Somebody Else's Daughter (16 page)

He pulled the van out of the school's driveway and headed up the road. She studied the back of his neck. His hair was cut short and his collar was perfectly ironed. She would bet that Mrs. Heath had ironed it herself. Ada had told her that Mrs. Heath did everything for Mr. Heath. Willa couldn't help feeling a little sorry for her. She couldn't help wondering what it was like for Ada, having him for a dad.

It began to rain. On the sidewalks of Pittsfield, people were rushing under umbrellas. She noticed a man jumping in a puddle, his face lit with glee—there must be something wrong with him, she thought. They were on North Street, near the ballet studio where Ada took dance, where she probably was right now, in fact, rehearsing for
The Nutcracker,
which she did every Christmas. Pittsfield was an odd little town, she thought, with its shadowy storefronts. Heath turned down a narrow street by the courthouse. The soup kitchen was on the corner. Last year, Willa had served homeless people at long tables with white paper cloths. This one time she had served a woman a bowl of soup and the woman had grabbed her hand and said, “Why don't you smile once in a while?” For some reason it had upset Willa, and she'd run into the bathroom and cried and washed her hands. Mr. Heath pulled the van up in front. There were some people hanging out on the steps, smoking. “I'll be back in two hours,” Heath said, letting the sophomores out. “Be waiting for me in that vestibule.”

He got back into the van and pulled out and it was just the two of them. He looked at her again in the rearview mirror. “How you doing back there?”

“I'm good.” She felt weird. She didn't know what to say.

“Good for you for wanting to do this,” he said. “You should be very proud.”

She thanked him, but she didn't feel proud. Not really. She hadn't applied for the internship because she'd wanted to—it was just something you did for your application, so you'd look good to colleges— and all the girls in her class had applied. She hadn't really thought about what Sunrise House was, or what she'd be doing there if she won the internship—and anyway, she'd never thought she'd win it in the first place. It was a women's shelter, she knew that much, a safe place for women to go when they'd been beaten up by their boyfriends and husbands. The whole idea of it, truthfully, gave her the creeps. What she knew about it was from TV and movies. Women were always getting hurt in movies: raped, shoved, beaten, held down—and sometimes, in a certain context, if, for example, the woman was stupid or evil, it made sense, and others it didn't and you felt sorry for the woman and your heart broke for her. Sometimes she would wonder: How did the woman get herself into that situation in the first place? It wouldn't be anything that
she
would do, that was for sure—she'd never be that stupid. The minute she sensed danger, she would be
out!
She couldn't imagine being shoved across a room, or bashed against a wall, or having her face punched in. But she had seen it so many times. She didn't know what it would be like to be near someone who'd been hurt like that; she'd never met a battered woman before—just those two words
battered woman
made her queasy.

Heath took several turns down one-way streets, then turned into a dead-end street flanked with small houses. At the end of a narrow driveway, he pulled up alongside a small Colonial with a front porch. The only thing that distinguished it from any of the other houses was the muddy lot next to it, which had a few parked cars. A high fence enclosed the backyard where she could see the top of a swing set and could hear the voices of children playing. “I have to walk you in this first time,” Mr. Heath told her as she climbed out of the van. He took her hand to help her and she remembered the way he'd grabbed her hand that night. Maybe he hadn't meant to be so rough. She tried not to look at him, but his eyes were very blue, almost green, and were impossible to ignore. He smiled and rubbed her shoulders in a fatherly way.

They went up onto the front porch and rang the doorbell. Willa's mouth was dry. She had the same nervous feeling she'd get when she went to the doctor. After a few minutes, a woman answered and let them in. She was a big woman, with moon-white skin and a long black braid. Her dress was brightly colored, putting Willa in mind of a Japanese kite, and on her small feet were red Mary Janes, the sort Willa had worn as a child. The woman had a frowning girl on her hip, hiding her little face in the soft pillow of her neck.

“Now, now, Gracie, just a minute.”

Mr. Heath introduced Willa to the woman, whose name was Regina.

