When I couldn’t keep my eyes open to read any more, I got ready for bed in the pink bathroom across the hall and turned off all the lights. I padded over to the double window opposite my bed, the one that looked out across the backyard and into the hills. We’d learned in science class that stars looked brighter here than in most places because there were no competing lights. Henbane was a dark spot on the globe seen from space.
Black flakes like falling ash scattered across the moon as bats swirled through the sky. They spilled out of Old Scratch on summer nights and swooped through the valley to feed, their presence as familiar and comforting as the bugs and frogs that sang me to sleep. Dad once spent a month working a construction job in Little Rock, sleeping in a hotel, and when he came home, the nighttime sounds were deafening to his unaccustomed ears. The hotel room had been too quiet at first for him to sleep, but in time he’d gotten used to the absence of night music. I wondered if it would be the same for me when I left Henbane, if all the little pieces of home would so quickly be forgotten.
I had deer steaks and gravy in the skillet when Dad walked in Friday night with a book under his arm. Even though it wasn’t quite summertime, his skin was already dark from working outdoors every day.
“That deer smells like heaven after a week of McDonald’s,” he said, grinning and pulling me into a hug. He let go and handed me the book. “I know you been wanting this one.”
Song of Solomon, its pages brown and swollen as if it had been dropped in a bathtub. “Thanks, Dad.”
“So you’re all done with school, right? How was the last day?” he asked, flipping through a week’s worth of junk mail on the counter.
“Fine. Nothing new.” I laid the food out on the table and poured glasses of tea while Dad pulled his boots off and set them by the back door.
We sliced our steaks in silence. The venison was tough. Birdie had taught me how to make it several years back, though her recipe involved soaking it in milk for twenty-four hours, and I never managed to start a meal that far in advance.
“Have you talked to Uncle Crete?” I asked.
“Yep. He seems to think you’re coming to work for him.”
“So? What do you think? Maybe I could finally get my own phone. And I could save some money for college.” I thought surely I’d hook him on that one.
“You don’t need a cell phone. And you’ll get scholarships.”
“Dad.”
“I didn’t say no.” He pulled a piece of gristle out of his mouth and set it on the edge of his plate while I waited for him to continue. “But there’s gonna be some rules.”
I smiled. This was going better than I’d hoped. I was already following the long list of rules he’d created for when I stayed home alone. A few more couldn’t be that bad. And with him gone, he’d never know when I bent the more ridiculous ones. “Go on,” I said in my most dramatic voice.
“I’m being serious here,” he said. “No working after dark. No walking home alone through the woods after dark. No socializing with your uncle’s pals over there.” I thought of Becky Castle with her crusty hair. No temptation to break that rule. “And you’re gonna save most of your paycheck.”
“Sure,” I said. “Is that it?”
His knife and fork stopped moving and he was quiet for a moment, a strange look crossing his face. He stumbled around whatever he was trying to say. “Crete’ll be looking out for you… but you need to use your best judgment. You don’t know what kind of folks you might run into up there, and… you just need to mind your business and do your work and stay out of anything that don’t concern you. And if anything makes you uncomfortable, let me know. I can give him some reason you gotta quit.”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked. I could tell he wasn’t joking around, but I couldn’t imagine what had him worried. “I’ll be renting canoes and selling worms. It’s not exactly dangerous.”
His left eyebrow curled down like it did when he was about to lose his patience. “I want you to take in what I said, and I want you to agree to it.”
“Sure,” I said. “But you don’t have to worry about me. I’m really good at taking care of myself.”
“I know,” he said softly, looking down at his plate. As though he regretted that fact.
CHAPTER 2
Lila
I was used to moving around. All my stuff fit in the same ugly brown suitcase I’d had since I was twelve, when my parents died and I had to leave the farm where I’d grown up, north of Cedar Falls. I’d switched foster homes seven times in six years, and sometimes I didn’t even unpack. But this move was different. I was leaving Iowa, and I wouldn’t be coming back.
My social worker, who’d been telling me from day one that teenagers rarely got adopted, had tried to prepare me for aging out of the system. I was actually looking forward to it until it happened to my foster sister, Crystal. She was a year older and we’d shared a bedroom at the Humphries’ house. My parents wouldn’t have approved of Crystal, who was always ditching school and talking back, but the two of us had something that bonded us together: No one wanted to keep us for very long, not even people like the Humphries, who took in disabled kids and crack babies.
