Dear Evie: The Lost Memories of a Lost Child (8 page)

 

A shiver ran down her spine at the memory, and her eyes were watery as if the sadness of the situation still broke her heart.

 

“I even thought about telling him he had to leave; after all, it was my house. But I knew he would take them with him, and I felt I would be of more help to Grace if she could be next door to me. She needed a friend. Needed someone she could count on to help with Evie. Grace was so young… only twenty-six years old when she died.”

 

“So, what happened to the little girl after the fire?”

 

She looked at me as if the answer was tragic in itself.

 

“I wish I knew. I loved that little girl like she was my own grandchild. She was really messed up from whatever that animal had done to her, plus she had bad burns on her hands. I heard that the family that took the little boy just didn’t feel they could handle her too. I think she was adopted by a nice family. I prayed for her every night for the longest time. Actually, I still do pray for her. I asked God to watch over her. I hope you’re able to find her and she is okay. I would love to see her again. I’d love to know she is okay.”

 

She gave me a pleading look, as if she hoped I would confirm what I am sure she suspected, but I just couldn’t do it. I wanted to be able to someday, but that was not time.

 

She gave me her phone number and asked me to call her if I located the girl, and I gave her my number in case she thought of anything else. She said she didn’t want to risk something like that happening again, so she’d just had the land cleared off and used it as her garden spot.

 

I felt so guilty for not telling her that I was that little girl she had prayed for, but I didn’t feel like I was that child. It still felt like it had happened to someone else. Evie had suffered at the hands of the man, and I still wasn’t sure to what extent he had abused her. I think that it was still safer for me to distance myself from what had happened. I wasn’t sure I could handle the truth if it had happened to me and not someone I was trying to help. Dr. Anna’s words were still ringing in my ears. “A child can not heal until she is heard.” I wanted to give Evie the chance to be heard. I was disappointed that the neighbor could not remember the name of the baby or which relative had taken him. I had to try and find out more about him. Someone had to know where my brother had been taken.

 

Jason was upset when I told him I would be away one more night.

 

“You have a little girl at home who needs you too, Kat.”

 

Why couldn’t he understand how important this was?

 

“Gracie is fine, Jason, and you know it. She doesn’t need a crazy mom who is walking in her sleep, wetting herself, and forgetting to pick her up from school. This is important for her too. I need to know the truth, Jason, and until I do, I won’t be the best mom for her or the best wife for you. I promise tomorrow is my last day here. I will be home in time for her ball game tomorrow night.”

 

He wasn’t happy about it, but he finally accepted it. Once I hung up with Jason, I went to a dinner to eat and just drove around hoping to see something that would seem familiar. I got back to my room early and took a long hot bath to ease the tension. I took a few minutes to write down some of what Carla Wilson had said, so I could relay it to Dr. Anna at our next session, and then I went straight to bed. I was exhausted emotionally, I suppose, more than physically and fell into a wonderful dreamless sleep. Something I badly needed.

 

Chapter Six

 

My cell phone woke me at six o’clock in the morning. I assumed it was Jason wanting me to get an early start home, so I answered with a slightly sarcastic, “Yes, I’m up!”

 

“Oh, I’m so glad you were awake, Mrs. Hunter.”

 

It was Carla Wilson, the nice lady I had talked to the day before. I was taken by surprise at her early call but tried not to sound like I had been asleep until her call.

 

“Yes, ma’am, I was just about to have breakfast,” I lied. I didn’t try to explain my strange greeting when I answered the phone, and I was glad she didn’t question it.

 

“What can I do for you, Mrs. Wilson?”

 

“Please call me Carla. I was looking in my box of things left behind from when Grace lived in the house. She had given me pictures of the children, and I still have them if you would like to see them.”

 

“I would love to, yes. I’ll be there as soon as I check out of the hotel.”

 

I called Jason to be sure he knew I was up and at work finishing my quest. He seemed impressed with my early start, so I didn’t give the credit to the phone call. I almost injured myself rushing around. I managed to shower, dress, and inhale a breakfast pastry and a bottle of juice purchased in the vending machine. Then I checked out of the hotel in a record breaking thirty-five minutes. I tried not to show how excited I was when I arrived at the house, but my hands were actually shaking. Carla Wilson answered the door cheerfully, and I guessed she had been up for hours. She was excited about her discovery and rushed me in the door.

 

“Come in please. May I offer you a cup of coffee dear?”

 

I was glad she offered and gladly accepted. I really needed a cup of coffee and a few minutes to catch my breath and calm myself before starting a conversation.
Come on, Katherine, pull it together. It is only a picture, after all. It’s probably nothing that will help.
Once Carla brought my coffee to me, she sat down and handed me a small stack of pictures to examine. I hoped she couldn’t see my heart beating so hard in my chest that I could feel it pounding in my ears. The sound was so loud, it was as if I had just finished running for miles. I tried and compose myself as I took a sip of my coffee and pretended to casually flip through the pictures. The first one was Evie at about four years old.

