Little Fires Everywhere (35 page)

All morning she thought about what to do. Confront Trip? Confront Pearl? Confront them both together? She and her husband did not speak to the children about their love lives—she'd had a talk with Lexie and Izzy, when their periods had started, about their responsibilities. (“Vulnerabilities,” Izzy had corrected her, and left the room.) But in general she preferred to assume that her children were smart enough to make their own decisions, that the school had armed them well with knowledge. If they were
up to things
—as she euphemistically thought of it—she didn't need, or want, to know. To stand in front of Trip and that girl and say to them, I know what you've been doing—it seemed as mortifying as stripping them both naked.

At last, midway through the morning, she found herself getting into her car and driving to the little house on Winslow. Mia would be there, she knew, working on her photographs. Mrs. Richardson opened the shared side door and entered without knocking. This was her house, after all, not Mia's; as the landlord, she had the right. The downstairs apartment was silent; it was eleven o'clock and Mr. Yang was at work. Upstairs, however, she could hear Mia in the kitchen: the rumble of a kettle coming to a boil, a whistle springing to life and then subsiding as someone lifted it from the stove. Mrs. Richardson climbed the steps to the second floor, noting the linoleum that was just beginning to peel at the corners of the treads. That would have to be fixed, she thought. She would have the entire staircase—no, the entire apartment—stripped bare and redone.

The door to the upstairs apartment was unlocked, and Mia looked up, alarmed, as Mrs. Richardson came into the kitchen.

“I didn't expect anyone,” she said. The kettle gave a faint whine as she set it back on the hot burner. “Did you need something?” Mrs. Richardson's gaze swept over the apartment: the sink with Pearl's breakfast dishes still stacked over the drain, the array of pillows that passed for a couch, the half-open door to Mia's bedroom, where a mattress lay on the carpet. It was such a pathetic life, she thought; they had so little. And then she spotted something familiar, draped over the back of one of the mismatched kitchen chairs: Izzy's jacket. Izzy had left it there on her last visit, and the casual carelessness of this gesture affronted Mrs. Richardson. As if Izzy lived here, as if this were her home, as if she were Mia's daughter, not Mrs. Richardson's own.

“I always knew there was something about you,” she said.

“Pardon?”

Mrs. Richardson did not respond right away.
Not even a real bed,
she thought.
Not even a real couch. What kind of grown woman sits on the floor, sleeps on the floor?
What kind of life was this?

“I suppose you thought you could hide,” she said to the kitchen table, where Mia had been carefully splicing a photograph of a dog and a man together. “I suppose you thought no one would ever know.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Mia began. Her knuckles clenched the handle of her mug.

“Don't you? I'm sure Joseph and Madeline Ryan do.” Mia went silent. “I'm sure they'd like to know where you are. So would your parents. I'm sure they'd love to know where Pearl is, too.” Mrs. Richardson shot Mia a glance. “Don't try to lie about it. You're a very good liar, but I know all about it. I know all about you.”

“What do you want?”

“I almost didn't say anything. I thought, what's in the past is past. Maybe she's made a new life. But I see you've raised your daughter to be just as amoral as you.”

“Pearl?” Mia's eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”

“What a hypocrite you are. You stole that couple's child and then you tried to take a baby away from the McCulloughs.”

“Pearl is
my
child.”

“You had a little help making her, didn't you?” Mrs. Richardson raised an eyebrow. “Linda McCullough and I have been friends for forty years. She's like a sister to me. And no one deserves a child more than she does.”

“It's not a question of deserving. I just think a mother has a right to raise her own child.”

“Do you? Or is that just what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?”

Mia flushed. “If May Ling could choose, don't you think she'd choose to stay with her real mother? The mother who gave birth to her?”

“Maybe.” Mrs. Richardson looked at Mia closely. “The Ryans are rich. They wanted a baby so desperately. They'd have given her a wonderful life. If Pearl had gotten to choose, do you think she'd have chosen to stay with you? To live like a vagabond?”

