Picture This (24 page)

Chapter 44

Tess

“I
like Natalie,” said Danielle the morning after the Battery Steele debacle. Could this child be going into second grade in just a few months? Time was passing too quickly. Just yesterday they had talked about Danielle riding the ferry by herself, with her babysitter stationed at the Portland pier and Tess at the island pier.

Tess felt the soft ghost of time crawl up her sleeve, brushing the fine hairs of her arm. Must the child grow older? The sweetness of this age grabbed at Tess and made her want to fall to her knees with gratitude.

Tess had startled awake several times during the night, aware of her granddaughter tucked in close, giving off the smell of peach. Was it the color peach, as she had always known it, not the fruit? Could it be coming back? Her magnificently braided sensory neurons might be traveling back to her at this very moment. The child smelled like the color peach because the letter
D
in her name was peach-colored, and it had been for as long as Tess could remember.

She was encouraged by this passing smell of peach to hope that her synesthesia was returning. Tess had snuggled as close to the child as she dared without waking her, to breathe in her scented color. Now the girl wiggled awake, alert instantly.

“Will Natalie come today?” said Danielle.

Tess was startled by the instant question about Natalie. She got up and pulled a sweatshirt over her cotton pajamas. The mornings were chilly on Peaks, even in the summer. “Tell me something that you especially like about Natalie,” said Tess. Danielle was still in bed, with the white comforter tucked deliberately under her arms and all the pillows behind her.

“I like that she's not grown-up all the way. She's afraid of stuff like the dark the way I am. My dad says that I shouldn't be afraid of the dark because everything is the same at night. Only it isn't, and Natalie knows it.”

Tess sat cross-legged at the end of the bed. “And that's what you like most about Natalie, that she's afraid of the dark like you?”

Danielle placed both hands behind her head, looked at the ceiling, and pondered this. “Yes,” she said with a confirming nod of her head.

Tess saw no reason to beat the child's logic into the ground. “So be it. Let's make skinny French pancakes and eat them outside. Your job will be to cut up the strawberries. Can you do that?”

Danielle shot up out of her languid mound of covers.

“We can eat outside?”

“Yes,” said Tess.

“They're called crepes. I'm seven. You don't have to keep calling them skinny French pancakes.”

“Of course I don't. Now let's get to it before Rocky arrives with her weaponry and begins shooting arrows in the backyard. Then we'd have to eat our crepes with flak jackets on. You can take the strawberries and milk and eggs out of the fridge while I shower.”

Tess thought about Natalie as the hot water streamed down her. How quickly the strange girl had woven herself into Rocky's life, and to some extent her own. Natalie had been the first person Danielle thought about this morning. Should she be wary about her granddaughter being so rapidly attached to Natalie? Tess was keenly aware of how devastating a rejection can be for a young child. Natalie could blow out of their lives as quickly as she had blown in.

She shut off the water and toweled dry as the Buddha on her blue bathroom door looked at her, offering his shaded gaze.

“I know,” she said to the image. “And may you have a peaceful day too. But it's much easier for you here in the bathroom than it is for the rest of us.”

Danielle hollered from the kitchen. “What's the other thing that we need to make the crepes?”

Tess yanked open the door. “Wait for me, little chef.”

As she hopped around the bedroom, diving into her fresh cotton pants and her favorite hoodie, she heard another voice.

Tess paused, hand on her hair, ready to tie back the flow of white hair into a fat clip. It was Natalie. How odd, how serendipitous that she and Danielle had been thinking of Natalie and now she had dropped in. She felt the morning coolness of the floor as she padded to the kitchen.

“Natalie! We're having skinny pancakes, I mean crepes. Mine has jam on it, but you can have yours any way that you want,” said Danielle, nearly vibrating off the stool she stood on. “I know how to mix everything that goes in them, like eggs and flour.”

Natalie gave Tess an inquiring look, asking permission.

“Yes, yes, sit down and watch our master chef at work,” said Tess.

