I think that while Mrs. Maas had been with us I had been trying, without really knowing what I was doing, to make her my mother. Or my grandmother or aunt—whatever. You know what I mean. And I think Mrs. Maas had been through it before someplace and had lost her job because somebody’s real parents saw she was getting closer to their kid than they were.
Naturally I can’t prove any of that; but that night we were both tired and scared, and we practically fell into each other’s arms. She didn’t say anything special to me, just, “Oh, Holly, my poor Holly!” and I didn’t say anything special to her; but by the time she had helped me into one of the kitchen chairs and put on water to make cocoa, we both felt quite a bit better.
“Where have you been?” I said.
And she said, “Didn’t they tell you? They took me away, down to the police.”
“In Barton?”
“Yes, to Barton. Afterward they said if I would take the lie test they would let me come home. I said yes, and we went to Constance.” She showed me where they’d stuck the sensors on her. “They asked a million questions. Some two or three times, saying it different ways.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About your father. Bill is still there, they were going to do him after.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“That he is such a good man, only away too much. They asked if he had fights with your mother, and I said no.”
“Mrs. Maas, that was a lie. The machine must have jumped the track.”
“No, it was not a lie. Not real fights. In fights someone hits or throws. What your father and mother have are arguments. I don’t think you ever in your life saw your mother with a black eye, Holly.”
“Of course not.”
“Not of course. I have seen my own mother with many black eyes.”
“Were you afraid?” I meant when her father hit her mother, but she didn’t understand.
“I was. Yes. Not for myself, because I knew they would let me go. For your father. And for me, too, because if they don’t let him go there will be no place for me and I will have to pack, pack all my things and find a room to live in until the agency gets me a new position. All the time I will be thinking of you and your family and this house.”
The kettle sang, and she went over to pour water for my cocoa, and then the kitchen door opened and there was Elaine in a negligee. “It’s you two,” she said. “How’s your leg, Holly?” I don’t think she knew I’d been gone.
I said, “Okay. The cops had Mrs. Maas.”
“I know. They took Mrs. Maas and Bill. I think they would have taken me, too, if I hadn’t been much too upset to tell them anything. After a while I swallowed four of my pills and went to sleep. I just woke up.”
Mrs. Maas asked, “Would you like cocoa, Mrs. Hollander?”
“Yes,” Elaine said. “I would. I’d like some cocoa.” She got another chair and pulled it up to the table and sat, and I remember thinking it was probably the first time in her entire life that she’d ever sat down in that kitchen. Usually she only went in there if she had to give last-minute orders to Mrs. Maas or the caterers, and got out as fast as she could.
“When do you think we’ll see Dad again?”
“Tomorrow, I suppose. Don’t they let them out on bail?”
“I think so.”
“Then they’ll have to let him go on bail. I’ll call Harvey Webber,” (that was my father’s lawyer) “and Harvey will get him out. But …”
“But what?” I asked.
“But, Holly, it won’t be for terribly long—perhaps not for more than a few weeks. You have to realize that. Then there’ll be the trial, and then he’ll be gone.”
“You think he did it?”
Elaine didn’t answer. Mrs. Maas had brought her cocoa in a pedestal mug exactly like mine; but when she raised it to her lips ever so delicately and sipped like she was afraid it was too hot to drink, which it was, it seemed like hers might be the chalice from the palace holding the brew that was true. There are a lot of pretty women. I’m a pretty woman myself, and maybe Mrs. Maas was once, too, because she was tallish and a blonde, and she must have had a good complexion when she was younger. But Elaine was beautiful the way a sunrise is beautiful, or wild geese flying over you. When you saw her profile like that, not expecting it, it could make you catch your breath.
“What are we going to do?” I asked her finally.
“I don’t know, Holly. I don’t know how much money there will be.”
“If there isn’t much.”
“We’re not going to starve, I don’t mean that. There’ll be enough to keep us. But when I try to think about what I’ll do, I find I’m only thinking about what I won’t. You’ll finish high school and go on to college, and after that, we’ll see. I won’t marry again, or live with some man. Harry wouldn’t like it, and I wouldn’t either.”
I couldn’t help thinking that if she’d felt more like that before, we wouldn’t be in the mess we were in now; I suppose she saw it in my face.
“When you’re older you’ll understand, Holly—or you won’t.” She still wasn’t looking at me, just out of the
