The Hedge Tree by Laura Merrell

Author:Laura Merrell [Merrell, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

1

T The Hedge Tree

Chapter Seventeen

Annabelle received a surprise visit from her mother and stepfather at the end of July the summer after I ran away. Her parents’ church had a new young minister with modern ideas, one of them being that wrong side of the blanket or not, Annabelle belonged with her family, not hidden away in an institution because of circumstances that weren’t her fault. Arrangements were now grudgingly being made to take Annabelle out of the Home. These details she learned from her mother, who shared them to remind Annabelle that it was all the minister’s doing and not her own preference. Annabelle’s radiance was undimmed by the knowledge.

“I’m going to live on the Outside, can you fucking believe it?” Annabelle gave a loud, ecstatic sigh. “My mother wants me.”

“Her mother doesn’t want her,” I complained to Mrs. Kelly. “She’s just being bullied into taking her.”

“Just like she was bullied into leaving her here in the first place,” Mrs. Kelly agreed. “If you never take a stand, all you’ll ever have is what other people are in the mood to give you and that’s never going to be much.”

Mr. Waltz, Annabelle’s stepfather, was red-faced and ridiculous in his starched white dress shirt and high-rider pants that made him look old enough to be her grandfather. Mrs. Waltz wasn’t much more promising as a taller and more careworn version of Annabelle with peroxided hair and a turquoise polyester summer dress that belonged on someone twenty years older and twenty years earlier. Mr. Waltz enjoyed waving his index finger in the air and addressing Annabelle as ‘young lady’ whenever she swore, as if he even had the right to say please, thank you, or kiss my ass to her.

“Good-bye, Chair, I’ll write to you every week,” Annabelle said as she climbed into her parents’ tank-sized Oldsmobile station wagon, the kind with the fake wood paneling on the sides. While she and her mother arranged the suitcases, Mr. Waltz motioned me to one side to keep Mrs. Kelly and the other girls from hearing him.

“I don’t want you to waste your time and stamps writing letters to Annabelle because me and her mother will throw them in the trash,” Mr. Waltz said solemnly, as if being so direct pained him to the quick. “She needs to start a new life.”

“At least I know how to write,” I said, secure in the knowledge that Mrs. Kelly would come running armed for bear if she saw Mr. Waltz trying to hit me. “Annabelle sure as shit never got any letters from you two.”

“I can see you’re going to end up on the street,” Mr. Waltz said in a satisfied way, as if this counted as getting the last word.

My new roommate Diana was the first to speak after Annabelle and her parents rolled out of the front gate. “I sure feel sorry for Annabelle’s mama if she has to make it with that farty old honky. I bet his thing looks just like a little pink slug.

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