The Book of CarolSue Read online

  But when he found a site likely meant for people in something like Rosalina’s situation, he began to realize it wasn’t unique. Here was a list of options. Sign a child-care power of attorney. But—some hospitals, schools, and doctors won’t accept that. Signing over guardianship was probably the best option because she could sign a waiver of service of process for the nearest immigration court, meaning that she’d agree not to be notified by certified mail when an action was taken regarding the child’s guardianship. Signing a consent for custody: Well, that was trickier because it had to go through the juvenile court, and if she ever made it back to the States, or changed her mind for any reason, it was very difficult to have it assigned back. It was noted parenthetically that when a child is born to unmarried parents, custody is preemptively assigned to the mother.

  And as far as Gus was concerned, that’s where it belonged. Not that his father had been as bad as some, but there are a lot of ways to hurt a kid. Rosalina didn’t know what she was doing, but Gus did.

  Chapter 29

  CarolSue

  Louisa and I had spent the night almost as if nothing monumental had happened. I took care of Gracie, although Louisa seemed more tender when I brought the baby in, sweet-smelling and damp-haired from her bath, ready for kisses before I fed a bedtime bottle and sang her lullaby while Louisa fixed us a simple supper. I wanted to remind my sister that I’d laid claim to that baby when no one wanted her. I didn’t know Louisa’s heart yet, but I did know the enormity of her loss and thought she might want Gracie to fill that gaping hole.

  If she did, it would be at my expense. Did she believe her losses were larger than mine, or her claim more true?

  After Gary left, I couldn’t bring myself to ask how she felt. Rather, by taking care of Gracie as I had right along, I thought I was showing: She’s mine. And I was relieved that Louisa didn’t challenge who would bathe, dress, feed, rock, sing, put her to bed, those ancient rituals of motherhood I’d wanted all my life. After we cleaned up our few dishes and tidied the kitchen and living room, I said I was tired and would turn in early. There was no worry, nothing but peace on Gracie’s little face through that night; but I slept fitfully and woke often to check on her, the bassinet two feet away from my bed, as I’d had it from our beginning.

  In the morning, I thought I’d best find out if I’d have to fight.

  “I’m thinking maybe I should call Gus,” I said, when Gracie was down for her short morning nap. Louisa was pulling on her barn boots, getting ready to do battle with Al Pelley about planting something for the deer to eat in the winter—I think she said—in one small area. She liked making her land a haven for wildlife, and he insisted she was insane to reduce the farm’s profit margin. Al would be showing up soon, I knew, and I didn’t want to allow a lot of time for discussion. I just wanted to get the lay of this land so I could develop a Plan.

  “What for?” She countered, as I knew she would.

  “Well, you’ve told me how, out here, the sheriff is practically the social service system, there’s so little . . .” I trailed off, waiting for her to agree that she had, indeed, told me about the reduction in services that left too much to Gus to look after.

  “Yeah . . . so?”

  “I was thinking I should tell him that I want to be named Gracie’s foster mother. You know, just in case he has to report something . . . the missing mother . . . to the welfare department, I mean, child services, whatever. You remember how I said a while ago that I wanted to keep her?”

  Louisa stopped pulling on her left boot. She was sitting at the kitchen table, a mug with the dregs of her breakfast coffee shoved aside. Sunlight. Another honey-crisp day, the air alive, humming, neighbors’ combines bringing in the harvest.

  She looked at me, and said, “Huh.” Then she finished pulling on her boot.

  I waited. She got up and took her cup to the sink.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m not sure what that deep, meaningful response is supposed to signify. I guess I’ll go ahead and call.”

  “Huh,” she said. Again.

  Remember those homicidal impulses toward my sister I’ve had before? Let me tell you, it was damn near uncontrollable at that moment.

  “Louisa!”

  She had her hand on the back-door knob and had started to open it. I could see the girls—she had let them out of the coop right after she fed them, early—pecking around the yard. Jessie was startled at my sharp tone, and almost jumped to her feet, alarmed. Louisa, though, turned to look at me unperturbed. “What?” she said.

