Where All Things Will Grow Read online

  First published by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2011

  Copyright © N.K. Smith, 2011

  The right of N.K. Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Writer’s Coffee Shop

  (Australia) PO Box 2013 Hornsby Westfield NSW 1635

  (USA) PO Box 2116 Waxahachie TX 75168

  Paperback ISBN- 978-1-61213-080-4

  E-book ISBN- 978-1-61213-081-1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the US Congress Library.

  Cover image by: Victor Burnside

  Cover design by: Jennifer McGuire

  www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/nsmith

  N.K. Smith has been writing in some fashion since the early age of ten. Her first short story, written in fifth grade, was a summer camp mystery. N.K. is realizing her childhood dreams with the continuation of the Old Wounds series.

  Having lived several places throughout the northeast United States, N.K. has returned to her native Indiana where she lives with her husband, two children, and three cats. N.K. has an avid interest in natural, organic, and sustainable living and lives a vegan lifestyle.

  To everyone who has helped me along the way. Thank you.

  God should not have been so cruel. It seemed as though no matter how marked I felt most of the time, I would be lulled into thinking things were different after a while and then, from out of nowhere, God’s commitment to make me suffer would crash down around me again.

  God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

  I felt powerless to cry over Stephen’s ex-wife’s death at the dinner table with Sophie sitting next to me. Everyone looked incredibly distraught, even those who never knew Kate. I wasn’t trying to be callous, but there was no way I would set foot into a church for anyone, much less a person who chose to leave as she had.

  Things had been getting better for me. I was growing comfortable and then all of a sudden Stephen announced that Kate was dead and everything got turned upside down again. Jane was angry at me and David was upset that we weren’t being nice. I couldn’t help it.

  I had just finished telling Jane that I wouldn’t go to the funeral after she said she hated me. Her words hurt. Her boyfriend, Trent, was visibly angry with me.

  I wanted him to hit me. I would feel justified hitting him back and it would feel good. I’d never thought like this in the past, but ever since unleashing my emotion on Chris Anderson after he took advantage of Sophie, I’d been wanting to feel the rawness of uncontrolled anger again.

  “Trent,” Robin, the therapist who was dating Stephen, tried to soothe.

  He cut her off. All I did was raise an eyebrow and clench my hands together tighter. “But all he has to do is fucking lie to her and she’d be better. Why can’t he just lie?”

  “Elliott doesn’t have to lie. We all deal with this sort of thing differently. Jane needs to come to terms with what’s happened and...”

  I stopped listening to her. I wasn’t “dealing” with Kate’s death as much as ensuring that I wouldn’t have to go into a church. I didn’t want to go and I wouldn’t. If her funeral wasn’t inside of a church, in Chicago, I might have gone.

  There was too much of the past in Chicago and I wasn’t going to go back. I wasn’t going to sit at the table and have them all look at me like I was hurting Jane on purpose, so I stood up. For just a moment, I thought Trent was going to lunge across the table at me, but he didn’t.

  It seemed strange that for all of the energy he wasted on intimidation tactics, he could have been taking care of Jane’s emotional needs, but that was just Trent.

  As I left the table, I reflected that I probably shouldn’t have said the stuff about Kate not wanting us, but it was true. It didn’t matter why.

  She still left.

  She still never called to speak to Jane, even though she knew Jane hung on her every word and little glance.

  For the living know that they shall die but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.

  I was halfway to my room before Sophie’s voice stopped me. I hadn’t forgotten that she was there; I just didn’t care. Right now, I didn’t care about much at all.

  She came to stand in front of me, her hands running down my arms. I shivered at the sensation and then held her hands in mine.

  “Why aren’t you upset? You know, crying like everyone else?”

  “Sssshe’s n-not my mmmom.”

  “But she... You always talk like you...”

  I had no idea why anyone wouldn’t get it. “I c-c-cried fffor my mmmm-mmmmom.”

  Sophie stood there and simply looked at me before saying, “But she’s dead.”

  I sighed, let go of her hands and side-stepped around her. “I g-g-g-got that p-p-part, thank you.”

  I just wanted to be in my room with my things behind a door that locked, but before I could open it, Sophie’s hand was on my lower back, her forehead resting against my arm. “Don’t be mad at me,” she whispered.

  “I’m n-not mmmad at you.”

  We entered my room together and she locked the door. I put on quiet music that wouldn’t increase the pounding in my head and then sat down on my bed. My eyes focused on her and I watched as she picked up my cell phone and called her father.

  She explained the situation to him saying that my “ex-adopted-stepmother or whatever” had been killed and asked if she could stay over.

  Mr. Young apparently said yes.

  Evidently, being needy had its rewards.

  Sophie came to sit with me and pulled the heel of my hand away from my mouth. I hadn’t been aware that I was biting it. She didn’t make a huge deal out of it either, and I was thankful.

  “Jane’s pissed.”