“I just stopped by to say hi and that I'm sorry about running off yesterday at Battery Steele.” She tipped her head off to an angle and shrugged her shoulders together. “Rocky is gone, and Melissa took Cooper over to Portland, so I got a little lonely. Are you sure it's okay if I join you?” asked Natalie.

With anyone else, Tess would have hugged her, or rubbed her arm, or fussed with her hair. But Natalie's personal space extended far beyond the national average of three feet.

“It's more than fine. We have an exciting morning planned, but first we eat,” said Tess.

“Come on, Natalie, I'll give you the spoon to lick. Gramma thinks it's gross, but I like it.” The child beamed at Natalie, looking up at her with little sister love.

Natalie walked tentatively into the kitchen, as if she had landed in a strange land where walking had different rules.

“This is a wild and wacky place this morning. Please stay. I am famous for my crepes,” said Tess.

Natalie pressed into the corner between the sink and the counter. “I just wanted to return your bike. But okay, breakfast sounds good.”

The three of them devoured the crepes in a blur of jam, juice, and glasses of milk. Tess cooked all of the batter, remembering mornings when her children were small and Len would arrive at the Sunday morning breakfast hungover and stinking of alcohol. She was still sad that he had missed so much. What had Natalie missed? Whatever it was, the missing part was elemental. Tess could see that much.

T
ess was intrigued that an eighteen-year-old girl who'd ricocheted between a dozen foster homes before the system shot her out of the exit tube would choose to hang out with an old physical therapist and a seven-year-old child. Tess wanted something for all three of them to do.

“Have you ever been on the golf-cart history tour?” asked Tess.

“No,” said Natalie. “Is it anything like the dank cave of that bunker place?”

“I want to go!” said Danielle, jumping straight into the air like a terrier. She had said yesterday that doing anything with her grandmother was the equivalent of a day at Disneyland. Not that Danielle had ever been to Disneyland, but this was what Tess's son had said on the phone the previous evening.

“It is nothing like yesterday's unfortunate event. We need a do-over. That wasn't one bit of fun. The golf-cart tours are a more dignified thing to do, and that's what we are this morning, dignified,” said Tess, putting one hand on her hip and the other arm overhead in a dancer's pose.

Tess phoned in the reservation for the three of them. The golf-cart tours started at the dock parking lot. The three of them walked the mile into town, already filled with Saturday day-trippers who rented bikes and bought ice cream before heading for the bay shore, where they could get close to the water and build sculptures of stacked rocks that dotted the shore like art installations.

Golf carts were the limousines of the island. A golf cart with three rows of seats was the equivalent of a stretch limo. Six people settled into the golf cart, and Rosemary Steward, tour guide and librarian, got into the driver's seat of the electric cart and started it up. Danielle squeezed in between Tess and Natalie, squirming with happiness at her good fortune.

Rosemary said, “The tour lasts for an hour. We're headed first to the Back Bay area of the island, which was taken by eminent domain during World War II to create a naval base.”

Tess was glad that Rosemary was the guide today; the woman had a lively sense of history and made the past personal, as if it had just happened two minutes ago. Still, Tess wondered if Rosemary could hold the attention of a traumatized teenager and a seven-year-old girl.

Rosemary drove the cart past the small downtown, past the neighborhood of tiny houses that had been built for workers in a long-departed fish factory, and finally to the long stretch of open road that faced east to the wide expanse of the Atlantic.

“The naval base was here,” she pointed out. “Most of it was an underground bunker called Battery Steele. . . .”

“We know that part,” shouted Danielle.

Tess shushed her.

“But we do know that part. We were just there, inside,” said Danielle, attempting to use a quieter voice.

Undaunted, Rosemary continued, shouting over her right shoulder as she drove. “The part that you may not know is that the Navy built a few small houses facing the ocean, just in case the Germans flew over. Or in case German spies somehow came ashore in disguise. The houses were fakes, designed to camouflage the naval base. No one lived in them, but they kept children's tricycles and a swing set out front. Every day they moved the tricycle to a different spot so that it looked like someone lived there, just in case the Germans were watching.”

