In Search of Eden (26 page)

The road wound around for a while before it arrived at the pond. She couldn't see the pond from here, just a cow pasture on one side and woods on the other. She didn't see any cows. There were a few dark shapes that she supposed might have been cows. Or something else. She looked quickly to the other side, but it looked dark and scary in the thicket of trees, and she was beginning to wonder if she should have come. She passed the Millers'
house. It was dark and closed up. She happened to know for a fact that they had gone to Phoenix to see their son and wouldn't be back until the first of June. She got a funny feeling then. She didn't really know Grady or his father, and for just a second she thought about turning around and going back to Grandma's.

But as she came around the corner, she saw the trailer parked by the side of the pond. The front door was open, and golden light spilled out of the windows. Someone had made a fire on the ground in front of the trailer, and Grady and his dad were sitting there in folding chairs.

She got off her bike and set it down, then walked the rest of the way down to the trailer.

“Well, well, well,” Grady's dad said. “It's the lovely Miss Eden. To what do we owe this honor?”

“I just thought I'd come and see where y'all lived.”

Grady eyed her with puzzlement. Mr. Adair just smiled and then stood up and said, “Please, sit down,” and went inside to get another folding chair.

“What's the matter with you?” Grady asked when his father had gone inside the trailer.

“What do you mean, what's the matter with me?”

“You look like you been crying. Your eyes is all swollen up, and your nose is red.”

Eden sniffed her nose and cleared her throat. “Nothing's wrong with me. I just felt like taking a ride. That's all.”

Grady's dad came back just then and unfolded the chair and sat down. “Eden, could I offer you some refreshment? A Coca-Cola or 7-Up perhaps?”

“I wouldn't turn down a Coca-Cola,” she said with dignity. She was a little parched from all that crying and from the long ride.

“I'll be right back with it.” He went inside again and brought her back a can of Coke, and she popped the top and drank some. It felt good going down, and the sweetness made her feel a little better.

“So Grady here tells me you're not from around these parts. That you live with your grandmother.”

“That's right,” she said and took another drink and tried not to slurp or drink so fast that she'd burp.

“Where do you hail from originally?”

“Fairfax,” she said. “Up by Washington, D.C.”

“I'm familiar with it,” he said with a nod. “A beautiful place. My current business seldom brings me that far north, but I have enjoyed it in my youth.”

Mr. Adair was funny. Different, but she liked him. “What kind of business are you in?” she asked and took another sip.

Grady ducked his head. Mr. Adair smiled. “I'm in the people business, Eden. Sometimes I sell goods, sometimes services, but what it all boils down to is people. That's what I always say.”

Eden thought that didn't really answer her question, and she was getting ready to ask another when Grady reminded her why she'd come. “When's your folks coming?” he asked. “I thought you was going home soon.”

“Were, son, were,” Mr. Adair said with a gentle smile.

“Yes, sir.” Grady ducked his head again.

“They're not coming,” she said. The words came out dull and flat, and her tone made Mr. Adair and Grady both look at her. This time Eden ducked her head. She dug her tennis shoe around in the dirt and made some scuffs.

“Not ever?” Grady asked.

She shrugged. “My dad said he needed some more time to get well.”

“Your father isn't well?” Mr. Adair asked.

Eden shook her head. “He got in a car accident. My mom's with him in Minnesota. I've been here since Christmas.”

“Umm.” Mr. Adair shook his head sympathetically.

“My mom left,” Grady said, looking down at his shoes and then flicking his eyes up at her.

Mr. Adair said nothing. She glanced at him to see if he was angry with Grady, but he just looked sort of sad. And older. The
fire cracked and popped, and a little meteor of sparks showered up and rained down, dissolving into darkness again. Eden didn't say anything, either, but she felt a little better somehow. Grady and Mr. Adair both knew how it felt to have somebody not want you around. She felt comforted.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes with the fire popping. Then Grady said, “Why don't we roast some marshmallows,” and he went inside to get them. Mr. Adair helped her find some sticks, and he sharpened the ends with his pocketknife. Grady came back with the bag, and they speared them onto the sticks and roasted them. Eden ate the brown outside first, liking the way it crunched and then collapsed. Then she licked the soft middle, and finally she ate the very center.

They were spearing another marshmallow each when Eden heard a car coming down the gravel road toward them. She tensed, wondering if Uncle Joseph or Grandma had found her. She glanced toward Grady and his dad, and oddly enough, they were both looking worried, too. Mr. Adair stood up, but when the white van came around the corner, he relaxed. She looked at Grady's face, and it lost the pinched, scared look.

“That's my dad's business partner,” he said. “Mikey.”

“Don't bore our guest with things she's not interested in, son,” Mr. Adair said.

Eden almost said she was interested and wished she had her notebook to prove it, but she remembered she'd left it at Grandma's on her bedside table.

The man named Mikey parked the van and got out.
White male, midthirties, approximately five-feet-ten-inches tall, stocky build with light brown hair and a mustache.
He looked over toward Eden and Grady and started to say something, but Mr. Adair had gotten up to meet him, which was too bad, because it meant Eden couldn't hear what they were saying. They stood a little ways away. Mikey started talking first. Mr. Adair nodded a few times, but he didn't look very happy. Mikey handed him an envelope, and Mr. Adair took it. Mr. Adair said something, then shook his head. Mikey
smiled sort of like the mean girls at school did, and then pointed over toward her and Grady. Mr. Adair looked mad and said something else. Mr. Adair turned around and walked away then, and Mikey smiled again and got into the van. “I'll see you tomorrow, Johnny,” he hollered out and waved at her and Grady. Eden sniffed and turned away. She didn't like him. She didn't know why, she just didn't, and just on a hunch she looked back and made a note of the license plate. She was running it over in her mind to memorize it when Mr. Adair sat down again. He looked sad, so Eden thought she'd better leave.

