One for the Murphys (18 page)

Not long after, I remember someone else screaming, “Get down! Get down on the floor! Now!” It must have been the police talking to Dennis. I heard them wrestle him to the floor. I heard him swearing, saying this was a family matter and to mind their own business. I heard the clicking of the handcuffs.

Someone knelt in front of me, but I was too tired to open my eyes all the way. Someone with shiny black shoes and a sad voice.

That was when I wondered if people like me go to heaven.

I turn to Mrs. MacAvoy and Mrs. Murphy, but I’m afraid to open my mouth.

“You know, Carley,” Mrs. Murphy says, “your mom knew what she was doing. She put her life on the line for yours. That’s what a real mother does.”

“A mother who really
loves
you, Carley,” Mrs. MacAvoy adds.

L
ater that night I sit on the front steps. It’s warm out and the trees blow back and forth. I think about how they bend in the wind but rarely break.

I think about heroes. How they do the hard things that no one else can do.

I think about Mr. Murphy and his deep sandpapery laugh and how he risks his life so strangers can live. What kind of person goes to work every day not knowing if he’ll come home?

And most of all, I think about Mrs. Murphy—the way she gives everything, does everything, holds us all up. Meeting her makes me feel like God has started paying attention. The way she reached in, pulled me out, dusted me off, and said that I only need to be the great person that I am.

I hear the door open behind me. It’s Mrs. Murphy.

“Mind if I join you?” Mrs. Murphy asks.

“Sure.” I move over.

She sits next to me. “So what’re you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“Do you mind if I ask about what?”

“My new book. It’s called
Giving Tree Meets Chainsaw and Becomes Coffee Table
.”

“Oh boy.” She takes a deep breath. “So we’re in that kind of mood, huh?”

“I thought you’d think it was funny.” I wait before I finish, trying to decide if I should. “I still hate that book, though.”

“I understand.”

Mrs. Murphy’s soft expression makes me think how the tree in that book shouldn’t be a stump; it should be bigger and greener from loving the little boy.

“So, are you nervous about seeing your mother again tomorrow, now that you know what really happened?”

“Well… yeah. I guess, a little.” I think about my mother and all that happened that night and how I misjudged her. How she risked herself to save me in the end. How she must have been afraid and did it anyway.

There’s a long silence. Finally I ask, “I’m never going to see you again, am I? I mean, assuming I go back to my mother like Mrs. MacAvoy predicts. I won’t see you again.”

“Well… Mrs. MacAvoy thinks that you need some time to realign yourself with your own mom. Without… the distraction of us. It’s for your own good, she says.”

“But no one would have to know! I could call you secretly. Or you could call me?” I know her answer even as I suggest this. The woman who loves rules would never break one as big as this.

“It’s for your own protection.”

“That’s garbage.”

“It will take time, Carley. Be patient with yourself.”

That sounds hard.

“I’ve been thinking, though,” she continues.

“Yeah?” I don’t look at her.

“I hope you go to college.”

“College? You’re kidding me. People like
me
don’t go to college.”

“You mean bright, creative people?”

“My mom would never let me do that.”

“If you wanted to go, your mother wouldn’t be able to stop you. True, it would be harder, but there are scholarships and grants. Talk to the counselors at your school. They can help you navigate all of that. But
you
have to take charge. You, Carley.”

Can I imagine myself doing that? I’m afraid to think of the future. And then I think of Daniel. How I stood in the driveway giving him a speech on courage. About being afraid and doing it anyway, because you can’t score points if you don’t take shots.

“And you know, Carley…” Her tone wraps its arm around me. “I know that you’ll find it difficult to leave us… but try to think of it not as leaving us but as going to something new. Maybe you’ve learned some things here. You know, about what you want.”

I look at her.

“You can have this for real, you know—not just wishing you could have what others have.”

How does she know I think about that?

“You can go to college. Have a career you love. You can find yourself married to a goofball Red Sox fanatic.” She laughs. “You may even find yourself chasing three wild boys. You can make this life if you want it. Any life that you want.”

