These Things Hidden

I crack open the bedroom door and I see Olene’s green eye looking in at me.

“I’m fine,” I say again, but the water from the bucket is pooling around my feet and inching into the hallway. Olene waits, not saying anything, just looking up at me with her knowing eyes until I step aside to let her in.

Olene takes in the overturned bucket, the doll, the lake of water and sighs. “I’m sorry about this, Allison,” Olene says. “You just have to let them get it out of their system. Lay low, do your work and then they’ll treat you like everyone else.” She must see the sadness on my face because she asks, “Do you want me to bring it up at our group meeting tonight?”

“No,” I say firmly. I get that no good will come from confronting these women.

“I’ll go get you a towel.” Olene pats me on the arm and leaves me to my thoughts. I plan to keep my head down, check in with my parole officer twice a month, do my work and mind my own business, but I know they aren’t going to let me off so easily. I know they hate me for my crime. They think they’re better than me. They think they have perfectly reasonable excuses for doing the bad things they did. The drugs made them do it, their boyfriends made them do it, their rotten childhoods made them do it. But me? I had the perfect parents, the perfect childhood, the perfect life. I have no excuses. Olene returns and hands me a stack of towels. “Want some help?”

I shake my head. “No, thanks. I’ve got it.” She comes into the room, anyway, and picks up the bucket and the doll, then closes the door gently behind her. I wipe up the water from the floor and lie down on the lower bunk bed and try to close my eyes, but each time I blink I see only the dull, dead eyes of the doll behind my own.

When I think back to that night, I remember that the baby didn’t cry like you see in the movies and on television. First, there’s the mother, gritting her teeth and groaning, bearing down for the long push, and then the baby appears and greets the world with a wail, as if angry at being brought from her warm, dim aquarium into the bright, cold world. That cry never came.

I could see the terror in Brynn’s eyes as she offered the baby to me. I told her no. I didn’t want to touch her. So with shaking hands, Brynn cut the umbilical cord and laid her gently in a little bundle on the floor in a corner of the room. “You need a doctor, Allison,” she told me, her voice cracking with concern as she brushed my sweaty hair from my forehead. I was unbelievably cold, shivering so hard that my teeth clanked together. Brynn glanced over at the still, silent baby. “We need to call someone….”

“No, no,” I chattered, trying to cover my legs, now conscious of my nakedness. I tried to control my mouth, forcing the words to come out smoothly, forcefully. If they didn’t, I knew that Brynn would fall apart. “No. We’re not going to tell anyone. No one needs to know now.” I knew I sounded cold, cruel even. But, like I said, I had a plan: valedictorian, volleyball scholarship, college, law school. Christopher was a mistake, the pregnancy an even bigger one. I just needed Brynn to keep a cool head, to go along with me.

“Oh, Alli,” Brynn said, her chin trembling, tears running down her face. Barely keeping it together. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told me, arranging the covers around me carefully. “I’m going to throw away these sheets.” I wanted to sleep, so badly. I wanted to close my eyes and just disappear.

I used my arms to push myself up from the damp bed and slowly swung my legs over the edge of the bed, nearly crying out from the burning pain between my legs. I waited until the sting dulled into a throb and stood, reaching for my bedside table for support. I looked over to the far corner of the room where Brynn had left the baby. I can do this, I told myself. I have to do this.

As I steadied myself, I looked down and saw the rust-colored stains on my thighs. Brynn had tried to clean me up as best as she could, but blood was still dribbling down my legs and I moaned. There was so much blood. In the corner I saw the bundle of towels that Brynn had wrapped the baby in. It seemed so far away. I needed to get dressed and get things cleaned up. It would be dark soon, and there was always the chance that my parents would come home early. I had to make a decision. Through the sound of rain pounding on the roof I thought I heard Brynn downstairs and the slam of a screen door. I knew what I needed to do, where I needed to take her. It would be like she was never even here, like she never existed. After, I would rush to finish cleaning up my bedroom and I would pretend that I had the flu for the next few days. Then everything would go back to normal. It would have to.

But it never seems to actually be finished, this thing. It has attached itself to me and to Brynn and even to my parents like some kind of malignant tumor, and we will never be free of it. I begin to cry. I’ve done everything right my entire life and then I made one mistake and my life was ruined. One mistake. It just wasn’t fair.

