The Railroad (9 page)

Without preamble I brought out a bottle of wine I’d bought. It seemed very companionable on the surface, but actually gave me the chance to drink. “This is very good. From the south side of the slopes. An excellent year.” I placed it before her and watched as her eyes shifted from serious to amused; it was a popular jug wine.

“Should we let it breath?” she asked, taking her part in the game.

“It might improve the nose. And bring out the nutty highlights and vanilla sub notes.”

She laughed and it was a pleasant sight to see her face flush. It occurred to me that Eileen might be one of those women who seemed attractive but ordinary at first and then started to shift into high gear; I’d met women like that before. I poured two drinks, using my best jelly glasses. “No stems,” I told her. “It ruins the tannin.”

“I think I read that in a magazine.”

As we sipped I caught Megan watching us out of the corner of my eye; she seemed fascinated by the exchange. I raised my glass in salute. “To letting it all go,” I toasted.

“As best as we can.” She drained her glass and placed it in front of me, asking for another.

The bottle was half gone when Megan announced that dinner was ready. I helped her bring the plates to the table and got her some grape juice. “Do you like this?” I asked her.

She nodded and kept looking at me as if I held the answer to some mysterious aspect of her existence. We ate in mostly awkward silence punctuated by my occasional attempt to draw Megan out in conversation. I wasn’t very successful.

Eventually Mom got sick of Megan’s behavior. “Mike is talking to you, Megan.”

She looked at her mother for a moment and then began to hum. I was reminded of a weekend with my sister and her kids many years ago. Jeff Jr. had not wanted me to be there because it robbed him of a weekend of baseball. At the age of seven he didn’t have much recourse except to be hostile. He’d spent most of the weekend humming the theme song to one of his children’s programs, over and over. I suppose he might have watched his mother grind her husband down and had taken it up as a promising tactic. By the third day I hated the little shit and I suggested, not too nicely, that maybe he didn’t really need to spend the whole weekend with Uncle Mike. Once he returned to the baseball diamond down the street, things got much better.

“Stop humming, Megan,” her mother said sternly.

The humming got a little louder.

“Megan, I told you to stop.”

At that Megan put her hands over her ears, the better to hear her musical virtuosity.

Eileen stole a panicked glance at me. I just smiled as if this was run of the mill for chez Moosehead. We sat there for a couple of minutes. I assumed the plan was to wait until Megan got tired of the game and stopped. But she didn’t. I could see a flush creeping into Eileen’s face and I felt my teeth clench in anticipation of the explosion.

It came, as expected, from Eileen. “I said shut up, damn it!”

Megan rocked back and stared, wide-eyed, at her mother. Then she began to cry.

Oh shit
, I thought.

In seconds, Eileen had left her chair and scooped her daughter up. “I’m sorry baby. I’m just so tired and you know what noise does to Mommy.”

“I want to go to Grandma’s!” the little girl sobbed. “Can’t we go?”

“Honey. I would like nothing better. But we can’t. You know that.” She turned to me. “Look, Megan. Mike is a nice man. I know he’ll take good care of us. He’ll get you Funny Bones.”

I had to stop my face from showing my reaction. I had tasted a Funny Bone only two years earlier at my niece’s urging. I had loved them as a child but they had become disgusting somewhere between the age of 10 and 35.

Instead I smiled. “Megan, we can get Funny Bones if you’d like.”

She gave me a
screw you
look and leaned into her mother, burying her face.

After we’d devoured some chocolate chip cookies, Megan's eyelids began to droop. “Megan, I think it’s time for you to go to bed.”

The child shook her head and I got the feeling that she wanted to stay with her mother just in case something bad happened. I knew she didn’t trust me but, knowing her circumstances, I couldn’t quite bring myself to resent it. “Are you coming too?” she asked her mother.

“I’m not really sleepy, though I think Mike probably has things to do.”

“It’s up to you. I’ll be up for a while.”

“It’s time for bed, Mommy,” Megan said insistently.

“Okay honey. I’ll tuck you in and sing you a song. We’ll see if that makes me sleepy.”

“I want you to be sleepy, Mommy.”

Her mother’s eyes closed for a second and I thought she was reflecting on the circumstances that brought her to my house. “I’ll do my best.”

With a quick smile for me, she took her daughter into the guest room. I heard muffled conversation for a while, with an occasional sharp word coming from Megan. I continued to work at the wine, letting my anger simmer. At that moment I wished they’d both go to sleep so I could be alone and indulge myself in something a bit stronger and better than cheap wine.

By the time Eileen came out I had gone to the living room and was watching some biography program. It had occurred to me that it might be politically correct for me to go to bed and relieve Eileen of any obligation to come out and talk to me. As it turned out she went into the kitchen and got her glass. Sitting beside me, she poured another drink out of the bottle I’d brought into my “Better Homes and Gardens” living room. Taking her first few sips, she watched someone else’s life march by her on the screen, saying nothing.

“I assume she’s asleep,” I ventured.

“Yes. That’s one good thing about being her age. You sleep deeply.”

“I don’t want her to be frightened.”

“She won’t be. She can call me if she wakes up, but very little wakes her up once she falls asleep.”

She hadn’t come back out just to be polite. She needed to be near an adult; she needed the company. I suddenly felt a sinking feeling of sympathy for her. “Well we’re not going anywhere,” I said lamely. “I hope she feels comfortable here.”

“As much as she can. I realize that she’s acted a little strangely since she’s gotten here, but that’s not the way she usually is. Or the way she was when she was younger.”

She didn’t look my way, but I knew she was bringing up THE subject. “Things have been hard for you?” I prompted, immediately regretting it and hoping that she might want to spare me the details.

