Juno's Daughters (34 page)

When Jenny came back through the door she found Mary Ann holding her plate out to her again. Lilly had eaten the fish, but her rice and salad remained untouched.

The older woman urged, “You should eat something. It will help you sleep.”

Jenny took the plate, although eating was the furthest thing from her mind. “Andre's on his way out here.”

Mary Ann said, “Don't sound so surprised.”

Jenny smiled. “I can't help it. He'll probably arrive sometime tomorrow morning.”

Lilly walked by carrying a glass of orange juice. “Precisely when all the hard work has been done.”

Mary Ann and Jenny both watched her disappear into her room.

“That gives you plenty of time to get some rest,” said Mary Ann.

Jenny shook her head. “I won't sleep.”

“Yes,” said Mary Ann. “You will. Because . . .” She went into the kitchen and returned with an open bottle of wine and a water glass. “You are going to drink.” She poured the glass half full and set it before Jenny on the table with such force that the yellow liquid sloshed.

Jenny took a sip, then a gulp. “What if Frankie gets up in the night?”

“I'll be here,” said Mary Ann.

Jenny took another large pull on her wine and then, suddenly dizzy, she took a small bite of rice. Mary Ann watched her take a few more bites and then drink the rest of the wine like a nurse watching a patient take her medicine. Then Jenny stumbled into bed.

The morning sun was bright on her face when Jenny awoke and she was sweating under a heavy quilt. She padded into the kitchen in her socks to find Mary Ann sitting in the armchair by the door with her eyes closed. When she was awake the brightness of her friend's eyes and her easy smile distracted Jenny from the lines spreading over her face. Mary Ann's hair was more gray than blond now, Jenny could see, and the grooves alongside her mouth and etched into her forehead were thick and deep. She tiptoed to Frankie's room and inched the door open. The shock of black hair visible on the pillow and the curled lump underneath the blanket reassured her that her younger child was still asleep. She glanced at the clock on the mantle and saw that it was already eleven-fifteen. From the hallway she could see that Lilly's door was ajar. Both her bed and her room were empty.

There was coffee on the counter, though the pot was cool. Jenny poured the coffee into a saucepan and turned on the burner. She pulled the milk from the refrigerator and noticed that there was a bowl with milk and a few soggy cornflakes sitting in the sink.

“How do you feel?”

Jenny turned to find Mary Ann's eyes open. The older woman's head was still back against the top of the chair and her legs were stretched out over the footrest.

Jenny stirred the coffee with a wooden spoon. “Where's Lilly?”

“In town.”

“I don't know why I even bothered to ask.” She reached for a mug and tipped the saucepan to pour the coffee into it. “Frankie's been sleeping for over fourteen hours.”

“She was up for a while.”

Jenny carried her coffee to the table and turned her chair to face Mary Ann. “When?”

“At about midnight. We sat and talked. I made her some warm milk with honey in it. Then she went back to sleep.”

“What did she say?” Jenny sipped her coffee.

“I heard most of the story, I think. How she handed her backpack to some boy and he ran off with it. She talked about this group of kids, Tinker Bell and Rash. A boy named Lightning. She says this Pyro character was diagnosed with some kind of illness, occasional explosive syndrome or something like that, and thrown out of his house when he was fourteen.”

Jenny snorted. “Syndrome or not, he was a violent, aggressive jerk.”

Mary Ann added softly, “He wanted to have sex with her and hit and kicked her when she said no.”

“Jesus.” Jenny thought of the bruises on Frankie's hip and felt her stomach turn. She remembered how she had stood over a sleeping Pyro and it was all she could do not to wail out loud for having missed her chance to do him harm. “Why didn't she tell me?”

Mary Ann sighed. “You're her mother. She wants to protect you.”

“I wanted to protect her, too.” Jenny pushed the heels of her palms against her eyes. “And I ended up doing a fine job with that, didn't I?”

“She got away, Jen. Little Frankie fought back and got away.”

Jenny chewed her lip. “She made excuses for him,” she said. She met Mary Ann's eyes and wondered if the older woman could see her panic. “The police officer kept telling her that whatever happened wasn't her fault, but I could tell that she didn't believe a word of it.”

“Maybe you have to believe it, too,” said Mary Ann gently.

Jenny straightened. “How could I possibly think it was her fault? She's a child.”

“That's not what I mean.”

Jenny stared at her hands. How well she could remember standing on Mary Ann's doorstep all those years ago with her children and her life and little else and finding herself fully taken in by that gaze. Those green eyes in the face of her friend had been her salvation once. She forced herself to look up. “What do you mean?”

Mary Ann's face softened. “What I mean is that maybe
you
have to believe it. Maybe in order for Frankie to forgive herself you have to show her how to do it. You have to believe, you know, that
it's not your fault
.”

Jenny buried her face in her hands. She was not, it had to be said, Juno. Whatever powers she possessed were of the distinctly human kind. “I don't know,” she said in a very small voice. “I don't know if I can do that.” She did not need Mary Ann to tell her that for Frankie's sake, and for her own, she had to try.

