Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [88]
“Hemorrhoids?”
“You still have those to look forward to. They should include those in the sex ed video, right? That would solve the teen pregnancy crisis.”
Eliza’s eyes closed, and her hand went to her chest. She was either absorbing the molecules of her relief or fighting off tears. Harriet had meant her comment as a joke, but of course it hadn’t been received as one. She put her hand to her own chest. Maybe she hadn’t meant to joke. Maybe she was trying, in her sarcastic way, to parent someone in this house. Jude had admitted, before she could bring it up, that he’d lied about going to school in New York. This she had suspected, and it was an affirmation to know that of all the dark and mercurial sentiments that commanded her parental life, the one she could still count on was distrust. She had known it was too good to be true! Strangely, Jude’s disclosure of this fact made the rest of his conversion more plausible. Of course, he didn’t plan on returning to school in Vermont, either. He was working on his music. He was no good at school, he whined; music he was good at. They had started a band again, he and his friends. He was up early, he was eating breakfast, he was practicing with a diligence she had never known him capable of. This very moment he and Johnny were downtown at a meeting with the chair of the rec center board, trying to get her to let them use the space for their “shows.” Could she be blamed for enjoying the peace for a while, for letting his truancy go? The spring term was almost over, anyway. He could go back, start fresh, in the fall.
But poor Eliza: Jude did what he pleased, and Eliza got heartburn. “Christ,” Harriet began, “I’m sorry.” She waited for several seconds for Eliza to begin to cry, and when she didn’t, Harriet finally thought to put her arms around the girl anyway. Eliza accepted the hug more mightily than Harriet was prepared for. They stood on the tattered rug in the middle of the kitchen, Eliza’s clammy forehead on Harriet’s collarbone. She was small, smaller than Prudence, and even with the firm mound of her belly between them, she had the brittle bones of a child. “I miss my mom,” she said, almost inaudibly. This remark, combined with the inability to remember the last time she’d held her own daughter this way (who was she to think Prudence wouldn’t come home knocked up?), nearly brought Harriet to tears herself.
“Of course you do.” Harriet cupped the back of the girl’s head, giving it a little massage.
“She’s supposed to be telling me this stuff.”
“I know, honey.”
“She’s not even looking for me.”
Gently, Harriet shifted the girl out of her arms. At first she had worried distantly about the mother locating Eliza. Wasn’t harboring a runaway a crime? In truth, she’d felt that Eliza’s return to New York would be the inevitable and appropriate conclusion. She had not wanted this girl’s water breaking in her home.
But then Les had called late one night shortly after the children’s arrival, Harriet tripping downstairs to the phone. “Sorry,” he’d said. “I’m on mountain time.”
“Which mountain?” Harriet had asked, half-asleep.
“Eliza’s mom is looking for her. I just thought you should know.”
The private investigator Di had hired had tracked down Les in Santa Fe, but Les had managed to pay the guy off, double what Di was paying him. “Poor guy looked so pitiful taking the money, but he says his mother has medical bills.” The P.I. agreed to throw Di off Eliza’s trail, to tell her that Vermont came up empty. But Di wasn’t stupid. “I don’t know what we’ve gotten ourselves into,” Les had said. “Jesus. I’d just do anything for that kid.”
It had taken Harriet a moment to realize that he meant Eliza. She didn’t know where to begin. Les was the one who’d gotten them into this. And the protection he was now falling all over himself to offer someone else’s daughter disgusted her. What protection had he offered Prudence in the last seven years?
And yet when she’d hung up the phone, she’d done nothing. She hadn’t called Diane to confess. She’d told herself she was staying neutral,