She was beginning to like Clinton. “Oh, that,” she said, smiling, lifting her arm to inspect the bruise. “I was moving furniture in my daughter’s bedroom.”
Clinton headed off in the opposite direction, and Lily made her way to the elevators. She decided to cross the floor on the side near Richard’s office, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. He had called almost every day, and on each occasion she had found an excuse to cut the conversation short. How could she tell him that her own daughter had elected to live with her father? Everyone knew that the children stayed with the mother unless there was a serious problem. If Shana had been a boy, the situation would have been easier to explain. But now that she was settled and Shana was right this minute on the way to her house, she felt she could finally see him.
He was on the phone, in the midst of a heated conversation. Seeing Lily, he waved her in and then put the call on the speaker and walked over, kicking the door shut. “I don’t care if the guy is Jesus Christ, Madison,” he shouted. “He’s going to do jail time. Three times and you’re out, baby. That’s the way we play the game in this county.” Looking Lily in the eye, he reached over and hit the off button.
“How’s it going?” she asked, standing in front of his desk.
“Misdemeanors. Do you have any idea how many cases we process in this unit? Sit,” he said, “I don’t bite.”
“I can’t,” Lily said softly. “I only have a minute.”
“You haven’t had a minute all week. I’m beginning to think this whole thing between us never happened.” He leaned back in his chair and then flopped forward. His eyes softened. “Come home with me tonight. I can’t get you out of my mind.”
Lily’s eyes darted to the window and then back. “I can’t. My husband and I split up. I’ve just been so overwhelmed by the whole thing. Between this and the new job, I…”
“I guess I’m supposed to say I’m sorry that your marriage is over, but I’m not. When can I see you?”
Her body felt hot and flushed. She wiped sweaty hands on her skirt. “Soon. I’ve thought about you too. Believe me…”
Before she knew it, he was around the desk and pulling on her hand. There was a certain spot in the offices that was blocked from view, the small space between the desk and the credenza. Once she was there, he embraced her, pressing his lips against her neck. “Stop,” she said. “I really have to go. My daughter is waiting. Please…”
He released her and leaned back against the credenza as she left. At the door she turned and looked at him. I’ll call. Maybe tomorrow.”
The front door had an overhang, and she didn’t see Shana waiting there until she was halfway up the little path to the door. The smell of roses drifted through the crisp evening air. Lily smiled and rushed to her, wrapping her arms around her. “How long have you been waiting?”
“A long time. I was afraid you weren’t coming.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I had to wait for one of my attorneys, and then I had to stop off at the store. Hey, I have a surprise for you. I hope you like it.”
Once inside, she took the girl by the hand, dropping both Shana’s overnight bag and her own briefcase by the front door and leading her down the hall. “This is your room now. What do you think?”
Shana tossed her long red hair and strolled confidently into the room. She was wearing a matching pants outfit that Lily had bought her only a few weeks before, pink, the top trimmed in lace. She was tall and lean, a gorgeous young woman growing in beauty with each day. Surveying the room with her back to Lily, she ran her hand over the top of the comforter and picked up one of the small framed pictures, the one of the two of them together last year at Christmas. She turned and smiled, a broad, spontaneous smile, not phony or forced.
“I love it, Mom. It’s great.”
Lily felt a wave of pleasure surge through her body; light was shining in through the lovely curtains, and she felt the darkness of the past eight days disappearing. “Look in the dresser drawers.”
“Oh, Mom…wow…these are great.” She was really excited now as she pulled all the new clothes out of the drawers and placed them all on the bed so she could examine them. “This is adorable. I love it. Oh, look at these…” She held up a pair of bikini panties that Lily had purchased at the lingerie store in the mall. All the price tags were still dangling from the items; knowing her daughter valued things by their costs, she had left them on. Lily somehow wanted to make up to the child for the pain she had suffered, would suffer during the divorce. She also wanted her to see this house as her home and associate it with pleasant things. Then, she hoped, Shana would spend more time with her. The clothes and room were a start. A small start, for sure, but a start. Her instincts were confirmed as she watched Shana read the numbers on the tags with a look of contentment. With clothes all over the bed and spilling onto the floor, the room now looked like her daughter’s old room, but a prettier, fresher, more feminine version. Shana’s furniture at home was older and scratched, the surfaces marked with water stains and nail polish she had spilled.
