Keeping Lucy Read online

  “Mum mum.”

  Ginny stopped.

  She looked at Lucy, who was peering at her with an intensity that made her body soften, warmth pooling like something liquid at the center of her.

  “Mumma,” she said again and reached her chubby little arms up to Ginny, clasping her fingers.

  The tears that Ginny had wiped furiously away returned, and she shook her head.

  “Yes, baby?” she asked.

  “Mumma,” Lucy said again, and Ginny thought she could stay here forever. Inside a cramped bathroom stall in an orange-shaped souvenir shop, in some Florida swamplands. She could live inside this orange orb, subsist on tangerines.

  Ginny picked Lucy up again and held her tightly. She smelled clean and sweet, and, at least for this moment, she knew nothing mattered but this.

  * * *

  Because she’d left her credit card at the body repair shop back in Savannah, she was starting to worry about money. She was down to her last fifty dollars. She’d seen a pay phone behind the giant orange when they pulled in. She’d get Lucy situated in the car and then call her mother collect. Ask her to wire some money to the Western Union closest to Weeki Wachee.

  But as she and Lucy exited the store and moved around the back to the parking lot, Marsha came running up to her.

  “Is Peyton with you?” Marsha said, her eyes frantic.

  “What?”

  “Peyton,” she said. “You don’t have him?”

  “No,” Ginny said, and her heart started to pound in her ears and throat. “Weren’t you watching him?”

  “I told him to sit at that picnic table, and I went to get some snacks from the vending machine over there, but when I came back he was gone.”

  “You left him alone?” Ginny said in disbelief.

  “I thought he went inside to find you. I was just headed in to look. I thought maybe he needed to use the restroom.”

  “Oh, my God,” Ginny said. She felt Lucy stiffen in her arms. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, though she wasn’t sure whom she was comforting: Lucy or herself.

  “I’ll go look in the store. Why don’t you look for him back here,” Ginny said and motioned toward the groves behind the shop, the endless identical rows of orange trees.

  It was starting to rain now, and the air was oppressive and humid.

  Still carrying Lucy, Ginny ran back into the store and went straight to the clerk, who was ringing up a customer’s purchases. The middle-aged woman had bought six snow globes, and the clerk was wrapping each of them carefully in butcher paper.

  “Excuse me,” Ginny said, trying to keep her voice level.

  The clerk, a wrinkled gentleman with wobbly jowls, barely looked up from his task.

  “I’m looking for my little boy. He’s six years old. He has brown hair. He’s wearing a white shirt and blue shorts? With white stripes?”

  He shook his head. “Haven’t seen any kids,” he said.

  Ginny walked briskly up and down the aisles, searching for something that might have caught Peyton’s attention. He wasn’t a kid who generally wandered off, but then again, she’d never taken him somewhere he might be tempted. Aisle after aisle, there was no sign of Peyton. She walked back to the restrooms at the rear of the shop and looked at the men’s room door. Maybe he had just needed to go to the bathroom. Usually, Ginny brought him in with her to the ladies’ room, but he hadn’t complained about needing to go potty.

  She knocked tentatively, and when no one answered, she pushed the door gently open, saying, “Peyton? Pey?” Feeling her heart climbing up into her throat, she walked past the urinals to the stalls, and peered under each, looking for Peyton’s sneakers. “Peyton!” she said more firmly now. As if he were only playing hide and seek.

  When she saw a pair of boots beneath one of the stall doors, she gasped and started to back away. When the man emerged, Ginny gripped Lucy tightly and rushed toward the door.

  It was the man from the Duster, the guy with the beard.

  “Hey,” he said, seemingly as startled as she. A slow grin stretched across his face even as Lucy began to quake. “Wait, are you—”

  “Just leave us alone,” she said. “Please!”

  She ran through the aisles of seashells and back outside; she could see the Duster parked cockeyed at the far end of the lot. But she didn’t see Marsha anywhere, and she felt like she might faint from the heat and the fear. Where was Peyton? Finally, when she thought her legs might not even hold her up for another moment, Marsha emerged from one of the grove’s rows.