Tess suddenly paid attention. Something like that was happening again on Peaks—like the fake house and the tricycle being relocated, something was being carefully moved every day. But what was it? There was nothing like that at her house or Rocky's house. Tess could almost taste it, feel the rub of it on her cheek. She pictured a young sailor in 1944, moving a tricycle each day as part of his duty, diligently keeping track of where he put it, perhaps even laying it on its side one day to mimic a child's haphazard dismount.

As the tour continued, Tess rubbed her temples.

Chapter 45

T
he day was already set in motion. Rocky had to drive to Massachusetts in the afternoon to sign more papers at the lawyer's office related to Bob's estate. Natalie left a note that she'd taken Cooper for a walk to the beach. Rocky had the morning off, free of interruption for at least a few hours.

The rental cottage had been a sanctuary; she was surprised at the rush of anticipatory grief she felt about leaving it for the remodeled house. Her daily routines there had taken on a reassuring shape that fit Rocky and her two animals perfectly. Whenever Rocky came home, Cooper would greet her with an exuberance normally reserved for celebrities—his large tail cleared anything in its path, his body gyrated, and his lips pulled back with impossible joy. The racket would alert Peterson in whatever shrubbery she was dozing under, and she would appear at the screen door, ready to add her unfathomable cat greeting to the ruckus.

This morning Rocky prepared their food, the lubricant of all animals, human or quadruped. Rocky was mid-dip into Cooper's fifty-gallon drum of kibble when the phone rang.

“Dr. Pellegrino, I'm sorry to bother you at home. This is Ira Levine at the foster care agency.”

It took Rocky a moment to switch from the pandemonium of furred creatures to the male seriousness of his voice. She'd been in his office only two days earlier.

“Sorry about the delayed response, but I have a hungry gang of animals and their list of demands is clear. What's up?” said Rocky. “Oh, and thanks for suggesting that we look at Natalie's files. She's going to get those tomorrow.”

“That's why I'm calling you,” Levine said. “Something bothered me about her file, and I couldn't put my finger on it. Something about the language didn't ring true. So I called my friend in the system in Worcester. She put me in touch with one of Natalie's old caseworkers, and I asked her to double-check something in the file.”

Rocky had managed to deposit a cup of food in Cooper's bowl, so the general cacophony had shrunk down to the sound of kibble being delicately crunched as the dog lay in front of his bowl.

“Hold on a minute,” Rocky said.

She covered the receiver with her hand and yelled, “Natalie? Are you here?”

She opened Natalie's bedroom and scanned the small room for the girl. She opened the bathroom door with her foot. Nobody home—she wanted to be sure.

“Okay, go ahead,” Rocky said. Her skin had cooled in odd blotches. The large muscles of her back felt damp and cold. The barely covered bones of her clavicle soaked up a chill.

Levine continued. “I asked my friend if Natalie's file seemed unusual. I asked her to pull it up on the computer. That was two days ago. She has seventy kids in her caseload, and I'm amazed that she got back to me in this decade. But when she called back she said that someone had changed her original notes. Caseworkers are not supposed to keep private records aside from the official records, but let's be thankful that she did. Something is wrong with the official record on this kid. You need to hear the highlights from the caseworker's notes.”

Rocky put her hand on a sweating glass of iced tea. Tess had insisted that she switch out one Coke for one glass of iced tea in an effort to drain off the deluge of sugar and caffeine.

“What's wrong?” she said.

“I would rather that you come to my office. You'll understand when you get here.”

W
hen Rocky had arrived full of accusatory rage on her first visit, Ira Levine's office had looked like the camp of the enemy. The two framed prints of coastal Maine had looked faded and impersonal. His desk had had the sanctimonious air of an administrator, a man strapped to his desk by paper and technology, out of touch with the war wounds of foster kids, the ones he shuffled from place to place. Like Natalie.

But Rocky's magnetic north had skipped a jog after meeting the director. He stood up immediately when she came in, abandoning the boundary land of his desk.

