Neighbors

by Danielle Steel

  “Wait! Stop! There’s someone small in that group of people, it could be a child.” She opened the door to get out and look, and Charles stopped her until he put his flashers on and could get out with her. They walked toward the doorway together, in front of a shop that sold tourist memorabilia, souvenirs, and cheap electronic gimmicks. There were five people crowded together in sleeping bags, four men and a woman, which was the standard ratio on the streets, and huddled next to the woman was a boy in a knit cap. His face was dirty, and he looked cold. He had no sleeping bag, and they had folded a cardboard box around him to keep him warm, and as he looked up at them, Meredith’s eyes filled with tears. It was Will. He looked frightened when he saw them, and one of the men who wasn’t sleeping turned to him. He had a bottle of cheap wine in his hand, but he didn’t look menacing, and he sounded kind when he spoke to Will.

  “Are they your mom and dad?” Will shook his head. He was still wearing his school uniform inside the broken cardboard box. “Do you know them?” He nodded, and the older wino smiled a toothless grin at Meredith and Charles. “He’s a good boy. Don’t be too tough on him. Go on home, son,” he said to Will. “And don’t come back here. You do what they tell you. You don’t want to end up like me.” He raised the bottle in salute to Charles and Meredith, and Will stood up and thanked him in a whisper so he didn’t wake the others, and thanked the woman too. He left the box, and handed her the knitted cap, and when she smiled, she had no teeth either. It was impossible to tell their ages, they could have been anywhere from thirty-five to seventy. Will walked over to Charles, and he put his arm around Will’s shoulders, thanked the people he’d been camping with, and walked him to the car, with Meredith following, overcome with gratitude that they had found him. The squad car with the patrolman they’d talked to slowed just as they were getting into their car, and Charles waved and mouthed “thank you” to him too. The policeman gave him a thumbs-up and a broad grin.

  “I’ll call it in,” he shouted out the window, and Charles nodded. It was ten-thirty, and Will’s photograph hadn’t been broadcast on the news yet. He’d be registered as a runaway with CPS now, and Charles knew they’d be out to speak to all of them tomorrow, and to question Will about why he had run away in case he was being mistreated and needed to be removed from his home. They were going to be checking on the family regularly anyway, because of the nature of Andrew’s violent arrest and attempt to murder Tyla. If they thought it necessary, they would remove Will and Daphne to foster care, but Charles considered it unlikely. Will would have some explaining to do to the social worker who would come to see him. It was for his own protection. Will looked at both of them as he got into the backseat. He was meek and shivering in the cold in his white shirt and thin uniform blazer. His shirt was dirty, and Meredith thought there was blood on his jacket and then realized it was ketchup.

  “Is my mom okay?” were his first words.

  “She’s fine, but very worried about you. We all were,” Charles said. He was enormously relieved, but didn’t want to let him off the hook too quickly. Will had terrified them all, and Charles didn’t want him making a habit of running away. Some kids did. And after the first time, it became easier each time they did. Meredith was already on the phone to Tyla, to tell her, and she said she’d call the police and tell them he’d been found. Charles knew the officer would report it too.

  “I thought my dad would kill her, and I didn’t know what to do,” he said, looking deflated, as though the wind had gone out of him. He had seen a world that night that he didn’t know existed and hoped never to see again.

  “Running away is never a solution. But it was good that you called me before you did,” Charles said seriously. “Your dad was at the house with her. You were right about that. But he didn’t hurt her. He didn’t have time. I called the police after you called me. They came within minutes. So you saved her this time.” Will’s eyes opened wide when Charles said it.

  “I’m sorry I ran away,” he said to both of them, and they could see he meant it. Then he turned to Meredith. “Were you there too?” She nodded, she didn’t want to tell him more than his mother wanted him to know, that his father was in jail again, and facing additional charges. “They gave me dinner. They get it out of the garbage cans at McDonald’s. I had a Big Mac,” he said, and Charles tried not to smile. It explained the ketchup on his jacket. And the thought of him eating out of a garbage can on Market Street was profoundly depressing.

  Will was quiet on the ride home. Tyla was waiting for them in the courtyard when the gate opened. She wrapped her arms around Will the moment she saw him, and they both cried, and so did Charles and Meredith watching them. Then they walked into the house together. They went down to the kitchen to get something to eat, but Will wasn’t too hungry. He was mostly cold, and Tyla took him upstairs so he could have a hot bath, as Charles and Meredith sat at the kitchen table, drained by the experience. It was a first for both of them. None of their children had ever run away. But they hadn’t been through the traumatic experiences Will had either, with one parent trying to kill the other.

  “I kept thinking about everything that could happen to him,” Meredith said to Charles, looking like she’d been hit by a bus, now that the tension had eased.

  “So did I,” Charles admitted. “Some very nasty stuff could have happened out there. Thank God, it didn’t.”

  “You were right. He knew Tyla was going to meet Andrew, and he couldn’t handle what he thought would happen to her.”

