“But her parents are convinced you did some-thing?”
“Uh-huh.”
She sighs. “Okay, let’s talk about your sister, then.”
“Have you been hired as my lawyer or social worker or something?”
“No,” she says quietly. “I’m just here as your friend. Someone who cares about you.”
I hate it when people are nice to me. Now I feel the tears welling up in my eyes again. Where have they come from? I’ve always been able to push them away before, and besides, there should be none left after that scene with my mom. I cover my face with my hands. This is too embarrassing.
“Darcy,” Ms. LaRose says sadly, “if it weren’t considered so inappropriate, I’d be sitting beside you right now, hugging you. You know that, right?”
God, how I wish she was.
Neither of us says anything for a moment. By pressing my fingers into my eyes I manage to hold back the tears.
“Why do you believe me?” I ask eventually. How ironic that I asked my mom that same question about an hour ago.
“I don’t know,” she says finally. “I’ve worked with lots of kids over the years and you learn to see through the outward behavior after a while. I guess it’s just the way I read you. You wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“Oh yeah. I’m such a sweet, loveable kind of guy.”
“Sweet? No. Loveable? Yeah, I think so.” I glance at her just long enough to see she’s smiling at me. “I can read through that tough exterior of yours, Darcy. I know you’ve erected a solid rock wall to protect yourself, but you’re not someone who would ever hurt little girls. That’s very clear to me.”
Rock walls? That quote was for my benefit. I suspected as much. “Then how come it isn’t clear to everyone else? Like my dad, for example? He’s lived with me all these years and he assumes I’m guilty.”
“I don’t know your dad, Darcy,” she says, “but maybe he’s not particularly sensitive.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“So,” she says, “back to your little sister. Did she say you had sex with her?”
My little sister. The little sister I tried to kill.
“Darcy?”
“Huh?”
“She said you had sex with her?”
“Apparently, but I don’t believe she’d say that.”
“It is strange, isn’t it, that both girls have come forward and said these things at the same time?”
“They didn’t actually ‘come forward’,” I tell her. “Sammy was acting weird. She was fixated on…on male body parts.” I can’t look Ms. LaRose in the eyes and say that. “So her mom questioned her about what was going on. Apparently that’s when she said I did something.”
I glance at Ms. LaRose. She just sits quietly.
“So then the cop had an interpreter question my sister, and that’s when she supposedly said we’d had sex, or ‘sexual relations,’ as the cop put it.”
Ms. LaRose is nodding, but I can’t read the expression on her face. “Darcy,” she says, “how would you feel about a face-to-face meeting with the girls, the interpreter and the police officer?”
“I’d feel great! Then I could find out why they said those things.”
She nods. “That’s what I thought. Someone guilty of sexually abusing little girls probably wouldn’t agree to a meeting like that.”
“I just don’t know if the Kippensteins would agree to it, or if the cop will even let me see my sister.”
“That’s true. She may feel the girls will be too intimidated by your presence to talk freely.”
“Sign freely, you mean.”
“Oh. Right.”
“But they won’t be. You’ll see.” I feel my energy start to surge back. But then I hear the front door swing open, and Dad thumps up the stairs. He stops abruptly on the top step when he sees The Rose sitting at the kitchen table.
“Who the hell are you?” he demands. I see his eyes take in the huge hoop earrings and mass of cornrow braids that’s she’s been wearing lately. I can’t wait to see his face when he notices her short skirt and leather boots.
She stands and reaches out her hand. “I’m Marie LaRose,” she says. “Darcy’s teacher.”
“You’re a teacher?” He shakes her hand, limply, but doesn’t try to hide his astonishment.
“Yes, I am. I’ve brought Darcy his homework.”
“Hmm.” I can see he’s still trying to get over her appearance. It’s not often we have someone who looks so good in our townhouse. Come to think of it, this is probably a first.
“So, Darcy,” she says, all businesslike again, “you’ve got your books, so you can get some work done tonight. And I’ll see about arranging that meeting we talked about.”
“Meeting?” Dad looks to me for an explanation.
