Birthdays of a Princess (17 page)

Chapter
40

When Dr. Eaton called Melissa and said he’d like to pay her a visit
on his way home, she got excited. The psychiatrist evaluating her daughter
wouldn’t call on her if there was no reason for it. Maybe Tiara was willing to
see her at last.

She called Louise right away.

 “I bet it’s bad news,” Louise said. “I bet Tiara has already been
saying bad stuff about you.”

“Like what?” Melissa asked.

“Oh you know, like you dragging her to all those pageants.”

“That’s not bad! She loved doing them. Every little girl loves the
attention they’re getting. Tiara was very competitive, she liked being on
stage.”

“Until she started losing.”

Melissa regretted having told her mother about the unfortunate phase
when Gracie had to stop Tiara’s pageants. “Well, at least she had a great time
with it until she was about ten. Which other girl gets to live the life of a
princess, I ask you?”

“Maybe they found out about the money you stole from Gracie.”

“Oh, stop it. Tiara never knew about that, so how could she tell?”

“In my opinion—”

 “Sorry, but I got to go now. Dr. Eaton will be here any minute.”
She promised Louise to call her back as soon as possible.

Now she waited. Lately she seemed to sit and wait for something all
the time. Maybe this time, things would move in the right direction again.
Since she had decided not to care anymore, she spent most of her free time
thinking about the past in an effort to avoid the horribly confusing present.
The good times with Tony, when he made her feel so special—as rare as those
moments had been—were viscidly covering the years before her departure from
Texas. Tiara, the epitome of her being for so long, had lost some of its
relevance in those years. Until Tony, Melissa’s whole focus had been on Tiara’s
career. Tony had managed to widen her tunnel vision. She had still been there
for her daughter, but only as much as Tiara would let her. The thing was, Tiara
was mostly distant, remote, liked to be solitary. Especially after Ike had
devastated Galveston.

As if that had been easy for her—stuck in the house all by herself
after Gracie and Tiara had left for their inopportune photo session—until
finally Tony had shown up, explaining that he had tried to call her but had
been unable to get through to her in this crazy storm. He’d been worried about
her, had braved the rapidly deteriorating weather conditions and had rushed to
her side. The moment she saw Tony, she was so relieved, so happy, she forgot
about the gale force winds chasing the rain heavy clouds inland, lifting
everything in its path that was not solidly anchored.

She was so happy, she even forgot all about Tiara and Gracie. Tony
dampened her euphoria somewhat when she tried to drag him to her room.

“It’s too risky, way too risky,” he said in a hushed voice, as if he
could be heard by anybody but her. “You want to make love at a time like this
in Gracie’s house? What’s the matter with you? Are you out of your mind?”

“Touch me, please,” she said, “down there, just for a few minutes.”

But he withdrew from her.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Even now, with the raging storm outside, he was more scared of Gracie
than of the force of nature. Of course, he didn’t have to persuade her for
long. If Tony wanted her somewhere else, she would go wherever he wanted.

“I’d love to take you up north”, he whispered, “out of danger, if I
could only afford it.”

The money stash under Gracie’s mattress had never been very far from
her mind. It still bugged her that Gracie would hide it from her, and the devil
must have whispered into her ear then.
Go and get some for Tony—and for
yourself. Go get it, it’s yours as much as hers, you earned it. Tony is your
future, not Gracie.

He was reluctant first, but she insisted, and when they found the
money bag and saw that it contained about twenty thousand dollars, he quickly
caved.

“Okay, let’s make this look like a break-and-entry.”

He started to knock over the lamp and bedside table. He smashed the
window in Gracie’s room and a few more things on the way out and made her come
with him.

 “Write a note explaining that I’ve come to pick you up to take you
north,” he said. “You got no transport.”

She did. She wrote the note, stuck it on the fridge with duct tape
to make sure it wouldn’t blow away from the gusts that were already rushing
through the rooms, searching for loose objects. She packed a small bag, terrified
that Gracie would suddenly stand in the door, asking what she was up to. When
they finally hurried outside, Tony left the house door open.

“The more damage there is, the more realistic it looks. That crap in
there is worth nothing anyway.”

Melissa was not scared of the storm anymore, she loved it. Tony
drove to the 45. When they reached the turnpike, it took them over half an hour
before they even got on the freeway, and after that it was stop and go. But go
they did, all the way past Houston, in pouring rain, with the wind so strong he
had to grip the steering wheel and use all his strength to hold the car against
the side drifts. It was wonderful.

They kept driving and driving. Soon after Houston, Tony left the 45
and took the Northwest Freeway to Austin. Traffic was no better there, and when
he saw the sign to Somerville Lake he turned off and drove along a few side
roads in the pounding rain, barely able to see. The windshield wipers couldn’t
keep up with the squally onslaught.

Finally he found what he was looking for, a narrow driveway with a
beat-up sign, pointing into the property. The cabin looked as rundown as the
sign. Tony knocked a few times before he broke the lock open. He couldn’t have
chosen any better. There was even food in the pantry, lots of tins and packets
of dried stuff, and the tap water ran clear and clean.

They stayed put in the holiday cabin for the whole duration of the
storm, enjoying its privacy and security as if it was a luxury hotel. Melissa
had the best days of her life. Every now and then, a tiny thought crept
virus-like into her bliss. Had she paid for this, for him, with the stolen
twenty thousand dollars?

