41

Lilla

I stand beside Harper Mom and listen to her give sass right back to the lady at the window who wasn’t very nice to me.

“Two minutes,” Harper Mom keeps saying. “The handbook says we have until one fifteen to check in and we have two more minutes.” She shoves my driver’s license and hers across the counter to the woman. “We’re here to see Sharon Kohen. She’s expecting us.”

I’ve never seen my mother like this before, all authoritative and confident. Dad told me she’s a really good veterinarian, that she’s really amazing at her job. I wonder if this woman standing here now, refusing to take no for an answer from a prison guard with blue sparkly fingernails like claws, is the woman people in her office see. Is this the woman Dad fell in love with when he was in college?

I stand there holding my breath. I can’t believe Harper Mom is going to let me see Sharon. She turned the car around so I could see her. I can’t believe it.

“Background check?” my mother says. She has this look of indignation on her face. “Well, if you have my daughter’s, obviously mine has to be there. I certainly wouldn’t submit my daughter’s without mine. Check again, please.”

Background check? I didn’t send in information for a background check. Sharon Mom must have done it. I think that costs money. How she paid for it, I have no idea. But there’s no way Sharon Mom submitted a background check on Harper.

The two of them are still arguing. I’m not going to get in. We’re going to have to go home and I’m not going to see my mother. And I don’t know if I can come back again. I don’t know if I can keep living like this, one thread attached to Sharon, trying to loop another around Harper.

All of a sudden I feel sick to my stomach. Light-headed. I’ve never fainted before, but I’m guessing it feels like this right before it happens.

Then I hear Harper Mom say, “Thank you,” and she grabs my hand.

“Thank you so much for your help, Angel,” she says. “My daughter and I appreciate this more than you can imagine.”

Angel is smiling at Harper Mom like they’re buddies as we walk toward the door to the visiting room. I have no idea what Harper Mom said to her or what she promised her to get us in. Free vaccinations for her dog? My sister?

A female guard in uniform who’s shorter than Jojo opens a door for us and we’re in a big, stark room with tables and chairs. It’s half full of people. I stand next to one mom, looking desperately for the other. I don’t see her. What if we came to the wrong place? What if they transferred her or something?

I feel Harper Mom tug on my hand. “You need to sit down,” she says in my ear. “She’ll be out in a moment.” Then she lets go of my hand.

I turn back to her, suddenly scared. “Aren’t you . . . are you coming with me?”

She half smiles, her lips together. It’s her sad smile. “No. You need to do this alone and honestly, honey . . . I’m not ready. Maybe someday.” Her eyes tear up, making me feel like I’m going to cry. “But not today. Now go on, sit down at one of the empty tables. I’ll sit right here waiting for you.” She points to an empty table near the door.

I feel as if I’m walking through mud as I shuffle to the table. The room is loud and I think everyone is looking at me. But nobody is. Everyone is busy talking in their little groups around the tables. Nobody cares about me and my problems; they have their own jailbirds to deal with. Visitors and prisoners are laughing. There are children playing in one corner of the room. How do you laugh in a place like this? I wonder as I sit down.

I’m so nervous now that I have to pee. I really have to pee. But it’s already one twenty. There isn’t much visiting time left today. And if I go out to use the bathroom, they might not let me back in. I glance over my shoulder at Harper Mom. She’s talking to the guard who let us in. They’re both smiling. Harper Broussard is making friends with a prison guard. I’m in a prison lounge waiting to talk with the woman who kidnapped me. I feel as if I’m on another planet. Or in a dream. I feel—

“Bubbeleh.”

When I hear her voice, I feel as if I’m being sucked back through a big wind tunnel. I’m a little girl again. In a park in some Southern city, flying a kite. At a kitchen counter, cutting vegetables when I’m too young to be using a knife. In a bed, snuggled next to my mother, listening to her read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

And suddenly there Sharon is, in a light-blue top that looks like one a dental hygienist would wear. And baggy navy pants that have the letters LCIW stenciled down the leg. Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women.

I should stand but my legs feel like jelly. She wraps her arms around me and I close my eyes and breathe in her smell. And even though I know it’s not possible, I smell her Calvin Klein perfume and sweet potato biscuits.

“Lilla,” she breathes in my ear.

Mama Bear. I move my lips but I’m not sure if I say it out loud.

“Sharon,” a male guard in the corner of the room says in a heavy Cajun accent. “Have a seat.”

Sharon squeezes my arm, lets go, and plops down in the chair across from me. She reaches for my hand but I keep them on my lap. I look at her and she looks at me. Her eyes are full of tears, but mine aren’t now. I had so many things I wanted to say to her. A whole script I wrote in my head. But now that I’m here . . . I can’t remember a single one of my lines.

“Lilla, you look so pretty,” she says. “And you’re taller. Have you gotten taller?”

I look down at the table. I can barely find my voice. I think about the donuts I bought for her this morning. Harper Mom said to leave my backpack in the car. She said we wouldn’t have time to take it back if they wouldn’t let me take it into the visiting room. She just carried her keys and her wallet. The donuts probably aren’t good anymore anyway. They’re probably smooshed. And I drank the water earlier when I got thirsty.

“I can’t stay long,” I hear myself say. “Visiting hours are only a half hour more.”

“I thought you would be here earlier,” she bubbles. “I’ve been waiting hours.”

“I couldn’t get in by myself. My mom had to come in with me.” I don’t know why I say the word. To hurt her the way she hurt me? Or because I’m beginning to think of Harper as my mother. I don’t know which explanation is more upsetting.

Sharon doesn’t respond to my dig.

“No one under eighteen is allowed in without a parent,” I say. “Harper had to bring me.” I don’t go into the details. What’s the point?

