More Than Words: Stories of Courage Read online

  Jennifer had been pretty cool after the cheating episode. Everybody knew Jennifer cheated, lied and cut classes. She couldn’t be bothered studying when there were so many better things to do. But she was very grateful when other people took the blame for her indiscretions. After Molly lied to save her, Jennifer made sure Molly was welcome at the lunch table where the most popular kids sat. No one talked to her much, but it was better than sitting alone, which had happened too often in the past.

  Even now, on the first day after the Christmas break, Jennifer’s group still made room for her. And Jennifer asked if she could go home with Molly after school to work on an English report. Molly knew what that meant. She would write most of Jennifer’s report while Jennifer tied up the Wagners’s phone or watched HBO, but Molly’s cooperation would buy her more days at the lunch table.

  Molly didn’t feel good about this, but she was no dummy. She would feel much worse in the long run if she refused. Jennifer would make sure of that.

  She felt especially bad calling Mrs. Thaeler on Jennifer’s cell phone to tell her she couldn’t baby-sit that afternoon. Even though Mrs. Thaeler said it was fine, Molly still felt bad. But now that she and Jennifer were at the Wagners’s condo after a high-school friend of Jennifer’s dropped them at the door, the guilt was disappearing.

  “Hey, this is tight!” Jennifer threw her books on the sofa and didn’t pick them up when two fell to the floor. “How’d you end up in a place like this?”

  Molly examined the question and figured that what Jennifer really meant was how did a complete reject like Molly end up somewhere other than an institution straight out of Oliver Twist.

  “I don’t know,” Molly said with a carefully nonchalant shrug. “The Wagners are okay.”

  “What’s it like being a foster kid? Who buys your clothes? Do they give you money and stuff?” Jennifer picked up a pottery statue of a Mayan god sitting on an end table and turned it over, as if looking for a price tag.

  “It’s not too bad,” Molly said carefully. “I get to be on my own when I turn eighteen.”

  Jennifer set the statue down too hard and Molly winced at the thud.

  “What happened to your real parents?” Jennifer asked. “They die or something?”

  Molly could just imagine how much mileage Jennifer would get from the truth. “Uh-huh.”

  “Sometimes I wish mine would die. Honestly. They treat me like a baby.”

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “You’re kidding, right? My mom says that one kid was too many. Every time I do something she doesn’t like, she fixes herself a martini. She’d be sprawled out on the street somewhere if she’d had another kid on top of me.”

  It was hard for Molly to imagine the sophisticated Mrs. Carvelli facedown in the gutter. “Maybe we ought to get to that paper. I’m not sure the Wagners want me to have friends over while they’re gone.”

  “Do they lock up the liquor?”

  “I don’t know. I never checked.”

  “Find out. This could be a great place to party.”

  Molly could just picture how fast she’d get booted out if that happened. “What’s the subject for your report? I’ve got a computer in my room. We can check out the Internet just to get some ideas.”

  “Just don’t try to copy one. Mrs. Oakley checks Google to see what’s out there. Somebody I know got busted. It’s got to be o-rig-i-nal! She’s a fat cow, isn’t she?”

  Molly liked their English teacher. She wished she could tell Mrs. Oakley the truth about that test, but she knew the woman would not understand. “My paper’s on Wordsworth,” she prompted.

  “Mine’s supposed to be on Colgate or Coldhearted or something like that.”

  “Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”

  “Why do you pay attention to that stuff? Do you like it?”

  “Yeah,” Molly said without thinking. “I’d like to be a writer someday. I figure with everything I’ve seen, I’d have something to say.”

  Jennifer looked up. She’d been busily draping one of the handwoven afghans on the sofa around her. “You probably would. You’re smart that way.”

  Molly was warmed by the other girl’s reaction. She felt a little better about “helping” Jennifer with her report. “You want to get started?”

  “I guess. I got a book on poetry from the library. That might help.”

