Little Girl Gone (18 page)

“Willis says you won’t because you’re a rebel and you don’t trust people in authority.”

“He’s got that right, but if he thinks I’m going to let him get away with holding me prisoner for six months—”

“We kept you safe.”

“He’ll cut my throat and throw me in a hole. Or maybe he’ll load me up with those pills he’s got in his little black bag.” She sneered. “
Dr. Willis Brock.
The great healer, Mr. Magic Hands.”

“What do you mean?”

Linda’s lips curved, making a smile. “What do you think I mean? You think he comes in here every night so we can talk about current events?”

“He’s never touched you,” Madora said. Whatever else, she knew this was true. “Willis isn’t like that.”

“I bet he doesn’t touch you either.” Linda’s smile widened, revealing gaps where she had lost teeth. “Your precious Willis is a freak.”

“Why? Because he doesn’t treat you like the trash you are? You don’t know anything about Willis. I’ve known him for five years and he would never… what you said.”

“Fuck me?” Linda picked up the sandwich and looked at it. “Or kill me?” She put it down. “You’re not a bad person, Madora. You’re just sort of retarded.”

“I am not!”

“You’re one of those girls who never grows up. You just keep believing all the fairy-tale bullshit. Prince Charming and happily ever after. I know why you stay with him. You really believe it’s gonna change. He leaves you alone all day and you daydream about a white wedding and a house and babies, but it’s never going to happen. My baby’s the only one you’ll ever hold.”

Madora’s throat tightened like a fist.

“I bet sometimes you think about leaving, though. Am I right?” Linda laughed. “I am! You don’t hide your feelings very well, Madora. A three-year-old could read you.”

“He needs me.”

“Oh, yeah, I bet he does. My old man needed me too. Needed me to go back in the woods with him.”

“Willis isn’t like that.”

“My dear old dad said bad things would happen if I ever told anyone. He said he’d kill himself and it’d be like I’d murdered him. Well, I said good, shoot yourself in the head and go to hell. I took off and I’m never going back.” Linda leaned forward. “You’re scared of what’ll happen to you if you walk away from him. I’ll tell you what’ll happen. You’ll get free.”

Linda reached out with her bound hands and picked up the tuna sandwich, her mouth twisted in disgust. Without warning, she threw it down and kicked it hard with her untethered foot. The slices of white bread fell apart and clots of mayonnaise and tuna smeared the floor. “Don’t you ever get sick of this crap? Back and forth between me and your house or whatever you live in. You’re his servant, Madora.”

“He loves me.”

“I bet he’s got you thinking this is what you
want
to do.”

Madora did not know what she thought anymore, but she would not be humiliated by this girl, this runaway, this street slut.

“Makes you mad, huh? The truth?”

“Clean up your mess.” Madora stood at the curbside door with her hands knotted on her hips. “Starve yourself if you want.”

“I’m not doing shit.”

“Willis is going to be really mad when he sees—”

“So what? I could kiss his teeny-weeny and he’s still gonna kill me. Can you get that into your dumb nut?”

“Stop saying that!”

Linda laughed. Madora couldn’t get away from the trailer fast enough. She ran past the house and up the trail to her boulder. Dragging her knees up under her chin, she wrapped her arms around her legs and pressed her forehead into her knees so hard that her head began to ache. The more she wanted to cry, the harder she pressed. Foo sat on his haunches, facing her, panting and squeaking. At last she put her feet on the ground. She patted her thigh and he jumped up, settling into a seashell curl on her lap. He twisted his head, looked up at her, his sloppy tongue lolling.

“You’re too big for this,” she said, but if he had jumped down, she would have called him back.

For three summers during elementary school Madora had been enrolled in Methodist Bible camp. Monday through Friday, at eight sharp, a line of children, with Madora as close to the front as she could shove herself, climbed aboard a yellow school bus that took them an hour out of town to a camp where swimming was the reward for sitting still for Bible stories and lessons on hygiene and Christian behavior.

