Girls in Trouble (39 page)

A waitress was pouring coffee, making friends with a housewife, but the waitress wasn’t telling the truth. It just sounded like truth. Eva couldn’t stop reading. The housewife had been a kindergarten teacher and she was talking about a short skirt, finally saying, “It’s not me,” and Eva started. My God, that was something she had said to Anne the week before. She blushed, as if she had been complimented, because really, wasn’t it a compliment to find yourself in your own daughter’s story?

Eva turned a page. Why had Anne hidden this? It was pretty good, wasn’t it? And how could she get her to tell them about it? She kept reading. The housewife was drinking, pouring booze into the coffee, and Carolyn, the waitress, kept serving, and the dilemma was, if the waitress turned a blind eye, she’d have a friend, but if she didn’t, the woman would leave and God knows what. The story ended with Carolyn outside, spiking her own coffee with booze, and then not taking a sip, so you didn’t know what was going to happen. Eva turned the page, and then saw a scribbling of red, a huge red F.

Shocked, Eva blinked. F? How could this be an F? Was she going crazy? Or was the teacher nuts instead? She read the note and then sat back. Wait, wait, here it was. Anne hadn’t followed directions. She hadn’t done the assignment. It didn’t matter how good it was if she didn’t fulfill the assignment. She leafed back through the pages and suddenly words jumped out at her. Weak adjectives. Funny constructions. Why hadn’t Anne taken more care? Poor character development. Well, yes, she could
see that. Carolyn’s motives weren’t quite clear. Eva let the papers settle on her lap. She was about to put them back in place, under the mattress, when she heard the front door open, heard the clack of Anne’s shoes and suddenly there didn’t seem to be any real reason to do anything but wait.

Anne strode in, her hair damp from the outside, and as soon as she saw the story on Eva’s lap, her face changed. Eva waited to be accused of snooping, but Anne simply stood there. “What’s wrong?” Anne said.

“You got an F,” Eva said quietly.

Anne’s mouth snapped shut and then opened again.

“Why didn’t you follow directions?” Eva asked.

“What?” said Anne, astonished.

“You didn’t do what your teacher asked. There were sloppy mistakes—”

“I did more than what he asked for—”

“And it got you an F!”

“It’s a good story! I know it is! I worked so hard—I wrote ten times more than anyone. He’s wrong! He just didn’t see it!”

Eva looked at the paper again. “Maybe if you redid it. Showed initiative—

“I did show initiative! I wrote a story!” Anne grabbed the paper out of Eva’s hands so hard it ripped. “Did you even read it?” she asked Eva. “Did you like it—even a little?”

“Well, yes, but that’s not the point. Honey, you can do better,” she said, and then she saw Anne’s face folding like a flower. “I know from my own class, I’d rather see a child trying and trying until he gets something right than just giving up on it after the first try.” She tried to think of an example. “Bill Broomer,” she said. “Couldn’t tie his shoes and instead of running around with them hanging out and tripping over himself, he missed a playtime activity so he could sit in the corner and just practice and practice and get it right, and when he did, I swear I couldn’t tell who was happier or more proud, me or him!”

“I’m not one of the kids in your class,” Anne whispered. “This isn’t tying shoes.”

The door opened again, and George called out, “Anyone home?” his voice tense and weary. “Cancellations so I’m home early,” he said, his
voice growing louder as he came toward them, and then he stopped at the door of Anne’s room, looking from Anne to Eva. “What’s wrong?”

“Daddy,” she cried. “I wrote this great story—”

Eva handed the paper to George. “An F?” George said.

“Read it!” Anne cried. “Just read it!”

“I told her to rewrite it as an essay, to give the teacher what he asked for—”

George glanced at the paper and then rubbed at his temples. In the hall, the phone rang, and George stepped out to pick it up. “Yes,” he said shortly. “You’re sure? Yes. You’d better come in then.” He hung up and sighed. “I can’t believe this but I’ve got to go back to the office. Another emergency. Does it ever end?” He looked at Anne.

“You’re not going to read it?” she asked.