“It bothers you, doesn't it?” Mia said suddenly. “I think you can't imagine. Why anyone would choose a different life from the one you've got. Why anyone might want something other than a big house with a big lawn, a fancy car, a job in an office. Why anyone would choose anything different than what you'd choose.” Now it was her turn to study Mrs. Richardson, as if the key to understanding her were coded into her face. “It terrifies you. That you missed out on something. That you gave up something you didn't know you wanted.” A sharp, pitying smile pinched
the corners of her lips. “What was it? Was it a boy? Was it a vocation? Or was it a whole life?”

Mrs. Richardson shuffled the snippets of Mia's photographs on the table. Under her hands pieces of dog and pieces of man separated and mingled and re-formed.

“I think it's time you moved on,” she said. With one hand she lifted Izzy's jacket from the chair and dusted it, as if it were soiled. “By tomorrow.” She set a folded hundred-dollar bill on the counter. “This should more than make up for the rent for the month. We'll call it even.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Mrs. Richardson headed for the door. “Ask your daughter,” she said, and the door shut behind her.

F
riday afternoon, when the bell rang at just after one, Pearl settled herself into seventh period and set her bag beside her chair. She was going to meet Trip at his car after school; he had put a note into her locker that morning. Lexie had left another after lunch:
Movie tonight? Deep Impact?
It was almost enough to make her forget that she and Moody were no longer friends. Every day they still saw each other in class, but most days he jumped up as soon as the bell rang and bolted out the door before she'd even had a chance to close her binder. Now there he was across the aisle, bent over his copy of
Othello.
She wondered if they'd ever get back to normal, if things would ever be the same between them. Sex changed things, she realized—not just between you and the other person, but between you and everyone.

She was still turning this insight over in her mind when the classroom phone rang. It was usually a question from the main office about something—a misplaced attendance sheet, an excuse for a tardy student—so she paid no attention until Mrs. Thomas hung up and came to crouch by her desk.

“Pearl,” she said softly, “the office says your mother's here to pick you up. Take your things with you, they said.” She went back to the board,
where she was outlining the third act of the play, and Pearl puzzled over this as she packed her books away. Was there an appointment she'd forgotten? Was there some kind of emergency? Out of instinct, she shot a quick look at Moody in the next seat—the closest they'd come to a conversation in weeks. But Moody seemed as clueless as she was, and the last thing she remembered as she left the classroom was his face, their shared moment of confusion.

She came out of the science wing door and saw her mother parked by the curb, leaning back against the little tan Rabbit, waiting for her.

“There you are,” Mia said.

“Mom. What are you doing here?” Pearl glanced over her shoulder, in the universal reaction of all teenagers confronted by their parents in a public place.

“Do you have anything important in your locker?” Mia unzipped Pearl's bag and peeked inside. “Your wallet? Any papers? Okay, let's go.” She turned back toward the car, and Pearl jerked herself free.

“Mom. I can't. I have a biology quiz next period. And I'm meeting—I'm meeting somebody after school. I'll just see you at home, okay?”

“That's not what I mean,” said Mia, and Pearl noticed the wrinkle between her mother's eyebrows that meant she was deeply worried. “I mean we have to go. Today.”

“What?” Pearl glanced around. The oval lay quiet and green before them. Everyone was inside, in class, except for a few students clustered—just off school grounds—at the nearby traffic triangle, smoking. Everything seemed so normal. “I don't want to leave.”

“I know, my darling. But we have to.”

Every time before, when her mother had decided to leave, Pearl had felt at most a twinge of regret—always over the minor things: a boy she'd admired from afar, a certain park bench or quiet corner or library book
she hated to leave behind. Mostly, however, she had felt relief: that she could slide out of this life and begin anew, like a snake shedding its skin. This time all that welled up inside her was a mixture of grief and rage.

