Two
When the sheriff came, Wayne took Naomi into another room, bought her a candy bar and a Coke. She’d never been allowed such indulgences, but she didn’t argue it. He got a first-aid kit and began to doctor the cuts and scratches she hadn’t realized she’d inflicted on herself on that long hike through the woods.
He smelled of Juicy Fruit gum—she saw the yellow pack of it sticking out of his breast pocket.
And she would always, from that morning on, associate the gum with simple kindness.
“Honey, you got a favorite teacher?”
“Um. I don’t know. I guess Miss Blachard maybe.”
“If you want, I could call her, ask her to come in, be with you.”
“No. No, that’s okay. She’s going to know. Everybody’s going to know.” It made her chest hurt, so she looked away. “But I don’t want to be there when they do.”
“All right. We got a nice nurse coming in to be with Ashley, to go with her when she goes to the hospital. Do you want somebody like that? Maybe who doesn’t know you.”
“I don’t want anybody. What’s going to happen?”
“Well, the sheriff’s talking to Ashley right now for a little bit, and then they’ll take her into the hospital in Morgantown and fix her up.”
“She hurt her ankle.”
“They’ll fix it, don’t you worry. You want a different kind of candy bar?”
Naomi looked down at the Snickers she hadn’t opened. “No, sir. I just never had candy first thing in the morning.”
“How about Easter?” Smiling, he put a Band-Aid on a small, deep scratch.
“That’s a holy day. It’s for praying, not for candy rabbits.”
Even as she echoed her father’s words, she saw the pity in the deputy’s eyes. But he only patted her legs. “Well. We’ll get you a hot breakfast soon as we can. You be all right here for just a minute?”
“Am I under arrest?”
Not pity now, but that Juicy Fruit kindness again as he laid a hand on her cheek, gentle as a mother. “For what, honey?”
“I don’t know. You’re going to arrest my daddy.”
“Don’t you worry about that right now.”
“I saw him. I saw him when he came out of that cellar in the woods, and he looked wrong. I was afraid.”
“You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
“What about my mama, and my brother?”
“They’re going to be fine.” He glanced over as the door opened. She knew Miss Lettie—she went to their church. But she’d forgotten she worked in the sheriff’s office.
Lettie Harbough came in with a red tote bag, and a sad smile on her plump face.
“Hey there, Naomi. I got some dry clothes for you here. They’re my girl’s, and she’s not as tall as you, and not so slim, but they’ll be clean and dry.”
“Thank you, Miss Lettie.”
“You’re more than welcome. Wayne, the sheriff wants you. Naomi and I’ll be fine. You can change right out in the washroom, all right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The clothes were too big, but there was a belt so she could cinch the jeans.
When she came out Lettie sat at the tiny table sipping coffee out of a big blue mug. “I’ve got a brush here. Would it be all right if I brushed your hair out? You got it all tangled.”
“Thank you.”
Naomi made herself sit, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to be touched. Still, after the first few strokes of the brush, she relaxed.
“Such pretty hair.”
“It’s dishwater.”
“No, indeed. It’s like deer hide, all the tones of blonde mixed up, and all sun-streaked now from summer. Nice and thick, too. I’m going to ask you a couple of things, maybe hard things, sweetie. But they’re important things.”
“Where’s Ashley?”
“They’re taking her to the hospital now. She asked after you, asked if we could bring you in to see her. Would you want to?”
“Yes, ma’am. Please, I want to.”
“All right. But now, I have to ask you if your father ever hurt you. I know that’s a hard thing to ask.”
“He’s never laid a hand on me or Mason. My mama gives out the hidings if we need it, and they don’t count for much. She doesn’t have the heart for a real hiding, so we pretend, all three of us. Because Daddy says, ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’”
“I never liked that one myself. The harder one is asking if he ever touched you in a bad sort of way.”
Naomi stared straight ahead while Lettie ran the brush through her hair. “You mean like he did to Ashley. He raped her. I know what rape is, ma’am. They raped the Sabine women in the Bible. He never did that to me. He never touched me wrong.”