  Slightly encouraged, Molly wondered if the afternoon might not be as bad as she’d feared. Jennifer left the afghan in a heap on the coffee table and Molly led the way to her room.

  “Not bad.” Jennifer glanced around. “But mine’s a lot bigger and I have my own bathroom.” She wandered to the window and looked out at the incomparable view. “Wow, you can see all the way to Alaska…or wherever.”

  Molly was beginning to relax. She watched Jennifer examine everything. She seemed to approve. Molly was sure she would not have approved of most of the places she had lived. Jennifer would most certainly not approve of the farmhouse in Alsea. Molly tried to imagine Jennifer in a house without central heating, with limited hot water and the nighttime rustling of mice or bats in the walls and ceilings.

  Flopping down on the bed, Jennifer drew Molly’s new quilt around her. Molly loved the quilt, even if it would not, even now, win a prize at the State Fair. She and Tracy had laboriously sewn the top, adding strips of fabric in pleasing designs, then Tracy had taken it somewhere to have it quilted on a machine as a Christmas present. Now the entire quilt was covered with little hearts in bright yellow thread. Molly wasn’t sure which gift she’d liked better, the finished quilt or the beautiful cedar chest Graham had made for her.

  Nor was she sure what either gift had meant.

  “What’s this?” Jennifer tapped the toe of her leather boot against the chest.

  “It’s a cedar chest,” Molly said, pulling herself back to the present. “To keep blankets and stuff in.”

  Jennifer stuck her toe under the lid and tried to raise it. “Nice…”

  Molly didn’t want Jennifer’s foot on her chest. She watched Jennifer lift the lid halfway, then drop it. The resounding thunk made her uneasy. “Do you want me to get on the Internet so you can look up Coleridge?”

  “I don’t care.” Jennifer lifted the lid again. Higher this time. This thunk was louder.

  “Okay. That’s what I’ll do.” Molly knew enough about human nature to realize if she asked Jennifer not to play with the chest, she would either make fun of her or keep doing it anyway. She hoped to distract her.

  At the desk, Molly could hear Jennifer dropping the lid, over and over. She prayed for the computer to boot up quickly and for the Internet connection to be instantaneous.

  “Okay, here we go,” Molly said. She turned, just in time to see Jennifer give the lid one particularly hard kick. The little chest, with nothing inside to weight it, tilted backward and fell over. Molly heard a crack as the lid hit first, then folded back with a snap as the chest turned over. She was afraid to look.

  “Whoops,” Jennifer said.

  Reluctantly Molly got up and went over to the bed. The top of the chest had come free of one of the brass hinges and lay at an angle. She stared at the gift that had been made with loving hands, just for her, then she stared at Jennifer.

  To her credit, Jennifer looked apologetic. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Molly shook her head. “Mr. Wagner made that for me.”

  “Then it’s no big deal. He can probably fix it.”

  “It’s no big deal to you!” Molly hadn’t known she could get so angry, but suddenly a white-hot rage filled her. She wanted to tear out every strand of Jennifer’s carefully highlighted hair. “You have everything! You don’t know what it’s like not to be you. You don’t care, either. Do you think it’s anything except luck that you’re not me? Can you even try to imagine what it’s like not to have everything you want?”

  Jennifer stared at her. “It’s no big deal. What’s wrong with you?”

 
; “Get out.” Molly pointed to the door. “Write your own stupid paper.”

  Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “You think you can talk to me like that?”

  “I just did. But don’t worry, I don’t ever want to talk to you again. We’re finished talking.”

  “Where do you think you’ll be eating lunch tomorrow?”

  “Maybe I’ll be eating it in Mrs. Oakley’s classroom, while I tell her what a miserable cheat you are!”

  Jennifer gave a short laugh. “You wish.” She stood, and Molly’s quilt slid to the floor. “I can make your life hell.”

  “You’ll have to stand in line,” Molly said.