Regina stretched out her hand. “Well, now, I am so glad to see you. We feel real privileged to have you here with us, Miss Golding.”

“You can call me Willa.”

“And who is this beautiful girl?” Mr. Heath asked the child, who refused to show him her face.

“This is Gracie,” Regina said.

“Hello there, Gracie,” Mr. Heath said, and the little girl smiled.

“Well, now, could that possibly be a smile?” Heath asked the child.

The little girl nodded apologetically.

“Well, you're the only one she smiled for the whole day,” Regina said. “Can you imagine that? I wonder what it is about you, Mr. Heath, that makes all the pretty girls smile?”

Mr. Heath blushed. Willa had the feeling that Regina flattered him often. The way they talked to each other seemed practiced and rehearsed.

“It's good to see you, Regina,” he said.

“Don't you worry about Miss Golding. We'll take good care of her.”

“You always do,” Heath said. “I'll be back at six, Willa, dear.”

They watched him go out. Regina put down the little girl and locked the door. “He's such a lovely man.” She smiled at Willa. “Welcome to Sunrise House.”

“Thank you.”

They shook hands and the little girl called Gracie wanted to shake her hand too.

“Let's go in here.” Regina led her into a small dining room. The round table in the middle was laid with a printed cloth and surrounded with all kinds of mismatched chairs. The surface of the table held stacks of papers and envelopes. She set down the child. “Go on and pick a chair, peanut, and do your coloring while I talk to this nice girl,” she told her, and the child tugged out a chair and sat down and started coloring with crayons. Willa watched her make a series of stick figures with red crayon. Regina said, “She didn't want to play outside today.”

The little girl glanced up at her suspiciously.

Willa smiled at her, but she didn't smile back. “I don't feel like playing outside either,” Willa said.

The girl kept coloring, but Willa saw her lips curl up in a smile and she felt like she'd done something right.

“First of all,” Regina said, opening her eyes very wide, “thank you for being here. We all appreciate it a whole lot.”

Willa shrugged, feeling a little shy. “You're welcome.”

“You're wondering why we picked you. I can see it in your eyes, and your shoulders are all stiff. You can relax, girl. Everybody wanted it to be you.”

“I'm not a very good student,” Willa admitted.

“Let me tell you something, honey. It's not just about the grades here. We liked what you wrote on your application. Your essay had something we don't see very often—it had heart, and that kind of thing goes a long way around here.”

Willa blushed with pride; it was the best feeling in the world.

“You're one of us, aren't you?”

Willa shrugged. She didn't know what Regina meant, but it sent a quiver through her like a small arrow. “I guess.”

“I always get a hunch about a person. I had a hunch about you.” She looked at Willa with certainty. “Any-hoo, how about a cup of cocoa? Gracie and me were just about to have one, right Gracie?”

“Uh huh,” the child said. “With marshmallows?”

“Of course with marshmallows. We make a very impressive cup of cocoa here at Sunrise House.”

They went into the small kitchen. It was neat and smelled nice, like banana bread. Willa could see some kids out in the backyard on the swing set. A woman was standing off to the side, watching them. Regina glanced out as if to check on them, then put a teakettle onto the stove and turned it on. While they were waiting for the water to boil, Regina told Willa about the shelter and how it worked. “A woman can come here whenever she's in trouble, and she can bring her kids and she can stay till she figures out what to do next.”

“What happens when you run out of space?”

“Usually, thank God, we don't. We have some people we can call on if necessary.” Willa thought about her parents' house, how it was four times the size of this place, and she felt a little sick. “During the day, we offer counseling to women,” Regina went on. “They can come in and talk. That's a big step for some. Now, for the most part, your job is with the kids. We need someone out there getting the kids off the bus. We might ask you to watch them out on the swings, or do a little art project or something. It's a big help for us. They're nice kids too. Some of them are a little messed up, but for the most part they're pretty good.”