  Peyton was riding piggyback on her back.

  Relief flooded her; she wanted nothing more than to run to him, hold him, yell at him, and embrace him all at once. But when she looked behind her, she could see that the man was exiting the building, looking left and right. Looking for them.

  “Let’s go!” Ginny hollered to Marsha, and Marsha, seeing the Duster and the man, started to jog toward the car.

  Ginny ran to the car as well and got in, still holding Lucy. Marsha backed out to turn the car around toward the parking lot exit just as the man was climbing into his own car.

  “Jesus Christ!” Marsha said. “Who the hell is this guy?”

  She peeled out of the parking lot and onto the road, the rain coming down in hard sheets now.

  “Don’t you ever, ever run off again,” Ginny said to Peyton as she leaned between the rear seats. Peyton looked at her angrily, his arms crossed. “Where was he?” she asked, whipping her head back to Marsha, trying to keep her anger from blooming.

  “He was picking oranges,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I should have kept a better eye on him—”

  “That man, that man could have taken him,” Ginny burst out, verbalizing every fear she had entertained while he was missing. “What if Ab sent him to get Peyton? To take him home?”

  For the first time, she began to think that this was, indeed, exactly what Ab would want most. His son. His perfect, beautiful son. She was disposable, replaceable. But he would never give up Peyton.

  “Wait! Brownie! I left Brownie!” Peyton said, his eyes wide and stunned by the realization that he’d left his bear behind.

  Crap.

  “We can’t go back,” she said, feeling guilt overwhelm her. He’d slept with that bear every night since he was born.

  “Oh, Pey, honey,” she said. “We can’t go back. I’m so sorry.”

  Ginny felt like crying herself as he burst into tears.

  “I want my daddy,” Peyton said. “I hate this car. And I hate that stupid baby.”

  Ginny’s sorrow turned to anger and she seethed, but before she could lash out, before she could say the words that could never be taken back, Marsha said, “Holy shit.” That was when Ginny realized that the steam coming off the hood of the car was not humidity or fog; it was smoke.

  They drove until the engine cut out, then Marsha veered off the road and along the shoulder. It was raining hard now.

  “Oh, my God,” Ginny said. “What do we do?” She turned around and saw the Duster’s headlights through the mist. He was coming after them.

  Marsha leaned over, grabbed the key from under the floor mat, and unlocked the glove box. The door fell open, and she reached across Ginny and pulled out the gun.

  Ginny was still holding Lucy on her lap; she clung to her tightly.

  When Peyton saw the gun, he said, “Mama!” Just a single exclamation filled with terror and dread.

  Ginny turned to Peyton, reaching into the backseat for his hand. It was clammy and warm in hers. “It’s okay,” she promised. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  “Lock your door,” Marsha said. “And the back.”

  Ginny twisted backward to reach and depress the door lock behind her, while Marsha got Peyton’s. When the man approached, Ginny felt like she might vomit. He tapped on the driver’s window, and Marsha whispered, “What do I do?”

  Ginny shook her head and held tightly to Lucy, who had buried her face in Ginny’s
chest.

  He tapped again and signaled for her to roll the window down.

  Ginny could see the gun in Marsha’s hand, but she wasn’t sure if the man could see it as well.

  Marsha rolled down the window and turned to him. Ginny felt woozy.

  The bearded man leaned into the window, resting his elbows on the window frame. He was chewing gum, delight dancing in his pale eyes.

  “So, it looks like you’ve got a little something that doesn’t belong to you,” he said. His accent was thick. Boston Southie thick. Ginny sucked in her breath, thinking, No, no, no.

  “What are you talking about?” Marsha asked.

  “Pretty sure this cah’s not from Virginia,” he said, smirking.

  The tags. This was about the stolen plate? Ginny let out a breath, just a little, but still, she was terrified. This guy had followed them all the way from Atlantic City to track down a license plate? Was he a police officer?

  “Are you a cop?” Marsha asked, shoving the gun beneath her bottom.

  “A cop?” the guy said quizzically, still grinning.

