Eyes of a Child

by Richard North Patterson

  ‘Tell me what it was,’ Terri said softly, ‘and maybe you won’t feel alone.’

  The little girl watched her face, afraid to look away. Her mouth opened once, closed, and then opened again.

  ‘Yes, sweetheart?’

  Swallowing, Elena said softly, ‘Daddy was here.’

  ‘In the dream?’

  Elena nodded. ‘I saw him.’

  Terri wondered what to say. ‘It was a dream, Elena. Daddy’s dead now. He died in an accident.’

  Slowly, Elena shook her head, and then tears began again, ragged and shuddering.

  ‘What happened?’ Terri asked.

  Elena clutched her mother’s nightdress with both hands, voice suddenly higher. ‘I was scared, Mommy.’

  ‘Why?’

  Elena’s lips trembled. Half choking, she whispered, ‘He was going to hurt the little girl.’

  Terri felt her skin go cold. In a calm voice, she asked, ‘How?’

  Elena looked away. Her voice was small and shamed. ‘He was going to take her panties off.’

  Terri felt herself swallow. ‘What else was Daddy going to do?’

  ‘Touch her.’ The little girl’s face twisted. ‘It was just their secret.’

  Terri stared at her. ‘Why is it a secret?’

  ‘Daddy feels lonely. Sometimes he needs a girl.’ Elena looked into her mother’s face. ‘To put his peepee in her mouth and feel better. Because he’s all alone now.’

  Terri’s sudden rage was almost blinding. ‘Did he do anything else to you?’

  ‘That’s all, Mummy.’ Elena’s eyes shut, as if at what she saw on her mother’s face. ‘But he let me light the candles for him. To make it special.’

  Terri pulled her daughter close.

  She did not know how long she held Elena. Terri asked her nothing more; through her grief and shock and impotent anger, Terri knew that she should not push her. It was some time before Terri realized that she, too, was crying – silently, so that Elena could not hear her.

  Perhaps, the reasoning part of Terri felt with pitiless shame, she had always known this. Perhaps she had simply chosen not to believe it, with the same preconditioned numbness that had protected her since the first day that she discovered, as a child smaller than Elena, that to know Ramon Peralta was to know a fear she could not endure. So that she, Ramon’s daughter, was able blindly to live with a man who could do this to her own daughter.

  ‘Elena Rosa,’ Terri murmured at last. ‘How I wish you could have told me.’

  Elena seemed to shudder. In a thin voice, she said, ‘I did tell.’

  Through her grief, Terri looked at Elena in confusion. ‘Who? Dr Harris?’

  Elena shook her head. ‘No, Mommy.’ The child paused, as if afraid, and then whispered, ‘I told Grandma.’

  Terri felt the child’s tremor as her own. It was a moment before she spoke again. ‘When, Elena?’

  ‘A long time ago.’ Elena’s voice grew firmer now. ‘Before Chris murdered Daddy.’

  Christopher Paget stared at the bedside clock.

  The illuminated dial read 10:45. He could not sleep; relief warred with confusion, pain over Carlo with sadness about Terri, hope with a deeper sense of loss. Before the trial, he would have known whom to call.

  Impulsively, Paget picked up the telephone and dialed.

  He lay back on the bed, staring at the darkness above him, listening to the phone ring in Terri’s small apartment.

  ‘Hello?’

  A woman’s voice, but wrong. Paget considered hanging up. And then he asked, ‘Is this the Peralta residence?’

  ‘It is. But this is Terri’s neighbor. Terri’s not in right now.’

  Paget hesitated, surprised. ‘This is Chris Paget,’ he said. ‘I was expecting to hear from her tonight.’

  A moment’s silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said. ‘But Terri had some emergency. She was too distracted to say what. As soon as Elena was asleep, she rushed out the door. She didn’t know when she’d be back.’

  Paget sat up. ‘Do you know where she went?’

  Another pause, the sound of reluctance. ‘She’s at her mother’s,’ the woman said.

  Chapter 4

  Terri banged on the door.

  Her mother’s porch was shadowed, and the house was dark. The only sounds were Tern’s fist slamming the door, her arrhythmic breathing. The drive to Rosa’s had seemed like the last moments of a drunken evening, fractured images in the subconscious. Her thoughts felt more dangerous than clear.