Crystal said we got moved around so much because we were pretty and had big boobs, that foster moms didn’t want us tempting their husbands and sons, but in Crystal’s case it might also have had something to do with her habit of setting things on fire. She was partly right about me. It wasn’t my fault if my foster fathers or brothers had roving eyes, if they looked at me inappropriately. I never purposely flirted with them, though I did sometimes flirt with their friends or neighbors. I might have even slept with one or two. And gotten caught. (Cue suitcase.) The social worker called it a problem with impulse control. I’d done something else, too, after my parents died, something worse. I didn’t know for sure if it was in my file, but if it was, I couldn’t blame them for passing me around like a hot potato.
Crystal had lightened the mood at the Humphries’ house, always mocking our foster mother’s obsession with modesty. Mrs. Humphries bought us sports bras to mash down our breasts, even insisting we wear them to sleep. Crystal would jump up and down on her bed, topless, waving around the Bible Mrs. Humphries had given her and quoting the crazy mom from the Carrie movie: I can see your dirty pillows! It always cracked us up.
When Crystal turned eighteen, she dropped out of school and moved from Cedar Falls to Des Moines to work at a strip club. She wrote me a letter and invited me to join her, and I thought about it. Then I didn’t get any more letters. Six months later, I learned that Crystal had died of an overdose. The social worker gave me a moment to let the news sink in, then launched into her scared-straight routine, pushing up the sleeves of her blue blazer, the one she’d been wearing since I met her in 1986, when giant shoulder pads were in style.
What have you done to prepare yourself, to keep from ending up like her? she asked, her eyes bulging. All these years I’ve been trying to get through to you. You’re too busy moping about your old life to plan for a new one. Your old life is gone, and you’ll never get it back! She was so worked up, she was yelling. Little drops of spit flew out of her mouth. I wanted to punch her in the face. I curled my fingers into a fist.
She tossed a stack of pamphlets at me. You have nothing. NOTHING. Nobody’s going to take care of you but you. YOUR PARENTS WOULD WANT SOMETHING GOOD FOR YOU. Figure it out. You’re running out of time.
I wondered if she said the same thing to everyone—to Crystal, whose parents were still alive and, to my knowledge, didn’t give a rat’s ass what became of her. I didn’t need the social worker to tell me what my mom and stepdad would’ve wanted. I was their only child, and they’d been overinvolved in everything I did. My mom was my Daisy Scout troop leader. My stepdad had hollered encouragement from the sidelines of my Pee Wee soccer games. They had continued to waste money on piano lessons year after year, refusing to acknowledge defeat. My mom was a teacher, and I’d actually done really well in school before everything fell apart. I knew my parents would want me to do something with my life. If they hadn’t died, maybe I would have found some sense of direction. Maybe, if they were still with me, I’d be a completely different person. I had no way of knowing.
That night, I flipped through the pamphlets the social worker had given me. Community college, trade school, cosmetology school. They all cost money, and I’d already missed the cutoff for financial aid, so there was no point in applying until the next semester. I had a part-time job at IHOP, but my pay wouldn’t be enough to cover rent and expenses when I moved out on my own. I set aside the army and navy recruitment brochures as my last resort and opened the one remaining pamphlet. It advertised an employment agency specializing in live-in positions where room and board were included. Nannies, housekeepers, laborers, companions for the elderly. I didn’t want to do any of those things for the long term, but in the short term it would be a good way to save up money until I figured out what I did want to do.
Their office was in Des Moines, in a half-empty strip mall, and I had to take the bus. A guy with a long, snaking ponytail plucked me from the waiting room ahead of two middle-aged women who had been there longer. He asked a lot of personal questions that didn’t seem relevant, but I answered them anyway. Now we just need a photo, he said when we finished the application. All I had in my purse was a picture of me and Crystal at the pool. I’d been carrying it around in my address book since she left. I asked the guy if he could photocopy it so I could have the original back, and he assured me he could crop it down to a head shot. A month later I received a contract in the mail, signed it, and sent it back. I’d agreed to two years on a southern Missouri farm in a tiny town called Henbane.
The social worker drove me to the Greyhound station and wished me luck. Mrs. Humphries had insisted I take the Bible she’d given me, and I left it on the floor of the social worker’s car. My suitcase was swallowed up in the belly of the bus, and I climbed on board.