The Word of a Child (30 page)

"Yeah," he agreed laconically. "Mariah?"

Instead of sounding wary, she answered with warmth.
"What?"

"When does Simon take Zofie?"

"Right after work on Friday."

"Any chance we could have dinner Friday night,
too?" He held his breath. Damn it, he just had to push.

"You're not going to get sick of me?"

"I think about you all day," he said quietly.
"Whenever something happens, I think, I can tell Mariah. Or I see a mom
and child and start to turn, thinking, Mariah. I want to know what you'd say
about an idea. I want to know why you clam up sometimes, why you became a
teacher, why you so rarely mention your parents."

In the silence that followed, Connor thought,
Way to go. Tell her you've got it bad.

"Because we're not that close. But mainly, because they
didn't like Simon," she said unexpectedly. "I told you that. It made
me mad. I never told them why we're divorced. I refuse to admit they were
right."

"What?"

"That's why I don't often mention my parents."

"Ah."

"As for why I became a teacher, I guess I can tell you
Friday night. If you really care."

He heard the roughness in his voice. "I care."

"Why me?" she asked. "I don't want it to be
because you feel … I don't know. Responsible, maybe. The fact that I left Simon
was not your fault."

Wasn't it?
He
gritted his teeth against the uncomfortable reminder. He had thought Simon
Stavig was guilty as hell, and he'd tried to impress that on her. He'd wanted
her to leave her husband. And she was trying to tell him he hadn't influenced
her decision. "Nice try," he said.

From her tone, it was clear that her chin had shot up.
"What's that mean?"

"Different cop, you might have made different
decisions."

"So that's it?" She sounded stunned, hurt.
"That's why you're interested in me? Because—what? You owe me?"

"No." Now his voice grated. "My … sense of
responsibility is why I
shouldn't
be seeing you."

"Then why are you?" she challenged.

Because I'm falling in love with you. I
am
in love
with you.

"Let me count the ways," he said, almost lightly.
"The way your forehead crinkles when you think, and your chin comes up
belligerently when you're feeling defensive. Your expression when you look at
Zofie. Your eyes, green with little flecks of gold. The pink that touches your
cheeks when I embarrass you. Which, by the way, is easy to do," he added.
"Your intelligence, your kindness, your sense of responsibility, your
laugh. Your passion, and I mean both kinds. The sway of your hips and the swell
of your breasts and the way your hair smells. Should I go on?"

"No." She swallowed. "That was … very
romantic."

Damn. He couldn't tell whether she was genuinely moved, made
uncomfortable by him coming on so strong, or amused at his idiocy.

"Thank you," he said, still in a tone that
suggested he wasn't altogether serious.

Coward,
he
accused himself.

"So, what do you say to dinner?" He gripped the
cordless phone so hard the plastic creaked.

"Dinner will be nice," she said primly. "I'll
probably blush when I see you now, but then, apparently I do often."

"It's cute," he assured her.

She chose to ignore the less than staggering compliment.
"Simon usually picks up Zofie about six. Shall we say seven?"

"Deal," he said. "In the meantime, maybe I
can catch Tracy when she gets home from school tomorrow."

"I wish you would." This hesitation had a
different quality. "I just feel as if she's … fragile."

He knew exactly what she meant. Fragile in an almost literal
sense, as if the teenager would shatter at the wrong word.

Teenagers, unfortunately, had more options when they cracked
emotionally than they did a hundred years ago. Despite the Port Dare PD's best
efforts, a cornucopia of drugs were all too readily available. Teenage runaways
no older than Tracy sold themselves to sailors on the streets of Bremerton and shot up heroin in derelict buildings in Seattle. Locally a fifteen-year-old
high school freshman had killed herself with her daddy's gun just last spring.

Tracy
had
some powerful inner conflicts and no way acceptable to her to resolve them.
That put her at serious risk.

"I'll see her tomorrow," he promised. "I hope
you will, too."

"Okay. Good night, Connor."

"Good night," he murmured, and ended the call.

Tracy
, he
thought grimly, wasn't the only one having to deal with inner conflict.

The fact that I left Simon was not your fault.

Wasn't it?
he
asked himself again, and didn't like the answer.

Chapter
14

«
^
»

S
he
was
chicken.
She was.

Tracy
hated
knowing she was too scared to kill herself or run away or do anything but sit
here in class like a good little girl and then go home and lock the door and
huddle inside, praying Mom didn't ask creepy Norm to move in.

Today, she'd already done her stint in the school office,
writing late passes and calling on the intercom for students to come to the
office when their parents arrived to pick them up. Now she was in Integrated
Math 1, not listening to Mrs. Caproni drone on about graphing. But she
pretended
she
was, too much a chicken to be open like Renee in the back row who slouched in
her seat twirling strands of her hair and reading a comic book, the pages
turning with an audible whisper every minute or so. No, Tracy held a pencil
poised above the paper and followed the teacher with her gaze, even though her
dark thoughts were about a million miles away.