“But… I want
this
family.” I wish I could lean on her.

“I know,” she whispers.

It seems like too much. How could I do all these things she says like it’s nothing? I gather the strength to really look at her. “I don’t want to go. Please don’t make me.”

“Not up to me, sweetheart.” She swallows her tears, I think. “And it will be awful when you go. But I’m so happy you’ve been a part of our lives, Carley. It’s better that we all met each other than not, don’t you think?”

I nod.

“Yeah,” Mrs. Murphy whispers, looking up at the dark sky.

I can’t stop thinking about the college thing. “I guess I’d like to be a teacher,” I turn to her. “Help kids like you did.”

“It’s just a matter of making a decision and following through. You’re smart enough and special enough to pull it off.” She bumps my shoulder with hers, and I think of Toni.

She takes a deep breath like she’s getting ready to lift something heavy. “Remember that friend I had in foster care who had a rough time? That… was
me
.”

“But you seem so normal!”

She laughs again. “Well, I like to think so.” She looks me in
the eye. “Carley, it wasn’t my fault I was in foster care. When I was young I had this crazy idea that it was, but when I got older, I realized I didn’t have that kind of power. My parents did.”

“Were you in a house like this?”

“I bounced around foster care for four years. Not optimal situations. But it forced me to decide what kind of life I wanted. And I went after it when I was old enough.”

I feel betrayed. “You should have told me.”

“I wanted your stay here to be about
you
—not me.”

Wow.

We sit for a long time until she asks, “What’s that mischievous smile about?”

“Well, I was thinking that… maybe if I go to college and
do
become a teacher someday…”

She waits for me.

“. . . Maybe I’ll be someone’s hero. You know, like Michael Eric’s sign. I know. That sounds dumb, huh?”

She puts her pointer finger under my chin and lifts my face to look her in the eye. “That’s not dumb. Not at all. I have no doubt that you’ll do whatever you put your mind to.”

All of a sudden, I just have to stand. And something I’ve never known before grows inside and rises up through the center of me.

I stand tall, looking back at Mrs. Murphy. “I’ll have a happy life someday,” I say. And they’re more than just words. My insides are steel. Unbreakable. “It won’t always be like this for me. Someday, I will have a happy life. I swear I will.”

Her eyes tear up. “That’s right, Carley. And don’t you
ever
settle for anything less.”

I
stand in the doorway to my mom’s room, holding a package of Oreos, and I watch how she’s all curled up with her back to me. How we must look alike that way.

“Mom?” I ask.

She jolts a little but doesn’t answer me. I step into the room.

“Mom? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me what really happened that night? Is it true? Did you save me?”

I hear her crying. Harder now.

“Mom, it’s okay. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She rolls onto her back and sits up. “Oh, Carley, I don’t know. I guess I thought you’d remember. And… to tell the truth…” She clears her throat. “Then when I first saw you again, I hardly knew you. I mean, you were dressed so nice and your hair and…”

She stares at her lap and cries some more. “That MacAvoy woman told me that the family who had you really took to you.
That you were doing real good and making good marks in school and had a best friend.” She looks at me. “And I just thought that…”

I wait as she goes silent. Finally, I ask, “What, Mom? What is it?”

“I thought it wouldn’t make a difference what I’d done helping you that night. Not after what I’d done before. Oh, Carley. I can’t believe I did that.”

I stuff my hands in my pockets.

“And I thought that if those people wanted to keep you, that…” She puts her hands over her face. “That you would have a better life without me.”

“But
you’re
my mom!”

She lets out a bunch of air all at once. “Then you don’t want that Murphy woman to be your mom instead?”

The wind’s been knocked out of me, but I try to smile. “She would never call me at school on my birthday.”

She laughs through her tears. “Oh, my Carley, I’m so sorry I missed your birthday!”

For the first time, I am too. “So, you couldn’t walk, huh?” I say, staring at her legs under a white sheet.

“No, but I can walk now. I’m just about done with the walker too. They say they never seen someone work as hard as me. I should be out in a week or so.”

