What’s going on?
Dawn held her yellow bathrobe over her shoulders with one hand, staring at me deeply. Katie’s here, she said. You better come out to the kitchen.
I staggered down the hallway rubbing the crust from my eyes and found the mothers all seated around the big table where we ate most meals. Mama and Claudia were both wearing their nightgowns, long and shapeless pieces that made them look older than they were. But Katie appeared to be wearing the same clothes from that day. Jennifer had sweatpants on and her hair in a clip, the first time I’d seen her looking so ordinary. It was three in the morning and cold out, and I was afraid to know why they were all awake and in our kitchen. Anthony stood alone in the corner, looking over at me with so much concern in his eyes I barely recognized them as Daddy’s.
Sweetheart, Mama said. We need to ask you some questions about Beth.
I sat down and laid my hands flat on the table. Where is she?
Dawn set a cup of coffee down in front of Katie. She still hasn’t come home, she said.
Did anybody try calling Eric?
Yeah, Katie said. His parents said he left the dance hours ago. He told them she got a ride with some other people. He wasn’t sure who.
Katie took a sip of coffee and kept her face down over the mug. She seemed to be trying very hard to stay calm.
I only saw her for a minute at the dance, I said. I’m not even sure if she was still there when we left.
Did you see any other boys talking to her?
Shush, Claudia, Jennifer said. Beth is a responsible girl. I’m sure she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her future.
Katie looked up suddenly. I don’t care if she comes home pregnant, she said. So long as she comes home safe.
The other mothers traded looks and closed in around Katie to comfort her more closely. All except for Mama, who’d taken hold of my hand and seemed incapable of letting go. I touched her wrist and stroked the short white hairs along her arm. I hadn’t told her yet about my plans for spinsterhood, and wasn’t sure if they would ease her fears or make her more worried than ever.
We might be fretting over nothing, I said. She probably fell asleep on somebody’s couch. Sometimes there are house parties after the dances.
She would’ve called, Katie said. It’s not like her not to.
Claudia glanced around the table with a nervous grimace, and then looked straight at me. You’re a good girl, she said. Tell us the truth. Do you know if she’s started drinking?
I already told you, Anthony said. Beth’s not into that sort of thing.
As far as you know, Jennifer said.
That’s right, I said. As far as we know, Beth hasn’t done anything wrong.
Jennifer threw out her hands. And yet here we are, she said. Here her mother is worrying herself sick.
You’re not listening to me, Katie said. I’m not worried about whether or not she’s experimenting with alcohol. She could come through that door right now plastered out of her mind and I wouldn’t even chew her out till morning. All I care is that she’s safe. That nothing bad’s happened to her.
We should call the police, Dawn said. They might know something we don’t.
I already tried, Katie said. They haven’t had any accidents tonight. If she doesn’t turn up by morning, they said to come in and file a report.
Anthony walked to the center of the room and stood crouching over the table. Tell you what we need to do, he said. We need to get out there and search every back road and ditch within forty miles. If there was an accident in the country this time of night, the cops might not even know about it till morning. Beth could be lying hurt somewhere with no one around to help.
Logan and Will are already out looking, Katie said. They been gone nearly an hour.
Anthony shook his head. There’s too many places between here and the school, he said. One car ain’t enough to cover all of em. Tell you what. You all can stay here and wait for her to show up, but I’m going out and bringing her home myself. Don’t try to stop me.
I’m coming too, I said, and pulled my hand free of Mama’s grip.
We both started for the door at the same time. Claudia stood up from the table in such a rush that she lost her balance and almost knocked a chair over. Anthony, she said. We’ve already lost one child tonight. We don’t need two more out there to worry about.
I’ll go with them, Dawn said. He’s right. We need more than just one car looking.
Before any of us could make another move, Katie scooted her own chair out from the table and rose to her feet. Mama and Claudia edged in around her, like they were afraid she might fall. If you find Beth safe, she said, let her know that she can always come home. Tell her I love her, and no matter what the problem is, it’s nothing we can’t solve as a family.
The roads through the country seemed even darker somehow than when we were coming through the first time. Anthony sat hunched forward with both hands on the wheel, holding steady at forty-five as he scanned the roadsides for any gleam or shimmer from his headlights. I’d offered the front seat to Dawn, but she opted for the back instead. Even after all the time I’d spent taking care of Mama, it felt strange to me that, in a crisis where one young person was missing, it should fall on the other young people in the family to lead the charge.
Whose underwear is this? Dawn asked, holding the lace brassiere up to the rearview.
That’s Beth’s, I answered. She offered to let me borrow it for the dance. She said it would make me feel grown up and full of confidence.
That was sweet, Dawn said. She folded the brassiere in half and stowed it carefully on the empty seat beside her. Though I could only make out the broad details of her face through the mirror, it was clear that her face didn’t have much to show at the moment anyway. That worried me more than the notion that me and Anthony were in charge. Dawn was never without expression. Happy or sad, angry or fearful, she always wore her feelings more vividly than any of the makeup she’d brought with her from Merced. Now she reminded me of one of the homeless veterans camped out behind the ag bureau, staring a hundred yards ahead but seeing only inside herself. I checked the clock on the dashboard.