  Light came from inside, the soft sudden glow of someone switching on a lamp. Terri’s fist froze in the air. She imagined, but did not hear, her mother’s footsteps.

  In the window beside the door, someone drew aside a curtain, fingernails scraping glass. The curtain closed again, and then Terri heard the rattle of a latch and chain.

  The door opened. ‘Teresa,’ her mother said softly.

  In the doorway, Terri could not see Rosa’s face. Slowly, her mother drew aside, stepping back into the house.

  Terri entered. Like an automaton, she turned and locked the door behind her, facing Rosa. Neither spoke.

  The room was dark. Only the stairway light was on. But Terri knew the house by touch. Without looking, she reached behind her and found the light switch beside the door.

  Her mother was in a robe and nightgown, her hair down as Terri had not seen it for years. Without her makeup she looked older and harsher, her face that of an Aztec statue. Her deep black eyes seemed beyond surprise.

  Rosa stared into her daughter’s face. ‘Elena,’ she said simply.

  Silent, Terri nodded.

  ‘So you know,’ Rosa’s voice was quiet and clear. ‘Did she tell you about the candlelight, Teresa? That’s how she knew that Richie meant it to be a special night.’

  All at once, Terri felt a calm, cold clarity. ‘When did she tell you, Mom?’

  The two women faced each other, a few feet apart. Still quiet, Rosa answered, ‘The night before you left for Italy.’

  Before Terri could find words, Rosa walked across the living room to an end table, opening a drawer. When she turned to face Terri, there was a small burlap bag cupped in her hand. Stiffly, she drew back her arm and tossed it underhand to Terri.

  Terri reached out and caught it. The bag clicked in her hand like a bagful of marbles. But Terri knew better.

  With trembling fingers, she loosened the drawstring and empied the bag into the palm of her hand. One of the bullets fell to the wooden floor.

  Terri stared at them. They were dull black, tinged with a coppery rust. Terry found that she could not look up.

  ‘For years,’ Rosa told her, ‘I hid these in the basement, with the gun. So that if Ramon ever harmed you, or your sisters, I would have a way.’ Her voice grew softer yet. ‘Do you remember the night Ramon took me from behind and raised his hand to you?’

  Terri looked up. With equal quiet, she answered, ‘Do you think I could forget?’

  Pain crossed her mother’s face. ‘I promised myself then that if Ramon ever touched you, I would shoot him.’ She paused, adding coolly, ‘With Ramon, it never came to that.’

  Deep within her, Terri felt a chill. She cupped the bullets in her hand. ‘Why did Elena tell you?’

  ‘Elena asked why you were leaving her.’ Rosa’s voice assumed a bitter calm. ‘And then she asked when her father was coming for her. When I told her Sunday, she started crying. It took perhaps an hour to find out why. Her father had said tht if she told anyone, the courts would take her away from him, and he would go to jail. As if the courts would ever help her.’ Rosa’s face hardened. ‘I gave Elena a sleeping pill and held her close. By the time she fell asleep, I knew that I would never let him come for her.’

  Terri felt herself wince. ‘You should have told me.’

  Rosa’s eyes flashed. ‘So that you could go to court, Teresa? Just as you did before?’ Her tone became steely. ‘It would have torn Elena apart. Her own father had made sure of t
hat.’

  ‘I could have made him stop.’

  ‘Just as the police stopped Ramon?’ Her mother stood straighter. ‘No, Teresa. I made him stop. Now Elena is safe from him and from the courts. As well as from her own shame.’

  Terri felt her fists clench. ‘It’s not her shame. She needs to face the truth, not bury it.’

  Slowly, Rosa shook her head. ‘When my own husband beat me and abused me, do you think I felt no shame? My shame died only with Ramon. If then.’

  There was an eerie certainty to her mother’s words, as if she had faced implacable truths that Terri could not know. It placed Rosa beyond argument, or even remorse. Softly, Terri asked, ‘How did you do it, Mom?’

  ‘“Do it.” ‘ Rosa coldly smiled. ‘Kill Ricardo, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The smile vanished. ‘Then sit with me, Teresa. Instead of staring at me like a stranger.’ Turning, she walked to the couch and sat in one corner, gesturing at the empty space. ‘Sit with me, Teresa. I am your mother, and this was our home.’

