Echoes (31 page)
Annie leaned. Matt reached in and held up a monkey. Sofie heard its noise in her head but refrained from making it aloud. This was Matt's show. Annie took the cracker and sucked its head, staring at him.
He stood back up. "How's she been?"
"Sleepy. Probably stress and Tylenol. But I think the concussion's better. She doesn't seem confused or disoriented—only . . . quiet."
"Star said you got some rest."
She must have come and gone without disturbing them. "Ever sit with a sleeping child in your lap?"
He smiled, then sobered. "Here's the thing. The dad's pulling strings, says he's tired of being harassed by our department."
"Good connections?"
"Good enough."
"What about the hospital?"
"He's not denying Annie took a tumble, but he claims there's no way it was anything more than an accident. The ER doc says her injuries are consistent with a fall down stairs and someone grabbing to catch her."
"Her mother's drug record?"
He shook his head. "Irrelevant. No one drew blood last night."
Sofie swallowed. "So you're taking her?"
"I'm waiting to hear."
"If the parents told them all that last night, why did the police call you?"
"Because of previous incidents. I had to be informed."
Sofie frowned. "They've done this before?"
Matt nodded. "We've removed her and her siblings twice."
She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. "And I'm supposed to let her go back to that?"
"If that's how the judge rules."
An acid burn climbed her throat. "Then you shouldn't have brought her."
"We have to strike a balance, Sofie. Sometimes people need help. Sometimes they get it." His doubt hung as thickly as hers. "Parental rights are constitutionally protected."
"Where are the other children?"
"Home. There haven't been signs of abuse on any but Annie. Possible neglect; hunger, fear, but hey, they're all one happy family." His voice grew so thick, she searched his eyes.
"Will she be okay?"
"Ask your brother the prophet, if he's not too busy tearing out my heart."
Sofie raised her brows. "Something I should know?"
"Nah. Just a little man-to-man talk."
"Matt—"
"Doesn't matter. I don't intend to hurt you."
But people did hurt each other, even precious ones like Annie. Like Carly. People who had the power to hurt the most had the most responsibility not to. And yet they did. "Would you mind taking her for a minute?"
"Sure." He eased Annie into his arms, and this time she didn't protest. Animal crackers were amazing things.
"I'll be right back." She used the bathroom, washed and patted her face with a cool washcloth, letting the sorrow slip away, then rejoined Matt in the kitchen. The timer went off and she removed the macaroni from the oven. As it set, she sliced some tomatoes and sprinkled them with fresh minced basil from the garden that Lance protected well enough it stayed green and savory all year.
While Matt walked around the room with Annie perched in his arms, Star came down humming, and Elaine followed, reciting single words. "Explain. Refrain. Sustain."
Sofie glanced at Matt. Annie had a grip on the finger with which he tapped her tummy, then her nose, then her kneecap. Her smile melted them all.
Walking Annie, Matt's thoughts went a direction he hadn't intended. He was thirty-two years old. His job was getting to him, his past churning up in a way it never had before. He had kept previous relationships superficial, but there was nothing lightweight in his growing feelings for Sofie. And holding Annie triggered paternal instincts that alarmed him.
He hadn't consciously decided not to reproduce, but he'd kept the possibility so far at bay the yearning caught him now by surprise. He had committed himself to the welfare of children in a big and general sense. But to create one of his own, to pass on a part of himself, to take on the task he watched people botch with sickening regularity, that was terrifying. So why did holding Annie make him wonder what a child of his and Sofie's might be like? Imagining Sofie's features or his own on a little one he came home to every night was shaky ground.
Antonia came in, leaning on her cane. She gave him a glance, then took her place at the table. These people, this place, had impacted him. The faith that underlay everything they did looked more like the real thing than anything he'd seen, and knowing them, even such a short time, had awakened things he'd maybe never felt. The way they cared for each other made him want to do better, be better.
Tax collectors and prostitutes had probably felt that way, hanging around Jesus and His disciples. They've got something. It looks good. We want the same. Did he?