  “Yeah,” Marsha said defiantly. “Can I see your badge?”

  Ginny waited. Here it was, the moment the world fell apart. She squeezed Lucy so tightly, she could feel her ribs expanding and contracting. Lucy was trembling with fear, though this time she didn’t cry out.

  “I ain’t no cop.” The guy laughed.

  “Well, then, I think we’ll be on our way. Have a nice day,” Marsha said and started to roll up the window.

  But the man’s muscular forearm held the window firmly open.

  “Listen, buddy,” Marsha said, and Ginny watched as she eased the gun out from under her. “I don’t know who the hell you are or why you’re following us. But you are starting to piss me off.”

  At the sight of the gun, the man lifted his hands in surrender and backed away.

  “Hey, you got this all wrong,” he said.

  Marsha was pointing the gun at him now, and Peyton was leaning between the seats as though he were watching an episode of The Lone Ranger.

  “Sit back,” Ginny said and gently pushed him back into the backseat.

  “Who are you?” Marsha said.

  “You don’t recognize me?” he said, chuckling.

  Marsha scowled.

  “People used to say we looked like twins,” he said. “Irish twins, maybe. Too bad we’re Italian.”

  He leaned down again, gingerly leaning in, looking right at the barrel of the gun.

  “You ladies pretty much had me on a wild-goose chase. He must really love you.”

  Ginny flinched. Here it was, someone Ab had sent?

  “Holy shit!” Marsha said, lowering the gun. “Lorenzo?”

  “Who’s Lorenzo?” Ginny asked.

  “Gabe’s brother. Jesus H. Christ.”

  Gabe?

  The man’s smirk broke into a full grin. “Listen, he didn’t want me to come at first. Figured you had your reasons for leaving. But then when your aunt told him you were pregnant, he asked me if I could keep an eye out. Make sure you got down here safe. Maybe even convince you to come home. I drove all night from Boston and caught up with you not long after you killed that deer.”

  He’d been following them since Virginia?

  “Why didn’t you tell us who you were?” Ginny chimed in.

  “Gabe didn’t want me to scare you, figured you might not even notice me tailing you. I was planning to tell you once you finally got to where you were going.”

  Marsha rolled her eyes. “Why didn’t he come himself?” she asked. “If this is so important?”

  “He woulda, but he was working back-to-back shifts over the holiday weekend. I’m currently between jobs, so I offered to help out. He’s my baby brothah. Never mind that there’ll be my nephew or niece.” He gestured with his chin toward Marsha’s stomach.

  Marsha, stunned into silence, lowered her gun.

  “What the fuck, Lorenzo? You scared the living shit out of me. I coulda shot you!”

  “That’s a bad word,” Peyton chimed in from the backseat, and Ginny finally let out the breath she’d been holding.

  “Well, you should be thanking your lucky stahs I’ve been tailing you ladies,” Lorenzo said as he opened the driver’s-side door for Marsha. “Looks like you might need a ride.”

  The engine had stopped smoking, at least, but the air stank of burned oil and gasoline.

  “And long as you don’t make a fuss, I won’t tell Gabe about that guy I saw you with at the bahbecue joint back in Georgia.”

  Defeated, they got out of the car, and as Lorenzo tried to assess the damage under the hood, Ginny stood at the side of the road trying to keep the kids dry under one of their beach towels, which she held over them like a canopy.

  “Well, it looks like the old Dart finally shit the bed,” Marsha said. “What the hell are we gonna do now?”

  “I can get you to where you’re going, on one condition,” Lorenzo said.

  “Yeah, what’s that?” Marsha challenged.

  “Call my brothah. Talk to him. He’s beside himself over you taking off. About the baby. I help you, you call him. You owe him that much.”

  * * *

  Apparently, not only did Lorenzo have investigative skills, but he also knew his way around an engine. After a cursory look under the hood, he said, “Whoever you had work on the radiator did a pretty shitty job. There’s a six-inch crack in the plastic tank. I can fix it with some epoxy. I hope you didn’t pay for this.”

