The doctor pulled out a ruler and measured the wounds. His expression changed to one of uncomfortable puzzlement.
“Wallace, I need to get him to the station,” the sheriff said. “Can we please take the photos?”
“That rib has to be wrapped, the fingers splinted… and…”
“And?”
“These marks… I’m not sure they were made by the Grundys.”
“Let’s talk outside,” the sheriff said.
“Shirley, photos and bandages please,” the doc said.
Nurse Shirley, it was easy to guess, was proud of her figure because she opted to wear an older style uniform, which accentuated it. Daniel used a pillow to hide his admiration for her curves. If she noticed, she revealed nothing as she took photos of his wounds.
“What’s this?” she asked, fingering a mark over Daniel’s left scapula. The warmth of her touch traveled down his spine to the spot he was trying to deflate. Daniel leaned further into the pillow.
“Birthmark.”
“Almost looks like a tattoo.”
“Yeah.”
The nurse began to wrap his ribs.
“I knew your real father,” she said, out of the blue. “We went to junior high together. John was a great guy. I was sorry to hear of his passing.”
Daniel was only eight when John Hauer, Rita’s first husband, died at the hands of a vicious testicular cancer. Most people believed John was Daniel’s biological father, a belief Daniel seldom dissuaded. Even Rita didn’t realize Daniel knew he was adopted. Clyde could never stand being compared to John, and revealed Daniel’s adoption shortly after he married Rita. It had been a bomb. “You just a borrowed bastard,” Clyde had said, with a smirk on his face.
But no matter how hard Clyde tried, he couldn’t erase the memory of Daniel’s childhood. John was a patient soul who had ushered joy into the boy’s early years. His death was a harsh blow to their little family, which Daniel had coped with better than his mother. To fill the void in her life, Rita chose her new companion swiftly and badly. Clyde Knoffler was an opportunist and a predator. A woman of Rita’s caliber would never have fallen for him under normal circumstances. Ignorant, penniless, he had a magnetism that gave him power over certain women. Clyde exploited Rita’s vulnerability and loneliness. Within months of their wedding he’d already spent the savings Rita and John took years to earn and pushed his new wife to the limits of her sanity. Avoiding reality was now Rita’s primary occupation.
“I was having problems with algebra one year,” Shirley continued, “and John tutored me to a B plus. He was also my first real kiss,” she said with a smile. “Who knows… if things had gone differently, you might have been my kid.”
As far as Daniel knew, he might very well be, anyway. He knew nothing of his heritage. Life was strange. Was it worth all the pain? Sometimes he worked too hard just to exist. He recognized that some people were very happy-couples who enjoyed each other, children whose primary worry was the gossip of who liked whom in school-but for the most part, people suffered. What was the point? It looked like good days only existed so that you would have somewhere to fall from.
Daniel stared out at the police station across the street from the hospital. He’d be going there next to take his mug shot and be fingerprinted. He was a juvenile delinquent, a danger to society. Just then, Clyde brushed past the window. Daniel’s heart jumped.
“Whoa,” the nurse said, navigating a roll of gauze around the boy’s torso. “Did someone walk on your grave?”
“What?”
“Just an expression. You shuddered.”
Daniel wanted to tell her that her grave remark wasn’t too far from the truth. Clyde would fly into a rage over the lawsuit. Once Clyde was in the zone, anything was possible.
“Honey, you’ve got the sweats. Are you feeling okay?”
Daniel stared at the door, waiting to see his stepfather walk in. He considered telling Shirley the truth in the hope that she would defend him. After all, his dad and her kissed in the sixth grade. She was practically family. Maybe she was so fond of him that she’d risk life, limb, and fortune for the child of John Hauer (who was almost hers). A minute went by, then two. It wasn’t that far from reception to his room. Maybe they were keeping Clyde out. The door opened, his heart caught in his throat. It was only the doctor and the sheriff.
“Just about done,” Shirley said.
Daniel had some trepidation about leaving the room, but with the sheriff’s hand on his shoulder he didn’t have any choice. The hallway was busy with healers and patients. They reached the waiting area and turned left toward the exit. Just then, he saw Clyde at the end of the far hall, talking to a young staffer in an office doorway. His arm, braced against the door frame beside her, gave the appearance that the woman was trapped in his clutches. She giggled at something Clyde said just as Daniel walked out of view.
2
The sheriff let Daniel sit outside his office instead of in the tank with the real malfeasants. The boy suspected the lawman sympathized with him but had his hands tied in this matter. After all, if Daniel went postal one day and the authorities neglected an opportunity to prevent it, there would be hell to pay.
Daniel wondered if he’d be forced into aggression therapy. Maybe they’d place him on antidepressants? The thought of numbing out life was inviting to Daniel. He had occasionally contemplated the “stoner” lifestyle. They were numb to life’s barbs. At least he’d belong to a clique. But that path was too similar to his stepfather’s, and that meant there’d be another generation of asshole on the way. He wouldn’t give Clyde the victory.
Rita walked into the squad room. Daniel let out a sigh of relief; a reprieve from the wrath of Clyde had been granted. He would, however, have to make arrangements to sleep elsewhere that evening. Before today, Adrian’s house would have been the best refuge, but Daniel was now more inclined to help the Grundys pound on the fat boy. No good deed goes unpunished, he thought, recalling the satisfying crunch of the two-by-four into Elijah Grundy’s face.
Rita ignored her son as she walked into the sheriff’s office. The sheriff asked Daniel to come in. He sat to his mother’s left. It was the first time all day he could see Sheriff Maher’s eyes. He looked like a fair man.
“Will this take long?” Rita asked. “My neighbor is watching my four-year-old.”
“Ma’am…,” the sheriff started-there was a sense of urgency in his tone, “Dr. Brown is of the mind that the size and impact of your boy’s injuries were not made by another teenager.”
“My son is free to go, then?”
The sheriff looked troubled that his point had been missed. “No, ma’am, it doesn’t work like that. We know for a fact Daniel was involved in the altercation with those boys and whipped them good. But, I’m still concerned about his bruises. Those marks are the fist and foot imprints of a fully grown man. Perhaps another situation, maybe at home, is forcing him to act out against his schoolmates.”
Rita sat in silence, her hands placed perfectly on her lap before her as if in prayer. Her eye contact with the sheriff never wavered. Daniel noticed the dimple, which occurred when his mother bit down on her inner cheek, sometimes to the point of bleeding.
“Ma’am?” the sheriff said.
“What are you implying?”
The sheriff rubbed his jaw and redoubled his efforts to communicate the facts to Rita.
“Mrs. Hauer…”
“Knoffler. Hauer was my former husband’s name.”
“God rest his soul,” Daniel whispered. He tried to incite a response from Rita, but she just gripped her armrest tighter. The sheriff noted the exchange.
“Ma’am, a boy that’s bullied is liable to act out in extreme ways. Possibly take things out against innocent
