Unspeakable

deserted, except for a mangy orange dog and the ripped-up pages of anIncredible Hulkcomic scattering in the wind.

She rang the doorbell. She hoped that it worked, because she had no way of telling. She waited but there was no answer. She cupped her hands around her face and peered in through the yellow glass window beside the door. She was sure she could see somebody moving around inside. She rapped on the glass with her keys and shouted out, 'Mrs. Beale? Mrs. Beale? Can you open the door, please?'

Almost a minute went past and then the door was opened, only five or six inches. She could see Mrs. Beale in a white satin bathrobe covered in splashy scarlet poppies, like August Moon's blood-spattered shirt at the Chinese supermarket. A cigarette was hanging from between Mrs. Beale's lips, so that one of her puffy eyes was closed against the smoke. It looked as if she were giving Holly a long, knowing wink.

'It's you again. What the hell do you want? I thought I told you to leave me the hell alone.'

She was about to close the door but Holly quickly pushed her hand against it to keep it open. What she was about to do was in blatant disregard of department regulations. But then she thought,I've quit. They can't fire me now that I've quit. Besides, I'm doing this for Casper, not the Children's Welfare Department. I'm doing this for me and Casper and nobody else.

'Mrs. Beale,' she said, 'I'm pretty sure I've found out what you've been doing.' Her voice was strangled and off-key, although she couldn't hear it.

'What the hell do you mean? Get out of here.'

'You haven't been taking Casper to the Tasco Clinic, have you? Or any other hospital?'

'What?'

'Casper doesn't have cancer, does he? In fact, there's nothing wrong with him at all.'

Mrs. Beale slowly took the cigarette out of her mouth and blew smoke. 'I don't know what you're talking about. What the hell are you talking about?'

'I'm talking about the Casper Beale Cancer Fund. You bought yourself a new car and a plasma-screen TV and you took yourself off to a vacation at Disneyland. Thirty-five thousand dollars' worth, at least.'

Mrs. Beale opened the door wider. 'You listen to me, lady. Casper's sick. You spoke to him yourself. He's dying. Heneedsthose things.'

'He doesn't need anything, Mrs. Beale, except love, and feeding, and proper care.'

'You're trying to suggest what? Interfering dogooders like you-that's so typical. You'd deny a dying boy a decent TV? He can't play in the street, he can't go to school, he can't go swimming. He can hardly walk. What else can he do but watch TV?'

'I'm not talking about TV, Mrs. Beale. I'm talking about systematic child abuse. You've been starving him on purpose, to make him look as if he's sick.'

As she spoke, Casper appeared in the hallway behind her. He was wearing the same faded red pajamas that he had been wearing the last time Holly saw him. He looked infinitely old, and he walked with a slow, hesitant shuffle.

'Momma,' he said.

Mrs. Beale didn't even turn around. 'Casper, go back to your room!'

'I feel pukey,' said Casper tiredly.

'Go to the bathroom if you feel pukey. Don't bother me now.'

To Holly, she said, 'And you. You can get the hell out of here and leave me alone, before I call a cop.'

'You won't do that,' said Holly.

'Oh, no?'

'You won't do that because you know that you're guilty of willful mistreatment. Casper, listen to me. Do you know what your momma's been doing? You don't have cancer at all. You never have.'

Casper slowly raised his eyes toward his mother and blinked in bewilderment. Mrs. Beale wrapped her robe even more tightly around her bosom and said, 'You're crazy, you know that? Ofcoursehe has cancer. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Look at him.'

'Any child would look like that if you half-starved him and shaved his head and gave him stuff to make him vomit if he ever looked like he was putting on weight.'

'You'd better watch what you're saying! You don't have any idea what I've had to go through, ever since he got sick. I've never slept more than two hours a night. I've been cleaning up puke and changing his sheets for nearly two years, and what am I going to get at the end of it? A broken heart, that's all.'

'Oh, you might squeeze in one more vacation to Disneyland,' said Holly. 'I'll bet you didn't even take Casper along with you, did you, the last time you went? What did you do, leave him at home to fend for himself?'

'I needed it!' Mrs. Beale screamed at her. 'I needed that vacation! I deserved it!'

Casper weakly sat down on the doormat. Holly opened up her bag and took out a folded printout of a newspaper story.