  Ginny thought about the man in the shop, the one where she’d left the Master Charge. They’d been totally scammed. Probably saw two easy marks the second they walked in the door.

  “We’re just thirty miles from Weeki Wachee,” Marsha said. “If you can give us a ride, we’ll leave the car here. Get it towed later.”

  “I’ve got Triple A.” Lorenzo nodded. “I can meet them back at the cah and get it towed to wherever you are. It shouldn’t take me more than an hour to fix it. I just need someplace dry to work on it.”

  Lucy had calmed some, enough for Ginny to get herself and the two kids piled into the back of the Duster, which smelled like cigarettes and bubble gum. Sure enough, the ashtray was full, and the floor was littered with Bazooka wrappers. Ginny wasn’t sure how Marsha’s delicate nose and sensitive stomach were going to take it. Marsha loaded their bags into the trunk and got in the passenger seat.

  Apparently, when Marsha didn’t show up at work at the hospital on Monday night, Gabe had called the apartment and her little sister had answered. Melanie (who, according to Marsha, couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it) told him not to worry, that they were just in Virginia visiting her aunt. She’d given him Pepper and Nancy’s number, even. But Pepper—from whom Melanie had inherited her loose lips—had spilled the beans about the pregnancy and told him that they were headed from Virginia to Florida. He’d called his brother, Lorenzo, in Boston and asked him if he could do him a favor.

  “Where are you girls headed, anyway?” Lorenzo asked. “You haven’t exactly been taking a direct route. I practically got whiplash followin’ you.”

  “Weeki Wachee,” Marsha said. “You know, the place with the mermaids? My sister lives there.”

  “Huh,” Lorenzo said. “I’d have thought you might be taking the kids here to that new Disney World.”

  At this, Peyton perked up again. “We’re going to see Mickey Mouse.”

  The man looked in the rearview mirror, and Lucy started to cry again.

  “Something wrong with her?” he asked.

  “She’s afraid of men with beards,” Ginny said.

  “No, I mean she’s retahded, right? Gabe and I got a mongoloid cousin. Name’s Eddie. Slow as syrup, but a real sweet kid.”

  Ginny flinched, feeling anger bubbling up at the word. Retarded. It was a word she’d used herself before, but now it seemed inappropriate.

  “She’s got Down syndrome,” she said.

  Lorenz
o shrugged and kept driving. Ginny knew that this was the way the world would see Lucy, but for the last week, she’d managed to avoid thinking about it. About how cruel people could be, even without trying sometimes.

  “She’s very bright, actually,” Ginny said. “She said ‘Mama’ today. Just a week ago, she didn’t have any words at all.”

  “She said ‘Mama’?” Marsha asked, spinning around in her seat to face the back. “You said ‘Mama’?” she said to Lucy and touched her tiny hand.

  “Mumma,” Lucy said in the affirmative.

  Peyton scowled and kicked his feet against the backseat.

  “What’s the matter?” Ginny whispered.

  “You’re my mama.”

  “Of course I am. I will always be your mama,” she said gently. But he was clearly enraged now; this was the face she’d seen when Christopher stole his Matchbox cars, his trike, his G.I. Joe.

  “No. You’re her mama now.”

  Ginny shook her head, guilt flooding her senses, shorting out the sort of electric buzz she’d been feeling when she sprang to Lucy’s defense.

  “Hey! Let’s put on some music,” Marsha said, reaching for the knob. “Maybe we can find the bullfrog song?”

  Ginny shook her head. She reached for Peyton’s hand, but he yanked it away at her touch.

  “I want Brownie, and I want my daddy,” he said, his face red, his chin quivering. “I just want to go home.”

  Twenty-nine

  1968–1969

  It wasn’t so terrible, this life. Most girls like Ginny dreamed of this: a handsome, successful, sweet husband, a beautiful son and a lovely home, a pristine kitchen and a growing savings account. She had to remind herself so many times when Ab was late coming home from work or her mother-in-law stopped by to expound her vast wisdom regarding decorating or impose her various and controversial methods on child rearing.