The Kindness of Strangers (13 page)

When she opened her eyes, she and Nate watched the flames bend and curl a moment, before looking at each other across them.

He tilted his head at the fragments of broken china and the black-and-white grit on the floor. “What happened?”

She hesitated, then admitted, “I threw them.”

His eyes widened, and he looked at her with what she thought might be admiration, then began picking up the pieces. She knelt to join him, but he said, “I’ll do this. You cook.”

So she did. She made challah dough first, knowing it would need time to rise. She covered the dough with a damp dish towel, and while they waited for it, she made chicken soup with floating matzo balls, and potato kugel. After Nate swept up the mess, he joined her. They stood side by side at the sink, rinsing the chicken, peeling potatoes, grating carrots, rolling the matzo balls in their hands, and chopping celery and onions. When the time came, he seemed to take great pleasure in punching down the bread dough, and he leaned, elbows in the flour, on the counter as she braided the two loaves, then covered them to rise again. Other than an occasional “What now?” and Sarah’s quiet instructions, they didn’t speak a word, but it was their best conversation in a long time.

It fueled her for the task ahead.

When Danny got home from school, he seemed suspicious about settling in to a big family dinner at four in the afternoon. Sarah put the challah in the oven and said, “Something very bad has happened to one of your friends.”

“Who?”

“Jordan Kendrick.”

“He’s not my friend,” Danny said, as if that closed the matter.

“Sweetie, what happened to you guys? You told me once he was your best friend.”

Danny shrugged. “He’s mean to me. He says I’m stupid.”

“Well, even if you two have argued, there’s still something very bad that has happened. . . .” Sarah stumbled right in. She didn’t want to have to say these things to her child. Of course she wanted both of them prepared and warned, but she didn’t want them to know, in such a concrete way, that even people they knew weren’t always what they seemed. She didn’t want to know it herself. But she told Danny that his former soccer coach, a man who called him Danny-boy and sang that song as a joke whenever Danny scored a goal, had raped his own son and three other children.

“But you can’t rape a boy.” Danny’s expression was one of condescending pity for his mother’s stupidity. It felt like a fish bone in Sarah’s throat to explain to him that yes indeed you could, and how exactly.

Danny’s face flushed bright red. Nate looked like he wanted to be sick.

“Why didn’t he run away?” Danny asked, in an almost challenging tone. “How come he never told anybody?”

Sarah didn’t know.

“He even spent the night once, at Billy Porter’s house, during last year’s tournament. He could have told Mrs. Porter then.” Danny popped a big bite of kugel into his mouth.

As much as his casual, slightly accusatory reaction troubled her, Sarah found herself thinking,
Thank God. Thank God Danny thinks Jordan would have told. So if anything had happened to Danny, he would have told.

“It couldn’t be that bad if he didn’t run away,” Danny said. “It’s probably no big deal.”

“Danny, it’s a very big deal. I saw him. I told you I took him to the hospital myself! The police were here, today, in this house. I saw pictures of his abuse.”

Danny shrugged cavalierly and continued eating. Sarah’s pulse quickened, and she itched to shake him.

“What the hell is your problem?” Nate asked him.

Danny looked at Sarah, as if expecting her to scold Nate. When she didn’t, he took another bite of kugel and said, “Whatever.”

Sarah breathed deep. “ ‘Whatever’? That’s all you have to say? This boy used to be your friend. He’s in your class. You see him every day, and you can’t feel one little morsel of—”

“I don’t like him,” Danny said.

“It doesn’t matter!” Sarah’s voice broke. She pushed her chair from the table and stormed into the living room. She paced around the room, furious at Roy for not being here. She snorted. If he were here, he’d take off his glasses, look at her with that maddening condescending expression, that “doctor look,” and tell her to calm down. God, sometimes she’d wanted to kill him.
Breathe. Breathe.
Roy would say this was just Danny’s way of holding it off. Maybe it was too much to grasp right now. Danny didn’t even know a boy could be raped—for God’s sake, what was wrong with her? She wanted this day over.

