The Blueprint (6 page)

Dani appeared at dinner that ni
ght all cleaned up but rattled.  I held her hand under the table as Ms. Sweaney patrolled nearby.  Sensing she was fragile, her friends rallied around her.  The story of the night she’d spent in Ms. Sweaney’s dungeon passed quickly through the home.  Some girls encouraged her to keep fighting, but Dani stayed true to her word.  She made it clear to everyone that she’d fought her last battle.

The victor took every opportunity to rub it in. 
Like a prison warden, Ms. Sweaney began wearing a ring of keys on her hip that she fiddled and fussed with, the clanking sound a reminder of her power.  She’d ask Dani in the company of her friends if she’d like another opportunity to visit with her new pets, adding to her already long list of ugly taunts.  The worst was the watching.  She was always watching and waiting to snare her next "example." And her methods worked.  Ms. Sweaney was rewarded with our obedience and fear. 

Dani’s mumbles of outrage were her only retaliation.  But with her anger building, she needed an outlet, so I took the punch.

Summer finally arrived.  Courtesy of Mrs. Jones, we were gifted with ice cream cones on the last day of school and allowed to sit out front to eat them.  While gobbling up these rare treats it made sense to the club members that now that we had the summer off and lots of free time, so did
everyone else.  It also seemed natural that we revisited our long abandoned conversation about where Daddy was and when he’d be by to get me.  Karen was explaining how she imagined Daddy showing up on the horse he’d used on the set of the Western he’d been filming with John Wayne, when I saw Dani leaving an exchange with Ms. Sweaney in a hurry and heading right for me. 

“What happened?”  I asked.

She came to a quick stop in front of me, crossed her arms, and huffed, “That bitch was gloating about how she tricked me into believing Daddy was coming back.   She just won’t leave me alone.  I think she wants me to do something stupid again so she can lock me up.”

“But he
is
coming back.  He promised.  Karen thinks he’s on some movie set.  But I think maybe he was just waiting for the school year to end.  He knows how much you like school, and he always says….”

Dani jerked me by the arm, pulled me away from my friends, and spat, “Enough is enough!  I’m sick and tired of you and your friends daydreaming about Daddy coming back.  I was stupid enough to believe it for a while too and that’s how that bitch tricked me.  Daddy gave us up.  He doesn’t want us anymore.  We have to live in this hell hole until we are old enough to leave.  All we have is each other.”

“But Daddy promised and he never breaks a promise.”

“Daddy is a loser and a drunk.  Didn’t it ever seem strange to you that he had so many different jobs when other people’s fathers kept one job for a long time?  Every time Momma would leave he’d hit the bottle, not show up for work, and get fired.  It’s a miracle we weren’t thrown out of our old house sooner.”

“Don’t talk about Daddy that way.  He’s a hard worker.  And besides, don’t forget about Momma, she might come for us too,” I said, not really believing it. 

“Momma doesn’t care about anybody but herself!  I blame her for us getting dumped here.  That night she miscarried our little brother or sister, she couldn’t have been happier.  I think she may have even planned it.  Daddy told me that when they were at the hospital she sent him on some errands, checked herself out, and emptied their bank accounts.  She left us with nothing, and Daddy couldn’t get over it.  Daddy loves the bottle more than he loves us.  Lily, they’re not coming back for us.”

“No!  I don’t believe you!”  I shouted.  “Daddy loves me and he wouldn’t leave me here.  He’ll come get us when he finds work.  You’re just mad because you don’t have everybody fooled anymore about how
wonderful
you are.  Ms. Sweaney found your weakness and you lost."

“Shut up, Lily!  You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You shut up!  I hate you!”   I ran from her, up the front steps, right past Ms. Sweaney whose triumphant smile was unmistakable.

Dani didn’t sit with me that night at dinner and she ignored me afterwards
, too.  I knew I’d crossed the line and I knew exactly how I did it.  We’d always fought and name called like all sisters do, but we didn’t say those three words.  More than once the phrase,” I hate you,” was the last thing we heard Momma yell before she left us.  I regretted saying it, and I certainly didn’t mean it.  After we both cooled down, I owed her a whopping apology.

