Daughters (38 page)

“Could you describe him to the police, do you think?”

She nodded. “Anyway, they locked me in the bathroom and started talking, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, even with my ear on the door. Then I heard footsteps, and he said, ‘I gotta take a piss.’ Next thing I knew the door flew open and I flew out. Mom was standing by the front door with the gun dangling from her hand and told me, ‘Don’t even think about leaving.’ I asked her why she was doing this, and she just told me to shut the …well, to shut up again.”

Marie tried not to let the horror she felt inside leak out onto her face. “You must have been scared to death. I am
so
sorry you had to go through that, Rachael. Do you want to go on or finish in the morning?”

Some color came back to her face. “I want to go on, but I’m a little hungry.”

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“Yesterday.”

“Come on. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

Rachael continued to talk while she wolfed down the sandwich. “By this time it was almost daylight, but Mom was tired and said she was going to get some sleep. So she went into the bedroom and closed the door. But first she threw out a shirt and a pair of pants of hers for me to put on, ‘cause I was still in my PJs, and then she left me with what’s-his-name.”

“Do you know his name?”

Rachael shook her head. “She called him ‘dog.’ But I could think of a few other names for him. Anyway, I had to sit in the living room with cootie guy while Mom slept. He had the TV on but nothing much was on at that time. He kept getting up to change the channel, and when all he could get were test patterns, he got mad and kicked it.”

“You said your mother had the gun before. Where was the gun now?”

“Sitting on the coffee table. Anyway, he got a beer from the fridge and before he could finish it, he fell asleep on the couch.” She gulped down a breath of air. “So I bolted out the front door and ran as fast as I could. Through the parking lot and across the street.”

“He didn’t try to stop you?”

“He was passed out. There were a lot of beer bottles lying around. Too boozed up to even know I was gone, probably.”

Marie rested her arms on the dining room table. “Go on.”

“I really didn’t know where I was running to, I was just running.” She took the last bite of sandwich. “I was running through this truck stop when I ran right into, I mean right into, this big fat dude. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a creepy look and then asked me where I was going in such a hurry. I told him away from here, and I tried to get away from him, but he held me pretty tight.”

Marie got up to fill Rachael’s glass with more milk, her stomach doing flip-flops.

“He started talking to me like he wanted to help me, but he was so big, he kinda scared me, and I just wanted to get away. Then this other guy came up to us. He was much smaller and looked nicer. He asked the big dude—his name was Prick—what he was doing with such a young girl, and I go…well, I lied and said, ‘I’m not so young. I’m sixteen.’ Then the short guy asked me where I was headed, and I said Kansas.”

“What did you say his name was?”

“Which one?”

“The first guy.”

“The short guy called him Prick.”

“That’s what I thought you said. Okay, go on.”

“Probably just a nickname. Anyway, after I said Kansas, they both started laughing, and the short guy asked me if my name was Dorothy.” She rolled her eyes. “Very funny. Then Prick said, ‘I’m going as far as Chicago. You can ride with me.’ I looked at the short guy, and he said Prick was okay, that I could go with him. Then he asked me if I was hungry, and I said yes, so he went into the truck stop and brought me back a burger.”

“So you got into the truck with this guy?”

Rachael nodded.

“Oh my.” All sorts of thoughts raced through Marie’s head. “Did he hurt you at all, Rachael? Be honest with me. You can tell me anything.”

Her eyes went wide with innocence. She shook her head. “No. We just rode without saying much. He told me he was headed for Akron, Ohio, I think it was, where he had a wife and three kids. A daughter my age.”

Marie let out a big sigh. Rachael kept her gaze on Marie’s face a long moment. “Don’t worry. I’ve spent most of my life depending on people I don’t trust or even know, not Ben or anything, but before. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing for me to do, but...”

“I know, hon. Go on.”

“Anyway, then when we got to Chicago, he talked to another truck driver on the radio, and he told me he was going to drop me off at the bus station where this other guy would take me the rest of the way.”

“He dropped you off at a bus station?”

“Yeah. But no other trucker ever came by.”

“So what did you do?”

She shrugged. “I just sat in the bus station all day, and when it got dark, I found a spot in the corner and dozed off and on all night.”

Marie listened with intensity as Rachael’s story unfolded, feeling a sinkhole of fear in her own gut she hadn’t felt for years. “Weren’t you scared?”

“Yeah, I was scared. But I just kept telling myself to look forward, and I did something my mom taught me.”

“What’s that?”

“First you sit with your ankles crossed. Then you put your hands in your lap and close your eyes. Then you take in a deep breath and let it out slowly, and you have to think about what you’re doing, how you’re breathing. In and out, or it won’t work. You do this ten times. Now this is the best part. Then you let your head go to your peaceful place.”

“Where’s your peaceful place?”

“Well, everybody’s is different. You just make it up. Mine is in the middle of a rainforest. And while I’m there, I listen real carefully so I can hear the waterfall in the background and the birds singing.” She closed her eyes. “If I really concentrate on it, I can even feel the air on my face and little sprinkles of water from the waterfall.” She opened her eyes. “And you can go there anytime you want to.”

“That’s beautiful, Rachael. I think I’ll have to remember that the next time I’m scared.”

“You? You get scared?”

“Everyone gets scared. You will never know how scared I was for you when you were missing.”

Rachael flashed a guarded smile. “Anyway, so the next day someone in the bus stop said there was a soup kitchen down the street where you could get a meal, but you had to listen to a church sermon first, which I didn’t mind. I’d done it before with Mom. So I walked over there and ate.”

