Stony River (13 page)

Her stomach was griping. She hadn't eaten all day, afraid she'd upchuck the booze. She sliced the Spam onto a plate, sprinkled canned corn like confetti over it and lit the candles on the table. “To the last night of my old life,” she said.

The hours turtled by. She'd never stayed away this long. Ma might be worried by now. Jimmy wouldn't care. He'd be lost in his Sunday blahs. Ma said Tereza should try to understand that poison from the war kept seeping out of him and not make things worse by being so difficult. If he couldn't help it, did it matter what Tereza did? She thought about Haggerty's shotgun and how powerful she'd felt with its weight on her shoulder.

Just as well it was too big to take.

She might shoot Ma instead of Jimmy.

WHEN DORIS AND SISTER CELINE
return, Miranda stands quickly.

“No visitors, Sister,” she says, searching her teacher's eyes for reassurance but seeing only pity. Doris's face looks scrubbed of emotion.

Doris and Miranda find a vacant couch and sit thigh to thigh. Doris seems uncomfortable, twisting her head this way and that as though she's never been in the lounge before. “Mother Alfreda has a tiny office,” she says.

“Does it matter?” Miranda says, wondering whether the day James died could have been worse than this one. But if something happens that makes you want to stop living, does it matter if it's better or worse than something else that made you feel the same?

Doris says, “No, of course not. I was surprised, that's all. You can bet the Pope doesn't work in a closet.” She leans forward and straightens the magazines on the low wooden table in front of them. Turns to face Miranda. “I'm very angry right now. Mother Alfreda showed me papers that make it perfectly legal for St. Bernadette's to foster or adopt you and Cian out.

“Sister Cameron said I mustn't be selfish. If the foster parents like Cian, they might adopt him. She says it could be his only chance for a real family.”

Doris's eyebrows shoot up. “Baloney. I will not let strangers adopt him. I promise you.” She pulls Miranda to her and smoothes her hair. Miranda closes her eyes to stop her tears from spilling over and imagines herself and Cian in Doris's house. Doris knows so much about the World. How will Miranda ever catch up?

“I nearly forgot,” Doris says. She opens her pocketbook. “I brought you and Cian treats for Halloween tomorrow.” She gives a rueful laugh. “I guess they're both for you, now.” She pulls out two brightly wrapped candy bars named Baby Ruth.

“I won't be allowed to keep them,” Miranda says softly, stealing a glance at Sister Celine.

“Then we'll have to eat them here.”

Miranda's never tasted a candy bar. She sucks it until the chocolate coating dissolves and drips down her chin. Doris laughs and hands her a tissue. Wipes her own mouth with another.

Miranda says, “Sister Bonita would say I'm adding to Christ's sorrows right now.”

Doris laughs again, a howl that silences the room for a few seconds. “You're gonna be okay, sweetie. You've got a scrappy soul, like me.” They sit and hold hands without speaking until visiting time is over. Doris's hands are warm and soft, her long fingernails painted red—so different from Sister Celine's serviceable hands with their bald nails clipped short and square.

Miranda doubts anyone laughs at how Doris speaks. She wouldn't permit it. Beginning tomorrow, Miranda won't either. And she'll demand to see Cian. James used to say Samhain Eve was a night for letting go as well as for grieving, a time for starting over.

When Doris goes, she leaves behind a red lipstick smear on a tissue and a timid stirring of greediness for life in Miranda.

SIX

OCTOBER 31, 1955
. In white cotton nightie, black lace bed jacket and mantilla, the Spanish Princess hopped over pavement seams, hurrying to school without her once-upon-a-time friend at her side. Tereza would have looked more authentic in the costume with her coloring, even though Daddy said you could find blondes in Spain, just not many. What about fat blondes, Linda asked. He'd shaken his head and given her a fierce hug. That was before Friday night when she told him she hated him.

He'd objected to her leaving this morning without a proper breakfast—“Your brain needs more fuel than cold leftover potatoes”—but she wanted to reach school early enough to catch Mr. Boynton alone. She didn't care what Mr. Roger-not-so-Wise said right now anyway. Just as he could be disappointed in her, wounding her heart whenever he said so, she could be disappointed in him. If the Good Samaritan's daughter had asked him to help a friend whose stepfather was about to lash her with a belt, the Good Samaritan wouldn't have said, “Not our business.”

She'd tell Mr. Boynton not to expect Tereza in school today, possibly never again. She would tell what she knew even if she got in serious trouble, which she hadn't been in since kindergarten, when she spent more time in the naughty chair than anyone else. For no good reason! Miss Glannore had written “Linda is inclined
to be heedless” on her report card, making Linda's mother sick with humiliation. Linda tried harder to please Mother after that, bringing home cards that reported: “Linda is a joy to teach; Linda is a bright, helpful child; Linda will go far.” Although she'd figured out how to avoid trouble at school, the rules at home kept changing. But she was more afraid of not doing right than of breaking a rule because God would have worse things to say in Heaven than her parents could on Earth.