'Two and a half years ago, Mrs. Beale. A story on the back page ofThe Oregonian. A woman in San Antonio, Texas, pretended that her daughter had cancer. She fed her on nothing but Cream of Wheat with sour milk and sleeping pills, and she shaved her head to make it look as if she were undergoing chemotherapy. She went to the library and took out books on leukemia so that she would know what she was talking about. She even arranged for the girl to have psychiatric counseling, to prepare her for an early death.'

Mrs. Beale looked confused. She kept shaking her head and furiously scratching her elbow, but she didn't seem to be able to speak.

Holly shook the printout at her. 'Do you know what she did, this woman in San Antonio? She and her neighbors organized fund-raisers to pay for the little girl to have specialist cancer treatment, and a vacation in Florida, and all kinds of goodies.

'But of course shedidn'tdie because she didn't have cancer at all, any more than Casper has cancer. You saw this story, didn't you, and you thought to yourself:If this woman can do it, so can I.Except that you made sure that Casper looked really, really sick, so you wouldn't get found out, the way that this woman was. She forgot to shave her daughter's head one day, butyounever forgot, did you? You've ruined Casper-ruined him for the rest of his life, probably. Physically and mentally. And for what? Ten days in Disneyland and a TV and a car.'

Mrs. Beale muttered, 'He's sick. You can see that he's sick.' But she seemed incapable of doing anything but stand in the open doorway, her cigarette burning down to her fingers. It was almost as if she had detached herself from this situation altogether and had turned her mind to something else.

Holly bent down and gathered Casper up in her arms. He was pitifully light, like a bird's nest, and all she could feel through his pajamas were his ribs and his thighbones. He reeked of stale urine and fresh vomit.

'You put him down,' said Mrs. Beale. 'You hear me? You put him down.'

'I'm taking him away from you, Mrs. Beale. I'm going to drive him to the emergency room at East Portland and I'm going to save his life.'

Casper rolled his eyes up to look at her. A string of dribble was swinging from his chin.

'I don't think so,' said Mrs. Beale. 'Casper ismychild, and you can't take him off without my say-so.' She threw her cigarette aside but still she made no move to stop Holly from carrying Casper away. Holly held Casper tightly, as tightly as she had ever held anyone.

'I'm taking him, Mrs. Beale, and nobody's going to prevent me.'

'You think I won't sue you? I'll sue you.'

'Mrs. Beale, you can do whatever you like, but Casper's survival comes first.'

Holly turned and walked back down the drive, supporting Casper's prickly head against her shoulder. She was terrified that Mrs. Beale was going to come running after her and attack her from behind, but she kept on walking. When she reached her car and opened up the back door, she turned around to see that Mrs. Beale was still standing where she was before, lighting up another cigarette.

She climbed into her car, trembling. Casper said, 'Where are you taking me?'

Holly helped him to fasten his seat-belt. 'You'll see. Someplace where you can be happy.'

A Celebration with 'Mickey Slim'

When Holly arrived home, she made herself a glass of lemon tea and took it into her study. There was mail on her desk but she didn't feel like opening it. Her mind was too crowded with thoughts of Casper Beale. She had driven him to East Portland Memorial Hospital and they had immediately taken him into intensive care. She had reported what she had done to the police, and a very bullish woman detective had come to the hospital to ask her some questions. Under the circumstances, though, she hadn't thought that they would take the matter any further. 'You should have done it by the book, honey, you know that. But you're not going to be prosecuted for saving a child's life.'

She thought about Daniel Joseph, too, and Sarah-Jane Heilshorn, and the way in which Doug and Katie had let her down. She wasn't a bitter person. She wouldn't have been able to tolerate her deafness if she were bitter. But she felt deeply resentful about Doug's betrayal. He had used her as a scapegoat because she was deaf, and there was nothing she could do about it except despise him for it. All that bullshit about 'the sweetest girl in the Children's Welfare Department.'

Her cell phone vibrated.

'Meet me 6 pm Hugos Bar? Mickey.'

Well, why not? she thought. She could use a drink, and a shoulder to cry on. It was 5:45 already, so she went to find her coat. Marcella was in the kitchen, ironing Daisy's blouses, and she said, 'You going out, Ms. Summers? What time you come back?'

'Not late. But I've had one of those days.'

'You don't