HARD FAL (11 page)

“I suspect that was how she lived before you found her.” I like New Doctor’s voice. It’s soft and measured, feels safe. She said call her Helen, but I don’t call anyone anything—why should I? They’re here and gone so fast.

“Doesn’t make my job any easier. Seventeen placements. Some didn’t last more than a night. ”

“Why not?” New Doctor asks.

She’s got hair that is more than one color—most of it is dark, dark brown—Sienna, if I used my 128 Crayons to draw it—but there’s this streak of white down the front over one side that I can’t stop staring at. It’s like someone painted it. I like the idea. Wonder if I could paint myself—only I wouldn’t do it to make people look at me, I’d paint myself to blend in so no one could see me and then I could have peace and quiet without people always wanting things from me.

Social Worker, her red hair tied back in a scarf today, glances my way but I pretend to ignore her. Her voice lowers, the way it does when grownups want to talk about me but think I can’t hear. Just because I have nothing to say to them doesn’t mean I’m not listening.

“If there’s an adult male in the house, she crawls into bed with them. Naked.” Her voice upticks as if this is a Bad Thing.

It’s not. It’s natural. That’s what Daddy said. I can’t help it if these other, different, new daddies don’t know how to love a Baby Girl the way she should be loved. But at night when it’s cold and I’m all alone, I need Daddy. Even if it’s a substitute daddy.

“And she touches them,” Social Worker finishes. “It’s most inappropriate.”

New Doctor makes a noise like she’s sad. But she smiles at me so I know it’s not me making her sad. That makes me feel good, so I smile back. “Obviously, she’s been taught otherwise. Conditioned over years—it’s going to be difficult to retrain her to fit into society.”

“That’s why I came to you. My supervisor shared your research with me. Said you had pretty much retired? We thought—I mean, there’s no money or anything in it, but I could get you approved. And it’s better than Western Psych.”

“An institution is the last thing this girl needs.” New Doctor sounds serious. I realize she’s fighting. For me.

I pay more attention. If New Doctor likes me, can I trust her to find Daddy? It’s been so long, I can’t remember his face, barely his voice. I miss him so much. There’s too many people here, too much yelling and noise and touching. I don’t want them. I want Daddy. I want to go home where it’s just me and him.

“Any violence?” New Doctor asks. “Acting out besides the hypersexuality?”

Social Worker shakes her head, her ponytail bouncing. My hair used to be long enough for a ponytail, but one of the mommies at one of the new places cut it. Said it was gnatted and might give me lice.

“No. She’s extremely docile—would sit all day staring into space if you didn’t tell her to do something. First week she wouldn’t even use the toilet or eat without being given permission.”

New Doctor nods. She doesn’t say anything but she looks at me like she knows every secret I have. It doesn’t scare me—I have no secrets. I just want to go home. To Daddy. Anytime anyone asks me, I tell them. Because it’s the truth.

“I should warn you, though,” Social Worker says, staring at her shiny blue shoes that match her scarf. “According to our testing, she’ll always be Special Needs. Her vocabulary is severely limited, she can’t read or write, has no math skills, and, as best we can assess, limited comprehension. I doubt she’ll ever be able to be integrated into a main stream educational program.”

New Doctor watches me watching Social Worker and gives me a wink. “We’ll just see about that.”

“So you’ll do it?” Social Worker is so excited the scarf almost bounces free from her hair.

“It’s not up to me,” New Doctor says.

“I’ll get authorization—”

“No. That’s not what I mean.” New Doctor leaves her chair to kneel down in front of me. She doesn’t touch me except with her gaze. She looks me in the eye and I look back at her.

“June,” she says, her voice soft and gentle like the fuzzy blanket Social Worker gave me that first night. I take it everywhere, wrap myself in it, so much better than the tight, scratchy Dress Up clothes they make me wear every day.

“Would you like to stay here?” New Doctor says. “Just you and me? Here in my home?”

