“But you saw me, didn’t you, my girl?”
I shook my head. Not your girl!
“In the bathtub.”
“No…no. I…no. Never.”
“I saw you watching me. A man in the privacy of his own bath. I saw you look. And now you’ll be lying on top of that? Tsk.”
He winked at me. I choked back the vomit in my throat.
“And then you thought to call the police.” He shook his head. “Naughty girl. Naughty girl. Won’t have that in this house, I won’t. I’ll have to be teaching you another lesson.”
He smiled at me with those awful yellow teeth. Yellow from years of smoking those stinky cigarettes he rolled in the basement. Licking the paper with his fat tongue, peering at me over the top of his glasses.
Two days went by until Hazel was out and I was alone with him.
“Come here, lass.”
I tried to get by him. I did. The front door was there. So close. I couldn’t make my legs move.
“Come along now. I won’t hurt you. You know it doesn’t hurt. Why, I seem to remember you enjoyed it. Didn’t you now?”
Arm out. So fast. His hand on my wrist. Pinching. Pants down. Underpants down. But this time…this time he’d undone his belt.
He saw the fear on my face.
“Oh, now, don’t be worrying. You’re too young for the belt. ’Tis the hand for you, yet.”
He pulled me onto his legs.
Smack. Smack. Smack. Rub. “Rub a dub-dub. It doesn’t hurt now, does it? Eh? Say it doesn’t hurt.”
“Does…doesn’t.”
“What? Doesn’t what?”
“Hurt. Doesn’t.”
“Good lass. Good lass.”
Smack. Smack. Sm –
Neither of us heard the door open.
“Dad!”
I was on the floor. Pushed. Banging my head on the chair leg.
He grabbed at his buckle. “It isn’t – ”
“Shut up! Shut up!” Lana screamed. She slapped him.
She found my hand and pulled me up. “Here. Get dressed. Hurry. I knew it! I should have known! I should have! I did! I can’t believe – ”
She kept screaming, and her father didn’t move. “Get your clothes. Get whatever you can. Hurry up. We’re leaving. Hurry, Cassie.”
Then she spit in her father’s face.
And we were out the door.
I had jumbled everything I owned into Mabel’s throw and run out of the house like a hobo.
Weeks later, I emptied out my tin can of quarters. There were fourteen. Fourteen quarters. There should have been fifteen. I bought a Lowney Cherry Blossom. But I choked on it. I could not swallow it. “Nora said someone once found a worm in the cherry.” That’s what I told the kids with me when I bought it and threw it away.
I gave the rest of the quarters to Michael for the privilege of touching his heart.
Chapter Fourteen
“I won’t go back.”
They sighed.
“I won’t. I won’t! I’ll tell. I’ll tell the school. I’ll tell the police. I will.”
“Now honey – ”
“No. No!”
“But tell what? Dad says he was just punishing you for misbehaving. That’s all.”
All.
“You don’t believe that. You can’t. You hit him. You spit at him. You – ” And I knew. I knew. “He did it to you too, didn’t he? Growing up. Didn’t he?”
Lana crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Listen, Cass – ”
“How many times? How many quarters did he give you? Huh?”
Lana went to her bedroom and slammed the door.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” mumbled Dick.
He went after her. He closed the door and I could hear them.
Arguing about me.
Well…. I said before I’d run away, and so I would.
Dick came out first. “Listen. She’s pretty upset with, you know, everything you’ve said about her dad.”
I started to protest and he interrupted me. “But wait a minute. Wait a minute. Don’t worry. You can stay here for a while. Until we sort things out. Okay? Deal?”
I wanted to relax. I wanted to believe him. “For how long? I’m just a kid. You can grab me and haul me back there, and what can I do about it?”
Dick smiled. “Oh, I think there’s plenty you’d do about it.” He sat down. “Cassie, I believe you. I do. Lana has told me things. Not much, but enough. And I’m not stupid. I know what goes on. Nobody wants to admit this stuff, but, man, the lid’s going to blow soon, I tell ya.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but he seemed to be on my side.
