The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past (24 page)

As they exited, Zach turned off the
hallway lights. “Oh shoot. We left the light on back there. I’ll
run back and turn it off.” Before anyone could object, he was
already sprinting down the hallway to flip the switch.

The three girls waited outside for
Zach to return. Binny and Penny reinforced the need to keep their
hideout secret with Cassie. The sun was still reasonably high in
the sky, but it was unmistakably close to dinner time. It took at
least a minute for Zach to make it all the way back to the
exit.

After they’d closed the door and
backed up a step or two, they marveled at how difficult it was to
notice that a door even existed given all the foliage in front of
it. The dirt colored rust that covered the metal door’s surface
almost seemed designed for the purpose of camouflaging the
entrance.

With the door to their new secret
hideout sealed, they started walking home through the woods. As
they reached the footpath the sound of their mother calling their
names came sailing through the trees. “Binneeeeee. Zaaaaaaach.
Casseeeeee.” Their father would alternately repeat the call, and
then it would begin again with their mother.

Binny looked at the others. “Uh oh.
We’re in trouble.”

18

“
You’re not in trouble. We
were just worried that Zach wasn’t answering his phone.” Julie told
the kids.

Zach and Binny exchanged a knowing
glance.

“
You should have left a
note that you were going to play in the woods, or called and told
us.” Jay added, not completely satisfied with Zach’s babysitting
efforts on this day either.

“
Hi, I’m Julie.” Julie
stuck out her hand to Penny who had hung back behind the Jordan
kids.

“
Hi, I’m
Penny.”

“
Penny lives in the gray
house across the street.” Binny added cheerfully, relieved that
they weren’t in trouble.

“
Your parents must be
wondering where you are, too, Penny.” Jay said as more of a
statement than a question.

“
It’s just me and my Mom.
She knows I’m playing somewhere in the neighborhood, but I should
probably get home now.” Penny responded, still not entirely sure
whether the Jordan siblings were in trouble or not.

“
Nice to meet you, Penny.”
Julie tried to smile, but it was strained with worry.

As the Jordans walked through the
woods and up the hill to their house, Binny thought hard about how
to make all the risks they’d taken worth it. How would she convince
her parents that Huitre and Luce Laboratories were not to be
trusted? How would she make sure her parents kept Cassie out of
harm’s way? She still wasn’t entirely sure, but she knew she had no
choice but to confront her parents about this. Whatever was
distracting her parents would have to take a back seat. Cassie was
simply more important.

Upon entering the house, Cassie peeled
off to go watch TV. “Could you two come with us?” Jay asked quietly
as he and Julie led the older Jordan children through the kitchen
out to the backyard.

Maybe they
were
in trouble after
all. Binny was getting annoyed in advance of whatever it was that
her parents were going to yell at them about. It was finally time
for Binny to tell her parents everything and this time they were
going to believe her. She was sure of it. “Listen, I’m sorry that
we didn’t leave a note, but we have some very important things to
tell you.”

“
Binny, Zach, we’ve
actually got something to tell you.” Julie answered.

Binny suddenly noticed that her
mother’s eyes were puffy. It looked like she was about to cry. Mom
never cried. Binny looked at Zach. He was stone-faced, staring
ahead at some point across the yard she couldn’t see.

“
You know we love you very
much.” Julie tried to continue, but by the end of the sentence, the
tears started coming in earnest. Jay put reached out and held their
mother’s hand, giving it a squeeze.

“
It’s happening isn’t it?”
Zach spoke in a monotone, never shifting his gaze. His nostrils
flared.

There was a long pause and then Jay
began to explain.

Binny’s world caved in around
her.

§

“
I don’t want you to get
divorced.” Binny wailed. She watched her brother’s face crumple
when her father had said the words – “Your mother and I have
decided to get a divorce.” She’d never seen Zach like this. Binny
herself was barely hanging on, but everyone knew that she was
emotional. The tears were flowing freely on all four of the
Jordan’s faces, and the family sat on the sloping grass on this
beautiful ruined summer evening.

It didn’t make sense. Binny asked
“why” over and over again. Zach just sobbed, not asking any
questions. Why were her parents getting divorced? They said they
still loved each other. They said they would all still be a family.
Divorce happened when parents hated each other. Her parents didn’t
seem to hate each other at all.

But they had been so
absent lately. So busy. So – and then it hit Binny,
this
was what Zach had
been worried about. Zach had been protecting their parents because
he knew they were talking about getting a divorce. In his own way,
he’d been trying to avoid giving them anything else to worry about.
Her brother who could be such a jerk was now wiping away tears,
tears that she’d never seen before. He had been trying so hard to
keep it together. How long had he known? How long had he lived with
this secret?

Binny had thought the kids were the
only ones keeping secrets in the Jordan family. She turned to her
mother, “You’re going to move into an apartment, aren’t you.”
Binny’s tears were ebbing a little but her anger was surging.
Without waiting for an answer she continued, raging, “I don’t want
you to move out of the house. I won’t go there. Please don’t do
this. I’m not ok with this. I won’t let you!”