Damn. I wish she hadn’t said anything in front of him.
“That’s right,” Ms. LaRose tells him. “Darcy and I thought that it would be a good idea to meet with the girls, an interpreter, Samantha’s parents and the police officer and discuss the…the situation.”
“Darcy and you thought that, did you?”
“Yes. Yes, we did.”
I see small red splotches appearing in Ms. LaRose’s cheeks.
“Well, I think you can mind your own business,” my dad tells her.
“This is my business. I’m his teacher.”
“Your business is to teach him. You can stay the fuck out of his personal life.”
“Pardon me?”
“You heard me. This has nothing to do with you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
I don’t know who would have won the standoff because the phone interrupts the glaring contest. Dad grabs the receiver.
“Hello!” he barks into it. He listens for one second and then says, “Darcy’s not taking personal calls.” He slams it down, but before he can go back to his glaring match it rings again.
“What!” He begins telling the caller off but abruptly pauses and listens.
“You can take the dog to the pound for all I care,” he says. “Just stay away from here.”
“Dad!”
Ms. LaRose must have decided that arguing with my dad is a no-win situation. She starts down the stairs. “Make sure you open your binder, Darcy,” she says. “I’ve included an assignment that’s due very soon.”
“Right,” I say, but I’m puzzled. There are never due dates attached to assignments when you’re working at your own speed. There must be something else she wants me to see.
As soon as she’s gone, Dad grabs a beer from the fridge and flicks on the TV. I head to my room with my books. I open up my journal first. Ms. LaRose has written today’s quote on a fresh page.
To put the world in order, we must first put the nation
in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put
the family in order; to put the family in order, we must
first cultivate our personal life; we must set our hearts
right.—Confucius
I know one thing for sure; she’s chosen this quote specifically for me. What she doesn’t get is the fact there’s no hope of putting my family in order. Well, maybe she’ll get it now that she’s met my dad. Sorry, Mr. Confucius, but I guess this means the world is screwed too.
I open my binder and find a sheet of paper folded inside it. I immediately recognize Gem’s handwriting.
Hey Darcy,
What’s happening? You looked like you were in a
bit of trouble when I left you the other morning.
I’ve tried to call, but no one answers. I’ve still got
Star, but I won’t be able to keep her for long. I have
to sneak her in and out of our townhouse complex
(no dogs allowed) and my parents are freaked that
we’ll get evicted if I get caught with her. She’s not
the kind of dog you can hide under your coat. Tell
me what to do!
I missed hangin’ with you at lunch today.
—Gem
God. I missed hangin’ with her too.
I lie on my bed for a while, thinking of Gem, of her face, of her soft brown hands, of her. As much as I hate to admit it, I like her. A lot. Way too much. And I like that she likes me.
It’s been a day of acknowledgments. I think back to that scene with my mom, of remembering what really happened on that balcony ten years ago. How could I have forgotten something as important as that for so long? Had I really forgotten it? Did I block the memory of it somehow?
I sit up with a start. If I blocked the memory of Kat’s fall so effectively, am I capable of blocking other things I’ve done…like sexually assaulting little girls? No!
And how is Kat going to feel when she finds out I am the one who dropped her? I bury my head back in my pillow. It is all too much to think about.
I long to get out my knife and purge these inner demons, but it’s too soon. I have to let one set of wounds heal before I make any fresh cuts. That damn crying I did today actually seemed to give the same kind of relief, but a guy can’t go around bawling his face off all the time. Cutting is the thing.
F
OR LACK
OF anything else to do, and being too restless to sleep, I tackle Ms. LaRose’s quote. I write whatever comes to mind, knowing I don’t ever have to show it to her if I don’t want to.
How does a person go about cultivating his personal
life? How do I set my heart right?
My personal life has only ever consisted of Kat and my
self. Dad’s given us the basics—shelter, food and clothes—
but has he ever provided love? Is he capable of loving?
How would Dad go about showing love if he did feel it?
I can’t even imagine. So even if I did “let my heart right”
(whatever that means), I don’t know if my family would
ever be “in order.” And Mom? Well that’s another whole
story. Order in this family? Not likely.
