The Word of a Child (34 page)

The police officer nodded, his gaze steady. He seemed to
know she wasn't done, because he waited some more. He was good at that.

"Mom always has boyfriends living with us. She won't
listen when I tell her they're staring at me or barging into the bathroom when
I'm in the shower or even … touching me. She says I'm imagining it."

"Are they all like that?" He asked carefully; she
could tell what he was thinking. That she just didn't like her mother having
boyfriends at all.

"No." She clutched the pillow again, even though
it was wet and probably snotty. It helped to hold something. "Not when I
was little. And this guy who lived with her for a couple of months when I was
in sixth grade was okay. But Jason was a creep! And the guy before him,
too."

"And you told your mother."

"She thinks I'm just trying to get rid of them!"
Even as wrung-out as Tracy was, it hurt to think about how her own mother wouldn't
listen to her. Wouldn't defend her. Having a boyfriend was more important to
her than her own daughter.

"Tell me about Eddie. Had you ever seen him
before?"

She shook her head.

"Did you get a good look at his face? Will you be able
to identify him?"

She nodded. "He turned on the light." That was
almost the worst part, that he'd wanted to look, that he'd made
her
look.
It would have been bad enough in the dark, but then at least she could have
pretended he didn't have permission to be in her bedroom.

"Tracy." Detective McLean's voice and eyes both
held a command. "Where was your mother while you were being raped?"

Tracy had to bite her lip savagely to dull the other kind of
pain. "In her bedroom. Like I said, she passed out."

"Before that. Did you hear them arguing? Talking?"

The light wasn't the worst part. This was.

She didn't know if she could tell him until she actually
heard herself speaking, her voice a small, dry husk of itself. "They
yelled. She said she wasn't in the mood. And … and he said she'd asked him
home, she owed him. She … she said he could have anything else he wanted. To …
to go find Tracy. She said,
'She's
not sleepy.'"

"Had he seen you?"

She gave a tiny nod. "I had a movie on in the living
room. I just had on some pajamas. Like, shortie ones. He … he kind of leered.
You know?" She shuddered at the memory. "And so I said good night
really fast and went into my bedroom and turned out the light and pretended I
was asleep."

"So you think your mother offered you to him." It
wasn't a question.

Her face crumpled. She hadn't thought she had any more tears
in her, but she did. He held her again, while her body shook.

Eventually he had her tell him everything that had happened.
She went through every word she'd overheard, then made herself put into words
what that creep had done to her. The anger she saw on the policeman's face
helped. Instead of making her feel worse, talking about it seemed to ease some
tightness inside her.

"Tracy," Detective McLean said finally, "have
you talked to your mother about this? Did you ask her whether she was
suggesting this Eddie take you in her place?"

"She says she doesn't know what I'm talking
about," Tracy said in a low voice. "She says she would never do
anything like that. She tried to make me feel bad for even thinking it. But I
heard her!"

"You know, I doubt very much that she actually meant
any such thing," he said.

A tiny spark of hope she had never let die brightened.

"I suspect she thought he'd ask you for a drink or
something to eat. It wasn't smart of her, but somebody drunk enough to pass
out—and black out—isn't what you'd call smart."

She swallowed. "Then … can I go home?"

He shook his head, his brow furrowed regretfully. "The
decision isn't totally mine, but I'm going to recommend you go into foster care
for a little while, at least. Your mom has some problems she needs to work out
before she can really take care of you. She's been putting you at risk by
inviting men she didn't know that well to live in your home and then being gone
at night, leaving you alone with them. Her drinking seems to be a problem. You
should have been in counseling to help you deal with some of the feelings left
by a rape. She needs to make changes so that you can feel safe at home."

Mostly what Tracy felt was this huge
relief.
She
loved her mom. The idea of going to live with strangers was scary. But she'd
told somebody, and other people would be helping her now. She didn't have to
bottle it all up until she thought she might explode into a million tiny shreds
of herself.

Her eyes damp with tears, she sniffed. "Okay."

After a short silence, he asked, "Was telling me so
bad?"

Tracy shook her head. "I wanted to. You're really easy
to talk to. It was hard not to tell you. But…"

"You love your mom. You didn't want anyone else to
think bad things about her."

She gave a small nod.

"You know," he said, in an odd voice, as if he
weren't totally sure of himself, "I'm thinking about not being a police
officer anymore. I may go back to college for a master's degree so I can be a
counselor for kids like you."

"Really?" she said on a rising note. "Could I
see you?"

Detective McLean shook his head. "It'll be too late for
you. We'll find somebody great for you to see. No, I just wanted you to know
that you helped me make up my mind."

"I didn't know…"

"Yeah." He tapped her lightly on the arm with his
knuckles. "It's a good thing, Tracy. Thank you."

Totally confused now, she said, "You're welcome."

He laughed in a friendly way and stood up. "I've got to
write a report about you and contact DSHS. A social worker will come to talk to
you, and she'll be the one to find you a foster home. But, listen—you call me
if you're ever scared or need to talk or hate the decisions that are being made
for you. Okay?"