  “What do you mean, what? I want to know what you think! Or what you want.” This was making a total mess of my plan to casually find out where she stood so I could make a real Plan. So much for that.

  “I think it’s not going to make any difference what I think or what you think or even what Gus thinks. It’s Gary’s baby. Gary and some woman we don’t know a thing about. For my part, I’m trying not to think anything. Thinking’s a sure way to get your heart broken. Now I’ve got to go make sure Al is doing what I told him to do. Gotta watch that man. He likes to forget whose farm this is.” And then she was out the door. Marvelle eyed me, haughty on top of the wingback chair in the living room, blinking lazily and swishing her tail. Idiot, her expression said.

  I went to the kitchen window and watched Louisa cross the backyard, weave her way behind the finished vegetable and flower beds, past the coop. She conferred with two of the girls, maybe JoJo and Amy—I still wasn’t that great at telling them apart, to my sister’s disgust—then she walked alongside the barn and headed out toward the first field. She’s not a big woman, my sister, and from the back, you could mistake her body for a strong girl’s. Thanks to me and Miss Clairol, her hair is blond, and now the breeze raised sunlit strands above her head, crown-like. Queen of her beloved land. Louisa would always have this, I told myself.

  I was going to fight for Gracie.

  * * *

  Louisa was out of sight, doubtless in a vigorous argument with Al Pelley over a winter root crop for the deer. I checked on Gracie to make sure she was still sound asleep. I wanted to be able to explain without being interrupted when I called Gus. I didn’t have his cell phone number, so I had to call the station and ask for him, which wasn’t my first choice.

  “Is this an emergency, ma’am?” a pleasant woman’s voice inquired. Her tone suggested that she knew it wasn’t.

  “No, there’s not an emergency.”

  “He’ll call you back then. What number would you like to leave?”

  Of course, I wanted to talk to him right then, but I had no choice. I gave my cell phone number and hung up.

  It was just as well I wasn’t on the phone. Sometimes the most frustrating incidents turn out to be for the best. I’d scarcely started Gracie’s laundry when a minute later, there came Gary’s claptrap church van down the driveway for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, again with its frame about to give way from the weight of upset and worry.

  I met him at the front door. I thought—and don’t tell me, I know it’s selfish and wrong of me—oh no! He’s found Gracie’s mother and she wants the baby back! I should have realized that, had that happened, Gary would be happy, relieved, not slumped over with dread and doom as he was. Hadn’t he been looking for her all this time?

  “What’s wrong?” I opened the door and drew him inside. “Shhh. Baby sleeping. Jessie, off, stay down, good girl.” I added that last when I saw Gary knee the dog aside instead of pat her head as he usually did. Something was terribly amiss.

  Instead of coming in, Gary leaned back against the living room wall, as if he hadn’t the strength to walk to a chair or the couch. Across the room, his high school graduation picture was still on the wall, smiling at him, full of pride and expectation. His eyes locked on it, and he shook his head.

  “They found out,” he whispered. He sounded as if he were using his last air.

  “Gary, honey. Who? Found out what?”

  He loo
ked at me and shook his head. Was this something I should already know? I admit, I was totally confused. Then I took a stab.

  “Did something happen at your church?”

  He nodded. “They found out.”

  A light dawned. “Gracie?”

  His shoulders shook with his sobbing. He managed to nod. Relieved, I put my arms around him and tried to lead him to the couch, but his feet seemed rooted and his weight was propped against the wall. I thought he might topple over.

  When his breath was more even, I asked, “Did you tell them, honey?”

  He shook his head. “Clean for Jesus.”

  That one flummoxed me. “Clean for Jesus? You want to be . . . ?”

  “They found out.”

  That didn’t help me. “Clean for Jesus found out?”