The yeasty aroma of bread reminded her to remove the challah from the oven. She returned to the kitchen and placed the loaves on cooling racks. “All right, guys. It’s time for the news, and I want you to watch it with me. I want to see what they say.”

The boys followed her to the living room and sat far apart from each other.

Mark Kendrick was the top story, with a stunning photo of him, tan, blond, and smiling. Sarah had seen the photo before; it was on Courtney’s refrigerator. Courtney and Jordan had been cropped from the shot. The solemn black anchorwoman narrated the story of Mark’s secret pornography “club” while footage ran of the Kendrick’s sunny yellow house. The anchorwoman reported that five adults had used children in pornographic material. Mark was charged with gross abuse and molestation of children and creating and possessing pornographic material involving minors. An all-points bulletin was out for his arrest. Another couple had been arrested in Indianapolis and charged with the same. Photos of this husband and wife filled the screen—normal, smiling, professional-looking people, also identified in the videotapes. There were no photos or mention of Courtney or Jordan or the other children. The anchorwoman did report that four children appeared in the photos and videotapes and that all were believed to be related to the perpetrators.

Sarah watched Danny closely, but he showed no emotion as he watched the news and excused himself as soon as the story was over. She followed him and tried to talk, but he insisted he was fine. Her questions—“Did Mark ever touch you?” and “Do you know what to do if someone touches you in a way you’re not comfortable with?”—were met with “Mom,
please,
” as if she were irrational. As if her concern were insulting.

The evening crawled by. Gwinn Whitacre called to see how Sarah was holding up; Rodney had told her what Sarah saw this afternoon. No one ate the challah. Sarah sent Danny over to give a whole loaf to Lila.

Sarah called the Montgomery County Jail and was told by a dispatcher that inmates could make outgoing calls but could not receive incoming ones because of the volume of people. There were afternoon visiting hours every weekday after court had been in session, and morning and afternoon hours on the weekend.

Carol Winter—Hadley of the lost bicycle’s mom—called at eleven, in tears. Sarah’s blood ran cold at first, but Carol immediately said, “They didn’t hurt Hadley.” Carol apologized for calling so late. “I . . . I wanted to call you, but I didn’t know. . . . But I knew I was never going to sleep. . . . I just . . . I—I’m so thrown by this. And . . . and I saw the police car at your house this afternoon, and then after the police came to
my
house I just figured that . . . Oh, God, Sarah, is Danny okay?”

“Yes. I don’t think he really understands what’s happened.”

There was an awkward pause. “No, Sarah. I mean, they didn’t hurt Danny, did they? He’s not one of the children?”

The hair rose all over Sarah’s body. “No. No, he’s not. I showed a photo of him to the detective, and he said Danny wasn’t in any of the pictures. Why? Why would you say that?”

“Oh, thank God, thank God,” Carol said. “I just know how close you were with Courtney, and when the detective explained to me why Mark and Courtney were probably grooming Hadley—”

“
What?
What do you mean, ‘grooming’?”

Carol’s tears started anew. “They didn’t hurt her, they didn’t do anything to her, Sarah, but I think they were planning to. That detective gave me a box—a whole box of pictures of Hadley that was in their house! They’re all perfectly innocent pictures—playing on the trampoline, in the pool, whatever—but they had almost a
hundred
pictures just of my daughter! A whole box just of pictures of Hadley!”

Sarah couldn’t breathe. “Why . . . ?”

“That detective said it was because of the divorce. He said pedophiles search for kids who have crises going on in their families.”

Sarah winced at the word “pedophile.” Just as with incest, she’d never heard that word used in reference to any person she knew.

