Little Lovely Things, page 26
Bam!
The trailer blew like a tin can filled with firecrackers. The percussion knocked Jay flat with Andrea beneath him. He tried to roll to one side, but his head boomed as if in an echo chamber. His field of vision narrowed. Fireflies flashed in the branches overhead as if stars had descended from the heavens. The world spun in slow motion. Groaning, Jay craned his head enough to see only charred porch stairs against a fiery backdrop.
“Jay, Jay.” He heard a girl’s voice and then nothing except a hard thrum in his head, a distant sound, like a train coming. No, it was the sound of the world changing.
* * *
When Jay woke up in the ambulance, the first thing on his mind was Andrea. “Is she safe?” he gasped.
But then it turned to a darker thought. “Did she escape? That goddamn Moira?”
“Calm down, sir.” One voice.
“What’s he saying?” Another voice, farther away. No faces.
“Do you mean the little girl?” The first man again.
Jay began to flail like a fish. “She’s hurt!” Jay raised his voice over the dull roar messing with his ears.
“She’s okay. Scratched up but okay. A little groggy. She’s in a different ambulance with the police. They’re following us to the hospital.”
“You’re a hero, man, saving that girl from the trailer.”
“The woman!” Jay again.
“You mean her mother?”
Ugh. Were they not listening?
“She was kidnapped!”
“Who? The woman?”
Jay fought to sit up. They didn’t know anything.
“No. The girl!” He was yelling, pushing against some straps they must’ve put on him to keep him secure.
“Whoa. Whoa. The police. They’re on it. You’re pretty hurt. We gave you a little pain medicine.”
What pain? And then it hit. A wallop from his ankle that raced like fire through his body.
“Oh, man.” Jay lay back and moaned.
“Ten minutes, buddy. That’s all. We’ll be at Elmcrest Hospital in ten. Hang on.”
“I need,” Jay spoke through clenched teeth, “to talk to the police now. Now!”
A man’s face came into view, hovering close to Jay. His eyes were grave, concerned. Jay could only hope he believed him.
“The police are on the radio. Want to know if you know where the mother is? The woman who rented the trailer?”
“That’s not her mother! That woman kidnapped her. I know her real mother.”
“Hang on, buddy. Just for a minute. Here. Can you talk into the radio?”
Jay tried. He saw the shape of it, the little perforations in the plastic case. He was able to say her name. Andrea. And then Moira’s. His voice though, was coming from so far away. His head throbbed worse than his ankle. Vomit was rising in his throat. His message was garbled, all over the place and growing dimmer each second.
“Kidnapped at four years old. Sister Lily killed.”
Gibberish, this all sounded like gibberish! But he fought to continue.
“A woman, Moira… Find her… She’s dangerous…a criminal…”
He was a hot mess spewing information and they were goddamn slow on the uptake.
How to make them understand? It was maddening! He clenched his teeth, took a deep breath, and then spoke clear and strong.
“Hearns. Detective Juanita Hearns. Chicago. Call her, damn it. Call her!”
Jay could say no more. Was it enough? He strained forward. Even as he struggled to speak, the remembrance of his mother, his grandmother, and of Lily during the rescue warmed him like some type of internal glow. His intuition had not failed him, had never failed him. Hot tears sprang from his eyes.
“Buddy. It’s okay. We’ll be there soon.”
Jay fell back just as the ambulance hit a massive dip in the road. The resulting torque amplified through his body, wrenching into his ankle. A vortex of pain concentrated with full force on the exact spot where bone was sticking out of skin. A wave washed over him and his consciousness was swept away.
Chapter 24
Little Bird
By what magic was she now someone else? Andrea. This was what had come from Jay’s mouth as he reached through her bedroom window to save her. The long, slow first A of it was wonderful. She had the urge to call for a pencil and paper, to write it over and over again. Andrea. It was a name; in fact, she might have picked all on her own. Then again, her mind was still so blurry. Wasn’t Colleen who she really was? Could this all be some sort of trick?
