THE WORD OF A CHILD

by Janice Kay Johnson

  "I'll see her tomorrow," he promised. "I hope you will, too."

  "Okay. Good night, Connor."

  "Good night," he murmured, and ended the call.

  Tracy, he thought grimly, wasn't the only one having to deal with inner conflict.

  The fact that I left Simon was not your fault.

  Wasn't it? he asked himself again, and didn't like the answer.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  « ^ »

  She was chicken. She was.

  Tracy hated knowing she was too scared to kill herself or run away or do anything but sit here in class like a good little girl and then go home and lock the door and huddle inside, praying Mom didn't ask creepy Norm to move in.

  Today, she'd already done her stint in the school office, writing late passes and calling on the intercom for students to come to the office when their parents arrived to pick them up. Now she was in Integrated Math 1, not listening to Mrs. Caproni drone on about graphing. But she pretended she was, too much a chicken to be open like Renee in the back row who slouched in her seat twirling strands of her hair and reading a comic book, the pages turning with an audible whisper every minute or so. No, Tracy held a pencil poised above the paper and followed the teacher with her gaze, even though her dark thoughts were about a million miles away.

  She'd looked in Mom's medicine cabinet yesterday, knowing she took sleeping pills sometimes. The amber bottle sat there, half-full. Tracy counted the pills. Thirteen. Would she die if she took only thirteen? Or would she just puke them up? Or—worst of all—wake up some kind of … of vegetable? She could wait until Mom refilled the prescription, but that might be months. Mom didn't take them every night.

  Tracy had actually gotten into the tub one night with the butcher knife from the kitchen and drawn the edge gently across the delicate blue vein in her wrist. But she was just … practicing, not really doing it. She didn't press, and the knife wasn't that sharp anyway. She felt the cold blade slip across her skin and imagined pushing harder, until blood trickled and then poured. But she could not do it. Her hand had been shaking when she set down the knife on the bath mat. She'd buried her face in her knees and cried.

  She didn't want to die.

  She just couldn't stand going on like this.

  Lying to the policeman when he stopped by, which he kept doing. Avoiding Ms. Stavig's eyes, rushing out of her class so she couldn't stop Tracy and say something so kind she crumpled and admitted everything.

  Every day Tracy went home more scared than the day before. The past two days, she'd made excuses or slipped away so she didn't have to walk with her friends and put on this big show of laughing and gossiping like nothing was wrong. Alone, she could walk fast, with her head down, and think about running away and how she'd find her dad, and he'd be so glad to see her and he'd tell her that he had been writing and calling all these years, but her mother never told her.

  She'd almost made up her mind she would run away when last night she and Mom got into this screaming thing, and she yelled, "I hate you! I'm going to go find Dad!"

  Mom yelled back, "Have fun visiting his grave, then!"

  Tracy stared in shock.

  Mom's expression changed. "I'm sorry. I found out just last week that your dad died six years ago. I should have told you…"

  "You thought I wouldn't care?"

  "No, I…" Mom closed her eyes for a moment. "I wanted to find out more. I hoped he might have some life insurance or have left something…"

  Hurt and anger blinded Tracy. "He probably divorced you. Maybe I wasn't his kid at all. How do you know I am? You like having a man around, right? There were probably lots of men."

  Mom slapped her.

  "I hate you!" she screamed again, and ran to her bedroom.

  Mom didn't follow her.

  Usually, since Mom didn't go to bed until three in the morning, she didn't get up with Tracy. But this morning, she'd shuffled out of her bedroom in her bathrobe, her mascara smudged black around her eyes and foundation she hadn't washed off cracked and blotchy. Her hair was a rat's nest.

  "Tracy," she said wearily. "I'm sorry I slapped you. You're just … pushing all my buttons these days. What's wrong with you?"

  This great dark howl rose in her: I'm scared. I'm so scared, Mommy. She had to turn her face away so her mother couldn't see her expression.

  She shrugged.

  "Tracy, you are so hard to live with right now. I shouldn't lose my temper like that, but honest to God…"

  Tracy set her cereal bowl in the sink and gave her mother an insolent glance. "You should have washed your makeup off last night. You look really bad."

