, and very slowly, pounding at the edges of her consciousness like a persistent knocking, is the answer. She has to talk. She has to tell it so it doesn't remain livid and scorching inside. She knows this because of Jenna.

Cassie doesn't understand it, but there she is. When she returns from her walks, sometimes Jenna is sitting on the porch, and, if Cassie didn't know better, she would guess that Jenna is waiting for her. Cassie has tried not to depend on it, not to look forward to it because she is sure she will just be disappointed. But, tonight, she is moving a little faster toward the porch, doesn't realize she has been holding her breath until she hears the slight squeak of the porch swing as it glides back and forth under Jenna's weight.

“I
DIDN'T COME
out last night because I heard thunder.”

Jenna peers at Cassie in the dim light but doesn't say anything, nods. They are quiet for a while, the sound of the swing filling the air enough to make the lack of conversation seem comfortable.

Finally, Jenna says, “Grace said she thought it might have hailed some during that one storm a couple weeks ago. Maybe it's a good thing you didn't go out.” Cassie thinks Jenna's voice sounds different, almost choked up, when she says Grace's name. She waits to see if Jenna is going to say more, and when she doesn't, Cassie decides to say exactly what she is thinking.

“Gordon used to always tell us the weather report. He usually made it sound like there was a disaster about ready to happen at any moment.”

“You mean like tornado warnings and stuff?”

“Yes. Tornado warnings and severe thunderstorms and blizzards and floods and everything. I used to think he was trying to scare us, but now I think maybe he was just scared himself.”

“Hmm. That's weird. It sounds like he was kind of a jerk.”

Cassie looks away from Jenna, self-conscious for a moment, but then feels herself starting to smile. “Yes, I suppose that's right. A . . . jerk.”

Jenna sees her smiling, says, “Have you heard that word before?”

Cassie shakes her head, embarrassed. “No.”

Jenna snorts. “There are a lot worse words than that for people you think are jerks.”

“Like what?”

Jenna laughs out loud, shakes her head. “I don't want to be the one to corrupt you.”

Cassie looks away, unsure what that means.

Jenna quickly changes the subject. “Did you ever think of running away?”

“From home, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I couldn't ever leave Gram. And especially after she got really sick. There wasn't anybody to take care of her.”

“Why couldn't Gordon take care of her?”

Cassie doesn't answer right away. It had never crossed her mind to expect Gordon to take care of Gram, but she suddenly has an inkling that the idea is not as far-fetched as it first seems.

“I don't really know. Maybe because he was . . . a jerk.”

They are quiet for a moment, then Cassie asks, “Did you ever run away?”

Jenna snorts out another laugh. “Lots of times. I was running away more than I was staying put.”

“Why?”

“I guess because I always figured it had to be better somewhere else. I hated most of the places I lived, and they hated me just as much. There wasn't anything to stay for.”

“Did you get in trouble for it?”

Jenna nods. “A lot.”

“Where did you go?”

“Well, that was always kind of the problem. There wasn't anywhere
to
go. So I always just ended up coming back, or they'd find me pretty quickly and that would give them a reason to look for another foster home where I might do better. But it never really worked out. I guess I just wasn't old enough to figure out how to make it on my own yet.”

Cassie feels a flush of something like recognition and a shiver runs down her spine.

“No. I don't think kids are supposed to be making it on their own.”

Jenna nods again, studies her hands.

“Are you now?” Cassie asks her.

“Am I now what?”

“Old enough. Do you think you could make it on your own?”

“Yeah. I'm pretty sure I could. I'd know where to go now, too.”

“Where?”

Cassie is not sure if Jenna is embarrassed or if the question is too personal. Jenna looks away, has kind of a funny half smile on her face.

“Oh, I'd probably head out west. I don't know exactly where but I think I could make a go of it. What about you?”

“You mean, could I live on my own?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I used to think I was already, but it wasn't the real world.”

When Jenna doesn't say anything, she goes on. “I feel like I should know more about that as I get older. Instead, it seems like all I learn is how little I actually know.”

