Night Light (12 page)

He scanned to the end of the letter. There was more of the same. As much as he’d wanted to believe that his mom was wrong about them, he could see that at least some of what she’d said was true. No wonder she wouldn’t talk to them. If they were going to have her locked up and take her children away from her, then he didn’t blame her for running.

Maybe the endless trail of apartments and live-in arrangements with her boyfriends had been necessary, after all.

He flipped through and found a longer letter.

Dear Jessie,

I pray for you all day long and into the night, then I wake up and pray some more. And I pray for your boys. The guilt eats me up nights, and I go back over every event in your life, thinking where I went wrong, what I should have done differently, wondering how I can get you to see reason. How did it come to this?

He could feel the pain in the words, and he understood the guilt. He’d struggled with it himself, thinking that if he’d just been a better kid, his mother might not have needed to take so many drugs. He thought of the grandmother he remembered — the one who always had a sweet smile for him and baked him cookies and read to him and his brothers at night. The things his mother said about his grandparents had never quite fit with the memories he had of them. Maybe she had lied. Maybe they really were nice like he remembered.

Jessie,

If you’d just come home, we could get you some help. You could get off drugs and get your life on track. You could be the mother that your children deserve. You could stop destroying yourself.

If you don’t, I’m afraid you’re going to die.

He held the letter in his hand and looked into the warm breeze blowing across the pond. Down the way, he heard a splash, and Logan cried out, “Got another one!”

Logan was way ahead, but Aaron didn’t care. His memory drifted back to the grandparents he remembered. He’d seen them since this letter was written, so apparently they’d found her that time. She’d disappeared for a few days after that, while she was pregnant with Luke. Had she been in jail? When she came back, she’d been bitter and angry, and hungry for her dope.

His pop had played softball with him and talked about signing him up for T-ball. His grandma made him a birthday cake, and they’d celebrated his fifth. It had been a good day.

Then sometime that night, his mother woke him and Joey up and whisked them out into the night. A man with a car was waiting for them, and she threw them into the backseat and laughed like a lottery winner as they drove off. He hadn’t seen his grandparents since.

“They want to lock me up and give you away! They’re hateful, selfish people, and if they find us you’ll never see me or Joey again.”

He could still remember his crushing disappointment. He’d never had a birthday party before. And he really wanted to play ball.

But his mother’s threats loomed over him.

He turned to the next letter. The handwriting was different, more angular and bolder. His grandfather had signed it.

Jessie,

How did such a beautiful, bright little girl, who loved to dance and sing, turn to a life of drugs? I know the abuse changed you, and I’d give my very life if I could undo it. But it happened. We should have handled it differently. We should have gotten you a counselor to help you work through it. We should have seen how much pain you were in.

But drugs? It doesn’t even seem possible.

And now here we are, with you walking in complete bondage, and your children suffering as a result. The abuse that was done to you is now being turned on them.

He read back over that sentence. Had his mother been abused by her parents? Was that why she thought they were evil? Was that why she refused to let the four of them see their grandparents, even when she didn’t want to take care of them herself?

These pregnancies, the arrests, the failed treatment … all leave me baffled and bewildered, and very, very sad. The only thing I know to do is get the state involved, and have those children taken from you.

There it was again. Their goal was to get the kids away from their mother. His mom had always mentioned “the state” in the same breath with those foster homes that would split the family up. Was that what his grandparents had planned? He tried to think of Grandma and Pop as evil, but it just didn’t line up with the picture he had in his mind of them.

Still, nice people turned mean all the time. His mother proved that. That’s why he couldn’t trust the Brannings.

And if the Brannings found Grandma and Pop, they’d turn them over to them, and they might hurt Sarah, Luke, or Joey. They might turn them over to the state. They might split them up.

He bit his lip until he drew blood, then ripped up the letters.

Who needed them? His brothers and sister had him, and he’d already proven that he could protect them. As soon as the time was right, he would get them all out of the Brannings’ house, and they’d be free again.

Freedom. It was what his mother always wanted.

