Water from Stone - a Novel (32 page)

But then the music starts and she is reminded she’s let her mind wander, has ceased paying attention to the colors and they did not like that, not one little bit. No, she wills, please, no, no, no. Turning is difficult, almost impossible, her feet have more sense than her brain and refuse to move, refuse to turn, refuse to be. Taking her hands from her eyes, she reaches down and tugs at a leg, yanks her damn foot and makes it obey. And then the other one, the music rising, grating, scraping at her ears, saying look, look, look, ha ha ha.

And the painting is there, of course it is. And it has grown. Of course it has. If she’d only been paying attention, she’d have foreseen it. Stupid stupid stupid. Leaving a painting with a stupid stupid woman. And now the mess in the corner and the river, is that a river already? Yes it is, on the floor and she’ll need a mop and rags and that goddamned music, trilling actually, she recognizes the word of it, trilling, at her. Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha.
La la la la, la dee da
, almost like a children’s song, but sung by something that is not very nice. She can tell that now. It isn’t mean little children, it can’t be, children can’t be that mean. It is a something else. And it is coming for her. Oh, shit! The painting, she has to take care of the painting.

It is there, its so much bigger self, still swirling madly, dripping onto the floor, but more steadily now and she can sense the clog, as if a twig is caught, oh, yes, there is the Umber, caught in the corner, holding it back. And she thinks, yes! this is my chance, while it holds.

She moves more purposefully now, with her feet back under her control and the can of gesso in her arms. The trilling is becoming more shrill, as if it knows she can win, can shut it up for good, and she takes grim pleasure in its distress, wants to rip its vocal chords out and throw them out the window, toss them at a passing shark. Car. Where did that come from? She glances uneasily out the window. Car. Toss them at a passing car, to be squashed and flattened and mangled beneath its tires, one last, long
trrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllll
as the air is squeezed from it one. last. time.

Ha Ha Ha. Fool. Tra La La. Fool. Stupid Fool. Stupid trusting, dusting, musty. Fool.

It is deeper now. Deeper and stronger and pounding in her head. Stupid! No, No! Fool! What kind of a mother are you? Throwing your child under a car? Ha Ha Ha STUPID!

Oh, god! Oh, NO, and she is running, running, slogging, through the river, or is it a pond by now, lake, that is pouring from the painting and the window is so much farther away. No No NO, had she thrown Lizzie out the window? She’d heard a crunch, do tires crunch? She’d heard it, a sound and the weight in her arms, she’d thought it was gesso, but was it Lizzie? Her baby? Oh, god, why is her blanket in her arms and the window so far away and the stupid stupid stupid now an insidious mocking, mimicking, piercing needle threading throughout her brain, distracting her from the window, she needs to get to the window, to see Lizzie, to find her baby and she’s swimming, the Umber has cracked and the rushing of the backwaters has caused rapids, has knocked her to her knees and she needs to swim, needs to swim, has to swim but her arms won’t work, please please please I need my baby, my arms won’t work and then boom! The first swipe is just a playful bunt really, just a playful guess who’s here now, girlie?

Ha Ha Ha. Stupid. Fool.

Eighty-Eight

Mar.

She’s been awake for months. The Prozac isn’t working, how could it? She is on such a high dose of Prednisone because of the ulcers that have formed in her intestines and is so wired from that, that there is nothing that can calm her down. When she is very quiet and closes her eyes, she can even hear the blood rushing through her veins. Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh. Feel it under her skin, like the memory of a sunburn, raw and irritating. She calls it the heebie-jeebies, and it is driving her mad.

Mar sits in the darkened room and watches her daughter sleep. She’d taken off her watch weeks ago and has become adept at avoiding looking, or even glancing, at clocks. Still, she is aware, almost to the minute, of time passing. Sitting in the chair, watching Lizzie sleep, she’s already figured she is down to about 19,563 minutes until the meeting with the judge that will determine whether Mar continues as Lizzie’s mother.

The irony of it doesn’t escape her, how the law feels it can turn motherhood on and off. Just like that, poof, you’re a mom, bang, now you’re not. She’s struggled with it, cried over it, fought about it, screamed and ranted and raved and kicked and thrown things because of it, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. Someone has to make a decision, and she’s lost her opportunity to have been the one to have made it. She should have run.