  Mom's hand involuntarily went to her face before she made a frustrated sound, like steam shooting from a vent, turned and stalked back to her bedroom.

  Tracy hurried and gathered her books into her pack and left for school.

  She did not want to go home. But she was ashamed to know that she did, too. Every time she thought about running away, she felt terror and this great wash of loneliness. Her mother loved her. Tracy knew she did. No one else in the world loved her. Mom was just drunk that night. She hadn't meant it. They were a team, the two of them, like Mom used to say.

  But they weren't, because Mom always had to have some man there, too. And they were all awful. Tracy hated them. She'd been getting more and more scared these past years, as her body changed and they looked at her differently. She couldn't stand it anymore. The accidental brushes against her, the lingering leers, the sly insinuations, all leading up to the footsteps that paused for the longest time outside her bedroom door at night when Mom was at work.

  If Mom brought Norm home now… The point of Tracy's pencil snapped off, as her hand tightened.

  She could not stand it.

  She had to do something. Dying should be the easiest, but it didn't seem to be.

  The bell rang, and she stood with all the other students, shoving her binder and calculator back in her pack, her mind circling like a trapped animal revisiting every corner of a cage.

  Kill myself… How? Run away… But where? How to survive without doing … it. She wouldn't! No matter what. Talk to someone. Tell on Mom. No. Just go on… No! I can't, I can't! Maybe some friend's mom or dad would have a drug in the cabinet… But I don't know what will work. Aren't there shelters for teenagers? But somebody would send me home, I know they would. Talk to Ms. Stavig. No! Survive another night. Pray something, anything, happens. Pray Mom says, "I know what you feel. I'll keep you safe."

  Tracy swiped at tears and went to her next class, like a good little girl.

  Friday night they laughed, talked and ate pizza with a thick, yeasty crust, a rich sauce and piquant mix of cheese that stretched in rubbery strands and tasted divine. Then they went to a comical British movie where they whispered translations of the dense Yorkshire accents in each others' ears.

  It felt natural to walk out of the theater hand in hand. Mariah momentarily panicked when Connor suggested going to his brother John's for dessert and coffee, but then decided defiantly that she had nothing to be nervous about.

  "Why not?" she said. "If they really invited us this late."

  "They're grown-ups," he assured her. "Sometimes they tuck the kids into bed and stay up until midnight."

  Mariah laughed. "Okay. You can tell how often I stay up until midnight."

  John McLean, the oldest brother and another member of the Port Dare Police Department, owned a shingled cottage in Old Town. Dwarfed by the Victorian on the corner, it was more charming because it was cozy.

  Connor parked in the driveway and led her via a brick courtyard covered with an arbor to the back door, where he knocked.

  The man who opened the door was instantly recognizable as Connor's brother, although his eyes were vivid blue instead of gray and his face plainer, more blunt-featured.

  "Connor. Hey." He slapped his brother on the shoulder in greeting before turning an exceptionally sweet smile on Mariah. "You mus
t be the famous Mariah Stavig. Come in."

  "Famous?" she queried under her breath.

  Connor pretended not to hear.

  The moment she stepped into the back hall and saw the dining room and living room opening ahead, the ceilings gracefully high, the beautifully refinished woodwork and floors gleaming, she sighed with pleasure. "I've always wanted a house like this."

  "A woman with taste," Connor's brother said with satisfaction.

  The pretty, dark-haired woman who accepted the circle of his arm smiled. "I married him for his house. Can't you tell?"

  Mariah laughed. "I'd certainly understand! Hi. I'm Mariah." She held out a hand, shaken all around.

  Natalie McLean had baked an exquisite blueberry pie that she offered with coffee. They ended up in the living room, settled on deep couches and broad-armed chairs, the men's feet on the coffee table, eating and talking. The two women hit it off from the first, finding common ground in their jobs, friends, soccer and books.

  "Why have we never met?" Natalie wondered. "It sounds like we know so many of the same people."

