Page 17 of Martha Calhoun

“Never came down with your brother?”

“No.”

“He ever tell you about it?”

I shook my head.

“And your mother—”

I interrupted him by shaking my head again.

He frowned and looked down, overacting to convey his seriousness. “Let me say a few words, then.” He started giving a little speech about the history and purpose of the juvenile court. “We offer you a second chance,” he kept repeating. He sounded bored, spinning off the neat, practiced sentences with no enthusiasm and little energy. As he spoke, he arranged the papers in front of him into a careful pile. He was talking to me, so I kept my eyes on him, but, beside me, I sensed Bunny starting to fidget. Finally, the judge noticed. “What is it, Mrs. Calhoun?” he asked.

“Can I say something?” she said.

“Of course. What is it?”

“I can explain all this.” She waved her hand, as if to indicate Mrs. O’Brien, Mr. Moon, the whole courtroom.

I leaned close. “No, Bunny,” I whispered.

“Yes, yes,” said the judge. “Go on.”

“It’s that woman, Mrs. Benedict—she doesn’t like me, your honor. She’s jealous, and jealousy is a powerful emotion and makes people do terrible things.”

Judge Horner looked quizzically from Bunny to the prosecutor, then back to Bunny. “Jealous of what?” he said.

“No,” I whispered again.

“Jealous because.…” Bunny started slowly, but suddenly the words tumbled out. “Jealous because I’ve got a beautiful, smart daughter, and she’s got a dumpy, dumb one.”

I bowed my head, burrowing my chin in my chest. Why’d she have to say that? Better to be marched off to prison, locked up like Tom, than to talk like that in the open. And the worst thing was, she probably believed it. She’d argue with the judge if he gave her half a chance: The town was conspiring against her; Tom got blamed for everything; now, Mrs. Benedict was acting out of jealousy. I could have recited the arguments by heart. I’d heard them all before—listening silently, holding them in as if they were our own dark secret.

Sergeant Tony let out a long, low, dirty-sounding whistle.

“What do you expect me to think, Mrs. Calhoun?” asked Judge Horner. He sounded gentle, almost helpless. “We’ve got a nice town here, a simple town. There are families here with six kids, ten kids, and not one of their children ends up in my court. You’ve got two, and now they’ve both been here. What am I to think?”

Bunny glanced quickly around, looking for an ally. “But she’s been jealous of me for years. She tried to take Martha away—”

“Mrs. Calhoun,” broke in the judge, “jealousy didn’t put your daughter in that room with that little boy. She got there on her own. This isn’t a trivial matter. I could have sent her right into the Home. Be grateful that I had some restraint.” The judge arched his back, lifting his chin. “There’s no reason on earth why the county should sit by and let you ruin another life. We’ve got a system in place here and expertise—the court, the social workers.”

He stood, catching Josephine by surprise. “All rise,” she yelled, scrambling to her feet and glaring at us. The judge held out his arm toward Bunny. A thin, pale, accusing finger jutted out of his sleeve. “My advice to you, Mrs. Calhoun, is to get your own life in order. Use these two weeks to settle your own affairs. I think you know what I mean. I’m not about to send your daughter back into the same environment that’s produced all the trouble.” He turned to Josephine. “Let’s go,” he snapped, and she hurried in front, holding the door for him as he whisked out of the courtroom.

FIVE

I sometimes think that this story is as much Sissy’s as mine, that for everything I’ve learned about myself in the last few weeks, I’ve learned equal amounts about her. I see now how wrong I was about her, how much I depended on an idea that was fixed long ago and that I never bothered to reconsider. What I did was cruel, in a way—never giving her the possibility to change, until I came to know her, bit by bit, living in her room, in her house, with her parents.

The morning after the first court hearing, I awoke early. I felt tired in every part of my body, but I couldn’t fall back asleep. I was too worried and unhappy. Lying on my side on Sissy’s bed, as the early light turned the room a dull gray, my scratchy eyes were focused on the wall. After a while, I noticed that a spot on the wallpaper just in front of my nose had been disfigured. One of the daffodils was faded and slightly fuzzy, as if the wallpaper had got wet or been rubbed down. Leaning up on my elbow, I inspected more closely. The spot had been rubbed down; it had been erased. Someone had drawn a heart in the cup of the daffodil and inside had written, “Sissy Loves Elro.” Afterward, there’d been an attempt to erase the evidence, but the pencil point had made a permanent mark.

“Sissy Loves Elro.” There was only one Elro in Katydid—how could there be anyone else with a name like that?

Elro Judy had been in my class for years. He had one of those farmer’s faces that had been sunburned and peeled away so many times that it had become a permanent pink—though, in Elro’s case, he’d looked that way ever since I knew him. He was strong and wiry and tall. From first grade on, he was one of the few boys taller than I. He and Tom used to get together occasionally for some minor mischief. Elro is younger than Tom, but Elro grew up early—physically, that is. He was the first boy in the class to start becoming a man, and it happened very quickly. In fifth grade, one day, the teacher told him to shave before he came to school again. He’d been growing a feathery little black beard. His voice got so deep you could hear him all over the playground. In gym class, when he sweated, his sweat smelled strong, like a man’s. Over the years, he developed a personality to go with that body—awkward, rough, a little bullying. Though we’d been in the same classrooms, I probably hadn’t said a word to him in five years.

Elro had always been a bit apart from everyone else, but to strike up a romance with Sissy? The idea seemed impossible. Aside from her constant cold, her dreadful, itchy sweaters buttoned up around her chin, her old-fashioned skirts, she was a captive of religion. There wasn’t a place in her head for romantic notions, at least as far as I had ever been able to see. And even if she’d fooled us all, even if behind everything she’d really been secretly dreaming, she couldn’t possibly have been dreaming about Elro. The two of them were just too different. They hardly belonged in the same world together, let alone together in a crudely penciled heart.

I didn’t fall back asleep, but, before I knew it, the room was full of light. The sun was up. I’d passed a half hour, maybe an hour, contemplating Sissy and Elro, and not once had I thought of my own problems. There’s a lesson there, I thought. Diversion. That’s how to survive this. Sissy may rescue me yet.

Mrs. O’Brien came that morning for the first of what were to be our regular sessions. We sat in the parlor, a small, book-lined room off the main hall, with a sofa and several soft chairs. During the day, the oak tree outside keeps the room dark and gloomy. At night, Mr. and Mrs. Vernon sit in there and listen to the radio.

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