“Please sit over here,” he said, pointing toward two lightly padded chairs, the kind that filled waiting rooms. They had just enough padding to keep sitting bones from rubbing on cold metal, and they were immobile enough to keep the sitter at attention.

“These are your relaxing chairs?” asked Rocky. She wore long pants, having anticipated the chill of his air conditioner. Levine wore a long-sleeved shirt, perhaps to hide his burn scars, a choice that Rocky would have understood. He had a folder in his hands.

“All the relaxing chairs are prioritized for the caseworkers and the families. I put myself last on the list for the feel-good furniture.”

The prints behind Levine now looked hopeful to her, inspiring.
So this is what he wants to think about while he's running the agency—he wants to feel the breeze off Casco Bay.
Rocky liked him for it.

“I have to apologize, but I have a meeting with my attorney in Massachusetts. I'll have to leave Portland in an hour. What did you find out about Natalie?” said Rocky. She placed one ankle over the opposite knee.

“Caseworkers aren't supposed to keep private notes. These copies were delivered to my office by FedEx from a caseworker in Massachusetts on the condition that I destroy them after I share them with you.”

Rocky swallowed hard and nodded. Levine kept a tight hold on the manila folder.

“All case notes about kids in their system went digital about ten years ago. Records are centralized so that any caseworker can pull up a kid's record. To protect the confidentiality of the kids and families, the agency put up multiple firewalls.”

Levine sank back into his chair as much as the unforgiving stainless steel allowed. He sighed and looked briefly at the ceiling. The stubble on his neck was dark and coarse.

“What you saw of Natalie's record had been altered. There is evidence from two sources that the firewall was breached. The first source is this file from a veteran caseworker who took an interest in a little girl fourteen years ago. The second source is an initial indication that an unauthorized trail has been detected in the system. As near as I can tell, any computer message leaves a trail, something like the dust left by meteorites. Their IT guys swear that a breach has never happened before. They're all over this at the moment.”

“Why would someone alter a kid's case file, if that's what happened?” asked Rocky.

“Good question,” he said. “What I've got here are the personal records of a caseworker who had a habit of keeping her own records so that she was free to write down what was clinically important about a kid, but without the claustrophobic fear that the details might get subpoenaed in court documents.”

Rocky understood. Her mentor had instructed her in the unwritten code for writing case notes. “Imagine that everything in the case file will be subjected to a courtroom of judges and lawyers,” Rocky's mentor had told her. “If you think that a client might have a personality disorder, such as borderline personality disorder, you need to be absolutely certain by means of psychological testing, by collaboration with psychiatrists, and by clearly eliminating other possible diagnoses. Otherwise, don't give someone a label that will follow them for years. And if a client tells you that his wife is sleeping with his best friend, be sure to write, client
reports
that his wife is sleeping with a friend. We aren't lawyers or private investigators,” she had said.

“I get it. Do you want me to read the notes?” Rocky asked in a small voice, the remnant of her casual tone having slipped away. She already dreaded what she was about to hear.

“It's better if I give you the highlights. Massachusetts sent me the official record. I've picked out the discrepancies.” He opened the folder and looked down. He took a large breath. “Natalie first came into contact with protective services when she was two. Her mother was put on probation for buying and selling crack. It was noted that the little girl was undernourished, and the mother was assigned a caseworker who arranged for parenting classes, including appropriate nutrition. The major condition of probation was attendance at an addictions clinic. The mother attended for five months. Then we have no more mention of the mother and child until eighteen months later, when the mother was found dead from stab wounds and an overdose in an apartment in Ludlow. The final report said that she had enough drugs in her system to kill her, but that the official cause of death was multiple stab wounds. She had been dead for approximately five days when the body was found.”

Levine stopped, shifted his feet, and ran his tongue around his dry mouth. Rocky did not want to picture a woman's body in a state of decomposition after five days.

“Where was Natalie?” she asked.