“All right, then. Did he ever hurt your mama?”
“I don’t think so. Sometimes . . .”
“It’s all right.” In practiced moves, Lettie used a little band to pull Naomi’s hair back into a tail. “All you have to do is tell me the truth.”
“Sometimes he looked like maybe he wanted to hurt her, but he didn’t. If he got really mad, he’d just go off for a day or two. Cooling off, Mama said. A man needs to cool off on his own time. She didn’t know, Miss Lettie. Mama didn’t know he hurt people, or she’d have been afraid. More afraid.”
“People?”
When Lettie came back around to sit again, Naomi stared straight ahead. “Ashley said she thought she’d been down there for a day or two. There was more rope down there, and pictures. There were pictures on the wall of other women, tied up like she was. Worse than she was. I think some of them were dead. I think they were dead. I’m going to be sick.”
Lettie tended to her, holding her hair back as she hugged the toilet, bathing her face with a cool cloth when she was done.
She gave Naomi something minty to rinse out her mouth, brushed a kiss over her forehead.
“You’ve had enough. Maybe you want to rest awhile.”
“I can’t go home, can I?”
“Not right now, I’m sorry, honey. But I can take you to my house, and you can use the guest bed, try to sleep.”
“Can I just stay here until Mama and Mason come?”
“If that’s what you want. How about I get you some toast, we see how that settles. You save that Snickers bar for later.”
“Thank you.”
Lettie rose. “What you did, Naomi? It was right. And more, it was brave. I’m awful proud of you. I’m only going to be a couple minutes. How about some tea with honey to go with the toast?”
“That’d be nice, thank you.”
Alone, Naomi laid her head on the table, but she couldn’t rest. She sipped at the Coke, but it was too sweet. She wanted water—just cold and clear. She thought of the water fountain, rose.
She stepped outside the little room, started to call out, ask if it was all right.
She saw the deputy hauling her father across the room toward a big metal door. His hands were in cuffs behind his back; a raw bruise bloomed on his right cheek.
He didn’t look wild now, or upset or sorry. He had a sneer on his face—the sort he got when somebody said maybe he was wrong about something.
He saw her—and she braced for his fury, his hate, his wrath.
All she got was an instant of indifference before he walked to the metal door, and through. And away.
The room was crowded with people, noise, and something that sparked darkly on the air. She felt she floated in it, as if her legs had just gone somewhere else and her body hung suspended.
She heard words, disjointed, tinny to her ear.
FBI, serial killer, forensics, victims.
Nothing made sense.
No one noticed her, a gangly girl with eyes too wide, too bright in a face pale as a ghost, swimming in too-big clothes and shock.
No one glanced her way, and she wondered, if they did, would their eyes pass over her—through her—just as her father’s had.
Maybe none of it was real. Maybe she wasn’t real.
But the pressure on her chest, that felt real. As if she’d fallen from the high limb in the old oak tree out back and knocked away her breath. So far away she couldn’t get it back.
The room took a slow, sick spin, and the light faded. A cloud over the moon.
With Bowes secure, Wayne came out in time to see Naomi’s eyes roll back in her head. He shouted, and he leaped toward her. He was fast, but not fast enough to catch her before she hit the floor.
“Get some water! Where’s the damn doctor? What the hell’s she doing out here?” He gathered her up, cradled her. Gently tapped cheeks he thought looked pale enough for his hand to pass through.
“I’m sorry. Ah, merciful God. She needed food. I just came out to see about getting her something.” Lettie crouched down with a cup of water.
“Did she see him? Did she see me bring that bastard in?”
Lettie only shook her head. “I wasn’t gone for more than three minutes. She’s coming around. There you are, baby. Naomi, honey, just breathe easy now. You just had a faint. I want you to sip some water.”
“Have I been sick?”
“You’re all right now. Take a sip.”
It came back to her, all of it. Her eyes—what her mother called medicine bottle green—closed. “Why isn’t he mad at me? Why doesn’t he care?”