“Honey, I can’t read anything right now. I think your mother’s right on this one.”

“Daddy—”

“Just redo it.”

As soon as Eva was out of the room, Anne shut the door. For a moment, Eva stood there with George, wondering what Anne was up to. And then they could hear the whir of the computer going on, the soft tap of Anne’s hands on the keyboard.

Relieved, Eva rested her head against George’s shoulder. “She’ll be
fine,”
she said.

For two days straight, Anne worked on her essay. She sighed heavily, she kept glancing at the clock, but she did it. And when she came home with an A on her temperance essay, Eva and George made a huge deal out of it, reading it, exclaiming over how well it was organized, how intelligent it sounded, how even Mr. Moto’s comments (“Clearly stated. Good segue.”) were something exceptional, especially since Anne had told them how he never liked anything, much less gave praise. “You should be so proud of yourself,” Eva said, giving her a hug.

“I thought it was so dull,” Anne said quietly. “I wrote it in my sleep.”

“Keep up the great work,” George said and rushed off to work.

* * *

Anne’s grades improved. If she didn’t come home with friends (and Eva kept encouraging her to join clubs), well, she now came home with fresh surprises. College catalogs tucked under her arm, but always to schools as far away as she could find them, New York City, Maine. Books about different professions, ambitions Eva never knew anything about.
So You Want to Be a Veterinarian
lay by the tub, with a bookmark in the chapter about exotic reptiles.
Today’s Advertising
was shoved under Anne’s bed, with passages underlined in yellow.
Get the Big Picture. Make It Pop.

“At least she’s thinking about her future,” Eva said to George, but a day later, she found books kicked under Anne’s bed. Books left in the backyard.

In bed, at night, holding hands, they talked quietly about Anne, how she was doing in school, what she might become in her future. They had long since stopped talking about telling Anne she was adopted.
What did it matter?
Eva thought. The fact was that the people who raised and loved a child were the parents. The rest was just biology. People formed bonds in all sorts of ways. Husbands and wives. Friends. If you wanted to get scientific, well, couldn’t you say that everyone shared the same basic matter, the same cell matter and memory—wasn’t everyone family in one way or another?

“She’ll be going to college before we know it,” Eva said. She knew what that meant. The thrill of being on your own. Boyfriends that turned serious, and then jobs in cities that might be clear across the country. Phone calls and visits rather than the day-to-day presence. Eva gripped the blanket. “I’m not ready to let her go,” she said.

S
ara stood on the sidewalk, unable to move, the shiny heat blanketed around her. She couldn’t think anymore if this was the right thing to do, only that here she was and it was finally happening, and terrified or not, she would see it through. Eva and George’s house was big and white with a shady porch and a fancy oak door, a walkway made out of intricate mosaics, and everywhere she looked was something special. Exotic plants and a well-tended lawn, a small brass angel on the knocker and a rubber welcome mat cut to look like wrought iron. She licked her lips and tasted sugar from the tea she had had that morning. Everything seemed a rebuke to her, reminding her of what George and Eva could give her daughter, and what she couldn’t.

Struggling to compose herself, Sara rang the bell. She heard footsteps and her bones turned to water. “Coming—” she heard and she knew that voice, she remembered how some days she’d call just to hear the loving way Eva would say “Sara,” as if her name were a kind of prayer, or a blessing.

The door swung open and there Eva was, the gold hair still long, but now faded, the milky skin weathered from the sun, and Sara’s anger flared, making her glad Eva was on the other side of the door.

“Yes?” Eva said quizzically. She smiled pleasantly, the way she would
to a stranger, and then her gaze sharpened, she looked at Sara as if she were waking from a dream.

“It’s Sara,” she said tightly, and then Eva started. Her hand rushed to her mouth.

Sara heard George’s voice from the other room, his footsteps, and then there was George, and as soon as he saw Sara, he stepped back. “Sara?” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Can I come in?” Sara asked coldly, and Eva opened the door.