They sat without speaking. The silence was interrupted by the sound of a flock of waxwings just outside the window getting drunk on serviceberries, and a rhythmic, knocking sound that Jenny did not immediately recognize.

She asked, “What's that noise?”

Mary Ann glanced at the window. “David is outside chopping wood for your woodpile.”

Jenny said, “But I know how to chop wood.”

Mary Ann sighed. “Let him do it, will you?”

Jenny slipped her feet into a pair of Lilly's shoes that were by the door and carried her mug outside. David had paused to wipe the sweat off his forehead with the bandanna from his pocket. He wore jeans and heavy boots and a T-shirt that must have been given to him by Phinneas. It said
Potters for Peace
.

“Can I get you a glass of water?” asked Jenny.

David jumped a little at hearing her voice. “Sure. Thanks.” He lifted the ax again and brought it down hard on the wood that he had stood upright on the stump. It split straight down the middle.

Jenny went into the house and returned with the glass. David emptied it and handed it back. His skin was ruddy from sun and wind and in his whiskers of a few days were a few silver ones glinting among the reddish blond. She could remember how those rough points felt against her skin when he burrowed his face under her hair and pressed his lips against her neck. She wondered if she could have really broken his heart, as she'd heard him complain more than once. She was sorry if she had.

He leaned the blade against the stump. “Do you love that guy?”

Jenny touched his arm. “Yeah, actually. I think I do.” The hesitation was all for David's sake, and she could see in his eyes that he knew it.

“I'll be here, you know,” he said. “If you ever change your mind.”

The woodpile was already three quarters full. David balanced another log on the stump for chopping.

She said, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he said, and brought the ax down.

Back in the house, Mary Ann had risen from her chair and was cracking eggs into a bowl. She looked up when Jenny approached. “Cheese omelet?”

“Sure.” She glanced back in the direction she'd come. “How long has he been out there?”

“Bout an hour.” She poured the eggs into the pan. “You'll have to tell him later,” she said, “when you want him to stop. That is unless you want to be responsible for the deforestation of San Juan Island.”

Jenny laughed. It was an odd sound, she thought, coming from her mouth. “I will, I promise.” She glanced toward the window, through which David's form was intermittently visible when he went to retrieve pieces of wood that had gone flying. “But not quite yet.”

At the sound of a truck rumbling up the drive, both Jenny and Mary Ann walked to the front door and looked out. The truck was Elliot's. It came to a halt and Elliot, Lilly, and another high school friend of Lilly's, a girl named May, tumbled out. It looked like there was another kid in the bed of the truck, but the cab obscured too much of him for Jenny to make out who it was. She was soon enough distracted by Lilly, who pushed through the front door carrying a box in her arms.

“Hey Mom! Mary Ann! Where's Frankie? I have something for her. It's a big box and it's from Ariel.”

“Ariel sent me a present?”

Frankie stood in the doorway to her room in jeans and bare feet. The pants, which had fit her well when she left, hung around her hips to expose a strip of smooth, pale skin between the waistband and the bottom of her T-shirt.

Jenny glanced at the box and could see neither the address nor postage. She wondered how Lilly could be so sure that it came from Ariel.

May stepped forward to give Jenny a hug. “My mom says that you should call her if you have time to make ten place mats before Thanksgiving.”

Jenny nodded. “I can do that.”

Lilly placed the box in Frankie's hands. Frankie looked at it in wonder before setting it on the table to open it. Jenny got the scissors and returned to find Frankie ripping it open with her hands.

Frankie opened the flaps and Jenny gasped.

Staring up at them was the face of a wolf. The snout was covered with gray and black fur, with a wet-looking nose at the tip. The eyes were pitch black. There was an opening underneath one row of jagged teeth and after the opening, another row below. The opening was for the eyes and nose, Jenny guessed, for when Frankie lifted the thing from its box she could see that it was a mask. She looked at Mary Ann in alarm.

“I love it,” breathed Frankie, and she placed it on her head.

A curtain of thin gray fabric fell to her shoulders below the frightening jaw. Because the opening was in the mouth, it tilted the snout slightly toward the ceiling and made it look as if the wolf were both baring its teeth and about to howl at the moon.

“Check this out.” Lilly reached into the box and pulled out the rest of the costume: a gray shirt and leggings with loops of gray and black yarn attached to them like matted fur with black and mother-of-pearl sequins sewn on at odd intervals. She shook it and a note fluttered to the floor.

“Cool,” said Elliot.

“Awesome,” added May.

Jenny bent to pick up the note. “It says,
Dear Iris. This is from an Off-Broadway production of
Peter and the Wolf
. I hope you like it
.
Be fierce
.
Love Ariel
.”

Frankie gathered the rest of the costume in her arms and disappeared into her room to change. Jenny looked at her slender back and thin pale arms and remembered what Mary Ann had said about her fighting back.

Lilly turned to Jenny with a mysterious smile on her face and for a moment Jenny wondered if the present might actually have come from Lilly.

“Frankie got a delivery from Ariel,” said Lilly, as if reading her mother's mind. “But you got something, too. It's outside.”

“What?” Jenny's heart charged ahead of her. Could it be?