Eyes of a Child (29 page)

Terri creeps down the stairs. Unsure of what will happen, afraid of what she will see. Knowing only that, this time, she must stop him.

The first thing she sees is her mother's face.

In the dim light of a single lamp, it is beautiful and ravaged, drained of hope. Her mouth has begun to swell.

Ramon Peralta steps into the light.

His hand is raised. Rosa backs to the wall. Her eyes glisten with tears. By now Terri knows that the tears will never fall; it is Rosa's pride that she endures this without crying. But she cannot stifle the sounds when he hits her, cries from deep within her soul.

‘Whore,' Ramon says softly.

Helpless, Rosa shakes her head. Her shoulders graze the wall behind her.

‘I saw you look at him,' Ramon prods. His accusation is sibilant, precise; Terri can imagine his whiskey breath in her mother's face. Ramon comes closer.

Watching, Terri freezes.

She stands there, trembling, ashamed of her own cowardice. No one sees her; there is still time to run away.

Her father's hand flashes through the light.

Terri flinches. Hears the crack of his palm on Rosa's cheekbone; the short cry she seems to bite off; the heavy sound of his breathing. In the pit of her stomach, Terri understands; her mother's cries draw him on for more. Rosa's lip is bleeding now.

‘No,
' Terri cries out.

Tears have sprung to her eyes; she is not sure she has spoken aloud. And then, slowly, Ramon Peralta turns.

Seeing her, his face fills with astonishment and rage. But Terri cannot look away.

‘You
like
this,' she tells her father. ‘You think it makes you strong. But we hate you –'

‘Teresa,
don't!
'

Her mother steps from the wall. ‘This is
our
business –'

‘We
live here too.' Without thinking, Terri steps between them. ‘Don't
ever
hit her,' she tells her father. ‘Ever again. Or we'll hate you for the rest of your life.'

Ramon's face darkens. ‘You little bitch. You're just like
her
'

Terri points at her chest. ‘I'm
me. I'm
saying this.'

His hand flies back to hit her.

‘No.'
Her mother has clutched Terri's shoulders, pulling her away from him. Her father reaches out and jerks Terri by the arm.

Blinding pain shoots through Terri's shoulder. She feels him twist her arm behind her back, push her face down on the sofa. Terri wills herself to make no sound at all.

‘What,' her father asks softly, ‘would you like me to do now?'

Terri cannot be certain whether he asks this of Rosa or of Terri herself. Can sense only that her mother has draped both arms around her father's neck.

‘Let her go, Ramon.' Rosa's voice is gentle now. ‘You were right. I shouldn't have looked at him that way.'

Terri twists her head to see. But she can only see her mother carefully watching Ramon as she whispers, ‘I'll make it up to you. Please, let her go.'

In her anguish, Terri senses her father turning to Rosa, sees the look on her mother's face. The look of a woman who has met the man she was fated for. Lips parted, eyes resolute, accepting her destiny.

With a sharp jerk, Ramon Peralta releases his daughter's arm.

‘Go,' Rosa tells her. ‘Go to bed, Teresa.'

Standing, Terri turns to her mother. Her legs are unsteady, but Rosa does not reach for her. She leans against her husband now, one arm around his waist. Two parents confronting their child.

‘Go,' Rosa repeats softly. ‘Please.'

Terri turns, walking toward the stairs. Knowing that, in some strange way, her father has accepted Rosa as a substitute for Terri. Her arm aches, and her face burns with shame. She does not know for whom.

At the top of the darkened stairway, Terri stops. She cannot, somehow, return to her room.

She stands there. It is as if, from a distance, she is standing guard over Rosa.

From the living room below, a soft cry.

Terri cannot help herself. The second cry, a deeper moan, draws her back toward the living room.

At the foot of the stairs, Terri stops.

Two profiles in the yellow light, her mother and her father.

Her father wears only a shirt. Her mother is bent over the couch, facefirst, as Terri was. Her dress is raised around her waist; her panties lie ripped on the floor. As Ramon Peralta drives himself into her from behind, again and again, she cries out for him with each thrust.

