These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf
She feels a small movement beside her and turns on the table-side lamp so she can see Gus’s face. In the dim light, with the shadows surrounding him, Gus looks almost like himself. Youthful, handsome, happy.
“How’re you doing, Gus?” Charm asks him in a whisper. The mere act of listening seems to cause him pain. “Can I get you something?” His eyes are open and clear and he tries to lift a hand to pull away the oxygen mask. “Let me get it,” she tells him and removes the mask that she once teased him made him look like Horton, the elephant from the Dr. Seuss books. Gus had laughed. He licks his dry, cracked lips and Charm presses a straw between them and he sips. The effort it takes him to do this is exhausting. “What else?” she asks. “What can I do?” Charm tries to swallow back the emotion. She has seen patients die, seen children die, but no one she has known. No one she has loved.
“No,” Gus croaks. “Just sit here.” He weakly pats a spot next to him on the bed. Charm hesitates. She’d have to lower the side rail that prevents him from falling out and there isn’t much room, even though he is as thin as the switch grass outside his window.
“It’s all right,” he says.
Charm lowers the rail and gently moves him. He doesn’t make a sound, but his face fills with pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Charm winces, but he pats the bed again to let her know he is okay. Trying to make herself as small as possible, she eases in next to him. “Do you want to watch television?” she asks, reaching for the remote. He shakes his head. “Do you want your mask back on?” Charm asks, knowing he can’t go for very long without it, how he tends to panic, which makes it harder for him to catch his breath.
Again he shakes his head. Because of the swelling, the sharp angles of his handsome face are gone. His dark hair stands in stark contrast to his pale skin and his shaggy eyebrows make his eyes appear smaller, more sunken. A blue pond among the reeds.
“Talk,” he orders in the way that he has. He can still get away with sounding bossy without sounding mean.
“Well,” Charm begins. “I start on the orthopedic floor next week. And I’ll be on the pediatric oncology floor right around Halloween. Everyone dresses up in costumes, even the doctors.”
Gus nods and they sit in silence for a moment. They both know he will be gone by Halloween.
“The little boy,” Gus says, his voice like sandpaper.
Charm’s heart plummets. She knew the subject of Joshua would come up, needed to come up one more time.
“I’m sorry.” His words are breathy and are emitted with more difficulty.
“Why?” Charm asks incredulously. “Why are you sorry? It was Christopher’s fault. It was Allison Glenn’s fault. Not yours. Joshua is safe. He is happy. He is with people who love him.” She angrily ticks the points off on her fingers. “His mother went to prison for drowning his twin sister, you knew Christopher would never come back to take care of him, and God knows my mother is useless!”
“Shhh,” Gus breathes, and softly places his hand next to her cheek. “Shhh, now.” This is too much for Charm, this kind, desperately ill man trying to comfort her. She was the one who begged for more time with the baby. But a few hours had turned into a few days, then into three weeks. Charm kept on pleading with Gus for more time, sure that her brother would come back for the little boy she had quickly fallen in love with. She begins to cry.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you,” Charm sobs. “I should have told you I was taking him to the fire station.” She looks helplessly at her stepfather. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I was so tired. I knew I’d waited too long to take him to a safe haven place and I was afraid you could get in trouble, so I didn’t say anything to you.”
“You’re a good girl, Charm,” Gus murmurs. “You’re smart and brave. Braver than I ever was.” Charm looks at him. Over the years, Gus has described the many harrowing fires he fought. The smoke, the flames, the heat. “You kept looking after that little boy, even after you left him at the fire station. You made sure he was safe.”
“You didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.” Gus is silent. The conversation is tiring him. “Sometimes I wish she’d never brought him to our house,” Charm says, finally voicing out loud what she’s been feeling for so long. “Sometimes I wish I never held him. I wish I never knew he had a little sister that was thrown into the river. I wish you would get better.” Charm swallows hard, trying to hold back the tears, and hides her face against his brittle shoulder.
With great difficulty Gus brings his other arm around her.
“Daughter,” Gus rasps. There is nothing left to say. They lie there a long time, Gus softly patting her back and Charm soaking it up, like a cat trying to find the last patch of fading sunshine.
Allison
Ever since Joshua’s glitter incident and the way I came to the rescue with the magic tape, he is constantly at my side when I’m working, offering to hand me books to shelve or to count the pennies in the register. In a very short time I’ve discovered the long list of things Joshua hates and loves. He hates when his fingers are sticky, the smell of bananas, thunderstorms and cleaning his room. He loves Truman, playing with Legos, drinking Dr Pepper—even though his mom says it will rot his teeth right out of his head—and building things with his dad.
I know I should try to keep him at arm’s length. Getting close to him will end in nothing but disaster. I should tell him to beat it, that I need to focus on my work, but I don’t. “What about soccer?” I ask, thinking about the picture of him in his green uniform. “Do you like playing soccer?”
“It’s okay. I’m not very good at it,” he says a little sadly. “Someone always gets the ball away from me.”
“I could show you some tips,” I offer. “I used to play soccer all the time.”
