“Well, how do you know?” Krissi snapped. “I lived through this, OK?”
I kept waiting for her to figure out who I was, to let my face— not so different from Ben’s face—float into her memory, to notice the wide hairline of red roots springing from my head.
“So how many times did Ben molest you?”
“Countless. Countless.” She nodded somberly.
“How did your dad react when you told him what Ben had done to you?” Lyle asked.
“Oh my god he was so protective of me, he freaked, went totally ballistic. He drove around town that day, the day of the murders, looking for Ben. I always think if he’d only found Ben, he’d have killed him, and then Ben’s family would still be alive. Isn’t that sad?”
My gut clenched at that and then my anger flared back.
“Ben’s family—the horrible Devil worshipers?”
“Well, maybe I was exaggerating on that.” Krissi cocked her head, the way grown-ups do when they’re trying to placate a child. “I’m sure they were nice Christian people. Just think, if my dad had found Ben though …”
Just think if your dad didn’t find Ben and instead found my family. Found a gun, found an axe, wiped us out. Almost wiped us out.
“Did your dad come back to your house that night?” Lyle asked. “Did you see him after midnight?”
Krissi lowered her chin again, raised her eyebrows at me, and I added a more reassuring, “I mean, how did you know he never made contact with any of the Days?”
“Because I’m serious, he would have done some serious damage. I was like, the apple of his eye. It killed him, what happened to me. Killed him.”
“He live around here?” Lyle was freaking her out, his intensity was laserlike.
“Uh, we’ve lost touch,” she said, already looking around the bar for the next score. “I think it was all too much for him.”
“Your family sued the school district, didn’t they?” Lyle said, leaning in, getting greedy. I moved my stool so I blocked him off a bit, hoping he’d get the idea.
“Hell yeah. They needed to be sued, letting someone like that work there, letting a little girl get molested right under their noses. I came from a really good family—”
Lyle cut her off. “Do you mind if I ask, with the settlement … how did you end up, uh, here?” The customer at the table was now turned around entirely in his chair, watching us, belligerent.
“My family had some business setbacks. The money’s been gone a long time. It’s not like it’s a bad thing, working here. People always think that. It’s not, it’s empowering, it’s fun, it makes people happy. How many people can say all that about their jobs? It’s not like I’m a whore.”
I frowned before I could help myself, looked in the direction of the truck park.
“That?” Krissi fake-whispered. “I was just getting a hold of a little something for tonight. I wasn’t … oh God. No. Some girls do, but I don’t. There’s some poor girl, sixteen years old, works it with her mom. I try to look out for her. Colleen. I keep thinking I should call child services on her or something? Who do you even call for something like that?”
Krissi asked it with all the concern of finding a new gynecologist.
“Can we get your dad’s address?” Lyle asked.
Krissi stood up, about twenty minutes after I would have. “I told you, we’re not in touch,” she said.
Lyle started to say something when I turned to him, poked a finger toward his chest and mouthed, Shut up. He opened his mouth, shut it, looked at the girl onstage, who was now pantomiming fucking the floor, and walked out the door.
It was too late, though, Krissi was already saying she had to go meet someone. As I was settling up with the bartender she asked me if she could borrow twenty dollars.
“I’ll buy Colleen some dinner with it,” she lied. Then she quickly changed it to fifty. “I just haven’t cashed my work check yet. I will totally pay you back.” She made an elaborate play out of getting a sheet of paper and a pen for me, told me to write down my address and she’d totally totally mail me the money.
I mentally put the cash on Lyle’s tab, forked it over to Krissi, her counting it in front of me like I might shortchange her. She opened the big maw of her purse and a child’s sippy cup rolled out onto the floor.
“Leave it,” she waved at me when I bent to pick it up, and so I left it.
Then I took the greasy scrap of paper and wrote down my address and my name. Libby Day. My name is Libby Day, you lying whore.
Patty DayJANUARY 2, 1985
1:50 P.M.
Patty wondered how many hours she and Diane had spent I rumbling around in cars together: a thousand? two thousand? Maybe if you added it all up, a sum total of two years, put end to end, the way mattress companies always did: You spend a third of your life asleep, why not do it on a ComfortCush? Eight years standing in lines, they say. Six years peeing. Put like that, life was grim. Two years waiting in the doctor’s office, but a total of three hours watching Debby at breakfast laughing until milk started dribbling down her chin. Two weeks eating soppy pancakes her girls made for her, the middle still sour with batter. Only one hour staring in amazement as Ben unconsciously tucked his baseball cap behind his ears in a gesture mirror-perfect to what his grandpa did, his grandpa dead when Ben was just a baby. Six
