The Book of CarolSue Read online

  “She didn’t know.”

  Gus shrugged. “She knew she was hiding a baby.” His bitterness was leaking out.

  “It wasn’t like you think.” Gary sighed. “It was an argument. She wanted to call you. From the beginning. I was the one who said no. Trying to keep my sin private. Well, the church knows now.”

  “You tell them?” Gus knew all about this. Brother Thomas had called him, but he wasn’t going to let on.

  Gary shook his head. “Actually, you did. The ones cleaning my study heard you leaving the message. When you called.”

  Gus registered disgust, throwing his head back and heaving his shoulders and arms. “Ach! Man, I’m sorry. Real sorry. I didn’t mean . . . What’s gonna happen?”

  Gus knew that too, though: Thomas had asked him about filing charges against Gary. Seems the building-fund money was missing. They were having meetings, he’d said, and wanted Gus to come to one.

  “Don’t see how we’ll . . . go on.” Gary’s eyes filled. He swiped at his face with the back of his hand and straightened. “So, what do I need to sign?”

  “Here,” Gus said, sliding the letter toward Gary. “You gotta sign in front of Connie, but she doesn’t need to read what you’re signing, so we’ll cover it, like this.”

  “Pfft. What difference? It’s probably all over town already.”

  “Still,” Gus said. “We’re gonna cover it.”

  He stood and went to the door. “Hey, Connie, can you come in here for a minute, and would you bring your notary seal?”

  In two minutes, it was done.

  “Tomorrow I’ll do the visit and take her the letter. I’ll see if there’s any update on court stuff. Good if you can keep the baby until she’s moved. I mean, you probably don’t want to go the foster care route? In someone else’s home, I mean.”

  “God, no. But . . . should I . . . I mean, should I talk to a lawyer or something?”

  “Why would you do that, son? You wouldn’t try to keep that baby away from her mother?”

  “Not that.” Gary looked uncomfortable, like a squirmy teenager Gus might have picked up for siphoning gas from a farmer’s pickup truck into a rusty sedan that needed a muffler while a terrified high school girl tried to hide by sliding her butt down in the passenger seat. Only Gary was too old for that, in his forties now, if Gus wasn’t mistaken. Old enough to be ashamed of himself.

  “What then?”

  “I dunno. Just . . . trying to do right.” He dropped his head into his two hands. His elbows were propped on his knees.

  Gus restrained himself from muttering that it was a little late for that. He wondered, but didn’t ask, about the exact circumstances of the sex Gary’d had with Rosalina. He should probably ask her, but then, oh Lord, if she had a complaint, he’d have to pursue it. Was it enough to make sure she had her baby back?

  “She wants to be in this country,” Gary said.

  “Doesn’t everybody.”

  “I mean. Can a lawyer help with—”

  Gus shook his head. “Can try in a couple years. Apply for asylum. About ten-million-to-one now.” He shrugged. Took off his glasses, rubbed one eye, and replaced them. “So, I’ll pick up the baby tomorrow afternoon. One o’clock. All right?”

  “Can you do it later? She’d be sleeping, and . . . you know, CarolSue says if her nap is messed up, she’s fussy.”

  Gus sighed. “Two thirty?”

  “I guess that’ll be okay.”

  “You got a car seat?”

  “Yes. Her carrier. You strap it in.”

  “I know how to do it.” For God’s sake, he gave people tickets for not doing it.

  “I should go with you. With her.”

  “Better I just handle it. You wouldn’t get in anyway, since you’re not married or blood kin.” That was a lie, but he didn’t know what Gary might say to Rosalina, or if he’d pressure her in the wrong direction. The woman needed to know pure and simple that she could have her baby back.

  Gary’s skin, normally on the ruddy section of the skin color continuum, was grayish. He hadn’t shaved, and his blond hair needed a cut. An errant curl, lacking its usual gel, fell foolish-looking onto the middle of his forehead. His khaki pants rode high due to the sharp bend in his knees, and his mismatched socks were displayed. The plaid of his rumpled shirt didn’t hide the stain on the front. He could have been a picture captioned Defeat. Gus didn’t expect a challenge and didn’t get one, which was a good thing because he was getting tired. And impatient. He felt for Gary, he did, but he had work to do, and this mess was Gary’s own creation. He didn’t truck with excuses. Fathers who kept kids from their mothers: There was no excuse.