Shana leaped off the bed with joy and hugged her mother. Lily buried her face in her hair and smelled the fresh scent of herbal essence shampoo. “Thanks, Mom. I love it all: the room, the clothes, the pictures…” She pulled away and stopped, surveying the room again. “I do need a stereo, though.”
“Open the door to the wardrobe,” Lily said, having anticipated this need as well. “Now, I have to start frying that chicken. I’m starving.”
Lily didn’t want to take time to change clothes, so she merely tossed her jacket onto her bed as she headed for the kitchen. “Dinner in forty-five minutes.”
Soon the oil was crackling hot in the skillet; Lily was rolling chicken in flour and seasoning, having donned one of the new print aprons she had purchased. The table was set, the sliding glass door brought a breeze in through the garden, and in the background the stereo was pounding out rock music. All was right with the world. She placed the chicken in the hot oil and began peeling the potatoes.
“What’d you think?” Shana said, modeling one of the new outfits, twirling around on the white tile floor, her long copper hair swirling around her.
“It fits perfect and you look at least fourteen in it.”
“Is my butt too big? Does it make me look fat?”
Lily started laughing, wiping her hands on the apron and leaning back against the counter. Shana was mimicking one of her own frequent statements. “You look reed-thin and fabulous. Hey, don’t start on that fat thing. You’ll never get fat anyway, it not in your genes.”
“What jeans? Did you buy me a pair of jeans too?”
“No, silly. What I’m talking about is genetics; you’ll probably study it in biology next year. It relates to inheriting things from your parents. Like, I’ve never really had a weight problem, nor has anyone else in the family. You’ll be just fine.”
Shana moved close to her mother and looked up at her face earnestly. “Will I be as smart as you someday, then?”
Lily saw the admiration in her eyes. This was her daughter of old. She felt relaxed and happy, basking in her eyes. “Of course you’ll be as smart as me. In fact, you’ll be much smarter. You already are right now.”
“I’m not as smart as you think, Mom. Sometimes I don’t feel smart at all. I struggle so hard with my school work, and most of my friends don’t try at all and get straight As. You were always smart. That’s what Dad told me. He said you even made him feel stupid.”
“Well, maybe it’s your popularity that interferes with your work. If you lived with me, I would limit your phone calls, make you discipline yourself and develop better study skills.”
“Discipline myself? That’s stupid,” she snapped. “Like I’m really not disciplined. What does that mean? What do you think I am anyway, a juvenile delinquent?” Then she looked down at her tennis shoes. When she looked back up, a pronounced sadness was reflected in her vibrant blue eyes. “Dad needs me. I can’t leave him. Why did you leave h
im?”
“Maybe I need you too, Shana. Have you ever thought of that?” Lily went to the stove and turned the heat down. She regretted that last statement. The child was stuck in between. They couldn’t keep pulling on her. “Okay,” she spoke up quickly, “you have a right to know what happened. I just don’t know if I can explain it to you. Dad and I are very different in the way we look at life, in the things we want from life. I worked very hard to get through law school, to make something of myself, and I work very hard today, every day. I’m pretty good at what I do, Shana. And not only that, it’s an important job.” Lily stopped and wiped her hands on the apron.
“And Dad doesn’t have an important job. Is that it?”
“Not exactly. I don’t care if he has an important job, but he certainly should have a full-time job. And he should appreciate my efforts.” She turned and looked at Shana. “And he was wrong in trying to cause friction between us…using the time he had with you, forcing me to be the bad guy all the time, the one who had to punish you, telling you I said negative things about you.”
