He knocked. Rocked back on the heels of his casual leather shoes. Shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Hunched his shoulders against the slight chill in the December air. He should probably have worn a sweater over his long-sleeved oxford shirt.
She wasn’t home.
Or wasn’t answering her door.
He knocked a second time.
He’d seen her car by the garage.
And then she was standing there, holding the door open in front of him, and all the things he’d planned to say disappeared from his mind.
“Ben?”
She didn’t shut the door in his face. Didn’t look annoyed to find him on her stoop.
She did, however, look confused. And uncomfortable.
And gorgeous in a pair of tight black sweats and a bulky waist-length sweater.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure.” She stood back, allowed him to pass, awkward and stiff as she closed the door and led him into the living room. “Phyllis is at Becca’s—” she said, and then stopped, almost as though she’d just realized that meant they were alone.
There was no mistaking the alarm in her eyes.
“I won’t stay long,” he was quick to assure her.
“No, that’s fine. You can stay.” She perched on the edge of the armchair adjacent to the couch where he sat. The smile she gave him was tentative, but completely sincere.
“He went after Alex again.” He hadn’t meant to say the words quite so baldly. But he couldn’t keep his rage, his helplessness, contained a second longer.
“I had a message from her on Saturday.”
“Oh, God.” Her face drained of all color. “No.”
“She said she got spanked on her back again.” Ben swallowed, forcing his clenched fists to stay by his sides. “The bastard’s taking a belt to my baby’s back.”
Christine slid down to the floor. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her face mirroring the pain he felt inside.
“I called the school nurse immediately,” he continued. “They’re working on things now.”
“When will you hear from them again?”
“As soon as they know anything.”
She nodded, her big blue eyes dark with anguish as she gazed up at him.
“She said Mary wouldn’t make her a tree. The kid’s seven years old and they won’t even give her a Christmas tree.”
“I’m sure that’s the least of her worries at the moment,” Christine said. “A tree would be almost a sacrilege at this point, a symbol of everything she doesn’t have.”
Ben watched her, his eyes narrowing. “You sound as though you know what you’re talking about.”
She started. Looked away. “I’m a teacher. We’re trained to know these things.”
She’d said something similar to him before. He’d accepted the explanation then….
“I’m amazed you’re able to sit here so calmly,” Christine said before he could follow that train of thought.
“Believe me, it’s not easy,” he said. “That’s why I’m here, actually,” he admitted. Arms on his knees, hands clasped, he studied the carpet. “They told me to stay put, not to do anything that could jeopardize my position. That way, they can get Alex to me if they find evidence of abuse.”
She nodded. “I can see that. It’s better for you to be here, removed from the situation. Because if you’re there, it would be easier for your ex-wife and her husband to claim that your interference was part of the problem.”
“Right. But in the meantime, I’m losing my mind. I think I’ve paced a permanent tread in the carpet at my apartment.”
“What can I do to help?” Her voice was warm, sincere. Ben got lost in the compassion he read in her eyes.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged hopelessly. “I just knew I had to see you, talk to you. Being with you is the only thing I can think of that makes me feel better, calmer, more in control.”
Though her eyes no longer mirrored her feelings, she continued to stare at him until tears started to gather in her eyes.
Looking down at her hands, she said, “Why is that?”
“I don’t know.” He paused, then dared to say, “I get the impression that you feel that way, too.”
She was silent for long enough that he began to wish he hadn’t said anything.
“I do.” He barely heard the words. “Sometimes.”
The tension inside Ben slid away, leaving behind a relief so profound he actually felt light-headed.
“I’m surprised you still feel you want to…be with me, after what I did on Friday.”
Yeah. They needed to talk about that. And with all the time he had on his hands at the moment, why not now?
“I’m a little surprised myself,” he told her.
“I’m sorry.” Her head was still bent.
“I’m not sure you have any reason to be.” A woman didn’t act like that out of choice. She hadn’t acted at all. She’d reacted.
“Of course I do!” She looked up. “I panicked and just left you sitting there. If nothing else, it was rude.”
He waved her statement away, shaking his head. “I couldn’t care less about that. What I’d like is to know why.”
But he had a sick feeling he already knew. Her reaction to him—and to Alex’s situation—were starting to meld into a scenario he didn’t want to believe.
“I—” She broke off. Shook her head.
“You know what Alex is going through, don’t you?” he asked, needing to help her just as he needed to know the truth.
Eyes down, she nodded.
Ben’s stomach heaved. “Your stepfather?”
She lowered her head even more, exposing the vulnerable back of her neck to his view. She nodded again.
Every curse he’d ever heard spun through his mind. He just didn’t get it. How could any human being look at a fragile child and act with violence? How could he not feel the instinctive need to cherish and protect?
He swore again, silently, when he saw the tears start to slide down Christine’s cheeks. Ben was almost sorry her stepfather was already dead. He wanted to get his hands on the man’s throat, squeeze the breath out of him slowly, painfully.