Carol went on, “I talked to Martha McKenna today, and the police came to
her
house, too. Mark and Courtney had a box of pictures of Katie. Katie’s safe, Katie’s fine, they didn’t abuse her in any way either, but I think Hadley and Katie were on their ‘list.’ That detective said that pedophiles look for kids who have parents who are never around or families where there’s illness—like Katie’s brother getting all the attention because of his leukemia—or where a parent lost a job, or a divorce, or a death in the family. Kids in those circumstances are easy victims, because they’re hungry for attention they’re not getting at home.”

A death in the family.
Ice hardened in Sarah’s lungs. The truth bumps rose on her arms again.

“The police think,” Carol said, “that Mark and Courtney took that bicycle themselves,
just so
they could offer to help Hadley and win her trust. Can you believe that? Here I was yelling at her for not locking it up, and they’re setting themselves up as the nice people offering to buy her a new one. It’s so . . . God, it’s so manipulative.”

Sarah hated that Carol kept saying “they” and “Mark and Courtney.” “Carol, Courtney’s not in any of the photos. We know Mark is guilty, but Courtney’s not been found guilty of anything yet.”

Another awkward pause. “Sarah. Sarah, I know you were friends, but don’t delude yourself. How could that woman not know what was going on?”

Defensiveness rose up in Sarah’s chest. “But we don’t
know
that yet.
You
didn’t know your daughter was targeted, right? And you’re a good mom.”

Carol didn’t answer for a moment, and when she did, her voice was gentle and kind. Too kind. Sarah knew that Carol was patronizing her.

“The important thing is that Danny’s fine,” Carol said. “Hadley’s fine. Katie’s fine. They weren’t abused. Thank God. But I just . . . I just keep thinking about those other children. They said there were four children in the pornography.”

“But the news said those kids were all believed to be related to the adults in the pictures.”

Carol made a noise. “I’m so thankful they didn’t harm my child, but I just can’t imagine someone doing that to their
own
child. What makes people do that? What kind of person would do that?”

Sarah didn’t know. But when she got off the phone, she went to the computer and looked up “pedophile.”
An adult who is sexually attracted to a child or children.
Well, that was no help. Site after site presented itself, including a registry where Sarah discovered that three registered sex offenders lived in her zip code alone. Over an hour crept by as she read “characteristics” and “profiles” of pedophiles. She wanted to find a site that would let her shake off, once and for all, the question of Courtney. But none offered that comfort.

“Popular with both children and adults.”

“Singles out children who seem troubled and in need of affection or attention.”

“Derives gratification in a number of ways. For some, looking is enough. For others, taking pictures or watching children undress is enough. Still others require more contact.”

“A female pedophile usually abuses a child when partnered with an adult male pedophile and is often herself a victim of chronic sexual abuse.”

“Women who sexually abuse children are usually ‘caretakers’ for them, most often mothers or stepmothers, someone involved in a continuing relationship or incest. They are usually possessive and overprotective of their victims.”

“Incestuous parents may know soon after the child is born, perhaps even before, that they are going to have sex with the child. Such parents do not act impulsively.”

“A pedophile can act independently or be involved in an organized ring.”

“Pedophiles are often ‘groupers’ who actively seek one another out, to swap pictures of their victims and, often, the victims themselves.”

“They are usually well-educated family men and have no criminal record. The marriage is often troubled by sexual dysfunction and serves as a smoke screen for the pedophile’s true preferences and practices.”

Sarah remembered a comment Courtney once made about sex. They’d been out to dinner, and Sarah confided to Courtney that she was surprised by how much she missed sex. Courtney had laughed bitterly and said, “Sex? What’s that?”

Sarah had raised her eyebrows and asked, “Do I sense a little trouble?”

Courtney had sighed and said, “Don’t you have to be in the same room to have sex?”

So . . . that could be a sign that the marriage was a smoke screen—and evidence that Courtney and Mark were rarely together, which made it more likely that Courtney didn’t know what Mark was doing. But . . . Courtney
was
with Jordan all the time, and Sarah found it hard to believe that a mother would not pick up on her own child’s distress.