 

“How long did they live next door to you?” I asked.

 

“Oh let me think. I believe Evie had her fourth birthday a few days before Grace moved in, and when Evie left… she was ten.” She was quiet for a few minutes, remembering that horrible night I supposed.

 

“I enjoyed our visits so much when she first moved in. It was a comfort for me knowing the house wasn’t empty, and I loved when they would walk over and sit on the porch with me. But then one day Gracie told me she had met someone. She told me he was a wonderful caring man, and she wanted to know if I would expect her to move if they chose to live together. I was shocked at her question because Grace didn’t seem like the type to live with a man she wasn’t married to, but she explained that he wanted to wait until he had more money saved up before they married so he could make a proper home for her and Evie. She said he would have a chance to build up his savings if they lived together. I never believed for a minute that she was okay with the arrangement, but she didn’t want to lose him and he was a smooth talker. I’m sure he made her believe every empty promise he made.”

 

Each time the subject of Ralph Dark entered the conversation Carla Wilson would get a look of pure hate on her face.

 

“Evie was just starting school when he came into the picture. I would watch little Evie for Grace when she had to go look for work. Mostly she cleaned for people, and Evie would just go with her and help her mama. Sometimes when I wasn’t working she would stay with me. She was a dear little child. After he moved in, he wouldn’t let Evie come over very often. He insisted he could watch her. At first Evie would cry and beg to come to Ms. Carla’s house, but she soon learned to accept what Ralph said as the final word.”

 

I stared at the picture of the beautiful little girl. She had ringlets of blond hair pulled back from her face with a little barrette on each side. Her eyes were bright and blue, and her smile showed that the picture was taken before Mr. Ralph Dark came to live with them. The next picture was of Evie and Grace together in an embrace. Both of them looked so happy, and the pride Grace felt for her little girl was radiating from her eyes as she looked at her daughter.

 

My mother had been a beautiful woman. She had long brown hair and big blue eyes, just like mine. Her smile was one that would light up a room, and I could see that she was happy when the picture was made. The last picture told a different story. It was the family after Ralph joined it. Grace looked nervous and stressed. There was no smile on her face or in her blue eyes. Evie looked to be about nine or ten in the picture, and her face showed stress as well. She didn’t smile in the picture. Evie was standing beside the man and fear was obvious in her eyes. He was a large man, not overweight, but tall and broad. His eyes seemed angry, and he had a closed smile that almost seemed like a smirk. Grace was holding a baby in her arms, who looked to be a couple of months old. The only thing I could really tell about the baby was that he had the man’s coloring. His hair, eyes, and complexion were darker than Grace’s and Evie’s. I was about to hand the pictures back to Carla when I noticed words written on the back of the last one. It simply said “Ralph, Grace, Evie, and Stephen 1992.”

 

“Well, I never noticed that before. That’s right, his name was Stephen, and his middle name was Douglas after Ralph’s dad I think. I can’t believe I forgot that; but of course his daddy wasn’t too fond of me, and I didn’t get to spend much time with him before… well, you know, before he was taken away. I do hope he didn’t end up with Ralph’s parents. Grace talked like his dad wasn’t very nice, and his mom was obviously a victim of abuse or just a very submissive and meek woman.”

 

If Ralph’s dad was abusive, that would explain some of his behavior, but it didn’t excuse it.

 

I thanked Carla for her kindness and for sharing the pictures with me. She patted my hands and smiled as I was about to leave. She looked at my hands and then into my eyes. I knew she was letting me know who she thought I was, but I was just not ready to confirm it.
Not yet Carla…soon…but not yet,
I thought to myself.

 

Dear Evie:

 

You were such a beautiful little girl. Your mama’s name was Grace, and she loved you very much. I don’t think she knew all that the man was doing. She was scared, too, Evie and didn’t know how to get to a safe place. I know now our brother’s name was Stephen. I will find him someday. I hope he is kind and good and not at all like his father or, apparently, his grandfather. Carla was very nice, and I think she loved you very much, Evie. I want to tell her soon what happened to you. Keep talking to me, Evie. Together we will find the truth.

 

Katherine

 

I was pleased with the results of my visit and could not wait to get home. I called Jason and told him I was on my way and that I had a lot to tell him when I got there.

 

***

 

Gracie was adorable in her uniform. She was on the T-ball team year and nothing brought more pleasure to Jason and me than watching our little all-star run the bases. Only in a small southern town would you see names on the backs of uniforms like “Pee Wee,” “Bug,” “Bubba,” and in the case of our team, “The Honey Bee’s” sponsored by our local supermarket, we also had a “Little Bubba” who was a year younger and a lot shorter than the first “Bubba.” It was a joke between Jason and me that we should come up with a nick name for Gracie, but we never did.

