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Leaving Home
Four days had gone by. Four days and still the plan was frighteningly hazy.
Marylee knew they had to run away. But where? Where could they find a home? And how could she convince Petey to come with them? Ever since the day they'd had that argument about money he had been acting strange.
She knew he would come back that day, but she knew she had handled him all wrong too. So when he silently handed her the four jars of baby food, Marylee put on her best "Aren't you terrific!" act.
"Wow, that's great," she forced herself to say. "I knew you'd do it!"
Briefly Petey glared at her, hate searing out of his eyes.
"Stuff it!" he said tersely. "I did it, so don't hand me any of that ‘Aren't you wonderful’ crap. I told you before that you can't con me, so don't try. I'm doing what I have to do, that's all. So just stuff yourself!"
Marylee eyed him for a minute, wondering what she would do next. It occurred to her that she ought to apologize. The thought was a surprise – she never apologized to anyone unless it got her something she wanted. Before April, she had never cared how anyone felt about what she did.
"Well, you can just stuff yourself too," she replied tartly. "But you did do okay and I guess I shouldn't have yelled at you. So there's your ‘wonderful you’ crap." She felt her face reddening and bitterly wished she hadn't exposed herself with that half apology.
Petey looked at her. His eyes were mocking, but his mouth half smiled. "Awesome," he muttered. "I'm going home. I'll see you later."
He had been back on time, the same as always. But he had acted a little different – more sarcastic, harder.
So who cares? Marylee told herself. As long as he sticks it out – who cares?
So far, she had been sure she could count on him. But she remembered, with a flash of uncertainty, how he had reacted earlier that morning when she gave him her carefully thought-out list of things – things she knew they would need to run away with. He read the list aloud, but stopped at the bunting bag.
"Marylee," he said, his voice trembling slightly, "we don't have to have all this stuff, do we? I mean, couldn't you just hold off a little?"
"No, I couldn't," Marylee snapped. She didn't want to give away her plan, not yet. "It's – it's supposed to turn cold tonight. Of course, if you don't care if April freezes...."
Petey's face hardened with resentment, but he left without saying anything else.
Marylee had watched him go with relief. The way he acted about getting things made her uncomfortable somehow. Now that he had gone, she and April had a whole beautiful day ahead of them.
But since then everything had gone wrong.
April started crying while her diaper was being changed, and went on whining and crying all morning until Marylee wanted to scream at her in frustration. Guiltily she tried to stifle her feelings and make an extra effort to play with April, but the baby sobbed as though her heart were breaking. Marylee asked herself what she had done wrong. Why didn't April want her any more? Desperately she consulted her book.
The book suggested a variety of problems – ear infection, viruses, teeth. April screamed miserably.
"Please stop crying, April," Marylee pleaded. "You know I'm trying to help."
April only cried louder.
For the first time since she had found the baby, Marylee's buried doubts surfaced for a moment. What did she know about mothering – a girl who had never had a mother? But then April lifted her face to her and cried so plaintively, so plainly saying how miserable she felt, that Marylee slammed the doubts down again.
April needed her, and no one else could need the baby as much as she did. After all, Marylee told herself, that woman who had lost April could have another baby. Besides, if they really cared about their baby, how could they have allowed her to be kidnapped?
It was plain that Marylee should keep the baby.
April cried again and rubbed fretfully at her eyes. Trying to find some kind of remedy in the book, Marylee paced back and forth in the warehouse office with the complaining baby squirming on her shoulder. If teeth were the problem, it said, there would be bumps on the lower gums where they were about to burst through.
Marylee sat April on her lap and tried to look into her mouth. April screamed furiously and slapped at Marylee's hands.
"April, please. I'm trying to help. You know I wouldn't hurt you!"
The baby opened her mouth and wailed miserably. The sound grated unbearably on Marylee's ears, but she got a glimpse of the lower gum. There was a thin white line where a tooth had begun to break through, and a sore looking lump beside it. A second tooth was pushing against the gum as well.
"Poor little April," Marylee murmured, gathering the baby up in her arms. "Your poor little mouth is sore."
April cried again and hit out with her hands. She kneaded the skin of Marylee's cheek as her fingers grasped convulsively. Marylee hissed when the sharp little nails scratched her.
"Ow! Don't!" she snapped. Startled by the loud voice, April began sobbing even more furiously, clutching at Marylee's collar. Marylee sighed and wondered when Petey would come. It was going to be a very long day.
