by BJ Hoff
He was accustomed to dealing with the various age divisions all together in one room, of course; he’d had to teach that way for years. But it had never been easy—and certainly not ideal. It made for much greater distraction in terms of noise and activity—and mischief.
Some things, he noted, never changed. The younger students still tried to show off and imitate the older ones. The older students still reveled in teasing the younger ones. From year to year, there was always a young Timmy Neal who had to go to the outhouse at the most inconvenient times. And seldom was there a year without an Annabeth O’Toole, who could capture the attention of every male in the room, right down to the six-year-olds, by tossing her mane of golden hair and flirting with her china-doll blue eyes when she thought the teacher wasn’t looking.
He could also recall almost yearly duos like the seven-year-old Dottie Russell and her nemesis, Sissie Miller, who had only to look each other to ignite their ongoing feud.
But where, when he needed them, were this year’s Maggie MacAuley and Kenny Tallman?
Well, there was Maggie’s brother, Ray. Fourteen now and never a scholar, Ray preferred the outdoors to a schoolroom anytime, no matter how inclement the weather happened to be. Still, despite the boy’s indifference to his studies, he could be helpful and was usually dependable when the situation required it.
This situation required it. “Ray, take the first- and second-grade boys over to the other side of the room and have them write their spelling words for you, please. Then have each one spell them orally.”
And by all means, Ray…take your time.
Maggie was getting concerned when an hour passed and the doctor still hadn’t appeared. She had looked through the out-of-season Sears, Roebuck catalog, leafed randomly through an almanac, and chatted with another lady who was waiting to keep her appointment.
By the time Dr. Gordon finally opened the door to the waiting room and gestured that she should come in, Maggie was wringing her hands and struggling to keep her worry in check.
“We’ll talk in my office,” said the doctor, showing Maggie in. “I gave Selma some coloring pages to amuse her. She’ll be fine in the examining room until we’ve finished.”
The doctor sat down, folded her hands on top of the desk, and without any hesitation said, “I believe I can reassure you on one point: Selma has not been physically harmed in any way.”
Maggie let herself slump a little with relief.
“I’m fairly certain, however, that there’s been a kind of emotional abandonment going on with the girl—and that can be almost as injurious as physical mistreatment. As for her younger brother—and I realize I’m simply confirming what you already know—he has definitely suffered continual beatings.”
For a moment the physician’s professional composure slipped a fraction but she quickly recovered. “Selma is, I believe, a very confused child. Unless I’m mistaken, and I don’t believe I am, she’s been raised in the midst of conflict and cruelty on one hand and an unconscionable indifference on the other. Her emotions and her loyalties are clearly at odds. I think her pattern of defense has been to withdraw from her parents and her surroundings whenever she can. She makes herself as…unnoticeable…as possible, except with her younger brother.”
The doctor glanced up. “Are you following me?”
“I think so,” Maggie said. “Did Selma talk about Huey at all?”
The doctor sighed. “Yes, she did. She’s been led to believe that her brother is ‘bad.’ A ‘bad boy.’ That’s why he has to be ‘punished’ so often. But since she loves her little brother and tries in her own way to defend him and take care of him, her sense of what’s true and what isn’t is often confused. And there’s also the fact that she feels guilty about his taking all the punishment.”
Maggie had to struggle with her own confusion. Yet the more the doctor explained, the more it made sense.
“How—I hope it’s all right for me to ask you—but how do you know all this?”
The doctor’s lips curved in a faint smile. “I learned a great deal about Selma and her family by studying the drawings she made for me. And the way she interacted with a doll. Later, when I asked her some questions, she opened up enough to give me a good idea of what’s been going on.”
She paused, leaning back a little in her chair. “It’s somewhat ironic. I came to Skingle Creek to get away from this sort of thing, only to be confronted with it again almost as soon as I arrived.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In my previous practice, I worked a lot with children,” Dr. Gordon said. “Especially troubled ones. It’s what I set out to do when I graduated from medical college, and I spent several years of my practice concentrating on children. But eventually I got weary of all the pain: the physical pain brought on by mistreatment, the emotional pain, the parents who should never have had children, the almost totally ineffectual programs available for helping them or the children. It was eating me alive. I had to get away from it.”
“But why Skingle Creek?”
The doctor shrugged. “No special reason. There are always missionary organizations looking to place physicians in areas where doctors are either scarce or nonexistent. This is where I ended up.”
“That’s more or less how Jonathan—Mr. Stuart—came here too. I have a feeling the town will eventually be as grateful for you as we’ve always been for him.”
Dr. Gordon smiled. “Thank you. I hope you’re right, especially considering how highly regarded your Mr. Stuart seems to be around here.”
She leaned forward. “Getting back to Selma, I’d suggest you encourage her affinity for drawing and painting. This is a definite outlet for her and may very well help in the healing process. But something has to be done about those parents.”
“Oh, I know! That awful man needs to be behind bars, and the sooner the better!”
The doctor’s eyebrows lifted. “Miss MacAuley—Maggie—” she said quietly, looking directly into Maggie’s eyes. “It’s not the father who’s abusing the boy. It’s the mother.”
