The Wrong Family(61)

Her fingers found the keys again and she began to type.

She never gave the police her name but I’ve included the case number from the report so you can look into it yourself. I may have lost you by now, Mrs. Russel, so let me just say one last thing: in the statement, the officer described her as having what appeared to be track marks on her arms as well as being disoriented with slurred speech. She wouldn’t allow the officer to take her to the hospital to be examined, despite her claims that she’d just given birth and someone had stolen her baby, and became aggressive when he tried to coerce her into going for help, running across the street and almost being hit by an oncoming vehicle. The officer, Sgt. Morales, made a note on the report saying that he saw blood on the woman’s pants, though he couldn’t attest to where the blood was coming from. Nothing further was followed up on since the woman gave no name or address and refused to go to the hospital. There was, however, one detail I’d like you to look over. The officer mentioned a tattoo in the report and I was wondering if Josalyn had any. You’ll see a short description of it in the last line. In the case that you can confirm that the tattoo belonged to your daughter I’ve included an address.

Juno paused, resting her hands in her lap as she considered how to word the next part. The next part was important.

Your grandson is in that house.

She hit send without bothering to sign her name. There. All she had to do now was wait. Wait for Terry, wait for atonement, wait for death.





      27


WINNIE

On Winnie’s last day at Illuminations for Mental Health, she’d had to turn in her work phone and laptop, which would then be assigned to whomever replaced her. She remembered feeling almost relieved as she set the two items in a box, along with her badge and access cards, and placed them on her superior’s desk. She would no longer be tied to the things of the past. When she stepped out of the building for the last time, the sharp February air filling her lungs, she felt...free. That’s what her therapist was helping her see: at the end of trauma was the road to a new beginning.

Winnie had felt like she didn’t deserve a new anything—and then hope had come in the form of a missed period and a positive pregnancy test. After all the years of hoping, all six miscarriages she couldn’t bring herself to let go of, despite the heartbreak they caused her. She’d even secretly kept scraps of the clothing she’d been wearing when she’d miscarried all those times, as morbid as that probably was.

Renewed, she felt that God had given her the forgiveness she had been begging for. She wasn’t a terrible person; she was a good person who had made a bad decision. And for the rest of her life, Winnie planned on atoning for that decision, starting with her baby. He or she would be raised to be conscious of all life, tender, well rounded. Winnie would fix what she had done. She would raise such a wonderful child, so caring and aware. And she’d started by quitting her job so she could take care of this baby full time. She’d only gone back to work when he started kindergarten.

Sam was just going through a stage; all teenagers rebelled against their parents. How many times had she repeated that to herself over the last six months? If Winnie were honest, she’d be able to acknowledge that her current lust for another baby had been triggered by Samuel’s snipping of the apron strings. Fill the hole, do a better job as a mother next time. It was a bold-faced lie she enjoyed telling herself. She could give birth to ten of her own babies and that one baby would still take the primary spot in her heart and mind. Because you killed him, Winnie told herself. And she would never, ever forget that day.

Winnie walked into the house just as the sky was waking up. She didn’t remember getting back into the car or driving home, and now, as she fumbled with the lever on the kitchen sink, she opened it and bent her head to guzzle water straight from the tap This isn’t happening, not really, it’s just a very bad dream, she told herself. There was a strange buzzing noise, interrupted by chirps. A phone. A phone was ringing somewhere. Her phone, she knew. She couldn’t even bring herself to dig for it and look at the screen—she knew whose name she’d see there. She watched as the water washed down the sink. Nigel’s voice was behind her, in the kitchen. It was louder than the awful noise—that god-awful buzzing.

“What happened, what happened?” he said, over and over. She didn’t know; this was a dream. No, it was real. The noise was her; Winnie realized that she was crying, mewling like a lost kitten.

“What happened?” he said again.

Winnie looked down at her sweatshirt, over the spot where her heart was. It was empty. She’d pulled his little body out and laid him on the passenger seat of her car.

“Winnie!” Nigel was shouting now, shaking her. His hand came up and hit her across the face, hard enough to stun her out of the nightmare.

So she told him. Nigel had stopped yelling and was staring at her, his eyes so wide. She’d never seen him look that afraid.

“It was so cold, Nigel, he was suffering... I just wanted to help him.” She was trembling so hard her teeth knocked together. Nigel took a step away from her. “There was trash everywhere. I had to crawl to reach him—”

“Winnie... Winnie...” he said, breathless, interrupting her. “Is he dead? Is the baby dead?”

Her howls came from somewhere deep in her belly, raw and ugly, answering his question. Nigel grabbed his wife, pressed her face into his chest so that she would stop screaming.