  They turned off the lights in the kitchen and went upstairs. Meredith wanted to take a bath, but she was too tired. She changed into her nightgown, and collapsed onto her bed. Charles took a shower, and Meredith was already half asleep by the time he slid into bed beside her.

  “God, what a day,” he said. An incident with Andrew, and his arrest. Will running away, and looking for him all night, terrified of what could happen to him. “How’s your head, by the way?” he asked. They had both forgotten about it in their worry over Will.

  “It’s fine,” she said sleepily. “It hurts, but I’m just happy Will is okay and we found him.” She put her arms around Charles and rested her head on his shoulder, and two minutes later, she was sound asleep. Will too was sound asleep next to his mother in the big, warm, comfortable bed. As he drifted off, he thought of the people he had met on the street and knew he would never forget them.

  Chapter 13

  When Daphne came bounding into the kitchen the next morning, she was beaming.

  “I knew you were a good witch! You found him!” she said to Meredith, and she laughed.

  “Charles helped too, and the police.”

  Neither of the children were going to school. A member of Child Protective Services was coming to see all of them, Daphne too.

  Tyla confided to Meredith that she was nervous about it. What if they declared her an unfit mother and took them away?

  “They’re not going to do that,” Meredith reassured her. “And Charles and I can tell them you’re a wonderful mother.”

  “I let them live in an abusive household all their lives,” she said remorsefully. Will had told her the night before when he came home that he never wanted to see his father again, and he hoped he would go to prison forever. “And Daphne is afraid of him. We all are.”

  “He’s in custody now, so it’s not an issue,” Meredith said quietly, but it would be again someday. Meredith was doubtful that Andrew would ever change. He was too sick. Tyla had finally come to that conclusion too. And understood now it wasn’t her fault.

  “When things calm down, I want to go back to nursing school. I need a refresher course to bring me back up to speed, and then I want to become a nurse practitioner, not just an O.R. nurse like I was before.” It was how she had met Andrew. “I should have left him years ago,” she said mournfully. “I don’t know how I could let it go on for so long. I kept thinking it wo
uld get better, and he kept promising. I believed him. I don’t want to see him again either.”

  Charles had gone to his office before breakfast, to catch up, and he came back when he knew the CPS officer would be there, to speak to him.

  They sent Jane Applegate, a young African American woman who was quick and intelligent and had a warm way with the children. She was more direct with the adults, and Tyla liked her. She told her honestly what they had lived through, and what she believed the children had seen. She had tried to shield them. She didn’t seem shocked that Tyla had stayed in the marriage for so long, and had even gone to meet him the day before to give him one last chance to speak and be civil, and he couldn’t handle it.

  “Abuse is the hardest thing in the world to get away from. Worse than drugs. You keep staying to convince them that you’re not a bad person.” Tyla looked relieved when she said it. It was exactly what she had done. “You can’t reason with an abuser. You just have to cut your losses and run, and not look back. In the end, it’s better for the kids, for you and everyone.” Jane had gone to UCLA, and had worked at CPS for fifteen years since she graduated as a social worker. She had seen it all. “I checked with the court this morning, and he’s still in custody. The judge doesn’t want to set bail for the moment, and he may keep him in custody until a trial. But I’m sure a smart lawyer can change that. But at least for now, we don’t need to worry about visitation.”

  “He has never hurt the children,” Tyla said in Andrew’s defense.

  “That doesn’t mean he won’t start,” Jane said bluntly. “If he becomes eligible for visitation, it would have to be with a court-appointed observer present to satisfy us.” Tyla looked relieved at that too.

  “My son says he doesn’t want to see him again, ever.”

  “I’ll see what he says when I talk to him.” She didn’t commit either way. She was there to protect the children’s interests, not the parents’. She asked why they were living at someone else’s house, although she commented that it was certainly a magnificent house.

  “Ours is being repaired after the earthquake. We were living there, but it’s a mess, and now it has bad memories for all of us. The children miss it. I want to sell it when we file for divorce. I could never live there again. And Meredith was kind enough to let us stay here and take care of me after…when Andrew…”

  “After the assault,” the social worker said.

  “Yes. She’s been very good to us. She loves the children, and we like being here.”

  “I have no problem with it,” Jane said matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t mind staying here myself,” she said with a grin. “Who else lives here?” There was room for an army, many bedrooms.

  “No one. She does. She lives alone. She has a boyfriend who stays here sometimes. They were the ones who found Will last night. He owns a high-end security service to protect important people and celebrities. And Meredith has a housekeeping couple.”

  “No children of her own?”

  “A daughter in New York who’s about my age,” Tyla said, while Jane thought about how lonely it must be to live all alone in a huge mansion. But it was clearly a lucky situation for Tyla and her children.

  Tyla told her about her plan to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner and Jane jotted it down.

  She spoke to Will after that, and he told her what he had told his mother, that he never wanted to see his father again, and hated him for what he had done to their mother.

  “He always hurt her. They thought we didn’t know, but we could hear them.”

  “Did you ever see him hit her?”

  “Yes, sometimes. She always tried not to make him mad around us.”