  "Chance." Beginning to feel a little drowsy, but too contented to suggest leaving, Mariah found herself comfortably curled beneath Connor's arm, casually outstretched on the back of the couch. "Everything is chance."

  John pounced on her half-frivolous explanation of life's vagaries. "Now, you don't really believe that, do you?"

  They ended up having an amiable argument about how much a person could affect her fate, one Connor refereed with lazy amusement.

  It was one o'clock before Connor and Mariah reluctantly left. "I had a wonderful time. Thank you," she said at the door.

  Natalie kissed her on the cheek. "I'm so glad you came." She gave a sly glance at her brother-in-law. "Now we know why Connor has been mooning over you."

  "I haven't been that bad," he protested halfheartedly.

  "No, it's been very sweet," she told him.

  He groaned and steered Mariah away from the doorstep. "With family like that…"

  "Who needs enemies?" she suggested.

  Laughter followed them into the night.

  He tugged her close to his side. "Something like that."

  How long had it been since she had walked hip-to-hip with a man? Tucked under his arm, she felt petite and feminine, conscious of his hard hip and thigh bumping her, of the scent of his aftershave, of his sheer size.

  "You are very lucky," she told him, just a little breathlessly. "I'm green with envy."

  "Do you have brothers or sisters?" He opened the passenger side door for her.

  She regretted the moment when his arm dropped from her shoulders and he stepped back. "One brother, ten years older," Mariah said. "We were just too far apart in age, I think. He's an attorney in Portland. We see each other every couple of years, maybe."

  "That's too bad." Connor closed the door after she was in. Getting in behind the wheel, he continued, "We did our share of fighting as kids, and Hugh and I sure as hell didn't like living together as adults, but we're all close. Hugh and John are my best friends."

  "I can tell," Mariah said. "You are lucky."

  His teeth flashed with a grin as he started the engine. "There you go. Chance again. If your mom had just gotten pregnant with you sooner, you and your brother could have been best buds."

  "If Mom had gotten pregnant, it would have been with a different egg, and I wouldn't be me." She thought about that one. "Or something. If I was me, I'd be ten years older than you, and we probably wouldn't be here together now."

  He hummed a few bars of mysterious music. "Chance again," he intoned in a deep, Hitchcockian voice.

  "And you didn't even take my side in there," Mariah complained, then gave a broad yawn. "Oh! I'm sorry."

  "Don't be." Connor reached out and squeezed her hand. "You've been up a lot of hours."

  "Mmm," she agreed, sleepiness hitting her now, in the dark car, as if the caffeine in the coffee had quit working from one second to the next. "I worked today. You worked today," she remembered. "Did you catch your flasher? You never said."

  "No, but a mom called 911 to report me hanging around near a bus stop watching the kids. A squad car rolled up behind me to check me out."

  "Oh, no!" Mariah pressed fingers to her mouth to try to stifle her giggle. "How embarrassing!"

  "Yup. I had to explain myself. Fortunately our guy wasn't watching. He was busy exposing himself at a bus stop four blocks away."

  "Oh, dear. But so close? Is he sticking to a neighborhood?"

  "Yeah, he apparently is on foot. His, um, startled audience reports that he dashes off and disappears up someone's driveway or down an alley."

  She couldn't help giggling again. "He's a walker."

  With the help of a streetlight, she saw the wryness of his glance. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "Home sweet home," he observed a minute later, slowing to ease over a speed bump at the entrance to her condominium parking lot.

  "Your brother's house looks a whole lot homier."

  "Yeah, his place has spoiled me," Connor agreed. "Every time I spend the evening there, I wonder why I don't buy a house."

  "Money?"

  "I could afford it." He pulled into an empty slot in front of her building. "Just haven't acted yet. Maybe buying a house just for yourself isn't as much fun." Turning off the engine, he reached for his seat belt catch. "I'll walk you up. Make sure there are no bad guys lurking."

  "In raincoats."

  "Yeah, wouldn't want you shocked."

  On her doorstep he waited while she unlocked, then kissed her gently, sensuously, a taste more than a demand. She had agonized over the eternal questions: What if he wants to come in? Am I ready? Mariah had shocked herself with the knowledge that she was. But tonight he didn't ask, and she was too sleepy to do more than stand passively, clutching the lapels of his coat and enjoy being kissed.