“Dad says you changed.”
Lily sighed deeply, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “Maybe I did. Maybe I did.” She smiled.
“Enough of that for tonight. Go change and we’ll eat.”
After dinner, the dishes piled in the sink, they sat side by side on the sofa, looking through Lily’s old photo albums, most from the days when she was a photographic model earning her way through college.
“You’re so pretty here,” Shana said, holding one of the photos up to her face and examining it. “Everyone thinks we look alike. Why can’t I model?”
“You can someday, but right now you’re too young. You know how I feel about you being around a lot of strange men. And besides, you need to concentrate on your school work, decide what you want to be. Modeling is just something you do for extra money.” Lily stared out over the room, lost in the past. It was during these days that she had first met John, when she had been so young and afraid. Her grandfather’s sexual abuse had been a secret wound, something so dark and filthy that she had never told a soul.
Finally, Shana tired of sitting and stood and stretched her lanky frame. While they had been chatting, she had been playing with her hair, braiding it. With no fastener it fell loose, and with a burst of energy she began jumping around and flinging her arms in the air. She was at that age when the child and the woman coexisted in the same body. One moment she was all little girl, unaware of her actions or her body, and the next she was all woman, with pouty little poses and gestures copied from movie stars, like the hair tossing and the way she shook her slender hips from side to side as she walked.
“I wanna call Dad now,” she said. Lily’s mouth fell open with disappointment. Then she turned and flashed that golden smile, lighting up the room. “The room is nice, Mom. I mean, it’s not like being at home, but it’s nice. Can I have a television?”
“No,” Lily yelled back, but she smiled. “You’re a case, Shana. A genuine case.”
CHAPTER 8
He was out. In his property he had twenty dollars, and he went to Stop n’ Go across from the jail and bought a six-pack of beer and two hot dogs for seventy-nine cents. When he got in line to pay, he saw her.
Even from the back he knew it was her. He had watched her enough from the window. Up close, she looked different—even from what he remembered from that earlier day in court. That day she’d looked sterner, taller. She was a good-looking chick, but she was older than he thought. There was one stocky old man standing in line between them. He stepped aside in order to see her better. Luck is a lady, he thought, smiling to himself and dropping his head as she paid for a bottle of Wesson oil and actually brushed up against him on the way out. He caught a whiff of her smell: clean…sweet. He couldn’t believe it. First they had released him and now he had found her only a few minutes after walking out of the jail. This was a sign, he thought, a fucking sign if he’d ever seen one—right up there in league with the statue of the Madonna crying. They should put him on the front page of the newspaper instead of that Night-stalker asshole. He was a fucking winner today.
He watched her go through the glass doors, headed right to that same little red car he’d watched from the windows of the jail. “Shit,” he said out loud, just as the man in front of him was paying for a pack of smokes. He slammed his beer and dogs down on the counter and ripped out his twenty, his eyes darting back and forth to the parking lot. Change in hand, he turned, thinking she would be gone by now. But no, he chuckled, she was digging in that dumb-shit purse for her keys, just as she had in the parking lot. Stupid bitch, he thought. Stupid hot-shot D.A. whore.
Once she was inside the car, he bolted through the doors, jumped in his car, and followed her. Did she look in her rearview mirror? Not once. Fucking women. Sometimes he thought they deserved everything they got just because they were so fucking stupid. And this lady thought she was smart, putting people in prisons, locking them away like animals in the zoo. He could outsmart her with both hands tied behind his back.
He stayed several car lengths behind her as she drove through the rush-hour traffic. He’d have never thought his luck would be this good. She was fucking pulling into a driveway and parking her car, getting out and walking to the front door. Once she got near the doorway, he couldn’t see her. Should steal her car too, he thought—probably left the keys right in the ignition. Might have a husband in there. Might have a fucking gun or something. Might be just the lady.