Jenna is nodding, looks so pained that Cassie is instantly convinced she has said something hurtful or that what she has said makes no sense at all. But then Jenna says, “Yeah, I know.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I guess maybe it's because now we know it doesn't have to be the way it's been for us. We just haven't learned yet how to make it different.”

Cassie thinks that's exactly it, and feels, for the first time, a tiny spark of hope.

FRIDAY, JULY 6

“SO, IT WAS ALL JUST A LIE, IS THAT IT? YOU NEVER
intended for any of us to go along to town in the first place.”

“No, Lauren. That is not at all what I'm saying.” Ellie sighs deeply and shuts her eyes for a moment, but, when she opens them, she is still avoiding Lauren's glare.

“What I meant was that I realize we mentioned that earlier, and if it's something that's important to you, we will definitely revisit the issue.”

“What exactly does ‘revisit the issue' mean? Is that just another way of blowing us off, pretending like you're considering our interests when you're really just thinking about your own?”

Jenna just wants Lauren to shut up, mostly because she knows that, at least in part, what Lauren is saying is true. They
were
promised trips to town, and no one has gone yet. Jenna can hardly stand the thought that she has wondered the same thing, though she never would have asked. She wouldn't be at all surprised if the reason they've given up on the idea is because of Lauren herself. It would really be up to Grace, and Grace certainly wouldn't want to spend a single unnecessary moment with Lauren. Come to think of it, Lauren does about everything she can to avoid Grace. So, what is this sudden interest in going to the CSA pick-up? It's not as if Lauren could actually be interested in helping.

Apparently Ellie's thoughts are along similar lines because she says, “Okay, Lauren. I promise I'll talk to Grace about it. She's the one who will have to make the final decision. And if she agrees to take someone next Tuesday, I promise you'll be the first to go. But now is definitely not the time to be worrying about this. Can you get back to work, please?”

When Jenna looks up again, Lauren hasn't moved, is still staring at Ellie with a disbelieving sneer on her face.

Jenna thinks that Lauren must be the most insensitive person on the face of the Earth to be asking about this right now. The packing shed is too crowded and they are way too busy to be thinking about anything but getting produce ready for market. The baskets for the CSA were full to overflowing earlier this week, and they will have a full load for the farmers market tomorrow as well. Grace came home from the market last week with orders for bushels of both beans and shell peas and has spent a good portion of the morning carefully selecting tomatoes from the plants she has been coddling in the greenhouse since February, knowing they will earn top price ahead of the main season like this. In addition to that, they've had carrots and beets to pull and wash, the next patch of green onions is ready, new potatoes have been dug but still need to be cleaned, and Grace wants to have a good supply of salad mix, their best seller and most reliable income source, to take with her in the morning.

It seems to Jenna like Ellie still has hope for Lauren, thinks her kindness will penetrate the girl's thick skull and that she'll realize that she is the planet's most gifted pain in the ass and want to change. The rest of them try their best just to have nothing to do with her. It's when there is work to do, especially when they are all in and out of the packing shed on market or CSA days, that Jenna thinks the best chance for some peace would be a simple gag. But while Jenna sometimes fantasizes about wringing Lauren's neck—and the thought actually makes her laugh because of a story Donna told about how her grandfather used to kill chickens that way, and Lauren has a little of that scrawny poultry look herself—Lauren's very existence mostly just fails to register on Jenna's radar.

Jenna lives, instead, in the world of the garden.

She is mesmerized by the garden's denseness, how the rowdy growth energizes the fields like a room full of happy toddlers, a contagious sense of joyous abandon. In fact, there is a moment, stepping out of the house in the morning, when the garden is a like a fairy tale, sprung in three dimensions from the binding of the world.

Jenna would never have thought there was room in her brain for all the things she now knows. It feels to her like how it would be to learn a new language. And the translator, the master, of course, is Grace. Jenna is nearly stunned each time she walks away from a conversation with Grace and realizes she has participated, might have even contributed something. To be in the garden, to talk about the garden, is to be in Grace's world, to be close to her, to share something with her, maybe even to understand something about her.

