Stranglehold (16 page)

...
and it was impossible for him in that position. She saw the shit slide down his poor little skinny thighs and drop to the floor and it was bad-smelling, dark, abnormal, as though there were something foul inside him, something evil there
.

She grabbed some toilet paper off the roll and began to wipe him down, his legs and thighs, and he was crying harder now, so shamed by what he'd done, standing in front of her with his legs spread and shaking with tears and she was saying
it's all right, don't worry, it doesn't matter honey, let's just clean you up
, taking a wet facecloth off the sink and wiping him, rinsing it, wiping him some more, the cheeks of his butt, turning him around, the cheeks red, smelling his shit all the while and thinking that she had never smelled shit like this, it was as though someone had poisoned him.

When she touched him between the buttocks he screamed.

He jumped away, batting at her hand holding the facecloth. He turned and ran for his bedroom. She heard him fall to the bed and heard him sobbing in his pillow.

She knelt there, so stunned that she had to grab the edge of the sink to keep from falling to the tile floor.

The room had come unglued from the universe.

She felt suddenly adrift in an awful ice-cold storm made of sudden insight and a terrible knowledge. Knowledge like a cancer inside her.

It was as though somebody had poisoned him
.

Yes. It was.

And she knew.

In a single moment it all made sense to her. She saw into the pattern. She saw deceit. She saw evil. She saw a sickness that was almost beyond her imagining.

The nervousness, the stuttering.

His soiling the bed.

The nightmares. Of course there were nightmares.

He was living one
.

Her baby.

Even the goddamn crazy knee-chest thing made sense now. He was telling her something. He'd been telling her something all along.

How could she have been so stupid and blind as to miss it? As to not hear him asking for her help over and over, night after night, in the silent language of his body?

But no. It had been unthinkable until now. Unthinkable that Arthur would do this. Now—anything was possible.

Butt
in the air. Head to the pillow
.

She'd been there a lot more times than she cared to remember.

Hell, it was Arthur's favorite position.

You sick, cowardly, evil bastard
, she thought.

I'll get you for this one.

For this I'm going after you.

I swear to god I am.

She got up off the floor and heard him crying and found that it was possible to stand up and walk again and went to comfort her son.

He wasn't home and he wasn't at his parents'.

Which left the restaurant.

She could have used the phone but she wanted—no, she
needed
—to see his face when she told him. She wanted to be looking right at him when he denied it. She wanted to watch him squirm.

The Lincoln was parked out front. For a moment she considered ramming it. Arthur loved that car. Instead she pulled in right beside it.

She'd driven Robert to Cindy's house once he calmed down. It was still early and Cindy's daughter Gail was still awake, and Robert seemed to like the idea of being in the company of another kid right now. Probably he needed to forget it. To forget everything. It was obvious that Cindy wanted to know what was going on but she didn't pry and all Lydia volunteered was that she had to talk to Arthur right away. Explanations—if she chose to make any, even to Cindy—could wait.

It bothered her that he wouldn't come right out and tell her what Arthur had done to him. She supposed he was ashamed. But she knew it would be a whole lot better if he could get it out and talk about it.

"Does Daddy touch you?" she'd said. "Does he touch you back there?"

He shrugged. "I
dunno
."

"Tell me the truth, honey. Nothing that's happened is your fault and it's nothing for you to be ashamed of. But I think Daddy's doing something he shouldn't be doing and I think you and I should talk about it."

He just sat on the bed and looked at her. She gave him a moment.

"Do you think you can? Do you want to try to talk about it?"

"Uh-uh."

"No?"

"Uh-uh."

"Do you think maybe you'll be able to talk about it later, then?"

She didn't want to press him. Not now.

"I
dunno
."

"Will you try?"

"I guess."

She'd left it there for the time being.

She had Arthur to deal with. While the wound was fresh.

His bar was crowded. There was a country tune on the jukebox—something about the twentieth century being almost over.
Almost over. Almost over
. She saw him standing at the end of the bar saying something to Jake, his barman. Jake had been with him since the place opened and Lydia knew him and liked him. She also knew he was interested in her in a somewhat less than casual way. She'd caught his glances plenty of times.

Well, this would interest him too.

She walked over.

"I want to talk to you," she said. "Do you want it here or in the office?"