  “So, okay, I’ll come by Louisa’s to pick up the baby at two thirty. If you’re there, I guess I’ll see you then, and if not, I’ll let you know how it goes. All right?” Gus said, to signal Gary, who hadn’t seemed to get it, that they were done. When Gary didn’t respond, Gus stood up and moved from behind his desk. He went around and planted himself in front of the chair Gary was sitting in. Gary still hadn’t budged.

  “Did you have anything else you needed?” Gus said, and extended his hand as if to help Gary out of the chair.

  The light in the room had shifted during the time they’d spent. Gus had intended a quick meeting just so Gary would have his signature notarized, but there had been talk, explanation, Gary’s silences, hesitations, so that it seemed much longer. No wonder he was drained. Still, he had the letter now, signed and notarized. The baby’s original birth certificate and social security card. Gary had wanted copies, so to be fair, he’d made them, but Rosalina would need the originals. She’d have everything she needed when she went in front of the immigration judge. They’d have to give her child back.

  Chapter 31

  CarolSue

  “No, no, and no.”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “Which syllable of no isn’t clear to you? I’ll enunciate more clearly. No. Gus isn’t taking her to a jail.” Gary had shown up the next afternoon, looking as if he hadn’t slept in at least a week. If it was anyone but Gary, I’d have said he had a bad hangover, but Gary swore off liquor when he was Saved, even though Louisa loved to point out that Jesus himself served wine. But that’s what he looked like: red-eyed, unshaven, and he must have slept in those clothes if he slept at all. None of us had had a decent night, truth be told. Louisa obsessing over Gus, me frantic about Gracie, and Gary—well, I didn’t know. He hadn’t returned my call when I tried his cell phone after I talked to Gus. Louisa said it was all I could do, that Gary was the only one who had any say. “How can you even think about letting that happen? She’s a baby! How is that a place to take a baby?” I was figuring I could activate some paternal protectiveness. Or something.

  He did have the small grace to look guilty, like the failure he was being. “Gus says she wants to see the baby. That she has the right.”

  “Gary. Think about it.”

  “CarolSue, it’s her mother. And . . . she wants the baby back. I told you right along I was looking for Gracia’s mother. To give her back. And now . . .”

  I could tell he didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t help him. For one, I was too mad. And for two, well, I was too mad.

  Gary found the words, though. “And now, I know where she is, and Gus says she wants the baby back. For today, it’s just a visit, so she can see Gracie. I said we’d keep her until . . .”

  “What? Until what?”

  “I think . . . well, see, she’s not from here. She’s an immigrant, but she doesn’t have the right papers.”

  “So she’s going to be deported.” It wasn’t a question. We were in the kitchen. Louisa was outside mulching her rose garden with straw. The girls were wandering the yard. She had Gracie in the stroller to give her some fresh air, just parked there watching her work. I’d check out the window every now and then, but Gracie was happy so far, as amused by her own hands and feet as much as by the toys I’d tied to the sides f
or her. Louisa was animated, singing and telling stories while she laid the straw. “I’ve always been on your side. You know that. But not this time, Gary. You can stop this.”

  “I signed already.”

  “You signed? What did you sign?”

  “Consent. For her to take Gracia.”

  “Take Gracie where?” Good Lord, give me some pliers and I could pull teeth more easily than extract his answers.

  “Where she’s from.”

  I don’t need the pliers. I could do it with my bare hands. “Gary, for God’s sake. Where is she from?”

  “Honduras.”

  “Honduras! Aren’t people taking terrible risks to escape that country because of gangs and drugs and poverty and violence? Isn’t it really dangerous? I read about young girls getting kidnapped and raped, and forced into prostitution. Women are just . . . victimized. Kids don’t have a chance. And you want to have her take your baby there?”

  “Gus says in a couple years she can try to come apply for asylum with Gracie. I can save up and send money, CarolSue. I will.”