I thought hard about the other things she’d said.  It all made a little more sense now.  Daddy did change jobs a lot and his drinking was always worse when Momma left.  I hadn’t known about the baby, but I knew Daddy liked kids and would’ve been heartbroken to lose one
of his own.  But Momma was a puzzle.  I remembered the blood and her smile the last time I saw her and knew deep down that she wasn’t quite right.  On our first day at the home, Ms. Sweaney said that Daddy wasn’t coming back.  Never had Dani agreed with her on anything before; she wouldn’t lie just to hurt me now. 

I was s
ad but calmer by bedtime.  The longer Daddy was gone the less I really believed he’d come back.  I was ready to listen to what Dani had to say and needed to ask her more questions about what happened next.  But she never came to my room that night, and she wasn’t at breakfast the next morning.  Later that afternoon, I was summoned to Ms. Sweaney’s office.

“Where’s Danielle?” she demanded before I had even fully entered the room.

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me where she is and I won’t punish
you
for her stupidity.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

Ms. Sweaney tried erasing the irritation from her face.  It didn't work.  She moved from behind her desk to the front, resting her hip on the corner.  She was only inches from where I stood frozen.  With a smile that was meant to be comforting, she urged, “I know how close the two of you are and I find it hard to believe that she would leave without you.  Tell me where to find her and I’ll bring her back for you.”

“I don’t know anything.  She didn’t say anything to me about leaving.”  My legs felt wobbly
and a rush of nausea surged through me.  I couldn't catch my breath. 
Dani’s gone.  Dani left me.

Ms. Sweaney’s
smile disappeared as she leaned closer.  “If I find out you’ve lied to me, you’ll receive something far worse than a sore backside.  Now, get out!”

I rushed from the room tears filling
my eyes while I gasped for air.   At the door stood Mrs. Jones with arms extended like when we greeted her in the mornings before school.  I stopped, lowered my head, and tried maneuvering past her.  She took my hand and led me away from the office.  I didn’t fight her; I wanted to follow.

We walked in silence to the cafeteria and out the back kitchen doors
.   Her steps quick and light and mine a numb shuffle.  We exited onto a wide landing where I’d seen food trucks unload.  The sunlight and warm breeze touched me but didn't penetrate my shock.  Mrs. Jones sat and motioned for me to join her.  She read the concern on my face and said, “Don’t worry Ms. Sweaney won’t find us here.”

I sat a safe distance away, but she pulled me in close and with a trembling sigh I melted into her.  I don’t know how long I sobbed against her chest as she rocked me and whispered soft words.  I do know that crying didn’t make me feel better.  The truth only soaked in deeper. 
Dani's gone.  Dani left me.

Mrs. Jones sensed that I had quieted, shifted to face me, and began the conversation she’d brought me here for.  “Lily, sweetheart, do you have any idea where your sister might be?  It’s not safe out there for girls so young with no one to look after them.  If you tell me, I won’t tell Ms. Sweaney you told me.  I’ll ke
ep your name out of it.”

I sniffed. 
“I really don’t know where she is.  I didn’t know she was going to leave.  I swear.”

The tears started
again.  Mrs. Jones rubbed my back and soothed, “There, there, I believe you.  I believe you.”

I took a deep breath.
“We had a big fight... last night about Daddy coming back to get us.” I confessed, “I told her I hated her, but... I don’t, I really don’t.  I love Dani.  I need to tell her... I’m sorry.  She can’t leave me here alone.”

She lifted the hair from my wet cheeks and
cradled me against her shoulder.  “Oh sweetheart, Dani’s knows you don’t hate her.  And she knows you love her.  I don’t think she left because you fought.  Girls have run away from here before.  I’m just surprised that Dani would.  In the past, the girls that left were hanging out with a bad crowd at school and took off with some obnoxious older boy.  But that doesn’t sound like Dani, does it?” 

“No.  She flirts with boys, but she doesn’t have a boyfriend.  She said that all the boys at school were too immature for her.  Besides,
she loves school and planned on graduating.  She always said that after high school she was going to go to college, get a job, and makes lots of money.” 