She knew what she looked like. She could barely contain her fury now that they were standing there face-to-face. He simply looked annoyed.

"God, Lydia. What now?"

"You want it here, then? Fine."

She was aware of Jake and of the customers on either side. It didn't matter a damn to her what they heard.

"Look, I know I was late. I lost track of the time. I'm sorry, okay? It won't happen again."

"I'll just bet you lost track of the time! What were you doing that you lost track of the time, Arthur? What were you doing
with my son
?"

He looked at her. Really looked at her finally. And saw in her face what she needed him to see. She watched it dawn on him.

"My office," he muttered.

"No, I don't think so. I changed my mind. I decided I like it here.
Or is Jake too sensitive to hear about
you
butt-fucking our son!
"

For a moment he looked as though she'd physically struck him. She saw Jake move away down the bar. Giving them space, being discreet. But the men on either side of them had gone quiet.

"You're fucking crazy!"

There it was. The denial.

It wasn't as satisfying as it should have been. She couldn't read guilt on his face and she wanted guilt. Just anger and outrage.

He was too damn good an actor.

She'd never known him.

It wasn't satisfying at all.

"I'm not crazy, Arthur. But you are, if you think you're ever going to see that boy alone again. I'm telling you—you'll never,
never
touch my child again, you perverted son of a bitch! You want to visit?
You want your fucking visitation?
You can have your visitation. You can come to the house and I'm going to be standing right there in the room with you to make sure you keep your goddamn hands off him, you bastard, and won't that be great fun for all three of us?"

"You can't do that."

"I can't? Watch me."

"Look, I never did anything to that boy. Has he said I did?"

Somehow he already seemed to know the answer to that one. She wondered how.

"He doesn't need to."

"Bullshit. He hasn't said a thing, has he? This is all some crap you dreamed up because you're pissed off over the divorce. If you wanted more money why didn't you just say you wanted more money? Why don't you just get the hell out of here and leave me the hell alone!"

"Glad to, Arthur. But you remember what I said. Never. Not once.
Never again
."

"I'll take you to fucking court, you crazy bitch!"

"Not if I take you first. You're a sick man, Arthur. You need help. I hope you get some. For Robert's sake."

She turned and walked away from him through the bar and out the door.

The cold air, at least, felt good.

Robert lay in bed and thought,
He promised me he wouldn't anymore but he did again anyway and every time he does he hurts me, like he doesn't care, Daddy doesn't care, like he just wants it I think there's something wrong with him, like it's crazy that he doesn't care if he hurts me or not, but if I tell he says he'll do to my mom what he did to that rabbit, and even though he was smiling he absolutely positively meant it, I know he did. I'm sure he did.

I can't tell. I can't make him stop.

I can't do anything right
.

I wonder what I did to him.

I wonder what I did
.

Bromberg was supposed to be the best in the area but that didn't mean she had to like him.

Or even think he was any good.

He sat behind his desk in the toy-cluttered room, wearing a cheap off-the-rack blue suit that made him look more like a balding, middle-aged bank teller than a child psychologist. The white shirt was imperfectly ironed and open at the collar. Patchy tufts of thick brown hair gave his neck an oddly mottled look. His glasses were bifocals. She could see the line.

Right now Plymouth seemed impossibly rural to her.
Smalltown
, USA. When she needed
experts
,
goddammit
!

But Owen
Sansom
said it had to be done today. At the moment she guessed the best in the area was the best she had.

"Your lawyer is aware of all this?" he said when she was finished.

"He's the one who told me to make the appointment. You and a proctologist. What we need is for you to talk to Robert and establish exactly what Arthur did and that Arthur was the one who did it. The proctologist he has to see for the obvious reasons."

"He won't speak to you about it?"

"No."

He frowned and sighed and leaned heavily across the desk.

"You know, he's not saying much to me either. We use a form of play-therapy here as you know and it usually opens them up after a while. A child gets relaxed, he normally starts speaking. But Robert's mostly been playing. Playing period. I got him to address how he feels about the stuttering and he's told me a nightmare or two now and then—though I honestly think he embellishes them—you know, makes up something he thinks might be interesting to just throw in there. Some fantasy. Unhelpful, to say the least. But nothing on soiling the bed and nothing on the diapering."