“She’s here?” She looks up, scans the room, and then breathes in sharply.

I don’t look over my shoulder, but I can guess she’s figured out which one Harper is.

“She’s so beautiful,” Sharon murmurs. “So young. Blond.”

She touches her own dark hair, which is a lot grayer than I remember. It’s been two months since the police took me from my home and dragged me to the upside down. Looking at Sharon, it seems as if it’s been three years. Or thirty.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” I say before she asks. “You know, since you abducted me from her and held me captive and all.” Those words were definitely meant to be mean, though they weren’t in the script.

More tears.

I ignore them. “Have you been sentenced? My dad told me you had an attorney. That even though you pleaded guilty, you’d get a sentencing hearing.”

“I’m still waiting. It’s . . . next month, I think. My attorney is good. And nice. She . . . she’s putting my finances in order. There’s money for you. Money I’ve been saving since you were little. For college. And a little money I inherited from my parents when they died. She’ll be contacting your father and making the arrangements.”

I nod. So her parents are dead. At least that’s not a lie. “The landlord rented out the shotgun to someone else,” I say. “I got some stuff out of the house before they moved in. Your knives.”

That seems to upset her. Her eyes fill with tears and she looks away, but she doesn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. We sit here for a minute not saying anything and I think about getting up and walking out of here. Because I don’t know if I’m ready to do this. Before I can make up my mind, she turns her attention to me again. Her eyes focus again.

“Bubbeleh, I’m so sorry. I know you can’t understand why I did what I did.”

“Why you abducted me, you mean.”

She sighs as if she’s very tired from a long night at work. “I hardly understand myself why I did it. Let me explain to you what happened—”

“I know what happened,” I interrupt. “The police told us. Your baby Lilla died and so you took me and made me your Lilla.” I pick at one of my cuticles. “What I want to know is did you ever think about them? About my mother who was crying for me the way you must have cried when your baby died.” I look up at her. My eyes are wet, and my throat is constricted, but I’m not crying. I’m too angry to cry. Too hurt.

“I was sick, Baby Bear. I actually . . . I thought you were the Lilla I gave birth to. Most of the time. You have to believe me when I tell you that I didn’t go to the parade that day to take someone’s baby. I went because . . . I was so sad. I thought it might cheer me up and then I saw you and . . . I thought you were Lilla.” She begins to cry loudly.

I glance around to see if anyone is looking at us, but they’re not. Except probably Harper Mom, but I don’t look over my shoulder at her because if I do, I know I’ll lose it.

“Stop,” I say in a whisper.

She makes a shuddering sound and reaches into her pocket and pulls out a wad of toilet paper. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose. While she’s doing it, I study her. She’s lost weight and she looks older. She looks like the mother I grew up with, and yet she doesn’t. In a way, she just looks like a woman with the name of a prison stenciled on her pants.

“You have to believe me when I tell you I never meant to hurt anyone,” she says when she has control of herself again. “Least of all you.”

“Okay, so you made a mistake. Why didn’t you give me back? When I was a baby. You could have left me at a police station or a synagogue or . . . a grocery store. At any time.” I lift my hand and let it fall to the table. “I get taking me. Sort of. It was an impulse. You were grieving. But keeping me? Keeping someone else’s child?” I lean across the table, looking her in the eye. “My parents thought some pervert kidnapped me, raped me, and murdered me. Their two-year-old! My sister told her friends I was buried in pieces in the bayou.”

That gets the attention of an old lady next to us. I sit back in the plastic chair.

Again, we’re both quiet.

Sharon sniffs and looks at me. “I couldn’t because I fell in love with you. I loved you too much. And as time passed, the weeks, the months, the years, I . . . pretended. Because I wanted it to be true.” She hangs her head for a moment and then lifts it again. “Our life together was based on untruths, but my love for you was a truth.” She hesitates. “And your love for me was a truth, too.”

I look into her eyes for a long moment. And I believe her. I believe her love was real. I know mine was.

My lower lip trembles. “So now what?” I whisper. “Now what do I do? Because you’re going to be here for at least twenty years.”

“What do you do?” She reaches out and takes my hand. When I resist, she clasps it tighter. “You don’t allow what I did to ruin your future. You live your life. You be happy. You get past this and you live a good, happy, productive life. That’s what you do, bubbeleh.”

I refuse to meet her gaze, but I don’t pull my hand away.

“They’re good people, your mother and father. After it happened. . . after I did it, I followed their story in the news. They seemed like good people. And I know they love you. I can’t imagine how happy they are to have you home.” She’s quiet for a second. “Actually I can.” She lets go of me.

I leave my hand where it is on the table. “I don’t know if I can come back here to see you for a while,” I say softly. “It’s really hard. Being Lilla and Georgina at the same time.”

“I understand.”

I take a breath. Let it out. “I don’t know when I can come back, but . . . until I can, we could write.”

“I would love that.” She looks past me. “Will they let you write to me?” She gives a little laugh. “I suppose if they were willing to bring you here, they’re willing to let us correspond.”

Suddenly I feel overwhelmed and it’s hard to breathe. I knew it was going to be difficult to come here. To see her. But I didn’t realize how conflicted I would feel. How much I would love and hate this woman at the same time.

“I have to go now.” I start to get up.

“No, no, we have a few more minutes,” she says desperately. “Please, Lilla—”

I shake my head. “I have to go,” I repeat.

She’s up now, throwing her arms around me. Someone calls her name. I guess we’re not supposed to be hugging. I lift my arms and give her a quick squeeze and then I turn away. I hear her call my name, but I can’t look back. Not now. Not today.

And then I see my other mom. Harper’s just standing there by the door waiting for me. Waiting to take me home.