How’re we supposed to know she isn’t back at the house already?
Anthony breathed through his nose in a slow, deliberate way. I don’t really believe she was in a car accident, he said. I just framed it that way for Katie’s sake.
Then what do you think happened to her?
Come on. Girl like that, dressed how she was. One way or another, she got herself into some trouble.
I turned around in the seat to check on Dawn. You might’ve thought she was sleeping with her eyes open, the way she let her head hang back with her neck bent like a spring. I’d been afraid that Anthony’s assessment would shock and upset her, but in a way this was worse. What’re we doing out here, then, if she wasn’t in an accident?
Anthony took a right at the next intersection, the first turn he’d made since we got on the road. We’re looking for signs of suspicious behavior, he said. People driving with their lights off, idling in orchards with their windows fogged up. We’ll circle round the area moving inward like a spiral. If we don’t find anything, we’ll head back to the house and wait for the cops to wake up.
I looked at Anthony for a while with the shadows of the land moving over his face. Without realizing, I let my head sink back against the seat cushion until finally I’d assumed the same dejected posture as Dawn. I don’t know whether to be impressed by you or worried, I said. Either way, you’ve seen too many episodes of Peacemaker.
He said nothing. Just kept on driving as the early morning frost settled over the ground.
The first light of day was breaking out over the foothills when we arrived back at the farm. Logan’s car was parked out front by the bigger house. We could see it as we were heading up the drive, and by the time we got there Anthony was so anxious that he swerved onto the lawn and shut the engine off without bothering to shift
into Park. We all piled out and headed for the door. Will came out onto the porch to meet us.
We found her, he said. She’s all right. She’s got some bruises on her face, but she’s more shook up than anything. So when you get inside, try to stay calm and keep your voices down. She’s been through a lot.
We followed Will into the kitchen and found Beth sitting at the table with Mama and the other women all crowded around her. I was relieved at first to see her alive and all in one piece, but then she turned her head and I got a full look at the damage. The whole left side of her face was swelled up to the point where she couldn’t even open her eye. All the tears she shed from that side seemed to trickle forth from the ends of her eyelashes. The other eye was unharmed, but so red and puffy from crying that it was hard to look at it directly either. I found myself looking at the floor, where I noticed the second skin of grime that had crept up over her ankles and calves all the way to the torn and soiled ruffles of her skirt hem. Katie knelt by her side with a dish cloth and a pot of warm water, readying to scrub the filth from her daughter’s scraped and blistered feet. She sniffled loudly and looked up at us where we stood.
She fought back, she said, her voice oddly proud through the convulsive panting. He tried to take advantage of her, and she fought back. My girl. She stood her own and didn’t give in.
I wanted to do something. Even now, it’s hard to fathom how, as hot-tempered and protective as I was, I could just stand there gawking while a girl barely older than me, who shared my blood no less, was forced to suffer through the pain of something so horrible even her mother could only speak of it in euphemism. I wanted to go up and comfort her any way I could, but as it happened Dawn, of all people, was the first of us to take action. She took small, shuffling steps across the linoleum floor, then bent down over Beth and softly touched the unbruised side of her face. From the state of numbness she was in moments before, she broke out into full unrestrained sorrow, cradling Beth’s sore and assaulted body in her arms, crying into the dust-stained fabric of her party dress. I watched her sink down and kneel on the floor beside Katie, take the damp cloth in her hand, and commence to bathing Beth’s legs with her own tears falling drop by drop into the water pot. I remember thinking at the time, Is this all we can do when one of our own gets wronged? To weep and wail together, and wash away the stains like the wrong never happened?
I don’t know how long it was before Beth had settled down enough to get some rest. After Dawn finished consoling her, we all did what we could in our own way to follow suit. Mama gave up her bed and even tucked her into the covers like she used to do for me and Jessie. We didn’t have any aspirin in the house, so Claudia gave her some white wine diluted with water and honey. Jennifer summoned Jewel from the second house and got her to take the little kids over there and fix them breakfast. I admit I was impressed by that. Jewel was snotty even by eleven-year-old standards, and in all these months had never looked at me or Beth or any of her half-sisters with anything but the most hateful and accusing eyes, like every breath we took was spent plotting ways to upstage and outshine her. But now, in this crisis, she did her part for the rest of the family, and didn’t even complain. That earned her my respect, for what it was worth. Actually, if there was anyone in the family who disappointed me, it was Anthony, who, faced with the reality that he had been right about Beth, seemed to close in on himself and shrink once more into the corner. That didn’t earn him any points in my book. He could sulk and stew and wear that scowl on his face all he wanted, but when all was said and done, he still hadn’t done squat to help Beth, or the situation in general.
For the second time that morning, all the Temple women gathered around the kitchen table. This time they were all drinking coffee, or rather, four of them were drinking it while poor Katie held onto her mug with both hands, letting the heat rise up and over her beleaguered face. All her thought and energy seemed to be focused on keeping her wits together, for Beth’s sake, or perhaps for the sake of the family at large.