But if he had anything to say about it, his freedom would be different than hers.

seventeen

T
HE WORK HAD GONE SLOWER ON THE WELL FOR THE PAST
twenty-four hours, since one of the shifts late yesterday had struck another layer of bedrock. What Doug wouldn’t give for a working drill, or some dynamite to help them break through it. Since they couldn’t get their hands on either, they’d had to get creative. Scrounging for objects that were heavy enough to drop into the hole and shatter the rock, they’d come up with boat anchors, an old outboard motor, and iron barbells. Those had done the trick, fracturing the stone a little at a time.

Back in the hole, Doug and Brad hacked at the broken rock with their steel rods and sledgehammers, then dropped the shards into the bucket. Its rope was wound around a pulley at the top of the well where Brad’s boys, Jeremy and Drew, dumped it out. Mark and Zach worked outside the hole again, preparing the bricks for the walls.

As they waited for the bucket to be lowered back down, Brad stopped digging and took a long swig from his jug of water. “I thought of a way to make some money after the disbursements are given out. Something we could sell, once people have money they can spend.”

The bucket came back down, and Doug grabbed it. “What’s that?”

“I thought we could make washboards. Judith and the boys and I could probably come up with a way to build them and sell them for some change. Everybody needs them.”

Doug grinned and shook his head. “From Maytag to washboards. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we, pal? Full speed in reverse.”

“You got that right.” Brad rammed his steel rod into a crack, trying to break it further. “So you’re sure Kay is up to washing clothes and cooking and cleaning for four extra people?”

“She’ll have to get a lot of help from the kids. Two of them are too little to be much help, but the older two are tough. They can pull their weight. Frankly, I don’t know how they’ve made it this far. You would think they’d have starved to death or died of thirst, but they’re relatively healthy.” Doug positioned his rod again, then whacked it with the sledgehammer once, twice, three times …

“Hey, man! Hold up! It’s wet!”

Doug stopped whacking and turned to where Brad stood. The slightest bit of water had seeped up under his feet. Doug looked up at Drew, wondering if someone was playing a practical joke. “Hey, did anybody spill something down here?”

“No, sir,” the boys called.

Doug looked back at the rock. Already, more water was seeping up, forming a small puddle beneath his feet. His heart jolted. “Oh, man! Is that what I think it is?”

Brad stooped down and began to laugh. “I think it is.”

“Get back.” Doug straightened and took Brad’s pick, raised it over his head, and hacked with all his might. This time the water sprayed upward.

“We hit an aquifer!” he shouted. “We have water!” Brad sent up a whoop and high-fived him. They hugged, their sweaty flesh sticking together. Above them, he heard cheers as the other workers leaned in to see.

“We’ve struck gold!” Brad shouted up.

A flurry of activity began above them as people in neighboring homes ran out. They had much to celebrate.

eighteen

T
HERE WAS TOO MUCH NEWS TO KEEP QUIET, AND
D
ENI DECIDED
there was no better day to start her newspaper than today. While her siblings and the Gatlin kids did their chores, she sat down at the patio table and began working on her first story — the one about Jessie’s disappearance.

Her mother had written a letter to the grandparents earlier that day, and Jeff had taken it to the post office to mail. It might take weeks for it to get to them, and then they’d have to wait for a reply to work its way back. Either way, they’d have the children for a while.

Unless they found their mother. And her article might help with that.

Twenty-five-year-old Jessie Gatlin of Crockett disappeared about two weeks after the Pulses began. She left behind four children, ages three to nine, who’ve been fending for themselves in the Sandwood Place Apartments since that time. The children have managed to survive but are now living with another family until their mother or suitable relatives are found. Jessie Gatlin, who attended Crockett High School, is purported to have had a drug problem, according to her friend, Lacy Frye, who hasn’t seen the woman since before the outage. She suspects that Jessie’s disappearance had to do with drugs. Sheriff Scarbrough, who took the children into custody and placed them in foster care, has started an investigation to find Jessie Gatlin. If you have any information about her or have seen her at any point since the outage, please contact Sheriff Scarbrough’s office immediately. Authorities are also trying to find the children’s grandparents or other relatives who may not be aware of their situation.