“Cassie, I don’t know how we’ll fix this, how we’ll manage, but we will. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Come on. Sit down.” He patted the couch beside him.
I sat down in the rocker. He looked at me funny.
“Listen. I don’t know exactly what went on. But I hate the guy – Hazel, too. Why, she must be hell on roller skates to live with! When I met Lana, I fell head over heels. When I met her folks, I almost broke it off. I don’t know how someone so sweet came out of that house, that’s for sure.”
“What…what did she tell you?”
“Aw…I don’t know. Just…let’s not talk about it, okay? Makes me sick, to tell you the truth.” He looked up at the ceiling, then over at me. “Want to know something else? I was real sorry when your grandma died. A good woman. Know what I mean?”
Of course. Of course I know. I started to sob. Big, blubbery sobbing. Not clenched teeth grunts.
“I’m sorry, Cass. And we’ll work it out. I promise. Cheer up, okay?” He handed me the box of Kleenex.
Behind me, Lana came out of the bedroom. “I’m sorry, hon. I really am. I’ve…I’ve got stuff, you know? It goes back. And…they’re my folks, you know?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t have “folks.” But I nodded and said I’d help with supper. I cleared the table after and washed the dishes and swept the kitchen floor.
Dick set up a camp cot in the hallway by the front door. I lay down and was surprised when I saw it was morning. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep. Maybe it was the first time in weeks that I wasn’t scared. Not clutching knitting needles.
Dick drove me to school that day. I didn’t want to go, but Lana said she phoned her mom and told her I needed a break from routine. “Mom didn’t even ask why,” I heard her say to Dick.
I was terrified to get out of the car. What if they were there, waiting to drag me back? But I didn’t see them all week, or the next week, either. No one seemed to know anything was different, not even the teacher. Nobody asked any questions about where I was living. So I began to relax. And I didn’t steal or cheat or fight in the playground.
That first Saturday Lana took me shopping. “Those clothes have to go,” she said, shaking her head. “Where’d you get them?”
“Rummage sales.”
We went to a plaza near the apartment to a store called Chic Casual. I thought it was chick, like a chicken, but I heard the saleslady say “sheeek.” Her hair was in a bun and she wore really high heels that clicked when she walked. She wore a tight skirt and a tight sweater. I wanted to look like her. I vowed that someday I would.
Lana bought me two pairs of jeans and three tops and a dress in something called paisley print. We got runners and a pair of patent leather dress shoes. She took me to the hairdresser and Pino trimmed my bangs and cut off about six inches of split ends. He shook his head the whole time and pursed his lips. But he did say my color was magnifico.
One day, Lana said I was old enough to take the bus home from school. Dick didn’t mind dropping me off in the morning, but it would be better if I got home on my own. Lana gave me a dime every day for my
ticket and I felt so mature, so much worldlier than the other kids. It killed me, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. If someone blabbed to her mom, and then her mom blabbed to Hazel – What if she said I was too young to take a bus? What if she demanded I go “home”?
My teacher, Mrs. Workman, said I was looking very good. “I’m so glad, Cass. Really. You were looking a little…neglected?” I knew she was trying to ask me something, but I played dumb.
I kept to myself. I offered to clean the blackboards at recess every day so I could stay inside in case Hazel came to the school at recess and called me over to the fence. What if she made a scene? What if the principal told me to go home with her? What if I couldn’t refuse? What if, once again, I could not make my legs run?
But two weeks passed and nothing happened. Today was November 22, and soon it would be Christmas, and I began to hope. Why, maybe Liz would even come back and stay with us at Lana’s!
It was afternoon recess and I used the shammy on the board to get it really clean, and I heard the teacher come into the room. I turned around. Her face looked terrible.
I knew it! It’s them! “What…what is it, Mrs. Workman?”
“The president. He’s been shot. Killed. JFK. President Kennedy. He’s dead.”
