The Way Back Home

[Reese_Roper]

Well, this is one of my current novels. I've been working on it for nearly a week in every spare moment.

I always hate what I write, so I'd like to know what y'all think, one writer to another.

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“Anyaliese Coriander Amelia Cortez, shut that light off right this moment, young lady!” demanded the enraged Sarah. “And give me that book, too. If you can’t go to sleep at an appropriate time, then we’ll have to get rid of the problem.”

“But, but, but… But, Sarah–” she begged, knowing it was futile to argue and not caring.

“No ‘buts’ Anyaliese Coriander. Is this the example you want to set for your little sister?” Snatching the thick book out of her hands and snapping off the bedside lamp, Sarah swept out of the bedroom towards her own.

Anyaliese Coriander sat seething in the dark. Who did Sarah think she was bossing her around? Just because the woman had married her father after her mother died did not make her in charge. As for that chubby little shrimp of a daughter of hers, Anyaliese Coriander could care less what “Whiny Willow” learned; just as long as it involved leaving her and her things alone!

“‘No “buts” Anyaliese Coriander,’” she mimicked crossly. Raisin cakes, she hated that name! No one –not even her own father– called her by both of her first names (to him and Aunt Carol it was just Anyaliese; she couldn’t get them to call her by her school nickname, though Aunt Carol was weakening). Everyone called her Ani. Ah-nee. Not Annie, not Anyaliese Coriander, and definitely not “Anyaliese Coriander Amelia Cortez.”

It wasn’t even all that late, really –only ten o’clock. In another hour, she would have stopped reading on her own and begun her thinking time. Oh well, she thought, Sarah has just given me more time to think about things tonight. I should thank her… Not!

While she was ranting, Ani decided she might as well go all the way. Her motto was, “If you start something there’s no reason why you shouldn’t finish it.” That wasn’t Sarah’s motto. Hers was more like, “I’ll get an idea, maybe do part of the work, then shove it off on someone else to take care of,” –like William.

William.

With the thought of William, Ani’s temper cooled off for a moment (how could she be mad at him?), but immediately came back, now at boiling point. How could Sarah be so cold? If it hadn’t been for Ani, she would have just gotten rid of him to begin with. Luckily, she was able to convince her that it would be murder to do such a thing, so she kept him. Even so, William’s crib stayed in Ani’s room, though she was pretty sure Sarah wasn’t that cruel.

As though he knew she was thinking about him, William chose that moment to start wailing. Quickly she scooped him up and started cradling him before he woke Sarah up. Sarah always conked out the minute she put her head on the pillow, but she had fox ears and would awaken if a pin dropped.

“Oh, William, please don’t cry,” Ani sighed urgently. She always called him William –Billy, Willy, Will, or Bill just didn’t sound right to her; they just weren’t him. “You’ll wake Sarah.” That made him calm down. Babies have this intuitive way of telling who to trust and who not to.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Ani cooed. She looked down at his sweet face; how could anyone not love those sweet hazel eyes and glossy brown curls? “It’s okay, Ani’s here. I’m not going anywhere. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay. But it could be.

 

[Reese_Roper]

Once William was settled back in his crib, Ani went back to thinking. Now that her mind was on the subject of Sarah and William, it wouldn’t let it go.

She remembered when her father first told her he was engaged to be married; it had been exactly a year and three months ago. Before breaking the news to her, he had given her a puppy –a little brown cocker spaniel she named Pinecone after the seeded cones she’d seen when visiting her aunt in northern Maine. After he’d told her the news, however, not even her ecstasy over having a puppy could allay her furor over this heartless act. Her mother had died; didn’t he care? Just because it had been fourteen years ago, giving birth to her, didn’t mean that the ache Ani felt in her heart over the loss had deadened any. Try as he might to convince her that this didn’t mean he loved her mother any less and that he wanted his daughter to have a female figure in her life, Ani still refused to speak to him after that. She told him that she had done just fine for the past fourteen years with a “female figure,” and she could continue to do so just fine without one.

It didn’t matter. Three months later, her father married Sarah Robinson and adopted her putrid little daughter Willow. One month after that, Sarah came home from the hospital and announced she was pregnant.

Ani was furious. She could just imagine another little Sarah replica running around the house. She’d refused to call Sarah “Mom,” and considered Willow to be just some kid who lived at her house (secretly she wished Willow wasn’t such a brat; she loved the name Willow and it had been her first choice of names for her own future daughter. C’est la vie). Now she was being expected to accept another outsider? It wasn’t until a month later when she overheard Sarah say she wanted to terminate her pregnancy that she began to get involved. When Sarah said that the child would have Down syndrome, and she didn’t have time to raise a child who would be so needy, Ani insisted that she would care for the child herself if Sarah would just give her the chance. Inwardly she thought, we can start a club: The Children that Sarah Doesn’t Care For Club. Finally Sarah yielded. Then came William.