  Her eyes were still closed when he lifted his head, turned her with a firm hand and gave her a nudge over the doorstep.

  "Lock up. Sleep tight." He sounded rueful and faintly amused. "Noon tomorrow?"

  "If you're not tired of me yet."

  He might have said, "Never." Mariah wasn't sure, because he spoke so quietly at the same time as he was pulling the door shut, leaving him on one side and her on the other.

  She went straight to bed and fell asleep reliving the kiss and smiling.

  Never.

  Ten o'clock was the latest she remembered sleeping since she was in college. She raced through breakfast, a shower and some housekeeping—just so Zofie, and perhaps Simon, wouldn't wonder what she'd done all weekend. At noon, she was ready, her heart lifting in anticipation when Connor rang the doorbell.

  In faded jeans that fit his lean hips snugly and a sweatshirt that emphasized the bulk of his shoulders, he was incredibly sexy. Even his short-cut hair was rumpled today, as if it were taking a day off from the regimen of a cop.

  "Good morning," she said shyly. "Or is it afternoon?"

  "We'll split the difference." His gaze seemed to devour her. He kissed her briefly but thoroughly, sending her pulse racing. "You're bright-eyed today."

  "In contrast to last night?"

  "You looked like you needed tucking in," he said in a low rumble.

  She wasn't quite confident enough to say, "Weren't you tempted to do it?" But something knowing in his eyes made her suspect he knew quite well what she was thinking.

  A guide to antique stores listed twenty-three in Port Dare. Over a dozen were within a three-block radius in Old Town, where turn-of-the-century homes and carriage houses had been converted into retail space, their small-paned windows the perfect showplace for rows of bottles in pale purple and green and gold, their high-ceilinged rooms splendid for displaying huge armoires and long, heavy mahogany tables and cupboards full of old linens. Mariah loved prowling these stores, fingering beautifully refinished woods and holding glass up to the light and coveting antique quilts with thousan
ds of tiny stitches.

  "Will you be bored in half an hour?" she asked Connor, when they entered the first store, their footsteps loud on the painted boards of the front porch.

  "I don't know. I've never been in one of these places," he admitted. "No, that's a lie. There was an antique store down on Fourth—I don't know if it's still there. Stacks of wrought-iron gates leaning against the stone wall in front?"

  "It's still there," she assured him.

  "They were robbed some years ago. My case."

  "Were antiques stolen? Or money?"

  "Both, as I recall. Not the iron gates. Small stuff. I remember some carved ivory figures that we did find in a pawnshop. Worth a hell of a lot more than the thief ever guessed, I gathered." Inside the cluttered first room, he stopped at an elegant cherry tea table with spooled legs. "Hey. Now that's pretty."

  "Mmm-hmm." Mariah winced at the price tag. "Are we seriously looking for furniture for you?"

  "Damn straight. I like this." He crouched to study the legs and underside of the dainty table.

  "Do you have a place for one this small? It's not quite end-table size, too tall for a coffee table."

  "It's the perfect height to go under one of my windows." He straightened reluctantly. "I suppose I shouldn't buy the first thing I see."

  "No, just remember what you really liked. The odds are, it'll still be here at the end of the day."

  They had a wonderful time discussing the purpose of peculiar objects, imagining life when women would have spent hours a day in front of the spinning wheel or on their feet feeding the enormous, elaborately decorated cast-iron cooking stoves. Connor studied old tools with interest, thumbed through books and expressed a preference for simple American furniture with clean lines, versus the more elaborate European imports.

  He bought two glass-fronted bookcases for obscene amounts of money that Mariah enjoyed vicariously spending. They went back for the pretty little tea table and a gorgeous maple dresser with an attached beveled mirror. The store owners all promised to deliver.

  "I didn't buy anything," she realized at the end of the day. They strolled up the sidewalk toward their starting point, where they'd left the car. Closed signs were starting to appear in windows, and the sidewalks were emptier than they'd been earlier. The gray sky was deepening into dusk.