  I shrugged. Jane was on her way out of my life anyway. It was only a matter of time. She’d chosen Trent a while back, and I didn’t feel the need to make her decision easier for her. “I-I-I-I’m mmmmad, too.”

  Jane said mean things. She said them in front of people who didn’t need to know those things about me. She acted like a little girl who didn’t get her way instead of my friend who understood how hard it would be for me to go to Chicago and sit through a church service.

  Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

  Those words, the ones I had memorized when I was young, may not have pertained to me, but still, they brought me comfort. I had to believe that God would not forsake me. No matter how cruel He could be, no matter how wicked I was, I had to believe that He would still try to love me as he did other sinners.

  Apart from pulling my hand from my mouth, Sophie didn’t touch me. The avoidance made me angry; not at her, but at everyone’s assumption that I was different an
d needed to be dealt with differently. It occurred to me that perhaps with Sophie it was more about her inexperience at comforting another person and less about me specifically, but it was easier to lump her in with all the others.

  We were quiet, but after awhile, she took my hand in hers and laid her head on my shoulder. It was comforting without being suffocating.

  Maybe I should have reacted more. Maybe I should have cried. Maybe I would have if Jane hadn’t insisted I do something I didn’t want to do just because she wanted me to. I was fed up with everyone being so involved in my poor little existence. I didn’t have to go to anyone’s funeral and I wasn’t being mean when I pointed out that Kate had left us; I was being honest.

  While I never thought she’d spare a backward glance for me, it hurt Jane in unbelievable ways when she left. She’d sat by the phone for days, sure that Kate would at least call her to tell her that she’d gotten back to Chicago safely.

  When she didn’t, Jane had one of her dissociative episodes. She didn’t talk for weeks and after a few days of not eating or responding, Stephen felt he had no choice but to check her into a mental health facility.

  She never spoke about it much, but I knew that she’d hated it there. After she was coherent again, she’d stolen a rubber band from one of the nurses and snapped it repeatedly over the flesh of her arm for the eight hours she was supposed to be sleeping. When they did bed checks randomly throughout the night, she pretended to sleep so they wouldn’t stop her.

  Her arm was raw and swollen when the nurses came to take her to breakfast.

  Jane said she didn’t remember it, but Stephen wouldn’t lie about things like that. After the incident, they had pumped her full of drugs.

  I looked over and found Sophie asleep on my shoulder.

  She was sleeping a lot around me lately. I was happy that she felt comfortable enough to do that. I gently moved us down until we were both lying on our sides, her back to me, and I hugged her close and smelled her hair. It was comforting.

  I was remembering things now that I never could before. Since before Christmas, thoughts had been coming to me in demanding ways, like the Scripture that flooded my mind.

  The word flashback seemed like some Hollywood term Jane would use, but I was trapped in memories, so much so that it was difficult for me to concentrate sometimes on much else.

  Now, with Sophie asleep beside me, my mind forced me back into foster care. I thought of how I first met Jane after I’d been taken away from my house.

  After a few days in the hospital to run what they said were basic tests, clean me up, and to make sure that I was “healthy,” the women came back in their black sedan and dropped me off at a loud, busy house.

  I had no real belongings, just a small picture of my family and a few things the ladies had gone back to retrieve from my father’s house. I’d been given some donated clothing. While I had always worn my brother’s hand-me-downs, it felt strange, unclean, and wrong to be wearing the cast-off clothes of people I didn’t know. But the shirt I was given to wear had a picture of the X-Men on it. My father had never allowed clothes like that, so even though it was used, I liked it.

  After the ladies left, the adults who lived in the house just watched me. They eventually went back to their routine, but there was a little dark-haired girl who kept looking at me. I was huddled in a corner underneath a small end table in an attempt to feel safe in my new surroundings.

  Every time I looked up, she was just a little closer than before.

  Finally, she was only a few feet away and she was lying on her stomach, her hands under her chin. “I’m Jane. At least, that’s what they call me. They don’t know my real name. Do you miss your family? Lots of kids here miss their families. I don’t remember mine, so I don’t know if I miss them.”

  She spoke so fast that it was hard to keep up. I remember thinking that I would have to focus harder if I was going to make heads or tails of anything this girl said to me.

  “They said my mom left me inside a Walmart. They found me sleeping in a watermelon bin. I guess I wandered around for a few days.”

  She seemed younger than I was and spoke with the casual language of a child, but had eyes that were clearly beyond her physical years.

  “I bet my mom was pretty and nice.”

  I wasn’t in the habit of speaking up, especially with people I didn’t know at all, but a quiet and quivering voice was forming words before I could stop it. “B-b-b-b-b-but sssssssshe lllllleft y-y-you.”

  Jane’s eyes seemed to harden for just a moment as she regarded me. “You don’t know that. Maybe someone stole her... or stole me. What do you know? You’re just a kid.”