  Tracy’s day had been awful. She had risen early to get into the office for two crack-of-dawn appointments. Neither set of clients had liked any of her ideas. The first couple insisted the bathroom tile they had chosen two months before was unacceptable and had to be replaced with something other than the vast array of samples Tracy had on hand. The next couple could not agree on a shade of paint between vanilla and linen. They had left after threatening to find a designer with a better eye for subtleties.

  The drapes she had ordered for a new home were five inches too short. The wallpaper mural of mountains her developer had asked for in his office turned out to be a city skyline instead. Six clients called to demand after-hours appointments that week, and three more called to cancel orders already in progress.

  By the time she got home, she was ready for a glass of wine, painkillers, a back rub and half an hour of soothing music. In any order.

  The house seemed oddly still when she opened the front door. “Molly?” she called as she hung up her coat.

  Normally she picked up Molly from Janet’s, but this month Janet’s oldest son was in a late-afternoon gymnastics class, and Janet had begun dropping Molly off on her way to the gym. Tracy wondered if there had been a change of plans today.

  “Molly?” When there was no response, she muttered to herself and went in search.

  She stopped at Molly’s door and stared. The chest that Graham had so carefully crafted for the girl was lying on its back on the floor, the lid at an odd angle. The closet door was wideopen, and there were no longer any clothes hanging inside.

  The quilt had been stripped from Molly’s bed. But nothing else appeared to be missing.

  “Molly?” she said softly.

  The front door slammed and she whirled and ran out into the hall. “Molly?”

  Graham appeared, loosening his tie as he moved toward her. “Hey, Trace.” When he saw her expression, he frowned. “What’s going on?”

  “I…I’m not sure. I think Molly’s run away.”

  “What?” He looked as if she’d lost her mind. “What do you mean?”

  She stood aside and gestured toward the door of Molly’s room. “See for yourself.”

  He walked over and glanced inside. Then he turned. “Tell me everything you know.”

  There was so little, she covered it in one run-on sentence. His mouth drew into a grim line.

  “Did she say anything to you this morning when you dropped her off at school?” Tracy demanded. “Maybe it’s some activity there? A class sleep-over?” She knew she was grasping at straws. All Molly’s clothes were gone, not just an extra pair of jeans and pajamas. And the chest, obviously damaged, was still lying on the floor, as if Molly had knocked it over in a fury.

  “She told me Janet would bring her home,” Graham said.

  “Janet.” Tracy felt a rush of relief. “I’ll call Janet. Maybe she knows something. Molly was there.” She hesitated. “She was supposed to be there.”

  He joined her in the kitchen after wandering the living room like a detective looking for clues. Tracy wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder and scrambled for a notepad and pen, although she had no reason to think she might need them.

  The phone rang six times, and finally Janet’s answering machine picked up.

  “I don’t believe it!” Tracy told Graham what was happening, then when the beep sounded, she left Janet a message to call her right away.

  “I’d go out looking for her, but I don’t have any idea where to go,” Graham said. “She’s either here or she’s at school or Janet’s. Do you know any of her friends? Is there anybody you can call?”

  Tracy had made attempts to get Molly to invite friends to the house, but she hadn’t pushed very hard. She knew little about the girl’s life outside their walls. With a sinking heart she realized how little she did know. Molly had been with them for four months, and for the most part she was still a stranger.

  Graham correctly read her expression. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

  “Why not? I don’t have the phone number of even one friend I can call. She’s a teenager. They live in packs. What kind of parent am I?”

  “For all we know, she doesn’t have any friends. She’s the lone wolf.”

  “Yeah, for all we know. And what do we know? Have we made any real attempt to figure that out? We’ve just been playing at being parents.”

  “There’s Jennifer Carvelli. Molly stuck up for her.”

  “Yeah, when she shouldn’t have.” Tracy knew what a long shot Jennifer was. She was not the kind of girl to hang out with anybody who couldn’t add to her own social status. But at least it was a start. Maybe Jennifer could give them phone numbers.