The handwriting was pitiful, and it was written on a yellow legal pad, but she supposed she could copy it by hand and staple several copies to the message boards around town. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.

She heard yelling and looked through the yard toward the sound of the voices. Her mother, who was hanging a wet shirt on the clothesline, ducked under it. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Deni said, rising from the table.

Her mother rounded up the kids, and they all ran out the back gate toward the sound. They found the crowd celebrating around the well where Deni’s father had been digging.

“They hit water!” someone yelled.

Giving a shout of victory, Deni hugged her mother. Little Sarah and Luke jumped up and down like long-time residents of Oak Hollow, while Joey stood back, hands in pockets, watching with detached interest.

There was still much work to do to get the well ready to use, but all of the men who had helped with the shifts began to make plans for finishing it off. Everyone was jubilant. The women began feverishly planning a party, a huge blowout that would provide a welcome relief from all the hard work — and from the drudgery their lives had become.

nineteen

D
OUG AND
D
ENI FOUND
M
OE
J
ENKINS THE NEXT DAY
, sitting on the steps of another apartment building, digging through a bag of garbage. An unlit cigarette butt hung from his mouth. His dark curly hair was greasy and tangled, and his beard was scraggly and unkempt.

Doug was about to introduce himself when, to his surprise, Deni stepped in front of him, brandishing her legal pad. “Hi, are you Moe Jenkins?”

He stopped digging and took the butt out. “Who wants to know?”

She thrust out her hand. “I’m Deni Branning, and I’m writing a story about Jessie Gatlin for the
Crockett Community Journal.
”

Doug shot her a look. It was the first time he’d heard the name of the newspaper. He wondered if the name had just come to her.

“This is Doug Branning,” she said, failing to mention that he was her father. “We were told that you used to be involved with Jessie.”

Moe’s eyes narrowed. “I told the sheriff I ain’t seen Jessie in a long time. She got everything she wanted out of me and moved on.”

Doug leaned on the stairwell. “Did you know Jessie’s missing?”

He shook the garbage bag and resumed his digging. “Sheriff told me.”

“Did he tell you she hasn’t been seen in weeks?”

Moe put the cigarette butt back in his mouth. “She’s probably holed up in a crank house somewhere.”

“How long were you involved with her?” Deni asked.

“Three, four months. She was like a leech, hard to shake off once she settled in. Her and those bratty kids.”

“If she was so awful, why did you take her in?” Doug asked.

“She was hot, that’s why. I’m a sucker for a pretty face. But it got old fast. She started stealing from me. That was it. I threw her out.”

“How long ago was that?”

“After she got pregnant the last time. She was a real drag then. Cranky and dope-sick, ’cause of the baby.”

“Dope-sick?” Doug asked.

“Yeah. She didn’t do as much dope when she was pregnant, and she was a nightmare to live with.”

Doug met Deni’s eyes. So she
had
used some. According to Moe, at least. Hard to tell who was a less reliable source — Moe or Lacy. Poor kids. It was a miracle they were all right. “Which child of hers is yours?” Doug asked.

“None of ’em.” He kept rummaging through the garbage bag. He pulled out the heads of a couple of eaten carrots, their long leaves wilted and brown. He set them aside on the steps. Doug wondered if he was going to eat them. “She lied and said that fourth one was mine, but she was just trying to get money out of me.”

Deni set her hand on her hip. “She looks kind of like you. The same eyes, curly brown hair. Have you ever seen Sarah?”

He spat the butt onto the ground. “Sarah who?”

Deni glanced at Doug.

“Your daughter,” he said.

Moe started to laugh then. “I told you, she ain’t mine. There’s not a bit of proof.”

Doug could see Deni’s disgust flaring up, and he touched her arm to quiet her. “So do you have any idea where Jessie could be?” he asked.