A ringing sound stopped her from wondering again. Dr. Eaton! She
opened the door, taken aback by her visitor’s unexpected appearance. She had thought
he must be well over fifty to have reached the position he held in the medical
field, but he couldn’t be a day over forty. His voice however sounded a lot
more respectable and dignified than what his lean frame and casual clothes
mirrored. Or that hair. Either it was high time for a haircut or he was still
stuck in his student days. Snow-white curls hanging over his ears, really!

She felt caught when he moved one back behind his ear.

“So good of you to see me on such short notice. May I come in?”

“Of course, of course. I hope you have good news for me. Has Tiara
sent you? Should I go see her now? Is she getting any better?”

He sat down. “I’ve been appointed by Crown Counsel to do a full
assessment of her mental health. Any discussion I have with your daughter is
privileged, so I won’t be able to answer any of your questions regarding her. I
can tell you that she still doesn’t want to see you, but nothing else.”

“Then why did you come here at all?” Melissa asked bewildered.

“A comprehensive assessment includes interviewing essentially
everyone who dealt with her, anybody I think might be helpful.”

“You took your sweet time to contact me!”

“We are in no hurry to finalize the assessment. I have a better
understanding of your daughter now. An interview at this point in time will
most likely give me more insight than if I would have conducted one a few weeks
ago.”

Melissa became wary. This guy was slithery. He moved with too much
ease and elegance, had a huff of arrogance on him. He could probably talk himself
out of a snake pit with a smile on his face. His beady eyes behind those
frameless glasses alone gave her the creeps. Green like those of a reptile. Did
crocodiles have green eyes?
Creepy-Eaton.
She decided to say only what
was absolutely necessary.

“So what do you want to know?”

“You homeschooled Tiara, so obviously we can’t contact any of her
teachers—or her peers, for that matter—and you’ve never given the police a list
of her friends.”

“It’s because I can’t remember any.”

“Right. You don’t remember a single friend of hers. There’s also no
medical record. She’s never seen a doctor here in Vancouver? Not even a
dentist?”

“She’s a healthy girl.”

“Right. So it all falls back on your shoulders, and of course her
grandmother’s. I’ll contact her in due course to give me some insight into
Tiara’s character.”

Melissa bit her lip and sat up straight.

“You want to call Louise? She won’t be able to tell you anything.”

“Well, every little bit helps. If you can provide me with enough
answers, we may not need to trouble your mother.” He took out a notebook and a
pen. “Shall we start?”

She nodded, still biting her lip.

“Good, then. Do you remember Hurricane Ike?”

She stopped chewing on her lip, nearly laughed out loud, already
relieved. “Now, that’s funny. I’ve been thinking back to that dreadful time
just before you arrived. Why do you want to know anything about that?”

 “Do tell me what you remember. How did you and Tiara experience
this time?”

She was right, he was a snake. But he’d be disappointed.

“I often think back to the time when Ike hit our region.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t with my daughter then. We got separated in the days
leading up to Ike’s landfall, and I was taking shelter in a small village up
north. Sorry, Dr. Eaton, I won’t be able to tell you anything useful, I’m
afraid.”

“How come you got separated from her? She was only ten years old
then.”

“You’ve never been in a hurricane, have you? It’s a nightmare come
alive. People get separated all the time, because they suddenly can’t get from
A to B. Roads become impassable, phones don’t work, roofs of houses get blown
off, people can’t make it home. There are many possibilities to lose one another.
I was a good mother, I would never have left her alone if I could have helped
it. She was in the care of a…um, a friend, a trusted friend, when things turned
for the worse. I had to get out of the house to get to safety and could only
hope my friend and Tiara would be able to do the same. It was pandemonium. They
were saying the storm wall shielding Galveston from the ocean would crush any
moment and then all the low-lying land would flood. There was no time to waste,
for any of us.”

He made a note.

“I understand. You fled the area all by yourself. Did you drive?”

Stick as close as possible to the truth. “I went with a friend. I
couldn’t drive.”

He scribbled again. “It must have been very upsetting for you, not
knowing what happened to your daughter.”

“Oh yes, you’ve got no idea. I was frantic.”

“For how long?”

She frowned. What did he mean?

“I mean, how long did it take until you were reunited with Tiara and
the friend who took care of her?”

“Oh, that. Much longer than I’d expected. You see, the coastal area
did get flooded and the power was down in the whole greater Houston area for
about a week after Ike had blown through. Imagine, no air-con, no
refrigeration, no lights, no phones—for one whole week. I and my friend were
lucky to have found a safe place to sit it out, far enough from the
devastation. We had power there and watched TV nonstop to get the latest reports.
We tried to call every hour, but it took a whole week before we found out that
Tiara was also safe.”

“Did she manage to leave the Galveston area, like you did?”

Melissa thought about it carefully. What had Tiara told him?

“No, as a matter of fact, she didn’t. But they managed to find
shelter in a motel.”

Dr. Eaton looked up sharply.

“Tiara spent one whole week in a motel?”

“Yes, they got there just before the storm hit and couldn’t leave
any more. Nobody could get out, they were stuck there. At least, they were
safe. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have fretted so much.”

Did he understand that? He didn’t seem to grasp the agony a mother
would feel in such a situation. His face reflected disdain.

“I was beside myself with worry.”

“How was Tiara when you were reunited?”

Now they moved back to solid grounds. She could stick to the truth
on that one.

“Dear me, she was a wreck. Imagine, she’d never been away from her
mom for so long, and since Katrina she was always scared of storms. She was
frantic. When we found her, she didn’t speak for a month. She spent all that
time in bed, like in a stupor, and it took all my love and care to make her
better.”