Sofie set down the steaming pan of gooey mac and cheese. He hadn't known it could be made from scratch. While he rarely ate out of a box, his normal routine was to throw stuff in the slow cooker before he went to work, add a salad or fruit, and call it dinner.
He boosted Annie up on a couple of phone books. She dug into her cooled macaroni with a spoon and her fingers. He used a fork, but his first bite brought an irrepressible groan. Antonia smiled. Nothing new to her, he assumed, but she still seemed to appreciate his reaction.
Without Lance the meal had a different tenor, but he didn't feel awkward as the only man. They were only people sharing a meal, sharing a moment he could tuck away like a precious keepsake. Afterward, he helped everyone clear, wash, and put away, while Nonna held Annie in the big stuffed chair.
"Put the green with the green," Elaine told him as he scooped macaroni into a container to take with him. "Very important."
"Psychological tests," Sofie murmured as she passed by. "IQ or deductive reasoning, I'd guess. That particular battery seems to have stuck."
He smiled at Elaine. "Okay. Thanks."
"They're always watching."
He nodded. "I'll be careful."
When they'd finished cleaning up, Sofie walked him out. "Thank you for coming by."
"It's better than anything else I'd be doing. But is this keeping you from things?"
"Nothing that matters." She took his hands. "Right now Annie needs to be loved—intensely."
"I knew that's what she'd get here."
"I didn't mean it before, when I said you shouldn't have brought her. I just don't want to think of her being hurt or frightened. I had such a magical childhood, I wish . . . I know it's not reality to expect that for everyone."
"Not yet." Maybe in the new creation Lance had described, a world set right, ruled justly. But for now, "We can only do what we can do."
Sofie raised up on her toes and kissed him. "Go save the world, Superman."
C
arly waited long past the point she was sure Dad had fallen asleep. Did she dare press her luck two nights in a row? She'd gone back to bed after Paula came, exhausted from the strain of trying to figure things out. But just as she had been about to fall asleep, a thought had stabbed her like a knife. If the first box was full of Sofie, could the other hold her mother?
Her stomach still ached with the thought. She had to know. He hadn't moved the boxes the first time, but he could anytime. Then she'd have to find them again, or worse, never see inside the second one. She pushed herself up in bed. She had to. She could say she was hungry. She'd hardly eaten all day because of the weirdness and pretending she was sick. He'd believe she'd gotten hungry.
She eased her bedroom door open and listened. Daddy's snores were soft and uneven. Was he faking? She gulped her fear and moved into the hall. He had let Paula stay for dinner, but it was too soon to keep her overnight. He'd have her help him out a lot more before he let her think it was serious.
She slid against the wall until she was across from his door. He never closed it. His snores ended in a soft snort. She froze. Did he feel her there? She couldn't see his eyes in the dark. Her heart pounded. He could be looking right at her.
Move
. She came off the wall and walked softly but normally to the kitchen.
She couldn't look sneaky. He'd see it right off. He'd know.
He'll know anyway!
She had to risk it, had to see inside that box. She didn't miss her mother like she missed Sofie. Duh. She'd never known her. But she'd like to know what she looked like. There was not one picture anywhere of her.
She pressed her palms to the counter, sprang up and banged her knee. She sucked back the cry, squeezing her face tight as pain spread, then lessened. She let herself down. She hadn't yelled, but he might have heard her bump. She went and stood next to the refrigerator. If she heard him, she'd open its door.
Silence, and more snores she could barely hear. She edged back to the counter, carefully pulled herself up. Her knee hurt, especially when she knelt on it. She swung open the cabinet door and almost lost her balance. Then she stood up and reached into the top shelf.
She had convinced herself they wouldn't be there, that he'd have read her mind over dinner and known what she planned. But they were. She felt the one she'd put back, then reached over for the other. Her hand froze at a sound that came from down the hall.
She dropped into a crouch, but not off the counter. The snores came louder, almost as loud as the pounding of her heart. She straightened, grabbed the box, and lowered it to the counter. She slid off and landed on her tiptoes. Clutching the box, she crept back to her room.
