Authors: Tricia Dower
THE PAPER
, folded to the story, was on Linda's chair when she came down to breakfast. A photo she'd taken of Tereza on the log leered at her. Across the table, her parents sat side by side, looking like they'd sucked lemons. They said nothing until she'd read the article and glanced up, her eyes stinging.
“That was a caring, Christian act,” Daddy said, lifting a forkful of trembling egg. He swallowed, set his fork down, reached over and squeezed her hand. “Jesus would be proud of you.” He cleared his throat. “Heck, I'm proud of you. I'm only sorry you didn't feel you could confide in us.”
“We've had two calls already,” Mother said. “One man said we raised a good daughter.” A fleeting smile. “I thanked him. The other, a boy, wanted to speak with you. He said he'd call back.”
Daddy cleared his throat again. “Now, as much as we applaud what you did for Tereza, we can't condone telegraphing our phone number to the world. Did you ask your mother if she minded taking calls from strangers while you're in school?”
Linda shook her head. She was ashamed for another reason. The article made her look too good. The real reason she wanted to find Tereza was to ask if she'd ever gotten in Daddy's car.
“All acts have consequences, even those committed with good intentions,” Daddy said. “We expect you to stay by the phone this weekend. When you're in school, we'll leave it off the hook until we can get the number changed.”
Linda swallowed hard. If they changed the number, Tereza wouldn't get through. “I'll stay home and answer the phone.”
Daddy gave her a smile full of pity and shook his head.
Mother spent the rest of the day in her room with a headache. Linda sat on a cushion on the kitchen floor under the wall phone. Before noon, she had answered twelve calls, most from members of the church, a few from people simply curious to find out who would answer, one from a giggly young voice that asked, “Got any soup?”
Richie called, too. She half-expected him to taunt her for running away on Halloween, but he said, “That was a cool thing to do, the balloons. You're okay, you know.”
She didn't feel okay.
At noon, Daddy told her Mrs. Dobra was at the door. “I asked her in but she wants to speak with you outside.”
Linda glanced at the phone.
“It's okay. I'll take over for a while.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Put your coat on.”
Like a falling iris in her purple coat, Mrs. Dobra was leaning against the telephone pole near the curb, smoking a cigarette. Linda closed the front door and descended the few steps to the sidewalk.
Mrs. Dobra straightened. “You seen the article in the newspaper?”
Linda nodded.
“Rolf showed me it when I stopped in the store for cigs this morning. Allen didn't say nothing about the balloons, but I see now why he slept better last night.” She took a drag. “Jimmy's upset.” She laughed. “What else is new? He says the paper makes him look bad.” She finished her cigarette, snuffed it on the sidewalk and put the stub in her pocket. “Can't stay but I wanted to come over and give you a hug. That okay with you?”
Linda didn't feel deserving of a hug, but she wanted one more than anything. She leaned into the woman's soft chest, wound her arms around the small frame and closed her eyes. The crisp air embraced Mrs. Dobra's musky-smelling warmth.
Tereza's mother pulled away first. “Gotta go,” she said, holding Linda out at arm's length. “Just wanted you to know I'm glad you was Tereza's friend, even if only for a little while.”
Linda watched her walk away, thinking how, from the back, it could have been Tereza. She went in the house for a spare balloon tag, took it to Tony's and asked him to tack it to his office wall.
“THIS FRUSTRATES
the heck out of me,” Bill said, handing the newspaper to Doris. He was still in his robe, his legs stretched under the length of the kitchen table. “The girl's mother told me she didn't have a photograph. How'd the newspaper get one?”
Doris had been up for hours. She'd given Mickey his six and nine
AM
feedings and put him back in his crib. Fogged up the kitchen windows cooking Carolyn a bowl of Wheatena. She'd plunked the three-year-old in front of the TV for the Farmer Gray cartoon show and made waffles for Bill. Warmed the syrup the way he liked, hoping they could have a pleasant breakfast together and dispel the tension that had been hanging around them for two weeks like a bad smell. But he sounded weary and discouraged.
She took the paper and quickly scanned the article. “This the runaway you think broke into Miranda's house? She's a scrawny thing.”
She saw his face shut down at Miranda's name, imagined him thinking,
Don't start again.
“James Haggerty's house, you mean. It was in his name.” Bill had searched for legal documents before he boarded up the place. He'd found the deed to the property and the girl's birth certificate. Not the boy's.
“It'll be hers when she's eighteen,” Doris said. “I checked the inheritance laws.”
“Did you, now? Well, if she doesn't pay the taxes before then the county will take it over. Or hoodlums will. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody torches it.” He tapped the paper with his knife. “This girl, this Tereza, worries me more. Frank and I have been tailing the parents. The principal's watching, too, to see if the boy comes to school with any signs of abuse. But I don't think they did her in. Durmer should've told me about the balloons. He knows it's my case. I'll get a copy of this photo and show it around town.”
Doris picked up the paper again. Poor Miranda had never had a friend who would miss her. “This Linda has a point,” she said. “Why no search party, like the one for the Long Island boy?”
Bill looked up at her with a tired frown that almost broke her heart. He worked so hard and here she was suggesting he hadn't done enough. “Different situation. According to her mother, Tereza Dobra has run away before. No reason to think she didn't this time. No reason to drag the river or stomp through tall grass.”
