Heather Gudenkauf - Little Mercies

Even if she could explain to Connie what she had seen, what if her father went to jail for a long time? Then what would happen to her? Why would Connie care? Back to Benton? Back to another foster family. Maybe back to the same foster family she was with when she was little, before she got to live with her father all the time. Never.

She tried to think of who else she could call. Her mother? No. She didn’t know where she was, hadn’t heard a peep from her since she ran away with Jimmy. When she tried to bring up the topic of her mother with her father, his lips would press into a thin tight line and he would pull Jenny close to him. “You don’t want to think about that now. You’re safe. No one will hurt you ever again. I promise.” Jenny thought about telling him that she wasn’t ever really afraid of her mother. Her mother’s boyfriend, yes. And even he wasn’t always such a bad guy, but when he was mean he was really mean. Besides, she wanted to tell him, there were many kinds of hurt. There was, of course, the pain of being beaten, but there was also the ache that stretched itself across your belly when you realized that your mother was never coming back. Jenny also wanted to tell her father, but wasn’t quite sure how to put it into words, that the very worst kind of hurt was the kind that wasn’t there yet, but you knew was slowly creeping toward you.

In the seat across the aisle, the rumpled man wearing the camouflage jacket stood, his knees crackling as he rose and stretched his arms above his head. Unsmiling, he nodded at her as he stepped into the aisle and wedged his way through the narrow bathroom door.

Jenny bent over and unzipped her father’s duffel bag, hoping to find something, anything that would help her get out of this mess. She riffled past two pairs of jeans, four shirts, underwear, a pair of dress pants that she’d never seen before, a disposable razor, deodorant and a box of condoms. Jenny recoiled. She never actually thought of her father having sex, but of course he did, with all the women who came in and out of their apartment over the years. She learned all about condoms on the school bus while eavesdropping on a conversation between two middle-school girls. “It unrolls right over it,” a girl with purple streaks in her hair and a mouth filled with braces explained to her skeptical seatmate with canary-yellow hair and eyes heavily lined with black makeup. The two girls looked up to find Jenny peeking over the seat. The two began giggling, huddled more closely together, lowered their voices and resumed their conversation, but Jenny could still hear.

Jenny pushed the box of condoms to the bottom of the bag and turned her attention to an overstuffed manila envelope that was sealed shut. She pulled it out of the duffel bag and turned it over in her hands. The envelope was wrinkled and battered and there was no writing on the outside to indicate what the contents were. Jenny was picking at the red string that was wound tightly around a small, round metal clasp at the top of the envelope when she felt someone settle in the seat next to her. Startled, Jenny looked up to find the plump man wearing khaki pants in the seat next to her. “You looked lonely back here all by yourself,” he said with a wide grin that showed a set of small, straight white teeth. Tic Tacs came to Jenny’s mind. “You hungry? I’ve got trail mix.” He produced a baggie filled with nuts, dried fruit and chocolate chips and shook it at her like she could be lured like a hungry puppy.

Jenny shook her head. “Excuse me,” she said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Someone’s already in there,” the man said. “He didn’t look so good. He might be in there for a while.” Jenny looked around the bus, hoping to get someone’s attention, but the other passengers were near the front of the bus. She’d have to yell and what did she have to holler about? A man with trail mix? A pink flush had risen up the man’s neck and he leaned in closely to Jenny so that she could feel his breath on her cheek. His short, pudgy fingers released the plastic bag and it dropped heavily into her lap. Before the man could retrieve the bag and just as the man in the army jacket emerged from the bathroom Jenny stood up, causing dried cranberries and peanuts to spill to the floor.

“Jeez,” she exclaimed. “Took you long enough, Uncle Mike.” Jenny squeezed past the surprised man in the seat next to her and quickly stepped into the bathroom, slammed the door and slid the lock into place. Jenny breathed a sigh of relief. If the man in the army coat was surprised at being called uncle, he didn’t let on and she hoped that he wouldn’t tell the creepy man with the trail mix otherwise. The bathroom was tiny and dimly lit. Realizing she really did have to go to the bathroom, she set the manila envelope she was carrying carefully on the edge of the small sink, spread toilet paper around the rim of the toilet seat as her father had always told her to do. When Jenny was finished and had washed her hands, she found that she was hesitant to open the door and return to her seat, worried that the strange man was still there and that the army jacket man had told him that he wasn’t really her uncle. She could stay where she was, ensconced within the stuffy, narrow walls of the bathroom and wait until the bus stopped or return to her seat where her book bag and father’s duffel, and possibly the weird man waited for her. There was a sudden knock on the bathroom door, causing Jenny to jump and forcing her decision. Jenny slowly opened the door and found the grouchy old woman in the red-and-pink sundress waiting outside.

“Everything okay?” the woman asked. “I thought you fell in.”

“I’m okay,” Jenny murmured, ducking past her, relieved to see that the khaki man had returned to his own seat. She avoided eye contact with Uncle Mike, slid into her seat and dropped the manila envelope damp from her sweaty fingers on the chair next to her. Sensing the weight of his stare upon her, Jenny finally looked up to meet his gaze.

He leaned slightly toward her and whispered conspiratorially, “By the way, it’s Uncle Dave.” Jenny responded with a limp smile and returned her attention to the unopened envelope.

She tried to imagine what could be inside. She often played this game with wrapped birthday and Christmas presents, with unopened doors. Maybe there was a treasure map in the envelope with clues to a buried treasure, but the chance of a pirate’s booty ending up in Iowa was not a good bet. Maybe there was a wad of money inside, enough for her to buy a bus ticket so that she could get back to Benton and get her father out of jail. Someone was always bailing someone out of jail on television. She could imagine herself walking into the police station, wearing her blue-jean skirt and her best polo shirt. Soft pink and sporting an alligator emblem, she saved this shirt for the most special of occasions: school concerts, holidays, and now for bailing her father out of jail. “Here,” she would say importantly as she slapped the money down on the counter. “Billy Briard is coming with me now.” The policeman behind the counter would be impressed and quickly bring her father to her.

“If you just open it you’ll find out what’s inside,” the man in camouflage offered. Though Jenny saw the wisdom in this, she was undecided. Inside the envelope could be something awful, the evidence of a terrible crime, some apparently deadly powder that is always being sent in the mail to courthouses and important people. But, even worse, there could be nothing inside. Nothing of value anyway. Receipts or bills or boring clippings from the newspaper. She dared a look at her newly acquired Uncle Dave. He was staring expectantly at her as if saying, Just open it already. Jenny unwound the red string and pushed back the flap. Peering inside the envelope she could see that she was right on almost all counts. There was no toxic powder, but the envelope held a map, a wad of money and a stack of smaller envelopes held together with a thick rubber band.