She anticipated the river before she saw it. Madora rolled down the bus window and through the dust she inhaled the river’s green and wet-stone smell; and over the course of several summers and despite the Bible lessons taught by a team of earnest college students, Madora came to believe that God and flowing water were much the same. How Jesus fit into this, she never understood or really cared, for the river had captured her completely. It was as strong as God, with power to wear away the sandstone and make rocks smooth. It could be calm and soothing but had a temper too, so she knew she had better behave herself. Mostly the river was kind and good, though. It cooled her when she was hot, soothed her scraped knees, and gave her water to drink. Without it trees and bushes would not grow and there would be no small animals under rocks, no birds banking and drifting on the currents of air. No fish. At eight and nine and ten she had believed that God was all the creeks and rivers and streams flowing into lakes united in the greatness of the oceans and seas.

One day when she and Willis were living in a campground not far from Boise, they were caught in a roaring thunderstorm. As the rain drummed on the tent and they snuggled in sleeping bags side by side, she had told him her theory of God. He laughed at her. Willis talked about God and Jesus and heaven and hell with a derogatory conviction that it was all a story made up by a few powerful people to keep everyone else in line. He had many opinions and observations on the matter, and Madora listened mutely
and knew that he assumed by her silence that she agreed. But in a rare act of rebellion, she told him he was wrong. There really was a God somewhere, in some form.

She had never wandered from her belief that at the root of all things there was something true and bigger than Willis, something almighty. That word thrilled her with hope that this Almighty Something had a plan for her life. In the plan, everything from her father’s suicide to meeting Willis and not finishing school, even Linda, had happened for a reason.

She would not let herself believe that she had practiced mothering with stuffed animals and baby dolls, with dogs and cats, injured wild things and the neighbor kids, all for nothing, all so that she could spend her days waiting on girls like Linda.

That night she cooked a special dinner: chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes and frozen green beans. For dessert she made chocolate pudding. Rachel used to sprinkle coconut on the top, but that was the kind of luxury item Willis would never let Madora buy, even on a shopping spree like the one they’d had that morning.

“This is nice,” he said, looking at the table set with a cloth, two place settings laid out opposite each other. “You made a little effort. I appreciate that, Madora.”

“I hope the meat’s not too dry.”

“That’s why God made ketchup,” he said, smiling and chewing.

After dinner she made coffee to accompany the pudding and again Willis commended her special efforts.
Normally she would bask in his praise, but this night was different from all others; and she feared that if she relaxed too much and felt too comfortable, if she allowed herself to be even a little lighthearted, she might use that as a reason to say nothing. She knew he had seen Ms. Howard’s mother that afternoon and that the meeting must have gone well, because he was in a good mood. She almost asked him how it had gone, but first she had to talk about Linda again. To firm her resolve she remembered how Linda had spoken to her, the insult in her words and tone.

“She had another tantrum today. I made her a special sandwich and she threw it on the floor.”

He smiled.

“It wasn’t funny, Willis.”

“I know, I know, but you gotta give the girl credit; she’s got some spirit. I can’t help liking her.”

How could he say that when he loved
her
? She was the one he had chosen forever.

“The girl’s got a tongue on her, I know; but then she’s been through a lot, and living hard doesn’t gentle a girl’s spirit; that’s for sure. But you’ll do what you have to do. I’m counting on you.”

“She says I’m a servant.”

“Sticks and stones, Madora. Sticks and stones.”

“If I didn’t have to wait on her, you’d let me go to work.”

“So you can be someone else’s servant?”

“It’s not the same thing. If I worked I could make money for medical school.”

He sighed and stared at her for a long moment. “I don’t have to listen to this.” He pushed away the pudding half eaten, wiped a paper napkin across his mouth, and stood up. “Did you want to ruin dinner? Was that your plan? Well, you succeeded. I was having a good time—”

“When are you going to let her go?”

“This again? She’ll go when I’m ready.”

“She says it’ll never happen. She says you’re going to kill her.”

The muscle along his jawline wormed. “That’s what you think of me?”

“I told her it wasn’t true.”

“But you think it might be.”

“She said awful things about you, Willis.”

“You’re just like your mother, Madora. You go along with a man until he trusts you—”

He smelled of sweat and dust.

