God she looks so defeated. I’ve never seen her in such a state.
“Uncle Roland,” she whispers.
I knew it! I knew it was that bastard uncle that moved in with them!
“I don’t care what he told you, you have got to tell your parents so they can kick his no-count ass outta there today!”
At first she nods a little bit, but then she bursts into tears, falling into herself, and I throw my arms around her.
“It’s okay, Anne. You can cry or scream or yell. Nobody’ll hear ya but me. And possibly the choir, cuz it’s practice night, but they’ll survive.”
Usually when I try to toss a joke into a serious situation she laughs. Didn’t work this time.
“Is this the first time he’s hit you?” I ask.
She nods. “He threatened before. I never thought he’d really do it,” she says.
“Why would he hurt you? You’re the sweetest, most thoughtful person in the world! What kinda animal is he?”
Anne Marie leans away from me, sitting up straight. She tries to wipe a tear away from her discolored eye and winces.
“Do you want me to come home with you?” I ask. In an instant, I’m thinking about my red-orange band and the caliber of damage I could do to Roland with it.
She shakes her head violently. “No. That’s not a good idea.”
“I mean…” I try to put my revenge fantasies aside. “I could just be with you while you talk to your parents, if that makes you feel safer.”
With shaking hands, she takes out a cigarette and lights it. I can faintly hear the choir singing from the church basement, since they got the window open.
“It’s complicated, Evvie,” she says, really looking at me. I feel a chill as I catch a flash of Anne Marie twenty years from now, sittin’ on this same bench, smokin’ and lookin’ just as beaten down as she does right now. It comes and goes faster than an eye blink.
“Maybe if you say what happened out loud, it’ll seem less complicated,” I suggest.
“I have no privacy. Nothing that can just be mine,” she says.
I wait for her to continue. I don’t want to rattle her thoughts with my interruptions.
“Since the seventh grade, I been keepin’ a diary. I started it after we read The Diary of Anne Frank in English. Not that I ever expected to be locked up in an attic for two years or anything, but I thought it might be good to write my thoughts and feelings down.” She stops and shakes her head, takin’ another drag off her cigarette. “How wrong I was. I never much appreciated the sanctity of that diary. Till today. I went out to pick up groceries, but I had to come back cuz I forgot my change purse. Mama and Daddy were at work, so the only person that was home was Uncle Roland, which is not unusual. So I went up the stairs and saw that my bedroom door was shut, and I knew I didn’t leave it that way. I only close it when I’m in my room. I opened the door, and there was Uncle Roland on my bed. Reading my diary and laughin’,” she says.
“Does he have no shame?”
“Please. That man wouldn’t recognize shame if it crawled up his leg and bit him on his lazy ass,” Anne Marie replies.
Things are bad when Anne Marie curses without excusing herself.
“Then what happened?” I ask.
Her face changes. Righteous indignation replaced by fear.
“He tried to throw it across the room and deny he was readin’ it. Like I hadn’t just seen him with my own two eyes. I scream at him for bein’ in my room and gettin’ into my personal business. Then he pulls that ‘don’t raise your voice at me’ crap, and I told him to drop dead. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. Him standin’ over me, like he was darin’ me to get up.”
As she’s talkin’, I’m listening to her and sympathizing, but part of me keeps on thinkin’ of all the glorious harm I could do to this good-for-nothin’ without lifting a finger. I try not to, though. Anne Marie’s so virtuous, she’d probably end up hatin’ me, too, if I took it upon myself to punish him.
“He sat down on my bed again, and he looked a little scared himself. I got up and promised him I’d tell Mama and Daddy everything. Then he quit lookin’ scared. He’s half smilin’, and he says to me, ‘No you won’t.’ I tell him there’s nothin’ he can do to stop me.” She stops speaking then. She finally finishes that cigarette and drops it to the ground.
“That’s true, ain’t it?” I ask, confused. “I mean, there ain’t nothin’ he can do to stop you.”
She turns to me, and I wanna hug her for my own sake. So I wouldn’t see the profound pain in those eyes.
“He can tell my parents what he read,” she says simply.
I hadn’t thought of that. Mostly because Anne Marie’s such a good girl. Smoking’s her only vice, and she feels guilty about that. What could he possibly have found in her diary that would upset her like this?
“Well. He can,” I begin, “but it’s not like you’re out runnin’ around committin’ crimes. And you’d be smart enough not to write about ’em in your diary if you were. Like it or not, you are a good girl. You have nothing to be ashamed of,” I tell her with full confidence.
“Evvie,” she says, “I like someone, and I wrote about it in my diary. I wrote a lot. Things that—if my parents saw some of the things I wrote, I’d wanna die. I’m not joking.”
Jesus! She may not be joking, but I certainly hope she’s exaggerating.
“They may not want to know these things about their little girl,” I begin, imagining how Mama must’ve felt when she bought me that box of condoms. “But it’s just life. Things everybody