William looked like any other child. He was born with the softest baby skin, and he grew into adorable brown curls. He rarely cried –though when he did, the entire town must have known–, and when he smiled, the whole world looked brighter. He was the star of Ani’s life from the moment he was born, a refuge away from Sarah and all that was wrong in her life. Other than his small, misshapen ears and upward slanting eyes, William displayed no symptoms of Down syndrome, though Ani knew the mental side would show more once he got older.

Despite the calm that William gave her, Ani knew she wouldn’t survive living here under the tyranny that was Sarah for the three more years it would take until she was eighteen and on her own. She had to get out of this house. Where would she go? Her father had no siblings, and all of her grandparents were dead. That left Mother’s side of the family.

Ani was hesitant about her mother’s family. Her father didn’t like them very much for some reason, and he didn’t let them communicate or visit with Ani very often, therefore she didn’t know them very well at all. Mother had had an older brother, but he’d died in the war, and her older sister was an alcoholic and a prostitute. That left Aunt Carol.

The last time Ani had seen Aunt Carol was five years ago, when she was ten. Her aunt had pleaded with her father to let Ani come visit for Christmas, and he finally agreed simply to stop her badgering. That had been the best Christmas Ani had had in years. Aunt Carol had a daughter her own age, Auby, and the two girls fell in love with each other immediately in the way that little girls do; Ani was in tears when she left and had begged her father to let her go back again, but to no avail.

Ani doubted she could convince her father to let her and William go live with her aunt in Maine. She doubted her aunt would want them to come live with her. She even doubted that she herself wanted to go. She had no doubts about Sarah; she would be glad to be rid of them.

The rest of the night she lay in her bed and prayed that she could convince all involved that this was best for everyone. She and her father had drifted farther and farther apart since his remarriage, and whenever he mentioned William, he asked about him as though he were one of Ani’s classmates, not his son. Ani didn’t blame him, he was under the spell of Sarah, and she’d found that he couldn’t deny her anything, even the disowning of his own son. Aunt Carol was a kind woman. She had been ecstatic when Ani had come for Christmas, and she was sure that she would love William. Auby loved what Ani loved, so she had no qualms about her acceptance.

Oh, please let this work. Please. William needs this. I need this. Heck, I think even Sarah needs this.

 

[Reese_Roper]

Ani finally fell asleep around midnight. She awoke groggily at six the next morning. It only took her about fifteen minutes to prepare herself for school, but she also had to get William ready. Sarah refused to pay for a sitter, so Ani had to take him to school with her. The high school she attended offered child care services to teenage mothers who didn’t have any other means to watch their children and still stay in school. Though she wasn’t technically his mother, the school allowed her to bring him into the program. She didn’t worry about Willow, who attended first grade then went straight to her room after school. All Ani had to do was make sure the brat stayed alive until Sarah go home. Willow was Sarah’s problem, not hers. Sarah actually liked Willow.

Today was her last day of school, and she wanted more than anything to simply skip it. It wasn’t as if they would learn anything important. However, if Ani wanted to convince her father and Aunt Carol she should be allowed to move to Maine, she needed to give them no reason to be mad at her. Going to school when she didn’t really have to and bringing home an almost straight-A report card (she didn’t count her single B+; who needed home economics? Auby sure didn’t take it.) certainly would strengthen her case about being responsible enough to make her own decisions.

Just as she’d thought, the whole school day was pointless. The principle made a long, boring speech about something (she hadn’t been listening), and there were tearful hugs amongst the girls and brief handshakes amongst the boys. Geez, you’d think we were never going to see each other again instead of coming back in the fall and hanging out all summer. Of course, if all went well, Ani might very well never see any of the kids again. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that as she watched the exchanges from a distance. She wasn’t close to any of them really. She’d once heard the guidance counselor tell her father that “her suffering made her grow up faster than the other children, so she tends to look down on the fro being childish.” Ani didn’t know if that was true or not, but she knew that she wouldn’t pine for any of them in particular. Oh sure, she might miss the way Johnny Kemp and Billy Cunnings would pretend to teach the class (their subject always promised to be completely disgusting) if the teacher was a few minutes late, or maybe the way Susie Turner used to sing the Star-Spangled Banner so horridly their homeroom teacher had finally asked her twin sister Kelsie to be their official anthem singer (though Kelsie wasn’t exactly all that great either) so that no one wouldn’t have to hurt her feelings by telling her she was awful or be tortured every morning by her vocals.

