These Things Hidden Read online

  “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 tha
t 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.

  “Nope. Not her.” I shove the wine cooler back at him, sloshing the contents all over his shirt, and step past him through the crowd. Unsteadily, I push my way through the sweaty bodies until I reach the door. Once outside, the mild night air cools my face. I make my way to my car and climb in. I know I can’t drive like this. My head feels heavy and I rest it on the steering wheel and close my eyes. Growing up, teachers were always saying, You’re Allison Glenn’s little sister, aren’t you? Are you as smart, athletic, funny (you can insert your own adjective here) as your sister?

  Well, no, I’m not. I’m not my sister, I want to shout. I am nothing like her and never will be. But no matter how hard I try, no matter how far away I go, Allison is always there. It always comes back to Allison.

  Allison

  In the dark of night I still question how the police found out the baby was mine. Someone had to have called them and it sure wasn’t me. In the back of my mind I know it was Brynn, even though I can’t believe she had it in her to actually pick up the phone. Brynn couldn’t even order a pizza on her own. Five years have passed and I still have trouble picturing her making the call.

  The strange numbness that I had felt after giving birth the day before was gone, replaced with burning pain that brought tears to my eyes. I was actually glad for the officer’s steadying hand. Brynn reached out to touch my face. “Alli,” she cried. I pulled away from her fingers. I felt so sick, like I would combust if anyone touched me. I know that pulling away from Brynn hurt her feelings. She was always so sensitive. In an odd way, I could understand why she did what she did. This was way more than a fifteen-year-old girl, especially one like Brynn, should have had to shoulder. I prayed that for her sake she didn’t tell anyone she had helped me through the delivery. There was no reason why we should both get in trouble for what really was my own fault. As I carefully slid into the back of the police car, I could hear Brynn’s awful cries.

  I haven’t spoken to or seen Brynn since.

  I ended up fainting in the police car, so our first stop was the hospital, where I got thirty stitches and spent the next three days hooked up to an IV full of antibiotics. The way the nurses and the doctors looked at me while I was in the hospital was new. Everyone took adequate care of me; they were all too professional to do anything else. But there were no gentle touches, no cool hands laid against my hot forehead, no plumping up of pillows. Just anger and disgust. Fear. My parents’ original shock at me being led away by the police was replaced with outrage. “Ridiculous,” my mother hissed when the detective who came to the hospital to interview me asked if I was the one who threw the baby in the river. I didn’t say anything.

  “Allison,” my mother said, “tell them it’s all a big mistake.” Still I didn’t say anything. The officer asked me why there was a black bag full of bloody sheets stuffed into the garbage can in our garage. I didn’t answer. She asked me how I came to be nearly ripped in half, my breasts swollen and leaking milk.

  “Allison. Tell them you didn’t do this,” my father ordered.

  Finally, I spoke. “I think I need a lawyer.”

  The detective shrugged her shoulders. “That’s probably a good idea. We found the placenta.” I swallowed hard and looked down at my hands. They were puffy and swollen; they didn’t look like they belonged to me. “Inside a pillow case at the bottom of a trash bag.” She turned to look at my father. “In your trash can. Call your lawyer.” As she was leaving my hospital room, she turned back to me and said softly, “Did she cry, Allison? Did your baby cry when you threw her in the water?”

  “Get out!” my mother screeched, so unlike her usual composed, proper self. “Get out of here, you have no right. You have no right to come in here and accuse and ups
et us like this!”

  “Huh,” the detective said, nodding in my direction as she moved toward the door. “She doesn’t look so upset.”

  Charm

  Gus is fading quickly. “Where’s the baby?” he asks Charm when she comes home from the hospital.

  “He’s safe,” she reassures him. “Remember, he’s with that nice family now? They are taking good care of him.”

  Charm hears a rap at the front door. She lifts the pot of mashed potatoes from the stove top and goes to the door. Jane stands on the front steps, her black hair pulled back in a ponytail, carrying her bag of tricks, as she calls it.

  “Hey, how’re you doing?” she asks as she steps into the house. “Fall is in the air.” She shivers slightly and Charm takes her coat from her.

  “I know, and it’s only the end of August. We’re doing fine,” Charm responds. “Gus is in the other room watching television.”

  “Ah, food for the mind.” She smiles.

  Charm shrugs. “It helps pass the time.”

  “How’s he doing?” Jane asks, her tone turning serious.

  “He’s okay. Some days are better than others.”

  “How about you? How’s school going? Are you juggling everything okay? It’s a lot of responsibility for a twenty-one-year-old to be going to school and taking care of an old man.”

  “Hey, don’t call Gus old, it will hurt his feelings. We’re doing just fine,” Charm says, stiffening a little. She knows where Jane is heading with this. Jane brings up the subject of a hospital or skilled care facility nearly every time she comes to the house. “I call him three times a day and check up on him at lunch.”