She'd looked in Mom's medicine cabinet yesterday, knowing
she took sleeping pills sometimes. The amber bottle sat there, half-full. Tracy counted the pills. Thirteen. Would she die if she took only thirteen? Or would she
just puke them up? Or—worst of all—wake up some kind of … of vegetable? She
could wait until Mom refilled the prescription, but that might be
months.
Mom
didn't take them every night.

Tracy
had
actually gotten into the tub one night with the butcher knife from the kitchen
and drawn the edge gently across the delicate blue vein in her wrist. But she
was just … practicing, not really doing it. She didn't press, and the knife
wasn't that sharp anyway. She felt the cold blade slip across her skin and
imagined pushing harder, until blood trickled and then poured. But she could
not do it. Her hand had been shaking when she set down the knife on the bath
mat. She'd buried her face in her knees and cried.

She didn't want to die.

She just couldn't stand going on like this.

Lying to the policeman when he stopped by, which he kept doing.
Avoiding Ms. Stavig's eyes, rushing out of her class so she couldn't stop Tracy and say something so kind she crumpled and admitted everything.

Every day Tracy went home more scared than the day before.
The past two days, she'd made excuses or slipped away so she didn't have to
walk with her friends and put on this big show of laughing and gossiping like
nothing was wrong. Alone, she could walk fast, with her head down, and think
about running away and how she'd find her dad, and he'd be so glad to see her
and he'd tell her that he had been writing and calling all these years, but her
mother never told her.

She'd almost made up her mind she
would
run
away when last night she and Mom got into this screaming thing, and she yelled,
"I hate you! I'm going to go find Dad!"

Mom yelled back, "Have fun visiting his grave,
then!"

Tracy
stared
in shock.

Mom's expression changed. "I'm sorry. I found out just
last week that your dad died six years ago. I should have told you…"

"You thought I wouldn't care?"

"No, I…" Mom closed her eyes for a moment. "I
wanted to find out more. I hoped he might have some life insurance or have left
something…"

Hurt and anger blinded Tracy. "He probably divorced
you. Maybe I wasn't his kid at all. How do you know I am? You like having a man
around, right? There were probably
lots
of men."

Mom slapped her.

"I hate you!" she screamed again, and ran to her
bedroom.

Mom didn't follow her.

Usually, since Mom didn't go to bed until three in the
morning, she didn't get up with Tracy. But this morning, she'd shuffled out of
her bedroom in her bathrobe, her mascara smudged black around her eyes and
foundation she hadn't washed off cracked and blotchy. Her hair was a rat's
nest.

"Tracy," she said wearily. "I'm sorry I
slapped you. You're just … pushing all my buttons these days. What's wrong with
you?"

This great dark howl rose in her:
I'm scared. I'm so scared, Mommy.
She had to turn her face away so her mother couldn't see her
expression.

She shrugged.

"Tracy, you are so hard to live with right now. I
shouldn't lose my temper like that, but honest to God…"

Tracy
set
her cereal bowl in the sink and gave her mother an insolent glance. "You
should have washed your makeup off last night. You look really bad."

Mom's hand involuntarily went to her face before she made a
frustrated sound, like steam shooting from a vent, turned and stalked back to
her bedroom.

Tracy
hurried and gathered her books into her pack and left for school.

She did not want to go home. But she was ashamed to know
that she did, too. Every time she thought about running away, she felt terror
and this great wash of loneliness. Her mother loved her. Tracy knew she did. No
one else in the world loved her. Mom was just drunk that night. She hadn't
meant it. They were a team, the two of them, like Mom used to say.

But they weren't, because Mom always had to have some man
there, too. And they were all awful. Tracy hated them. She'd been getting more
and more scared these past years, as her body changed and they looked at her
differently. She couldn't stand it anymore. The accidental brushes against her,
the lingering leers, the sly insinuations, all leading up to the footsteps that
paused for the longest time outside her bedroom door at night when Mom was at
work.

If Mom brought Norm home now… The point of Tracy's pencil
snapped off, as her hand tightened.

She could not stand it.

She had to do something. Dying should be the easiest, but it
didn't seem to be.

The bell rang, and she stood with all the other students,
shoving her binder and calculator back in her pack, her mind circling like a
trapped animal revisiting every corner of a cage.

Kill myself… How? Run away… But where? How to survive
without doing … it. She wouldn't! No matter what. Talk to someone. Tell on Mom.
No. Just go on… No! I can't, I can't! Maybe some friend's mom or dad would have
a drug in the cabinet… But I don't know what will work. Aren't there shelters
for teenagers? But somebody would send me home, I know they would. Talk to Ms.
Stavig. No! Survive another night. Pray something, anything, happens. Pray Mom
says, "I
know what you feel. I'll keep you safe."

Tracy
swiped
at tears and went to her next class, like a good little girl.

Friday night they laughed
,
talked and ate pizza with a thick, yeasty crust, a rich sauce and piquant mix
of cheese that stretched in rubbery strands and tasted divine. Then they went
to a comical British movie where they whispered translations of the dense Yorkshire accents in each others' ears.