  “In my office when Gus called. I wasn’t there yet. He left a message, but they heard him talk. He said . . .” And then he was sobbing again and I had to wait. I temporarily gave up on finding out who this Clean for Jesus person was, maybe some extra, extra devout member of Gary’s church.

  “What did Gus say, honey?”

  “He said . . . he said . . . my baby’s mother had been picked up. He found her.”

  I felt like I had when I’d found Charlie already dead. That shock of confusion, bewilderment, refusal. “No!” It was all I could get out. I realize it wasn’t helpful.

  “Arrested. She’s . . . undocumented.”

  “My God, Gary. My God. How . . . did this . . . Never mind. What are we going to do?”

  He seemed to think about that, and I thought he was coming up with a Plan for the baby. I started to tell him, “I will take care of her. You know, I’ve always wanted her. I’ll do whatever I need to.” Like I could make it happen.

  Gary was talking at the same time, sort of mumbling. “I have to talk to them. Tell the truth.”

  “Gary! Gracie comes first. We need to take care of her.”

  He looked at me, eyes gone navy instead of our hydrangea blue, and the whites turned pink and watery. “We have to give her back. Her mother. Wrong to keep her away.”

  “Gary! No! Don’t you love her?”

  His knees buckled, and he slid to the floor, unable to even stand. “I love her,” he wailed. “I love her.”

  Then I was on the floor crying with him, and that’s how Louisa found us.

  Chapter 30

  Gus

  Connie gave him his phone messages when he got back from the café. Margo had been particularly vexing today, but he’d one-upped her by tipping fairly, when she doubtless expected none in retribution. He loved mixing things up like that to confuse the hell out of her. Now the bitch would give him great service out of guilt tomorrow and he’d short her, maybe leave a dollar. On the way out, he’d say, “I left a ten-spot, Margo. Thanks for the great service. Keep the change.” All in good fun.

  CarolSue had called. He didn’t need his years of experience to guess what this was about. He sighed. Might as well get it over with. Got up, shut his office door. Sat back down, leaned back in his chair. Used the office phone in case he needed to document that the call had been returned. Official business and all.

  “CarolSue. Gus here. Can you hear me? Everything all right there?”

  “Lord yes, I can hear you. Thanks for returning my call.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about the baby . . .”

  “Yes. All right. Well, I have good news. Did Gary get to tell you? We’ve located her mother, and I’m looking into how to reunite them.”

  “Uh, well, Gus, Gary says she . . . may be . . . in custody?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Well, I want to make sure, I, um, I want to legally take care of her. I mean, I can keep her. I can be her foster mother, you know, or whatever. I can keep her . . . I mean, I would even adopt her.”

  “Oh now, CarolSue, I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Gary’s her father, he says. And he’s been looking for her mother, to return the baby.”

  “Gus, wait . . .”

  “You and Louisa have done a real service, a real service, I’m sure. But you really have nothing to say in this. It’s a legal matter. In fact, the mother wants to see the baby, so I’ll be asking Gary to bring her to the detention center. Or I’ll do it.” He added the last as a subtle warning not to cross him. It wasn’t open for discussion. There was something she didn’t know. Gary didn’t know, either. Gus didn’t know if knowledge would harden their resistance to Rosalina or weaken it, and so he held back.

  “But she . . .”

  “I’ll let you know when to have her ready. I have another call now. Would you tell Louisa I’ll talk to her soon?” He hung up. He did not have another call. This was going to be tough. He had a bad feeling he was going to miss a number of naps. Louisa might even have nothing more to do with him, which would break his heart. If the worst happened, he’d just be alone and make himself live with it. Margo was not an option. He had no idea what he had ever been thinking that time he took her out.

  What he needed to work on was how to make sure that the baby—he didn’t know her name, just that it was a girl or CarolSue had something weird going on by carting a boy around in all that pink, so now he dubbed her Rosalina’s baby girl—would be reunited with her mother before Rosalina was deported. At least Gus figured that deportation was the likely outcome. She could come back to the border and apply for asylum in a few years. Maybe she had a good case.