She was only half here in this hospital room. The other half of her was still trapped in the trailer, shivering with fear in the dark. How could Moira have done this? Her eyes white with rage and never saying what was so wrong. She’d been caught for certain in her secret life, but Moira never seemed to care about any of that before. What had changed?
A cold object pressed into her chest. She twitched, just as she had done in the bathroom, no, the cave, when her heart was thrashing as she lay sideways on the cold floor tucking herself into a kidney shape. At the same time, her skin crawled with invisible bees working over her arms and legs with their feelers.
“Hello there. Again.”
What? She tightened her brow and looked down. She was in a weird garment. The thing against her chest was a shiny stethoscope. A man in a white coat and a woman in a pastel-green uniform hovered next to her bed, drawing her fully back into the brightness of the hospital room. She had only seen doctors and nurses on General Hospital.
“I’m Dr. Grimes,” the man said. He had on big, round glasses. “I don’t think you heard me the first time.” This was all so confusing. One minute trapped, then the next yanked from the grips of an explosion and now this place, even the smell was horrible, like germ-killing mouthwash. She wanted to cry but fought against it in front of strangers.
Dr. Grimes knelt next to her.
“I know this is scary…”
She drew her knees to her chest as a shield. Fear flooded her mouth, heavy and rough like wet felt. Her hands held onto each other as if glued.
“Can you tell me your name?”
“Where’s Jay?”
The sheets in the bed smelled like the air in the room, only more intense, as if the vinegary atmosphere of the hospital had been baked into them.
“Is he your friend?”
She nodded, keeping her face locked on the wall closest to her bed. The painted cement blocks gleamed like perfectly stacked sugar cubes.
“He’s in surgery.”
“What!” She pressed upward against the bed, her hands starfished with tension, and swung around, eyes wide. She could still feel the strength in Jay’s arms tugging her through the window.
“He’ll be all right. I promise. It’s his ankle.”
“I need to see him.”
“Soon. He’ll be out soon. But right now, we’re worried about you. Jay White told the police parts of a big story. We want to check it out. Can you help by telling us your name?”
A lump gathered in her throat. A few minutes before she would’ve said Andrea. But her head was clearer now and without Jay here to verify, it seemed somehow ridiculous. Had she even heard him right? And several hours before that she would’ve said Colleen. In truth, she was a mishmash of other people’s names for her. Chimera, she wanted to say, a word she’d learned from National Geographic—a creature assembled from different places, none of which quite added up to a whole. She shook her head.
“Is it that you don’t remember?”
She shook her head again. What now would she call herself?
“Okay.” Dr. Grimes nodded solemnly to the nurse. “Kate wants to clean up those scrapes.” She followed his eyes slowly down past the ties and snaps of the weird garment covered in faded asterisks like the pattern on the cracked countertop in the trailer, to the outline of her legs under the flowy material. Shifting to one hip, she just then realized that her shorts were still on. Her eyebrows rose in surprise.
“We let you leave your shorts on, remember?” Kate said.
“You were pretty insistent about that,” added the doctor. She leaned forward and dug into her front pocket. The impression of the medallion against her thumb brought a brief moment of comfort.
Pulling the edge of the gown up, she was able to examine her skin on her legs, which was beginning to welt and colonize with amoeba-shaped bruises. This was nothing compared to the profound hurt deeper inside. She’d suffered worse scrambling down pine trees. She closed her eyes and leaned back, allowing Kate to approach.
Yet the darkness behind her lids was a dangerous place. It taunted her just like that phantom black spider spinning in small circles as she coiled herself against the terror of being locked in the bathroom. She was momentarily back in that tight space and almost screamed as she reflexively pulled away from a tangled mass of kelp fingers on her legs.