Hope warms me like fresh baked cookies still hot from the oven. Here? Where it’s so quiet and feels more like home than anything has since Daddy put me in the back of the van that day so long ago. It’s not
my
home, but…

“It’s up to you, June. Would you like this to be your new home?”

Stay here or go back to noise and confusion and no Daddy? “Yes, please.”

Chapter 13

LUCY BACKTRACKED ALONG
all the hidden, unmarked, unnamed roads she’d grown up driving on, avoiding going through Latrobe itself or up Route 981 even though that was the most direct route to her mom’s house. Part of it was making sure they weren’t followed; a lot of it was avoiding the inevitable: going home for the first time since her mom was killed.

She loved driving these twisty, narrow roads, many of them unnamed and unmarked. Loved the way they started out as gentle rolling farm lanes but then, with a single turn, ended up perched high on a mountain, overlooking the valley sprawling below. The trees were still barren, spring wouldn’t have them budding for another month or so, but as the storm front from the west caught up with them, just as the weathermen had promised, the lack of leaves served to open up the vistas even more, providing stunning glimpses of dark, high-stacked anvil cloud formations.

Finally she circled through the state park, passing the 1950’s era dam that towered over the Loyalhanna River to form the lake to the south. The house she’d grown up in, the only home she’d known before leaving for college, was up in the mountains beyond the river, surrounded by forest. The nearest house was almost three miles away. There were two state owned cabins a mile or so down a logging road, but, old, isolated, and in disrepair, they were rarely rented out anymore. Folks preferred the convenience of being near the lake with its recreation area and full service campgrounds including Wi-Fi and cell reception.

When she pulled off the two lane road that switchbacked up the mountain and onto the drive that led to her family home, a wave of nostalgia hit her, more like a tsunami crashing down on her, memories of all the hundreds of time she’d driven this way.

Her and Dad returning home with the perfect Christmas tree strapped to the truck; her mom and her coming home from the grocery store, their bags laden with ingredients to create the best Thanksgiving feast imaginable; the rustle of crinolines and smell of fresh flowers from her mother’s corsage after Lucy made her first communion; the fear in her mother’s eyes when they came home from the hospital that first time her father collapsed and the doctor had told them he had cancer; Megan in her car seat, not even two months old, that first trip up to visit her mom…so many memories of coming home and for each and every one Lucy’s mom was there to greet her.

Until today. Suddenly the pain in her leg was nothing compared to the knot of grief that tightened her chest. The gusting wind, driven by the approaching storm, swirled dead leaves across the drive in front of her as if stirring dire dregs in a fortune teller’s tea cup. Omens and portents. Or merely the weight of grief. She couldn’t tell.

Finally, the house appeared. It was a simple ranch design, nothing fancy about it except the gingerbread her father had hung along the porch eaves and a river rock chimney at one end. Her dad had died when Lucy was twelve, but before the cancer, that’s what he did: built houses. Not just houses, he’d say proudly, homes. But now the red bricks, forest green shutters, and cream siding all looked dull and faded compared to Lucy’s memory.

She pulled the MiniCooper to a stop in front of the garage and sat there. Seth climbed out of the back, his joints cracking from being folded into the small confines for so long, and helped June out. Still Lucy sat, staring at the front door. Family never used the front door; they went in through the always-open garage, directly into the laundry room and kitchen.

But today the garage was closed. Today no one was waiting, anticipating their arrival with a fresh pot of coffee and homemade pizelles still warm, the kitchen smelling of anise and cinnamon.

Seth guided June up the walk to the front door, supporting her with an arm around her waist. She stopped and looked back at Lucy, said something to Seth and he left her, reluctantly, Lucy could see from where she sat in the car, and returned to open Lucy’s door for her.

“Is it your leg?” he asked kindly. “I could tell it was hurting—those bumpy roads didn’t help, I’m sure.” As he spoke, he reached into the back seat and retrieved her cane and bag. He handed her the cane and took her elbow and before she knew it, he had her out of the car and standing once more. Funny to see a man whose opponents nicknamed him the Hawk capable of such gentle compassion.

