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“Children grow up and want their own lives. They want to make their own decisions.”
“I built that house for her so she could have her own life! I used most of the money from my lawsuit on this property and the two houses, and she still…” She let out a tiny cry.
“That was generous of you.” Watching her sit on the floor, looking defeated, she didn’t seem at all like a killer. Still, maybe this was just a pity party. Maybe she was feeling sorry for herself because killing her daughter’s boyfriend hadn’t achieved what she’d hoped.
“It wasn’t generous. It was to keep her safe, to keep some man from taking advantage of her.”
“Not all men—”
“Yes! All men! That man, the man I worked for, forced me to have sex, or I’d lose my job. Eventually, I found a way to win, but it took a long time. Only my lawsuit put him in his place. But I was lucky. A lot of women don’t have that option because there’s no proof. The woman’s word is never, ever enough! But I had something the others didn’t. I had a baby who shared his DNA.” She gave me a triumphant smile.
I gasped softly. “Oh.” A baby! Now Linda’s behavior made sense. A little more sense, if not entirely. I would have thought someone who had lived through what Linda had would want her daughter to be strong and resilient, not hiding in a small house at the end of a secluded one-lane road.
“I want her back!” Linda cried. “She’s slipping away from me and I don’t know why. Do you?” She looked up at me as if she seriously thought I could answer that question for her. Maybe I could, but I wasn’t planning to.
SIXTY-ONE
A LITTLE GIRL
Twenty Years Ago
The pins were going in deeper now. I felt the wetness of blood. I started crying for real, making sounds. My mother did not like that.
“Stop crying!”
“It hurts.”
“I told you—”
“It’s not from pins in my dress. It’s him!”
“What are you talking about? Stop squirming and chattering and crying. I’m trying to get the sleeves right.” She put her pencil in the tiny sharpener and turned it several times, letting the shavings fall onto the floor.
“He’s hiding behind the drapes.”
“Ignore him.”
I squealed as another straight pin shot into the side of my leg.
“Please stop screeching. You’re making this take longer than it needs to.”
It hurt too much. It felt like my legs were full of holes. If blood got on my dress, she’d be mad at me for that, too. “When you aren’t looking, he comes out from behind the drapes and pricks me.”
“You need to ignore him. You’re a lady and you need to act like one. You can’t be crying and whining. That’s not who I’m raising you to be.”
I wanted to scream at her—I’m not a doll! But she would cry, even though she got mad when I cried. It wasn’t fair, but that’s how it always was.
He wanted me to cry. Before, he would try to tickle me or make me sneeze when she wasn’t looking. He was always crawling around my chair, hiding from her, staying behind the drapes or in the corner between the breakfront and the wall. He wanted me to get in trouble; he wanted me to wriggle and wreck her drawings. He wanted her to pay attention to him.
When we played outside—me in my outside dresses and black patent shoes, him in regular shorts and a T-shirt—he was the one crying. “She only likes you.”
“I wish she liked you the way she likes me. Then you could sit in a chair all day and not move.”
“At least she talks to you. And tells you you’re pretty.”
“I don’t want to be pretty! I want to play. I want to wear normal clothes.”
I wished he wasn’t so jealous of me. I didn’t like him being jealous. I wanted him to like me. I wanted us to be friends, but he hated me. And it wasn’t even my fault. It was her. He thought she loved me more, but she only loved me when I looked like a doll, when I acted like a doll.
