Unprotected (10 page)

Amanda scrunched her nose. “Those seem like icky reasons.”

“Why? Because they have nothing to do with the kid?”

Amanda sighed. “Yeah, I hadn’t even thought of that, but that makes it all the worse. I just think the whole thing sounds gamey, and you sound way more interested in beating this lawyer than keeping the kid safe.”

“The only way I can keep the kid safe is to beat this lawyer, because this dad isn’t admitting a thing and is playing legal games.” Jake looked a little hurt. “But don’t think that I’m not concerned about this kid. Maybe you need to talk to your people and see if there’s something else you want to do about this.” Jake closed his file and stood up. “I don’t know about the social work part, Amanda. If you want a CHIPS petition, this is how you do it.”

Amanda stood, too and gathered up her files shaking her head. “I feel like I’m going to mess this up because I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted.

“Join the club. You just gotta figure it out as you go.” He slid around his desk and walked her to the stairs. Amanda was quiet. When they got to the stairs he squeezed her arm quickly. “You’ll be fine, Amanda. Just be careful, follow the law as best you can, and don’t get sloppy. You can’t get in trouble if you are acting in good faith. Remember that.”

Even after five years, he still knew exactly what she needed to hear.

Chapter Six

Amanda lay on her couch with feet up and staring at the TV, not noticing that the news was over and she was actually watching
Wheel of Fortune
. There were so many thoughts swirling through her head that it gave her a headache. Longing for some comfort, Amanda reached for the phone and called Lucy. She almost hung up when a male voice answered the phone.

“I’m sorry, I’m calling for Lucy Ramirez.”

“She’s right here.” Amanda could hear Lucy ask who was calling, and the guy responded in Spanish.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Lucy.”

“Oh, Amanda …” Lucy started sobbing. Amanda was used to Lucy crying at the drop of a hat, but this time she sounded more upset than normal.

“What happened?” Now she could hear the male voice trying to comfort her.

“Will you come over, Amanda, please? I was just going to call you.”

“Of course. I’m on my way.” They hung up, and Amanda grabbed her coat and keys and walked out the door. Amanda lived in the upstairs apartment of an old house.

The drive to Apple Falls was almost thirty minutes, just over the Terrence County border. Lucy had found a teaching job immediately after graduation at Amanda’s old elementary school. The school had not advertised for a bilingual teacher, but Lucy knew it helped.

Amanda arrived at Lucy’s apartment in less than forty-five minutes, parked along the street, and went to Lucy’s entrance in the back. Before she could knock, her male friend answered the door.

“Hello, Amanda,” he said with a slight Spanish accent. He was broad shouldered and muscular, with large, perfect teeth and friendly smile. He shook Amanda’s hand with both of his and almost pulled her inside. Lucy was sitting on the couch crying. There was something in the way that Lucy looked that told Amanda what was going on before Lucy could say a word.

Amanda sat next to Lucy on the couch. “So when are you due?” Lucy looked up at Amanda, shocked, and her friend started to laugh.

“Lucy knew you would figure it out. I told her we shouldn’t tell anyone yet, but she said you would know the second you saw her anyway.” He sat on the arm of the couch and put his arm around Lucy. “I told you it’s going to be okay.”

Lucy dried her eyes on her tissue and took a deep breath. “Amanda, this is William. Do you remember me talking about him? We dated in high school for over two years.” Lucy looked at her almost begging her to remember.

“Of course, I remember him,” Amanda said. “He was all over your photo albums. He wore that awful tux to the prom.” William laughed again, and Lucy finally smiled. “I just don’t understand why I’m hearing about him now when apparently you two were spending some time together.”

Lucy’s face darkened again, and she looked down at her tissue that she was tearing into strips. “I don’t know, Amanda,” she said in a shuddery voice.

“Yes, you do,” William said suddenly. “You may as well tell her since we both know it’s the truth.”

“What do I know?” Lucy said looking up at him angrily.

“We weren’t exactly acting like boyfriend and girlfriend, Lucy. We were sneaking around because you didn’t want your students to know about me.” He was obviously hurt, and Amanda could see this was not a new topic for the two of them. Lucy looked like she wanted to crawl in a hole.