“I do trust you.”

“Words, Madora, just words. They can’t hurt me, but they can’t help me either. It’s the way you act, what you’re willing to do. That’s what counts.”

Fear pressured her bladder and her body tensed. Even her voice sounded tight. “I want us to have a real life and children and live in a house with neighbors. That’ll never happen if—”

His right arm snapped back and forward, and the palm laid into the side of her head with enough power to knock her to the floor. Pain stabbed through her hip and up into
her back as, gasping and whimpering, she scooted away from him, until she stopped against the refrigerator. She drew her knees up to her chest, protecting her head with her arms.

“Stand up.”

She made herself as small as she could.

“Have some dignity, for godsake.”

Already the left side of her face was swelling and her eye was closing. She began to cry.

“I told you to goddamn get up!”

She struggled to her knees and then her feet, leaned against the refrigerator for support. Her hip throbbed.

Willis poked his face forward, inches from hers. His breath was brown and bitter. “I don’t want to hear you talk about Linda, about what’s right for her. Do you understand? Can you put that in your stupid head and keep it there?”

“I’m not stupid,” she cried.

“I said shut up!” He raised his hand again. She threw her arms up in front of her face.

But he didn’t touch her. He stepped back and his chin dropped to his chest. For several minutes they remained as they were, facing each other. Outside under the carport, Foo was barking, and crows in the sycamores made a fearful racket. Dizzy, nauseous, Madora needed to sit down, but she was afraid to move. A voice in her head said she had done nothing to deserve being hit, another voice warned her to be careful, and a third told her it was her fault, she had pushed him too far. Her head spun with chatter.

Seeing stars, she fell forward. Willis caught her in his arms and helped her sit, and she wept with gratitude for the strength of his arms, the gentleness of his hands. He knelt before her, lifted her T-shirt, and laid his cheek against her stomach, wrapping his arms around her waist. She felt his lips move against her flesh as he spoke.

“God help me, Madora, what am I going to do with you?”

E
ven asleep, Madora was aware of pain, and the night hours moved like a desert tortoise creeping between the whorls of tumbleweed. She got up after midnight and swallowed four aspirin, but they only gave her a headache to add to the tenderness in her back and hip and shoulder. She tried lying on the side that wasn’t bruised, but that meant resting her beaten face on the pillow. She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling with a rolled towel jammed into the small of her back, holding a package of frozen broccoli against the side of her face. She dozed and woke to the sound of her own whimpers, her eyelids gummy with tears, stiff and sore from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine. The frozen vegetables had thawed and left a large wet spot on her pillow. She labored from bed to drink water and take more aspirin. In the kitchen she stood barefoot, watching the alabaster moths beat against the outside light. If she turned it off, some would still batter their frail wings in the fading warmth, lured to burning death by
the memory of heat and light. Others would turn and fly toward the moon and stars.

She hated the little house now. It stank of her fear.

The next morning Willis behaved as if the violence of the night before had never happened. She waited for him to say he was sorry or just ask how she felt. He was going to be a doctor. At the least Madora expected him to tell her what to do about her damaged face. Instead, as she scrambled eggs and made toast, Willis brooded. He straddled a kitchen chair with his chin resting on the ladder-back, and his hair fell as straight and dark as a veil. He stared at the picture of the girl with an umbrella on the label of the blue salt box. Sometimes he toyed with the paper napkins, tearing them apart in long strips, twisting and braiding the pieces like a lariat. She sneaked a look at him. As handsome as ever. Or had something shifted at the center of his face, between his eyes?

Her swollen eye distorted her vision.

She moved tentatively, favoring her hip and lower back. Willis did not seem to notice any of this. He stared at the salt box, tearing strips of paper napkin, tension pricking out of every pore and filling the kitchen with its sour smell. Madora knew she did not exist for Willis just then, no more than did the stove and sink. They were fixtures, and so was she. She watched him eat the eggs she placed before him, stabbing his fork into them as if they deserved to be punished. Between mouthfuls he began to talk about his work and clients, their medication and oxygen tanks and squeaky wheelchairs.