“What was that like?”

“Pretty crummy, but I was really hungry, so it was no big deal.” She paused with a distant look on her face. “As far as soup kitchens go, I guess it wasn’t that bad. I’ve been in worse. Anyway, I asked someone in there if they knew of any shelters who took kids, and this woman told me of one. It took me awhile to find it, but I did. I wanted to go there because sometimes if your timing is right, you can make a connection. Sometimes you have to stay a few days and be part of the scene before connecting, but after crashing there for three days, I didn’t. That’s the longest a kid can stay, because then they call Juvey.”

“Juvey?”

“Juvenile Hall.”

Marie couldn’t believe that was their actual policy, but she didn’t question it. “What kind of connection?”

“On whatever it is you need. Place to live. A ride somewhere. Booze. Drugs. That kind of stuff.”

Marie tried to absorb it all but had a hard time visualizing a young teenage girl making it alone in a shelter. “So where did you go from there?”

Rachael sighed. “I went back to the bus station thinking if I asked enough people, maybe I could collect enough money for a bus ride here. Then this woman came up to me and asked me if I was okay. We started talking, and she was nice enough, so I told her where I was headed, and she said she would drive me there if I would go with her to Social Services and pretend to be her daughter. So I did that and she drove me here.”

“Wait a minute. Pretend to be her daughter?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Probably to get free money.”

“Good grief,” Marie mumbled. “So she drove you here, to my apartment?”

Rachael shook her head. “Not exactly. She dropped me off on Main Street. It took me awhile to find your apartment.”

Marie sat back and stared at Rachael in awe, trying to connect all the dots of what the child had gone through. “You are so lucky you didn’t get hurt. Tell me, though, why didn’t you just try to find someone who could call the police or your grandparents for you?”

Rachael’s lip quivered as though she was about to cry again. “All I could think of was my Dad might be dead, my mom is really messed up, and I wanted to be with you.”

“Did you try to call here first?”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “I didn’t want to talk to you just to have you tell me not to come here.”

Marie took Rachael to her bosom and held her tight. “Well, I’m glad you’re here now and by some miracle not hurt.” She pulled out of the hug. “But you took some mighty big chances, young lady.”

Rachael bit her lip. “I know. How much does Grandma and Grandpa know?”

“Just that you’re here and safe. We’ll call them tomorrow. I think the best thing now is for us to get some rest. I’m tired, and I know you must be too.” Marie paused and made direct eye contact with her. “Rachael…what your mom did—abandoning you, shooting Ben, and whatever else—I can assure you didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“How do you mean?”

“It was all about her—her issues, her insecurities, her demons. They have nothing to do with you. You were just an unfortunate victim. Do you understand that?”

“I guess so.”

“C’mon, let’s get some sleep. Sound like a plan?”

Rachael rubbed her eyes. “Okay.” Marie followed her toward the spare bedroom. Rachael turned around to face Marie. “Later, gator?”

Marie shook her head and gave her a heartfelt smile. She responded with, “Later, gator yourself,” and then promptly called the St. Charles police, who informed her they would be sending someone to Atchison first thing in the morning to get Rachael’s statement.

She then called Jonathan and Claire and relayed to them Rachael’s harrowing account of what had happened to her. Their phone conversation ended close to midnight. The call to Gloria and Greg would have to wait until the next day.

CHAPTER 25

Change

The St. Charles policewoman arrived promptly at nine o’clock to take Rachael’s statement. Marie could see that Rachael was nervous, but she handled herself extremely well for someone who had gone through that experience, especially a fifteen-year-old.

The Feinsteins were appreciative of Marie’s offer to keep Rachael for a few days, understanding that if that was where she had fled, it was where she wanted to be, and it would be best, at least for now. They agreed to come to Atchison on Sunday, at which time the four of them would come up with a plan for Rachael’s immediate future. Marie relayed this to Rachael while they sat at the dining room table.

“What’s to discuss? I’m here now. Can’t I just stay?”

“Rachael, it’s not that simple. Gregory and Gloria are your grandparents, and my guess is that legally they have the final word on what happens to you.”

“What about my mom?”

“Well, she’s been arrested, and Jonathan thinks she’ll probably go to jail. If that happens, she may not have any say in the matter.”

“But they’re not really my grandparents.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Yes, I do.”

“How?”

“‘Cause when Mom broke into the house, she told Dad he wasn’t really my father.”

“She did?”

“Yep. Threw it up right in his face.”

“Well, you know we’re back to that discussion we had the last time you were here. How do you really know? How do we know your mother is now telling the truth?”

“All I know is that it would be just like her to say Ben was my father when she was down and out and needed something from him. That’s how she is. She uses people.”

Marie peered long and hard into Rachael’s discontented eyes. “Is that what you really want…to come live with me?”

She leaned forward. Her face was serious. “More than anything else in the world.”

“I wouldn’t be a pushover, you know.”

Rachael sat back in her chair. “I know.”

“And I wouldn’t let you do whatever you want to do. There would be rules.”

“I’m cool with that.”

“You’d have to go back to school. And get good grades.”

Rachael nodded. “No sweat.”

“And no boys.”

“What, for the rest of my life?”

“No. For the rest of mine.”

A slow smile came across her face. “No boys. Can we at least get a dog?”

Marie half-smiled. Nothing she had done in her life had prepared her for raising a half-grown child.