I guess you could say Sammy and her parents have been
a part of my personal life. Especially Sammy. But now
she’s telling everyone that I hurt her. No, she’s saying I
sexually abused her. How will I ever set that right? Will
she ever be part of my personal life again?
If I allow Gem into my life, is that a step toward cul
tivating my personal life? Will that set my heart right?
How can it ? With the memories I have to live with, how
can my heart ever be set right?
Is there any hope for me?
I get up from my desk and stretch. Looking out my second-floor window to the street below, I visualize a much younger Kat, falling, falling, falling. Was she scared? Did I really believe she might land on her feet? She wasn’t even walking yet.
Hate was far easier to live with than guilt.
M
om shows up early Tuesday morning. My heart sinks when I see her. I’m afraid she’s come back to make me remember some other awful stuff from my childhood. It’s Day Two of my self-imposed grounding.
“Not going to school again today?” she asks.
“Nope.”
“Mind if I make some coffee then?” She investigates our kitchen by opening and closing cabinet doors.
“Fine with me, but you’ll probably have to go buy some coffee beans first.”
“Hmm.” She holds up a small lumpy sack of something that she’s pulled out of the far reaches of a hardly used cupboard. “Maybe I’ll just have tea then.”
I eye the lump that has now been identified as a tea bag. “Suit yourself,” I tell her. “But none for me, thanks.”
Mom regards the tea bag for a few more seconds. She tosses it in the garbage. “I wasn’t really thirsty anyway,” she says.
I flick on the TV and make myself comfortable on Dad’s chair. She flops down on the sofa.
“Your sister’s a wreck without you,” Mom says over the drone of the
TV.
That gets my attention. “She is?”
Mom nods. She says, very quietly, “I don’t know if I can cope with her much longer.”
“What’s wrong with her?” I feel my alarm rising.
“It’s her moods. Hysterical one moment and depressed the next. Between missing you and her dog… and she forgot her medicine on the weekend and then she had a seizure.” She shakes her head. “I’ve got my own stuff to deal with. I can’t deal with hers too.”
“But you said you wanted her back.”
“But I didn’t know how hard it would be,” she says. “I doubt the cop will let her come back here…not now, anyway.”
Mom gets up and starts pacing. I turn off the TV. “I’m just not used to so much responsibility,” she says. “Weekends were fine. I was building up to it slowly. I think I could’ve done it if I’d been able to ease into it longer. For ten years I had people taking care of me. I don’t know how to take care of someone else, though I’m trying to learn. But right now I’m feeling overwhelmed at the thought of having her full time.”
Yesterday Mom seemed strong. Today I see her as the weakling she really is. I stand and face her, speaking right into her face. “You’re overwhelmed? What about Kat? What about me? I’ve just found out that I tried to kill my sister when she was a baby. Now I’m being accused of sexually assaulting two little girls. Kat probably doesn’t understand why she can’t come home. And you’re feeling overwhelmed?”
Mom sinks back down onto the sofa. I do the same in the chair. “Is there anyone else who could take her?” she asks.
“Only the Kippensteins, and under the circumstances, that doesn’t seem like such a good idea, does it.”
She hangs her head. I notice the sagging skin under her eyes.
“Are you doing drugs again, Mom?”
She shakes her head, but doesn’t look up.
“Are you turning tricks?” I don’t know why, but it feels good to accuse her of these things. Like we’re getting even somehow.
“No!” she answers, her head jerking up. “I only did that to pay for the drugs!” I’m shocked at the defensive tone of her voice. “You have no idea what an addiction does to you, Darcy, what it forces you to do.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But I did see what it did to you. That’s enough to keep me off them.”
“Well I’m glad I did something for you.”
We sit quietly for a moment. I think about Kat and what I’d do to protect her, which is just about anything. “How hard is it to give her a pill each day?” I ask.
She looks me in the eye then. “She doesn’t want me, Darcy. She wants you.”
“Then why did she tell the cop we had sexual relations?”
Mom shakes her head. “She refuses to talk about that.”