Chapter Thirty
Truth in the Shadows
The Lord God judges “crime” above,
But not as man has weighed it.
Mary Kelly
By the time Maggie arrived back at the school with Selma, she was strained to the point of snapping. Somehow she managed to put a normal face on things with Selma, mostly by listening to the girl’s childish praise for “the doctor.” Whether Dr. Sally Gordon realized it or not, she had a new admirer.
Actually, she had two. Maggie had been silently thanking God all the way back to school for this woman who, she was more and more coming to believe, had been heaven-sent. But she was also somewhat stunned from learning that it was the children’s mother who had beaten little Huey, not the father. It was beyond the reaches of her imagination to fathom how a mother—or a father—could commit such heinous acts of violence on her or his own child. But whether she could comprehend the situation or not, shock and fury had combined, igniting a fierce resolve to somehow free both children from that deranged woman’s clutches.
And the father—wasn’t he just as bad? The little information Selma had divulged about the man seemed to indicate that he had done nothing—nothing—to protect his own children from his wife’s madness!
No. No, that wasn’t quite true. According to Dr. Gordon, the father had apparently tried, when the beatings first began, to stop her—only to have her turn her demented rage on him. Eventually he had backed away, abandoned his own son, and left the small, defenseless Huey to suffer one attack after another.
It seemed that Huey’s father wasn’t a child beater—he was a coward. In Selma’s words, he “went away” during those times when his wife turned her rage on Huey. Probably to the local tavern, Maggie thought bitterly. He simply left the house as if he had no son and no daughter who needed his protection.
As Maggie drove around to the back of the schoolhouse and tethered the hors
e, she felt not just physically ill, but sick at heart as well. Everything in her was crying out for Jonathan. She had to talk to him. He would help her make sure the children were kept safe. He would know what to do.
He always did.
Jonathan took one look at Maggie’s face when she brought Selma to the classroom door and knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. She was absolutely ashen, her eyes enormous and riveted on him. Even when Selma came the rest of the way into the classroom and sat down at her desk, Maggie didn’t leave, but merely stood there, as if waiting for Jonathan to come to her.
Thinking fast, he put Ethna Duggan, his oldest student, in charge of the class and went to the door.
“Jonathan—”
He took her by the arm and led her across the hall to his office. “What is it? What’s happened?” he asked once they were inside the room.
Naturally, when Figaro caught sight of Maggie, he stumbled out from under the desk, bumping his head in his haste to reach her. The dog seemed to give Maggie at least a moment of comfort, but Jonathan finally had to get more stern than usual with him, so he could hear what Maggie had to say. He sentenced him to his place underneath the desk, where the big hound lay pouting, watching every move Maggie made.
“I don’t know where to start. Oh, Jonathan—we have to do something. We can’t let them send those children back to those people. We can’t!”
“Maggie, that’s not going to happen. Sit down now and tell me what’s wrong.”
“No, I can’t sit down. I’m too upset. What do you mean that’s not going to happen? How can you know that?”
“I know because Ben Wallace was just here a few minutes ago. I didn’t realize he’d written to a friend of his, another pastor in Ashland, where the Lazlos lived before they moved here.”
As he spoke, Jonathan led her to the chair across from his desk and finally convinced her to sit down. “Ben just received a reply from him yesterday,” he continued, sitting on the edge of the desk. “Apparently, at Ben’s request, the other pastor made some inquiries and found out that Lazlo had been fired from his job at a mine just outside of Ashland. It seems that he’d been drinking on the job—so much so that some of the other miners complained. Miners have to depend on each other, as I’m sure you realize. They won’t stand for having a man they can’t trust on the job with them. It’s too dangerous.”
He ran a hand across the back of his neck, mindful of the beginning of a headache. “Ben’s friend also wrote that Lazlo’s wife had set fire to the house more than once. Apparently Lazlo usually caught them in time and put them out. Do you remember his hands? The scars on them? I thought they might be burn scars. It appears now that they probably are.
“Anyway,” he went on, “the day Lazlo lost his job, his wife started another fire. This one burned the house down. Word had it that they all just barely escaped.”
Maggie looked sick.
He leaned forward. “Don’t you see now, Maggie? This information about the mother and the evidence of Huey’s beatings—well, that’s enough to keep the children away from them. In fact, Ben was taking the letter to the deputy sheriff as soon as left here, to insist that they arrest Mr. Lazlo. Obviously something will have to be done about his wife too. In any case, Huey and Selma won’t be going back to their parents. Huey’s had his last beating from his father.”
Unexpectedly Maggie moaned and buried her head in her hands.
“What is it? Maggie—is it Selma? Don’t tell me we were wrong about her not being beaten. There was no sign—”
She raised her face to look at him. Tears were spilling over from her eyes, and Jonathan reached to take her hands in his. But she drew back, again shaking her head. “The children, Jonathan—”
He glanced across the hall. She was right, but he had to clench his fists to keep from touching her…from comforting her.
He sighed. “Tell me what the doctor had to say about Selma.”
His mind went spinning with her first few words.