“It’s all right,” Kate reassured her. “It’s only a damp cloth.” She moved quickly yet gently. “Done now. You did a great job.” Kate stepped back, and the doctor was once again near her side.
“Can you tell us,” he asked softly, “what you remember about the explosion?”
Her head suddenly ached as she recalled Jay holding her and limp-galloping toward the road. Then came a flash and a boom and then silence for a few minutes.
“Where is Moira?”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Kate said. “We don’t know anything. The police will be able to help.”
“I’m scheduling a CAT scan,” Dr. Grimes said to Kate. “And where are Protective Services?”
“Should be here any minute.” She lowered her voice as she continued talking to the doctor. They looked over a chart together, nodding and murmuring.
The sky outside the single window was deepening to Prussian blue. The door opened, and a policeman and an unfamiliar woman entered the room. The woman was heavy with blond hair that was too yellow, like when little kids choose the brightest crayon to draw the sun. The officer had a thick line of eyebrow that hid his expression.
The woman approached. “I am Mrs. Holder.”
She looked a lot like the women she’d seen at laundromats with Moira—puffy, struggling with the weight of the baskets, but pleasant-faced all the same.
“I’m called a social worker. Think of me as a friend.”
“Where is Jay?” She struggled to keep from whimpering and slipped her hand into her shorts pocket and fumbled until she found the medallion, then rubbed the edge with her thumb. “What’s going on?”
“We’ll find everything out soon, sweetie.”
“Hello, little lady. I’m Sheriff Dobbs.” The officer came close and kneeled down. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Little Bird.”
“Oh. Is that a nickname?”
She shrugged. “Jay gave it to me.”
“The manager at the trailer park told us he’s your neighbor.”
She nodded.
“Can you tell me about him?”
“He’s my friend.”
“Has he ever hurt you?”
She made a ridiculous face. But the sheriff didn’t seem to notice.
“The lady you live with, Moira, I believe. Is that your mother?”
“No.” Her head went light, as if it might fly from her neck. She was suddenly so very tired. Nobody knew anything. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“Can this wait?” Mrs. Holder stepped next to the sheriff. “At least a little while? This child is exhausted.”
“One last thing for now.” Nurse Kate again. “I need to swab your cheek.”
Based on the expression she received, the nurse changed tactics. “I promise. One quick swipe, Little Bird.” She winked. “Then we’ll let you rest.”
She opened her mouth, then turned away when Kate was done.
“Thank you,” Kate whispered as she lightly rubbed her shoulder.
The window was lacquer black. This in and out of people, this waiting to hear about Jay, made her small, smaller, smallest, tamped down like a patch of nuisance weeds. She’d dry up, shrivel to nothing soon, and who’d notice? She’d grown up believing her parents had left her and now she was to believe something else?
If this was true, why hadn’t they searched for her?
Time crawled forward. The room emptied, leaving her alone with Mrs. Holder. She noted the way the door swung, which direction people headed. Maybe she’d just sneak out that door. Wait for the opportunity and then be going the opposite way. Find a stairwell to sink into, search for Jay. General Hospital always had plenty of them. She just had to be patient.
In the meantime, she peered into the tin box on the tray table that Mrs. Holder had set near her side. It had a bunch of uninteresting stuff in it. A picture book. Like for a toddler. Some pencil stubs and a worn and thumbed-through and then ignored sketch pad with pages too thin for any kind of reasonable use. All of it tossed among a mess of crayons broken and peeled by some other lonely kid.
With each passing minute, her mind buzzed with fatigue, bringing forth things that sometimes came to her just as she fell asleep. She remembered now, being in the dark, packed into a space. Could barely breathe. But it wasn’t the bathroom. And someone else was there. She caught her breath as a moment of clarity flashed: what had Jay said again…a sister, the thought unfurled like a precious bloom inside her. She was right then, in the trunk of a car, holding on to her sister’s small hand.