“Okay,” Joshua says, bending down to pet Truman. “I’ll bring my soccer ball tomorrow.”
“I don’t think your mom will want us playing soccer in the store,” I tell him, instantly regretting my offer. For a minute Joshua looks deflated.
“You can come over to our house,” Joshua says, perking up. “You can teach me soccer and I can show you my room and my dad’s workshop.”
“I don’t know…” I look away from Joshua when I hear a customer come through the door, grateful for the distraction. I’m getting too close, too involved.
I see Devin walking slowly toward me. Gone is her usual brisk, businesslike pace. She looks almost hesitant. Not like herself at all. She knows. She knows about Joshua. Brynn called her and told her that I’m his mother. She’s coming to tell me I’m going back to prison. I’ve been free for three weeks and now I have to go back. I think I’d rather die first.
“Josh, why don’t you go do your homework,” I say as Devin stops in front of me. Something is wrong. Very wrong.
“Who’s that?” Joshua asks, staying at my side.
“Joshua, are you bothering Allison?” Claire’s voice comes from behind me.
“No, I’m helping,” Joshua insists.
“Allison,” Devin says gently. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Claire looks at us with concern. I know I should introduce them to each other, but the words are stuck in my throat, so I just nod and follow Devin as she leads me outside. I close my eyes and wait for Devin to tell me that she’s taking me to the police station. The air is cool and feels good against my hot cheeks and I try to memorize the feel of it.
“Allison?” Devin says, and I open my eyes. She is biting the insides of her cheeks, struggling to speak, and I wonder if I’ll be able to say goodbye to Claire, to thank her for giving me a chance. I wonder if I’ll ever see Joshua again. “Allison.” She reaches for my hand. “It’s your father.”
“My father?” I say in confusion. I look down at Devin’s hand in mine. A large sparkling diamond is on her ring finger. She’s getting married, I think to myself. I begin to congratulate her when she interrupts me.
“He collapsed at his office to
I think back to my last encounter with my father, remember how the house had been erased of any existence of me. “I don’t know if they want me at the hospital,” I say in a small voice.
“What do you want, Allison?” Devin asks me. “What do you want to do?”
Suddenly, I have to see my father. What if he dies? I can’t let the next time I see my mother be at my father’s funeral. I quickly explain the situation to Claire and she sends me off with a hug. “Let me know what’s happening. Don’t worry about work. You go be with your family.”
I can’t tell her that, in the few weeks I’ve been back in Linden Falls, she feels more like family to me than my parents. “Thanks” is all I can manage. “I’ll call you later.”
Devin drops me off in front of the hospital. She offers to come with me, but I tell her no, that I’ll be okay. But I’m not really okay. I just didn’t want Devin to have to witness my first meeting with my mother. I have no idea how she’ll react to me showing up at my father’s hospital bed. I don’t know if she’ll welcome me with a hug or order me to leave.
The last time I was in St. Isadore’s Hospital, I was recovering from giving birth and was under arrest for the murder of my newborn baby girl. I left in a wheelchair that was pushed by a corrections officer and my hands were cuffed together. The bustle of the hospital is the same as I remember. Nurses and doctors move purposely through the hallways, visitors more tentatively. I stop at the information desk to ask which floor my father is on and then take the stairs to the fifth floor. The thought of stepping into an airless, cramped elevator, which reminds me of my prison cell, takes my breath away.
I see her first. She is sitting alone on a long sofa in the intensive-care waiting area. Her hair is the same shiny blond color I remember, but cut shorter in a severe blunt bob that stops just below her chin. She is wearing jeans and her mud-caked garden clogs. She must have been working in the yard when she got the call. She must have been in a hurry to get to the hospital. My mother never wears jeans out in public, never wears her gardening shoes out of the yard. She is staring at the wall of the waiting room, her clear blue eyes still unaware of my presence. Her face has softened some since I saw her last, though she is thinner, more fragile-looking. For once she looks unguarded and I know if I don’t speak now, I’ll lose my nerve.
“Mom,” I say softly, and the word ends with a raspy hitch.
She startles and looks up at me. With the full weight of her face on me, I now see how much she has aged in the past year, though she is still beautiful. “Allison,” she says, and I think I hear a note of gladness in her voice. It’s all the invitation I need. In an instant I’m at her side on the couch, my arms wrapped around her thin shoulders. I breathe in her scent, a combination of the lily-of-the-valley perfume she wears and the soil she must have been working in when she got the call.
“How’s Dad?” I ask through my tears. “Is he going to be okay?”
My mother shakes her head from side to side.
“I don’t know,” she says helplessly. “They aren’t telling me anything.” She looks down at her hands. Her once long, slim fingers are wrinkled and beginning to thicken at the knuckles. “He’s still in surgery.”
“I’ll go ask in a minute,” I tell her. “See if I can get an update. Did someone call Brynn or Grandma? Are you okay? Have you eaten?”
She shakes her head and looks down at her feet. “I forgot to change my shoes.” Her chin wobbles and she covers her eyes with her hands and begins to weep. “He’s all I have,” she cries. “He’s all I have left.”
