But even Eileen's illness didn't bring out any kindness in her, no gentleness, no gratitude for the impossible tasks Hilary was performing. She expected it of her, and even as weak as she was, if she thought Hilary could do more, she would threaten to beat her. It was an empty threat now, but Hilary still hated her, she had from the first day she saw her.
Eileen lived for another year and a half after they reached Florida, and when Hilary was twelve, she finally died, staring at Hilary as though she wanted to say something to her, but Hilary was sure it wouldn't have been anything kindly.
And life was simpler in some ways after that, and more complicated in others. She didn't have to provide nursing care anymore. But she had to steer clear of Jack, and the women he dragged in with him. He had told her bluntly the day after Eileen died that he was willing to let her stay under his roof as long as she didn't cause any trouble. He had also told her to clear out her aunt's things, keep what she wanted, and throw out the rest. He didn't seem to want any reminders of her. She had taken her time doing it, feeling somehow that Eileen was going to come back and punish her for going through her things, but she finally got through the last of it. She gave the clothes away to a church bazaar, and threw all the cheap makeup out She was about to throw out all her underwear when she noticed a little cloth pouch in one of the drawers and went through it just to be sure it was nothing important. There was over ten thousand dollars there, mostly in small bills, and a few fifties, as though she'd gathered it over the years, hiding it from everyone, and probably from Jack as well. Hilary sat staring at the pouch for a long time, and then silently she slipped it into a pocket, and that night she hid it among her own things. It was just what she needed to escape one day, and find Megan and Alexandra.
For the next year, Jack scarcely took any notice of her. He was too busy chasing all the neighborhood women. By then, he had lost several jobs, but he always seemed able to find another one. He didn't care what he did, as long as he had a roof over his head, a woman in his bed at night and a six-pack of beer in the icebox. But when Hilary turned thirteen, he suddenly became more demanding. He seemed to be complaining all the time, and asking her to do things for him. He didn't think she was keeping the house clean enough, and when he came home for dinner, which was rare, he complained that her cooking was lousy. There was suddenly no pleasing him, and he acted as though it mattered to him, whereas before he had taken no notice of her at all. Now he even criticized the way she dressed and said her clothes were too baggy and her skirts were too long. It was 1962 and miniskirts were in, and he told her she should dress more like the girls she saw in magazines or on TV.
“Don't you want the boys to look at you?” He asked boozily one afternoon. He had just come home from a softball game with some friends, most of whom were ex-Marines like him, but he was forty-five years old and three decades of drinking had taken their toll on him. He was overweight, and had a beer belly that hung way out over his blue jeans. “Don't you like boys, Hilary?”
He kept hounding her and she was tired of it. She never had time to notice boys. She was too busy going to school and cleaning house for him. She was going into ninth grade in the fall, a year early. And now she had ten thousand dollars hidden in her underwear drawer. She had everything she needed.
“Not particularly,” she finally answered him. “I don't have time for boys.”
“Oh yeah? What about men? You got time for men, little Hillie?”
She didn't bother to answer him. Instead, she went to the kitchen to cook dinner, thinking about how Southern he had gotten after only a few years. He spoke with a drawl, and a Southern accent that sounded like he was born in Florida. You'd never have known he was from Boston. And thinking of it made her think back to her brief time there with them … she still remembered it as the place she had lost Megan and Axie. She had never heard from Arthur Patterson again, not since they'd moved to Florida, not that she cared anyway. She hated him. And it never occurred to her that the reason he hadn't called was because Jack and Eileen hadn't left an address when they moved. They had disappeared without a trace, and Arthur had no idea how to find them. He had his hands full with his own life anyway by then. Around the time the Joneses had moved to Florida, Marjorie had left him.
“What's for dinner?” Jack appeared in the kitchen with a beer can in his hand and a cigarette. He seemed to be eyeing her with greater interest these days, and she didn't like it. It made her uncomfortable, and made her feel as though he was taking her clothes off with his eyes.
“Hamburgers.”
“That's nice.” But he was staring at her firm young breasts as he said it. She had long, shapely legs and a tiny waist, and the thick black hair she had inherited from Sam hung in a black sheet to her waist. She was a beautiful girl, and it was becoming difficult to hide it. She looked years older than she was, and her eyes held the pain of a lifetime.
Jack patted her on the behind, and brushed past her without needing to, and for the first time he stood by her side the entire time while she was making dinner for him. He made her so uncomfortable that she was unable to eat once the hamburgers were ready. She pushed the food around on her plate, and left the kitchen as quickly as she could, after washing the dishes. She heard him go out then, a little while after that, and she was asleep in her bed in her room off the kitchen long before he came home around midnight. There was a pouring tropical rain, and there had been lightning and thunder, and he staggered into the house, extremely drunk, but with the intention of doing something … if he could just remember what it was … dammit … it had slipped his mind … he was still cursing when he passed her room, and then suddenly he remembered, and gave a laugh as he stood outside her door for a long moment.
He didn't bother to knock, instead he just turned the knob and walked into her room, his wet shoes squeezing water onto the linoleum floor and his breathing heavy, from years of cigarettes, but she didn't hear him. The sheet of black hair was fanned out across her face, and one arm was tossed over her head, as she slept on top of the covers in a childish cotton nightgown.