“Jonathan, it’s the mother they need to arrest! Maybe…the father too, I don’t know. But definitely their mother.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Light Out of Darkness
I refuse to believe that there is anything or anywhere so dark
That God cannot bring light to it.
Jonathan Stuart
Anxious to learn what transpired with the deputy sheriff, Jonathan had made Ben promise to come by the school yet this afternoon. Since there was no telling just how late Ben might be, he charged Maggie’s brother, Ray, and his friend, Tim Quigley—the two biggest boys in school—with walking the Lazlo children to the Wallaces’ place.
As soon as Maggie learned that he was staying late, she also refused to leave. “I have to know, Jonathan. I can’t simply go home and forget about this. I need to know what’s going to happen to those children.”
He could see the strain and tension of the day gripping her and saw the agitation simmering in her, just a step away from boiling over. “All right,” he said, trying for a soothing tone. “We’ll both stay. I’m sure Ben won’t be all that late. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t already come by. Of course, he may have had other things he needed to do first. I can’t think it would take too long for the deputy to slap some sort of a restraining order on the Lazlos. Or he may just go ahead with an arrest—”
“But he won’t know to arrest the mother, Jonathan! Pastor Wallace didn’t know about her, so the deputy won’t either. What if they don’t do anything about the mother?”
His head was throbbing viciously now. “They’ll have to do something, it seems to me. With her history of setting fires, and with what Dr. Gordon was able to learn—”
Clearly, she wasn’t convinced.
“Maggie, look at me.” He waited until she met his gaze. “This is going to be all right. It is.”
Finally she drew a long, shaky breath and nodded.
“What a huge relief it will be when it is finally over,” Jonathan said, attempting to lighten both their moods. “Not only will we be able to have some peace of mind about Huey and Selma, but perhaps we can get back to more cheerful matters.”
She looked at him, a faint smile finally softening her features. “I’m so thankful for you, Jonathan,” she said softly. “You can’t imagine.”
“Oh, I expect I can,” he said dryly. “Just ask the Lord how many times a day I thank Him for you.”
It was past six now and nearly dark. Figaro had been lying directly in front of Maggie, his head resting on her feet. She apparently didn’t mind; in fact, she seemed to have fallen in love with the big lug. And it was disgustingly obvious that the dog was smitten with her.
Just then Figaro’s head came up, and he gave a low growl. Jonathan went to look out the window. There was just enough light to see Ben Wallace getting out of his buggy.
“It’s only Pastor Ben, Figaro,” he said. “Not the bogeyman.”
Jonathan studied his friend closely as he stepped into the office. Although the pastor’s hair had turned almost totally white years ago, Ben wasn’t much more than fifty, if that. At the moment he looked older than Jonathan could remember ever seeing him. The few lines in his face seemed to have deepened over the past few hours, and his mouth was thin and tightly set.
Jonathan tensed, bracing himself for whatever he was about to hear.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Ben looked from him to Maggie. “The children—they’re with Regina?”
Jonathan nodded. “What is it, Ben?” He moved to give him the chair behind his desk, but the other made a dismissing gesture with his hand, remaining where he was.
His friend eased his shoulders a little and rubbed his neck. “Well… they’ve arrested Lazlo. He’s already in jail.”
“So they decided he’s also guilty,” Jonathan said, expelling a sigh. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Ben Wallace frowned. “What do you mean he’s also guilty? Of course he’s guilty
. He shot his wife.”
Jonathan put a hand on the desk to steady himself. In the same instant, Maggie scrambled to her feet.
“Lazlo…shot his wife?” Jonathan repeated, his mind struggling to grasp what Ben had said.
Ben nodded. “She was dead by the time the deputy and I got there. Not before she tried to burn the house down though.”
He stopped, then went on to explain. “According to Lazlo, the woman set fire to a mattress, but he managed to put it out. Then she tore into him, started screaming about the schoolhouse, that she was going to burn it down and everyone in it. Lazlo had a gun. I don’t know where he got it—from somewhere in the house, apparently. He claims she tried to get the gun away from him, and it went off in the scuffle. I don’t know what to believe. Neither does the deputy. But she’s dead, and he’s locked up. He turned himself over without putting up an argument.”
He shook his head. “Now I have to go and tell the children. What an awful thing for them to hear.”
“I’ll go with you, Ben,” Jonathan said, his mind still reeling. Again the pastor shook his head as if to clear it.
“No. No, that’s not necessary. I have to deal with taking bad news to folks all the time, Jonathan. Though it’s always harder when there are children involved.”
“Ben—”
“No, I mean it now. You and Maggie here must be as weary as I am. You see her home, and then go get some rest yourself. I’ll handle this.”
Jonathan knew his friend well enough not to try to change his mind. “All right. But first you need to hear the rest of the story. There’s more to this than you know.” He explained what Dr. Gordon had learned from Selma about the children’s mother, Lazlo’s abandonment of his son to the violence, and all the rest.
When he had finished, Ben was holding his head between his hands, pressing his temples as if to squeeze away a vicious pain. “Unbelievable,” he said, his voice low. “There is no imagining what those two youngsters have lived through.”