were probably bastards by some fancy gigolo, conceived while he was hard at work, trying to make a decent life for them all-
Then, when she didn't respond except for silent tears, he hit her.
He knocked her into the wall, and she put up her hands, ineffectually, to defend herself. That seemed to infuriate him even further and he pulled her to her feet, then balled up both his fists, punching her in the face and stomach alternately, while she wept and retched, and finally dropped into merciful unconsciousness.
She woke up again, lying where she had fallen, in the dark and silent house, and crawled as far as the bathroom, using the sink to haul herself to her feet. Somehow, she got herself cleaned up, studiously avoiding looking at herself in the mirror. But she could not bear to go to the bedroom. Not to lie beside the man who had done this to her, and blamed her for her own son's death.
Instead, clutching her sore stomach, she got as far as the little bed in Ryan's room before she collapsed again, face and body throbbing with pain, onto the neatly made cotton comforter.
Eventually, she slept.
When she woke the next morning, an aching mass of misery inside and but, Rod was already gone.
The doorbell rang just as she was putting the finishing touches on a makeup job that she hoped, vaguely, would disguise the bruises, the black eye, and the swollen lip and jaw. It rang again, and she moved carefully to answer it, assuming that it must be the neighbor, Mrs. Nebles, who had taken Ryan and Jill-poor things, they must be hysterical; Rod hadn't come to get them and only God knew what they'd been told last night- But when she opened the door, it wasn't the neighbor, it was Jennie Talldeer, her expression one of sympathy and haunted guilt, a guilt that Toni recognized, but could not imagine the meaning of. There was a handsome, long-haired young man standing politely behind her, and Toni gulped down a surge of nausea and revulsion. Right now, she did not want to see any men-he would think she was to blame; he would say that Rod had been right to beat her-
'Toni, we heard on the news this morning and-my god!' Jennie exclaimed, her expression transforming from sympathy to shock and outrage. 'What the hell did Rod do to you?'
Not 'what happened,' but 'what did Rod do to you.'
Jennie knew. It was out in the open between them. And Toni was too tired to try to hide it anymore.
'He said-' she began, then burst into tears, momentarily forgetting the presence of the young man. 'He said it was my fault!' she sobbed, as Jennie took her arms and gently led her inside to the kitchen. 'He said it was all my fault, and he hit me and-'
'God-how badly are you hurt? Did he touch the kids?' the young man asked, quietly, but urgently. Toni cast a quick glance at him through her tears, and to her amazement, saw that his expression was identical to Jennie's. Shock, and outrage-and concern.
'N-n-no,' she replied, with surprise. Was Jennie right? Toni had thought all men must be like Rod, but- 'I d-d- don't think so, I th-think they're still next door. I'll be all right, I th-th-think-'
They traded a look, and Jennie nodded. 'I'll call the Women's Shelter,' he said. 'You take care of her.' Then he turned to Toni. 'Mrs. Calligan,' he said, very gently, touching her hand as if it was something fragile and precious, 'you stay here with Jennie. We're going to get you some help, and we're going to get you out of this place. And we won't let anyone hurt you again.'
She stared after him, tears forgotten in pure shock, as Jennie led her to the kitchen table and sat her down, and began to talk to her in a voice of compassion and absolute authority.
By the time the caseworker from the Women's Shelter arrived, Jennie had buried her own feelings of guilt under a powerful load of pure and unadulterated rage. Toni Calligan's face was a mass of bruises and welts that no amount of pancake makeup could disguise. She had seen women beaten up worse than this-but they had not been friends.
David was just as outraged, and he was having as hard a time controlling it. 'I want to go track that bastard down and beat him senseless,' he fumed under his breath as the caseworker spoke to Toni Calligan. 'That-god, he's not an animal; no animal would do something like that-'
'Stay cool,' Jennie advised him, although she was feeling anything but cool herself. 'If you go after him, you'll not only blow it for Toni, but you'll blow our other case for us. Remember, this is Oklahoma; everything in a wife- beating case has to be perfect for it to go through.'