Jenna is feeling a little guilty about how much she would like to go to the market. It suddenly strikes Jenna that Ellie never gets to go to the market or to the pick-ups either. She wonders if she misses it, if she wishes she could, would want to spend some time alone with Grace doing something they probably did together before the girls were here. Jenna glances up at Ellie, studies her back for a moment where she stands just outside the shed door washing carrots in the big tub. She notices Ellie looking up, and then there is Lauren, coming in from the garden, though she's only been back out there for about twenty minutes.

Lauren drops her barely half-filled bucket of shelling peas by the table where Grace is now working, having brought in her tomatoes to pack carefully in boxes for the trip to the market. Lauren casually serves herself a drink from the thermos and stands sipping it as if there is nothing more to do. Jenna knows that Lauren is supposed to be helping Cassie in the garden and that Cassie has already filled one five-gallon bucket and has started on her second because Grace reported that to Ellie just a couple of minutes ago when she came in. While Lauren lingers over her cup of water, Grace dumps the pea pods onto the end of the table covered with newspaper and begins to sort Lauren's picking. Jenna can tell by the stiffness in her shoulders, the jerky movements of her arms, that Grace is not happy. She watches as Grace turns to Lauren, holding a pea pod in each hand.

“Come here,” she says gruffly.

Lauren takes a few hesitant steps toward Grace and stops a good ten feet away.

“This,” says Grace, holding one pea forward, “is a ripe pea. This”—holding the other one forward—“is not. Can you see that it isn't filled out, that the peas inside haven't even begun to swell? You can tell with your fingers that there isn't anything inside yet. Not only can't we sell this to people now, it is taking away from what we'll have later.”

She takes two steps toward Lauren and holds the peas out in front of her, looking, Jenna thinks, like she is tempted to shake them in Lauren's face.

“Feel these.”

Lauren takes her time walking over to the table to set her cup down and turns back to Grace, holding out her hands, her hips cocked in the posture she would have if her fists were planted on them. Both Sarah and Jenna have stopped packing salad into bags and are watching closely. Ellie is bent over the washtub with her back to them, but Jenna can see that she's not washing carrots anymore, has stopped to listen.

Grace's voice is struggling to sound more gentle now, but she barely succeeds at removing the punch from her words.

“Can you tell the difference?”

Lauren nods, shrugs, noncommittal. “I guess.”

“Can you try to pick just the ripe ones now?”

“Well, I think Cassie's about done anyway.”

“Why don't you go back out there and see.” It's not a question.

Jenna heard Grace say earlier that she is counting on two bushels, one for the order and one to bag up in one-pound packages for the market. With Cassie's full bucket plus a bit and Lauren's half, they don't have even quite one yet, though they've been out there for nearly two hours.

Grace is clearly seething as she steps back to the table and begins to sort again. She is not facing Lauren when she says with poorly concealed irritation, “I know it's time-consuming, but we have to get it done. We've all been working all day. We're all hot and tired. We've all taken our turns in the garden. Now it's your turn.”

Lauren hasn't moved. “Can I trade with someone?”

Grace still doesn't turn. “No. We'll make sure you don't have to do it the next time.”

Lauren snatches her cup from the table with enough force to splatter the remaining water across the peas and onto Grace's leg, grabs her bucket with a clatter and swings it to her side, just barely missing Donna as she comes through the door with two mounded buckets of slender green beans. She glances briefly at Lauren brushing past her, stumbles a bit to get out of her way, but keeps the beans balanced by lifting each of her arms.

“Hey, I got a good bushel here, and there's lots more out there. Want me to keep going?”

Grace slowly turns from the table and Jenna sees Donna stop cold, able to tell by Grace's face that something has happened.

Donna sets her buckets down by the table where Grace is standing and says, “What's going on?”

Grace shakes her head. “Don't worry about it. Okay, these are great but that's about half of what we need.”