“I just didn’t think it was appropriate for the students to see me with a man,” Lucy said.

“The only reason you feel that way is because you feel guilty for disappointing your family because you’re not a virgin,” William said. Lucy jumped at the word and burst into tears again.

“Oh, come on,” Amanda said. “Your mom would never hurt you like that.”

“You don’t understand,” William said to Amanda. “It’s not going to be pretty with her family, but we’ll get through it. Initial reaction will be the worst.”

“I don’t think you’re giving Rosie enough credit,” Amanda said. “Seriously, Lucy, she’s the kindest person I ever met.”

Lucy had shredded her Kleenex into tiny bits that she rolled into a ball. “William’s right,” she said. “My mother’s a very conservative Catholic, and being a virgin is a big deal. She got married as a teenager because she was pregnant with me, and my dad was a jerk. She always made a big deal about being a virgin because of our faith, but it’s really just to keep us from making her mistakes. She will be the most upset about the example I’m setting for my sisters. Then there are my students …” And her tears started again. Amanda handed her another tissue.

“Your students are first graders,” William said. “There’s a very easy way to take care of this, honey.” He knelt down next to Lucy, and then looked at Amanda and said, “I want to marry her. I’ve always wanted to marry her. She won’t even answer me.”

Lucy kissed William on the forehead and then leaned on Amanda’s shoulder. “I don’t know what’s right.” She took a deep breath.

“Yes, you do,” Amanda said. “You have never gotten over William. I think you knew you’d marry him someday.”

“I just hoped,” Lucy said, a tiny smile peeking out.

“Can I call that a yes?” William asked, squeezing Lucy’s hands.

“I guess you can.” And the tears started all over again.

* * *

They decided to have a “milk toast” (William’s joke) in honor of the pregnancy and upcoming wedding. Lucy had been at the doctor that day and learned her due date was May 20th. Lucy admitted she hadn’t told Amanda about William because they were sneaking and screwing around and felt guilty. Lucy wanted to get married before the baby was born, before she was showing, so they tentatively decided on a New Year’s Eve wedding. William talked Lucy into waiting a day or two before she called her family. William said he wanted them to enjoy their “engagement” before the fallout started.

Amanda drove home that night thinking about Lucy’s baby. There was no other word for it: Lucy looked maternal already. She looked how all mothers were supposed to look … soft, nurturing, motherly. For the first time in a long time, Amanda thought about her own mother. Had April ever looked or felt maternal? She wondered whom she told first about the pregnancy. April was seventeen when she had Amanda, so she dropped out of high school. Amanda realized she didn’t really know who was in her mother’s life at that time. Amanda knew that when April was still in high school, her family scattered after a house fire that had destroyed everything they owned. Most likely, April gave birth on her own.

The other topic that Amanda never allowed into her head was her father. April had told Amanda, probably before she was able to talk, that her father was a “bastard” and there was no reason for her to even know his name. Amanda had accepted that as part of her history her whole life without question. When her mother had first been diagnosed with cancer, doctors wanted to know about next of kin. “It’s just my Manda and me. It’s always been just us. We don’t need nobody else.”

An image floated up from the recess of Amanda’s mind of a Christmas tree. She couldn’t have been older than four or five.

An artificial tree, totally white. She was disturbed by the metal branches—they didn’t look right. There were balls wrapped in shiny string hanging from the tree, but most of the string was fraying and falling off, revealing the Styrofoam inside. Little Amanda sat behind the tree digging her fingernail into the styrofoam from a blue ball. Through the branches of the white tree she could see her mother, flicking her cigarette into an ashtray and tapping her foot. She was wearing tight jeans and boots. A few gifts were under the tree wrapped in shiny silver paper that must have been aluminum foil. The walls were paneled with cheap wood on the lower half that Amanda was leaning against, and the upper half had wallpaper of canons on a yellowish background. Amanda sensed a smell, but what that smell was slid out of Amanda’s mind before she could identify it.

