The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (leveled readers txt) 📗

else. I’d never cheat on you. You have to believe me. Things I saw last night were so disgusting, it sickens me to even think about them.”

I stroked the top of Guy’s head. “So why don’t you talk to Gord? Tell him how you feel.”

He looked up at me with hopeless eyes. “He’ll just blow it off. Say it was just guy stuff. Accuse me of being soft.”

“If the girls were underage, then it becomes a crime. Doesn’t he get that?”

He nodded, wiping his hand across his eyes. “I could lose my job if someone had seen me there. But he’ll say I’m exaggerating. Claims it’s all harmless stuff. That nobody’s going to snitch. It’s like some weird old boys’ club.”

“All the same, you should have a word with him. I work with kids who are exploited. I know how they get trapped and can’t get out. You don’t want to be a part of that.”

He took my hands and smiled. “What did I do to deserve you, Anna? You’re the best thing to ever come into my life. I swear I’ll talk to him. Just for you.”

I never found out if Guy followed through with his promise. And Gord must have laid low that night because he didn’t make his usual daily phone call. Instead we stayed home and spent a quiet night drinking wine, eating pizza and watching The Sixth Sense, one of Guy’s favorite movies of all time, though when the kid cowers under his blankets and says I see dead people, the buzz in my head grew louder with each sip of wine.

Later, when Guy was passed out, sleeping off the last remnants of his hangover, some strange impulse drove me to clear out the old stuff I’d brought from my apartment. When I flung the first case open the stink of rancid cooking oil and musty closets had infused all the cheap clothes I’d brought. A black lacy blouse with diamond buttons, a white linen shirt with a mustard stain on the elbow, a pair of designer jeans with glittery embroidery on the back pockets, a cropped white top stained with brownish makeup around the neckline. I held it up to the light and remembered Birdie wearing it that time she came to the motel.

But how did I come to have it?

Stuffed underneath in a ball of tissue paper was a tiny knitted hat. A baby cap. Pink, white and blue crochet. With the tag still on. I shoved it back into the case together with the white top and slammed down the lid.

I wouldn’t open this case ever again. There were things inside that were lost to me. That I could never explain. That I didn’t want to explain.

I dreamed the baby dream again that night. Couldn’t remember when I last dreamed it. I was at a carnival pushing a stroller round. A small baby sat inside dressed in a yellow romper suit. I wasn’t sure if it was my baby or if I was just looking after it. It because it wasn’t clearly a boy or a girl, neither did it seem to matter. I entered a large theater. On stage was an important man who I knew was my lover. Hot with desire to see him, I worried about the presence of the baby and how he’d feel about it.

The audience sat at round tables talking and drinking wine. I parked the stroller to watch the show, only to turn back again and find the baby was gone. I ran through rooms pushing that empty stroller crying where is my baby, then where is the baby because I was suddenly sure it wasn’t mine. I knew I was just watching it for someone else. Finally I came upon a table of old people playing cards. One of them looked familiar. A woman with a broad face and cap of mousy hair. She reminded me of Linda Martin, but older. I was sure she’d taken the baby. Give me the baby, I screamed. I know you have it. Give it back, I screamed again, clamping my hand round her throat. Here’s where it got weird. She’d hidden it behind the stove. It lay on the floor in that tiny, cramped space, in its lemon-colored romper, sleeping.

She shook herself free of my hand. I took this baby because you weren’t looking after it, she said. That baby is soiled from head to toe. And when I picked up the tiny, warm body its diaper was wet and heavy.

I’m going to love it and take care of it, I said, placing it back into the stroller. I will. I will.

I woke up still whispering I will. I will. The room was stifling, Guy snored lightly and my eyes wouldn’t shut. It was 3.00 a.m. I tried to breathe but my throat was still choked with guilt, sorrow, grief.

The dream was all about Birdie. I knew it.

33

I saw Birdie again. When I was still living in the motel, dodging the social workers. After all I was still only fifteen and legally too young to be living alone. The baseball card money had dwindled to just a few bucks, so I’d resorted to my old habit of shoplifting and selling the stolen stuff on the street. But I was terrible at it. I looked like a deadbeat with my matted curls and baggy sweatshirts. Store detectives zoomed in on me as if I was wearing a sign on my back that read amateur shoplifter right here. Strangely I did my best stealing around perfume and beauty counters. Those painted ladies in the crisp white coats didn’t expect the scruffy teen slouching around the sparkling glass counters to have any interest in cosmetics, and so I stole lipsticks, brow pencils, eyeliners, anything I could get my sticky hands on.

One rainy Wednesday afternoon after school I ventured into Dayton’s for nostalgia’s sake. Hadn’t been there since the Donna era and I felt the need to look at