  “You mean if she and Gracie are still alive. And what about your church? Are they going to pay you?”

  He closed his eyes and blew out what air he had. “They found out about the baby. Between that and Brother Zachariah . . .” He shook his head. “Doubtful.” More head shaking. He bit his lip, his eyes holding sorrow and defeat. “Hafta find some job,” he said, and shrugged. “Dunno how I . . .” He kept throwing a line into his brain, casting for words, but there were none he could reel in to use. He gave up.

  I summoned the last small bit of kindness inside my soul not to berate him more, not to go berserk all over him. In my mind, I took a step back. I’d develop a Plan is what I’d do. For Gracie. To keep her with me. To keep her safe.

  I couldn’t take the grief of no Plan, is what it was.

  Gary said that Gus was coming at two thirty, so I made sure she was changed and in a pink dress with lace trim and matching bonnet. She’d had a full bottle, but I packed an extra one in the diaper bag with six extra diapers. I put her in a night diaper because what did Gus know about changing a baby? I had no idea what it would be like at the jail. Would it even be clean? Even though she was really too big now, and no longer liked it, I swaddled Gracie in a clean receiving blanket, thinking to keep germs away from her body. Since that struck me as smart, then I put two more in her bag. A book. Her teddy. Her red rattle. Oh yes, her bear. Basically, I packed enough to cover her for a week, although Gus said they’d be there for an hour. Maybe less if he didn’t get going.

  When I strapped her into the seat and Gus drove out of the driveway with her in his squad car, I thought my heart had been pulled out of my chest and Gus had run over it on the way. It was all so wrong, so wrong.

  Louisa

  It was hard, plain hard—even though she had always taught her students that the correct word was difficult, as hard referred to a physical characteristic, but damn, sometimes life hurt as much as something hard crushing her heart. She didn’t know how not to blame Gary. Here we go again, Louisa thought to herself. Well, this time I didn’t have all the years invested that I did with Cody. I only just found out this perfect little girl is my granddaughter. I suppose I should be grateful for small favors. But it wasn’t like Louisa was immune to love. Yes, she’d tried to hold back but she’d fallen for Gracia as hard as CarolSue had. The difference was that she’d tried, really tried, not to let it happen. And she’d hidden it as much as she could.

  Because of CarolSue. Of course, CarolSue. At least Louisa had had Gary’s infancy and childhood, as CarolSue had tacitly reminded her many times, and then she’d had the gift of Cody for seventeen years. CarolSue hadn’t, though children had been what she’d most wanted. It would have been cruel to compete with her for time with this baby, especially when they’d believed they’d have her for just a short time. And Louisa had Gus in her bed, too. Not often enough now, but still. How could she deny CarolSue having that baby sleep close to her?

  And there was something else that Louisa hadn’t brought up—what would it have helped?—but she kept thinking of Gracia’s mother. What if she was suffering the way Nicole suffered over losing Cody, the way Nicole still suffered, and Louisa herself, too? Wherever she’d been, Gracia’s mother had never been far from Louisa’s mind.

  And now, to learn how well-advised her fear had been. How could it be that love ever ended as rain watering the fertile field of grief?

  Rosalina

  She didn’t know how to breathe when she saw him come in with a baby. It was the same big man who’d come before, who’d told her she could have Gracia back, and this time he was holding a little body against his chest, a blanket around her body and a hat on her head, but even so, Rosalina knew. He’d brought Gracia. Her own beloved.

  “There’s a rule. No touching,” he said. “But I’ve maybe got a way. I’m going to lay your baby on the table so I don’t touch you. You pick her up. The guard may come in and make you put her down. But it will give you a minute, maybe more. Understand?” He stood in the small, bare room holding her baby and he looked like he could be a grandfather. How Rosalina’s father would love Gracia!

  She nodded.

  The big man laid the baby on her back on the bare table between them. The cotton blanket fell to the side, and Rosalina saw she wore a pink dress with lacy trim. She had a hat on that matched. Rosalina wanted to see her head, if it was like her own or Rosalina’s mother’s had been. “Take it off?” she said, pointing, tentative, not wanting to risk a problem.