While she walked the floor, wearily shifting the baby from one shoulder to the other, Marylee feverishly filled in the details of her plan. They would run away with the baby – upstream into the wilder country she knew lay several miles outside of town. There they would be safe.
"We'll live near trees – they're good and loving, like us," she whispered to April. "There'll be wild berries and fruit, and a nice warm cave or something to live in. And even if it's hard to find things to eat," she added hastily, "I can do without food for a few days till we get close to a town where Petey can get some kind of job. We'll manage just fine."
Marylee told herself so many times that this was the only way, she almost started to believe it. It wouldn't be long now before the police found out, somehow, about April. Someone would hear her crying, or Petey's mother would find out he was gone every night, or else the police would simply reach the warehouse in the course of their massive search. She had to keep April from them. They had to run away.
"It's a great plan," she told herself again.
The sky was beginning to darken, filling with oppressive grey clouds, when Petey finally burst into the warehouse. Marylee was sitting on the floor feeding April a messy dinner of strained meat and vegetables when she heard Petey's heavy footsteps and the click, click of Camper's nails on the cement floor.
"Did you get everything?" she asked without looking up from the difficult task of maneuvering the spoon between April's hands and into her mouth.
"No, I didn't," Petey said in a strange voice. Marylee looked up quickly. He was deathly white, and his eyes looked bleary, as though he had been crying.
"What's wrong?" she demanded. "We have to have those things!"
"Well, we'll just have to do without them!" Petey said savagely. "I can't get them. I don't have any more money and I – I can't get them the other way anymore." His voice shook as he raised frightened eyes to Marylee.
"I – I got arrested for shoplifting," he cried, his voice still quivering. "Camper bit them so I got away. But they'll find me easy. I know they will. Mike's phone number fell out of my pocket."
Marylee's heart started pounding faster and faster.
"You – you didn't say anything about April though, did you?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
April gleefully reached out and knocked the jar of food over. Marylee hardly noticed as the baby splatted her fingers in the gooey mess.
"Yeah, I did," Petey said harshly. Then he stared sadly at April. "I – I didn't mean to, but it just came out. I talked about the baby and I think I said something about the warehouse."
"You idiot!" Marylee screamed, jumping to her feet. "You stupid idiot! They'll find us now! And we're not ready! They'll take April away! Don't you see, they'll take April! We've got to go," she said wildly, rushing around and grabbing every thing within reach of her hands.
April watched the frenzied action and her lower lip began to tremble. Suddenly she let out a loud wail of fright.
The cry pierced through Marylee's panic. Strangely, it calmed her. She scooped up the baby.
"Hush, darling," she said softly, holding April close to her. She felt the familiar rush of loving and needing. And she felt a searing need to weep out a broken heart.
Don't be silly, she whispered to herself. Nothing has happened yet. And it won't anyway, because I won't let it.
"We've got to get out of here," she told Petey in a calm but strained voice. "I have it all planned. We'll follow the stream out of town and up into the woods. We'll be safe there. Once we're safe, we can plan what to do next."
"No!" Petey said desperately, unbelievingly. "Don't you see what's happened? Your game of playing house is over. The police will find us. They'll find the baby and – and they'll find me too! I'm probably going to have to go to jail or juvie or something, Marylee," he cried, a rising note of hysteria in his voice. "I stole for you and for the baby. I did what I was supposed to do! I was a good father – I was everything a good father is! I looked after her all night when it was cold and dark, and I held her when she cried. And I even stole for her, to feed her! I did everything and now it's done with and I think I'm going to have to go to jail!"
Finally his voice broke and he ran from Marylee into the shadows of the far corner of the warehouse.
With an icy sense of shock she realized he was crying. Marylee didn't know what to do and the panic began rising in her again. She couldn't give up April. But what had she done to Petey? She'd not really thought much about him before. He hadn't mattered. He'd been there and she had used him – and now he might go to jail because of her.
"Oh, April," she whispered, laying her cheek against the baby's head. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
With all the misery of the past years, she had never before felt so sad and lonely. Those years had been full of hurts, hurts that she had turned into hate. But now she was full of love turning into loneliness, and it felt much more terrible than anything she had known before.
They would come for April soon. But she had to keep April. She had to keep the baby because no one else in the world would ever love her again.
"Petey!" she called imperiously, feeling a rush of purpose again.
"Go to hell!" he shouted back. She heard Camper whimpering in the shadows.
"Petey!" she called again, more strongly. "You've got to help. It's our only chance now. I'm taking April away and we need you to help. Don't run out on us now! Please! And – and then the cops won't find you either. You won't have to go to jail because no one where we're going will know that you were shoplifting. All they'll know is that you're doing what a father should...."