Sure she would miss the little things, but she would get over it. She was strong. Maybe it was because of what the counselor had said. Maybe she was “stronger because of her suffering,” whatever that meant.

At home, Ani settled William into his bassinet in the living room and waited for her father to get home from work. The bassinet was a point of pride for her. Although she had a crib, rocker, and toys from her own infancy, and Sarah had gone crazy shopping for baby clothes before she’d found out she didn’t really want a “handicapped” child, no bassinet was to be found anywhere. Ani had saved and scrounged for money for three months before she had enough to buy a good one. Now he slumbered easily in it and the sight warmed Ani’s heart.

Her father got home at five. Right now it was only three. While she waited, Ani rehearsed what she would say. A whole new batch of worries sprang into her mind. What if Daddy decides to move everyone from Texas to Maine? What if Aunt Carol decides that I was fine for a few weeks at Christmas, but she doesn’t want to care for me for years? What if Aunt Carol takes us, but then it doesn’t work out? What if Aunt Carol won’t take William? Or what if Auby doesn’t want to share her life with us? She gave herself a shake. Stop thinking like this. It will all turn out okay. Just read your book and relax.

She wasn’t sure how she did it, but somehow Ani managed to calm down enough to read silently until five, checking periodically on Willow, who played with dolls quietly in her room. Like clockwork, her father came in the door, and Sarah came twittering in behind him, yattering on about some thing or other. Willow came running down from her bedroom to hug her mother. For the first time she realized that Willow had never hugged Ani’s father anymore than Ani herself had hugged Sarah. Maybe they had more in common than she thought.

Ani waited until dinner. Sarah and her father were much more pliable when they were eating. She had already given William his night feeding and settled him down for as long as he would sleep. Now was her chance.

“Sarah, Daddy,” (she’d mentioned Sarah first because she knew that the last word would be Sarah’s, not her father’s) “I’d like to make a request,” she began. She hadn’t touched her food, even though it was her favorite –spaghetti–, too anxious about what she was about to do.

Her father put down his fork and knife. He wiped his mouth with his napkin. She noticed then that Sarah hadn’t touched her food any more than Ani had. “Actually, Anyaliese, there’s something your stepmother and I would like to speak to you about.”

Ani was bewildered. Was this about her late-night reading? Sarah scowled at the word “stepmother” (even her father couldn’t bring himself to call Sarah Ani’s mother), but otherwise gave no indication as to what was going on.

“You see, we’ve been talking, and well…” he hesitated. Ani could tell he was nervous. “We’ve seen there’s been some strain around here ever since your brother was born, and so… I suggested –and I’m only saying this because I think it might be good for you, Anyaliese– that you might go with William to live with your aunt Carol for a while.”

Ani just stared. This was an angle that she hadn’t considered. That her father and Sarah might try to get rid of her first! “Well…”

“Sarah protested, but I managed to convince her that this was for the best. And Aunt Carol has agreed to take you both in, and even Pinecone too. You’d leave next week.”

Sarah protested our leaving? Yeah, right. She’s probably the one who suggested it. She probably even insisted we leave as soon as possible.

“Please, Anyaliese, just considered it. We love you both, and only want what’s best for our children. There are terrific schools out there for William, and I know you loved your visit to your aunt’s last time.”

That did it right there. He’d accepted William as his son. With those words, every bitter thought she’d had toward him over the past year washed away. Ani knew right then what she had to do.

“Okay. I’ll go.”

 

[Reese_Roper]

The airport was buzzing with activity what with so many people coming and going for the summer holiday, but the only activity that mattered to Ani was the scene that was unfolding before her own eyes. In one hand she held a carry-on bag of belongings and things for William –the rest would be sent by her father, and there was one bag already on the plane– and in the other was William in his infant seat. Willow clung tiredly (they’d had to awaken early to get to the airport on time) to the hand of Sarah, who stood beside Ani’s father, who just stood staring at his daughter. Pinecone had whimpered in her travel carrier as an attendant wheeled her away.

Finally, Willow made the first move. She broke away from her mother and gave William a clumsy kiss on his forehead. Then she gave Ani a quick hug. “Bye bye, Annie. Bring me back one of those pinecone thingies that you named the doggy after.”

Ani smiled weakly at her; the little girl still didn’t understand that her stepsister and half-brother were leaving for more than a visit. “I will. I’ll send one home just as soon as I can. The biggest one I can find! I promise.” Willow just scampered back to her mother.