She knows that now. She should have taken Lizzie, Picasso and whatever money she could get her hands on and gone. Adios, bye-bye and sayonara, buddy. Now she can’t go to the bathroom without the press writing about it. No way are they not going to notice if she takes off. Even with the judge’s orders that forbid her from taking Lizzie out of state, she’d try it, if she thought she could pull it off. Her attorney, aware of where her thoughts are turning, tried to talk her out of it.

And that is another irony that stings. When she had been a struggling foster mother and then the new, legal mother to Lizzie, no one had cared that she was absolutely clueless about how to take care of her. They’d just handed her the baby and told her to go be a mom. Now the world is watching and critiquing, making it an armchair sport to tear her apart, comment on what she should have done, how she should have acted.

Nineteen thousand, five hundred and thirty eight. Stop it, Mar. This may be all you have.

Mar stretches out on the bed, pulls Lizzie to her and holds her close for the next seventy-eight minutes that the little girl sleeps.

Eighty-Nine

Jack.

Jack, DeJon and Caroline are eating dinner at Jack’s apartment. Caroline takes a sip of wine and picks up the notebook she’s been referring to. “So, you’ve got weekends and a bonus, three afternoons a week,” she says. “I wasn’t sure the judge was going to come through.”

Jack looks up, curious. “Why not?”

“He’s the same judge that screwed up her earlier bid for adoption. I was afraid he was going to go out of his way to accommodate her this time. I’m glad to see he’s not.”

Jack shakes his head. “From everything we’ve learned, he’s a fair man.”

“For an old white dude,” DeJon mumbles.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means he used that reverse prejudice bullshit when he didn’t give that little boy to Mar Delgado.”

Jack carefully sets his knife and fork on his plate. “I wasn’t sure you’d even been paying attention all this time.”

DeJon stares intently at his plate. “Not much you are sure of.”

Jack’s fist slams down on the table, startling them all. “That’s it! What the hell has gotten into you?”

“Me? What’s gotten into me? How about what’s gotten into you? All of a sudden, you’re like, ‘maybe the baby should stay with her’, then it’s, ‘no, she’s gotta come to me.’ Why can’t you make up your goddamn mind?”

“DeJon…”

“Shit! You know what? I am so sick of this shit. All Mr. Conflicted when you can’t even see what’s going on in front of your fucking face. What about me? Huh, Jack? What about the kid that’s been with you all these years? The dumb ass fool that looked out for you, tried to find your kid for you? The one that sat at the hospital with you and was always there, fucking waiting for you? What about that kid? You gonna give me back now that you’re getting your little girl back? My momma comes calling like you’re doing with that Mar Delgado woman and you’re gonna give me back?”

DeJon’s chest is heaving as he towers over Jack, tears glittering in his eyes. “You think it’s black and white, Jack? And, you,” he points at Caroline, “all hiding behind that lawyer shit. You think you got the law on your side, talking trash about that woman to the press, and you, Jack, just sit back and let it happen like it’s OK ‘cuz that little girl belongs to you, right? Well, then, who the hell do I belong to? You told me I belong with you because you love me and you take care of me. Well, maybe that little girl belongs with her momma.”

Stunned, Jack watches DeJon run off to his room. He flinches when the door slams shut. “Don’t,” Caroline reaches out and puts her hand on his arm when he moves to follow. “Let him go. He’s got a lot on his mind and he’s got to work it out.”

Jack sinks back into his chair, his emotions raw. Malcolm was right. He has a corner on the guilt market.

Ninety

Mar.

Mar hangs up the phone, bewildered.

“Who was that?” Very few people have the recently-unlisted number.

“Stacey. The Sonnenheims are in Denver, and they want to see me tomorrow.”

“Lindsey’s parents?”

“Yeah.”

“Why, whatever for?”

“I don’t know, Dee. We haven’t heard a thing from them, ever. I don’t know why they’re suddenly so interested.”

“Come on, be fair. Maybe they were told to stay away. That’s what Stacey said.”

“I know, but why now?”

“I don’t know. Are you going to see them?”

“I think so.”

“What does Stacey suggest?”

“It could go either way. I can tell them to screw off, and make things even more contentious, or see them and at least find out what they want.”

“Maybe they want to talk about visitation rights or something.”

“For who? For them, or for me?” There is no disguising the bitterness in her voice.

“For them, Mar. You have to be strong.”

“I know, I know,” Mar says. Twelve-thousand-two-hundred-seventy-three.

Ninety-One

Jack.