Claire

As Claire steps into the old Victorian that she and Jonathan bought and restored twelve years ago, she makes a mental note to give Charm a call in a few days to see how she is doing. Over the years she has developed a fondness for Charm, a round, soft-spoken girl who has a fascination with self-help books. When she purchased The Legacy of Divorce, Claire learned that Charm had lived with Gus, her stepfather, ever since she was ten, even after her mother divorced him and moved on. Then when she bought Brothers and Sisters: Bonds for a Lifetime, Charm told her that she hadn’t seen her older brother in years, but wanted to be prepared if he ever came back. When Charm was ready to start college she came in with a textbook list and Claire learned she wanted more than anything to be a nurse and that Gus had been recently diagnosed with lung cancer. Charm came to the store and bought books for her friends, a book about baseball for her first boyfriend.

Once, she even bought a copy of Mother: A Cradle to Hold Me by Maya Angelou for her mother, with whom she was trying to patch things up. “She didn’t get it,” Charm told Claire later. “She thought I was making fun of her by getting her a book of poetry and slamming her for her mothering skills. I just can’t win with her.” Charm said this so sadly that Claire takes comfort in the knowledge that she tells Joshua every single day how much she loves him. That even though she makes mistakes, like the time she wrongly accused Joshua of feeding Truman all of his Halloween candy, she is confident that he would never, ever doubt her love for him.

Claire finds Joshua rolling a tennis ball across the living room floor to Truman, who lazily watches it glide past him. “Go get it, Truman!” Joshua urges. “Go get the ball!” Instead, Truman heaves himself up on squat legs and leaves the room. “Truman!” Joshua calls disappointedly.

“He’ll be back,” Claire says as she bends over, picks up the ball and takes it over to him. “Don’t worry.”

“On TV there’s this bulldog named Tyson that knows how to skateboard,” Joshua says as he picks at the frayed hem of his shorts. “Truman won’t even chase a ball.”

“Truman does other cool stuff,” Claire says, scrambling to think of something.

“Like what?” Joshua asks bleakly.

“He can eat a whole loaf of bread in three seconds flat,” she offers, but Joshua doesn’t look impressed. She sighs and situates herself on the floor next to Joshua. “You know that Truman is a hero, don’t you?” Joshua looks at her skeptically. “When you came to us, you were pretty little.”

“I remember,” Joshua says sagely. “Six pounds.”

“One night, after you were with us for a week or so, you were sleeping in your crib. Dad and I were so tired we fell asleep on the couch even though it was only seven-thirty.”

Joshua laughs at this. “You went to bed at seven-thirty?”

“Yes, we did,” she tells him, and reaches for his hand, which without her realizing had somehow lost its soft pudginess. His fingers were long and tapered and for a fleeting moment she wondered where he had got them. From his biological mother or father? “When you were a baby you didn’t sleep much, so whenever you slept, we did, too. So there we were, sleeping peacefully on the couch, and all of a sudden we heard Truman barking. Your dad tried to take him outside to go to the bathroom, but Truman wouldn’t go. Dad kept chasing him around the house, but he just kept running around and yipping and yipping. It was actually kind of funny to watch.” They both smile at the thought of Jonathan sleepily stumbling after Truman. “Finally, Truman ran up the stairs and waited, barking, until we came up after him. When we got to the top he ran into your room. We kept whispering, ‘Shhh, Truman, shhh. You’re going to wake up Joshua.’ But he kept right on barking. And then all of a sudden Dad and I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. With all that barking you should have been crying.”

Joshua’s forehead creases as he thinks about this. “I didn’t wake up?”

“No, you didn’t,” Claire says, shivering at the memory, and pulls him onto her lap.

“Why not?” he asks while he twists her wedding ring off her finger and places it on his own thumb, moving it back and forth so that the diamond casts a mottled rainbow on the wall.

“Dad turned on the light in your room and you were in your crib and it looked like you were sleeping, but you weren’t. You weren’t breathing.” Joshua’s hands still, but he doesn’t say anything. “Dad snatched you up out of the bed so quickly he must have scared the breath right back into you because you started crying immediately.”

“Whew,” Joshua says with relief, and begins rotating the ring again.

“Whew is right,” Claire says emphatically. “Truman saved the day. So he might not know how to skateboard, but he’s pretty special.”

“I guess so,” Joshua murmurs. “I’ll go say sorry.” He slides the ring back onto his mother’s finger, springs from her lap and runs off to find Truman. What she doesn’t tell Joshua is how, during the endless seconds between when Claire and Jonathan saw him lying in his crib, blue and still, to when they heard his angry cries, her own breath escaped her. How could I lose him already? she had wondered. Did God change His mind? It wasn’t until air filled his tiny lungs that she breathed again, too.