She started to cry and she fumbled for a chair – a little kid’s chair – to sit on. I remember thinking how odd it was – her knees up to her chin and her so low down.
JFK! Liz’s president. What would Liz be thinking? I remembered the picture I had torn from a magazine. JFK and his beautiful wife, Jackie. I had a collection of pictures, now that I knew about them. It connected me to Liz, to the make-believe that some day Lana and I would get in a roadster and go on a trip to California.
I took the bus home after school and people were outside, arm in arm, weeping. The news was everywhere.
Lana and Dick were having a party the next day and didn’t know whether to cancel it or not. It was like someone they knew was dead.
They went ahead, and I helped, putting ice in glasses and handing around bowls of nuts and bolts. If everyone said I was useful, Lana might keep me.
People came in quiet. They all said the same things. Lana cut out a photo from the newspaper and taped it to the wall and everyone said something about Camelot. But pretty soon people were having second and third drinks and someone told a joke. Then Dick raised his glass and said that the good always die young.
“Like my mother, Rita,” I said.
A woman I didn’t know swiveled around to stare. “Rita’s dead? When? I just saw her last week!”
A glass smashed in the kitchen.
Chapter Fifteen
Silence.
People either looked at me, or the kitchen doorway.
Someone in the bathroom flushed. A woman giggled and a man hiccupped.
I found my voice. “What do you mean? What do you mean you saw my mother?”
Another woman said, “Rita’s your mom? No kidding!”
I thought I would go crazy. Lana came out of the kitchen. “Not now, Cassie. Okay? Later, I promise.”
“Promise what? To tell me why my mother is or isn’t dead?” I was shrieking. Dick grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall. He flicked the dial on the record player as he went by and music blared.
Dick pushed me onto their bed. “Quiet. Just be quiet. You heard her. She said she’d tell you, and she will. But not in front of everyone, you hear me? We’re not gonna ruin the party on top of everything else.” He went to the door. “You’re going to stay in here. Watch TV. I’ll bring you some food.” He was out with the door closed before I could answer.
My thoughts were all over the place. Was I mad because my mother wasn’t dead? Or was I mad she was alive? Or was I mad because I felt like an idiot?
Dick came back with a box of chips and two bottles of Orange Crush and a bowl of Bridge Mixture. “Here. Knock yourself out.”
I turned on the TV and adjusted the rabbit ears, but it was all stuff about JFK or Lawrence Welk. Yuck. So I snooped around the bedroom. I found a box of magazines called True Crime in Dick’s side of the closet. Lots of gory pictures of dead women in negligees or half-naked, and tough-guy cops making snarky comments. Pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be reading this.
Sue me.
I ate everything and felt sick and thought about throwing up on their bed. I guess I fell asleep, because in the morning I was on my cot in the hallway. The living room was a mess. I could hear Dick snoring but Lana was on the sofa, still in her dress, staring out the window. I sat in the swivel chair and swung it back and forth until she stuck out her foot and jerked me still.
“She isn’t dead. Aunt Shirley told us she died giving birth to you. Then Rita wrote us letters – Liz and me – and told us the truth. The three of them made us go along with it. Shirley, Hazel, and Mabel. They said it was for the best. For you.” She picked up a glass and sniffed, made a face, and drank. “Liz and I hated them. Hated having to pretend our cousin was dead.” She finally looked at me. “We loved Rita.”
I didn’t move. I was afraid of stopping this flow of information.
“If our mothers found the letters, they destroyed them. We tried something else – a post office box – but after a time…well, I guess Rita moved on. She sent a couple more letters from Detroit and New Orleans and then…nothing. And I guess that might have been it, if your grandmother hadn’t died.” She poured some fresh vodka into her glass. “So. Any questions?”
As if she’d just explained some arithmetic to me.
I cleared my throat. “Why?” I began. “Why….”
