Cries in the Night (2 page)

She curled her body in a protective shell, putting all the flesh and bone she could between his steel-toed boot and her stomach. He kicked her again and again, cursing her with words that burned her soul as much as her ears. Finally, she blacked out.

A child’s scream woke her. She struggled to open her eyes, but one was swollen shut.

“Mama, mama!” the little boy cried.

Her hands slid in the puddles of blood on the floor as she struggled to push into a sitting position. Her blood. She could see it staining the white yarn of her sweater. In the back of her mind came the random thought that that was her favorite sweater, and now it was probably ruined. She had so few clothes that still fit.

Her son’s small hands wrapped around her wrist and she stifled a scream as he pulled. Pains shot up and down her arm telling her it was probably either broken or badly bruised. Her brain struggled through the fog as she tried to remember where she was and why she was bleeding and aching all over.

Carlos! She straightened and tried to look around. Was he hurting Danny? Her son seemed to sense her fears and with a maturity well beyond his years, he comforted her.

“He’s gone. But he hurt you,” Danny told her.

“I’m okay,” she lied, trying, as always, to protect him from the truth. But this was worse than the last time which had been worse than the time before that which had been worse than the time before. She could remember them all. In a twisted measure of days, months and years, each marked a new ending and a new beginning of sorts. She had never doubted that she had done something wrong to deserve his anger, and she had never doubted she would survive. This time, she wasn’t so sure.

A searing pain, much deeper than all the others pierced through her, starting deep in her stomach and radiating out. She heard another scream and was surprised that it had come from her mouth.

“Mama …?” Danny’s voice was terrified.

The room began to swirl around her, and her vision blurred. Another pain doubled her over and she slid back to the floor.

 

… Julie’s cell phone began ringing as she juggled a bag of groceries in one arm and inserted the key into her back door lock.

“Hold on, hold on, hold on …,” she chanted as she hurried inside, dropped the bag on the table and pulled her phone out of her purse.

“This is Julie,” she spoke into the small receiver.

“We’ve got a domestic and fire at 238 W. Maple Ave
.,” the voice recited crisply.

“I heard it on my scanner.” As she spoke, Julie held the phone against her ear with her shoulder and jotted down the address on a piece of unopened mail. “I’m on my way.”

“I’ll notify the officers on-scene. What’s your ETA?”

“I’m pretty close. I’ll be there in ten.”

The line clicked off and Julie let the phone slide off her shoulder and into her hand. She grabbed the perishable items out of the bag and tossed them into the refrigerator and left the rest of the items to be put away later. She picked up her keys, checked to make sure her thin billfold was still in her pocket and left without bothering to take the address with her. She knew it by heart. She had been there before.

Less than ten minutes later, she found a parking space. It had been snowing off and on all day, and it had picked up again just before she arrived. Julie looped her scarf around her neck, buttoned her coat up, pulled on her gloves and got out of her car. A white ladder truck and an engine with the familiar DFD logo painted on it were parked directly in front of the house, their hoses snaked across the snow. The generators rumbled, spotlights focused their harsh beams on the action, radios crackled with sporadic chatter and firefighters shouted back and forth to each other as they focused a steady stream of water on the blaze that had gobbled up the left side of the house.

Julie quickened her pace as much as she dared on the icy sidewalk made worse by the steady flow of water that was draining from the house. An ambulance was at the end of the driveway. The back doors were open and the stretcher was out.

“Hey Julie. Sorry to get you out on a night like this,” one of the cops said as he approached her. He flipped his little spiral notebook closed and tucked it into the breast pocket of his jacket.

“Is she alive?” Julie held her breath, afraid of the answer.

“Barely. He beat the shit out of her … again.”

“No surprise there. Why can’t you guys put him away for good?”

The cop shrugged. “She always bails him out and won’t testify against him.”

“I thought she had a restraining order against him.”

“She does. But an RO is only paper. It doesn’t stop fists.”

Two paramedics pushed the stretcher down the driveway from the house. A thin blanket covered the woman’s prone body. Her young son walked beside it, his hand on his mom’s arm, a gesture that was probably reassuring for both of them. It wasn’t until she got closer that Julie noticed the rounded mound showing the woman was pregnant.

“Oh my God,” Julie cried and hurried over to the stretcher.

The woman looked up at her … or tried to. Her swollen and battered eyes clearly hampered her vision, but she was able to recognize Julie. An expression flashed across her face, one that was part embarrassment and part happiness to see someone she knew. “Julie … I know what you’re thinking … don’t be mad at me,” she said in a voice that shook with pain.

“Gloria, you don’t have to apologize to me … or to him,” Julie rushed to calm her. She gently took the woman’s hand and walked next to the stretcher as the two paramedics struggled pushing it through several inches of unshoveled snow and over the shattered remains of a sled.

“He didn’t mean to hurt me,” the woman told her.

Like hell he didn’t
, Julie thought, but aloud she said, “How do you feel?”

Gloria lifted her other hand that already had an IV attached and rubbed her belly. “Not so good. I’m worried about my baby.”

Julie looked up at one of the paramedics and he shrugged. “They’re going to do everything they can to help you both,” she told the woman.

“I burned him with the iron. That’s why he got so mad,” Gloria continued, anxious that Julie know why the event had happened.