Tereza was the heedless one, if you wanted to know. She didn't play by the rules and didn't listen to anyone. She often showed up with raw welts on her arms and legs, due to her getting “mouthy,” she'd say, like you might explain away a rash from too many tomatoes. Tereza seemed to accept the cost of doing what she pleased. Linda wanted to admire her for that, for being true to her beliefs like a Christian facing lions, but she doubted Tereza's beliefs fit into the same category.

Linda had done the right thing Friday night, despite what Daddy said. After he said “Not our business” she'd run into the street, yelling at Jimmy to stop. (It was hard to think of him as Mr. Dobra.) He'd glanced at her long enough for Tereza to scurry away. When he pulled back the belt as though to whip Linda, Daddy came to life, like Superman getting over a dose of kryptonite. He stepped between her and Jimmy, put a hand on Jimmy's chest and said, “That'll be enough of that.” Jimmy's cheeks went splotchy with anger and he straightened to his full height, as if ready to sock Daddy. But then he seemed to lose air. He slapped Daddy's hand down and strode away.

“Such a foolish thing you did,” her father said as he ushered her into their house. “You could have gotten hurt.”

That's when Linda had shouted “I hate you,” fled to her room and locked the door.

The next morning she'd found her mother out of bed for the first time in ages, in a quilted blue robe that stopped above puffy knees
on pasty, wobbly legs. Her cheeks looked dented. She was dropping pancake batter into a sizzling pan, stinking up the kitchen with Crisco fumes. “Tuna casserole and rice pudding tonight,” she said. “What do you think about that?”

“Is it okay for you to be up, Mother?”

Daddy, who sat at the kitchen table with his coffee and crossword as if last night hadn't happened, looked up at Linda and shrugged helplessly. “I couldn't talk her out of it.”

Even if Mr. Boynton hadn't been Linda and Tereza's homeroom teacher Linda would have gone to him. He was the only seventh-grade teacher gutsy enough to do something about Tereza. On the first day of school he told them they would receive one pencil for the year and that was it, too bad if they lost it. Linda was outraged at the injustice at first, but when Mr. Boynton explained he was toughening them up for eighth grade where the teachers would be even stricter, she realized he was brilliant.

Mr. Boynton's nubby wool jacket hung over a chair. He was at the other end of the room, briskly erasing Friday's homework from the board. Fluorescent light ricocheted off his bald spot. Linda coughed. He whipped around.

“Linda! Or should I say, Señorita? You look radiant.”

She flushed with pleasure. Occasionally, when he called on her in class, she sensed he saw through her hideous plaid eyeglass frames to someone he could love if she were older and thinner. Now his olive eyes, magnified by perfectly round tortoiseshell glasses, gazed at her unblinkingly as she told him that Tereza had fled from her stepfather's belt Friday night and hadn't been seen since. He swallowed hard, making his bow tie wiggle, as Linda explained how she'd looked for Tereza everywhere she could think of. And how Mrs. Dobra searched the neighborhood, too, calling as if Tereza were the Lost Sheep. Linda didn't admit she'd been too cowardly to check out Crazy Haggerty's. But neither did she brag
about marching into the White Castle where she'd nearly died of mortification asking those hoods Tereza hung around with if they knew where she was.

“Have her parents reported her missing?” Mr. Boynton asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I think only one of them wants to.”

Mr. Boynton's eyebrows shot up, pushing little folds into his shiny forehead.

Linda had gone to Tereza's apartment building after breakfast Saturday morning. Mrs. Dobra answered on the second knock, cigarette between two fingers, purple shadows under her eyes. “Linda!” she said, as if she were starving and Linda a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Did Tereza bunk with you last night?”

From the door, Linda could see Jimmy at the kitchen table and feel his mean eyes on her. “Quit going on,” he called out. “You know she always comes home.”

Mrs. Dobra ushered Linda to the porch so they could talk. She looked scared. “I was out this morning before Jimmy was awake. Up and down every damn street this side of the highway and all along the smelly river, calling for her. Jimmy might be right she'll be back but I don't know. This time feels different.” The soft, husky voice, so intimate and trusting, drew Linda in. She couldn't picture Mother traipsing around the neighborhood for her.

Later, Linda's mother had said, “She lets her get away with murder. What did she expect?” Mother didn't approve of women working outside the home, leaving their kids to “run hog-wild.”

“What do you think we should do, Linda?” Mr. Boynton asked.

“Call the police.”

Mr. Boynton stood and went for his jacket. “Let's go see Mrs. Warren,” he said.

Linda was no stranger to the principal's office. She went often to
mimeo tests or deliver messages to teachers. Only students bright enough to miss classroom time were chosen. Linda tried not to act smug when she was called because, as had been impressed upon her in Sunday school, “Pride goeth before a fall.” (It was so hard to wait for the rewards of the meek.)

This morning, while the principal and Mr. Boynton conferred, Linda waited on the hard pine bench outside Mrs. Warren's office, watching the school secretary type, admiring the speed at which she made the carriage move across the page—
clackety, clackety, ding!
Linda wondered if she liked working for Vinegar Lips, as some kids called Mrs. Warren because of her sour expression. Linda's stomach flipflopped, imagining what the principal and Mr. Boynton were saying about her, but she was determined not to waver.