Guardian (41 page)

“You mean,” I finally whispered, my voice soft because I was still hoping it wasn’t real, that saying it out loud wouldn’t make it true, “she just
gave
them away to you? Just like that?”

Mrs. Sanders studied me for a long moment, and then sat up straight once more, her chair squeaking slightly as it righted itself. She donned the small glasses hanging from her neck and thumbed through one of the meticulously piled stacks at one corner of her desk. Finding the paper she wanted, she pulled it out, realigned the pile, and then held the paper out to me.

I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. The paper was too perfect, too crisp and blindingly white. It was mocking me with its perfection. Just as my life had been, it appeared perfect to the rest of the world, but I knew when it was examined closely, my life would come tumbling down. Rafael accepted the paper when I stayed frozen in the chair, and held it between the two of us, so we could both look at it.

I couldn’t hold back a noisy sob when I saw my mother’s unmistakable signature at the bottom, witnessed by some unknown social worker. It was just like the note Rafael had forged for me one day, a lag in the name just after the
A
in
Elizabeth
, where she grew impatient with signing such a long name. In contrast, the
Evans
was quickly dashed, but there was an odd squiggle after the final
S
– when she had realized what she was doing? Regretted it only to realize it was too late to change it all?

The pain in my chest eased, gave way to anger, anger at my mother. How could she do this? My father had dashed a quick scrawl as well, but I didn’t care so much about him. It didn’t surprise me that he would do something like this. But my mother? Wasn’t a mother always, deep down, supposed to care for her children more than anything else in the world?

“I’m afraid it’s sealed, airtight and completely official,” Mrs. Sanders finally said, sounding apologetic. “If you, independently of your parents, want to establish contact, you can get started with the forms at the front desk. It will take some time, but I’m sure it would be worth the investment in the end.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Sanders. We’ll have to consider this new development,” Rafael said, standing and shaking the woman’s hand before helping me up from my chair. I followed his urging numbly, still unable to believe what my mother had done. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing from us sooner or later. Thank you for your time.”

Rafael guided me out of the building and to the car, where I sat in a state of quiet shock all the way home, unable to speak. This time when we got home, it wasn’t to an empty house. My mother’s battered blue Civic sat in the driveway. I felt Rafael watching me, the unspoken question hanging in the air between us.

I shook my head. “I’ll go alone. I need to talk to her.”

I half-turned to unlatch the door, but Rafael was already there to open it and help me out. As I tried to turn away, he kept hold of my hand and turned me toward him once more.

“Lyla, wherever Colton and Grace are, they’ve been placed with a good family. They do
thorough
checks into these people. You need to remember that they are safer there than they would be at home with your parents.”

“How can you
say
that?” I cried, jerking out of his grip and crossing my arms over my chest defensively. My voice had finally returned, but all I could feel was anger, anger at the world and everyone in it. Anger at anyone and everyone who could let this happen. “They need to be with me! They’re probably scared out of their minds!”

“I don’t deny they are probably scared and confused, Lyla. But we talked about this. You knew there could, there
would,
come a time when you had to let them go.”

“No!” I shouted at him. “I won’t! You can’t make me do it, Rafael! I won’t!” I could feel tears falling in scalding lines, burning my cheeks until the December air chilled them, turned them icy cold. I turned from him and ran into my house, not caring if the door slammed behind me. So what if my mother didn’t like it? I had nothing tying me here, nothing to keep me suffering through any more of my parents’ irrational rages.

I walked into the kitchen, fully expecting to see my mother moving around as usual, perhaps even ready to start an argument about the dirty dishes in the sink, the state of the house because I hadn’t cleaned it since my birthday. But no. She was sitting at the table, her shoulders hunched and staring at her hands. She looked up as I walked in, and I saw that she had been crying. It didn’t make me any less angry, blame her less, feel sorry for her in the slightest. If anything, it made me even more angry. If she regretted it, she shouldn’t have given them away.

I let my purse thump onto the floor, not moving from the entrance of the hallway into the kitchen. “Why did you do it?” I deadpanned, not the slightest inflection in my voice.

“I don’t know,” my mom whispered, her thin fingers twisting her plain gold wedding band around and around on her finger. “I don’t know, Lyla. I just, I just had to, is all.”

My voice rose an octave in outrage. “What do you mean, you don’t
know
? They’re your
children,
Mom! You’re supposed to protect them, not give them away to strangers!”

She started to cry. “I love them, Lyla! I do! You might not think so, but I do!”

“No, you don’t!” I shouted. I couldn’t keep quiet now, couldn’t stop myself from screaming at her, even as she shrank before me, hunching over in shame. “You never did!
I
loved them! I took care of them! You had no right to do this!”

“I don’t know why I did it,” my mother sobbed. “I’m sorry!”

“Sorry doesn’t fix this!” I raged. “We can’t get them back! Don’t you understand? I don’t even know if I’ll ever get to see them again. Don’t you know how
scared
they probably are?”

“So scared!” my mom gasped. Now her arms were crossed over her chest and she was rocking back and forth, her head bowed nearly to her chest. Like a broken record, she kept repeating, “I don’t know why I did it, I thought I had to. I don’t know why, Lyla.”

“I hope you’re happy now,” I spat. I couldn’t recall ever saying such hateful, mean things to anyone, not in my whole life. I couldn’t stop myself. It was as though someone else had taken over my body. For a flash of a moment, I had a vision of one of the many demons inside the walls of my house jumping into me, possessing me for just that moment. But I was too mad, too furious and rage and hate filled to care. “You never even wanted to look at Colton and Grace, and now you never have to see them again. I know that’s why you did it. I don’t know who will be your punching bag now that they’re gone.”