Amanda was surprised at the vividness of the image she likely had forgotten for at least twenty years. The only Christmas tree Amanda and her mom ever owned had been a cheap artificial green one, and she had no memory of ever having a white tree in any of the apartments or trailers they had lived in. The image had also brought with it an emotion Amanda did not have words for, yet it brought tears to her eyes. She sensed that the cold October night with tiny flecks of snow flying through the air had somehow brought out the image. Something about that place was painful.

She arrived at her apartment and went to bed with a lump in her throat.

Chapter Seven

Amanda was sitting in her cube at work trying to concentrate. Becca, a social worker, whose clients were mentally ill adults and children, was clipping her fingernails. Loudly. Amanda rarely, on any occasion wanted to work with Becca, but her cube was closest to Amanda’s so they were nearly office mates. Becca was the only coworker that Amanda truly did not like. With Becca’s marriage clearly on the rocks, Amanda frequently heard her fighting with her husband on the phone, or humphing in response to his snotty emails. The first week Amanda was there, Becca read her a few of her husband’s messages: “Working late tonight, you need to pick up kids and actually cook something instead of driving through McDonalds.” Amanda tried to be polite but Amanda knew she wanted to keep her distance from Becca.

Soon after, Leah had told her while they were working together on an investigation that she needed to stay away from Becca.

“Seriously, everyone here hates her, and if you associate with her they’re going to avoid you too.” Leah and Amanda were on their way to a hoarders’ house, Amanda’s first investigation, and Leah reveled in telling Amanda what she was going to need to do to survive at their office. The first rule was to stay away from Becca. The second was to not be a wuss about hoarder’s houses. Leah loved telling war stories about the grossness she had seen in the line of duty.

“There’s a smell that’s always there in these houses, “ Leah was saying. “It’s a mix of cigarette smoke, dirty diapers, cats, and general filth. You always sit on a hardback chair, never accept food, never ever use the bathroom, and usually don’t wear your coat inside because it will pick up the smell.”

Amanda started to slide out of her brand new wool coat. “Can we go home and change if we know we’re going to a house like that?”

“Maybe,” Leah said. “Definitely change if you had court that day, otherwise it’s probably not necessary.” Leah had told her that everyone was going to be waiting to hear how she handled her first hoarder house, and they were going to never let her forget it if she was too freaked. Amanda didn’t tell Leah that day that the house was no worse than some of the trailers she had played in when she was younger.

The clipping had not relented, and Amanda was convinced Becca must have started on her toes. Amanda decided to leave a little early for her meeting with Marlys’s sister, LaToya.

LaToya had lived in a trailer court near the railroad tracks in town. Marlys said she was going to be living with LaToya after treatment since she had lost her apartment, so Amanda needed to check out LaToya’s home before the kids could visit their mom there. Marlys did not want her kids placed with her sister, but there was such a strong obligation to place with relatives that she needed to meet with LaToya to discuss relative placement anyway, especially because neither dad was a placement option at this time. They were preparing to get the judge’s approval to move the kids if LaToya checked out, but there were issues with LaToya’s background so it was going to be iffy.

Terrence was an old railroad town, and the section of town near the tracks was especially seedy. There was an old train changing station with several rows of tracks and two tall abandoned grain elevators scheduled to be demolished soon. Leah said the Terrence police officers said that area was rampant with drug traffic. Max had warned her to lock her car, because the trailer court had several thefts reported in the newspaper in the last several months.

Amanda meandered through the gravel alleys in Shady Court looking for number seventy-seven. As in all trailer parks, there were some trailers that were nicely painted with window boxes and a neat lawn. Most of the trailers, however, had broken windows with duct taped screens, porches with steps that a person could fall through if he wasn’t careful, and endless old scooters, trikes, bikes, and wagons with missing wheels or seats.

Amanda found number seventy-seven after over ten minutes of driving in circles, finally going all the way down an alley with trailers numbered in the teens, which abruptly jumped to the seventies. Number seventy-seven stood out because it was encircled by chicken wire at the base of the trailer to the ground, which Amanda knew was an attempt to keep pests from getting through cracks in the foundation and the floor. Amanda tried to put the image of mice or larger pests out of her mind. She parked at number seventy-nine—there was no seventy-eight—because there were two dilapidated cars, one up on blocks, parked in front of seventy-seven.