She checked the time on her night ops watch. She had tried not to think about Grandma and Uncle Joseph, but she knew she couldn't put it off forever.

“I'd better go home now,” she said.

Mr. Adair was still frowning, but he stopped and looked at her when she spoke. “I'll drive you,” he said. “You can put your bike in the back of the truck.”

But Eden shook her head so hard her hair got in her eyes and stuck to the marshmallow around her mouth. “No,” she said. “I'll be fine.”

Mr. Adair looked at her for a minute, then nodded. “Grady, get your bike and see Eden home.”

Grady nodded and flew to his bike. The two of them walked to the end of the graveled road; then Grady went first and she went after.

Miranda stayed in the library until it closed at nine. After she had named the object of her search to her new acquaintance, Eden, she wondered why she had been so slow to think of the obvious. To understand what Noreen had done with her child and why, she needed to understand Noreen. The key wasn't in trying to guess at some random spot in the universe and go there to find her baby. The only way Noreen's decision would make
sense would be when Miranda understood the one who had made it.

Her mother's life held the clues that would lead to the baby. Miranda just knew it. The only hint she had was what Aunt Bobbie had said. Mama had put the baby with someone she trusted. To know who she trusted, Miranda would need to understand her wounds. When she knew the wounds, she would understand the medicine needed. When she knew who had administered it, then she would know the truth. She marveled. She shook her head at the direction her search was leading. Back over ground she had been told to ignore, into caves she had been warned away from. She had to admit she had been perfectly happy to leave them unexplored. But now she knew that the only way out was to go further in. All this time she'd been looking for her baby. She should have been searching for her mother.

She pulled out another stack of reference books, and the research was much simpler now that she had a definite person to search for. She could see very quickly that it would begin by getting her mother's vital records. Birth certificate, death certificate, marriage license. She tried to remember. Where had they been when they married? Mother had come from either Virginia or West Virginia. She wasn't sure which. An Internet search revealed that the Virginia and West Virginia Departments of Vital Statistics would provide her with copies of all the documents for a fee. However, she didn't know everything she needed to fill out the application. A phone call to Aunt Bobbie was in order. Perhaps now that Mama was gone and Aunt Bobbie had given her the baby's picture, details of their early life would be a little more forthcoming.

She stood up and stretched, returned the books to the shelves, and left the library just as the staff were turning out the lights. The night was cool and cloudless, the moon full. It was beautiful. She could hear crickets and frogs, and a gentle breeze shushed the trees. She got in Mr. Cooper's car and rolled down the window, letting the cool air blow on her face as she drove. She headed
toward the motel, and after a moment she passed two kids on bikes coming toward her on a side road. One of them was Eden. Behind her was a boy.

“Hey, Eden,” she called.

“Oh, hi,” Eden answered, as casually as if she rode her bike on dark roads every day of the week.

“What are you guys doing out here?”

The boy looked alarmed, Eden more inconvenienced.

“She's okay,” Eden said to the boy, turning halfway around. The boy still looked unconvinced.

Miranda had to smile. He was a beanpole, and although it was dark, she could tell he had red hair and freckles. He reminded her of Opie on
Andy Griffith.

“What are you two doing out here so late?” she repeated.

“He was just riding me home,” Eden said, and it was not lost on Miranda that she hadn't answered the question.

“Get in and I'll drive you,” she said.

Eden looked back at the boy and shrugged. “Okay,” she said.

Miranda put the car in park and got out to open the trunk. She looked up and the boy had disappeared. “Wow, that was quick,” she said.

“He's like that,” Eden said matter-of-factly. “A little bit shy.”

They got the bike situated, Eden got in and buckled her belt, and Miranda was just pulling out onto the road again when she saw flashing lights behind her. “Oh no,” she said. “It couldn't be!”

But it was. The same unmarked cop car that had pulled her over a few weeks ago was behind her now.

Eden looked just as alarmed as she felt. In fact, she ducked down as if she expected a hail of bullets.

“This jerk of a cop has been harassing me ever since I got to town.” Just as the words left Miranda's mouth, the lights went on, quickly followed by a whoop of the siren.

She exhaled noisily and pulled over to the side of the road.

“Can you get out and talk to him?” Eden asked.

Miranda frowned and was just getting ready to ask why Eden
didn't want to encounter the police when a shadow loomed in front of the window. His face peered in again. His expression began as incredulous and quickly sobered into grim, barely disguised anger.

“Get out of the car, Eden.”

“What next? Are you going to tell her to keep her hands where you can see them?” Miranda burst out. “She's a kid, for crying out loud, not a perp. And I'm not kidnapping her. I'm giving her a ride home.”

The policeman gave Miranda a withering glare. “Do what I said,” he told Eden.

She started to open the door, but Miranda stopped her, putting a hand on her arm.

“Hold on just a minute,” she said. “Who do you think you are? You don't have any right to tell this child to get out of my car.”

“I don't have to explain myself to you,” he said, and the glare became deeper.

“I think you do,” she said. “You're forcibly taking this child, and she doesn't want to go with you.”

“It's okay,” Eden said, looking dismayed at the turn of events.

“No. It's not okay.” Miranda turned toward the policeman again. “I'm a private citizen doing nothing unlawful.”