Kisscut

'I want to.'

Sara sat back, watching the girl chew her fingers. Lacey's hair had been cut almost in a buzz cut. Dottie had probably planned to disguise her as a boy until she could sell her off to the highest bidder.

'Is my daddy coming back soon?' Lacey asked.

'Do you want to see him?'

'He didn't know,' she said, as if she could read Sara's mind. 'I knew about Mark and Mama, but Daddy didn't know.'

'Are you sure?'

She nodded. 'If he found out, he would've killed Mark.'

'How about you, honey?' Sara asked. 'Did Mark ever touch you?'

She looked away.

'Lacey?'

She shook her head vehemently, but Sara did not believe her. She was still torn on the subject of Mark Patterson. On the one hand, he had been a victim, and on the other, he had obviously been an abuser.

Lacey said, 'Mark was nice to me.'

Sara let this pass. 'Did Dottie ever make you sit for pictures?'

'No,' she said. 'Mark and Jenny did, though. They got their pictures taken, and sometimes they were in movies. I saw them doing it.'

'But you never did?'

Lacey put her hand back in her mouth. 'Mark said if he ever caught me doing any of that he would tell Daddy.'

'Mark didn't want you to do it?'

'I wanted to,' she countered, taking on a petulant child's tone. 'Jenny was doing it, and she went to a party and did it with lots of boys.'

'Do you think Jenny enjoyed doing that?'

'I tried it once, and Mark found out.' She dropped her hand into her lap. 'That's when he hit me.'

Sara let this sink in. She had never even dreamed that Mark was trying to protect his sister.

'This was when Mark got arrested, right?'

Lacey seemed surprised that Sara knew this. 'Yeah.'

'But, he didn't tell your father?'

'I told him if he did that I would tell about him and Mama.'

She said 'him and Mama' in a singsong way, as if the phrase had been practiced over and over. Sara imagined that Lacey had used this as a threat on more than one occasion. She was still a child at heart, and most children would do anything they could to get their way.

'I didn't like it anyway,' Lacey said. 'I told him I wouldn't do it anymore. I didn't like it.' She frowned. 'Dottie was mean when she was like that. Not like she was when we were playing.'

'You played with her?'

'She would baby-sit us sometimes.' Lacey smiled. 'She had this game we would play, where we would get all dressed up, and she would take us to the movies and let us stay dressed up.'

'That sounds nice.'

'She wasn't like that all the time, though.' Lacey started to pick at a scab on her leg. 'She was mean sometimes. I didn't like her then.'

'I don't blame you,' Sara told her. 'Was she the one who talked about purity?'

Lacey jerked her head up. 'Where did you hear that?'

Sara decided to lie. 'Mark told me.'

Lacey shook her head. 'He wouldn't have told you about that.'

'Are you sure?'

She shrugged, but Sara could see that she wasn't. 'Dot-tie got mad at Jenny because she said she was obsessed with it.'

'Obsessed with what?'

'What they do to little girls over there,' she mumbled. 'Jenny had this report in school last year about Africa, and different tribes. She said that the women were lucky because they belonged to people. To their daddies, or then-husbands, and as long as they did right they were safe.'

'Do you believe that, Lacey?'

She ignored Sara's question. 'Dottie was mad. Jenny wouldn't drop it. Even when Mama came over and told her to stop.' She turned her head to the side. 'Mama can usually make people do things that maybe they don't want to do. She's good at that.'

Sara took a deep breath, trying to get her head around what the child was revealing. She asked, 'So your mom and Dottie told Jenny to stop talking about the mutilation?'

'They were worried she'd get in trouble at school. They had to move before because of it. A guidance counselor came to the house. Dottie said he was gonna call the police because of what Jenny said.'

'About girls being cut like that?' Sara asked, wondering at a girl obsessed with self-mutilation.

'Jenny said women over there didn't have to worry about stuff…' She paused, then, 'Like, sex stuff. And like what Dottie was doing. They don't have that over there, because children are sacred. Girls are protected.'

'Why would Dottie cut her, Lacey?'

'She didn't,' Lacey said. 'After the Christmas trip, Jenny decided to do it to herself.'

Sara shook her head, not accepting this. 'There's no way she could have done that to herself, sweetie.'

'But, she did,' Lacey insisted. 'She used a razor, only she started screaming, and Dottie ran upstairs and started screaming, too.'

'You were in the house?'

'I was downstairs with Mama because it was payday.'

Sara knew she should not have been surprised that these women had a regular payday, but it made sense that they ran their sick little publication like a business. They had been doing this for at least thirteen years, and knew what they were doing.

'Jenny yelled so loud, like she was dying,' Lacey said. 'And then Mama came back downstairs and told me what Jenny had done to herself.'

Sara nodded for her to continue, because that was all she could do.

'They couldn't take her to the hospital, so Mama said the best thing they could do was finish what she started…' Lacey paused. 'So, they did.'

'Did they anesthetize her?' Sara asked.

'Mama gave her some of her pills so she wouldn't get an infection.'

'That's not what I meant,' Sara told her. 'Did they knock her out before they finished cutting her? Or make her go to sleep so she wouldn't feel it?'

'I think she fell asleep on her own when they started,' Lacey provided. 'At least, she stopped screaming after a while.'