“I don’t know.” The reality that the man that my Toni had married has done some truly horrific things hits me hard. I don’t want to be the one to tell her.
“We need to talk to that little girl,” Agent Simon says with finality. “We need her to tell us what she saw up there on that bluff. Let’s go on over to the hospital and see if we can speak with her.”
BEN
I feel better now that I’ve taken a bath in the little bathroom in your hospital room. I had to be real careful not to get the tape that was wrapped around my ribs wet, not too easy. Dr. Higby gave me some green scrubs to put on. I’m also feeling a little light-headed from the medicine that the nurse gave me for the pain in my nose and ribs. Mom just left to go back to the house to get some stuff. I asked her if she could bring back my Green Bay Packers pillow, not that I needed it to sleep, but when a face hurts as much as mine does, a guy needs something extra soft to lay his head on. Mom borrowed the car of some lady named Rose and asked her if she would keep an eye on us while she was gone and Rose promised she would. She’s gone down to the cafeteria to get some food to smuggle in for me. I requested chips and a Mountain Dew, but Rose said I wouldn’t want anything too salty or too sweet with the cuts I had all around my lips. I had to agree with that, I guess.
I lie in the hospital bed that is next to you and click through the channels on the TV that is attached to the wall above us. I keep the volume down low so as not to wake you, but from the looks of things you won’t be waking up for a while. The way you screamed earlier when I had walked in still clanks around in my head. I wonder if how I looked scared you, I looked pretty monstrous, if I do say so myself. Mom told me that you had said my name when you found them at the bottom of Bobcat Trail, and at first I felt pretty good about that. Then I got to thinking, Calli, why did you go and say my name? Why didn’t you say Dad’s name? He’s the one who caused this big old mess in the first place. I’m hoping you don’t think I had something to do with it all; it was pretty confusing up there. I look over to where you’re sleeping. What were you thinking, Calli? I want to ask. Why did you say my name?
Calli, when you were born, I was so sad and happy at the same time. I was five and the chore of sharing you with Mom turned my stomach sour. When I first saw your tiny little toes, no bigger than jelly beans, I knew that my mom wasn’t just mine anymore. You had a cry that could wake the dead. And how you wailed! She would carry you around for hours on her shoulder, patting your back and whispering in your shell-shaped ear, “Hush now, Calli, hush now.” But you wouldn’t. She would stumble around, half-sleeping, her eyes all shadowed, her hair sticking up and wild. Even after all your fussing, covered with spit-up, foul and stinky smelling, she’d still be all patient with you. She’d say, “Ben, we have a feisty one here. She’s going to keep us on our toes. Big brother, you need to look out for our little whirlwind.”
And I have, time and again.
Dad was the only one who could quiet you down. When he’d come home from the pipeline I’d hear the squeak of the back door and the thunk of his green duffel hitting the floor, and I’d think, now Calli will shut up. He’d snatch you right out of Mom’s arms and say all sweet like, “Stop that squallin’, Calli-girl.” And you would. Just like that. Your red, squinched-up face would go all smooth, and you’d look at Dad big-eyed, like you were thinking, “Who is this man?” Then you’d rub your little peanut nose into his chest, grab his big, sausage finger with your tiny hand and fall into this deep sleep.
It was as if the house just wasn’t big enough for two centers of attention, and when Dad came home you knew it was time to sit back and watch awhile. I think that Mom felt sort of bad that you’d stop your howling for him and not her. I mean, she was the one who would change your shitty diapers, and feed you that nasty green gunk from a baby food jar. And she’s the one who about went crazy from worry when you were two months old and had a fever of one hundred and five degrees. It was Christmastime and forty below outside, and the walls shook with the force of the wind. But Mom still filled the tub with freezing cold water and stripped the two of you bare naked and climbed into that popsicle water. You both had goose bumps the size of footballs and blue lips, but she just sat there holding you, the two of you shivering so hard little waves sloshed over the side of the bathtub. She sat there rocking you in that tub until the fever was gone and you started screaming like normal, your crying pinging off the bathroom walls.
I couldn’t sleep, what with your fussing echoing through the house, so I made Mom chocolate milk and found her favorite socks, the rainbow striped ones with little slots for each toe to slide into, for her to put on. I climbed over the bars of your crib and pulled out your yellow blanket and that goofy sock monkey Mom made you. I tucked them in Mom’s big bed, because I knew she’d lie with you there that night. She sat for what seemed hours, watching you breathe, every once in a while putting her finger beneath your nose just to feel that small rush of warm air coming out. I wonder if she ever does that with me. Creep into my room, even though I’m twelve now, and check to see if I’m still breathing, watch the rise and fall of my chest. I’d like to think that she does.
So I think that Mom’s feelings were hurt that Dad was the only one to calm you. I know that you didn’t mean for her to feel that way. I know that having Dad home filled up each corner of the house, kind of like someone sitting on your chest. It’s real hard to make sounds when each breath just goes into breathing. Funny how Dad was the only one who could quiet you and in the end was the only one who finally got you to speak.
ANTONIA
I hurry down the hallway and to the elevator. Rose Callahan is so kind to let me borrow her car. I’m not sure of how I am going to thank her, but I will certainly find a way when this is all over. I jangle her keys in my hand as I wait for the elevator door to open. Ben and I still haven’t had the conversation that is needed. I haven’t asked him who had beaten him so badly. Once again my lack of proper mothering skills is shining through. Wouldn’t most mothers exclaim, “Who did this to you?” I’m not ready to ask that question yet. I’m not prepared to hear that Ben’s own father has been responsible for this and so much worse. My stomach churns at the prospect of all the devastation Griff doled out this day. But maybe not, though, no one had come right out and said Griff did all this, he could be off in some bar somewhere for all I know. I just want to go home and get my children some clean clothes and items of comfort. The elevator door opens and I step in, push the button for the main floor and lean back against the wall. I close my eyes and try not to think. The doors open again and I step out. Then I have the urge to retreat into them, given the scene unfolding before me.
There seems to be half a dozen police officers. I see Agent Fitzgerald talking with two people I’ve never seen before. A few reporters occupy a corner of the main entrance waiting area and Louis looks to be in a heated discussion with Logan Roper, Griff’s old high-school friend. Then I see the doors to the main entrance open and in stomps Christine Louis. Louis’s wife. Great, I think. She doesn’t look so happy. I look around for an exit to take unseen, but it’s too late. Christine spots me, gives me a searing look and goes over to her husband.
“Christine?” Louis says looking off behind her. “Where’s Tanner?”
“He’s out in the car, Loras,” she says shortly. She is the only person I know who ever calls Louis by his first name. “He’s sleeping.”
“You left him out in the car alone?” Louis says in disbelief. “Christine, there’s a kidnapper out there somewhere. You just can’t leave a child unattended in a car.”
“You—” she pokes a finger at him “—gave up any say in what I do with my son the minute you decided that
“What the hell are you talking about?” Louis says, taking Christine by the arm and pulling her out of earshot.
I take that opportunity to exit quickly through the hospital doors, searching for the red Civic that is Rose’s car. As I unlock the car door and start to climb in, Agent Fitzgerald and the two strangers he was speaking with surround me.
“Mrs. Clark,” says Agent Fitzgerald, “I’m pleased to hear that your children have been found and are safe and sound.”