 

I tried to pay attention to Gracie’s game. My mind was whirling with the things I’d found out in the small town of Harmony, North Carolina. Now that I had a first name for the brother whose existence I’d only recently learned about, I was more determined than ever to find out what happened to him. My dreams had not included him so far, and I had no idea what he may have gone through. The terrible man in my dreams was apparently Stephen’s father, but the sad truth is that children are abused every single day by the parents who are supposed to love and protect them.

 

The too real awakening was making me almost sick with concern over every child I came in contact with. I was looking at all the children on the team and in the stands for anything out of sorts. I kept watching the children sitting in the stands or playing in the grass behind the bleachers. It was hard not to examine their eyes for signs that something was wrong.
Does that little girl seem oddly sad about something? Are there excessive bruises on that little boy?
I also found myself looking questionably at the men in the crowd. I was trying to evaluate each man attending the game for the wrong kind of attention. It had become an obsession of mine. There could be someone like Evie among the children and maybe I could save her. I could alert someone.
I would confront the man and tell him to leave the child alone and just let him be a happy carefree child like he was supposed to be
, I reasoned.

 

Since I had returned home that afternoon, I had been trying to process the information Carla Wilson had given me. I had stayed at her house for several hours. I even had lunch with her, and she’d revealed a lot of things about the family in house 104 Maple Avenue. I had made notes in my journal to share with Dr. Anna next week, and I had told Jason about the dear lady who had been like a grandmother to Evie. I told him about the dream I had about the bathroom and the horrible man who did nasty things while poor Evie took her bath. I was so angry about it and it made Jason equally angry to hear it, so while we talked it almost felt like we were fighting. We weren’t, of course, but the emotions had no outlet, and I think both of us just wanted to hit something. We wanted to hit Ralph.

 

“So, if your mom wasn’t married to this man, why didn’t she just call the police and make him leave?” Jason had asked “She could have had that animal arrested and put under the jail.”

 

I’d asked Carla the same thing, and she explained to me that Grace was struggling just to get by when she first met him. I told Jason exactly what Carla had told me.

 

“Ralph Dark had really played the role, pretending to be kind and helpful in the beginning. He could probably tell that Grace was lonely and vulnerable. He was the knight in shining armor to her damsel in distress; she was pulled right in. He didn’t show his true self until long after she let him into her heart and into her house. Evie knew though. She could see the darkness in his expression when Grace wasn’t watching him. It was a game to him the way he could fool her. Carla admitted to me that she had a bad feeling about him from the start but just didn’t have the words to convince Grace that he wasn’t good for her.

 

“He gave Carla the creeps and she told Grace as much. But he had her fooled, and she was so lonely and tired of struggling that she overlooked the signs until it was too late. Once she allowed him to move in, he knew he had her. She tried to leave a few times, but he would always stop her before she made it out the door. Oh, at first he would sweet talk her, tell her he was sorry, and he loved her. He would promise to be better and he would be for a while. He would be attentive and sweet to her and not be so strict on Evie, but after a while he stopped being nice about it. Carla said she believed that once Grace realized how cruel Ralph could be, she feared for her life and that of her child.”

 

Jason asked me the same question I’d asked Carla after hearing about Ralph and his abuse.

 

“What about your biological father? Do you know what happened to him? Why he wasn’t still in the picture?”

 

“Oh, yes. Carla told me that she believed his name was Frank, and he was Grace’s high school sweet heart. When they realized that Grace was pregnant, they wanted to get married but they were too young. Grace was sixteen and Frank was seventeen. Their parents refused to sign the papers to give them permission to marry. Grace’s parents were especially upset about the pregnancy. Her father was so angry with her he wanted her to stop seeing Frank all together. Her mother was just so embarrassed by it and worried what people would say.

 

Grace didn’t care what they would say and told her so. She was so in love with Frank that nothing would keep her from him. Her parents would have had to lock her in a jail cell to keep her from his side. His parents were also upset and felt the couple should take a break from seeing each other. As parents and teens sometimes do, they said some very hurtful things to each other. They tried to imply that Frank might not be the father of the baby. But Frank had no doubt whatsoever, and he loved Grace as much as any man could love a woman. Carla said their situation made her think of one of those sad love stories you see at the movies.

 

“Since their families weren’t supportive of them, Grace and Frank ran away. They ended up in Harmony, North Carolina, all the way from Oklahoma. It wasn’t easy for them but they were happy. Frank found a job doing cleanup work on a construction site, and Grace cleaned for a couple of ladies in town. They rented a room by the week in what used to be a motel, and when Evie came they were as happy and content as anyone could be. That man loved his two girls and worked hard to support them. Then when little Evie was about two years old the fairy tale ended when Frank was killed in an accident on his way home from work. He was walking home and it was raining hard. A car came around a curve too fast and hydroplaned. The drive couldn’t stop, and the car ran right over Frank. Carla said according to the witnesses, Frank didn’t have a chance. She said if it hadn’t been for Evie, Grace would have just lain down and died from pure heartbreak.

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