  “That must have been stressful,” Jane said sympathetically, wondering if he’d say more, but he didn’t. He didn’t know her well enough yet. “Did he hit you?”

  “A few times. Mostly he hit my mom. He’s a doctor, he’s not supposed to do that.”

  “No one is supposed to hit other people, doctor or not. How do you feel about living here, with Ms. White?”

  “I like it.” He smiled at her. “I like it better than our house. I don’t want to go back. My dad would find us there and beat her up again.”

  “Why did you run away yesterday, Will?”

  He hung his head when he answered, and wouldn’t look at her. “Because I heard her say she was going to meet him, and I thought he’d beat her up. I should have gone to stop him, and I didn’t. I was scared. I was too scared to stop him the night he really hurt her too. I hid in my room.”

  “You can’t stop a man his size,” Jane pointed out to him. “No one expects you to protect your mom physically. Adults have to do that.”

  He shook his head. “I should have tried. I was scared yesterday too, so I ran.”

  “He won’t hurt you now, Will. He’s in custody.”

  “But he’ll come out again someday, and then he’ll try to hurt her again. I hate him.” She wanted him to see a therapist, but none of what he said surprised her. It was normal for the situation he’d been in for most of his life.

  “I’m going to give you my card with my phone number on it. The next time you want to run away, I want you to call me. I’ll come and get you, if you want. But if you run away you could get really badly hurt, or abducted. You were lucky yesterday. But let’s not try that again. Okay?” He nodded, and she took out a card and handed it to him, and he slid it into his jeans.

  They talked for a while longer, and then he left and Daphne came in, holding tightly to Martha.

  “Who’s that?” Jane asked her, looking relaxed as she watched her.

  “Martha. She has a headache today,” she said.

  “How did she get a headache?” Jane asked.

  “She fell down and she hit her head.” It sounded like a scenario she’d seen or an excuse she’d been given for her mother’s injuries.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Does she fall down a lot?”

  “Sometimes. She broke her nose once.”

  “That must have hurt a lot.” She had seen in the report that one of her mother’s recent injuries from the assault was a broken nose.

  “My mom got a broken nose too. She likes her new nose better,” she said, and Jane had to make an effort not to laugh. She must have heard her mother say it.

  “That’s lucky for her, but it’s not nice getting hurt and it’s scary.” Daphne nodded agreement.

  “My brother ran away yesterday,” she informed the social worker. “He ate a Big Mac out of the garbage can at McDonald’s, and he got ketchup on his uniform jacket.” She was a bottomless source of information, and a very funny kid. She was looking down at Jane’s pink Converse. “I like your shoes. I have sneakers that light up when I run. I like to dance in them. And I go to ballet.” She was very chatty, and seemed very much at ease despite what they’d been through. Will was more deeply affected by it, and felt more responsible for his mother.

  “How do you like living here in this house right now?”

  “I like it. Martha likes it too. Meredith is a good witch, but she doesn’t have a magic wand. When my mommy got hurt, I came to get her, and she called the police, and a ambubus with lights and a siren came to take her away.” She got that Daphne meant an ambulance.

  “You came to get Meredith all by yourself?” Jane was impressed. That was a brave thing for a child her age to do.

  “She’s kind of like a grandmother, even though she’s a witch. I rang the bell at the gate, and they went to get her.” It was also possibly why her brother felt so guilty, because he had hidden in his room, and his little sister had run away to get help.

  “Why do you think Meredith is a witch?” She was curious about that.

  “My daddy said she’s a witch, and when I told her, I said she’s a good witch, but she doesn’t have a wand. And I know
she’s a witch, because she fixes everything, and she always helps us, like she found Will last night.”

  “She sounds like a good friend to have. How does Martha feel about her?” Daphne smiled her big toothless smile in response. “She loves her. She’s like Martha’s grandmother too.”

  Jane walked Daphne back to her mother then, and met with Charles and Meredith briefly.

  “You have a serious fan club here.” She smiled at Meredith. “All three Johnsons, and Martha! And I understand you’re a good witch.”

  Meredith laughed. “I’m not sure if Daphne’s father called me a witch or a bitch, but either way I did my best to clean up my image!” All three of them laughed.

  “It sounds like you’ve been wonderful to them.”

  “I love them dearly, and they’ve been through a very hard time.”

  Meredith answered Jane’s questions about the children as best she could, and said they were weathering the situation well. She said Tyla was a wonderful mother, and Charles agreed. He expressed his concerns about the dangers Andrew presented for them, and the hope that he wouldn’t have the opportunity to hurt Tyla again, or the children.

  “It sounds like he might remain in custody now until the trial,” Jane commented. She liked both of them, and she refrained from telling Meredith that her own mother was her most ardent fan. She didn’t think it would be professional to say so, but she couldn’t wait to tell her mother that she’d met her, and how beautiful she still was. And apparently, a very kind woman.

  Jane told them she’d be dropping in from time to time, and she’d try to make it as convenient as possible.

  “You’re welcome anytime,” Meredith said. They had nothing to hide.