The Tiger’s Child and Somebody Else’s Kids 2-in-1 Collection. Torey Hayden

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      What Sheila was thinking, as we drove through the rutted tracks around the housing units, I do not know. She had become increasingly silent as we approached the camp. Face turned away from me, she looked out the window.

      There was a different atmosphere here to when I used to come out to see Anton. It didn’t strike me as a particularly safe place for two young white women to wander around alone and a lot of people were noticing us, even in the car. As a consequence, I didn’t suggest we get out of the car. It was with a sense of relief that I drove through the gates and back up onto the main road. Sheila still didn’t speak.

      Back in town, I took the car slowly down a few of the streets I knew best. I pointed out where my old apartment had been. The pizzeria where Chad and I had taken Sheila after the hearing had been replaced by a bar and lounge, but I showed her where it had been. We had an invitation to Chad’s house for a picnic supper and fireworks for the next day, and I mentioned that I hoped the weather would improve.

      Down a quiet, tree-lined suburban street I located our old school. A low, one-story brick building with white trim, it fitted in attractively with the neighborhood of ranch-style homes. This wasn’t a wealthy suburb by any means, but it was solidly middle class, the type of area that so embodied the American Dream of the fifties and sixties. Most of my teaching career since had been spent in drafty, old, turn-of-the-century buildings in the less-affluent parts of large cities, and I had forgotten just what a small, attractive school this had been. The contrast with the migrant camp struck me forcefully.

      Pulling the car over to the curb, I turned off the engine. “Recognize this place?”

      Sheila nodded faintly.

      “See that window there, three along on the left? That was our room,” I said.

      Absorbed silence.

      “Do you remember any of this?”

      “I don’t know,” she murmured quietly.

      I certainly remembered. All the little moments came crowding back, grappling one with the other to reach my consciousness first. There was the door where I lined the children up, observing the military precision my principal had loved so well. There were the seesaws the kids always fought over. There was the wide expanse of asphalt where Anton and I had struggled to teach them dodgeball and kick ball and …

      “Are there still special-ed kids in that classroom?” Sheila asked.

      “The room isn’t a classroom anymore. They’ve made a counseling center out of it,” I said. “I suppose we could get out and walk around, if you want …”

      “No.”

      I started the engine, then paused, hoping for what I’m not sure. Finally I pulled away from the curb and drove off.

      After another half hour of cruising up and down the back streets, I began toying with the idea of visiting the shopping mall again. It was still raining heavily and my mood was going from wistful to something less comfortable, making me realize I’d had enough nostalgia for one day.

      “You want to do something?” I asked. “I think I saw where there are movie theaters out at the shopping center. Shall we go see what’s on?”

      Sheila shook her head. “Let’s go to that park,” she said, “the one where you took those pictures of the last day of school.”

      “Why don’t we wait until it stops raining? Maybe tomorrow, before we go see Chad.”

      “No, let’s go now.”

      The park was just as beautiful as I remembered it, with its broad winding entrance road lined with locust trees and flower borders. I parked the car on the street and we walked slowly down amidst the flowers. The floral display being quite stupendous, I was entranced. I am very fond of gardening and was curious about the plants used, so I stopped along the way to examine them. Sheila, however, was totally lost to the here and now. She walked as if bewitched.

      The lane ended at the duck pond. When we reached the point where it met the path circling the water, Sheila stopped stock-still. Her brow furrowing, she watched the ducks and geese noisily announce our arrival. One by one, they clambered out of the water and waddled over until we were surrounded, and all the time, Sheila never moved. She just stared down the path to the water, her expression inward, and I suspect she never saw the ducks at all.

      The ghosts rose up before my eyes also. With an intensity I hadn’t experienced elsewhere, the past came back to me. The rain disappeared and the air was full of children’s voices. “Look at me, Torey! Look what I can do! How big the trees are here. Do you see the bunnies they got? Down here, come this way, so I can show you. Can I feed the ducks? Can I wade in the pond? Let’s roll down the hill. Torey? Torey, look at me!”

      And there on the path around the duck pond was Sheila, little Sheila in her bright-orange sunsuit, running, skipping, laughing. She threw out her arms and spun around, letting her head fall back, her long hair sail out in a sunlit halo. Around and around and around she turned, completely oblivious to the other walkers on the path, the other children, us. Eyes closed against the sun, lips parted in a half-smile, she satisfied some inner dream to dance.

      Did she remember? I glanced sidelong at the gangly adolescent beside me. Intuition told me she was remembering something, and I longed to know her thoughts just then, but I dared not ask.

      “I was happy here,” she whispered after a long silence. It was said so softly that I couldn’t detect the emotion it held. Finally she turned away from the duck pond. Crossing the grass to reach the lane again, we started back to the car.

      We were soaking wet by then. It was warm summer rain. I wasn’t particularly uncomfortable, but everything was dripping. Sheila bent to pick up a long, brown locust pod that had fallen on the walk.

      “When I think of Marysville, I always think of locust trees,” I said. “I remember how they used to scent the air when they were blooming. I remember driving into Marysville the first time. I’d come along the highway and as it dips down the hill into the valley, I can recall having my car window down, and I could smell Marysville before I got here. And when the blossoms start to fall, it’s like snow. I remember coming out in the mornings and my car would be covered.”

      Sheila stopped, turned and looked back down the lane toward the duck pond, no longer visible. Pausing, she slit open the locust bean with her fingernail and took out the seeds, letting them drop to the wet pavement. “These are poisonous, did you know?” she asked and threw the empty pod out into the road. “They can actually kill you.”

      Sheila grew increasingly moody. Keen to rescue the situation, I suggested we go for a couple of games of bowling, a sport I knew she enjoyed very much. No, she didn’t want to do that. An ice-cream cone at Baskin & Robbins? No. Was she sure? I’d pop for a banana split with extra nuts and whipped cream? No. A browse around the bookstore? No. All she wanted to do was just drive around more.

      Having more or less exhausted the town, I tried the countryside, heading north along a network of small rural roads. We were soon into open countryside, comprised mainly of corn- and wheat fields. The area was hilly and Marysville had quickly disappeared from view to leave the fields stretching away from us in an undulating fashion for as far as the eye could see.

      I made a few efforts at conversation, but they were useless. Sheila sat absolutely silent. Arms folded across her chest, she gazed out the passenger window so motionlessly СКАЧАТЬ