“You need to focus on yourself and your baby,” Julie spoke soothingly. “I’ll stay with Danny until someone comes. Have you called your mother?”

Gloria turned her head as if afraid of being overheard. “No, would you do that for me? Her number is in my phone … you know, the one you gave me. It’s hidden in the laundry room. Danny will show you.” She tried to give her son a smile, but she could manage only a stiff grimace.

The little boy looked at Julie and nodded shyly.

“We’ve got to go,” the female paramedic said as the stretcher reached the ambulance. She and her partner prepared the stretcher for loading and Julie reached out for Danny’s hand.

“Only
my
mother,” Gloria pleaded, twisting around and leaning toward Julie. “Don’t let him go with anyone else. Promise me.”

“Don’t worry about him. I promise I won’t leave him until your mother comes for him,” Julie assured her, and Gloria relaxed back against the cushion. The two women weren’t long-time friends or even acquaintances. Their relationship had started almost two years ago when Julie had responded to a domestic call. That one hadn’t resulted in hospitalization. But it had been the first in several similar events that had created a trust great enough that Gloria knew she could leave Danny in Julie’s care.

Danny trembled but didn’t pull his hand away as he watched his mother being loaded into the ambulance. The red and blue lights bounced off the surrounding trees and houses, magnified by the stark whiteness of the snow and turning the still-falling snowflakes into confetti. Julie looked down at the little boy whose gaze followed the twinkling lights as they disappeared down the street. Looking down she realized he wasn’t wearing a coat. She unbuttoned her own, took it off and knelt down in front of Danny. Even though it was much too large and drug on the ground, he burrowed gratefully into the warmth of the wool. Shivers of cold and lingering fear shook his tiny body. “They’re going to take good care of your mama. But right now we need to call your grandma. Can you tell me your mom’s secret hiding place?”

“It’s in the house,” he told her, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “In the smelly things.”

Smelly things?
Her mind scrambled for what that might mean. “Dirty clothes?” she asked.

“No, the good smelly things. You know, the ones with the little bear on the box,” he whispered back.

“Dryer sheets?”

He nodded.

Good choice. Men like Carlos never did laundry, so it would be unlikely he would stumble on it there. Julie looked around. Apparently the fire was out. Smoke no longer billowed from the roof, and the firefighters were straightening out the hoses in preparation of rolling them back up. One of the firefighters walked out of the house with an axe swung over his shoulder. She lifted her hand and waved at him. She recognized him from several other fires she had been called out to.

He noticed and walked toward them. He was tall, well over six feet. Dressed in full firefighting uniform, he looked big and menacing, sort of like an urban alien. Steam radiated from his long black coat with its yellow reflective stripe and the top of his black helmet. He had an air canister strapped on his back, but he had unfastened his respirator and it hung off to one side. His face was smudged with a
layer of carbon, marked with paths where sweat and water had streaked down. After giving Julie a crooked grin, he swung the axe to the ground and knelt in front of Danny, as if he knew what an imposing sight he must be.

“You must be Daniel,” he said to him. “I saw some amazing drawings on the refrigerator. I was hoping I would get to meet the artist. Were those yours?”

Danny nodded solemnly, but Julie could see that he was flattered.

“And that must have been your room with the race car posters.”

Again Danny nodded. “Did my room burn up?”

“No, we were able to stop the fire before it got to your room. But I’m afraid some of your things got a little wet and are going to smell like smoke.”

“How about my baseball cap? The doctor people made me and my mom leave so fast I didn’t get it.”

The firefighter said, “Oh yeah, I remember seeing a couple caps in there. They’ll be fine.” He took off his helmet and held it out to Danny. “Maybe you’d like to wear
my
hat.”

Danny’s brown eyes stretched wide. “Oh yes, sir.”

The man set the hat on the boy’s much smaller head and it settled down to cover his ears and face all the way down to his nose. Instead of taking it off, Danny lifted his chin and looked out from underneath it. But most noticeable was the twitch of a smile that had softened his tense lips.

The firefighter stood and turned his attention to Julie. He pushed the heavy cloth hood off his head, revealing rumpled dark brown hair. As he looked at her, she was struck by the clarity of his bright blue eyes.

“You’re Julie, aren’t you?” he asked.

She was a little surprised that he knew her name because they had never actually spoken. Not that she was a stranger to any of the public responders because Julie or one of her volunteers showed up at all of the more serious crime, fire or accident scenes. “Yes, I am. And you’re …?”

“Rusty,” he answered and pointed toward his last name that was printed on his jacket as he added, “Wilson. I’m sure you know my younger brothers.”

“Oh, so you’re
that
Wilson,” Julie teased. She was very well acquainted with his brothers. Sam was a Denver cop who she worked with often, and Chris, the youngest, was a paramedic out of Denver Health. He wasn’t one of the ones on scene tonight, but their paths had crossed often in the course of their jobs.

Rusty held up his hands. “Whoa, you can’t believe everything you hear about me.”

“Why do you assume it’s all bad?” she asked.

“Because some of it is true. I’m the first to admit that I enjoy life. But my brothers like to exaggerate my …,” he grinned, “… transgressions.”

Julie shrugged. This was not a point she wanted to debate in the middle of a snowy night when she was without a coat. “I was just wondering if someone could take me inside for a minute. I need to get Danny’s things and … well, something else.”