Watching him with June, it shouldn’t have surprised her, but somehow it still did. As if there was an undercurrent of the aggressive prosecutor hiding beneath his domesticated demeanor.

“Thanks,” she said, handing him her keys. “The silver one will open the front door.”

He still held on to her arm, his warmth reaching her even through the layers of her clothing. “Walden told me about your mother. What happened. Thank you for this, this gift of shelter. I can’t tell you what it means to us.”

She looked away, unable to answer, and focused on the small green buds daring to show on the azaleas surrounding the walk. Soon they’d unfold into a riot of scarlet and fuchsia, announcing the arrival of spring. But no one would be here to see them bloom.

Seth squeezed her arm and returned to June. Lucy watched them climb the steps, cross the porch, and open the door as if the house belonged to them. Or they belonged there. She inhaled, the scent of the approaching storm cleansed the air. Then she limped up the path to the house that in her heart would remain forever empty.

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“MOM’S NOT COMING.”
Megan didn’t bother turning the statement into a question as she slid into the empty passenger seat of her father’s SUV when he picked her up from school. She tossed her backpack into the rear and settled in, knees folded, feet pressed against the dash.

“It’s her first day back to work.” Her father. Always taking Mom’s side of things. Like Mom was some kind of superhero out there saving the whole wide world. Megan knew better. Her mom couldn’t save anyone, not when it really counted. Her mom was just a mom—and not a very good one at that.

“First day of
light
duty.
Paper
work,” she said. Megan caught her father’s glare at her sarcastic tone but ignored it. “Do you have any idea what she’s doing today, Dad?”

“Yes. I spoke to her at lunch.” He paused, his expression a familiar one. His editorial look—the one where he decided how much to tell her and how much to keep a secret.

Megan was tired of people trying to protect her, treating her like a child. She’d been right there with her mom and dad two months ago when that man, that creep, that sonofabitch who murdered her grams, she’d been there—hell, she’d been the one to help bring him down before the cops shot him.

She’d protected both of her parents that day. Not her mom, the one who carried a gun and whose job it was to keep people safe. People like her grams.

If Megan couldn’t trust her mom, the woman who’d saved so many innocent victims, who’d stopped so many bad guys, if she couldn’t trust her to keep her family safe, then who could she trust?

No one. That’s who. She only had herself. Fine. Whatever. She could deal with that.

She tightened her arms wrapped around her knees. “You have no clue what Mom was doing today.”

Her father turned to glare at her. “Don’t you use that tone of voice with me, young lady.”

“I’m just telling you the truth.” She straightened her legs and sat up straight. They stopped at a red light and she took the opportunity to pull her phone out. “Look. This is Mom’s so-called desk duty. She lied. To both of us.”

For a psychologist her dad had a piss-poor poker face. He watched the video of the crazy motorcycle dude crashing into two men then snatching up a pregnant woman and her mom driving after him—off the side of a hill!

Frustration, fear, and anger all took a turn but finally he just looked sad. Disappointed. The look Megan dreaded ever being on the receiving end of.

“She had no choice,” he said, facing forward as the light turned green. “That pregnant girl could have been hurt.”

“She always has a choice,” Megan interrupted before he could tell her—again—how important Mom’s job was, how she did what she did to save lives. What about their lives? What about Mom’s? “Isn’t that what you’re both always telling me? To think things through, make good decisions.”

His mouth twisted at that, ring finger drummed against the steering wheel. Wow, he really was pissed off this time. Megan leaned back again, satisfied that her dad finally saw how out of control her mom was.

“Megan. You can’t jump to conclusions and get angry at your mom without even—”

“Even hearing her side of things? Explaining why it’s okay when she goes risking her life? Maybe getting hurt. Again. Maybe she has her reasons. Who knows? She’s not answering her phone. At least not when I tried.” She flounced back in her seat. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”