“You promised we would stay,” she said, her voice thickening. “Mom. I have friends here. I have—” She looked around, as if one of the Richardson children might appear. But Lexie was off in the Social Room finishing her lunch. Moody was back in English class discussing
Othello
. And Trip—Trip would be waiting for her after school on the other side of the oval. When she didn't appear, he would drive away. She had a wild thought: if she could only run to the Richardson house, she would be safe. Mrs. Richardson would help her, she was sure. The Richardsons would take her in. The Richardsons would never let her go. “Please. Mom. Please. Please don't make us go.”

“I don't want to. But we have to.” Mia held out her hand. Pearl, for a moment, imagined herself transforming into a tree. Rooting herself so deeply on that spot that nothing could displace her.

“Pearl, my darling,” her mother said. “I'm so sorry. It's time to go.” She took Mia's hand, and Pearl, uprooted, came free and followed her mother back to the car.

When they got back to the house on Winslow, a few belongings were already packed: the couch had been stripped of its blanket and disassembled into a stack of pillows; the various prints Mia had tacked to the wall had been boxed. Mia was a fast packer, good at squeezing an improbably large number of things into a tight space. In their year in Shaker, however, they'd acquired more things than they'd ever had before, and this time many more things would need to be left behind.

“I thought I'd be finished by now,” Mia admitted, setting her keys
down on the table. “But I had to finish something. Fold up your clothes. Whatever will fit in your duffel bag.”

“You promised,” Pearl said. In the safe cocoon of their home—their real home, as she'd begun to think of it—the tears began to flow, along with a choking rush of fury. “You said we were staying put. You said this was
it.
”

Mia stopped and put an arm around Pearl. “I know I did,” she said. “I promised. And I'm sorry. Something's happened—”

“I'm not going.” Pearl kicked her shoes onto the floor and stomped into the living room. Mia heard the door to her room slam. Sighing, she picked up Pearl's sneakers by the heels and went down the hallway. Pearl had flopped on her bed, math book spread in front of her, jerking a notebook from her bookbag. A furious charade.

“It's time.”

“I have to do my homework.”

“We have to pack.” Mia gently closed the textbook. “And then we have to leave.”

Pearl snatched the textbook from her mother's hands and threw it across the room, where it left a black smudge on the wall. Next went her notebook, her ballpoint, her history book, a stack of note cards, until her bookbag lay crumpled on the floor like a shed skin and everything that had been inside it had scattered. Mia sat quietly beside her, waiting. Pearl was no longer crying. Her tears had been replaced by a cold, blank face and a set jaw.

“I thought we could stay, too,” Mia said at last.

“Why?” Pearl pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them and glared at her mother. “I'm not going until you tell me why.”

“That's fair.” Mia sighed. She sat down beside Pearl on the bed and
smoothed the bedspread beneath them. It was afternoon. It was sunny. Outside, a mourning dove cooed, the low hum of a lawn mower rose, a passing cloud cast them into shadow for a moment, then drifted away. As if it were simply an ordinary day. “I've been thinking about how to tell you for a long time. Longer than you can imagine.”

Pearl had gone very still now, her eyes fixed on her mother, waiting patiently, aware she was about to learn something very important. Mia thought of Joseph Ryan, sitting across the table from her that night at dinner, waiting to learn her answer.

“Let me tell you first,” she said, taking a deep breath, “about your Uncle Warren.”

When Mia had finished, Pearl sat quietly, tracing the lines of quilting that spiraled across the bedspread. She had told Pearl the outline of everything, though they both knew all the details would be a long time in coming. They would trickle out in dribs and drabs, memories surfacing suddenly, prompted by the merest thread, the way memories often do. For years afterward, Mia would spot a yellow house as they drove by, or a battered repair truck, or see two children climbing up a hillside, and would say, “Did I ever tell you—” and Pearl would snap to attention, ready to gather another small glittering shard of her history.
Everything,
she had come to understand, was something like infinity. They might never come close, but they could approach a point where, for all intents and purposes, she knew all that she needed to know. It would simply take time, and patience. For now, she knew enough.