Except that wouldn’t do a thing to heal Christine. But Ben had an idea what would.
If anything could.
“That’s what Friday was all about, wasn’t it?” he asked, dropping to the floor, facing her, his feet beside hers, but not touching.
She sniffled. Nodded.
“I felt so trapped I just lost it,” she said, finally looking across at him. The despair he read in her eyes filled his stomach with rot.
“From the very beginning?” he asked, trying to understand. He thought she’d been with him at first. Tentatively so, but with him.
“No.” She shook her head. He was impressed with the courage it must have taken to hold his gaze.
“I wanted you.” She half smiled through her tears.
“I really wanted you.”
“You sound shocked.” He grinned at her, trying, mostly for her sake, to make light of her declaration when, in truth, she’d touched him deeply.
“I am shocked,” she admitted. “I haven’t felt that way since I was about seventeen. And then, it wasn’t nearly as…powerful.”
“Age does that to a person.”
She looked away then. “Maybe.”
“For what it’s worth, I really wanted you, too.”
Her gaze skittered up to him and away, but he could tell she was pleased. At least a little.
“So what can I do to make the trapped feeling go away?” he asked softly.
Her blue eyes were on him again. “I don’t know.”
“When did the feeling start?”
“When you put your arm around me.”
Odd though the conversation was, Ben was relieved they were having it. Almost as though he’d known without knowing that this was part of Christine’s past. That caring about her meant dealing with he
r secrets.
Sick as he felt, he was strangely thankful that they were finally talking.
“He used to hold you down?” Ben asked, his jaw tight with the effort not to scream the words out.
She hesitated, and he knew she was still hiding some of it from him, but in the end she nodded.
She needed time. Space. He could give her as much of that as necessary. As long as she talked to him. Was honest with him.
“So we’ll take things nice and slow.” He chose his words carefully, trying to comfort, to reassure.
“Find ways to touch that don’t bother you. Not touch at all if that’s what you need, until deep down you can trust me not to hurt you.”
“You’d do that?” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “For me?”
“Of course I would.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s like I told you—being with you makes me feel better than anything I’ve felt before. Because when we first met, I felt as though I was finding an old friend. Because you’re worth it.”
“Oh.”
He let her ponder that for a while. Pondered it himself. Where had his goals gone? His burning need to have a meaningful career before he allowed himself to care about anything else? Before he allowed himself to get involved….
Thinking about it, he realized he still wanted that career, but it wasn’t what mattered most. Not when you looked at life as a whole.
“I intend to fight for full custody of Alex,” he told her eventually, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.
Watching him, Christine whispered, “I’ll be praying you get it.”
“I intend to do something else, too,” he said. He wanted everything out in the open. There for her to deal with. Not fear.
“What’s that?” She frowned.
“To ask you to marry me.”
“Oh.” She scrambled to her feet, wringing her hands. “I’ve just remembered I left some whites bleaching in the washer….”
“Christine.”
She ignored him, was gone.
“Christine.” Ben quickly followed her, slid past her to stand in front of her in the hallway, stopping her flight with nothing more than the space between them.
She held his gaze, but only for a second or two.
“I’m not asking right now,” he told her, “and don’t expect any kind of answer. I just want you to know I’m thinking about it. That I want you thinking about it.”
She still didn’t look up. With one finger under her chin, Ben lifted her head until he could look into those shadowed blue eyes. “Okay?”
She wanted to run. To hide. He could sense the impulse to do both. But instead, eventually, she nodded.
And Ben started to breathe again.
PLAYING IN HER ROOM, huddled over in the corner, Alex started to shake when she heard the knock on her door.
Last time there was a knock, it was Pete, and she got spanked. That was Saturday and this was only Tuesday, and sore places hadn’t gone away yet.
Alex wouldn’t tell Pete she loved him, because it would be a lie, and he already spanked her so much for telling lies. But he spanked her when she didn’t lie, too. She needed to talk to Daddy about that, but when she’d called he wasn’t there and she was scared to try too often because calling collect took so long.
“Alex?”
Mommy’s voice sounded soft and sort of nice, not like it usually did.
“Yeah?”
“Can we come in, sweetie?”
Alex climbed onto her bed, hugging a teddy bear to her stomach. Her stomach hurt every day now and she needed to talk to Daddy about that, too.
The door opened slowly and her mommy came in.
“Hi, Alex.”
“Hi.” She was kind of happy to see who Mommy brought with her. The lady nurse from school. Alex liked her. Mostly the nurse just tested eyes, felt foreheads, took temperatures and called mommies. But she talked to Alex’s daddy now and Daddy talked to her, and that made Alex like her a lot.
Maybe the nurse had come to tell her what Daddy wanted her to do.
“I’d like a couple of minutes alone with her,” the nurse told Mommy.
Mommy had lines on her face like she wasn’t happy. She stared at Alex, who held her breath. The nurse couldn’t tell her about Daddy if Mommy stayed there.
“It’s either here, or you bring her in,” the nurse told Mommy, kind of mean, but she was smiling nicely at Alex.
