If only we knew.
32
LIKE A TATTOO
Samuel and Marlene Abner live in a white clapboard house with green shutters on the outskirts of town. Jude and I step onto their front porch, where wind chimes catch the breeze and two rocking chairs creak like a pair of ghosts having a visit.
The hour is nine. AP Lit started thirty minutes ago, which means soon, or already, Mrs. Calloway will see my unexcused absence and begin to worry. Maybe she’ll call my father and he’ll worry, too. But I can’t help it. There are answers to find. Not in that locked tome, perhaps. But maybe here, in this modest home that housed my mother for several months once upon a time.
Jude knocks as I read the wooden plaque above the door.As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord – Joshua 24:15.
The door opens.
An elderly woman appears on the other side. She wears a paisley house dress, her white hair pinned back in soft curls. With cautious warmth, she opens the screen door, which groans in protest, and studies me longer than she studies Jude.
“Hello,” I say, working hard not to fidget. “You’re Mrs. Abner, right?”
She nods curiously.
“My mother was Clara Green.”
When I say it, I don’t know if it’ll mean anything. If, as Tulane said, the Abners were a revolving door for the parentless, then perhaps they don’t remember Clara Green. She was one of many foster children they took in through the years. But Marlene presses her hand against her sternum with an audible gasp, and it becomes clear that she absolutely remembers my mother.
She opens the door wide to shake my hand. Hers is soft, her skin a bit papery. She ushers us inside a home that is trapped in time. Not from centuries past, like the Vandenberg manor. This is more 1970s, with floral wallpaper and gingham curtains, worn carpet, and faded linoleum. In the living room, there’s a couch with crocheted doilies. Hanging above it, a framed needlepoint of the Serenity Prayer.
Her husband, Samuel, rises slowly from an armchair—tall but stooped, wearing a pair of carpenter jeans and suspenders over a button-downshirt. Marlene introduces me with a softly-spoken, “This is Clara Green’s daughter,” and when Samuel shakes my hand, his is calloused. They invite us to sit. Marlene offers us tea or water.
Jude and I politely decline.
“We’ve had many foster children through the years,” Marlene says, sitting in the chair opposite her husband. “But we remember Clara well. I must say, you look very much like her.”
I’m unsure how to respond to this. I’m unsure what to say at all. I’m a bit stuck on the fact that my mom lived here, in this house. The television is off. It’s small, set inside a wooden cabinet. Beside it, stands a bookshelf filled with well-worn Bibles, devotionals, and what appears to be a collection of Christian romance novels.
“How is your mother?” Marlene asks.
“I’m not sure,” I reply. “I haven’t seen her in a long time.”
The woman frowns. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I stuff my hands beneath my knees. “Did she visit you, by chance—around five years ago?”
Marlene and Samuel exchange a look of puzzlement.
“No,” Marlene says. “We haven’t seen her since the social worker took her away.”
Took her away.
It’s a different story from the one Tulane told.
I lean forward. “Do you mind if I ask … could you tell us about her friendship with Simon Vandenberg?”
The couple share another glance, this one less puzzled, more uncomfortable. Like they’d rather not discuss her friendship with Simon Vandenberg.
Samuel clears his throat. “We didn’t know much about it, if we’re being honest.”
“Clara was only with us for six months,” Marlene adds. “She was a very quiet girl. Beautiful, but private. She kept to herself mostly. We thought she was spending her time at the library. It was only later, after the disappearance, when we learned she’d been spending so much of it with Simon.”
“Because she told you?” I ask.