“It doesn’t make sense”. 

We sat listening to cars pass and birds sing.  When another possibility occurred to me and made my chest hurt like it did when I found Dani locked in the basement.  I plucked the nibbled fingernail from my mouth and asked, “Mrs. Jones, what if Dani wants to come back, but she’s afraid of what Ms. Sweaney will do to her if she does?”

“Yes, I’ve considered that too.
"  Smoothing the seam of her blue polyester pants over and over, her worry was obvious. 

Did she know how cruel Ms. Sweaney could be?  Did she suspect like Dani that the director was crazy? 
I watched her fidget and felt the heaviness inside change from liquid to solid. 

Mrs. Jones' hands stilled and she sighed. "
Ms. Sweaney is the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.  See, I’ve known Beth, Ms. Sweaney, since she was dropped off at this children’s home when she was about your age, so about twenty years ago."  She looked away as she remembered.  "Her mother was a hateful woman.  She marched Beth right up to the office and not caring who overheard, she said, ‘I need you take this girl.  She’s ugly, skinny, and disgusting just like her dreadful father.  I don’t want her and nobody else does either.  Take her, so I’ll never have to be reminded of that awful man and what he did to me again.’  I was shocked by this woman’s contempt for her own and was about ready to let her know just exactly what I thought of her when I stopped myself.  Because in reality, what could I do?  My guess was that this wasn't the first time poor Beth had heard such poison exit her own mother's mouth.  Maybe she would be better off with us?  Beth's mother handed over signed legal documents giving the girl’s guardianship over to the state.  And that was the last time Beth saw or heard from her mother.”  Mrs. Jones pushed her glasses up her nose and added with a shrug, “I always wondered if it was harder on children whose parents willingly gave them up.”  A concerned glance washed over me.

“My husband, Thomas, was the director back then, and I helped out in the office like I do now.   My kids were mostly grown so I spent time here while they were at school, and then left early to get dinner on the table.   Each child placed at the home, we treated like our very own.
"  She smiled.  "Once the children were here for a while, many of them called us Momma and Papa Jones.  We had boys and girls in those days and things could get pretty wild around here.”  Her mind seemed to wander for a bit as she recalled happy memories. “We tried our best to balance discipline with fun.   But mostly, we wanted to mend all those little broken hearts each child carried with him.  My Thomas, he had a big heart.  He loved his work and loved these children.”  Again her thoughts seemed to drift, but this time they weren’t paired with a smile. “I lost him five years ago.  That’s when Ms. Sweaney took over the job as director.”

“
There I go again.” Mrs. Jones shook her head and patted my knee. “Sometimes, I get to thinking and remembering, my tongue starts wagging, and before I know it I’ve said too much.   My daughter says I do it because I’m getting old, and she might be right.”  Mrs. Jones laughed then like the idea her of being old was new.

I couldn’t help but give
her a small smile in return to be polite.  

“So where was I?   Let me think.” 
For the first time since asking me about Dani, she seemed to recognize her audience again.  “Today is my last day of work.  I’m going to live with my daughter in Kansas City.  She wanted me to move in with her after Thomas died, but I wanted to stay and help the next director run this place.  Ms. Sweaney won’t let me take care of you girls. She won’t let me give you even a little bit of the love you deserve.”  She took my hand between her warm ones and squeezed.  “I don’t want to leave you, but I can’t be a party to her cruelty anymore.”

“Lily, I want you to listen close, okay?  What happened to Beth, I mean Ms. Sweaney, was terrible.  No parent should ever treat her
child that way or say such hateful things about them.   She never forgave her mother, but even worse, she believed every awful thing she said about her.  She has carried her anger and hurt around with her her whole life.  Out in the world, she felt out of place, because she was without a family of her own.  So she came back here where she thought at least she was on level ground with everyone.  Returning was the worst thing she could have done for herself.  Every day she is reminded of what her mother did to her.  And she takes her anger out on all of you, especially those girls with sisters.  As I understand it, she had a sister that her mother kept.”