They urged water on her. Wayne carried her into the back again. They brought her sick food—the tea and toast. She ate what she could, and found it made the worst of that floating feeling go away.
The rest passed in a blur. Dr. Hollin came in and looked her over. Somebody stayed with her all the time—and Wayne snuck her in another Coke.
The sheriff came in. She knew him—Sheriff Joe Franks—because she went to school with Joe Junior. He had wide shoulders on a sturdy body, and a tough face on a thick neck. She always thought of a bulldog when she saw him.
He sat across from her.
“How you doing, Naomi?”
His voice was like a gravel road.
“I don’t know. Um. Okay, sir.”
“I know you had a hard night, and you’re having a hard day on top of it. Do you know what’s going on here?”
“Yes, sir. My daddy hurt Ashley. He tied her up down in that old cellar in the woods by this burned-out cabin place. He hurt her really bad, and he hurt other people, too. There were pictures of them down there. I don’t know why he did those things. I don’t know why anybody would do what he did.”
“Did you ever go out there to that cellar before last night?”
“I didn’t know it was there. We’re not supposed to go into the woods that far. Just to the creek, and only when we have permission.”
“What made you go out there last night?”
“I—I woke up, and it was so hot. I was sitting by my window, and I saw Daddy go out. I thought maybe he was going to the creek to cool off—and I wanted to go, too. I got my flashlight and my flip-flops and I snuck out. I’m not supposed to.”
“That’s all right. So you followed him.”
“I thought maybe he’d think it was funny. I could tell if he did before I let him know I was there. But he didn’t go to the creek, and I just wanted to know where he was going. And I thought when I saw the old place, and the cellar, maybe he was putting a bike together for my birthday.”
“Is it your birthday, honey?”
“Monday is, and I asked for a bike. So I waited—I was just going to take a peek. I hid and I waited until he came out, but—”
“What?”
For a moment, she thought it would be easier if she floated again, just kept floating. But the sheriff had kind eyes, patient ones. He’d keep those kind eyes on her even if she floated away.
And she had to tell somebody.
“He didn’t look right, Sheriff. Sir. He didn’t look right when he came out and it scared me. But I waited until he was gone, and I just wanted to see what was down there.”
“How long’d you wait?”
“I don’t know. It felt long.” She flushed a little. She wasn’t going to tell him she’d peed in the woods. Some things were private. “There was a bolt on the door, and I had to work some to push it, and when I opened the door I heard something like whimpering. I thought maybe it was a puppy. We weren’t allowed to have a dog, but I thought maybe. But then I saw Ashley.”
“What did you see, honey? It’s hard, but if you can tell me exactly, it’s going to help.”
So she told him, exactly, and sipped at the Coke even though her stomach jittered with the retelling.
He asked more questions, and she did her best. When he was done, he patted her hand.
“You did real good. I’m going to bring your mama back.”
“Is she here?”
“She’s here.”
“And Mason?”
“He’s over at the Huffmans’ place. Mrs. Huffman’s keeping an eye on him, and he’s playing with Jerry.”
“That’s good. He and Jerry like to play together. Sheriff Franks, is my mama all right?”
Something shuttered down over his eyes. “She’s had a hard day, too.” He said nothing for a moment. “You’re a steady girl, Naomi.”
“I don’t feel so steady. I got sick, and I had a faint.”
“Trust me, honey, I’m an officer of the law.” He smiled a little. “You’re a steady girl. So I’m going to tell you there are going to be other people asking questions. The FBI—you know what that is?”
“Yes, sir. Sort of.”
“They’re going to have questions. And there’s going to be reporters wanting to talk to you. You’re going to have to talk to the FBI, but you don’t have to talk to any reporters.”
He hitched up a hip, took a card out of his pocket. “This is my phone number—the number here, and the one at home I wrote on the back. You can call me anytime—doesn’t matter what the time. You need to talk to me, you call. All right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put that away safe. I’m going to go get your mama now.”
“Sheriff Franks?”
He paused at the door, turned back to her. “Yes, honey?”
