Forget Me Not, Books I, II and III

An Ally

Teddi pushed the screen door to the Chatfield's kitchen open, cursing herself when it began to squeak. She paused before she opened the main door to take off her shoes. On light toes, she moved through the thankfully soundless second door. As soon as she clicked it shut, the kitchen flooded with light.

"Just like your filthy, pernicious sister. I should have known." Mrs. Chatfield stood there all tied up in her too-thick-for-the-season robe, hair stuffed into a cap on top of her head, arms folded, nostrils flared, cheeks flushed. She looked like a bull ready to attack a toreador's red cape.

"Mrs. Chatfield!"

"Shut up, you stupid, menace of a girl. Go straight to bed. I'll have to figure out what to tell your grandmother about you later. I knew I shouldn't have allowed her to dump you off with us."

Teddi choked back a sob. How could she have been so stupid? "Please, don't tell my grandmother. She won't understand. I didn't do anything wrong."

"Did you think you wouldn't be caught? Did you think I was a fool?"

"No, I—"

"Upstairs, right now. You've embarrassed your poor grandparents enough for one night."

Biting her lip and nodding, Teddi fled the room and went upstairs, hating herself for having been so stupid, and hating both Mrs. Chatfield and her grandmother for not understanding at all. All she wanted was to be free. Why couldn't they just let her?

***

That next Sunday, Calvin waited and waited for her, but she never came. In the best of his three shirts and a pair of sharp slacks he'd found in the donation closet, he stood in the clearing beyond the church lawn, watching the exuberant crowd thicken as the day went on. Doc Jessup and his wife were running their annual Beautiful Baby Contest, measuring the heads of the richest and rosiest-cheeked children and awarding prizes to their parents for being picture perfect. It made his stomach turn. When the party died down, he left with a heavy heart, clutching the tiny ring that sat in his pocket. He'd decided to give it to her that day. He couldn't explain why he wanted to, it just felt right.

As he drug his feet through town, he thought of going to Old Leo to revel in the comfort of the familiar place. He considered visiting the Marchbeck sisters. He'd seen them at the jamboree, skirts high and knees twisting. They probably had their fill of company for the evening. No; instead, he went home.

He pulled back the old gate, absently thinking that it needed to be fixed as it squeaked and scraped across the ground, and walked up the pathway to the front of his home, the home for kids who had no homes.

Most of the boys had already returned from the jamboree, stuffed with cotton candy and hot dogs. Some sat in the large common area downstairs playing checkers or cards. Others continued to etch out their remaining exertion on the swings or by playing keep away outdoors. Calvin went up to his room. He found Nestor there with Tom, laughing madly over some girlie magazine. He threw them out immediately, the rats, and sat down on his bed. He couldn't remember ever feeling this lost or sad. With all that had happened in his life, he was sure he had felt much worse, much more frustrated, much angrier, but this was different, the feelings were different. They were fresh and all too consuming.

Later that night, the boys he roomed with filed into the dormitory. He heard them talking to him. He heard himself grunt a reply here and there, but he was barely conscious of it. It wasn't long before the night engulfed him, and he fell into a Theodora Donovan-filled slumber. It was sweet and innocent and perfect. He was where he belonged. But when the morning came with more late summer rain, emptiness re-claimed his heart.

He missed breakfast, which was why he assumed Miss Pinchley was rapping on the open door of his room.

"Care to tell me what is going on, Calvin?"