Parked a block from her house, he ate the rubbery hot dogs and slugged down two or three cans of the beer. Loaf—they served this thing they called loaf all the time in the jail. Tried to call the shit meat loaf, but everyone knew there was no meat in it. Willie had told him that they served it because they couldn’t hurt each other with it. Sure couldn’t kill someone with a rucking loaf, but a chicken bone, that might work.
As soon as he thought of Willie, the scene at the jail with the biker and his little playmate returned to his mind. The biker’s cocksucker lady had touched his balls. He rolled down the window and spat. It made him want to puke. And the tattooed motherfucker had called him an Oxnard cockroach. This bitch had caused that, he thought, staring at the front of the house. Never would have happened except for her. He felt the anger rise inside of him. Willie had said other things. Willie had seen his back. “Fuck…fuck…fuck,” he screamed. He grabbed the empty beer cans and started throwing them at the windshield of the car. One popped back and hit him in the face. His stomach was twisting. Snakes—it felt like snakes in there—a pit of snakes crawling in circles in his stomach.
Switches—that was what she used to beat him with—big, skinny sticks torn from the tree out back. First it was the closet, the dark, stinking closet. He sat in there for hours and cried and cried, beating the door until his hands were bloody and raw. But when she opened the door, it was worse because she had the switches. Over the commode…she made him bend over the fucking open, reeking John with his shirt off. And she whipped him and whipped him, screaming that she wouldn’t stop until he quit crying. But she was a liar. Even when he quit crying, she never stopped. She didn’t stop until blood dripped from his back onto the filthy, cracked linoleum. Then she made him mop it up, scrub and scrub until it was all gone.
He could still smell the awful stuff she put on her hair. The stuff to make it red—whore’s red. It smelled so awful that his eyes would burn. He had loved her long black hair that hung all the way to her hips—before the switches and the beatings. He used to brush it and braid it for her, feel it sliding through his fingers like silk. He’d stand behind her on a stool and gather it gently in his hands like a horse’s tail. Then he’d close his knees on it and hold it there while he picked up each strand to braid.
After she made her hair red, she started staying out all night and sleeping all day. She stopped making them food. Sometimes she’d walk in the door with a sack and they thought it was food, but it wasn’t. It w
as a bottle of booze. She’d throw a few dollar bills on the table and leave every night. He’d walk alone to the store and try to buy enough for them all to eat, but he never had enough money. He had to steal.
He turned on the car radio. Like dessert, he’d saved the best for last—the best was under the seat, waiting. His hand reached under there but couldn’t find it. Starting to panic, he reached farther and then he felt it: the hunting knife. Just the feel of the cold metal made his dick get hard, and he rubbed it back and forth with his hand, thinking what he was going to do to the fucking whore in the house. Adrenaline surged through his body and he laughed. He could wait until dark—he was used to waiting.
He’d wait until he thought it was safe, and then he would get out and walk her house, try to figure who was inside. Then he’d come back and sleep awhile until it was right. He always knew when it was right. Tonight it was going to be right.
CHAPTER 9
She glanced at the bedside clock. It was almost eleven o’clock. Lily started to retrieve her briefcase from the living room to go over a few cases, but she couldn’t muster up the energy and instead removed her clothing and climbed under the covers, thinking that tonight sleep might come. Almost euphoric knowing her daughter was asleep in the new four-poster bed across the hall and the evening had gone so well, she turned off the light. It then dawned on her that she had not checked the doors in the little house, a chore John had always handled.
With her terrycloth robe wrapped loosely around her, she padded barefoot in the dark, deciding to check the kitchen door first. It was a quiet neighborhood: no cars, no barking dogs, just blissful stillness.
Entering the kitchen, she saw the drapes billowing in the slight breeze, being sucked through the open sliding glass door. She chastised herself for not locking it but felt the area was so safe, it probably wasn’t even necessary. As she pushed the drapes aside and started pulling the door in the track, a funny feeling came over her, a sense of something amiss. Holding her breath in order to hear better, she heard a squeak, like the sound a basketball player’s sneakers make on the court.
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