Jay and Julie assured their two oldest
that it wasn’t their fault, that it was in fact nobody’s fault, and
that adults sometimes need to make changes, and that they would
still spend lots of time together. They apologized for having been
so absent lately, but promised that from now on they would be there
more, to spend time with the kids, and of course to keep them
safe.

But the explanations and reassurances
melted into a sad messy blur for Binny. She didn’t really hear or
understand most of them. They would be repeated in later
conversations when Binny’s thinking was less stormy. All thoughts
of Cassie, all thoughts of experimental drugs, and danger from
strange doctors were gone – as if none of it had never happened.
The only words occupying Binny’s head now were “why” and
“no”.

There were more tears, and lots of
hugging. It seemed like the Jordan parents, especially Julie, shed
even more tears than the children, which was no small feat. The
pain in Binny’s heart started to dull from sharp lightning to a low
booming thunder. She suddenly understood what people really meant
when they said their hearts were heavy.

Everything felt heavy. When most of
the tears had subsided, and the children didn’t have any more
questions. Jay and Julie slowly helped each other onto their feet
and went in the house together to tell Cassie the news. Binny and
Zach remained alone, in the yard, in silence.

Binny didn’t see her parents linger at
the door to the backyard watching their two oldest children
exchange a few words of comfort, and then a long hug. Binny would
never know how her parents felt at that moment, powerless and
defeated by the pain they’d inflicted, and yet so amazingly proud
of their children relying on each other for support when their
parents couldn’t offer any solace.

§

“
Can we have a divorce
party?” Cassie asked. That was her second statement after hearing
the news. The first being “Now I’m in the divorce club like my
friend Sarah.” Sarah was a little girl who Cassie knew from school.
Cassie already knew how divorce worked: depending on the weekend, a
sleepover at Sarah’s might mean staying at Sarah’s mom’s house, or
at her dad’s house.

Eventually Cassie cried as well. More
from the looks on her parents’ faces than from a genuine
understanding of the implications for her future.

§

“
I’ve never seen Mom cry
like that.” Binny interrupted the sad silence between her and her
brother. She never felt so safe in her brother’s presence
before.

“
I know. Me
neither.”

The object that Binny had been so
angry about, so obsessed with, the mirror, was now out of Binny’s
pocket and in her hands. Her thumb was tracing endless circles on
the filigreed surface of the gift her father had given her mother
many years earlier. “You’ve been trying to protect them, haven’t
you.”

Zach couldn’t even get a word out as
he started to cry again. His failure to staunch his parents’
looming divorce caused an irreparable crack in a dam of emotions
that were now spilling out.

Binny had been feeling so sorry for
herself, and so angry, that her brother’s incredible vulnerability
touched her deeply. She absent-mindedly popped open the mirror with
her thumb and looked down, giving Zach a tiny bit of privacy as he
tried to choke down his tears.

The engraving on the inside of the
mirror’s cover said, “You’re a vision. I will always be there for
you.” Her father had told her it was an antique when he’d bought it
for her mother, but the engraving was his addition. His sense of
humor was there – giving his wife a compliment and making a joke
out of it. But there was also a promise. His promise was burnished
into the metal Binny was now holding in her hand. But her father
wasn’t going to be there anymore for her mother, was he. Her
parents weren’t going to be there for each other, and that’s why
they hadn’t been there for the kids either. They’d said as much.
Despite their promises, how could her parents protect the family
that they had just ripped in two? The engraving on the mirror was
meaningless now. Wasn’t it?

Binny was swimming in her family’s
pain. She could feel the hurt in her brother, and in her parents.
And at this moment Cassie was going through the same thing she and
Zach just had. At first Binny was overwhelmed, but the throbbing in
her chest had a clarifying effect. Binny wanted to take it all in.
Her siblings’ sadness, her parents’ fears, she wanted to protect
them. It wasn’t enough to protect just Cassie, Binny felt it was
now her job to protect them all. She didn’t just feel it, she knew
it in her heart – her impossibly heavy heart.

Binny threw the mirror across the yard
as hard as she could into the stone wall. She saw it shatter into a
million pieces. Her mind showed her the mirror’s destruction in
slow motion, the pieces flying and bouncing in every direction. But
in reality, no such thing happened. In reality, Binny closed the
mirror gently, protectively, and carefully slid it back into her
pocket for safekeeping.

§

Binny and Zach found their way into
the house, joining their parents and Cassie, everyone trying to
understand the new weird reality.

“
Are we going to go back
and forth between Mom’s apartment and this house?”

“
No, this will still be
the family house. But you can sleep over there sometimes. Mom will
be here at the house lots.”

“
Will we have to change
schools?”

“
No. Same
school.”

“
Will we get two sets of
birthday presents?” Everyone laughed at this query from
Cassie.

“
Nope. Just one from the
two of us together!”

“
Will you get remarried to
other people?” Binny asked this last question
accusingly.

Jay and Julie looked at each other.
They hadn’t anticipated every question they would get from their
perceptive children. After a long pause, Julie finally responded,
“We really have no idea. I suppose it’s a possibility someday in
the far off future honey, but that’s not something any of us should
worry about right now.”

“
Right now, I think we
should worry about dinner.” Jay gamely tried to change the
subject.