“Is my daddy going to jail?”
“Yes, honey, he is.”
“Does he know?”
“I expect so.”
She looked down at her Coke, nodded. “Okay.”
Her daddy was going to jail. How could she go back to school, or church, or to the market with her mother? It was worse than when Carrie Potter’s daddy went to jail for two months for getting in a fight at the pool hall. Even worse than when Buster Kravitt’s uncle went to jail for selling drugs.
She’d be going into seventh grade in just another week, and everyone would know what happened. What her daddy did. What she did. She didn’t see how she could—
Then the door opened, and there was her mother.
She looked sick, like she’d been sick for days, and bad sick so it had eaten away at her. She looked thinner than she had when Naomi had gone to bed the night before. And her eyes were all red, swollen, and tears still stood in them. Her hair was every which way, like she hadn’t taken a brush to it, and she wore the baggy, faded pink dress she mostly wore for garden chores.
Naomi got shakily to her feet, wanting nothing more at that moment than to press her face to her mother’s breast, find comfort there, find promises she’d pretend to believe there.
But the tears just rolled out of her mother’s eyes, driven by guttural sobs. She sank right down to the floor, covered her face with her hands.
So the child went to the mother, gathered her in, stroked and soothed. “It’ll be all right, Mama. We’ll be all right.”
“Naomi, Naomi. They’re saying terrible things about your daddy. They’re saying you’re saying them.”
“We’ll be all right.”
“They can’t be true. This can’t be true.” Susan pulled back, grabbed Naomi’s face in her hands, and spoke fiercely. “You imagined it. You had a bad dream.”
“Mama. I saw.”
“No, you didn’t. You have to tell them you made a mistake.”
“I didn’t make a mistake. Ashley—the girl he had—she’s in the hospital.”
“She’s lying. She has to be lying. Naomi, he’s your daddy, he’s your blood. He’s my husband. The police, they’re going all over our house. They put your daddy in handcuffs and took him away.”
“I cut the ropes off her myself.”
“No, you didn’t. You’re going to stop this lying right now, and tell everybody how you made it all up.”
A dull throb filled Naomi’s head so her own voice sounded flat and hollow through it.
“I pulled the tape off her mouth. I helped her get out of the cellar. She could hardly walk. She didn’t have any clothes.”
“No.”
“He raped her.”
“Don’t you say such a thing.” Her voice pitching high, Susan shook Naomi. “Don’t you dare.”
“There were pictures on the wall. A lot of pictures, of other girls, Mama. There were knives with blood dried on them, and rope, and—”
“I don’t want to hear this.” Susan clamped her hands over her ears. “How can you say all this? How can I believe all this? He’s my husband. I lived with him for fourteen years. I bore him two children. I slept in the same bed, night after night.”
The fierceness shattered, like glass. Susan dropped her head on Naomi’s shoulder again. “Oh, what are we going to do? What’s to become of us?”
“We’ll be all right,” Naomi said again, helplessly. “We’ll be all right, Mama.”
—
They couldn’t go home. Not until the police and now the FBI cleared it so they could. But Lettie brought them all clothes and their own toothbrushes and so on, and made her guest room theirs—hers and her mother’s—with Mason bunking in with her son.
The doctor gave her mother something to make her sleep, and that was good. Naomi took a shower, put her own clothes on, tied her hair back, and felt more herself.
When she walked across the hall from the bathroom and cracked open the door to check on her mother, she saw her little brother sitting on the bed.
“Don’t wake her!” Naomi hissed, then felt bad for the sharp order when he turned his head to look at her.
He’d been crying, too, and his face was splotchy from it, his eyes red-rimmed on the outside, lost on the inside.
“I’m just watching her.”
“Come on out, Mason. If she wakes up, she’ll start crying again.”
He did what she said without arguing—a rare thing—and then walked straight into her, wrapped his arms tight.
They didn’t hug much anymore, but it felt good to have somebody to hold on to, so she hugged back.