Mommy nodded and started to say something to Alex. Her look said she was going to warn her not to be bad, but she didn’t say it. Finally, when Alex’s stomach was about ready to explode, Mommy left.
“How’ve you been?” the nurse asked quietly, coming in to sit beside Alex on the bed.
Alex scooted away a little and shrugged.
“Have you talked to my daddy?” she asked. “Did you come here to tell me what he says I should do?”
The nurse nodded and looked all sad and like something was wrong. Alex’s stomach started to hurt worse.
“I’ve talked to him about your phone call on Saturday, and to some other important people, too. We all want to help you,” she said. “But first, I need you to tell me what you told your daddy.”
Alex didn’t want to do that. Every time she told anything, she got hit on her back. And it was pretty much hurting all over. Last night in bed, when she’d rolled over and the teddy touched her back, it had made her cry.
And Daddy always told her to be his big girl and not cry.
“Your daddy wants you to tell me,” the nurse said. Alex only believed her because Daddy had called the nurse when Alex didn’t get to talk to him on Saturday. That made her stomach feel better.
As quickly as she could, she told the nurse about the man who lived with her and Mommy, and about Mommy not being like the mommies on TV, but that it used to be okay because Daddy was like the mommies on TV. And the daddies on TV, too. She told how Daddy was her best friend and that he was getting really smart at school so they could move away and be rich and never be unhappy again.
“Will you show me your back, sweetie?” The nurse asked when Alex was finally done.
Feeling bad just thinking about the spankings, and scared, Alex shook her head. Not until it was better. She was just waiting here in her room as much as she could until it got all better.
“Your Daddy needs you to help us out here, Alex,” the nurse said. “We can’t help you if you don’t let me see it.”
“It helps itself fine,” Alex assured her. It just took some days.
“Please?”
The nurse looked like her teacher at school when they had important talks—about being kind to everyone and playing fair and not hitting.
“Why?”
“I need to see what Pete’s doing to you, sweetie. It’s called proof.”
“What’s proof do?”
“It gets you away from him so he can’t hurt you anymore.”
Alex studied her, not sure if that was really true. “Did Daddy say so?”
“Yes, sweetie, he did.” The nurse smiled like the mommies on TV.
“Okay, but you better not tell Pete I showed you, and you have to be real careful,” she said, turning around. “Sometimes my shirt sticks to parts, and it’s not good for me to pull at it.”
With her back to the nurse, Alex pulled up the bottom edge of her T-shirt with one hand, hugging Teddy to her stomach with the other.
The nurse breathed in once, fast and loud, right when Alex felt the cool air of the room on her back. “Oh, God,” the nurse said, and then Alex’s shirt dropped down.
She turned Alex around by the shoulders. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she said. “So sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Alex assured her. She didn’t know why the lady had to be sorry. She didn’t do anything. It didn’t hurt when she looked. She’d been really soft with Alex’s shirt, just like she’d told her.
“I’ve got papers that say I can take you and your mommy on a short dri
ve with me. Would that be okay with you?” the nurse asked.
Alex didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to stay in her room. That was where Daddy told her to be and where he could find her.
“We’ll call your Daddy when we get there,” the nurse said. “He’s waiting to hear from us.”
“You promise?” Alex asked, hugging her teddy.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Alex hopped off her bed. “I’m ready.”
The nurse opened a big purse she’d carried in and left by the door. Alex hadn’t even noticed it until now. She pulled out a big cloth bag and unfolded it. “Let’s get some of your clothes and favorite things in here,” she said, opening the bag wide to show Alex that it was empty.
Pretending she was going on a real vacation like some of her friends at school—only, instead of going to Disneyland, she was going to see Daddy—Alex did what the nurse said and put some of her clothes and toys in the big bag.
Then, taking the nurse’s hand, she left her room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON, Tory went to Phoenix with Phyllis and Martha to buy an outfit for Becca’s Christmas party.
“You’d look great in this, Christine,” Martha said, holding up a sleek black silk pantsuit. It was something Tory would choose—and something she couldn’t have paid Christine to wear. What was it Phyllis had said about the people in Shelter Valley really knowing her?
Pleased, Tory took the hanger that Martha held up. “You really think so?”
“I’m sure of it. Don’t you think this is perfect for Christine?” she asked as Phyllis came around the rack to join them.
Phyllis agreed, encouraging Tory to try it on.
Fifteen minutes later she left the store, the pantsuit in the bag she was carrying. She felt hopeful. If Martha knew her well enough to choose clothes for her and not Christine, was it possible that Ben knew her, too? Her, Tory, the person trapped in her sister’s life? In spite of what he didn’t know about her?
Later, while Martha was picking out a strapless bra to go with her new halter-top jumpsuit and Phyllis was returning an outfit she’d bought earlier in the year and never worn—an outfit that was now too big for her—Tory slipped away to make one more purchase.
A hardcover book. A facsimile edition of The Last of the Mohicans.
My Sister, Myself Page 17