Free Taking It by Michael Cadnum Page B

giving Maureen and her family a gift, offering a present to all of them.
    It would be a confession, even if they didn’t see me slipping it back into place. But the frog wasn’t the problem. The problem was: What little surprise would I pull next?
    Besides, if I forgot about it, it wasn’t there.
    I kept busy, dropping by the Berkeley Municipal Court to watch a trial or two. A woman had been arrested for soliciting. She perched there prim and calm, next to her cool, gray-haired woman lawyer. The assistant district attorney fingered his pen and talked about the laws against prostitution, how a community has standards, how these standards go back to the beginning of what we call morality.
    Night after night I didn’t sleep so much as lie there. I got blue circles under my eyes, and the color drained from my face. I didn’t look that bad, if you like dead bodies.
    Over the days I spent a lot of time with Maureen.
    Sometimes she couldn’t talk much, depressed because of a news story. Hordes of emus in western Australia killed themselves running into an electric fence. In France twenty cows were burned alive when lightning struck the barn where they had drawn together for safety. To Maureen these misfortunes were evidence of the callousness of human beings. We could go on about our lives while things like this happened.
    Sometimes she was gleeful over something she had just taught Lincoln to do. He fetched the chewed-up tennis ball out of the closet when she said “ball.” He snouted the mail out of the mailbox when she gave the order, if the mail carrier was far enough away from the house.
    She and her father and her mother did not seem to notice what was gone.
    It was a freedom I didn’t want.
    We were in the backyard, in the big bare place Lincoln had worn in the grass. It was late in the afternoon, shadows, a chill in the air. My caramel purse was leaning against a tree, not far from Lincoln’s plastic water dish. Mother and Adler would be back from their trip tomorrow.
    The Frisbee had a crack in it, and it glided badly, rolling along the ground. All the tennis balls were chewed to yellow-green bits. I felt the homey pleasure of Maureen’s family, leaving each other notes reminding each other to water the coffee plant.
    I was trying to get Lincoln to give me a fragment of red rubber ball. He wouldn’t let me have it.
    â€œGive,” commanded Maureen. She was wearing a huge blue T-shirt that showed her bra straps. There was a faded image on the shirt, a University of California Golden Bear.
    Lincoln wouldn’t let her have it, either.
    I couldn’t stop myself. I heard myself say, “Maureen, I did something I shouldn’t have done.”
    A part of me wanted to stop and hit rewind, but it was too late.
    Sometimes she can look so stupid. “Like what?”
    I was very fifties, capris and a polka-dot blouse and teeny Italian sandals. The brand-new sole was so thin I could feel every pebble, every leaf, underfoot.
    â€œTake a look in my purse.” I had hoped to toss this out in an offhand way, but I didn’t think I managed to sound very confident.
    She stopped looking at me, turning to Lincoln, holding out her hand for the ball.
    I let a moment pass. I wondered if I could just shut up and let the subject die. Maybe Maureen wasn’t even listening, thinking about something she’d heard on the news, listening to music in her head.
    I heard myself say, “I think you’ll be surprised.”
    I was wasting my time. She wasn’t paying much attention, yanking the chewed-up ball out of Lincoln’s teeth. The ball looked like raw hamburger.
    Okay, I told myself, I’ll forget about it. Case closed. It was almost a relief. I confessed and no one heard, no one cared.
    Her glance was a question. She wasn’t in the mood for me today.
    I gave her a little unsteady smile. She would have to see for herself.
    She picked up the