  Her eyes changed again and she continued on as if the conversation never took place.

  “Why is your hair so short? I think it would look nicer if you let it grow out.”

  My father had shaved it bald two weeks before the police came. The razor had hurt and dug chunks of skin from my scalp.

  “Don’t worry. Patrick and Isa are nice. Patrick works all day and reads us stories at night. Isa is so pretty and she bakes cookies. She let me bake them, too, but I burned myself and...”

  I didn’t want to think anymore of sugary foods. I had eaten that chocolate in the car with those ladies and the sweet gelatin at the hospital, but my father would be angry if I kept defiling God’s temple within me.

  “What? You don’t like cookies? She bakes cakes, too. She calls us ‘darlings’ and ‘sweethearts’ and...”

  Feeling overwhelmed, I started to cry. Jane’s eyes widened.

  “Don’t be upset, I’ll take care of you. Isa said you’re my age. I mean, I don’t know exactly how old I am, but we could have the same birthday, you know? And we’ll go to school together.”

  My tears came quicker at the mention of a new school. The kids might’ve been cruel at my old school, but at least they already knew how weird I was and I was familiar with their teasing. This school would have new people and rules. The kids would try to talk to me until they found out what I was and then they would be cruel. They had every right to be cruel, because my wickedness shone through in everything I did.

  “Why are you doing that to your hand? That’s disgusting. Don’t you taste the blood?”

  She pulled it out of my mouth and it surprised me that I’d let her.

  “Anyway, this weekend they’re going to take us to the park. There’s a big sandlot and I like to dig. Isa lets me go barefoot and helps me clean the mud and sand out of my toenails.”

  Sugary foods and dirty toenails frightened me. “I-I-I-I d-d-d-d-don’t wwww-ww-w-w-want to g-g-go to the p-p-p-park!”

  She looked at me strangely again for just a second. “We can stay here and watch TV.”

  A shrill and scary voice came from the hallway. “Just wait until Uncle Ron finds out, you stupid cow! He’ll come and kill you in your sleep!”

  The owner of the voice passed the entryway and saw me. “What the hell are you looking at?”

  I lowered my eyes instantly.

  Jane whispered, “Don’t mind Alyssa. She keeps saying her uncle will come for her, but she’s been here longer than I have. She smashed a bunch of robins’ eggs last year just for fun.”

  I had no interest in meeting her, or any of the other occupants of the house. Jane and her fast-talking was enough. Before that first day was over, Jane had lifted her shirt and shown me the cut marks she’d made a few days earlier. The thought of her doing it made my already throbbing head hurt more. She said she just woke up with them, but she was pretty sure she’d done it.

  The first time I realized Jane hurt herself on purpose, nothing made sense. I spent so much energy trying not to get hurt and she did it to herself. She didn’t say anymore about it for a few months, not until the day Alyssa was yelling about her missing nail file. Like alwa
ys, I went the other way when I heard her. I didn’t like her. She was mean and when no one was looking she’d grab my ears and twist them. She said she wouldn’t let go until I cried, but I could never cry because that pain was nothing like the sting of a leather strap. So she usually let go once she heard someone coming.

  As I passed the upstairs linen closet, it flew open and I was tugged inside. I panicked, but the confined space soothed me as soon as Jane made herself known.

  We were tucked under the lowest shelf where Isa usually kept the laundry basket for dirty towels.

  Something clicked and the cramped space was flooded with light.

  “JJJJJJJ-JJJJane.”

  She held a small flashlight and right by her knees was Alyssa’s file.

  “Shhh! She’ll kill me if she sees I have it.”

  “W-w-why d-did y-you t-t-take it?”

  “I didn’t!”

  With a pitiful sigh, Jane shrugged. “Look,” she said as she pulled up the leg of her pants. On the meat of her calf there was a large red and bloody patch where the skin had been worn away.

  I could feel my eyes growing wide. “JJJ-JJJJ-JJJJJ—”

  “Shhhh!” Her eyes flicked to the door and in a whispered voice, she said, “I don’t know. I think someone hurt me when I slept.”

  “B-b-b-but y-you’re in here w-w-with the f-f-f-f-f...”

  Instead of pushing myself, I pointed at the object.

  “You think I did it?” She shook her head while I shrugged. I wondered why she couldn’t remember doing it and why she did it in the first place.

  As the time passed, it didn’t get easier living in foster care. There were too many people in too-little space. It didn’t matter where I went in the house; I was always bumping into someone.

  Jane stayed close all the time and she eventually ended up being the only person I spoke to all day. She was my intermediary with everyone: Patrick and Isa, the rest of the kids and people at school, too, not that I was in her school for long.

  The general anxiety I usually experienced blossomed into full panic. After two weeks at the new school, it was evident to everyone that I wouldn’t be able to go. Jane got along with everyone there. She liked to talk and even when she got in trouble, the teacher would smile at her.