Taking Terri Mueller (15 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

On the morning of the first day her daughter Terri had slept under her roof in eight years, Kathryn woke early. At once she realized that for the first time in eight years she had awakened without a dull band of pain across the back of her head. She left Merle sleeping, put on a robe, and went into the kitchen. From Leah's room—the children's room, she corrected herself—there was a sleeping silence. It was not yet six o'clock.

“Terri must be exhausted,” she murmured to herself, for the simple pleasure of her older daughter's name so easily and possessively on her tongue. Moving quietly so as not to wake anyone in the slumbering house, she fixed a cup of tea and took it to the window looking out over the backyard.

As she sat there, sipping the tea, she was again aware of the
absence
of that clamp of pain. Even these past four years when she had been happy again—Merle, Leah—she had had to fight her way past that greyness every morning. Past the shadow of the unanswered questions about Terri. Where is she? How is she? Will I ever see her again?

From the pocket of her robe she drew out the laminated picture of Terri that she had put under her pillow
every night. And staring at the little Terri, in pleated skirt and blouse, hands jauntily on her hips, celebrating her first day of kindergarten, Kathryn thought of this Terri she had now met. This tall sober girl with the sudden beautiful smile, this girl-child with the intense dark eyes, this self-possessed almost-woman who looked, and listened, and looked, and said so little. This was not the child Kathryn had cherished in her heart all these years.

“
My
daughter—she's
my
daughter.” She knew that her own reserve often bothered her mother. “Cry!” Ethel had demanded those first months after Phil and Terri disappeared. But Kathryn didn't cry. She faced the world dry-eyed, and inwardly raged. Raged and felt alone—cold and alone. She never could get her hands warm that first year.

She noticed a yellow bow on the floor, and a snip of silver paper, and picked them up. She smoothed the yellow ribbon. So many questions . . . the gap of years . . . the emptiness of those years . . . Could they ever be filled? Would she ever know her daughter the way other mothers knew theirs?

The lightness in her vanished. She reached for it . . . Oh, bring back that floating feeling! That joy to see the sun rise! Please! She thought of those first years. Working jobs where she could come in, be a robot, get out: typing, slinging hamburgers, selling movie tickets. All she did was work, and sleep, and badger Vivian with phone calls. She ran ads in newspapers up and down the coast of California. “REWARD for information about missing child . . .” Her guess had been that Phil wouldn't go far from what he knew.

She'd been wrong about that.

Once she'd hired a detective—that had been worthless, and had cost her all her savings. A grey life . . . everything taken from her, the only reason to get up in the morning the hope that on this day Terri might be returned to her.

Twice in those years, newspapers had run feature stories about Kathryn. She had answered questions, allowed her picture to be taken. Everything private in her had protested, but she had submitted meekly in the hope that it might somehow, some way, help her find Terri. And in the morning she had read the “heartrending” details of her life spread out in black and white to be served up to eager readers along with their coffee and toast. FATHER ‘STEALS' DAUGHTER, MOTHER WAITS FOR HER RETURN. And next to the article a picture of herself in a white blouse, eyes sunk into her head, fondling a little scarf that had been Terri's.

But all that had come of it were the phone calls.
Hi, Mom, this is your long lost daughter . . . This is Terri, did you miss me?
And then the laughter.

She had wanted to move out of the apartment, away from the phone, away from the memories, but she was afraid. This was Terri's home. This was what she would remember. Terri knew her phone number. If she could get away and call . . . Night after night Kathryn sat home staring at the phone. Night after night she heard the child crying for her.

In the bedroom now she heard Leah chanting. A moment later, the sound of two voices. Her daughters.
Both my girls.
Talking together in her house. Dear god, it was
over . . . it was over . . .

A few minutes later, hearing Terri in the shower, an anxious, bizarre thought occurred to her. How do I know that's really Terri?

She took another sip of tea.

The thought refused to go away.

What if Phil had played an elaborate hoax on her? What if, driven to the wall, he had sent another child in Terri's place?

Don't be stupid, Kathryn. Think of something else.