Donna looks startled, is just puffing up with a retort, when Sarah speaks up. “We're going to be done here in a minute. Do you want one of us to help with that?”

The three women have all turned and are looking at Sarah. Jenna turns to her as well and can see instantly that Sarah looks terrible. Her face is flushed and her hair is damp, plastered to her neck. Though the rest may be too far away to notice, Jenna can see that Sarah's hands are shaking and that she is leaning a little on the table as if she is unable to stand without help. Her eyes are glassy, and she seems to be having a little trouble keeping them open, blinking as if her vision is blurry.

Donna is the first there, one hand resting on both of Sarah's, on the half-filled bag lying deflated on the table, the other on the girl's forehead, and Jenna feels a slight catch in her throat, some intrinsic response to the maternal gesture. Donna is steering Sarah around the table, her arm draped gently around her waist, and Grace and Ellie are watching, solemn and concerned. Sarah is shaking her head, mumbling something only Donna can hear. Jenna has stepped back as if they need wide berth to move through the shed, down the path to the house, watching after them in silent attention, wishing a little she'd been the first to notice, to speak up.

Ellie and Grace look at each other and Grace sighs, shakes her head slightly, and turns away. While Ellie and Jenna watch, wait, Grace methodically dumps Donna's beans into a bushel basket, takes an empty bucket in each hand, and walks out through the door without uttering a word. Ellie joins Jenna at the table and helps her finish the last of the salad so they can put the tender greens into the walk-in cooler before they wilt. Within minutes, they, too, have selected empty buckets and are headed out to the field.

“A
RE YOU CONGESTED?
Your nose running? I don't think I've heard you coughing.”

Sarah wipes under her nose with her finger as if there might actually be some moisture there. “Um, I don't know. I guess maybe it's just a fever or something.”

Sarah is lying on her bed with a cool cloth draped over her forehead, and Donna standing beside her, peering at the fine print on a bottle of ibuprofen. She sets the bottle down on the bedside stand and turns to Sarah.

“Well, your eyes are certainly glassy and you've got the shakes, don't you?”

Sarah nods noncommittally.

“I'll go get you a glass of water so you can take that ibuprofen. Here. Let's get that filthy shirt off first. Do you mind if I pick something out from your drawer?” Donna walks around the bed and reaches for the dresser, looks back at Sarah with her eyebrows raised.

“Um, I'm okay. It's not that dirty.”

“C'mon, Sarah. It's damp. I don't think that's good for you. Do you want to pick for yourself?”

Sarah thinks. Okay, let her pick. She'll have to turn her back and maybe Sarah can just pull up the sheet.

“Go ahead.”

Donna turns away to open the drawer and Sarah pulls her tank top over her head, tries to scurry under the sheet. Something gets caught though, and Sarah frantically shifts her foot but not in time. When Donna turns back around, Sarah is still struggling with the sheet and looks up to see the bland smile on Donna's face disappear, her eyes go wide with horror. “Oh my god,” she whispers under her breath, as if Sarah is the one who needs to be protected from what she is seeing. Donna takes a step closer to the bed, mutters again. “Oh. My. God.”

Sarah looks down at herself. The cuts look even redder than usual, glowing bright against the white skin of her belly. Sarah frowns, realizes they might be a bit puffy, too, and there is something oozing out of one or two of them. She's just about ready to wipe at it with her discarded shirt when Donna says, “No! Don't . . . don't wipe with that. I'll get something.”

Sarah lies back against her pillow, listens as Donna hurries downstairs, can vaguely hear her rustling around in the kitchen and then in the downstairs bathroom. Sarah's mind is blank, distant, as if she is watching someone she barely knows from a perch somewhere near the ceiling. When Donna returns, she has brought a tube of triple antibiotic ointment, a large bottle of hydroden peroxide, a roll of gauze and white first-aid tape, and an amber pill bottle with a few tablets rattling in the bottom. She sets the bowl she used to carry the items on the edge of the bed and goes out to the hall for a minute, coming back with another washcloth and a matching towel she has retrieved from the wall closet at the top of the stairs.