The Quarry Girls(86)

Find our way back to ourselves.





CHAPTER 56


Mom did her part, shaping up as best she could when she was released from the hospital. I think it was because she had to. Dad and Jerome Nillson were both facing charges. They were holed up at a hotel—for their safety, we’d been told. Nillson had resigned from his position as sheriff and was also facing serious prison time thanks to the photos, which had been matched up with women and girls he’d arrested over the past six years.

Dad was offered a plea deal, which he took, rolling over on the other Saint Cloud movers and shakers who’d attended Nillson’s parties. It would keep Dad out of jail, but he was being disbarred.

Mom said that wasn’t enough for her.

She was filing for divorce, “damn whatever Father Adolph says.”

In another unexpected but delightful twist, Mrs. Hansen moved into our house, taking over Dad’s office. It was just temporary, she said. She wasn’t ready to leave Pantown quite yet, she said. Some unfinished business.

She also insisted we call her by her first name. “To hell with all their rules,” she said, cackling. “Screw pretending to be respectful during the day and dancing with the devil at night. I prefer you be genuine with me, and I’ll return the favor.”

She brought her glittery amber-beaded curtain with her, and she promptly hung it between our kitchen and dining room. She also began to cook and clean and tell Junie and me what to do. It was the coolest thing ever. When Mom would start to slide away, Gloria (it was getting easier to think of her by that name) would pull her back. She was way better at bringing Mom out of her funks than Dad had ever been. She also didn’t look away when Mom was slipping too far to find her way back without doctors. She brought her straight to the hospital. Somehow it ended up that with Gloria’s help, Mom got to come home more quickly every time, sometimes without even having to stay overnight.

On the days Mom was well, Gloria would return to her old place to clean out another small area. When she came back, her and Mom would sit on the front porch, smoking and drinking iced tea. Sometimes they’d even laugh. I’d overheard Gloria once apologizing to Mom, but Mom shushed her. They both went quiet for a bit after that, and then Gloria said, “I might stay around Pantown for a while longer. I like making the sons of bitches squirm.”

That made them laugh so hard they couldn’t breathe. Gloria’s gigantic spoon-and-fork set and her favorite macramé owl with its great bead eyes appeared on our living room wall shortly afterward.

One day, when Mom was outside trimming the rosebushes and Junie was over at Libby’s, I brought up my dad to Gloria. I mostly tried not to think about him, but it was like not thinking about a purple elephant. He’d been my dad, the person I most admired.

“I didn’t know him at all,” I told Gloria, my chin quivering. “I thought I did, and I was wrong.”

She’d tsked. We were in the kitchen, her preparing fondue for tonight’s dinner. She always cooked like she was going to have a party. When I’d asked her about it, she said it was on purpose because why live any other way?

“You knew part of him,” she’d said, cubing cheese. “And that part was true.”

I opened my mouth to argue, to ask how it could possibly be true given what he’d done and what he’d allowed. She put her knife down and strode over to me, grabbing my chin. She smelled like swiss cheese.

“That part was true,” she repeated firmly. “But so was the rest. All the bad stuff. Men in packs can do terrible things, things they wouldn’t have the hate to do alone. It’s no excuse, just something you should know.”

The front door opened. “Grab a vase, Gloria,” Mom called out. “I have enough flowers to open a store.”

But Gloria kept her eyes trained on me, kept gripping my face. “You’ll recognize those men, the ones inclined to their dark side, because they’ll expect you to carry their load. They’ll smother your anger with their pain, they’ll make you doubt yourself, and they’ll tell you they love you the whole time. Some do it big, like Ed, but most do it in quiet steps, like your father.”

My heart was hammering as loud as a bass drum.

“You meet those men, you turn and don’t look back,” she said. “Leave them to it. There’s nothing there for us. We’ve got all the good stuff right here, everything we need.”

She said that last part just as Mom slipped through the amber beads, her color high, her smile enchanting, her beauty almost painful to see. She held a glorious bouquet of sweet pink roses in her gloved hands.

“Those are as gorgeous as you, Connie!” Gloria said, turning to my mom.

I stared at Gloria’s back, realizing that was that. It was all she’d ever say about my dad. I didn’t know how I felt, so I stored it away, for the time being. I still hadn’t shown Gloria Maureen’s diary and didn’t think I would. It would only cause more pain. We wouldn’t ever know who Maureen had been afraid of, Jerome Nillson or Ed Godo.

I suspected it was both men. Maureen had great instincts, even if she wasn’t always able to listen to them, not with all the Pantown rules for girls crowding her thoughts.



Beth decided to enroll at St. Cloud State University rather than attending college in Berkeley. She didn’t feel safe traveling that far from her parents anymore. “For now, anyhow,” she said, during one of her weekly visits. “Not forever. You can’t keep a good woman down.”