She put down her teacup. The phone conversation with Vivian a few days ago. “Don't be bitter,” Vivian had said in that big husky voice of hers. “Kathryn, don't be bitter. I wanted this for you. I wanted this so much, you don't know.”

“All right, Vivian,” she had said. She had been quiet, controlled. Bitter? Vivian didn't know half her bitterness, half her anger. Futile, futile! Useless emotions from another time . . . a time that was over. Done.

What if it isn't Terri?

She went to the bathroom, knocked. “Terri? Can I come in for a moment?”

The door opened; there was Terri, holding a towel around herself. “Hello,” she said.

“Good morning.” Kathryn felt a rush of tenderness for that young body, its lean strength, its newness. “Terri—could I see your shoulder?”

“What?” The dark eyes met hers.

“Your shoulder—your right shoulder.” Gently she pulled away the towel, and there it was—that little odd-shaped
birthmark she had kissed every night when she helped the child into her pajamas. “It's still there,” she said, smiling, a little ashamed of her relief.

“My amoeba? Why did you want to see that?”

“Oh—” Kathryn spread out her hands. “I used to kiss it. I wanted to see it again.”

Terri accepted this explanation as if, Kathryn thought, nothing adults did or said could any longer surprise her.

The first few days of Terri's visit, her mother hardly left her side. Merle did the shopping and cooking, kept Leah occupied, and left her mother free to be with Terri.

That first morning, after breakfast, they went for a walk, a long walk that didn't end for hours, and they did this every day for several days: talking and walking.

They sat on a bench in a park and talked. After a while they walked again. Later in a playground, they sat on the swings, slowly drifting back and forth, and talked, then got up, talking still, and walked until, hungry, they went into a small restaurant, took a table in a corner near a window, and talked some more. When they left, Terri didn't remember what they had eaten.

Talking and walking . . . and talking . . . and talking . . . Terri thought that never had she talked so long, so continuously, and with so much close attention paid to everything she said.

“I need to fill in,” Kathryn said. “I need to know. All the years, all the months, weeks, hours . . . I want to know
everything.
”

She asked question after question. “So, okay, you were seven years old then. Where did you say you were living? And that teacher, Mrs. Kane, was it?” And Terri drew on her memory of faces and places, of names and cities and apartments . . .

Kathryn leaned toward her. She wanted to know details. Who shopped for clothes for Terri? Were people kind to her? Had anyone ever been suspicious? What did Terri know or suspect about herself?

“Nothing, not really. Only . . . I felt something was wrong.” More questions. What kind of food did they eat? Was Barkley her only pet? Did she like moving about all the time? What about school? How about when she was sick—who took care of her? Did she stay home alone?

“There was always someone around to look after me when I was little. Not now—I stay home alone.”

“Were you ever really sick?”

“When I was eight, I think it was, I had measles.”

“Who took care of you?”

“Daddy,” Terri said in surprise. Who else?

“Phil? He took care of you? Didn't he have to work?”

Terri thought about it. Yes, she was sure her father had been with her through that entire siege. And the following winter when she'd had her tonsils out, he'd been with her through it all, operation and recuperation. “I guess he didn't go to work when I was sick.” She had never given it a thought before.

The hardest thing Terri had to say was that her father had told her Kathryn was dead. But her mother laughed.
“Killed me off in a car accident, did he? Phil comes on so gentle, oh, yes, I remember him. But he has the same violent streak we all have.” She seemed to draw a certain satisfaction from this.

On the fourth day of her visit the whole family went on a picnic. Her grandfather brought along a portable radio, tuned it to the San Francisco Opera Company. Merle, her grandmother, and Leah played ball, and Terri and her mother, quiet at last, sat on a bench watching them. “Isn't this wonderful weather,” her mother said.

“I can't believe it's cold and snowy back in Michigan.”

“Do you ski?”

“Yes, a little, I'm not terribly good at it.”

“Oh, I think you should be. You look so well coordinated.”

It was nice plain talk.