It was Eric who did it to her, she said. All at once the mugs hit the table and the other women looked at her aghast. The little bastard lied to his parents. Or they lied to me on the phone. Either way, he and Beth did leave the dance together. He drove her halfway home and then turned off-road into a peach orchard. He took her way out past the tree line where no one could see them parking. They started to fool around in the backseat, and when he tried to make her go all the way, she told him to stop. That’s when things turned ugly.
Sitting next to Mama, I noticed she had covered her mouth with her hand, and hadn’t moved it since Katie started talking. All of them, in fact, had locked their bodies into rigid, unnatural postures, and seemed set on staying that way for the time being. Even Dawn had reverted back to her statue-like gaze from the car, hearing every sordid word that was said, but reacting to none of it.
She did exactly as I taught her to do if she ever found herself in that situation. She went for his balls. Gave em a good kick from the sound of it. But then, as she was trying to get the door open to run away, he came up from behind and jumped on her. Hit her so many times she thought she might faint. Then he kicked her out onto the dirt and drove off. Left her to walk home alone in the dark with her face all battered and one eye swollen shut. She said the only reason her brothers found her was because by then there was just enough light that she could make out their car on the road. Before that, she’d ducked out of the way any time someone was coming up behind her on the road. Too scared to take a chance on a passerby.
The whole table was silent for what felt like a long time. When Katie finally took a sip from her mug, the others seemed to regain their awareness of their own bodies and started moving around. Dawn reached for a napkin and dried her eyes. Claudia made the sign of the cross on her chest. That one small gesture appeared to do wonders for relieving her pain, or at least it gave her what she needed to keep the pain inside. She slid her arm over the table and took hold of Katie’s hand.
He didn’t succeed, though, did he? Her purity is still intact?
Katie didn’t look at her. She didn’t seem to be looking at anything, as a matter of fact. She’s still a virgin, she said. If that’s what you mean.
Claudia patted her wrist. Well, she said. We can thank God for that.
Dawn pushed her chair back from the table so fast that one of the legs scraped the floor. She took a few hurried breaths and started walking to the other end of the kitchen. We’ve got to do something, she said. We’ve got to call the police.
She was halfway to the phone when Jennifer slipped in front of her and blocked her path. Not so fast, Jennifer said. We have to discuss this. We have to talk about it rationally.
There’s nothing to talk about, Dawn said. She looked down at Katie and then at the rest of the mothers. Then at me. My God, she said. This could’ve happened to any one of the girls. It could’ve happened to Ellie. We can’t just sit here while that little monster is out walking free.
Calm down, Jennifer said. Please. There are things we have to consider before getting the authorities involved in this. First and foremost, we need to think about what’s best for the children. All of them. Including Beth. After everything that’s already happened, there’s no sense in dragging her through another ordeal.
I want justice for her, Katie said. She pushed the coffee mug away and scanned our faces. For a moment, at least, it looked like the indomitable old Katie had returned. She deserves justice for all she’s been through, she said. That means seeing the boy punished for what he’s done.
Jennifer came and stood by her. There are different kinds of justice, she said. We’ve got to ask ourselves whether it’s fair to the other children to make them all suffer simply to win justice for one of them.
Mama stood up suddenly and started pacing the floor with her wooly house slippers smacking her heels. I don’t see what good it does any of them to try and sweep this under the rug, she said. That’s no sort of lesson to be teaching the
m, that they need to hide their heads in the sand anytime someone wrongs them.
From the look on her face, I gathered Jennifer was mighty surprised by Mama’s reaction. She wasn’t the only one. Most of the time it was easy to regard Mama along the same lines as a potted houseplant, as a delicate thing that you kept in a room and tended to constantly without expecting anything but passive endurance in return. But now here she was laying it on the line for what she really cared about. Dawn’s prediction had come true. She’d finally surprised me.
The lesson we need to teach them, Jennifer said, is to weigh the costs and benefits of a decision before rushing ahead with it. You all talk about justice like it’s simply a matter of calling up the sheriff’s office and watching them drag the boy away in chains. But it’s so much more complicated than that. If we press charges, there’s going to be a trial and hearings and all the questions that go along with that sort of thing. The lawyers will call Beth to the stand and pick her story apart piece by piece. Long before that, though, they’ll try to get at us any way they can. We already know the boy’s parents have strong ties in the community. Wasn’t that one of the things that impressed you, Katie, when they first started dating?
Our eyes turned back to Katie, whose spirit had once again receded. Eric’s father sits on the city council down in Visalia, she said. He runs a trucking company that moves goods and produce between here and the coast.
Jennifer nodded. He’s well-off, then, she said. Well-off and well-established. The sort of man who wouldn’t stand to see his family’s name being tarnished. You think he’ll sit by and watch his son get hauled off to juvenile detention?
He can try to fight it all he likes, Katie said. But what does it matter? You saw her face. It’s obvious the boy’s guilty.
It’s Beth’s word against his, Jennifer said. That’s all a judge and jury are going to care about. And some people might take issue with the fact that she let herself end up in that orchard to begin with. They might wonder what sort of girl sits in a parked car with a boy late at night, and how many boys there were before this one.
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