“Oh, come on, Cassie. You’re almost ten. You’re not naïve. Rita got pregnant. She was sixteen when you were born. Don’t you know how people would talk? So off they went, and Rita had you in a home for unwed mothers. You know the rest.”
But I didn’t know the rest. Not the truth I had to know. “I mean…why did she leave me?” I could barely say the words.
Lana sighed. “She didn’t want to. She wrote us that. The people at the home had someone lined up to adopt. But after you were born, she wanted to keep you. So Aunt Shirley stepped in. She said she’d take you on. There were rumors back home, but…” Lana smiled. “Good old Aunt Shirley. I think she enjoyed the gossip. True fightin’ Irish.”
It didn’t take an Einstein to add up sixteen and ten. “But she’s almost twenty-six now. She could be my mom now. She shoulda come back when Grandma died. She should…she should – ” I thought of Ernie and knew this time I would be sick. I swallowed and swallowed before running to the kitchen sink. I threw up on cigarette butts and soggy pretzels.
Lana had her arm around me and a wet cloth pressed to the back of my neck, and after a while, she walked me back to the sofa and pulled me down beside her.
“I don’t know where she is. No one does.”
I sat up. “But that woman said…that woman last night. She said she saw her!”
“Joanie knew Rita years ago. She didn’t know the story about her dying. But she says it was Rita. I asked her and she swears it was. Joanie called to her and she turned around. So it must have been her. But then…then she turned and ran. Joanie says she recognized her. Rita recognized Joanie, I mean.”
My mind was speeding. “But if she’s here? If she’s here she’ll call you, right? She’ll want to talk, right? And you’ll tell her about me. And she’ll be thrilled to find out I’m okay and I’m by myself, and she’ll want to take me, right?”
Lana took my hand. “It was more than a week ago. Why hasn’t she called? I think…I think maybe she can’t do it. Can’t take on – it was a long time ago.”
An idea! “Where did Joanie see her? We could go. Go look for her. We could drive around and around and – ”
I knew how stupid I sounded.
“Joanie saw her down
town, shopping. Needle in a haystack, Cassie.”
No. No. No. I want Rita. I want a mother.
I knew I couldn’t stay with Lana forever. I would not go back to Hazel’s house. Rita has to come for me. She has to.
Somehow we got through the day, and some time during the night, I woke up with the whole thing figured out.
Chapter Sixteen
I went back to school on Monday and watched the time creep by. At 3:45 the bell rang, but I did not take the bus. I went to Hazel’s house.
I knew she wouldn’t be home. On Monday she played bridge, and I had a couple of hours until Ernie showed up – unless he was drunk and already home. I’d find out soon enough.
I walked around to the backyard and saw the small basement window open – airing out the stinky couch. I wiggled around and pushed and shoved, and in a minute, I plopped down to the couch. I jumped off as if it was on fire. On a hunch, I ran my mittened fingers under the cushions and came up with a handful of coins. Into my pocket.
This isn’t stealing.
Upstairs and into their bedroom. Looked through every drawer and under the mattress and in the closet. I found lots more coins and even some one- and two-dollar bills in Ernie’s pockets and took them all.
But I didn’t find what I came for. It had to be here. Because, wouldn’t Rita write to Lana? She wouldn’t know Lana was married. Rita would send letters here, asking for information about me. I knew this for a fact. Like the sun rising is a fact.
I pulled everything apart and dumped it all on the floor. I wasn’t trying to be neat. Let them think they’d been robbed.
I went by the bathroom and stopped. Checked out the cupboard and found the enema box and carried it into the kitchen. There was a pot of stew on the stove and I lifted the lid and put the ball and hose on top of the meat.
I went through the kitchen cupboards. Nothing. I dropped the cutlery drawer on the floor and watched with great pleasure as the forks and spoons and knives slid and bounced on the gray linoleum.
He had his belt all the way out of the loops and thrashed it down on the counter before I saw him. The table was between us and he shoved it into my stomach, pinning me against the wall. I’d never seen such mean eyes, but he was smiling.
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