A week? I only have a week? “So we’re going to move back to Grandpa’s?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking on this hard, and I think we’re Vegas girls, you and I. We have to be in a place where there’s life, things
going on, you know? My cousin will give me cash for the condo. It will work out finer than fine, Carley. You wait and see.”

Leaving Connecticut? My head tells me my mom is my home, but the rest of me says I belong here with the Murphys and my best friend.

“So start collecting your things,” she says. “We’ll be heading back soon. You’ll see. It will be great. It will be just like it was.”

I back up against the wall.

As I walk into the kitchen, Mrs. Murphy looks up from the counter to see how I am, and it hits me again how much I will miss her. She says, “Hey. Are you doing okay? How did it go? Is your mom doing better?”

I like how she asks how I am before everything else. “We worked things out.”

“Good. That’s good news, Carley.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, Carley, if I could talk to your mom, I’d thank her for raising such a great person. She’s made mistakes, I know. But she’s obviously done something right too.”

I blurt out, “My mom is probably going to being released next week. Then she wants us to move back to Las Vegas.” I focus on her face to see if she cares.

“That’s terrific news for you and your mom, Carley. I’m happy for you both.”

I am sad that she reacts this way until I look at her face and see she’s forcing it.

“Not so happy for us, though,” Mrs. Murphy adds. She
watches the floor as she leans against the counter and I realize she never looks down like that. Her voice is a whisper now. “We
will
miss you… terribly.”

I think of my mom and then of Mrs. Murphy. How she’s both strong and gentle; the two, twisted together like soft-serve ice cream. I wish hard that there could be two of me. One for my mother.

And one for the Murphys.

O
ver my last few days with the Murphys I keep staring at them, thinking about how I’ll miss them, wondering if they’ll remember me. Wondering if I’ll ever see them again.

While I was helping Mrs. Murphy with dinner, I asked her if I could come see her when I’m all grown up. Like if I showed up one day without telling her, if I just came searching for her, if it would be okay.

She cleared her throat. “There would never be a day when I wouldn’t want to see you.”

Tonight, the house is quiet except for the audience laughter that comes from Jay Leno playing in Mrs. Murphy’s bedroom. I’ve always thought it was funny that on the nights Mr. Murphy is at the station, Jay Leno takes his place.

I think about Mom. I am freaked about the whole thing. Going back to Vegas. Even if things are okay, it won’t be like here.
No apple pies or fresh beds. The days of someone taking care of me are over.

I remember how my mom used to say we were the same. That the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I think, now, that although the apple can come from the tree, it can land on the ground and roll down a hill and end up in a totally different place.

A… totally… different place.

I steel myself and look up at my hero sign. I’m going to put my head down and do what I have to. I so wish, though, that I could do it with the Murphys, but I know that I belong with my mom. As Mrs. Murphy says, family comes first.

Doesn’t it?

Heading back to Vegas could be okay. I mean, I had some friends there. I think of the looks on their faces when I turn up again. But there’s a problem. One big thing that worries me.

I am different now.

I… am a Murphy.

I know not in name, but I can’t imagine life without them. Without Michael Eric and his crooked smile. Adam with his flaming red hair and pockets of cars. Daniel—intense Daniel who is more like me than I would ever have imagined. And Mr. Murphy, that crazy Sox fan who managed to soften up Toni Byars.

But it’s Julie Murphy who will keep a chunk of me here. I have a terrible longing in my stomach; there’s one thing I need from her before I go, but I don’t know how to ask. I lean my forehead against the glass of the window and push—not hard enough to break it but hard enough to feel like I could.

I think back to the very beginning here, when I watched Mrs. Murphy hold and rock Michael Eric over such a small thing as a hurt hand and couldn’t understand it. Now, I long for a piece of it. I know this will be the last time I’ll get a chance to know what that feels like.

My feet do the walking as I try to decide. A mechanical kind of walk. Twenty steps to Mrs. Murphy’s bedroom is a good even number and a multiple of ten.