These Things Hidden. Heather Gudenkauf

is moving more quickly now and I have to focus on keeping up with her instead of stopping and taking in each of the rooms individually. After my plain prison cell, Gertrude House is an overwhelming assault on the senses. There are brightly painted walls, paintings and photos, furniture and knickknacks everywhere. Music is playing in a far-off corner of the house and I think I hear a baby crying. At my questioning look, Olene explains. “Family members can visit. You hear Kasey’s baby crying. Kasey is leaving us next week. Going back home to be with her husband and children.”

      “Why is she here?” I ask as Olene leads me to what appears to be a family room.

      “At Gertrude House, we don’t focus on one another’s crimes. We try to zero in on what we can do to make everyone’s lives better and try to help the other residents reach their goals. That said—” Olene acknowledges with a shake of her head “—word travels quickly around here and you’ll get to know one another quite well.”

      I’m suddenly very tired and wonder if Olene will take me to my room soon. I just want to crawl under the covers and sleep. We pass a short, heavy woman with waist-length black hair and several piercings in her nose and lip. “Allison, this is Tabatha. Tabatha, this is Allison Glenn. She’s bunking with Bea.”

      “I know who you are.” Tabatha smirks, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she lifts a large bucket filled with cleaning supplies. I never really thought I could keep the reason I was sent to jail a secret, but I would much rather have been known as the girl who stole cars or snorted coke or even been the one to whack her abusive husband than who I really am.

      “Nice to meet you,” I say, and Tabatha gives a snort so loud I expect the force will cause one of her nose piercings to fly out and hit me on the chest. I think of my friend Katie and almost laugh. When we were fourteen, she got her naval pierced without her parents’ knowledge. By the time she showed it to me, it was oozing and infected. I tried to help her, but she was ticklish and started to squirm every time I went near her stomach. Brynn walked in while I was helping her clean it up and we couldn’t stop laughing. Every time Brynn and I saw someone with unusual piercings, we’d get the giggles.

      I decide to ignore Tabatha and turn to Olene. “Are we allowed to use the phone here? Can I call my sister?”

      Brynn

      I hear the ring of the phone and my grandma calls, “I’ve got it!” A minute later she comes into the kitchen, where I’m making a sandwich. I see the look on my grandma’s face and I know this has something to do with Allison. “It’s your sister,” she says. Already I’m shaking my head back and forth. “Brynn, I think you should talk to her.”

      My grandma is trying to sound stern, but I know she’ll never force me to speak to her. “No,” I say, and go back to spreading peanut butter on my bread.

      “You’re going to have to talk to her sooner or later,” she says patiently. “I think you’ll feel better.”

      “I don’t want to talk to her,” I say firmly. I can’t get angry with my grandma. I know she’s caught in the middle. She wants what’s best for the both of us.

      “Brynn, if you don’t talk to her on the phone, don’t answer her letters, Allison is going to find another way.”

      All of a sudden, it’s clear. I see it in her old, kind blue eyes. Allison is getting out of jail. For all I know, she might be out already.

      My hands begin to shake and a glob of peanut butter drops from my knife to the floor. I’m afraid she is going to show up here unexpectedly. I’ll be in the backyard, training my German shepherd-chow mix, Milo, to walk past a treat without eating it and I’ll turn around and there she’ll be, looking at me. Waiting for the words that I know won’t come. What could I possibly have to say to her? What more could she say to me that she hasn’t already said in her letters? How many ways can someone say they’re sorry?

      I bend down to wipe up the peanut butter with a paper towel, but Milo gets to it before I do. “I can’t talk to her.”

      My grandmother presses her lips together and shakes her head in defeat. “Okay, I’ll go tell her. But, Brynn, you’re going to have to face her sometime.” I don’t answer, but follow her into the living room and watch as she picks up the phone.

      “Allison?” My grandma’s voice trembles with emotion. “Brynn can’t come to the phone.” There’s a pause as she listens. “She’s doing great … just great …”

      I can’t stand it anymore; I hurry back to the kitchen, grab my sandwich and leave out the back door to my car. Animals are so much easier to deal with than people. I learned that a long time ago. My parents never let me have a pet—too furry, too messy, too time-consuming. Every time I brought home strays, I would hope, pray, that they would let me keep them. Just once. I tried to spiff them up—I smoothed their tangled fur with an old comb, spritzed their fur with body spray, scrubbed their teeth with an old toothbrush. Ancient, arthritic mutts, one-eyed cats with notched ears. I would parade them in front of my parents. See how good he is? See how soft her fur is? See how tame, how sweet, how smart? See how lonely I am? Do you see? But no. No pets allowed. My dad would take me to drop the animal off at the shelter and every time I would cry and hold so tight to the animal that it would claw and scramble to get away from me.

      My grandmother lets me have animals in her house, though she has drawn the line at five. We have two cats, a mynah bird, a guinea pig and Milo. Grandma said enough is enough, that she doesn’t want to turn into one of those dotty old cat ladies that animal control has to come out and visit.

      I’m training Milo to be a therapy dog. He’s learning how to sit-stay or down-stay for thirty seconds and to come when he’s being called. Grandma is helping me to teach him how to sit quietly by, when two people are arguing. We make up silly fights about whose turn it is to take out the garbage or make dinner. I think Milo knows we’re not really serious; he just yawns and lies down and looks back and forth at us until we both start laughing. When we’re finished with the training I hope to be able to take Milo into nursing homes and hospitals. It’s a proven fact that animals are able to help ease pain and anxiety in the sick and elderly. One day I want to open my own business, training animals for pet therapy. For once in my life I’ve got a plan. A good one, for that matter. I don’t want anyone or anything to distract me from my goal. Not my parents and certainly not my sister.

      If only Allison had done what she always did—made the right choice—things could have been so different. She wouldn’t have had to go away. Our parents would have been happy and I could have just faded into the background where I belong. But she didn’t. She screwed up royally, and she left me in that house alone with our parents.

      I wasn’t the perfect girl like she was, and I never will be. Oh, but they tried. All through high school, it was pressure, pressure, pressure. Staying in that house, I couldn’t get my thoughts straight, couldn’t make a decision, couldn’t breathe. I tried to go to St. Anne’s College, tried to keep up with my classes, tried to make friends, but whenever I walked into the classroom a wave of panic would come over me. It always started in my ears, a strange buzzing sound that would trickle down my throat and out toward my fingertips, leaving them numb. My chest would tighten; I couldn’t catch my breath. The instructors and students would gawk at me and I would stare back until they seemed to melt before my eyes. Their ears would slide down their cheeks, their lips would dribble down their chins, until they were nothing but fleshy puddles.

      It wasn’t until I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills that I found in my mother’s medicine cabinet that my parents finally decided to leave me alone. They gladly sent me over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house with a suitcase and a prescription for an antidepressant.

      Things feel right here. Grandma got me to go to a doctor; I took my medicine and it got me back on track. I’m doing fine. But I won’t talk to Allison. I can’t talk to her. It’s better this way. Better for her and better for me.

      For once in her life, Allison got what she deserved.