Elizabeth Massie: Wire Mesh Mothers

Mistie took the sucker, unwrapped it, and stuck it in her mouth.

“Okay, all right,” said the teacher. Her lips kept moving around like she was tasting something sour. “A little food and some drinks, then the bank, and we’ll be off. It’s going to be a nice trip, Mistie. Oh, it’s going to be fantastic. You’ll see. We’re both going to have a wonderful, wonderful time.” She paused, placed her hands on her hips, and glanced about. There was sweat over her eyebrows. It looked like the sweat on Mistie’s Daddy’s eyebrows at night. “Now, what else do I need, is this it? What time is it? I think we can go now. Most everyone is out of here by now. Mistie, button your coat, please. It’s very cold outside.”

Mistie stood and buttoned her coat. She took the sucker out, looked at it, then bit the red orb off and spit it into the air. “Mama had a baby and its head popped off,” she said.

“Oh?” said the teacher. “Fine, then. Let’s go.” She reached for Mistie’s hand but Mistie didn’t want to hold her hand. But when the teacher said, “Come follow me. And be just like Elmer Fudd, okay? Ever see him on cartoons? Be vewry, vewry quiet,” Mistie was.

It was a few minutes before four o’clock. As Kate had hoped, most of the faculty and staff had left for the afternoon, hitting the road for home and putting as much space between themselves and the school as possible in the least amount of time. Mr. Byron’s pickup was still in his reserved spot nearest the flagpole but he was required to stay until five. The gray Toyota next to it belonged to Miriam Calhoun. She would stay as late as Mr. Byron stayed. There were three other cars belonging to teachers. Some liked to stay after and grade papers. Kate used to be like that.

Kate’s own white Volvo was one of the three, sitting on the far side of the parking lot because she’d arrived too late that morning to get one of the choice spots near the front. Kate led Mistie out the back of the school, by the exterior of the gym, the cafeteria, and the row metal trash bins. Kate paused and peeked around the wall. She almost laughed aloud, but bit it back. Good for you, Nancy Drew! she thought.

When Kate was quite certain there was no one on the long front walk or milling about the lot, she hustled the girl to the Volvo, pulled open the back door, and helped Mistie inside. “Just sit way down,” she whispered in as calm a voice as she could manage. “Sit way down for just a little while. You can get up in little while, promise. Okay? Mistie?”

Mistie didn’t seem to understand. Kate demonstrated, slumping low and peeking back at Mistie around the side of her seat. “Like this. Pretend you’re real short.”

Mistie didn’t argue, and she scooted down far enough that Kate was pretty sure the top of her head couldn’t be seen from anyone outside the car.

“Good,” said Kate. “Thanks.” She patted the girl on the head. The hair was sticky. On the floor of the back was a quilt Kate kept in the car in case she’d ever been caught in a blizzard, while she hadn’t. Kate carefully draped the quilt over the girl. “We’re being secret, okay?”

Mistie didn’t say anything, but didn’t seem to mind the quilt.

The strange little girl had been amazingly easy to collect when the bell had rung. She’d been lagging behind most of the other students, her coat on backward. Kate had motioned Mistie aside when the bus duty teacher wasn’t looking and said, “Won’t you come to my class for a few minutes?” The dulled eyes didn’t seem to register the request, but the body did. Mistie Henderson had obediently followed Kate down the hall and had sat in the desk while Kate had snatched up a few important items. Her grade book and some teacher manuals so it would appear she’d planned on returning the next day. Some change from her desk drawer for quick drinks later tonight. Her university yearbook, Corks and Curls , which she’d brought to school last week when notice of the upcoming twentieth reunion had arrived in the mail. During brief moments of free time, Kate had been flipping through the pages trying to re-associate herself with names and faces for the get-together in May. Donald thought they should certainly go, and she wanted to. One of the few things they’d agreed on in a long time. She’d gazed at Donald’s photo. Handsome, sandy blond, member of the Pep Band and Intramural Track Team. God, but he’d been a charmer, a romancer, a fast-spending, generous man who had seemed to Kate to be all the right things back in college. Kate had gazed at her own picture. A slight grin, hair straight and past her shoulders, her chin tipped up just a bit at the encouragement of the photographer. And then the photos of Alice and Bill, smiling placidly from a sea of other smiling fourth-year faces.

As her students had started to work on some problems she’d posted on the overhead projector, she’d pulled out the yearbook and looked at Alice again, then Bill. They knew what she was thinking, and they thought it was a splendid idea. Their approval had made the plan more than possible to Kate, it had seemed probable.

Canada was about a sixteen-hour drive straight north except through Pennsylvania which, for some reason, didn’t have any major highways leading north through the middle of the state; she’d have to go west and up. With enough high-octane soft drinks and coffee, Kate knew she could make it without sleep, though it would be one hell of a haul. The Volvo’s tank was full of gas, so any stop would be way north of here, somewhere in Never-Never Land where no one knew her or the Volvo or the child.

The Christmas cards Kate got yearly from Alice and Bill Harrison had the return address of Bracebridge Run, outside Toronto, Ontario. Chatty cards all, speaking of a lovely home full of adopted, handicapped children and adopted, stray pets. Alice and Bill had been friends of Kate during their university years. They had been social activists then and social activists still. Wild children they were themselves, hippie-holdovers at the University of Virginia when hippies had been out of fashion for nearly ten years. They’d worn long hair and flowing blouses and sandals and handmade clay beads around their necks and on their wrists. They’d been laughed at by the preps and the jocks who dominated the campus, but it all rolled off their backs like water on duck feathers.

Alice had gotten Kate interested and involved in some wonderful causes back in those days. Kate, a shy and quiet girl from a comfortably wealthy and politically disinterested family in Norfolk, had become involved in Amnesty International, the University Environmental League, and Friends of Animals — a very new movement at the time. She’d called home about her adventures; her sixteen-year-old sister Amy had said, “Just don’t get arrested,” and her father, chief accountant at Elizabeth River Financial, had told her “Honey, we love you. But do remember why you’re there, and that has more to do with books and papers than anything else.”

One particularly thrilling event was the clandestine rescue of a mangy, malnourished dog from the backyard of a skanky tar-paper shack outside town, then spiriting the pup to Kate’s dorm room to keep until Alice could arrange a proper home. Kate had kept the dog in her room for three days. The dog had smelled terribly. It had been covered with fleas and mites. One eye was puss-rimmed. But she’d minded the dog until one of the local Friends of Animals had agreed to take him in.

Kate had felt light-headed and giddy over the rescue. She’d done something incredibly worthwhile. She’d saved a life, just like the Underground Railroad did for the slaves before the American Civil War and the underground hiding places did for the Jews during World War II. Amy would have been amazed at the way her older sister had broken the law to help a poor, helpless creature.