Jack is late and he is running. He’d gotten out of the cab three blocks away when it was stuck in traffic. Now, as he nears The Farm, he slows to a jog and finally, as he comes up to the basketball court, to a slow walk. It is no good. The game is in full swing and DeJon is out on the court. Jack leans against the fence, feeling the failure in the pit of his stomach.

“DeJon!” Jack calls when there is a break in the game.

DeJon, slick with sweat, glances over at the fence and glares at Jack before turning his back dismissively.

“Great,” Jack swears, “just great.”

“You can’t blame him, Jack.”

“Oh, hey, Malcolm. You spying on me again?”

“Ha! Watching out for you, waiting for you, yes. Spying? No need when I can pick up the National Enquirer and read all about you.”

“Very funny.”

“How ya doing, Jack? Really?”

Jack watches DeJon move in for a shot and smiles when the ball swooshes into the basket. “Other than letting him down again, great.”

“He was really counting on you being here.”

“Salt on the wounds, huh?”

Malcolm shrugs. “It is what it is. So, what kept you?”

“The custody case. Just wrapping up some loose ends.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh. What’s that supposed to mean?”

Malcolm shifts his attention to the court. “You know, we started these Father-Son games six or seven years ago to encourage togetherness. Other than that first year after Lindsey died, you haven’t missed one.”

“I feel bad enough, Malcolm.”

“You haven’t missed one,” the priest continues as if Jack hadn’t spoken. “This is the first year DeJon officially has a father, and your being here meant something to him.”

“I get it, OK? I fucked up.”

“Jack, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. Everything. This case. I don’t know,” he shakes his head. “And now, DeJon. We’re not getting along.”

“Do you have any idea why? Have you talked to him?”

“He won’t talk to me.”

“But, have you tried?”

“Of course I’ve tried! He just shuts me out.”

“Could it be he’s afraid?”

Jack looks down at Malcolm, surprised. “Afraid? Of what? There’s nothing for him to be afraid of.”

“What about of losing you?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is.”

Malcolm turns back to the game. “Is it?” he asks again.

Ninety-Two

Mar.

Stacey Lindquist meets Mar and her father in her office.

“So, did you have any trouble getting past the hordes?” Stacey asks, referring to the news media who are camped out on Mar’s front lawn.

“The usual. Everyone’s looking for a new angle. I was offered $10,000.00 to pose with Darrell and Cindy Matthews, that couple that lost Baby M. This week’s
People
’s rehashing that whole thing. And the adoption rights people came by again. They’ve got that rally staged for next week and want me to speak at it.”

“Letterman’s people called again. They’ll fit you in any day this week or next, though they’d rather do a piece this week and then a follow-up after the ruling.”

Mar scratches her arms, the heebie-jeebies are flowing. “What am I supposed to say, Stace?”

“It helps by bringing awareness.”

“If this were a normal adoption situation, I’d say yes, in a heart beat. If the parents had put Lizzie up and I adopted her, and now they want her back like that dad in the baby Veronica case, hell yeah, bring it on, I’d be out there screaming from the roof tops. But they didn’t put her up, and what am I going to say? You know, inside, I feel like if the tables were turned, I, me now, should give her back. I understand their, his, right to her. And that’s so messed up, because it doesn’t help me and, if I’m on TV, and someone asks me what’s the right thing to do, and I say, legally? To give her back, but, emotionally? For Lizzie’s sake? To leave her with me, where she’s settled. And are they going to hear the difference? No, they’ll just say, well, she said she should give her back, so it’s all agreed, and, boom, the judge says give her back.”

Don pulls out a handkerchief and hands it to Mar.

“Mar, the judge knows that, he learned. He sees the difference. That’s why this has taken so long. If it had been a purely legal issue, he’d have returned Lizzie to her biological family months ago.”

“He only learned that because of Max.”

“Yes, and that can go in your favor.”

“But not in Max’s.”

“Mar, you’ve got to stick to current issues.”

“I can’t. I’m just so bitter.”

“Of course you are. That’s understandable. But for now, you have to focus.”

“I know. I know.”

“Good. So, I need you to think about Letterman.”

“Whatever.”

“OK, fine. We’ll talk about that later. Right now, let’s talk about the Sonnenheims.”

“Have they told you what they want?”

“No. I say just meet them and, if at any time you don’t like what they’re saying or whatever it is that they want, then I’ll stop the meeting.”

“Fine.”

“Should I wait here?” Don asks.

“No way,” Mar takes his hand. “It’s two on two with Stacey as referee.”