“What if it were Carolyn?”
“Well, it isn't.”
As if on cue, Carolyn, in quilted robe and Princess Summerfall Winterspring slippers, padded in and climbed up onto Bill's lap. “Kiss-kiss, Daddy?”
That brought a smile and an easing of Bill's shoulders. Doris had been afraid he'd lose interest in Carolyn once he had a son, but not a chance. She was the one he called for when he walked in the door. He loved that she could put a sentence together and pedal a tricycle; that she was full of wonder, something he said he'd lost along the way. He was a good man. Doris knew he could find room in his heart for Cian and Miranda if he took the time to get to know them.
She'd come home in a state after learning Cian had gone to a foster family and there was nothing Miranda could do about it. “What did you expect?” Bill had said. “You worked at Children's Aid, you know how legal guardianships work.” Yes, and she knew how perverts and other abusers sometimes made it through foster and adoptive parent screening. She'd expected him to understand why she was upset. She'd wanted to adopt those kids the day he rescued them, but he'd have none of it. He said they were damaged and, while he wasn't unsympathetic, he wouldn't expose Carolyn and Mickey to the effects of who knew what had gone on in that house.
Carolyn leaned into Bill's plate and said, “Smells like more.”
Bill laughed and stabbed a piece of waffle on his fork for her.
“You want your own waffle?” Doris asked her.
“And appleboss.”
Doris spooned batter into the waffle iron and bent over it, savoring the sweet smell that steamed out when she first closed the lid. Keeping her voice casual, she said, “I spoke to the mother superior about putting the Haggerty house up for sale.”
“You saw her again?”
“Yeah, on Thursday.” Doris's mom had watched the kids. “She's willing to petition the court for permission. If we can sell it, St. Bernadette's gets cash for Miranda and Cian's support until Miranda is eighteen. The balance will be put in trust for her until then.” She took a jar of applesauce out of the fridge. “Mother Alfreda says if their room and board are covered, she'll make sure they aren't fostered out or adopted.” She opened the jar and stuck a spoon in it. Specifically, Mother Alfreda had agreed to not farm the kids out to strangers; she'd consider the Nolans if Doris were able to persuade Bill.
“What do you mean, if
we
can sell it? The orphanage should hire an agent.”
“Oh sure, they will. I meant somebody's got to clean out the place, decide what to save for Miranda.” Somebody who would stand in for this forgotten child, she thought, and not callously discard everything she'd grown up with. “You said she'd wanted to take her books and records, didn't you?” The red light went out on the iron. “Carolyn, your waffle's ready.”
Bill swung Carolyn off his lap and into her booster chair. “You're in your element with those orphans, aren't you?”
Doris considered a sharp comeback, but she didn't want to spoil the morning. She spooned applesauce onto the waffle and set it in front of Carolyn, took a calming breath and said, “The only orphan is
Miranda. Cian
has
a mother. I promised her I wouldn't let strangers adopt him.”
Bill started to cut Carolyn's waffle, but she pushed his hand away. “Me do it!”
“Who else but strangers
could
adopt him?” Bill said. “The girl's too young to be a mother and her boy is obviously backward. He's better off with people who can deal with that.”
“Who says she can't? I don't know what I'd do if someone took my children from me.”
“There's something not right about that girl. How could there not be?”
“She's bright as can be. She's read the entire Daily Missalâover a thousand pagesâand memorized the prayers. Gone from fifth to sixth grade in only two months since she started school.”
“So she says.” “So says Mother Alfreda, too. She's a good Catholic girl already, Bill.”
“We've talked about this enough. I'm on call tonight. I'd like to relax today.”
Doris felt her chest catch. “Sorry,” she said. She came up behind him, leaned over and kissed his head where the hair was starting to thin. “I'm being pushy again like Mom, aren't I?”
He turned and caught her hands; kissed them. “Maybe we can hang onto the books and music for her. She was pretty torn up about leaving them behind. I might even have promised to get them to her. But we don't have room to store everything in that house. She probably wouldn't want it, anyway. You haven't been there yet. The furniture's nothing to write home about.”
Doris sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the Blessed Virgin.
SIX DAYS LATER
. “Check the terlet after each girly's done,” Dearie told Tereza as she pushed opened the ladies' john door. “Some's too drunk or lazy to flush.”
Dearie was breaking Tereza in at Herman's Place, a swanky Newark restaurant where she'd been a washroom attendant from the time Buddy entered first grade. She'd dragged him with her the nights Alfie was on the road. Had raised him since he was three, after the war took her son and her floozy of a daughter-in-law ran off with another man. She told Tereza the whole story one afternoon, trying to explain why Buddy sometimes disappeared behind his own eyes.
“Herman's is pricey,” Dearie said, “but lucky for us, people have more money than sense. It's always packed. On weekends they line up down the street. Herman don't take reservations.”
Holy shit but Linda would've flipped over the john! The swinging door opened to a red-carpeted, velvety redâpapered room with a long white couch, two plush white armchairs and two small dark wood tables with glass ashtrays as big as bowls. A mirrored wall at the far end made the room feel like an echo. The crappers were behind another door, out of sight.