A second sick day would not happen, and she didn't have the nerve to look at them now. Carefully, she buried the box in the bottom of her backpack. Maybe during recess . . .
She climbed into bed and actually slept, dreaming of different women she kept asking, "Are you my mother?" Daddy was relieved the next morning when she got ready for school with no hint of stomach trouble. She had important plans.
It seemed forever before she finally got the chance. They weren't allowed to go out to the parts of the playground near the street, but she'd located a gully by a couple trees just past the basketball court where she could crouch down and look at the pictures. She glanced over her shoulder, then trotted down and slid the pack from her shoulder.
No one was falling over themselves to play with her. She'd come into the school after all the friendships were made, and it wasn't like she tried. So no one came running over to ask what was in the box. No one noticed at all.
Even so, she stayed on guard. Like she could ever let down and relax. Like she ever stopped worrying. Her stomach hurt. She ignored it, set the box on the ground and opened the lid. The top picture was of her, just outside this school, talking to the principal. Must have been that first day after Dad dropped her off.
She put the picture on the lid and picked up the next. Her again. Was that what filled the box? Nothing wrong with Daddy taking pictures of her, except they weren't the kind of pictures he'd put in an album. She hadn't known they were being taken, didn't even seem to be the point of the picture. It was the people she talked to and smiled at that he was more interested in photographing.
People she'd liked, people who had mattered. And these were labeled with dates and names. But not like
Carly, age six, with her
friend Sandi
. They said
Gutter Boy, Future Trash, Brown-Nose
. On the ones with teachers snapped on various playgrounds were names like
Know-It-All, Conniving Hag
, and worse names that made her blush, names Daddy wouldn't think she knew.
She studied a picture of the school counselor, Ms. Baker, walking out of the school. Ms. Baker had suggested counseling for stress she had picked up on in third grade. It was only Ms. Baker in that picture, and she looked shocked and upset. On the back, Carly read one of the nastier names, and the next picture showed a car with the tires slashed.
She gulped. The pictures went on and on. Mixed in were shots of icy stairs, ambulances . . . dead pets. She lunged up and heaved, her stomach a hard knot as it expelled everything she'd eaten. She threw the pictures back into the box and shoved it deep inside her pack.
She almost stood up, then realized he could be out there with his camera, taking pictures of her betraying him. Her whole body shook. What was she going to do? Her stomach heaved every time her mind replayed the picture of Drew's dog. She hadn't wanted to believe it. She had taken Daddy's present and pretended she didn't know what happened to her friend's dog. Her face flushed with shame.
"Carly?"
She looked up into the playground teacher's eyes. "I think I'm still sick."
The teacher, whose name she didn't know and didn't want to, looked at the evidence. "Come with me. I'll take you to the nurse."
She staggered, and it wasn't pretending. The woman put an arm around her shoulders. "Honey, when you're feeling bad, you should tell someone."
Carly nodded. The nurse would know she'd missed school yesterday. They'd believe her. As bad as she felt, it might be true. But they'd call Dad. He'd come. How could she look at him?
They reached the nurse's office. She studied the older woman's face and said, "My dad's in meetings today. He said I had to call my caregiver if anything came up."
"Is she on the approved list?"
"Uh-huh." Yeah, right. I'm not allowed to see her, but Daddy gets to all the time.
"Okay. You have that number?"
"In my phone. Can I use it?" At the nod, she took it out of her pack. They didn't allow kids to use cell phones during the day, but it wasn't against the rules to have it. And this was a health situation. Her throat had dried out like an old hollow stick and tasted like barf. Tears stung her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. She picked the entry from her list and pressed Talk.
Please answer
.
"Hello?"
"Um, Sofie?"
A student came in with a cut hand and the nurse moved over to tend to him.
"Carly, I'm so glad you called. I've tried—"
"I'm sick at school and . . . can you come get me?"
The pause was too long. Maybe she didn't want to. Maybe she didn't care. Had Dad ruined her for Sofie too?