Somewhere Out There (2 page)

Brooke dropped her blanket to her lap and shook her head. “I don’t want to.” She hated it when I left her alone. I tried not to do it very often, but sometimes, I didn’t have a choice. There were certain things a little girl shouldn’t see her mother do.

“I’ll only be gone a few minutes,” I told her, and my stomach clenched. I pointed to the store. “I’m just going to head inside, grab a few things, and I’ll be right back.”

“I wanna go with you.”

I sighed. “Not this time. You need to stay here. Can you be my brave, big girl and watch your sister?”

Brooke looked to her right, lifted her blanket from her lap, and brushed its edge against her baby sister’s cheek. Natalie, who had finally stopped crying, made a happy, gurgling sound; she loved her big sister so much. I’d hated being an only child; if I was grateful for anything, it was that they’d always have each other.

“Okay,” Brooke squeaked, not looking at me.

“Thanks, sweetie. I promise to be quick.” I slung my empty red backpack over my shoulder and got out of the car into the cold, dark night.
At least it’s not the middle of summer,
I reasoned.
At least I’m not leaving them to swelter in the heat.
As though that distinction made any of this okay.

It was early October, and the air felt like it had teeth, nipping at my cheeks. Fat, cheerful-looking pumpkins rested in huge piles up against the building; scarlet leaves on the skinny maples lining the parking lot danced in each new gust of wind. I thought about what I might be doing if I was a normal twenty-year-old girl—I might be in college, planning what costume I would wear for Halloween. I might have a boyfriend who brought me flowers and took me to the movies; I might have a group of girlfriends I shopped with at the mall. I might be carefree and content instead of how I felt right now—how I almost always felt—tired, hungry, and scared.

Despite my apprehension, I waved and smiled at Brooke through the window. She waved back, tentatively, but as soon as I locked the doors, her bottom lip quivered, and I knew she was barely holding it together. When Natalie began to cry again, Brooke leaned over and patted her sister’s small hand.

She’ll be okay,
I told myself as I spun around and walked away.
They both will. I have to do this. I’ll be back as fast as I can.

I jogged across the parking lot, trying to block out the sound of Natalie’s cries as I entered the building. As the automatic doors shut with a
whoosh
behind me, I quickly surveyed the immediate area—there was no one else around. At this time of night I hoped there would only be a few employees—a couple of stockers and a cashier at most, a few other shoppers, and maybe a night manager working somewhere in the back. I had to be quick. Casual, but quick.

I strode past the enormous Halloween display, ignoring the bags of candy and decorative plastic skeletons. I grabbed a small cart, which I directed toward the produce section. I filled a clear plastic bag with six apples, carefully looking around before slipping four more into my backpack. I picked up two packages of baby carrots and put one in the cart, one in my bag.

So far, so good.
I turned the corner, only to run right into a tall, skinny man with shaggy, shoulder-length blond hair and acne-pocked cheeks. He wore a white, short-sleeve shirt covered by a green apron and brown corduroy pants. He didn’t look much older than me. A small, plastic tag pinned to his shirt said his name was Rick.

“Whoa,” I said, giving him my best smile, even as my heart pounded against my rib cage. “Sorry. Wasn’t looking where I was going.”

Rick smiled, too, revealing slightly crooked, yellow teeth. “No worries.” He surveyed the contents of my cart. “Finding everything all right?”

“Yep. Just picking up a few things I forgot to grab earlier.”

“Let me know if you need anything. I’m over on aisle four.”

“Thanks,” I said again, then pushed my cart past him with as much confidence as I could muster, making sure to head in the opposite direction from where he was working.

Just keep going and get the hell out of here,
I thought. Luckily, the Oreos were on an end cap I passed, so I put one package in my basket and another in my backpack, then moved on toward the baby aisle. I dumped a dozen jars of baby food for Natalie on top of the cookies, along with a box of teething biscuits. The last two things I needed were a loaf of bread and peanut butter, so I made my way to the bakery, keeping my eyes open for other employees as I snuck those into my bag, too.