“Why are you telling me this?” she had asked her mother. “I mean, why are you telling me this
now
?”

Mia had taken a deep breath. How did you explain to someone—how did you explain to a child, a child you loved—that someone they adored was not to be trusted? She tried. She did her best to explain, and she had watched confusion wash over Pearl's face, then pain. Pearl could not understand it: Mrs. Richardson, who had always been so kind to her, who had said so many nice things about her. Whose shining, polished surface had entranced Pearl with her own reflection.

“She's right, though,” Mia said at last. “The Ryans would have given you a wonderful life. They'd have loved you. And Mr. Ryan is your father.” She had never said those words aloud, had never even allowed herself to think them, and they tasted strange on her tongue. She said it again: “Your father.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Pearl mouthing the words to herself, as if trying them out. “Do you want to meet them?” Mia asked. “We can drive to New York. They won't be hard to find.”

Pearl thought about this for a long time.

“Not right now,” she said. “Maybe one day. But not right now.” She leaned into her mother's arms, the way she had when she was a child, tucking herself neatly under her mother's chin. “And what about your parents?” she said after a moment.

“My parents?”

“Are they still out there? Do you know where they are?”

Mia hesitated. “Yes,” she said, “I believe I do. Do you want to meet them?”

Pearl tipped her head to one side, in a gesture that reminded Mia so strongly of Warren it made her catch her breath. “Someday,” she said. “Someday maybe we could go and see them together.”

Mia held her for a moment, buried her nose in the part of Pearl's hair. Every time she did this, she was comforted by how Pearl smelled exactly
the same. She smelled, Mia thought suddenly, of home, as if
home
had never been a place, but had always been this little person whom she'd carried alongside her.

“And now we'd better pack,” she said. It was three thirty. School was out, Pearl thought as she began to roll up her clothing. Moody would just be getting home. Trip would have given up on her by now—or would he be waiting for her still? When she didn't show up, would he come looking for her? She hadn't yet told her mother about Trip; she wasn't sure, yet, if she ever would.

There was a knock at the side door. To Pearl, it was as if she'd summoned Trip with her mind, and she turned to Mia, wide-eyed.

“I'll go and see who it is,” Mia said. “You stay up here. Keep packing.” If it was Mrs. Richardson, she thought—but no, it was Izzy, standing bewildered in the driveway.

“Why is the door locked?” she said. For months she'd been coming to help Mia every afternoon, and the side door had never before been locked. It had been open to her—to all the Richardson children, it occurred to her now—at any moment of the day, no matter what her trouble.

“I was—I was taking care of something.” Mia had forgotten all about Izzy, and she tried to think of a plausible excuse.

“Is Bebe still here?” This was the only thing Izzy could think of that might make Mia shut her out and send her away.

“No, she's gone home. I just—I was busy.”

“Okay.” Izzy took a half step back from the doorway, and the storm door, which she'd been holding open with her foot, gave a faint shriek. “Well, is Pearl here? I—I wanted to tell her something.” She had been trying to catch Pearl all day; in fact, she had tried to call Pearl the previous night—but had gotten only a busy signal: Mia, while comforting
Bebe, had taken the phone off the hook, and had forgotten to put it back on. She'd tried over and over, until past midnight, deciding at last that she'd find Pearl at school in the morning. Pearl, she felt, ought to know what Moody had said about her, that her mother knew about Trip. But she didn't know which routes Pearl might take from class to class—would she take the main stairwell, with its crush of students, or the back one that led down to the English wing? Would she eat in the cafeteria, or in the Egress downstairs, or perhaps out on the lawn somewhere? Each time she guessed wrong, and Izzy was frustrated at missing Pearl again and again, even more frustrated at how poorly she seemed to know Pearl. Right after school, she promised herself, she would find Pearl and tell her everything.