A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [146]
It all started with Jesse O’Leary, the boyfriend, who had skin the color of milk chocolate from his Jamaican mother, and from his Irish father, pale green eyes, the beauty of which was not readily apparent behind his thick lenses. He worked for the electric company as a meter man. She had first seen him when she was fourteen. She had blocked his way on the basement stairs, begging him to show her how to read the meter, as if she’d always had a burning interest in energy consumption. Sometimes I had the urge to shout at her, to tell her that she was the most magnificent human being I’d ever met, in her own terribly bungled, absolutely narrow and tortured way. In the first three meter checks that year she garnered his full name and the location of his barber—more than enough information to track him down. He lived on Quincy Boulevard in Racine, not too far from her home on Russet Street. She used to ride her bike to his apartment and sit on his doorstep waiting for him to finish work.
When I finally was able to tell her story to Howard he said he found it unlikely. But I have come to believe in all manner of things, natural as well as supernatural. It was astonishing, Howard, yes and true, that an ungainly fifteen-year-old with the nervous habit of plucking her own eyelashes and eyebrows, had had the confidence to sit on Jesse O’Leary’s welcome mat. Who can say anymore what is unlikely? It was nothing short of a miracle that he eventually returned her affection. That he had forsaken her was certainly the most credible aspect of the romance, but ultimately the least important.
At any rate, she hadn’t meant to leave the babies under the viaduct in a grocery bag. It had nearly killed her, giving birth, not to one but to two extremely scrawny brown babies. When she was pushing she prayed that she was just passing kidney stones. She continued to pray even after she heard what sounded like snorting. What overtook her next was the deep and terrifying anxiety of a child: What would happen when her mother found out? The shock of one white baby would have been enough to give her mother palpitations. Consider then, the shock of two—and brown! As far as she could tell under the viaduct and by the dome light in the car, which she turned on and immediately switched off, they were the color of horse chestnuts. They had big round eyes like chimps. There was the terrific mess in the back of the Bonneville to consider as well, the car Debbie wasn’t even allowed to drive. She had set out along the highway when she couldn’t stand the pain. She said driving always made her feel better, although that time proved to be the exception. She meant only to leave the babies by the interstate for a little while; she had planned to come back for them after she’d gone to the Stop & Shop for diapers and T-shirts. But she was so tired and needed to rest, and she knew for a fact that Linda Brewster’s parents never locked their basement door. It didn’t take long for Mrs. Brewster to put two and two together. There was an inordinate amount of blood in the basement