Next was Sarah. She unbuckled William from his seat and cradled him in her arms. Her face went all tender in a way Ani had never seen it before, but she knew what it was; the look of a mother who loved her child. She gave him a soft kiss on the cheek and returned him to Ani. Sarah looked up at her, and Ani thought she saw the glisten of tears. “Take care of my son,” she whispered, her voice emotionless, a sharp contrast to her face.

Ani said nothing. There was nothing to say. Sarah stood back and picked up her daughter, cuddling her as though if she didn’t Willow would get on the plane with them. She nodded at Ani and began to walk away.

Now it was just Ani and her father. Ani set down her burdens and ran into his arms. She clung to him. Somehow she managed not to cry, but he didn’t.

“Remind me never to name anyone or anything precious Anyaliese again,” he murmured.

“Why?” She asked.

“Because this is the second time I’ve lost one. First your mother, now you. I’d say my track record with Anyalieses isn’t very good, would you?”

She couldn’t reply to that. So this was why he and Aunt Carol had clung to Anyaliese, not accepting the nickname Ani. Maybe she would use it now too. Her flight was called over the speakers. She gave him one last squeeze and stepped reluctantly out of his arms.

“I have to go now,” she whispered. Then she picked up William and her bag and walked away. If she looked back, she knew she would never get on that plane. She just had to keep going.

On the plane, she settled her bag under seat and William’s infant seat in the chair next to her. She couldn’t take him out until they were in the air. She placed one hand in the infant seat to keep him quiet and gazed out the plane window. Then the wheels started turning. She was off to new horizons. There were new hopes and new dreams awaiting her. Best of all, she was going with the one person who she knew would never abandon her no matter what.

William.

 

[Reese_Roper]

As she stepped off the plane, Anyaliese was overcome with a fit of shyness. She hadn’t seen these people in years. Would they even still like her? Auby might not even be same little girl she’d left behind; she could have grown up a lot in the past five year. She herself certainly had.
Oh, stop it, she scolded herself. Everything will be just like last time. Nothing’s changed from your last visit.

Except it had. Oh, how much it had changed.

The small puddle jumper they’d been on had left her ears droning from the loud buzz. She’d asked the man across the aisle (he was wearing a stethoscope around his neck so she assumed he was a doctor) if the noise would have a lasting harmful effect on William’s delicate hearing system, and he’d insisted that the boy would be fine.

She held back a little as young men and old women crowded (at least as much of a crowd as twenty people can make) past her towards the airport. “Well, William, we’re here,” she breathed. And here they were. They certainly weren’t in Texas anymore.

Anyaliese couldn’t stall any longer; the area around the plane was nearly empty, only a few strangers were still outside. She squared her shoulders, and took a shallow, shaky breath. She took one step, then another, then another. Finally, she reached the door. She realized, as she grasped the door handle that she was sweating, and her hands were shaking.

Aunt Carol and Auby love you! And they’re going to love William too! Calm down before you hyperventilate and faint in the middle of the runway! What a way to start your visit!

However, deep down she knew that wasn’t the reason she was so nervous. It was because of the picture –the one stuffed in her bag at this very moment. The one that told so much, and yet so little.

 

[Reese_Roper]

On the eve before her departure, as she was checking on William one last time just before she went to sleep, her father had come into her bedroom.

“I’m still going. I’m not going to change my mind. This was your idea, remember?” Her hackles had risen immediately. Even though in her mind all transgressions had been erased, a level of mistrust still created a gap between her and her father. And after all, he’d no reason to be in her bedroom this lat at night, after even Sarah had gone to bed.

He'd said nothing, simply set something down on her bedside table, empty of all but her lamp –everything else had been packed away– and left. Anyaliese had waited until she heard the soft click! of the latch from his bedroom door before she left the crib and scrambled across the bed to the table. She'd picked up a frame. Why would Daddy give me this?

Inside was a beautiful woman. Long, black waves of hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders. Pale gray eyes twinkled gaily over a smile of triumph. This must have been what Aunt Carol looked like before she cut her hair. And that must be Auby when she was born. Aw, she was so cu–

Anyaliese took in the rest of the photo. Suddenly it hit her. This wasn’t Aunt Carol, and the baby wasn’t Auby. Her eyes had been so drawn to the enchanting woman she hadn’t noticed the man standing next to her; the man who wasn’t, who couldn’t be Uncle Rodney, Carol’s husband, who died in a car accident two months before Auby was even born. That was her own father.

And that meant the woman was her mother.