“The two of them were only found by accident. The landlord came through the building to show another apartment and was hit by the smell. He called the police. The police found the little girl sitting on the kitchen floor next to the mother. Natalie was big enough to open the fridge, but she was unable to open cans of soda, which was the only liquid. She had eaten margarine, reportedly the only food in the fridge. She drank the water out of the toilet, or it was assumed that she had done so, since the toilet bowl was empty. She was too small to turn on the tightly shut bathtub faucet and unable to get to the kitchen sink. But she had covered her mother's body with two stuffed animals and a scarf. The level of decomposition was significant. And the electricity had been turned off, so the child had also been in the dark each night.”

Rocky put her face into her hands and shuddered. When she lifted her head, she said, “Natalie said her mother spent several years in prison and then disappeared when she was released.”

“I've cross-checked this with police records, and the police record confirms this caseworker's notes. Apparently the hacker didn't think to corroborate other sources,” said Levine. “There's a bit more that matters in terms of this girl showing up in your life.”

Rocky stood up. “Do you have any water? I'd prefer a beer, but you probably don't have one of those.”

“There are many days when I've wished for a drink of something that would scorch out the details of what I hear about kids, what they've gone through. But no, I can't offer you a beer. Portland water is pretty good. Do you want to take a break and get a drink from the office bubbler?”

Rocky did not want to leave the room. She sat down again. “No, let's keep going.”

Levine's finger was stuck on the page where he had stopped. He opened the folder again. “Natalie was hospitalized for shock, dehydration, and general malnutrition. She was placed immediately into a crisis placement for a few months until a more long-term foster family was located. If she had ever spoken, she had stopped by then and did not speak until she was five years old. No family could be located. There was evidence that her mother received monetary support, however. There were shreds of several checks found from an account in Iowa. She never cashed them.”

Rocky had a sense of things stirring, the way molten lava pushes to the surface, igniting everything in its path. The ground beneath her began to shake.

“Was there a name on the check?” she whispered.

“No. It came directly from a bank. Believe me, even a busy caseworker would have tried to pursue this link,” said Levine.

She ran the situation through a mental database of options, trying to understand.

“My husband would have been in veterinary school in Iowa at about that time. But I can see that there's more. Please keep going.”

“There is general corroboration about the first two families. But you've got to remember that the child was mute for the first year, which must have made it doubly hard to find out how the first family neglected her. The caseworker removed her immediately when she discovered the neglect and placed her with a family where she lived for two years. The family requested that she be placed elsewhere. It was only when another child was placed in the same home that the molestation by the older boys was detected. After that, Natalie was placed in the best families they could find.”

A sour drip started in Rocky's throat. “Kids that age frequently don't tell others about abuse. . . .”

Levine held up a finger to stop her. “You don't have to tell me that.”

Rocky slunk down lower in her chair. “I know. This is horrible and getting worse.”

Levine ran his hand through his hair. “I want to skip ahead to the parts that were nearly absent in the central file. At some point, children become available for adoption. But Natalie was never adopted. It was like she made a point of being impossible to adopt. She went on preliminary visits with prospective parents on three different occasions,” said Levine. “Did you know that?”

“No,” said Rocky. “Natalie didn't mention that.”

There was something uncomfortable about listening to Levine read Natalie's file. Betrayal, that's what it was, dark and slick. She was betraying the girl, whispering behind her back. Rocky could almost catch the wisp of what seeped over her, the clutch of fog, not so different from the day itself, the drench of last night's summer rain leaving the streets steaming. Everything was damp. The white pages in Levine's hands drooped as if exhausted, wearied by the life of one girl. He tried to prop the pages up. His window air conditioner groaned under the weight of the atmosphere.

“Her first potential adoptive family was interested in her when she was eight. Natalie stayed with them for a weekend, and from the report of the family, she started a fire on the deck.”

Levine frowned and looked over the papers at Rocky. “That's odd, don't you think? She started a fire, which sets off all the red flags about blossoming into an antisocial personality disorder, but she started the fire on the deck, where the least amount of damage would be done. This sounds more like a statement, but a statement of what is unclear. The caseworker speculated that Natalie did not want to be adopted.”