  “Let me,” he said, glancing toward the observation window in the door to the hallway. “In case.” And he untied it and took it off. Rosalina saw him stick it in his pocket. The jumpsuit Rosalina wore, which was orange, had no pockets.

  She was beautiful, her Gracia, more beautiful than Rosalina remembered, but of course time had passed and she had no picture except the one in her mind. Much more hair now, and with curl to it. Her own was straight. But it was dark as her own, and there was the suggestion of the widow’s peak that would mirror hers. And the family brows and eyes. The baby’s arms and legs moved in an uncoordinated dance, and she moved her head, looking at her surroundings. After a few moments, it seemed the unfamiliarity of it all registered, and her face crumpled into the beginning of a wail.

  “Go ahead,” Gus said. “Pick her up.”

  Rosalina gathered her daughter carefully, folding the cotton blanket back over her, and raising her home, to her own chest. The baby quieted some, but kept fussing, and Rosalina whisper-sang the lullaby she’d heard as a child and soothed her with secret words of devotion she did not want the man to hear. Her baby was growing well; Rosalina could tell good health by her sweet breath and her body, plump, in new clothes.

  As her baby continued to complain, Rosalina started to walk her, but the lawman jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the door, and said, “Um . . . better not move around. Sorry. Remember. He said to stay at the table,” so she came the couple of steps back and stood there, as she had been since she picked up the baby. “Supposed to sit,” he said then, like an apology, but reminding her that she was a prisoner. Or detainee, as they were called. One of the guards liked to laugh, Deportee, ohhh, I mean detainee. Didn’t mean to confuse today with tomorrow.

  “She’s wet . . . and maybe . . . dirty,” Rosalina said. “Is there any . . . ?”

  “Oh, yeah. Got a bag of stuff. Gary’s family, his mother and aunt take real good care.” And although the bag had been thoroughly searched already, Gus unpacked on the far end of the table, away from Rosalina and where any guard observing through the window could see: It was only diapers, wipes. “There’s toys and clothes and a bottle in here, too, but I’ll only take out what you need. Oh, here’s a bag. Maybe for the dirty diaper? What’s this?”

  A small soft pad. Maybe it was to put the baby on? Rosalina guessed, and pointed to her side of the table. Gus slid it there, and Rosalina laid the baby on it. She
was quick getting the diaper off and used the wipes to clean her daughter’s soft folds, smiling and speaking in Spanish all the while. She studied the little girl’s vulnerability for a moment, the vagina that would put her in such danger, before she covered her with a new diaper.

  “Thank you, thank you. Tell them thank you,” she said to Gus as she pushed the changing pad and wipes across the table with one hand, while she held the baby, quiet now, against her with the other. She hoped he understood. “And you. Thank you.” How could she let him know her gratitude for giving her this, her child’s life?

  The guard opened the door. He had a nose like a bird’s beak and he was skinny all over, but there was a gun on one hip, in a belt. He didn’t look at Rosalina, but bobbed his chin up and down and said, “Hey, man. You can’t pass nothin’ to the detainee.”

  “Yeah, okay, but it’s her baby.”

  “Facility policy.”

  “Have a heart . . .”

  The guard shrugged. “Better not. Sorry, man.” He still didn’t look at Rosalina and the baby. Rosalina was glad about that.

  Gus looked at his watch. “I probably should take her back anyway. Our time’s about up, and CarolSue said she’d be hungry by four. They’re not gonna let you feed her, and I shouldn’t be the one . . . don’t actually know what I’m doing on that score.”

  Rosalina’s eyes watered, never leaving the baby as she put her on the table, tender, kissing and whispering love into her daughter’s ear. She fixed the cotton blanket around the baby’s body and then removed her hands, raising them to show the guard, who looked when she did, and then left.

  “Hey, now, don’t cry,” the lawman said to her. “Look, I brought what you need. The legal paper, I mean. It’s a letter from the baby’s father, you know, from Gary Hawkins, giving you permission to take the baby back to your country. See, I talked to him, explained that you needed his permission. . . if they send you back.”