The teapot whistled. Regina made three cups of instant cocoa and put the cups out on a tray. “Now where'd my marshmallow girl go?” She pretended she couldn't find Gracie, who was hiding behind her broad back, and said to Willa, “Have you seen my marshmallow girl?”

And Willa shrugged, playing along. “No, I haven't seen her.”

Gracie jumped up and down, up and down, clapping her hands. “I'm right here!”

“Thank goodness!” Regina handed the child a bag of marshmallows. The child pushed open the swinging door and held it open with her back, grinning importantly. Then they all sat down at the table with their cocoa and Gracie plopped a marshmallow in each cup. “Well, isn't this nice,” Regina said. “I love to have a little cocoa party in the afternoon, don't you?”

Gracie nodded.

The swinging door to the kitchen opened and the woman from outside poked her head in. “Regina, can I talk to you a minute?”

Regina got up and went into the kitchen. Willa sipped the cocoa and watched the little girl color some flowers. She had put a big fat sun up in the right-hand corner and Willa remembered how she'd do the same thing when she was little. All her pictures always had a sun, with long yellow lines reaching down like rays. She heard a car pulling up outside. Through the window, she saw a young woman get out of a taxi, yanking a little boy behind her. The taxi drove off. The woman stood there for a minute, looking at the house. The boy started to squirm and she yanked his arm, walking toward the door. The little boy's lip was trembling, and Willa knew he was trying not to cry. She rang the bell.

Willa waited a moment, expecting Regina to appear, but she did not. Willa got up and glanced into the kitchen, which was empty now, and she could see that Regina was outside with the woman. The bell rang again.

Willa went to the door and unlocked it and let the woman in. “What in hell took you so long,” she said, marching into the room. She was young, about Willa's age. She carried a big plastic Wal-Mart bag full of clothes. “Where's Regina at?”

“Outside. Hold on, I'll get her.”

“I'll get her myself,” the woman snapped. “Stay here, Tyrell.” She dropped her bag on the floor and left the boy and disappeared through the kitchen door.

“Hi,” Willa said to the boy.

“Hi.”

“This is Gracie. And I'm Willa.”

“That's a funny name.”

“I know it is. Do you want to color?”

The boy shrugged.

“Come over here with us,” Willa said, taking his small hand in her own. She led him over to the table and he climbed onto the chair. She put a piece of paper in front of him and gave him some crayons. “What do you want to draw?”

The boy shrugged and wiped his eyes. Willa guessed that he was about four years old. She hadn't spent much time with small children and she worried that she would upset him in some way. The boy's nose was running, making a slippery yellow film on his upper lip. Before she could find him a Kleenex, he wiped it on his sleeve.

Gracie finished her drawing and folded it up like a paper fan and fanned herself with it. Then she fanned the boy and the boy smiled. Willa could hear the women coming inside. Willa felt a little frightened of the boy's mother and avoided her eyes as they came into the room. She was crying and Regina had her arm around her. “Go on upstairs and lie down, Darlene,” Regina told her.

Tyrell's mother grabbed her Wal-Mart bag in the same way she had yanked the boy's arm when they'd gotten out of the taxi, and went upstairs. The boy stood up, as if to follow her. “You stay with us, Lovely One,” Regina said to him, and sat down at the table next to Willa. The boy climbed up on Regina's lap and leaned against her ample bosom and sucked his finger. They sat there for a few minutes, listening to the floorboards creak overhead as Darlene paced the room like a trapped animal. At last it was quiet. Regina said, “Why don't you take them outside for a little while, before it gets dark.”

“Okay.” Willa took each child by the hand. Walking gingerly, as though the floor had been scattered with glass, she took them out the back door into the muddy yard. The older children were sitting at a picnic table having snacks. It was getting late and the sky was beginning to darken. A stripe of orange ran across the rooftops. She could hear the caw of a crow. Gracie and Tyrell ran to the swings. “Push me! Push me!”

“I'm coming!” Willa said, helping the little boy onto the swing. His jacket was too big. “Hold on now.”