Terri cannot look away. Her mother's face, turned to the light, is an unfeeling mask. Only her lips move, to make the cries.

And then Rosa sees her.

Her eyes open wider, looking into her daughter's face with a depth of pain and anguish that Terri has never seen before. She stops making the sounds. Silently pleading with her daughter, her lips form the word ‘Go.'

In Rosa's silence, Ramon Peralta thrusts harder.

‘Go,' her mother's lips repeat, and then, still looking at Terri, she makes the soft cry of pleasure her husband wants.

Terri turns and slowly climbs the stairs, footsteps soft so that her father will not hear. Her eyes fill with tears.

Harris listened, impassive.

‘Did you ever talk about this?' she asked quietly. ‘I mean, with your mother.'

Terri touched her eyes. ‘No.'

‘Not at all?'

Terri gazed at her a moment. ‘A few nights later,' she said simply, ‘my father died. My mother and I never spoke of him again.'

Chapter
8

Terri dived for the yellow ball, flailing with her racket, and fell skidding chest-first on the green surface. It took a moment for Paget to notice; he was distracted by the flight of the shot she had hit, a laser forehand that flashed through the noonday sunlight and nicked the baseline, impossible to return. When he turned, he saw Terri sprawled on the court, laughing.

‘If you weren't left-handed,' Paget said with an air of petulance, ‘you never would have gotten there.'

Lying in a patch of light and shadow, Terri tried to look aggrieved. ‘I could have abrasions,' she said. ‘Maybe even contusions.'

A light wind stirred the pines surrounding the court and the grassy park of which it was part. Paget walked to the net and stood with his hands on his hips, gazing down at her. ‘I'm finding it easy to withhold my sympathy. In fact, I think I've been hustled.'

‘I would never lie to you,' Terri protested. ‘At least about tennis. I've hardly ever played.'

That was true, Paget guessed. Which only made his problem worse; Teresa Peralta was a natural athlete, with the reflexes of a cobra and no interest at all in losing. Paget's future in tennis did not look bright.

‘Get up,' he demanded.

Terri gave him a look, rolled on her back to inspect her knees for scrapes, and got back up to play. ‘Do you always lose this gracefully?' she asked.

‘Hard to say. I haven't had much practice.'

When she settled in near the baseline, alert and ready, Tern's intent expression had the trace of a smile. Paget served to her backhand, the weak point of the novice.

Terri's wrist flicked. The ball dropped over the net, landing two feet on Paget's side with a little bit of backspin. Paget got there quickly, strained to reach the ball and loop it back. His ball landed in front of Terri with absolutely nothing on it.

It bounced to the level of her eyes; Terri raised her racket, seeming to study it with a certain interest, and then casually batted it toward the spot Paget had vacated to return the shot before. For all the chance he had to get there, Paget might as well have been in Venice.

‘Tie,' Terri announced innocently. ‘What do they call that in tennis?'

Paget stared at her.' “Deuce,” ‘he answered. ‘They call it “deuce.”'

Terri nodded. ‘Deuce,' she repeated. ‘Thanks.'

The last recourse of the bully, Paget decided, was a killer serve.

It was the hardest thing for a beginner to master and the hardest to return. Preparing to serve, Paget called on the memories of youth, trying to reconstruct the perfect form.

He tossed the ball above his head, stretched to his toes, and brought the racket down in a savage arc that ended with a snap of the wrist. There was a deep ping; a yellow blur slammed past Terri's feet and skipped to the fence. She stared at it a moment and then turned back to Paget.

‘Lessons,' he said.

Preparing for his next serve, Terri's smile was grim.

Something had locked in; when Paget tossed the ball again, stretching to hit it, the serve sped toward Terri's backhand.

Quickly, smoothly, she turned to the side and swung. A low, clean shot, clearing the net by two inches, zipping past Paget before he could even think to be surprised. Landing on the far side of the baseline, a foot too long.

Terri stared at the ball in disgust.

‘Aren't you going to congratulate the winner?' Paget asked. ‘Jump the net or something, like the graceful loser that you are?'