“Purrrrtyyyy …” He purred to himself and coughed, which almost woke her. She stirred and turned over, revealing a graceful hip and one long leg as she slept only inches away from him. And slowly he began unbuttoning his shirt until it dropped on the floor and lay there in a wet heap. He unzipped his pants and slipped them off with his shoes, and he stood next to her in his shorts and socks, and a moment later, they lay with the rest of his clothes next to her bed. And only the vast amount of liquor he had drunk kept him from getting a bigger erection. He came to life slowly, watching her, aching with desire, and the secret lust he had hidden for years, but now she was old enough … hell, he could have years of her, his very own piece right at home … before she grew up and moved out, and maybe after this she'd never want to. He groaned as he lay down on the bed beside her, and the cloud of boozy fumes he exhaled along with the stench of unwashed perspiration woke her.
“Hmm …” She opened one eye, not sure where she was and then gave a gasp and leapt out of bed. But he was quicker than that and had taken a firm grasp of her nightgown. It tore right off her tall frame as he held it, and she stood naked and trembling before him, as he lay in her bed and watched her.
“My, my … ain't that a purty sight, little Hillie?” She tried to cover her nakedness and she wanted to cry, or run, but she wasn't sure what to do. She just stood there, terrified. She knew that if she tried to run away, he'd catch her. “Come on back to bed, it's not time to get up yet. First Uncle Jack's got a few things to show you.” She could see him long and hard and ominous where she'd been lying, and she was old enough to know what he intended to do to her, and she would die before she'd let him.
“Don't touch me!” She ran through the open doorway to the kitchen, and he followed her in the dark, stumbling and naked and slipping on the wet patches he had left on the floor moments earlier.
“Come on, ya little tramp … you know what you wan
t. And I'm going to give it to you.” As he said it, he lunged for her arm, and tried to drag her back to her bedroom. But she fought like a cat, and scratched his face and his arm, trying to kick him as he dragged her.
“Let go of me!” She pulled herself free and almost made it to the back door before he caught her again, but for an instant she had time to reach out for something she suddenly remembered on the drainboard. She hid it carefully from him, and seemingly docile finally, she let him lead her back to her bedroom. It was a daring thing to do, but she would rather kill him than let him rape her.
“That's a good girl … now you want ole Uncle Jack, don't ya, little Hillie …” She said nothing in answer and he didn't seem to notice as he pushed her roughly back onto her bed and prepared to mount her, but with a sudden flash of silver he felt something cold and sharp and ugly pointing at his belly.
“If you touch me, I'll cut your balls off … and I mean it …” Everything about her tone of voice said she did, and he believed her. He backed off just a fraction of an inch, and she followed him with the knife point. “Get out of my room.”
“Fine, fine … Christ …” He muttered as he backed out of the room and almost fell over the threshold. “Put that thing away for chrissake, will you dammit?”
“Not till you're out of here.” She was following him with the knife still pointed at his testicles, which seemed to worry him greatly.
“Little bitch … that what they teach you in school these days? In my day, the girls were a hell of a lot nicer.” She didn't answer him and he backed away, and then suddenly he had slapped the knife out of her hand and slapped her so hard across the face that she fell against the opposite wall and she wasn't sure which hurt her most, her nose bleeding profusely all over her face, or the back of her head, which felt as though he had crushed it. “There you little bitch, how does that feel?”
She grunted and struggled to her feet, still hellbent on protecting her virtue, but he wasn't interested in it anymore, he just wanted to punish her for humiliating him. He knew he could always get the rest of her later. Hell, there was nowhere for her to go. She was his now. He practically owned her.
“Now, you gonna behave yourself for Uncle Jack next time?” He backhanded her again, his eyes glinting evilly, and this time she fell against a chair and it caught against her ribs, cutting deep into one breast, and she could feel herself bleeding there too. Her ears were ringing, and her lip was split, she thought her jaw might be broken, and she had a huge gash on one breast before it was all over and she crawled away from him. He had passed out on the couch by then, still naked, totally drunk, and pleased with his night's work. She wouldn't resist him next time. He was sure of it. He had taught her a good lesson. So good, she dragged herself, naked in the pouring rain, until she passed out cold on their neighbor's doorstep. She lay there for hours, unconscious in the rain, bleeding from her various wounds, until Mrs. Archer found her there the next day when she opened her front door to get her paper.
“Oh my God! … oh my God” she screamed, backing into the house, and running to find her husband. “My God … Bert, there's a dead woman on our doorstep and she's naked!” He ran to the door and found her there, half in and half out of the door, still bleeding and still unconscious.
“Christ … it's that kid from next door, the one whose aunt died … the one you never see … we've got to call the police.” But Mollie was already dialing. The police came almost immediately, and the ambulance was there even before that. They took her to Brewster Hospital and half an hour later she came around, and saw the Archers staring at her in the emergency room. Mrs. Archer started to cry, she reminded her so much of her daughter. And it was obvious she had been beaten and raped and deposited on their doorstep. But the examination showed later on that she hadn't been raped at all, just beaten to within an inch of her life. She had stitches in various places, and the gash on her breast was bad, but the worst was the concussion he'd given her when he threw her against the wall the first time. She threw up almost as soon as she woke up and she lost consciousness several times, but the doctors assured Mrs. Archer she'd be all right, and they left her there several hours later. She was unwilling to talk about who had beaten her up, but the police weren't through with their investigation.