I told myself I was only taking enough to last us a few days—that I’d make better money at a different intersection tomorrow. I tried to believe that stealing food for my children wasn’t a crime. That it didn’t make me a bad person, but a good one. Don’t good mothers do anything necessary for their kids? If I’d had the cash, I would have paid for it all, but buying diapers and wipes and formula for Natalie had taken my last fifty bucks.

I was only a few feet away from the cash registers when I heard Rick call out behind me. “Hey!” His voice was hard. “Wait!”

Shit
. I stopped and turned to face him. “Hey,” I said, giving him what I hoped was a charming smile. My stomach churned. “So, you won’t believe this, but I left my wallet at home.” I gestured toward the half-full cart. “I’ll have to come back.” I looked in the direction of the same doors I’d entered and was about to walk toward them when Rick spoke again.

“No.” He frowned at me and held out his hand. “I need to look in your backpack.”

“What?” I said. I tried to sound offended, but my shaking voice gave me away. “Why?”

Rick kept his arm outstretched. “My manager has you on tape,” he said with a stern look. “He saw everything.”

I thought about arguing, pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about, but realized if there was a tape, denial would be pointless. “Please, you don’t understand,” I said, tears flooding my eyes. “I never do this . . . I just . . . My kids are hungry and I ran out of money. We’re homeless. I didn’t know what else to do.” I glanced over his shoulder and saw a short, burly bald man striding toward us, his stubby arms swinging at his sides.

“Sorry,” Rick said. His expression softened. “But you still need to give me the bag.”

Reluctantly, I handed over my backpack, feeling the blood rush by my ears. All I could think about was the girls, outside, sitting alone and afraid in the dark. I would do anything it took to get back to them.

The manager approached us and snatched the backpack from Rick’s grasp. “Someone’s been busy,” he said, with a hint of disgust. He had tiny blue eyes and small hands; his name tag said
STEVE
.

“Look, this was a huge mistake,” I said, hoping I could plead my way out of this mess. I looked at Rick. “Seriously, I’ve never done anything like it.” A lie, but one I hoped they might believe.

The manager stared at me. “Uh-huh.”

I stepped forward and put my hand on his thick forearm. “It’s the truth, I swear. I just needed to feed my kids. I couldn’t let them starve. Please, just let me go and I swear I’ll never come back.”

Steve hesitated, and I thought I might have gotten through to him until I saw a brief flash of red and blue lights outside the glass doors.

My blood ran cold. “You called the police?” I’d only been in the store for ten minutes, at most. The manager must have been watching me the entire time.

“It’s store policy,” Rick said, sounding a little sorry to relay the information.

“Wait, please,” I begged. “You can’t do this.”

“Yes, I can,” Steve said, pulling away from my touch.

The
whoosh
of the doors opening silenced me, and two police officers came in to stand beside me. “This is her?” the younger one asked, taking me by the arm. He was almost as tall as Rick, but with a bigger build. His black hair was shorn into a buzz cut and his blue shirt was tight around his biceps. He smelled like cologne and stale coffee.

“Yep,” Steven said. “Claims she was stealing to feed her kids.” He unzipped my backpack and rummaged through its contents, coming up with a jar of pureed squash. “Might be true.” He shrugged, like either way, it made no difference to him.

“It is true,” I said. My voice broke on the words. “Please. They’re still in my car.”

The older officer finally spoke. “You left your kids alone out there?” He squinted, then looked toward the parking lot.

“I’ll go check,” the younger officer said, letting go of my arm. “Keys?”

“Please, let me go with you,” I said, trying not to cry as I dug into my front pocket, then handed the keys to him. I imagined Brooke seeing the officer opening the car door, her screams as she realized it was anyone other than me. She had a real fear of strangers; for her own safety, living the way we did, I’d done my best to teach her not to trust anyone but me.

The young officer took off without a word, and I couldn’t help it—the tears I’d been holding back began to fall. “Please,” I said again, my entire body starting to shake. “Let me at least tell them it’s going to be okay.” Another lie, but one I hoped my little girl might believe.

“What’s your name, young lady?” the older officer asked. His voice was stern, unyielding. His thick, gray mustache reminded me of my grandfather who’d died of a heart attack when I was ten. The way my grandma had cried at his funeral sounded like a howling wolf; my mother, a woman whose idea of showing emotion was a pat on the back, had been mortified. Three years later, when my grandma passed away, too, my mother didn’t shed one tear.