As soon as she was inside the house, Sara anxiously looked for signs of her daughter. A Mother’s Day card on the mantel, schoolbooks on a table. George and Eva used to almost paper their walls with photographs back when Sara was a part of the family, but now the walls were clean. She braced one hand on the wall. “Let’s all sit,” George said.

He led her into a spacious white living room, filled with green plants. Eva quickly sat on a floral couch, and then George sat beside her, taking her hand. Sara’s knees felt like jelly but she wanted to stand tall, she wanted to show them how much older she was now, stronger, that they couldn’t push her around anymore.

“What are you doing here?” George blurted.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

George looked down at his hand that was holding Eva’s. “We live here now.”

“You could have told me.” Sara fought to keep her voice even. “I went to your house and no one was there. No one even knew where you were. How could you do that to me? Just disappear like that?”

Eva leaned forward. “We thought it would be better.”

“Better? Better for whom?” Sara asked. “You stole my daughter.”

Eva drew herself up. “You endangered her when you took her from us.”

“Anne was mine to take! Maybe I didn’t go about it the right way but it wasn’t my fault. I was a kid, I didn’t know there was a right way. But I do now.”

“Sara, you gave her up! You signed away your rights! You knew that!”

Sara lifted her chin. “But Danny didn’t,” she said.

“What? What are you talking about?” Eva said. “Those papers were signed.” Her eyes were wide, innocent, but Sara could see Eva’s hand gripping her leg.

“I saw Danny,” Sara said. “And I found out that he didn’t even know there was a baby, that he didn’t sign any papers. That his name was forged. He would never have given up Anne! He would have fought to keep her—fought you! And without both our signatures, you’d never have gotten Anne, you’d never have been able to disappear.”

“How does he know now what he would have done at sixteen?” Eva cried.

“He knows. And so do you.”

Eva looked as if she were having trouble breatthing. She met Sara’s eyes. “What does Danny want now?”

Sara was quiet. She didn’t want to lie, but she couldn’t tell the truth, couldn’t risk giving them a reason not to let her see her daughter. “I’m the one who’s here now and what I want is to see Anne.”

“And then what?” Eva leaned back into the couch as if she could no longer keep upright on her own.

“Maybe that’s for Anne and me to figure out.”

“Anne doesn’t know about you,” George said.

“You never told her?”

Eva jumped to her feet. “Anne’ll be home any second. Instead of springing this on her, can’t George and I discuss the best way to break this to her?”

“Please,” George said, standing now, too. “Whatever mistakes we made in the past, think of Anne. Let’s work this out. Eva and I can arrange something.”

“I used to be willing to do anything for you,” Sara said, voice cracking. “I used to imagine finding you and Eva again, convincing you to make things go back to the way they were, when we were all so happy. What did I know? I was a kid. But I’m not a kid anymore. And now the only one I care about is Anne.”

“Then let us prepare her—” Eva said. “There’s no need to tell her every detail—”

There was the sound of a key in the lock. Eva jumped up and grabbed Sara’s arm, the first time she had touched her, and Sara shook it loose. “Please,” Eva said. “Don’t say anything. I’m begging you.”

Sara hesitated. If she didn’t tell Anne right away would they disappear again? If she didn’t tell her daughter would she ever have another chance? She looked at Eva’s beseeching face and something soft and small formed in the pit of her stomach. “You tell her this week or I will,” Sara said, and then the door opened, and there was Anne.

Her daughter was nothing like how she had imagined her, but how could she be, when all these years the Anne Sara had clung to was as small as a minute, a pearly baby in her arms, smelling of powder and milk. This girl was grown and Sara thought she was beautiful, small-boned and thin, with a riot of short russet hair, dressed in baggy, drab clothes, and for a moment, Sara felt as if time had gone all out of whack, free-floating her someplace she might not belong. She looked at Anne again, at that delicate, lovely face, and then she started. Anne had been born with slate-colored eyes, and all this time, whenever she had been drawn to a girl, whenever she had wondered about her, she had been drawn to grey eyes. Fool that she was, she hadn’t thought about eyes changing color, because her daughter’s eyes were now the same startling green as Danny’s.