Claire slowly gets to her feet, mindful that she is every bit of her forty-five years. When Joshua celebrates his tenth birthday she will be fifty. When he is forty she will be eighty. Motherhood is the hardest, most terrifying, most wonderful thing she will ever do. Perhaps the greatest joy she’s gotten from having Joshua coming into her life, besides hearing him call her Mom, is watching Jonathan and Joshua together. Together they pore over home restoration magazines and, entranced, watch old episodes of This Old House. Claire has to laugh when Joshua, asked what he wants to be when he grows up, answers Bob Villa or his dad. As they scrape, sand and varnish together, refurbishing fireplace mantels, armoires, banisters, when she watches as Jonathan teaches Joshua how to hammer a nail or twist a screw, her heart swells with pride.

Even though Joshua is their only child, Claire knows that he isn’t quite like other children. For the longest time she thought of him simply as a dreamer. His head is so full of creative, imaginative ideas, she can almost ignore the fact that he often doesn’t appear to hear them when they speak to him. They can tell him to do something many times and Joshua will seem to understand, but he rarely follows through. There are times when he seems to leave their world completely, can stare into space fully absorbed by she doesn’t know what, and he’s gone until they bring him gently back to them. It’s as if there is a buffer that surrounds him, keeping the harshness of the world away. Without it, she believes, he would be left exposed and vulnerable. Claire doesn’t know if it had to do with those moments when he was deprived of oxygen or if something traumatic happened before he came to them. Sometimes she fears their love hasn’t been quite enough to renew Joshua’s trust in the world around him.

Claire runs a finger along the row of photos that line the sofa table. The pictures capture the day they brought Joshua home, the day he was legally theirs, the first time he ate pureed squash, his first Christmas. Every single day Claire says a little prayer of thanks for the girl who left Joshua at the fire station five years ago. Because of her, she and Jonathan have their son. Sometimes she wonders about her, the woman who gave birth to Joshua. Was she from Linden Falls or did she come from far away? Was she young, a teenager who just didn’t know what to do? Was she an adult who already had several children and couldn’t take care of one more? Maybe Joshua has brothers and sisters out there somewhere who are just like him. Maybe his mother is a drug addict or abused. Claire doesn’t know and doesn’t really want to. She is grateful that the girl chose to give him up. In that single act of altruism or selfishness—she’ll never know which—that girl gave her everything.

Brynn

There are dozens of us crammed into Missy’s one-bedroom apartment, which she shares with two other girls. The only person I know is Missy, who is on the couch, making out with some guy. I’m standing awkwardly in a corner, trying not to watch their frantic kissing, the way his tongue pokes into her mouth, the way he has his hand up her shirt. I gulp from the glass that someone has pressed into my hand and welcome the pleasant numbness that begins to spread throughout me. I’m not supposed to mix alcohol with my medication, but it’s okay because I haven’t taken my pills in days. A boy I think I recognize from campus squeezes through the bodies and comes up to me. “Hey,” he says loudly, trying to be heard above the pounding music.

“Hey,” I respond, and mentally roll my eyes at the lameness of my social skills. He is short, but still taller than I am, and his blond hair stands up in gelled spikes.

“I think I know you,” he says, leaning in toward me. His breath smells sweet, like wine cooler.

“Oh,” I say carelessly, trying to act as if this happens to me every day. I take another swig from my cup and find it empty. The skin on my face feels loose and I touch my cheeks to make sure they are where they need to be.

“Here, you can have mine,” he says, and gallantly wipes the mouth of the bottle with his T-shirt. He has a sprinkle of brown freckles on his nose and I want to reach out with one finger and count them. I feel dizzy and lean back against the wall to keep my balance.

“Thanks,” I tell him, taking the wine cooler and drinking from it because I can’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m Rob Baker,” he says with a grin.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I say, smiling back. “I’m Brynn.”

“I know,” he says. “You’re Brynn Glenn.” My smile widens. He knows my name.

“Yes, I am,” I say flirtatiously, and take a woozy step closer to him, wondering what it would be like to kiss him. To feel his tongue against mine.

“I’m from Linden Falls,” he says, and my heart seizes. “We used to go to the same church.” I can see it coming. He isn’t looking at me because he’s seen me around campus or because he thinks I’m pretty. “Your sister is Allison Glenn, right?” I can’t answer. I stand there blinking wordlessly back at him. “Allison is your sister, right?” he repeats. I see him glance back over his shoulder at a group of boys who are watching us.

“No,” I say, and from the look on his face he knows I’m lying. “Never heard of her.” I peer over his shoulder as if I’m looking for somebody.

“We went to the same church. Our moms volunteered at the bake sale together. You’re Brynn Glenn,” he says forcefully.