Charm
In her heart, she knew that she couldn’t take care of him. She had agonized over the decision. Charm was sure he had smiled at her, though the book she found at the library explained that babies didn’t really smile until they were six weeks old. But Charm swore that when the baby had waved his tiny fists in the air, he gave a brief, true smile. They all knew from the very beginning that their time together was just temporary. Charm and Gus couldn’t even bring themselves to give him a real name. Gus called him Kiddo or Buddy and Charm would whisper sweet confections and baked goods into his ear. Hey, Cupcake, she would say as she lifted him out of the makeshift bed they had made out of a laundry basked lined with soft blankets. Good morning, Soda Pop. Peanut Butter, Apple Dumpling, Cheese Doodle. He would look at Charm with those wise old eyes as if to say, “Not much longer, huh? It’s just a matter of time and I’ll be outta here.” Charm’s heart would twist and she would cry and cry until the front of his onesie was soaked through and then he would begin to wail until Charm couldn’t tell which cries were hers or which were his anymore.
Weeks of keeping him a secret and of sleepless nights were wearing Charm down and it was clear that Gus was getting sicker by the day. In the middle of the night she would wake up to the baby’s hungry cries and then to Gus’s hacking coughs. Charm just couldn’t do it anymore, care for both a baby and a sick man. Gus had taken her in when no one else would, without question or judgment, and he treated the baby like he was always there, just a part of the family. Gus was the closest thing to a father that she’d ever known. The baby had barely left a mark in this world yet but Gus left an impression that was deep, permanent. Gus was dying and she had to choose between the one whose journey had just begun and the one whose journey was ending.
It was late one night when Charm finally made the decision. She was pacing around the living room with the baby on her shoulder, trying to get him to sleep. She was half-comatose herself and blindly caught her foot on an end table sending the baby tumbling from her arms. She had dropped him. Wide-eyed he looked up at her from the floor, the breath knocked from his little body, his mouth opening and closing as if trying to communicate what Charm already knew.
Silently, without waking Gus, she tucked all of the baby’s things around him in the basket and drove him to the fire station on Oak Street in Linden Falls, one town away, just over the Druid River. The same fire station where Gus once worked. She wondered at the logic of this, but convinced herself that if Gus worked there, it must be a good place. They would take care of him.
She lifted him from the laundry basket that she had set on the car floor beside her and held him close to her chest. He had cried himself out and fallen asleep, his sweet little fingers and hand curled up like a pink flower under his chin. She needed to do this impossible thing, give away the only thing that had ever loved her on first sight and with no strings attached. She laid him gently back into the laundry basket and carefully carried him to the firehouse, all the time looking around to see if anyone had noticed her. It was a starless, warm night and no one was on the street. She kissed his soft cheek and whispered, “Be good, Pumpkin,” and set him gently as a prayer into the shadows. Remembering with a heavy sadness playing ding dong ditch with her friends as a child, she pressed the doorbell next to the entrance of the firehouse and ran.
Brynn
The phone is ringing as I unlock the door to my grandma’s house and Milo runs over to greet me, snuffling at my pockets, which I always keep filled with treats. The cats, Lucy and Leith, wrap themselves around my legs and mew hungrily. “Just a minute, guys,” I tell them. The phone continues to trill and I call out, “Grandma! Grandma! Telephone!”
I let the phone ring and I go to the cupboard and pull out two cans of cat food. My grandma’s voice fills the room. “We can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave your name and number and we’ll call you back.” After the beep I hear Allison’s voice. I toss the cans of cat food on
Her voice follows me up the steps and I freeze. “Brynn, please pick up, please pick up the phone!” I shake my head and begin to go up the stairs again.
“Brynn! It’s Dad. Please,” she begs. I slowly come back down the stairs. “Dad’s in the hospital. Mom’s a mess. I don’t know what I should do. I need you to talk to me. Please.” Allison is crying hard now and I move toward the phone. “Brynn, I need you,” she ends in a whimper.
I try not to think too much about the details of that night. But it was the only time in my whole life that my sister asked for my help. This I remember, this small detail I think about at night when I can’t sleep. That night my sister needed me. I was always the one who needed my sister, the one who needed protection from neighborhood kids, my parents, teachers. Myself. And she never, ever let me forget it. It had been so long since she’d helped me willingly. No, there was always eye rolling, big sighs and shakes of the head. It’s not like it was hard for Allison to help me out. Everything came easily to her. But as we grew older and the differences between us grew more obvious, she always had a way of making me feel small and simple.
Allison has written to me letter after letter, saying the same thing over and over again. I’m sorry, she writes, as if that will fix everything. Sorry for what? I want to ask her. Sorry for treating me as if I was a pesky irritation? Sorry for making me help you give birth? Sorry for making me keep your secrets? I don’t even open her letters anymore; I throw them in the bottom drawer of my dresser. It hurts, doesn’t it? I want to ask her. It hurts to need help and it hurts to have to beg for it. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I used to say it all the time. For everything. Not anymore.