My chin trembled. “Jennifer Walker.”

“And what am I going to find when I punch your name into the system, Jennifer? Have you done this dance before?”

I held his gaze for a moment, thinking of all the decisions I’d made over the past four years, so many of them like tonight, knowing what the consequences might be, but still, thinking I knew best, deciding to take the risk.

“Yes,” I told the officer, and then dropped my eyes to the floor. There was no sense trying to hide it; he would find out everything soon enough.

•  •  •

“This makes your fourth count of petty theft,” my social worker, Gina Ortiz, said, looking at the thick file on the table between us. It was the morning after my arrest, and my public defender had left the small interview room in the police station just moments ago, after he informed me there was no way I was going to get out of spending at least a couple months in jail. “Up to two years,” he’d said. “Maybe more, if things don’t go your way.”

But the girls,
I wanted to scream.
What about my girls?
I’d been in trouble before; I’d even been put in a jail cell a time or two—only for a few hours, never overnight, and I’d always managed to get off with a warning or a fine. Now, here I was, contemplating the possibility that Natalie might learn to walk without me there to hold her hand.

The fact that I had children wasn’t the lawyer’s problem; it was Gina’s. I’d met her two years ago, when CPS was called in after I’d been caught shoplifting for the first time, before I got pregnant with Natalie. She’d kept Brooke with her in the lobby while I went through processing at the police station, and then, when I was released with a warning because the store decided to not press charges, she told me I had to attend parenting classes, starting the following week. I’d blown them off, of course, and seeing her now, I felt a stinging pang of regret.

Gina was a heavier woman, thick around the middle with skinny legs, which I imagined probably made it difficult to find pants. Today, she wore a black pencil skirt and a red blouse with a big bow at the base of her neck. The color flattered her toffee-toned skin. “Not only that,” she continued, “it’s your second charge of child endangerment and neglect.” She paused, and looked at me over the top of her glasses, which were perched on the tip of her slender nose. “Do you know what that means?”

I shook my head, pressing my lips together so I wouldn’t cry. I dug the fingernails into my opposite arm until I drew blood; I’d already bitten my nails down to the quick. Could she really be talking about me, endangering my children? Sure, leaving them alone in the car wasn’t the best decision I’d ever made, but it wasn’t like I gave Brooke knives to play with while I was gone. I wasn’t cooking crack in a kitchen while they sat on the floor.

“It means that while you go to jail, the girls go into foster care.”

“No,” I said. “Maybe the lawyer was wrong. Maybe the judge will understand I was just trying to feed them.” A couple of fat tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t bother wiping them away. “Please? Can you just wait and see what the judge says?”

Gina sighed, removed her glasses, and closed the folder in front of her. Her dark hair was pulled into a bun on top of her head with a few pieces hanging around her round face; she tucked the loose strands behind both her ears and looked at me. “It won’t make a difference. It’s almost certain you’ll be convicted of theft and abuse. The girls are being removed from your care. When you get out, we can talk about a plan to get them back, but at this point, I’m sorry, Jennifer. There’s nothing you can do.”

“I don’t abuse my children!” I cried, feeling as though she’d just hit my chest with a hammer; pain crackled along my ribs. “I’ve never even spanked Brooke! I just . . . made a mistake.”

“Not just one mistake,” Gina said. She gave me a pointed look. “And that doesn’t count the times you didn’t get caught.”

My cheeks flamed, and I couldn’t lift my eyes to hers. “I love them so much,” I said, unsure of how I could prove this to the woman who held the fate of my girls in her hands. I could tell her how much I knew about them—how Brooke slept with one corner of her “soft side” stuck in her ear; how she giggled when I burped my ABCs, and how she sang “Row, Row, Row Your Goat,” but I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong. I could tell her how Natalie smiled when I kissed her belly, how she rolled over for the first time when she was only three months old and then started to cry, she was so scared by what she’d just done. I longed to show Gina that despite all I’d done wrong, there were at least a few things as a mother I’d done right.