Little Bird sobbed softly. This was too much. All too much. Clenching her fingers into balls, sleep was finally claiming her, under a curtain of confusion. And then the feel of skin against her own, the sudden yet faint image in her mind of a little blond girl, a sister, the idea of family, drew her bleary mind to fantasy. What if it were all true? Parents: her mom with blond hair and bright-blue eyes like her sister’s, and her dad tall and handsome as all get-out. They would be on the porch of their little white house with raspberry shutters.
“What do you like to do?” her dad would ask, smiling.
“I like to climb trees.”
“Me too. Cool.” He would nod. “What else?”
“I like to untangle knots.”
No, why would she say that? It was so random and untrue. But she could tell it didn’t matter, nothing she’d say would bother her good-natured parents. Her mom would stroke her hair and her dad would wink.
This would all happen right on the porch swing. With a breeze filled with wild scents wrapping them in softness, and dog would be barking nearby—short, happy yips. Lily would be there too, on one of her parents’ laps.
Little Bird’s eyelids went heavy and she nodded off. But then a door slammed somewhere, a thick and percussive sound, and she shot up, alert with anxiety. Mrs. Holder looked at her with a worried face. Little Bird’s eyes narrowed as tears flooded her vision. But she held them back. This was all so crazy. Jay getting an operation. The possibility of a family. Where was Moira? If she wasn’t in the explosion, then where had she gone?
“Do you need anything, sweetie? I can get you more juice.”
She hadn’t touched the first cup offered however many hours ago. Before she could say anything, Mrs. Holder went to attend to a new policeman at the door.
Little Bird leaned toward the dark window. There were clouds in the sky, but a hint of the moon was there underneath like a coin under paper. If it were clear out, Jay would have a name for this, something like a shining water moon.
The phone rang. Mrs. Holder dashed to pick it up.
“Still nothing?” Her voice rose with worry.
Little Bird lowered herself to the floor. She’d sat for so long, her whole body was sluggish. She grabbed the bed to keep from falling. Don’t mess up, she scolded her legs. I need you now.
Mrs. Holder motioned forward, the phone still near her face.
“Just going to the bathroom,” Little Bird said.
In fact, she was dry as a bone. She’d studied the room. Mrs. Holder was in the blind spot now. Little Bird reached into the bathroom and turned on the fan and light switches. She took the ridiculous snap top off and put her own T-shirt back on. She then tiptoed outside the bathroom. Carefully closing the door behind her, she hid in the folds of the privacy curtain bunched several feet away, near the hall.
“What if they don’t figure out…?” Mrs. Holder turned toward the window, absorbed in conversation.
Little Bird slipped quietly through the door of her room. The hallway was bright and she hesitated, blinking. She took two careful steps. She’d be around the corner, down a stairwell, and gone with a few more. She’d find Jay. But what if he wasn’t all right? Her stomach lurched at that thought. No, Jay was a warrior. He’d be fine. He had to be. Her legs were good and steady now. She tilted forward, preparing for a quick breakaway.
A sudden yet gentle tug on her upper arm stopped her dead. She looked up. Behind Mrs. Holder’s face, long thin ceiling lights glared overhead. Gleaming like sharp monster teeth.
“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Holder’s said in a tender voice.
Little Bird allowed Mrs. Holder to lead her back inside the room and help her into the bed. On the chrome tray pulled close, she saw the almost unrecognizable face of a frightened little girl.
She looked again into the crate. The crayons weren’t as pathetic as she’d first thought. She poked around, moving colors into different corners without fully committing to any real interest in them. Slowly, she began to twin them with their opposites, green next to red, blue across from yellow and all the shades in-between. The rich, mellow odor of old crayons, so different from the plasticky new ones, made her want to use them. Suddenly, more than anything, she needed to draw.
Ignoring the sketch pad, she grabbed a bunch of stiff paper towels from a stack next to a pitcher of water and a plastic cup. She smoothed one out onto the tray table. Mrs. Holder nodded and smiled.