He nodded, jaw clenched. 'I know that,' he admitted, 'but I don't like it.'
'Neither do I.' She listened with half an ear to what the caseworker was telling Toni; outlining her options, but warning her that they needed around forty-eight hours to get a space cleared for her and the kids at a safe house.
'I need to take you into the bathroom and take pictures,' the caseworker said, compassionately, but firmly. 'I need pictures of the bruises on your face and body, in good light, without makeup. We'll want to get a restraining order filed against your husband, and if you decide you want a divorce, we'll need evidence of this beating for both of the judges, the one for the restraining order and the one who we'll be filing the divorce papers with-'
That last had a tentative sound to it; Jennie knew why. This was the moment when fifty percent of the women who had been abused backed out. 'It was just once,' they'd say. 'He was drunk; he's fine when he's sober.' 'He'll change, I know he will-'
But it wasn't just once, he never got sober, and he never changed. Not without years of therapy, anyway. And all too often, the ones who walked back into those marriages came out again on a stretcher or a slab-Jennie more than half expected that, faced with the word divorce, Toni would be one of those fifty percent.
But instead, Toni's head came up a little. 'I want a divorce,' she said, thickly. 'He doesn't like Ryan and Jill, If he can blame me for-for-' Her voice broke, for just a moment. 'If he can blame me, how much longer will it be before he blames them?'
'You want the facts?' the caseworker said, with a weary sigh. 'You sound like you've thought this through. My guess is maybe a couple of weeks; then he'll not only beat you, he'll start pounding them in the name of 'discipline.' The man is sick. You are not a doctor, and it's not your job to make him well.'
'I want a divorce,' Toni replied. 'I want my babies taken where he can't hurt them, and I want a divorce.'
The caseworker met Jennie's eyes for a moment, and gave her a furtive thumbs-up, before turning back to Toni Calligan. 'Is your life in any immediate danger?' she asked. 'Are the kids? Can you stick this out for the forty- eight hours we need?'
Toni considered this for a moment. 'I think we'll be all right for that long,' she replied after a moment. 'I won't change my mind, but I think we can keep out of his way.'
'Good.' The caseworker took Toni into the bathroom for a brief photo session, then packed up her forms and her notes. 'I'm going to go next door and talk to your neighbor, and send the kids back here to you. If she's willing, she can be the one you run to if he does get violent. If that happens, don't argue with him, don't stand there, just run; tell your kids that if they hear a fight starting, they need to run. If your neighbor agrees, she'll lock the door after you and call 9-1-1 and one of our rescue people before he has a chance to get any worse.'
'I'll come get her from next door as soon as the neighbor calls me,' Jennie put in hastily. 'I think that will make the neighbor a little more willing.'
Toni cast her a look of pure gratitude, and the caseworker stuffed all of her things into her bag and left, letting herself out the front door. Jennie reached over and patted her shoulder. 'I've done this before, you know,' she said, conversationally. 'Toni, you're handling this as well as anyone could expect, and better than I would. I think you're going to be all right.'
Toni dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. 'I-I don't know if I am or not,' she replied, an edge of desperation in her voice. 'I just know that-that this can't go on anymore.'
Jennie slid into the place that the caseworker had left vacant, and David came to stand beside her, one hand on her shoulder. She wasn't certain what to say next; guilt was replacing her outrage again, and she looked up to see that David was studying Toni's face, her frightened, haunted eyes.
'Tell her, Jen,' he said, suddenly. 'Tell her about the spirits, the mi-ah-luschka.'
'Now?' she replied, taken by surprise.
Toni Calligan stopped dabbing her eyes for a moment, to fix both of them with a troubled and puzzled look. 'Spirits?' she said, falteringly, then blurted out, 'You mean- like the Indian ghosts you told me about?'
David and Jennie traded another glance; then Jennie took a deep breath, and began.
'What David wants me to tell you about-involves something that your husband might have done-'