  And the baby was a citizen. What difference did that make? Probably a lot legally, in that she could stay, but none as far as needing her mother. Gus was sure of that much.

  The search engine was his friend. Again he went to the sites aimed at immigrants. He’d already read through sections about leaving a child behind. Now he looked at Options for Parents Who Wish To Take Their Children With Them When Deported. Under subsections about children who have a parent who is remaining in the States, or children who were born in the States, he found what he was looking for. It was easier, in fact, by far, than leaving a child here. He pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and called Gary.

  “Gary! Hey, how you doing?”

  Gary’s voice came, hoarse and spent. “I’ve been better, Gus.”

  Another time, Gus would have been sympathetic, and probably asked what was wrong, but he figured it had to do with Zach Barnes, and Gus didn’t have any real sympathy on that score. And he didn’t want to be diverted from what was important.

  “You know, we’ve got Rosalina Gonzalez, and I know you want the baby returned to her. So I’m going to need you to come sign a letter giving your consent for the baby to accompany her back to her . . . uh . . . home country. Not sure. Mexico? Guatemala? Anyway, this is ’cause baby’s got two parents and she’s with you. Rosalina’s got to tell the court she wants to be reunited, they call it. And she’ll need that letter.”

  “Honduras,” Gary said, his voice heavy, weary.

  “Huh?”

  “She’s from Honduras.”

  “Okay, right. Anyway, it’s got to be notarized. If you’ve got any documents, bring ’em and we’ll make copies, huh? Connie’s a notary, and we’ll bang this thing out, get it all done proper.”

  “. . . Okay.”

  “Yeah. And she wants to see the baby. How’s about I take the baby over, let her visit? I can deliver the letter at the same time, she can see the little one. Don’t worry, I’ll bring her back safe and sound. She got a name?”

  There was a pause. “Gracia. CarolSue calls her Gracie.”

  “Nice. Like gracias, sorta.”

  “Maybe. Look, I should go. The baby doesn’t know you.”

  “Pfft. I’m great with kids.” Well, that was a lie. He was great with dogs, but his only cat experience was Marvelle, who apparently couldn’t stand him, and he didn’t have any nieces or nephews since Rhonda had never married. Couldn’t be that hard not to drop a baby on her head, though, could it?

  “Rosalina wa
nts to take her?”

  “You think a mother would want to leave her baby behind? Of course it’s what she wants. Y’gotta help her, for Chrissake.”

  There was too much silence then. “Wait,” Gary said finally. “I’ll marry her. I can marry her and then she and Gracia can stay. It would be the right thing to do. It would be what God wants.”

  Gus rolled his eyes to the ceiling, then closed them while he took a breath and tried to keep it from sounding like a sigh. “I suspect a lot of things in this here world don’t work the way God might prefer. Your situation is one of them. You cannot waltz into a detention center and say, Oh, hey, that’s my fiancée, so let her go, we’re getting married today, and have her released. Nobody gets a green card for being married. Or having a baby. If you’d married her the day you two met, her papers would still be fake. Married makes no difference. Do you not read the newspapers, son? The way things are now? Spouses and parents are deported all the time.”

  After he hung up, Gus’s eyes stung. He blinked a couple of times, splayed his hands on his desk. He still remembered the fight, the sound and shine of glass breaking in the night, a bottle or a window: She’d have taken him with her if his father hadn’t stopped her. “She just needed help. For Chrissake,” he said to himself and got up.

  * * *

  A lousy typist, Gus prepared the letter himself to make sure the model was followed correctly. Not that it was difficult. Gary showed up later that afternoon, and sure enough, he produced a birth certificate and a social security card for the baby. She was his all right, big as life and twice as real.

  “Damn,” Gus muttered. “Your mother never let on.” He leaned back in his desk chair. Gary still stood, though Gus had pointed to the spare chair on the other side of the desk. The door was closed.