“They came right into the house, and we were still sleeping. I heard Daddy yelling, and other people, and I ran out. I saw Daddy fighting with the deputy, and they pushed him against the wall. Mama was screaming and crying, and they put handcuffs on Daddy, just like on the TV. Did he rob a bank? Nobody will tell me.”
“No, he didn’t rob a bank.”
If they went downstairs, Miss Lettie would be there, so instead she sat down with her brother on the floor.
“He hurt people, Mason. Ladies.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, but he did.”
“Maybe it was their fault.”
“No, it wasn’t. He took them to a place in the woods, and locked them up and hurt them.”
“What place?”
“A bad place. They have to put him in jail for it.”
“I don’t want Daddy to go to jail.” The tears started up again. All she could do was wrap an arm around his shoulders.
“He did bad things to people, Mason. He has to go to jail.”
“Does Mama have to go to jail?”
“No, she didn’t hurt anybody. She didn’t know he was hurting people. Don’t go pestering her about it. And don’t go fighting either. People are going to say things about Daddy, and you’re going to want to fight about it, but you can’t. Because what they’re going to say is true.”
His face went belligerent. “How do you know what’s true?”
“Because I saw, because I know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore right now. I talked about it enough today. I wish it was over. I wish we were someplace else.”
“I wanna go home.”
She didn’t. She didn’t ever want to go back to that house again, knowing what was back in the deep woods. Knowing what had lived in those same rooms, eaten at the same table.
“Miss Lettie says they’ve got Nintendo down in their family room.”
Belligerence changed to a look of hope mixed with doubt. “Can we play it?”
“She said we could.”
“Do they have Donkey Kong?”
“We can find out.”
They didn’t have video games at home—or a computer—but they both had enough friends who did to know the basics. And she knew Mason dearly loved video games. It was simple to set him up in the family room with Miss Lettie’s help—and better yet when she hard-eyed her teenage son into playing with Mason.
“I’m going to make some lemonade. Why don’t you come in the kitchen with me, Naomi, give me a hand with that?”
The house was so nice. Clean and pretty, with lots of colors on the walls and in the furniture. She knew Mr. Harbough taught English and literature at the high school, and Miss Lettie worked for the sheriff. But the house looked rich to her.
And the kitchen had a dishwasher—which was her name at home—and a counter of snowy white in the middle with a second sink right in it.
“Your house is so nice, Miss Lettie.”
“Why, thank you. It makes me happy. I want you to be comfortable while you’re here.”
“How long will we be here, do you think?”
“A day or two, that’s all.” Lettie put sugar and water in a pot to boil. “You ever made lemonade from scratch?”
“No, ma’am.”
“It’s a treat. Takes a while, but it’s worth it.”
Lettie puttered around. Naomi noted she didn’t wear an apron but just tucked a dish towel in the waist of her pants. Daddy didn’t like Mama to wear pants. Women were supposed to wear skirts and dresses.
Thinking of it, of her father, hearing his voice in her head, made her stomach tie itself up again. So she made herself think of something else.
“Miss Lettie, what do you do at the sheriff’s office?”
“Why, honey, I’m the first woman deputy in Pine Meadows, and still the only one after six years.”
“Like Deputy Wayne.”
“That’s right.”
“So you know what happens next. Will you tell me what happens next?”
“I can’t say for certain, as the FBI’s in charge now. We assist them. They’re going to gather up evidence, and take statements, and your daddy will have a lawyer. A lot of the next depends on the evidence and the statements, and what your daddy says and does. I know it’s hard, but it’d be best if you try not to worry about all that just yet.”
“I can’t worry about Daddy.” She’d already figured that out. But . . . “I have to take care of my mama, and Mason.”
“Oh, baby girl.” Lettie sighed, and after giving the pot a stir, she came around the counter. “Somebody’s got to take care of you.”
“Mama won’t know what to do without Daddy telling her. And Mason won’t understand what Daddy did. He doesn’t know what rape is.”
On another sigh, Lettie pulled Naomi into a hug. “It’s not for you to hold everybody else up. Where’s your mother’s brother now? Where’s your uncle Seth?”