  “I’ll try their house. It’s not a common name. How many Carvellis will there be?” Graham dug through a bottom drawer for the phone book.

  He straightened, found the right page and dialed, tapping his foot while he waited for someone to answer. Tracy motioned to the receiver and he tilted it to share it with her as the phone rang and rang.

  Finally a girl’s voice answered. “Yeah?”

  “Is this Jennifer Carvelli?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh. Who wants to know?”

  Tracy pantomimed strangling somebody.

  “This is Graham Wagner, Molly’s foster dad. I’m looking for Molly. Have you seen her this afternoon?”

  There was a long pause. For a moment Tracy wondered if the girl had fallen asleep out of spite. Then Jennifer said, “Yeah, I was over there. Sorry about the chest. I didn’t mean to break anything.”

  Graham snatched the receiver to his ear, as if he knew that Tracy was about to give the girl a piece of her mind. “Never mind the chest, Jennifer. We just want to know where Molly is.”

  “I don’t know. She kicked me out. She was really angry, you know? I had to walk about a mile to a phone so I could get a ride home.”

  “I hope it did you some good.” Graham handed the receiver to Tracy so she could hang up.

  The phone rang the moment she put it back on the hook. Tracy snatched it up. “Hello!”

  Janet was on the line. “Tracy, good grief. It’s just me.”

  “Janet, do you know where Molly is?”

  There was a pause, followed by a sigh. “She’s here. We were just finishing a heart-to-heart when you phoned.”

  Tracy went limp. “Oh. I was so afraid something had happened. Her room’s all cleaned out, and her chest is broken and—” She lowered her voice. “Why is she there? She didn’t baby-sit for you today, did she? She was here earlier. She had a friend over.”

  “No, she didn’t sit for me today. And she must have walked over here while I was running Alex to gymnastics. There’s no easy way to tell you this. She claims she wants to stay with us until she can move into the group home. She doesn’t want to go back to your house. I’ve tried to get the story out of her, but she just says she doesn’t like living with you anymore. She wants to leave. She’s going to call the social worker.”

  “Darla?” Tracy was too confused to think of anything else to say. “She’s calling Darla?”

  “I asked her not to just yet, to give this a little more thought. But she’s determined.”

  “And she didn’t say why? Janet, she’s been happy here. We’ve gotten along, I know we have. There was no sign of trouble…”

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sp; Janet lowered her voice even more. “You can figure this out if you try hard enough.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean!”

  “I mean, you just answered your own question. She’s happy there. Maybe that frightens her.”

  “No, I think it’s got something to do with Jennifer and the chest and—”

  “I’ve got to go. I’ll stall her as long as I can.” The phone clicked and the line went dead.

  “What’d she say?” Graham demanded.

  “She’s there. She wants to stay with Janet until she can move into the group home. She wants to call Darla and tell her.”

  “And Janet doesn’t know why?”

  “She says maybe being happy here scared her.” Tracy felt tears welling, and in a moment they were sliding down her cheeks.

  Graham didn’t reach for her. “What do you think?”

  “I think it has something to do with Jennifer breaking the chest.”

  “So do I.”

  She looked up. “How?”

  “For somebody who understands teenagers as well as you do, you’ve got a real blind spot about this one.”

  Graham didn’t sound angry, but she heard the challenge in his voice.

  “Then enlighten me,” she said.

  “She loves that chest, Trace. She loves her quilt. Don’t you see? She’s starting to love us. Jennifer damages the chest, and from experience, Molly is sure we’ll kick her out. So she leaves on her own. That way she won’t be abandoned by people she cares about. It’s easier and safer to abandon us.”

  It was so simple and yet so complex. But Tracy knew that what Graham said was true.

  “We’ve been playing at this.” She wiped her cheeks with her fingertips. “I was right before. We’ve been doing our good deed for the year by letting her stay with us. We’ve made a few accommodations to her schedule, taken a little more time off, given her things, but we haven’t given any real thought to what’s going on inside her.”