She bit her lip and nodded. She thought maybe she really
could
call
him. In fact, she wished…

"You don't take foster kids, do you?"

"Not right now. And since I'm not married and you're a
young woman, I wouldn't be the best choice anyway."

"But I trust you." She flushed. "You don't
look at me like … you know."

"Most men won't, Tracy." He was frowning again,
but not as if he was mad at her. "Your mother doesn't have very good taste
in boyfriends, I'm afraid. I guess you already knew that, huh?"

"I don't think she really likes them, either. I think
those jerks are, like, the only kind of guy she ever meets."

"That may be. It also may be that they're the only kind
of guy she thinks she deserves." He let that sink in. "Some
counseling might help your mom realize she's worth more. She's a pretty woman.
She can do better."

Tracy nodded and took a deep breath. "Will you arrest
him?"

"Oh, yeah." Something hard glinted in his eyes.

It made her fiercely glad. "Thank you," she said.
"I mean … for everything."

"You're welcome, too." His smile was
so
cool—sweet
and gentle and friendly, as if he liked her. Looking at the closed door once he
was gone, Tracy made a vow. She wouldn't fall in love, no matter what, until
she met a guy like Detective McLean. He'd be, like, her
standard.

A knock came on the door, and Mrs. Farrell came in. She had
kind eyes, too. "How are you, Tracy?"

Tracy gave her a twisted smile that kind of hurt and kind of
felt good. "I'm okay," she said. "I will be." And she knew
it was true.

Zofie slept heavily
, her
face flushed and damp tendrils of hair clinging to her sweaty forehead. Mariah
sat by her bedside in the dim bedroom, too spent emotionally to slip out and do
housework or read or watch TV or even seek her own bed to doze until Zofie
woke, miserable again.

She dreaded the ringing of the telephone. Connor would call,
but she didn't know what to tell him.

She'd known from the beginning that she shouldn't date him,
shouldn't fall in love with him. How had she thought it would end? she asked
herself with a silent moan. She'd kidded herself that she was having a fling,
that Simon need never know.

A woman having a fling didn't bring the man home to meet her
daughter. Zofie was six years old; she had a big mouth. Sooner or later, she
would have told her dad that Mommy was seeing this policeman named
"Decktiv McLean, only he said I could call him Connor." Mariah could
see now that she'd been
asking
for Simon to find out.

That horrified her most. Had she wanted to hurt Simon that
badly? Subconsciously, was that part of Connor's attraction?

But she couldn't believe herself to be so cruel. No, she'd
fallen in love with Connor despite their past, not because of it. She had to
believe that if she were to salvage any self-esteem.

The question was, what did she do now?

She knew the answer and hated it.

She could not keep hurting Simon by rubbing Connor in his
face. What she'd done to him was bad enough without this final insult.

It was best, anyway, she tried to tell herself. Look how
she'd failed Simon, her love dying in the short course of their marriage. What
was to say she'd be any more constant if she married Connor? Assuming, she
thought with a wrench, he wanted any such thing.

Mariah buried her face in her hands. After this weekend, how
could she tell Connor,
Sorry,
made a mistake?

How could she not?

Zofie liked him.

But Zofie loved her dad.

The little girl stirred, and Mariah straightened, hastily
wiping her tears with her sleeve. But after a whimper, Zofie settled back into
slumber. Very gently, Mariah smoothed the hair back from her small daughter's
hot forehead.

Hadn't she told herself that she'd be content raising her
daughter and working? That she wasn't meant to share her life with a man?

Apparently that, too, had been a lie.

Finally, stiffly, she stood and tiptoed out of the bedroom.
It was only seven-thirty, but maybe she'd clean up the kitchen quickly and take
a book to bed. The way she ached all over, it could be that she was coming down
with a bug, too.

Sure,
her
inner voice jeered.
It's
called a broken heart. Or was it an inflamed conscience?

She was wiping the counter in the kitchen when the telephone
rang. For a moment she hesitated, wanting badly to let it ring, to go shut
herself in the bathroom so she didn't hear the message. She had a fleeting
image of herself as a turtle, pulling into her shell. And then she thought,
Zofie.
The
phone would wake her. Mariah snatched it up before it could ring again.

"Hello, Mariah," Connor said, in that calm, deep
voice. "How's Zofie?"

"Not feeling very well." She kept her voice down
and one eye on Zofie's bedroom door down the hall, left a few inches ajar.
"She has a 101.6 fever."

"And couldn't play her game."

"They lost. One of her teammates called. They missed
her in goal."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She bit her lip. "Connor…"

"I'm sorry about more than Zofie. I shouldn't have …
lingered this morning. I knew you weren't ready for Simon to find out."

"I don't think I was ever going to be ready," she
admitted. "I should never have dated you, Connor. It was cruel of
me."

Anger edged his voice. "I investigated your ex-husband
over three years ago. I didn't arrest him. I wasn't the one to accuse him. He
and I were not mortal enemies."