“In Washington, D.C. But we’re not allowed to have anything to do with him because he’s a homosexual. Daddy says he’s an abomination.”
“I knew your uncle Seth. He was a couple years behind me in school. He didn’t seem like an abomination to me.”
“The Bible says . . .” It made her head and her heart hurt, what the Bible said—or what Daddy said it said. No, she couldn’t worry about that now. “He was always so nice to us. He has a nice laugh, I remember. But Daddy said he couldn’t come visit anymore, and Mama wasn’t to talk to him on the phone.”
“Would you like him to come?”
Just that, just those words made Naomi’s throat slam shut so she could only nod.
“All right, then. When I take the syrup off the stove to cool, I’ll see about getting in touch with him. Then I’m going to show you how to squeeze lemons. That’s the fun part.”
She learned how to make lemonade from scratch and ate a grilled cheese sandwich—a combination that would forever become her comfort food of choice.
As her mother slept through the day, Naomi, for the first time in her life, begged for chores. Lettie let her weed the flower garden out back, and the vegetable patch, and put fresh seed in the bird feeders.
When she was done, Naomi gave in to fatigue, stretched out on the grass in the shade, and slept.
She woke with a start, just as she had in the night. Something, there was something.
She sat up fast, heart pounding, half expecting her father to be standing over her with a rope in one hand, a knife in the other.
But the man who sat in the shade with her on a summer chair wasn’t her father. He wore khaki pants and loafer shoes without any socks, and as her gaze traveled up, a bright blue shirt with a little man on a horse where a pocket might have been.
He had her eyes, that medicine bottle green, in a face smooth and handsome as a movie star, all topped with waving brown hair under a Panama hat.
“I fell asleep.”
“Nothing better than a nap in the shade on a summer afternoon. Do you remember me, Naomi?”
“Uncle Seth.” Her heart hurt, but not a bad kind of hurt. She feared she might faint again, though it didn’t feel the same as before, but everything felt light and bright.
“You came. You came,” she said again, then crawled right into his lap, weeping and grasping. “Don’t leave us. Please don’t leave us, Uncle Seth. Please, please.”
“I won’t, I won’t leave you, baby girl. I promise you. You stop worrying right now, because I’m here, and I’ll take care of you.”
“You gave me a pink party dress.”
He laughed, and the sound eased the ache in her heart even as he pulled a snowy white handkerchief out of the pocket of his khakis and dabbed at her tears.
“You remember that? You weren’t more than six.”
“It was so pretty, so fancy and fine. Mama’s sleeping. She just keeps sleeping.”
“It’s what she needs right now. Look how tall you are! Those long legs. Got ’em scratched up some.”
“It was dark in the woods.”
His arms tightened around her. He smelled so good, like lime sherbet. “It’s not dark now, and I’m here. As soon as we can, you’re coming home with me. You, Mason, your mama.”
“We’re going to Washington, D.C., to stay with you?”
“That’s right. With me and my friend Harry. You’ll like Harry. He’s in playing Donkey Kong with Mason, getting acquainted.”
“Is he a homosexual?”
Something rumbled in Seth’s chest. “Why yes, he is.”
“But a nice one, like you.”
“I think so, but you’ll judge for yourself.”
“I’m supposed to start back to school soon. Mason, too.”
“You’ll go to school in D.C. Is that all right with you?”
Relief nearly made her faint again, so she only nodded. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Miss Lettie, she’s been real nice. And Deputy Wayne. And the sheriff, too. He gave me his number so I could call if I needed. But I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“As soon as we can, we won’t be.”
“I don’t want to see Daddy. I don’t want to see him. I know that’s bad, but—”
He drew her back. “It’s not bad, and don’t ever think that. You don’t have to see him if you don’t want to.”
“Will you tell Mama? She’s going to want me to, me and Mason. I don’t want to see him. He didn’t see me. Can we go to Washington, D.C., now?”
He cradled her again. “I’m working on it.”