Then her mother said, “Sometimes, it still seems like a dream to me that you're here.” She stroked Terri's hand. “I think of all that I missed . . . that I'll never get back. Eight years—”

Yes, Terri thought, that's true, no matter how much we talk, that part belongs to Daddy. She looked down at their hands, saw that they were alike. She was beginning to love Kathryn, in a sense had loved her immediately, but this was different, something growing quietly and strongly. Her mother. Her mother.

TWENTY-FIVE

“What kind of food do you like, Terri?” my mother asked when I first came. I said, “Oh, anything.” It turns out we both love pickles and hate beets. We keep finding out things about ourselves that are alike. We both choose pale green as a favorite color and neither of us can eat an orange first thing in the morning without feeling a little sick to our stomach.

Leah and I are getting to know each other. This morning when I woke up—I'm sleeping on the foldout couch in her room—she said, “You stayed away so long. We was worried.” But she still won't cuddle with me the way Leif does.

It's different living in a house with more people. Something's going on all the time—someone calling to someone else, doors opening and shutting, the radio or TV on, food being fixed—and the phone, that doesn't seem to ever stop ringing. Mom says it usually isn't this bad, but people are calling about us. Yesterday there was an article in the newspaper with a picture of everyone hugging me that first day and crying.

My grandparents came over. They've been coming over every night for supper. Grandmother thought the article was wonderful. She especially liked that she and Grandfather were mentioned. She said it was good for Grandfather's insurance business.

“Ma!” my mother said. “What a thing to say!”

Grandmother said, “Well, it's true, Kathryn. This will get your father's name around more. Look, right here, they tell what he does.” She pointed to the place where the article said Grandfather sold insurance and she worked in a doctor's office. “You know what they say, all's fair in love and war.”

“Well, your line of reasoning really escapes me!” Mom said. Merle and Grandfather just laughed.

We had Christmas. Food, presents, the tree, eggnog—everything, but it was strange for me. I felt weird all day. Daddy called in the afternoon, and we talked a little bit. That wasn't too good. Maybe I was thinking too much that everyone could hear me.

I've decided I like being in a house with more people. I like that sort of humming feeling of never being alone. But then, somehow, I get so I do want to be alone—at least for a few minutes. This journal helps me be alone. I go off, sit down (I'm in the backyard right now sitting on the edge of Leah's sandbox), and write a little. But every time I go off, it seems that after a bit someone finds me. Merle, or Grandmother, or Leah. “Are you okay, Terri?” “Do you want to go for a walk?” “Are you hungry?” “Want to go for a ride in the car?”

I'm not used to all that attention. Sometimes I like it, and sometimes I think that it doesn't have anything to do with me. Why should everyone be worried so much if I'm happy every second? It makes me feel uncomfortable.

I found out Leah is only two days older than Leif. That is quite a coincidence. She talks more than Leif, is much skinnier, and where he rumbles and bangs into everything, and is sort of like a little heavy-duty truck moving through the world, she twirls and whirls everywhere, more like a
leaf
than he is! I think she's getting over being so jealous of me.

The kitchen is the gathering place. Everyone seems to end up here, even if it's not time to eat. The telephone is here, and there's a portable TV, and Merle likes to have his “family conferences” here, and Mom says she likes people around when she's cooking. It's Sunday, raining. Grandmother and Grandfather have been here all day. Grandmother started talking about Daddy. “He always was a spoiled boy.”

“Now, Ma, really—” Mom made a face. She gave me a bowl of chopped meat and asked me to make the meat patties.

“Well, it's true.” Grandmother lit a cigarette. Mom said, “Smoking again?” I thought she wanted to change the subject. So did Grandmother. “Don't change the subject, Kathryn. What is it? You don't want me to talk about Phil in front of Terri? I'm sure it comes as no shock to her. She's an intelligent, smart, bright girl.” She patted my hand. “Do you mind that I say that about your father? He was a
spoiled boy, you know, spoiled by Vivian. She just doted on him, he could do no wrong was her motto. And I said so from the beginning when you brought him home to meet us, Kathryn.”

“Ma, you thought Phil was just great, you liked him a lot.”

“Well, he was
charming
, but I always said he was spoiled.”

