24. Jessica

BEFORE

Miss Fairchild's behavior became intolerable.

"You didn't give her those crackers, did you?" she shrieked one evening after Alicia had managed to get the most recent foster baby to eat some rice crackers. The baby had refused everything but formula for three days. The irony was, Miss Fairchild had given Alicia the crackers and pressured her to feed them to the baby. After all, it wouldn't look good if babies lost weight on her watch.

"You stupid girl! Babies can't eat those. Are you trying to kill her?"

There was no point in arguing with her, or defending themselves; it only made things worse. After a while they'd learned just to lower their gaze as if she were an aggressive stray dog.

"We've had a lot of these crying babies," she snarled another time, after they'd cheered upon getting a burp out of a particularly colicky newborn. "You three are the common link. Don't think I haven't noticed."

That day, it was noon and she was still in her pajamas, her greasy hair in a ponytail. As she watched them suspiciously, Jessica found herself wondering if she'd been drinking. It worried her. She'd always been unpredictable, but this was something else.

The first night-time rampage happened on a Monday.

It was after midnight. Jessica had just finished settling a nine-month-old girl called Suzy who'd arrived with insect bites all over her body. Suzy was (quite rightly) incensed by the itch. It had taken an insane amount of rocking, shushing, singing, and calamine lotion to get her to drop off in her crib. When at last she did, Jessica thought she would cry with relief.

Then Miss Fairchild burst into the room.

"Girls!" she cried, switching on the light.

Alicia and Norah sat up in bed sleepily, shielding their eyes.

"I've been rocking the baby for two hours and she's just gone down," Jessica whispered, holding her fingers to her lips. "Can you turn off the light, please?"

"Can I turn off the light?" It was clear from her slurring that Miss Fairchild had had a lot to drink. "Well, that's lovely, isn't it? I'm the one who feeds you, puts a roof over your head…"

Jessica was too concerned about waking the baby to even absorb Miss Fairchild's sloppy rage. She glanced down into the crib and saw that, of course, the baby was stirring.

"She's awake!" Jessica said, her heart sinking.

"Whose fault is that?" Miss Fairchild retorted, and she flounced from the room. She never explained what had brought her into the room in the first place, yet Jessica had a feeling she'd got exactly what she came for.

The next night, she burst in at 2:00 A.M.

"What's going on in here?" she demanded, fumbling for the light switch.

Jessica and Alicia sat up in alarm. Norah buried her face under a pillow.

Jessica didn't know what to say. What was going on? Up until that moment they'd been fast asleep. Luckily Miss Fairchild didn't require an answer. The purpose of her visit was to shout about how ungrateful they were until the baby woke. Then she disappeared, leaving them to deal with it.

"I'm so tired I think I might die," Alicia said the next day at breakfast. "Can you die from being tired?"

"You can," Norah said. "I read it in a book."

"We can't go on like this," Jessica agreed. Her eyes were closed, even as she ate.

Suzy was due to be collected by Scott at 9:00 A.M. The girls dared to hope that, without a baby to wake, Miss Fairchild wouldn't barge into their room that night.

But just after midnight, they heard her footsteps thundering up the stairs.

"Block the door!" Norah cried.

Jessica assumed she was joking, but Norah leaped out of bed and began heaving the freestanding wardrobe toward the door.

"Are you mad?" Jessica said. "We can't do that!"

But Norah looked so resolute, so determined, that first Alicia then Jessica climbed out of bed to help her. One in, all in.

They got the wardrobe in position mere seconds before Miss Fairchild turned the door handle.

Jessica held her breath.

The handle twisted back and forth uselessly. Finally, their foster mother pounded on the door.

"Girls! Open up right now!" The handle twisted again, and this time the door opened a crack.

The sisters looked at each other.

"Push against it," Norah instructed, and so the girls pressed their backs against the wardrobe until the door slammed shut again. Dear God, what were they doing? Miss Fairchild was easily provoked, even when they did nothing to aggravate her. They were going to pay dearly for this.

"Open the door this second or heaven help you!" she screeched as the three of them continued to press their weight against the wardrobe. Jessica started to worry that she might get an axe and break down the door.

The stand-off seemed to go on forever. Miss Fairchild banged and screamed and cursed until she was hoarse. She flung words at them Jessica had never heard her use before—terrible words that sounded frightening coming from her mouth.

When she didn't let up, Norah shouted in exasperation. "Go away, you psycho bitch!"

To everyone's surprise, the banging stopped. After all the commotion, the silence was even more worrying. Jessica could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears.

Finally they heard her footsteps recede.

Half an hour later, when it seemed safe to assume that she wasn't coming back, they stepped away from the door and lay on Norah's bed, leaving the wardrobe blocking the door.

"This can't continue," Alicia said into the darkness.

"Maybe it won't," Jessica replied. "Maybe after tonight, she'll get rid of us."

"She won't," Alicia said with a mirthless laugh. "She needs us to look after the babies."

The moonlight streamed in through the dormer window, and Jessica noticed that Norah's expression was somber.

"What if she does get rid of us?" Norah said. "What if we're split up?"

There was a tremor in Norah's voice. Jessica stole a look at Alicia and saw that she'd registered it too.

"Then I'll track you down," Jessica said. "Both of you. I'll climb in your window and we'll pack a bag and steal away into the night."

"Jessica will pack the bags, of course," Alicia said.

Jessica forced a smile. "Naturally."

"You promise?" Norah looked at her with an unusual amount of emotion. "You promise you'll come for me?"

Jessica extended her pinkie. "Pinkie promise."

There'd never been a promise that Jessica was more determined to keep.

Jessica barely slept. Judging by the way Norah and Alicia tossed and turned, they didn't either. The uncertainty of what awaited them made it impossible.

They'd witnessed Miss Fairchild's wrath when they'd said or done the wrong thing unwittingly—but this time they'd deliberately gone against her. Worse, they'd joined forces to do it. She'd probably been awake all night dreaming up new ways to make them suffer.

When the sun rose, they dressed in silence, and waited until the last possible moment before they removed the wardrobe from in front of the door. Then they marched down the stairs in gloomy silence, like soldiers going to war.

Jessica expected to find Miss Fairchild sitting at the breakfast table, straight-backed and furious, but she wasn't, though the table was already laid.

Norah sat. "Shall we eat?"

"Where is she?" Alicia asked.

Jessica checked the laundry and the bathroom. Miss Fairchild wasn't in either. After that, the girls went from room to room. But there was no sign of her. It was as if Miss Fairchild had vanished into thin air.