—
It took more than a week, though they didn’t spend even one night at Miss Lettie’s. The reporters came—the sheriff was right on that. And they came in herds and packs, with big vans and TV cameras. They shouted questions and swarmed any time someone went outside.
No one remembered her birthday, but she didn’t care. She wanted to forget it herself.
They ended up in a house, not nearly so nice as Miss Lettie’s, outside Morgantown. And FBI people stayed there, too, because of the reporters, and because there had already been threats.
She heard one of the FBI people talking about it, and how they were moving her father, too, to somewhere else.
She heard a lot, because she listened.
Mama arguing with Uncle Seth about going to D.C., about not taking the children to see their father. But her uncle kept his promise. When her mother went to see her father, she went with the FBI lady.
The second time she went, she came back and took the pills. And slept more than twelve hours.
She heard her uncle talking to Harry about how they’d change things around so three more people could live in their house in Georgetown. She did like Harry—Harrison (like Indiana Jones) Dobbs. Though it had surprised and puzzled her that he wasn’t white. Not exactly black either. He was like the caramel she liked so much on ice cream when she’d earned a special treat.
He was really tall and had blue eyes that seemed so special against the caramel. He was a chef, which he told her with a wink was a fancy cook. Though she’d never known a man who knew his way around a kitchen, Harry made dinner every night. Food she’d never heard of, much less tasted.
It was like a movie again, such pretty food.
They bought a Nintendo for Mason, and got her and Mama some new clothes. She thought she could stay right there in the not-so-nice house if Harry and Seth stayed, too.
But one night, late, on a day her mother had gone to visit Daddy, she heard the argument. She hated when her uncle and her mother argued. It stirred fear that they’d make him go away again.
“I can’t just pick up and leave, take the children away. They’re Tom’s children.”
“He’s never getting out of prison, Susie. Are you going to drag those kids to visiting days? Are you going to put them through that?”
“He’s their father.”
“He’s a fucking monster.”
“Don’t use that language.”
“A fucking monster, deal with it. Those kids need you, Susie, so stand up for them. He doesn’t deserve a minute of your time.”
“I took vows. Love, honor, obey.”
“So did he, but he broke them. Jesus Christ, he raped, tortured, killed over twenty women—and that’s what he’s confessed to. Bragged about, for God’s sake. Over twenty young girls. He’d come to your bed after he was done with them.”
“Stop it! Stop it! Do you want me to say he did those things? He did those terrible things? How can I live with it, Seth? How can I live with it?”
“Because you have two children who need you. I’m going to help you, Susie. We’re going to get away from here where you and the kids feel safe. You, and they, are going to get counseling. They’re going to go to good schools. Don’t put me in the position of telling you what to do, the way he did. I will for now, if I have to, to protect you and the kids. But I’m asking you to remember who you used to be, before him. You had a spine and plans, and a light.”
“Don’t you understand?” That terrible plea in her mother’s voice, that awful rawness, like a cut that wouldn’t heal. “If I go, I’m saying it all happened.”
“It did happen. He’s admitted it.”
“They made him.”
“Stop it. Just stop it. Your own daughter, your own baby saw what he did.”
“She imagined—”
“Stop. Susie, stop.”
“I can’t just . . . How could I not have known? How could I have lived with him nearly half my life and not known? The reporters, they shout that at me.”
“Screw the reporters. We’re leaving tomorrow. God, where’s your anger, Suze? Where’s your anger for what he did, what he is, what he put you and your kids through? What Naomi went through? I hope to hell you find it, but until you do, you’re going to have to trust me. This is the best thing. We can go tomorrow, and you can start building a life for yourself and the kids.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Pack. And we’ll take it a step at a time from there.”
She heard her mother crying when Seth left the room. But after a while Naomi heard drawers opening, closing.
Packing sounds, she thought.
They were leaving in the morning. Leaving all of this.
Closing her eyes, she said a special prayer of thanks for her uncle. She understood that she’d saved Ashley’s life. Now she thought Uncle Seth was saving hers.