Grandfather was peeling an avocado for the salad he was making. “Kathryn's right, Ethel. You liked Phil so much you even gave him that watch inscribed with your father's name.”

“What watch?” Grandmother said.

Mom and Grandfather both went, “
WHAT
WATCH?” And I remembered the silver watch inscribed on the back that I found in Daddy's locked box. “Your grandmother likes to rewrite history,” Grandfather said to me.

“Does she ever!” Mom said. I felt sort of sorry for Grandmother.

Mom and Leah and I looked at pictures together. There was one of me taken the first day I went to kindergarten, wearing a pleated skirt and looking pretty perky. My resemblance at that age to Leah
now
is really amazing. I'm sure if anyone looked at that picture and then at Leah, they would
know
we are sisters.

Leah leaned on me and said, “My mama sleeps with that picture under her pillow. It is her little girl Terri.”

“Now I don't anymore, sweetie,” Mom said, putting the
picture back in the album.

“
I
know,
I
know,” Leah said. “Because Terri is here.” She really is very smart.

Daddy, Barkley, the camper, our apartment—all of it feels so remote to me. Sometimes it's like I've always been here. It's just a week, and that's the way I feel, and it's even a good feeling. Except—what about Daddy? Mom wants me to stay, I mean
really
stay, live here. She doesn't even want me to go home to get my stuff. “Your father can ship your clothes and things.” She and Merle want to fix up the spare room for me. It's not really a room, more sort of an alcove with a window, but it would be big enough for a bed and a bureau, and Merle said he'd get one of his students, who's handy, to build a door. I didn't say no.

Went to the store for Mom. On the way, a kid playing on the street got in front of me. “Where are you going?” He probably wasn't that much older than Leah, but he acted real tough.

“To the market for my mother.”

“Who's she?”

“My mother, Mr. Smarty,” I said, “is my mother.”

“Huh?”

So I said it again. “My mother, Mr. Smarty, is my mother.”

Oh, I liked that! My mother is my mother. It made perfect sense to me, and sounded in my head like a piece of music.

In the market I couldn't find the Norwegian sardines Mom wanted. I asked a woman if she knew where the sardines were. “My mother wants them,” I said. That was okay, but then I couldn't seem to stop saying, My mother this . . . My mother that . . . “They're my mother's favorite sardines.” “My mother only wants that special kind.” “My mother loves Norwegian sardines.” All the time this poor lady was steering me to the right aisle, she probably thought I was mental. Hearing myself saying
My
mother
gave me this almost scary thrill. As if I was doing something wonderful and forbidden, and I kept wanting to laugh. (At least I got the sardines.)

Something very strange today. I went for a walk with Grandfather after supper. We were just chatting. He told me how he used to be this terrific softball player and how he still loves the game. “We'll have to get up a game one of these weekends,” he said. “Let's see, you and me. Grandma, your mother. Merle, that's more than half a team already.”

And right then, it came to me that I had been cheated. That for
eight years I had been cheated
. Cheated of my family, my grandparents, my sister, my mother. And it was Daddy who had cheated me. I had the most hateful, sickening thoughts. That Daddy had lied to me, cheated me, taken me, taken everything away from me. I went completely weak. I leaned against a tree. I was trembling, rubbing my knuckles against the tree.

“Terri!” Grandfather grabbed my hands. “Look what
you're doing to yourself, dear!” I had scraped my knuckles raw. They were bleeding.

Night, under the covers . . . flashlight, Leah sleeping . . . I hear Mom and Merle in the other room. Say to myself. That is my mother in there. I can open the door, call her, and she'll answer, come to see what I want.

This morning, Merle made breakfast. “Everybody out of the kitchen. I'm cooking.” A huge feast—southern spoon bread, fried potatoes, ham omelette, fruit salad, and cocoa. While we were eating. Mom said, “Give me your hand, Terri. Hold it up.” She put her fingers against mine. “Merle, look, our fingers are the same. Look, we both have long fingers with very short square nails. And look at Terri's thumb—it's just like mine, with that little kink in it.”

Holding my hand up against hers, the warmth of her hand against mine, I knew I didn't want to leave.