Standing over the bed, her father smiled down at her.
Elena woke up screaming.
* * *
In the flicker of the night-light, Terri had seen her seven-year-old daughter's eyes as black holes of terror.
'Sweetheart,' she cried out, and held Elena close.
The little girl's heart pounded against Terri's chest. 'It's okay,' Terri urged. 'I'm here.'
Terri could feel her own heart race. Elena's trembling arms held Terri like a vise. 'It was just your nightmare,' Terri said in a soothing voice. 'Only the nightmare.'
Elena could not seem to speak. Softly, Terri stroked the little girl's hair again, and then Elena began to cry.
Terri kissed her face. 'What was it, Elena?'
The little girl kept on crying, softly, raggedly, pausing to breathe. After a time, her keening became half spasm, half hiccup, the residue of fear.
All at once, Elena was still.
Gently, Terri pulled away a little, cupping one hand at the side of Elena's face. Fearful, the child looked back at her.
'Tell me what it was,' Terri said softly, 'and maybe you won't feel alone.'
The little girl watched her face, afraid to look away. Her mouth opened once, closed, and then opened again.
'Yes, sweetheart?'
Swallowing, Elena said softly, 'Daddy was here.'
'In your dream?'
Elena nodded. 'I saw him.'
Terri wondered what to say. 'It was a dream, Elena. Daddy's dead now. He died in an accident.'
Slowly, Elena shook her head, and then tears began again, ragged and shuddering.
'What happened?' Terri asked.
Elena clutched her mother's nightdress with both hands, voice suddenly higher. 'I was scared, Mommy.'
'Why?'
Elena's lips trembled. Half-choking, she whispered, 'He was going to hurt the little girl.'
Terri swallowed. In a calm voice, she asked, 'How?'
Elena looked away. Her voice was small and shamed. 'He was going to take her panties off.'
'Who?'
Elena seemed to choke. And then she whispered, 'Daddy.'
Terri swallowed. 'What else was Daddy going to do?'
'Touch her.' The little girl's face twisted. 'It was just their secret.'
Terri stared at her. 'Why is it a secret?'
'Daddy feels lonely. Sometimes he needs a girl.' Elena looked into her mother's face. 'To put his pee-pee in her mouth and feel better. Because you left him for Chris, and Daddy's all alone now.'
Terri's sudden rage was almost blinding. 'Did he do anything else to you?'
'That's all, Mommy.' Elena's eyes shut, as if at what she saw on her mother's face. 'But he let me light the candles for him. To make it special.'
Terri pulled her close.
She did not know how long she held Elena. Terri asked her nothing more; through her grief and shock and impotent anger, she knew that she should not push her daughter. It was some time before Terri realized that she, too, was crying—silently, so that Elena could not hear her.
Perhaps, the reasoning part of Terri had felt with pitiless shame, she had always known this. Perhaps she had simply chosen not to believe it, with the same preconditioned numbness that had protected her since the day she discovered, as a child smaller than Elena, that to know her own father was to know a fear she could not endure. So that she, Ramon Peralta's daughter, was able blindly to live with a man who could do this to her own daughter.
'Elena Rosa,' Terri had murmured at last. 'How I wish you could have told me . . .'
But Elena had not, and now, six years later, the dream still overtook her, the price of sleep.
SEVEN
'ANY GOOD FAMILY STORY,' TAMMY MATTOX BEGAN, 'STARTS WITH Mom.'
The others—Terri, Carlo, and Anthony Lane—were gathered around a conference table in the Pagets' law office, consuming coffee and bagels. 'What about this mom?' Terri asked.