She poured herself another good splash of wine and gave me a hard look. “I think I’d feel more comfortable if things were out in the open. I’m here because my husband has been sexually abusing Megan. It took a while for her to admit it, but it seems pretty conclusive. “

“Forgive me for asking, but isn’t there any legal recourse?”

She grimaced. “It seemed that way. You’d expect there’d be an investigation and people trying to find the truth. But there are lawyers and continuances and evidence and expert witnesses and endless bullshit. And the result is that the judge in his infinite lack of wisdom has granted joint custody with unsupervised visits with my husband and Megan.”

I was shocked but tried not to show it. “Wasn’t there evidence?”

She smiled a death mask smile. “Of course. The doctor’s report shows bruising in
that
area. It showed a non-specific vaginitis. It showed tearing and bleeding. But do you know that there are so called reasonable explanations for that kind of trauma in a seven year old girl? That’s what the expert witnesses say. Little girls run and jump on playground equipment. Some girls are sexually precocious even at a young age. They touch themselves. They are experimental…”

“So you’re saying that these people think that she could have caused this herself?”

She breathed hard, in and out, calming herself. “No, Mike. They don’t think this. They simply can present it as a theory in court and it creates some kind of reasonable doubt. How likely is this to happen? Not very. Even the defense attorneys will admit it. But it’s part of medical record and so…”

She slammed down her glass; she was clearly getting sloppy and tired as the wine did its work. “What you have to realize,” she continued, “is that most people don’t want to believe this kind of thing is possible. It’s much easier to believe that this is a freak occurrence and that it won’t be happening where they live than to believe that this is simply an ugly part of life. That’s what the jury thought. Bob’s lawyers did what they could to make the jury believe I was a crazy woman telling tales of the unthinkable. Who could come up with such a story?  Most people are so uncomfortable that they are angry at me for being the messenger. It has to be my fault.”

Her anger was beginning to disturb me. I found myself beginning to join the members of that club she was describing; I was getting uncomfortable. This
did
sound crazy. And yet here she was in my house and, looking at her, I couldn’t see her lying from some ulterior motive.

Her world had been destroyed and she was dragging her child through hell.

“So I guess you’re in the right place then,” I said finally.

“I hope so.”

We sat in a silence that was more than uncomfortable. I tried to concentrate on the news but I found I couldn’t. “Would you like some cocoa?” I asked, trying to break the tension.

“Yes. That sounds like a good idea.”

I busied myself in the kitchen guiltily enjoying my moment away from Eileen and her troubles.
Two days
, I told myself
. Then she’s gone and I’m back to my routine
. As bad as it was, it wasn’t as bad as what she was bringing into my house.

I came out with the cocoa and put it on the table. “I put milk in yours before I realized what I was doing. Is that okay?”

“I like it with milk. It’s so cold today. Megan hates the cold.”

“I can turn up the heat here if you like. I never put a lot of time into insulating the house.”

“No. Just some blankets.” She sipped her cocoa. “Oh god, that’s good. I don’t think I’ve had cocoa for years. I’ve been so cold.” She took another sip. “This feels good.”

And then she was crying softly which turned quickly into violent sobbing and shivering. I grabbed the cocoa from her hand and laid it on the coffee table. I watched her cry for a moment before I sat down and put my arm stiffly around her. We sat that way, awkwardly. My hand felt like a dead weight on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said between sobs and the clenching of her teeth. “I was just so cold.”

*

The next day dawned to the sound of a scream. Not a horror movie scream, but the scream of an angry, bratty child. I rolled over and looked at the clock: 8:45 A.M. I sighed. Eileen and I had been up relatively late and the wine hadn’t helped. I wondered how her head was feeling.

After a few more outbursts, it became obvious that sleep would be denied me. I stumbled up and pulled on some jeans and a turtleneck shirt. Shuffling into the kitchen I saw a red-faced Megan and an exasperated Eileen. “What’s wrong?” I plunked down into one of the kitchen chairs with a bit too much force.

“I want my Fruit Loops!” Megan spat.

“We’re staying with Mike and he doesn’t have any. You're being very rude!”

“I can get some Fruit Loops,” I said softly.

Neither of them seemed to hear me. “I don’t care!” Megan shrieked. “I can’t have anything I want. We have to go away. That’s all you ever say. I hate you!!”

I could see Eileen bite back an angry salvo and it occurred to me that this wasn’t about Fruit Loops at all. “We’ve talked about this honey. We need to go away. You know why.”

“I know that
you
want to go away.”

“You know we have to go. I’ve
explained
it.”

“Then why can’t we go to Grandma’s. She always has good stuff to eat. And she has toys for me. There are no toys here.” Then she started to cry.

“Hello,” I said a little louder. “I can get Fruit Loops.”

But Eileen was already hugging her daughter. “I’m sorry, Mike. I guess this is part of the package with us. We weren’t always this way.” She got a good look at me. “Oh, no! We woke you up! I’m so sorry.” She seemed on the verge of crying herself.

“I can always go back to sleep. Do you really want Fruit Loops, Megan? All I have to do is run down to the store.”

She looked the question at her mother who sighed and picked up her pocketbook from the kitchen table. “Look, here’s some money. I’ll make a list. At least if she has what she wants, she won’t be so angry and maybe you can sleep.”

“No money needed. Remember I worked on the street for years.” I smiled, trying to keep it light.

“I know, but we’re imposing on you already.”

“Just give me the list. We can work all this out later. And I wouldn’t mind something to eat myself. Are you guys interested in McDonald’s breakfast?”

At that, Megan perked up. “Sausage McMuffin,” she said quickly.

Her mother looked aghast. “Megan! You’re being really rude. You ask Mike nicely for what you want.”