Terri turned to him with an inscrutable expression. Then she slowly placed the racket on the court, bent forward, and performed a handstand.

To Paget's astonishment, Terri began to walk on her hands. She did that all the way to the net, turned around, and backflipped over to land in front of Paget.

‘Congratulations,' she said.

Paget stared at her, suspended between laughter and amazement. ‘What was
that?
' he asked.

‘I used to be a gymnast, till I was about fourteen. My mother was my biggest fan; I guess she figured it helped me get out of the house.' Terri grinned. ‘Elena still loves to watch me do it. So if we ever do have a kid of our own, she can tell all the other kids that her mom can walk on her hands. They'll think I'm terrific.'

Paget laughed. ‘
I
think you're terrific. In any position.'

‘That's for later.' Terri took his arm. ‘In the meantime, don't worry about yourself too much. You're really not bad at tennis.'

They picked up Tern's racket, collected the balls and racket covers, and traded them for the picnic lunch in Paget's convertible. They had resolved to set their worries aside and spend a day together; the fact that it was easier to do that by skipping work, when Elena was at school, only enhanced his pleasure. ‘It's not that easy,' he told her, ‘to be forty-six years old. Let alone to have an erratic backhand and a girlfriend who leaves palm prints on the tennis court.'

Tern's mouth flickered. ‘A
committed
girlfriend,' she amended, ‘who thinks you're sexy. At any age.'

They spent two more hours, picnic spread on the grass, talking about everything and nothing, watching mothers or nannies play with kids too small for school. It was easy to be with him, Terri thought, the sun on their faces, to feel the deep friendship she always felt when they had time together. Perhaps, in months or even weeks, she would know what had happened to Elena and to Richie, and then the pieces would fall into place.

Suddenly she remembered to glance at her watch. ‘I've got to go,' she said. ‘Another mom is picking up Elena, but I can't be late. The way things are, she'd think something happened to me.'

Chris smiled. ‘
Nothing
happened to you. But it was a nice day, anyhow. At least for me.'

The drive home went easily. Chris had a new Bonnie Raitt disc; they cruised in warm sunlight all the way to Noe Valley. Terri felt so relaxed that when she kissed Chris goodbye, she nearly promised to call him. Not even remembering the police could dampen her mood.

She was humming a Bonnie Raitt tune as she climbed the stairs to her apartment. But when she arrived, her door was ajar. A two-inch crack.

Terri felt fear on the back of her neck; it was a moment before she realized that she had thought of Richie, on the night she had found him inside. Another moment until she realized who must be on the other side of the door.

But when she pushed it open, it was not Monk who looked up from her desk, but Dennis Lynch. He gave her an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry,' he said pleasantly. ‘We thought we should do this when your daughter wasn't here.'

Terri stifled her anger. ‘I guess you have a warrant.'

‘Oh, yeah. Showed it to the manager already.' Lynch pulled the warrant out of his coat pocket and gave it to Terri, waving her to a couch. ‘Make yourself at home. We'll only be ten, fifteen minutes.'

Terri sat. From Elena's bedroom came the sounds of drawers opening and closing. ‘Find anything interesting?' she asked Lynch. ‘Like a drawer full of spare bullets? Or are you dusting Fisher-Price people for fingerprints?'

‘Just the usual routine,' Lynch said. He was watching a crime lab cop in a white jacket, perched on his hands and knees in a far corner of the living room, picking at Terri's rug with tweezers.

‘If you're looking for fibers from Richie's rug,' she said, ‘they're probably all over. I've been in his apartment, and he's been in mine. In fact, this particular search is a serious waste of taxpayer money.'

Except, Terri thought, if you want to frighten someone. And then it occurred to her: perhaps they were trying to frighten Chris, to see what he would do. Lynch, she saw, was watching her; he was not Monk's partner for nothing, Terri thought – his deferential mask was an act.

Another crime lab cop came from the hallway with Terri's gray suit. ‘We'll want to keep that for a while,' Lynch told her calmly. ‘We'll give you a receipt, of course.'