  Terri walked across the room and sat at the opposite corner of the couch. The moment carried echoes back to childhood: Rosa and Terri, sitting on this couch, reading stories or dealing with the trials at hand. ‘All right,’ Terri said in a cool voice. ‘I am your daughter. Just as Elena is mine, although you seem to have forgotten that. Or do you think I haven’t been beaten enough to earn your respect?’

  Rosa seemed to flinch. ‘You can be cruel, Teresa.’

  ‘I can never explain,’ Terri cut in, ‘the cruelty of what you’ve done – especially to Elena. Richie is the least of it. But let’s start there.’

  A first hesitancy flickered in Rosa’s eyes, reflecting Terri’s power to hurt. She folded her hands. ‘What should I tell you, Teresa?’

  ‘The truth about what happened that night.’

  Turning from Terri, Rosa gazed out at the dark living room. ‘It began simply enough. Watching Elena as she slept, I was afraid to leave. And then I realized that because of the pill, she would sleep without waking. At least for a time.’ In profile, Rosa’s eyes lowered. ‘When I went to the basement and took out the bullets and gun, it was as if were sleeping.

  ‘For fifteen years, I hadn’t touched or even looked at them. I had trouble loading it – I kept dropping bullets on the cement. I remember crawling on my hands and knees, beneath a bare light bulb, trying to pick them up. I couldn’t be sure the gun would even fire.

  ‘When I went bacak to see Elena, I felt drugged. I would think of Ricardo, and then Ramon – I think it was holding the gun again.’ Rosa seemed to stare into her memory. ‘When I walked to your room – Elena’s room, I mean – it was as if I expected to find you. Looking down at Elena, I saw the gun in my own hand.

  ‘But she was asleep.’ Rosa’s voice grew soft. ‘In her sleep, Teresa, she looked very much like you. To me, she always has.’ Rosa shut her eyes. ‘You were damaged in this house, Teresa. I’ve always known that. I could not let it reach Elena.’

  Oh, Mama, Terri wished to say, that was my job. But she did not let herself say anything.

  Rosa’s eyes opened. ‘I picked up the telephone,’ she went on, ‘and called Ricardo’s number. When he answered, I knew he would be there.

  ‘I hung up. And then I got my black raincoat, put the revolver in its pocket, and went to the car.

  ‘Driving to Ricardo’s, I wondered if he would still be home or might have company. It was only then that I realized that if I killed him and was caught, Elena would know why.

  ‘What happened to me made little difference.’ Rosa turned to Terri, looking into her face again. ‘There were so many times, Teresa, when I might have killed myself except for you – more, even, than your sisters. Times when Ramon beat me and I lay there as he did it, wondering how it would be to simply put the gun to my head and leave him forever.’ Her eyes narrowed with remembered hate. ‘Driving to Ricardo’s, I found myself wondering if he had done that to Elena – shamed her so much that she wished to die.

  ‘And then I saw the poetry of it. Ricardo would remove himself from Elena’s life, and she would feel no blame.

  ‘A kind of peace came over me. When I parked the car in front and pushed the buzzer, I felt calm. The sound of his voice over the intercom made me want to smile. Because I suddenly knew that Elena would never, ever hear that voice again.’

  Terri looked into Rosa’s eyes with dread and awe; Rosa’s life had led her places where Terri would never go. ‘When Ricardo heard it was me,’ Rosa said with quiet irony, ‘he buzzed me in. After all, what harm could I be?’

  Rosa paused; Terri was uncertain whether she wished to hear more. As if sensing this, Rosa turned from her, voice tired and drained of feeling. ‘I went to the door and knocked. When Ricardo peered through the door, face behind the door chain, his nose was bleeding.

  ‘“You’re too late,” he told me.

  ‘At first, I didn’t know what he meant. And then I realized he must be talking about Elena.’ Rosa’s face turned to stone. ‘He stared at me. For a moment, I didn’t know what would happen. When he opened the door and let me in, it was like the beginning of a dream.

  ‘I closed the door behind me,’ Rosa said quietly, ‘and took out the gun.’