“No!” my mom protested loudly, looking up at me. “You’re wrong! I did love them! I just couldn’t look at them! But I knew it was all okay!” She sprang up from her chair and circled the table to stand before me, taking my face into her hands. I tried to pull away, to not look at her, but she held me in a firm grip that belied her slight frame. I didn’t want to look into her blue eyes, so world-weary, but so like Colton’s and Grace’s.

“It was all okay,” she said imploringly, nodding earnestly at me, “it was okay because they had you! You were always there for them, Lyla, so it was okay if I wasn’t!”

I took a step back, forcefully tearing myself from her grip. She was caught off-guard and fell to her knees, and I stared down at her, vibrating with anger.

“It was
not
okay,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “It was
never
okay! I took care of them, but they needed a
mom
. And what about me? Who did I have, Mom? Or should I even bother calling you that? You never acted like one to me. To any of us.”

Mom buried her face in her hands, sobbing all the harder. “Why are you being so mean?” she cried, her voice breaking.

“Because what you did was unforgivable!” I screamed. “I’m not there to protect them anymore! They aren’t safe!”

“I don’t… know why… I did it,” my mom sobbed, hiccupping so hard her words were distorted.

“That doesn’t excuse what you did,” I said in a chilly voice, so cold I almost gave myself goose bumps. I turned and walked down the hallway to my bedroom, leaving my mom crumpled on the floor behind me. Even after I closed and locked my door, I could hear her broken whisper, “I had to do it. I don’t know
why
I did it, I don’t
know
.”

I took a deep breath and turned away from the door to face my room. Reminders, memories of Colton and Grace slammed into me from every direction. Grace’s favorite stuffed unicorn, Colton’s Nikes tossed carelessly at the foot of his bed. A story book on the nightstand, worn and frayed from nightly readings. My Bible, with the Hello Kitty sticker vibrantly standing out against the dark cover, which Rafael had returned to me only last week.

My Bible
.

I started toward the Bible and opened it before I even realized what I was doing, my emotions leading me to it more than conscious decision. My fingers were trembling, still shaking with rage. I watched them as I turned another page, my eyes practically crossing with rage.

I looked down at the words, and suddenly I just couldn’t
do
it anymore. How could I find comfort in God’s words when He was the one who had let this happen? In sudden, jerky movements I slammed the book closed and stood. Clumsily, still operating more on feeling than rational thought, I threw the book across the room. It connected with the wall and fell behind the bed.

“How could You do this to me?” I screamed at the empty room. “I’ve always done everything You asked! And this is how You reward me?”

My knees gave out from under me, and I collapsed to the floor, just like my mom. I hugged my knees to my chest, felt the tears begin anew, and buried my face against my jeans.

“This is all Your fault,” I whispered, too tired to scream or shout anymore. All the strength had been sapped from my body. “This isn’t what I asked for,” I sniffled. “This isn’t what I wanted!”

I sat, huddled on the floor for what felt like an eternity. I couldn’t remember the exact moment when I fell asleep. Only that when I woke up, hours later, I was still there on the floor curled into a ball. And I had a plan.

I showered and did my hair and makeup, though no product could completely hide the dark circles under my eyes and my pale, wan complexion. Still, I gave it my best effort, dressed better than I had in the days since my birthday in jeans, boots, and a warm hoodie. The whole house seemed colder without my brother and sister around to lighten it up. After I finished getting dressed and tidied up my room, I picked up my phone to call Rafael, ignoring the twenty text messages and five missed calls from Natalie and Austin.

“Lyla?” Rafael’s voice sounded mildly frantic. “Are you all right? I shouldn’t have left you alone last night. I-”

“I’m fine,” I interrupted. “But I need you. Will you come?”

“I’ll be right there,” he replied instantly, and ended the call.

I’d barely made it from the bedroom to the kitchen before I heard the front door opening, and Rafael was entering the room. I saw him take in my appearance, measure every inch of me, and didn’t miss the slight give as his shoulders lost some of their worried tension.

“Did you eat anything? Breakfast?” he asked, glancing around the room.

“Yes,” I said, and showed him a bowl, in which I had sprinkled some cereal and a splash of milk, so it appeared to be the remnants of a meal already eaten. It felt like an extreme, but I knew Rafael nearly as well as I knew myself. As I’d known my brother and sister.

He visibly relaxed this time. “I was worried,” he said, as though it wasn’t obvious.

“I know. I’m sorry I worried you.”

Rafael came closer and carefully pulled me against him, guiding my head to rest on his chest. “It’s all right,” he whispered, and I closed my eyes against tears, because I knew what I was about to do was wrong.

I shouldn’t take advantage of Rafael. But at the same time, I
needed
to see Colton and Grace.
Needed
to get them back, absolutely had to have them. I didn’t care what it took, where we would go or live, even if it was the streets. I just needed them with me. Nothing would change the fact that they would be with me forever, and I would always be there for them. Rafael didn’t understand it, didn’t understand what it felt like to be left behind, because he had always been the one leaving.

I rubbed my face against his soft shirt, inhaling his clean scent, and then pulled away just a bit and looked up at him. “Mrs. Sanders said that Colton and Grace had already been placed with a family. If we go through the forms, we would have to wait for months to find out where they are.”

Rafael hesitated, clearly trying to read my intent. “Yes, I think it would take a while.”

“But you-” I paused and started again, “you could get the address, couldn’t you?”

Rafael’s eyes instantly became guarded. “I could…” he said slowly, “but-”

I clutched at the front of his jacket, sure that a crazy look had entered my eyes. “Please, Rafael!” I said, beginning to cry once more. “Please! I just need to make sure they’re okay. I need to see with my own eyes, for my peace of mind. I can’t take someone else’s word for it! We don’t even have to actually talk to them. You can sneak us there and just let me look. I have to make sure they’re safe!”