enough. We have to stop them. We have to act.”
Stop the madness! Stop the madness! People are on their feet now, shouting, fists in the air. The protesters outside get louder, too. Keep America safe! Keep America safe!
Martin shouts over the din. “Our message is clear. No plutonium storage here. No war profiteering here. No nuclear weapons anywhere.” People repeat his words. Then he raises his hands and hands the microphone to Peter Minter, the Indian Child Welfare compliance officer I used to work with when I was a foster care supervisor. Peter and I have been friends and allies for years, serving together even now on a statewide reform task force.
“I want to remind you,” Peter says, “that the nuclear fuel cycle in this country began when the mining companies dug uranium from our Indian homelands. Our women had spontaneous abortions. Over half of our babies had birth defects, respiratory, liver, and kidney ailments.” He pauses with a swing of his gray braid. “And now that they can’t find any other place to store the damned stuff forever, they’re going to try to end the nuclear cycle on our homelands, too.”
The man who looks like Norton shouts. “Just say no!” Everyone chimes in. Just say no! Just say no!
My heart throbs with old passions stirred, screams at me to get in there, get involved, do something for God’s sake. But my head tells me to slow down, breathe in, breathe out, stay calm. I am enough. I do enough.
Martin steps back to the pulpit, and the chanting stops. “It’s not a done deal yet. When there’s a congressional hearing about the plutonium storage contract, we will be there! Our voices will be heard! We will stop this! Our first action is next Thursday at Nectaral Plaza. Be there! And on your way out, be sure to sign our petition supporting the UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons.”
I squeeze through the people crowding into the middle aisle and stand on my tiptoes by the door. My eyes light up when they settle on the man who looks like Norton. “There you are,” I whisper. Then everything stops, and with each step the man takes in my direction, I take a step back into another time. One step, and it’s 1984 and I’m being introduced to Norton at a coalition meeting. Another step, and I’m sitting across from him in a police van. One more step, and I’m seeing him for the last time as he walks away with two FBI agents.
And then the man who looks just like him is walking past me. I touch his arm and he stops, turns around. “Excuse me, sir,” I say. “Is your name Cramer, by any chance?”
He makes a half turn like he’s about to bolt, then hesitates and turns to face me. His eyes are narrow, suspicious.
“My name’s Corey. Corey Cramer.”
“I’m Sylvia Jensen. I knew your father.”
TWO
1984
It was an unusually chilly spring for the Midwest, cold enough to sleep with my winter comforter on the bed. The sounds of traffic on the street below woke me, and one at a time my eyes let in the bright light, the morning sun. I rolled onto my side. My panties were lying on the floor next to the bed, my jeans over by the door, my bra and blouse out in the hall. I turned onto my other side.
“Norman?” No answer. “Norman?” Had I gotten his name wrong? “Good morning.” I reached out to touch his head, thinking I could wake him by running my fingers through his long dark hair or tickling his beard. But the space next to me was empty.
“Damn,” I muttered out loud. When a man goes to bed with you and then sneaks out sometime during the night, it’s a pretty good bet he went home to his wife.
I rolled onto my back. A spider crawled across the ceiling. What day was it? It must be Wednesday. Last night was the Monrow City Peace and Justice Coalition meeting, always on Tuesdays.
Then what happened at work yesterday slowly came back to me.
“Mommy, Mommy,” two-year-old Lucy had wailed. Her face was flushed nearly as red as her tiny T-shirt and her eyes were filled with a panic so palpable it burned every bone in my body. But her mother, slumped over in a drug-induced comatose state, didn’t respond, didn’t even hear her.
“Come, my love,” I said as I gathered the toddler in my arms. “Mommy needs to sleep for a while. We’ll take care of you until she wakes up.”
In the car, Lucy howled, hysterical. She kept looking back, searching for her mother. At the temporary foster home, she went numb and silent. She had a fever. A child so young shouldn’t have to suffer like that. She wasn’t equipped. Neither was the foster mother. I stayed to help when Lucy’s little body went stiff and she wouldn’t eat. We had trouble taking her filthy clothing off so we could give her a bath. I wanted to stay longer, but I had to leave. There were other clients waiting for me. Other children, other foster parents who weren’t equipped to deal with the traumas they were forced to face.
Last night, even though my heart was broken and my body exhausted, I went to the coalition meeting after work. And that’s where I met him, the man no longer in my bed this morning. A jackhammer pounded at the concrete fog in my head and loosened chunks of the night before in little bits and pieces—a kind and thoughtful man, in his forties like me; green eyes, white teeth, crooked smile; our whispered comments during the meeting, our nonstop conversation over drinks afterward; tripping on the edge of the elevator and staggering down the hall to my apartment, and after that . . . after that . . . I couldn’t remember anything after that.
Not that that was unusual. That was my pattern. I poured all my compassion into the foster children I worked with during the day and then turned to alcohol, and sometimes men, for love at night. Well, at least the one last night hadn’t just been a stranger I found in a bar. At least I had something in common with this one. At least there was that.
I sat up and glanced at my bedside clock. Shit! Either my alarm hadn’t gone off or I’d slept through it. I jumped out of bed and raced to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, gulped down a couple aspirin, and ran a comb through my shoulder-length blond hair. I pulled my brightly flowered peasant blouse and long faded denim skirt from the closet, then tossed them on the bed and opted instead for the beige linen suit and navy blue cotton blouse I usually wore to court. If I was going to be late, I should at least look professional.
It was after nine o’clock when I rushed upstairs to the foster care unit carrying a cup of coffee from the café on the first floor of the downtown Health Services Building. I had just slipped into my cubicle when Betsy Chambers, our department administrator, headed my way. I smoothed down my knee-length skirt and tugged at the hem of the suit jacket, ready to tell her I’d make up for my tardiness by working late tonight.
“Good morning, Sylvia.” She flashed me a warm smile. “I’ll see you at the meeting this afternoon.” A little wave and then she was gone.
Whew! Except for my raging hangover, no harm done. She didn’t seem to have noticed I was late, and from her friendliness, I was pretty sure I was still her number one choice for the supervisor position after Rita retired. I lifted a stack of files from my bottom right-hand drawer and got to work. Today was my day to do paperwork and update case records.
A few hours later, the phone rang. If it was a foster parent calling to say a child had run away or been injured, or there was some other crisis requiring my immediate attention, I wouldn’t be able to finish my paperwork before the staff meeting and I really would have to work late tonight.
“Sylvia Jensen speaking.”
“Hi,
