Wildwood by Drusilla Campbell

good-bye.
    Mostly she was grateful to the police. Grateful for their willingness to do a nasty job. But she didn’t like that she lived in a world needing so much armed control. What would happen if there were fewer laws, fewer cops? Would crime and violence be so much worse? This was an experiment no one would ever be willing to try; but until someone did, how would they ever know if all the money spent on cops and prisons and weapons really made a difference? She thought what good all that cash could do caring for babies, building good houses, planting trees and helping people lead decent and productive lives.
    Was she weird for having these thoughts? Did anyone else her age ever consider the possibility that less—of everything—might be better? Jeanne said she was a closet anarchist. She meant it affectionately, but Hannah heard criticism.
     
     
    Until the late 1950s, the Alameda district had been the enclave of San Jose’s rich and influential families. Many of the homes were in the Spanish colonial style, painted cantaloupe and salmon and terra cotta. The others were what Hannah called Iowa homes: built of wood and solid as the Constitution, two- and three-stories with bay and dormer windows, and all enclosed by wide verandas. When taxes and the flight to the suburbs impoverished the neighborhood, the houses had been converted to apartments, offices or group homes like Resurrection House. The district had subsided into gentle neglect. All this before San Jose became the capital city of Silicon Valley.
    As she locked the car, Hannah heard from somewhere out of sight the forbidden click-click-click of a rotating sprinkler. At the same time she wanted to knock on the owner’s door to deliver a lecture on drought, she wanted to fall into the sound and live in it forever.
    It would be nice if once in a while she could just think one uncomplicated thought.
    From Junipero Serra Elementary School around the corner, came the noise of children at recess. The clang of a tether ball chain against its hollow pole reminded her of sun-softened playground asphalt hot through the soles of her shoes, and the burn of rope on her wrist as she whipped the ball around the pole. Liz always beat her at the game. Liz was tough, determined as Jeanne in her own way.
    Please, God, not AIDS.
    A car sped past, stinking the air with exhaust fumes and boomy rap. Its horn blasted. Hannah jumped. Pulse hammering, she leaned against the hood of the Volvo for a long moment. She stood up straight and shook her head to clear it, and Angel moved in to occupy the vacated space. Hannah swung her straw bag over her shoulder and hurried up the sidewalk to Resurrection House.
    Set back from the street behind a plot of dusty yard, the style was Iowa, painted dark gray with peeling white trim. Wilty pink, white and cerise ivy geraniums hung in baskets and struggled out of oak barrels on the tired-looking veranda. The house was home to twelve drug-damaged children and their caretakers, residents by special arrangement with the courts and the departments of Welfare and Child Protective Services. Eventually it was hoped the young mothers would come into residence as well and learn to be responsible parents. Hannah believed in the goals of Resurrection House, but she doubted the bit about the mothers.
    The screen door had a right angle tear and creaked. Hannah opened it and stepped inside. She smelled the mix of children, food and disinfectant and her spirits rose and her eyes filled with tears of gratitude.
    Menopause tears, Jeanne called them. Excessive.
    “Well, good morning to you, Mrs. Tarwater.” Betts stood in one of the doorways off the foyer, tall and fat. She wore a bright voluminous muumuu and blue rubber flip-flops. Hannah could not be sure but she thought the perfect helmet of gray bubble curls was a wig.
    Hannah held up a paper bag. “Muffins.”
    “You spoil us.” The woman laughed. “If you get me used to eating homemade muffins with my