How quickly it came to an end. One minute Lenworth was there and then he was gone, slipping away again out of reach and without a word. And in his place were police officers handling Plum like a criminal, patting down her body, searching her tote, uttering those words she had never expected to hear directed at her: “You’re under arrest.” Kidnapping. Holding the family against their will. Terroristic threats. In another corner, Pauline sat like a deflated balloon, her eyes on Plum, then on Opal and at the door through which her husband had left. And back again to Plum, with sad eyes that reflected what Plum had felt seventeen years earlier when she realized she was truly alone.
Opal screamed, “No. It’s him you should be arresting, not her. You don’t understand.” An officer held her back, tried to calm her flailing arms.
“Don’t make me handcuff you.” Gruffly. To which Plum wanted to say, “No use in struggling, Opal. It will work out better if you just let them take control.” But she didn’t, couldn’t get her brain to open her lips and form words, while also keeping herself from blubbering uncontrollably.
How quickly she was outside in the night—the cool night air a sure sign that summer had come and gone and the fall and winter months were rapidly approaching—out in the midst of the artificial lights trained on the house. Immediately, Plum looked up at the small crowd. It was dark in places, lit in others by a flood of emergency lights. She saw Lenworth though in another car, looking out at her, at what he had orchestrated yet again. Opal stood in the frame of the red door, looking out and struggling with her shoes, pushing her feet down and tying laces without looking down at the knots at all.
The officer started the engine, wasting no time in taking Plum away from the daughter who had slipped from her reach for the second time, away from him. Plum looked behind for a last glimpse of the house and the daughter whose birthday he had spoiled yet again, the man she had once loved. She held on to the hope that at the station they would sort out fact from fiction, the simple, unadorned truth of what Plum had said at the dining table and why, what the boys overheard and misinterpreted.
In the end it came down to a single thing, not love or respect or gratitude. Just the fact of where Opal belonged and to whom. The car started rolling. Plum looked back again, turning only her neck at first, then shifting to look fully behind at Opal dodging the police officer, running onto the sidewalk and into the street, chasing the car. The driver stopped, waited for another officer to move a car barricading the road. Opal was nearly there, had very nearly caught up to the car when it moved again. Undefeated, undaunted, Opal ran toward Plum and away from him, her arms pumping steadily, oblivious of the police officers watching and waiting for her to give up. The truth wouldn’t wait. The truth was there, behind the car, running after it, not yet catching up, but moving forward at a measured and steady pace. Plum leaned her head back and waited for what was hers.