  Simply and Sparingly, Rosa described the next few minutes. As Terri listened, her mother’s voice became a monotone. As if in a silent movie, Terri matched words with images – Richie backing fearfully from his door to the desk, picking up a pen, putting it down. Saw her mother, with lethal irony, placing Elena’s picture by his note. Compared her mother’s story to the medical examiner’s flawed imaginings: the nosebleed when Dr Shelton believed Christopher Paget had struck Richie in the face; the bruise on the leg and gash on the head when Richie had fallen backward. Except that Richie had been running from the gun in Rosa’s hand.

  ‘While he lay there,’ Rosa said with terrible calm, ‘I put the revolver in his mouth. I wanted him to die knowing how Elena had felt.

  ‘The last thing he said was, “Please –”’

  Terri could feel her own silence. Reaching for her daughter’s hand, Rosa Peralta closed her eyes and pulled the trigger, in memory.

  Richie’s eyes froze in shock.

  A fine red mist rose from his mouth. Only then did the muffled sound of the gunshot register in Rosa’s brain.

  As Richie’s head popped backward, she began to gag.

  A deep breath. The nausea stayed where it was.

  Swallowing, Rosa stared down.

  There were specks of blood and black powder on her wrists and hands. Sliding from Richie’s mouth, the gun left a trail of powder on his lips. The bullet had done little more than end his life; it had not, Rosa guessed, gone through his head. He looked innocent, even frail, surprised that life had not been fair to him.

  They stayed there, killer and victim, staring at each other.

  The telephone rang.

  Rosa started. The phone rang twice more and then stopped. Gazing at the dead man, Rosa heard his voice.

  ‘Hi there. This is 769–8053. I’m not in at the moment, but I know I want to talk to you. So please leave a message, and I’ll call back. . . .’

  His eyes seemed black and shiny. For a moment, Rosa imagined they were wet with tears, and then she realized that the tears were not in his eyes, but in hers; wept not for him, but for Elena.

  ‘Bye now,’ his voice finished.

  Richie stared emptily. And then a second voice echoed in the dark.

  ‘Richie . . .’

  Rosa jerked upright, turning toward the voice.

  ‘It was you, Teresa. Begging him to see you that night.’

  Terri felt the words in the pit of her stomach. Her mother’s hand tightened on hers.

  ‘I listened to you plead for Elena, while I looked into Ricardo’s face. And then I placed the gun in his hand, wiped my fingers on the raincoat, and went to the machine.

  ‘When you finished the message, I turned off the machin
e and erased the tape.’ Rosa turned away. ‘I didn’t want them thinking you might have come there, you see. They might have suspected you.

  ‘It was the last clear thought I had. It took all my strength to walk to the car and drive home.

  ‘I went to the basement and put my raincoat in a garbage bag. The garbage men were collecting the next day. By the time they found Ricardo, the raincoat would be gone.

  ‘I climbed the stairs and went to Elena’s room.’

  There were tears in Rosa’s eyes. ‘She was having a nightmare,’ she finished simply. ‘And so I held her, as I once held you, until she fell asleep.’

  Terri stood staring out the window at Dolores Street. Behind her, Rosa sat on the couch, silent and still. It was deep night. Terri did not know how much time had passed.

  ‘You let Chris go to trial. You let Carlo believe him a murderer.’ Her voice trembled with shame and anger. ‘You let me believe him a murderer.’

  ‘It seems you’re always misjudging men, Teresa. First Ricardo, and now Chris.’ Rosa’s voice was soft and sad. ‘Never did I suspect what would happen to Chris. Either that they would arrest him or that you would believe him guilty.’

  Terri turned from the window. ‘And when it happened?’

  ‘I had Elena to think of.’ Rosa’s tone grew firmer. ‘My silence was harsh, I know. But Christopher Paget is an unusually strong and resourceful man. Meeting him, I could feel that.’

  Terri walked toward her in a silent fury. Standing over her mother, she asked, ‘And Carlo?’

  Rose stared up at her. ‘Carlo,’ she answered, ‘is not my grandchild.’

  Terri jerked her mother upright, grasping the front of her robe. ‘Carlo,’ she spat out, ‘is not a child molester.’ She drew her mother’s stiff face close to hers. ‘You could have sent Chris to prison.’

  Rosa did not struggle. ‘No,’ she answered with quiet dignity. ‘I would never have permitted that. But now he is acquitted, and Elena need never know.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘I would have told you, Teresa. In time.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’ Terri’s voice grew soft again. ‘You did what you thought was right. And so can I.’