Her voice trailed off. She didn't know what else to say to Petey to convince him. There was a long moment of silence, then Petey came toward her from the shadows.
"You sure are full of crap," he told her viciously. His face was white and streaked from crying.
"No," Marylee said. "No, we really need you now. And you've really done good all along. I should've told you before but I never thought of it. Even if you don't come I've got to go because I can't – I just can't let them take April from me. She's all I've got."
Petey looked at her for a moment longer, his eyes narrowing at the tears he saw in her eyes. Awkwardly he reached out his hand and stroked April's soft hair. Then he sighed and turned away.
"Okay," he said wearily, "let's get started."
The clouds that had scudded across the late afternoon sky had banked up in heavy grey masses as far as they could see. Marylee hitched her bundle into a more comfortable position and looked back for a moment into the warehouse. The pink gingham frills around the empty cradle fluttered briefly in the breeze that was puffing erratically through the window. The building looked strange now with no baby or baby clutter in it.
"Hurry up!" Petey called impatiently from the side of the stream.
"Coming." Marylee limped resolutely through the door. Why did she feel she was leaving home forever?
"I never had a home," she whispered to herself. She looked ahead at Petey, April and Camper waiting for her by the stream. Abruptly Marylee felt a surge of triumph and joy. Her family....
"Let's go," she said quietly. The others followed silently as she limped upstream.
The concrete banks along the stream were broken and hard to walk over. Nondescript plants, resembling grass, sprouted scrawny leaves from between the cracks, as nature tried to heal herself. For an hour they passed factories, small businesses and warehouses, all square and squat and alike in the gathering shadows.
Once Marylee looked at the sky. The clouds were thick, making sunset appear to come earlier than it should.
"It's going to rain," Petey panted behind her. He had been carrying April, but her weight was becoming more than he could handle.
"No," Marylee said flatly, "it won't. We'll rest for a while now."
Silently they sat down against the wall of one of the buildings. Marylee began to massage her weak leg. So much walking was putting a strain on it, making it ache. She refused to think of how it would feel in a few more hours. Somehow she would keep going until they were safe. She looked over at Petey.
April was asleep, had been for the whole trip, her head lying loosely on Petey's shoulder. Only her face was showing, and that barely, so carefully had she been wrapped in blankets and a layer of plastic to keep off the threatening rain.
"How you doing, old fellow?" Petey was murmuring to Camper, rubbing the dog's ears. Camper's tail thumped slowly but he didn't move much.
"He sure looks beat," Marylee said.
“Yeah,” Petey replied, the worry sounding in his voice. “He’s pretty old and I think sleeping on the warehouse floor has sort of tired him out."
"Where did he sleep before?"
"In bed with me. He's always slept with me."
"He'll probably be okay," Marylee said, suddenly hoping it was true.
"Yeah," Petey replied unsurely. "I mean, he's one tough dog. But he seems so tired lately – kind of like all the snap has gone out of him."
"The woods will be good for him then. You know how people always go to the country for their health."
Petey looked at her contemptuously. "Yeah, nothing like a country resort to get a dog back on his feet. Cut it out, Marylee. I haven't backed out and neither has Camper."
Marylee flushed. For a moment she hated Petey and his invariably accurate awareness of the manipulation behind her words.
"Well, we ought to get going." She pulled herself awkwardly to her feet.
"Yeah," Petey answered, sighing as he stood up. Marylee felt a wave of guilt, but angrily pushed it away. After all, she hadn't made him come, or help look after April.
But the realization came just the same. She had manipulated Petey. The worst of it was, she thought slowly, that he knew she had used him – had pulled on whatever it was that made him feel he had to play the father. Marylee bit her lip, feeling slightly ashamed of herself and sorry for the bad trouble Petey was in. Every time he had harped on the words that put the dead look of fear in his eyes, the words that both rewarded and terrified him.
"Gaa – daadadaaaa – ga!" She heard April crooning to herself from her perch on Petey's shoulder. Quickly she looked around. April was sitting up in Petey's arms, alertly looking around, chewing one finger and talking to herself. When she noticed Marylee watching her, a smile spread across her face, widening into a grin of cheerful companionship.
Marylee's heart flooded with joy and she gasped slightly as a breath of pure happiness caught in her throat. Her remorse was forgotten, washed away in the flooding adoration of the baby – her baby.
Everything would be just fine.