“Who do you think would do such a thing to her?” Mrs. Archer asked her husband on the way home, but it was days before the truth came to light, and Hilary didn't tell them. Jack gave it away himself the third time the police went to see him, and they brought charges against him, which Hilary begged them to drop.
“He'll kill me if you do that.” She was terrified now. He would kill her now, for sure, or worse.
But the police changed everything. “Hilary, you don't have to go back, you know. You could go to a foster home.”
“What's that?” Her eyes were wide with fear, but what could be worse than the hell she'd been living?
“It's a temporary home, even a long-term one sometimes where kids can live who don't have anywhere else to go.”
“You mean like an institution?”
The officer shook his head. “No, like real folks who take kids like you into their homes. What do you think?”
“I think I'd like to do that.” In order to set it up, she had to be processed through the Florida courts as a homeless minor. And it turned out to be much easier than anyone had thought when she explained that she was an orphan and had never been adopted by her aunt and uncle. She went back to see him only once, and Mollie Archer came with her and stood uneasily in the doorway. Hilary had wanted to get her things and she was afraid of confronting Jack. It was the first time she'd seen him since the night he beat her, and she was terrified of what he'd do to her for setting the police on him. But he only stared at her in venomous fury and dared to say very little with Mrs. Archer standing by her.
She packed her few belongings in the only suitcase she owned, and tucked the little cloth pouch carefully into the lining. She knew she had to take good care of it now, it was the only friend she had in the world … her escape money to find her sisters … her ten thousand dollars. If Jack had known it existed and that she had it, he would surely have killed her for it.
Jack slammed the door behind her and locked it loudly, and she walked quietly across the backyard to Mrs. Archer's house and waited for the juvenile authorities to pick her up again. They had a foster home for her and the people were coming for her in the morning. It was all so effortless, and for a moment, she allowed herself to think that it was going to be easy now. Smooth sailing, and then back to New York in a few years, to find Megan and Axie, and one day, they'd be living with her and she'd take care of them again. She'd be able to do that, with the windfall she'd found hidden among Eileen's nylons. It was the only nice thing her aunt had ever done for her, and even that she hadn't meant to do. But it didn't matter now. The money was in Hilary's suitcase and she intended to guard it with her life. To her, it was an absolute fortune.
The social worker came for her, as promised, in the morning, and after a brief appearance in court took her to a family in a battered-looking house in a poor suburb of Jacksonville. The woman opened the door wearing a warm smile and an apron, there were five other kids inside varying from about ten to fourteen from what Hilary could see, and the place instantly reminded her of the house Eileen and Jack had lived in in Boston. It had the same fetid smell, worn-out furniture, and battered look. But with half a dozen kids living there, it was hardly surprising.
The woman's name was Louise and she showed Hilary to her room, a room she was to share with three other girls, all of them living on narrow army cots Louise had bought from army surplus. There was a black girl sitting on one of them, she was tall and thin, with big black eyes, and she glanced over at Hilary with curiosity as she walked into the room and put down her things as the social worker introduced them.
“Hilary, this is Maida. She's been here for nine months.” The social worker smiled and disappeared, back to Louise and the
mob of children in the kitchen. The house looked busy and full but wasn't welcoming somehow, and it gave Hilary the feeling that she had just been dropped off at a work camp.
“Hilary … what kinda name is dat?” Maida stared at her with hostility now that the social worker was gone and looked her over from the collar of her ugly dress to the cheap shoes Eileen had bought her. It was not a pretty outfit, and it was a far cry from the organdies and velvets of her childhood, forgotten luxuries by now. And with her serious green eyes, she looked at the black girl and wondered what life would be like here. “Where you from, girl?”
“New York … Boston … I've been here for two years.”
The black girl nodded, she was reed thin and Hilary could see she bit her nails to the quick. She was tall and angry and nervous. “Yeah? So why you come here? Your ma and pa in jail?” Hers were. Her mother was a prostitute and her father was a pimp and a pusher.
“My parents are dead.” Hilary's voice was dead too as she said it, and her eyes were guarded as she stood just inside the doorway.
“You got brothers and sisters?” She didn't see what difference it made and she was about to say yes, and then decided against it and merely shook her head. Maida seemed satisfied with her answer. “You gonna work hard for Louise, sweetheart. She a bitch to work for.” It was not entirely welcome information, but somehow Hilary had suspected as she walked in the door that this was not going to be as easy as they'd told her.
“What do you have to do?”
“Clean the house, take care of her kids, the yard, the vegetable garden out back … laundry … any thing she tells you to do. Kinda like slavery, except you get to sleep in the main house and she lets you eat here.” There was an evil smile in Maida's eyes and Hilary wasn't sure whether to laugh or not. “But it still beats juvie.”
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