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“When I got older,” he said, “I found out who the bastard was and tried to call him a couple of times, tell him how bad things were for his kid. He acted like he didn’t know who I was talking about. Told me he’d have me locked up if I kept harassing him. Eventually I found out where he lived and went to see him.” He shook his head. “It’s not easy for a city kid to get to Grosse Pointe on public transportation.”
Grosse Pointe? Lucy sat up straighter, an odd feeling coming over her.
“It was a big house, looked like a mansion to me. Gray stone with four chimneys, a swimming pool, and these kids chasing each other around the front yard with water guns. Three boys in their teens. A girl. Even in shorts and T-shirts they all looked rich.”
The pieces fell into place.
“The Remingtons,” he said. “The perfect American family.”
The car’s headlights cut through the night.
“I’d walked the last couple of miles from the bus stop,” he said, “and I hid across the street. They all had that lean, WASPy look. Curtis and I were both dark like our mother.” The shuttered farm stand whipped by on their left. “While I watched, a landscape crew pulled up at the house and wheeled a mower off the back of the truck. Four kids in the family, and they hired somebody to cut their grass.”
He turned into the drive. The house loomed, not even a light over the front door to welcome them. “I found another hiding place where I could watch them in their backyard. I stayed until it got dark.” He killed the engine but made no move to get out of the car. “I felt like I was watching a TV show. It was his wife’s birthday. There were balloons and presents, this big glass-top table set with flowers and candles. Steaks on the grill. I was so damned hungry, and none of them looked like they had a care in the world. He had his arm around his wife most of the evening. He gave her some kind of necklace as a present. I couldn’t see what it looked like, but from the way she acted, I figured it cost a lot more than five hundred dollars.”
Her heart welled with pity for him. And something more. Something she wouldn’t consider.
“The sickest part is that I kept going back. Maybe a dozen times over the years. It was easier after I got a car. Sometimes I’d see them, sometimes not.” He curled his fingers over the top of the steering wheel. “One Sunday I followed them to church and sat in the back where I could watch them.”
“You hated them, and you wanted to be part of them,” she said. “That’s why you bought this house.”
His hand came off the steering wheel, and his mouth twisted. “A stupid decision. It was a bad time for me. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Now she understood why he refused to change anything in the house. Consciously or unconsciously, he wanted to live inside the museum of their lives.
He got out of the car and came around to help her. Even though she was feeling steadier, she was grateful for his hand as he led her through the front door and into the bedroom.
He understood without her telling him how much she needed to wash away the men’s filth. He helped her undress. Turned on the water.
When she was in the shower, he pulled off his clothes and got in with her. But there was nothing sexual in the tender way he washed her, dried her, tended to the cuts on her feet. Not once did he remind her of wha
t she’d said to him at the bar or criticize her for wandering off the way she had.
After he’d helped her into bed, he touched her cheek. “I need to talk to the police. The house is locked, and Temple’s upstairs. Your cell is by your bed. I won’t be gone long.”
She wanted to tell him she could take care of herself, but that was so blatantly untrue that she said nothing. Viper, despite all her tough girl posturing, had proved to be completely helpless.
Later she awoke to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. She looked at the clock. It was four-thirty. He’d been gone almost two hours. She flinched as she tried to find a more comfortable position, but her ribs were tender, her neck stiff, her back sore. None of that hurt as much as thinking about what Panda had endured as a child.
She eventually gave up trying to fall back to sleep and got out of bed. He’d done a good job bandaging her foot, and putting her weight on it barely hurt. She made her way to the sunroom, where she curled up on the couch.
As the light leaked over the horizon, she turned her thoughts from Panda to her own foolishness—the last thing she wanted to examine. But last night’s ugly experience had ripped away the veil of her self-deception and shown her the absurdity of the false identity she’d created for herself. What a joke—that hard-boiled swagger and pugnacious attitude. She’d never felt more like a fool—the biggest phony on the island. When it had come to protecting herself, she’d failed abysmally. Instead she’d been a helpless, frantic mess who had to be rescued by a man. The truth tasted bitter in her mouth.
She found her yellow pad. After a few false starts, she wrote a brief note. She owed him that—and so much more. She tossed a few things into her backpack and, as the sun came up, made her way through the woods.
Her sneakers were soaked with dew by the time she reached the cottage just as Bree was emerging from the honey house. Bree’s hair was uncombed, her clothes rumpled, her sticky hands held far away from her body. But her gasp of alarm indicated that Lucy looked a lot worse.
Lucy slipped her backpack off her shoulder. “Could I stay here for a while?”
“Of course you can.” She paused. “Come inside. I’ll make coffee.”
LATER THAT MORNING, WHILE BREE was at the farm stand, Lucy went into the bathroom and cut the dreads from her hair. Standing naked on the white tile floor, she worked at her tattoos with a combination of rubbing alcohol and baby oil. Finally the last remnants were gone.
Chapter Twenty-one
PANDA CRUMPLED THE NOTE SHE’D written and tossed it in the trash, but throwing the damned thing away didn’t erase it from his mind.
Thank you for everything you did for me last night. I’ll never forget it. I’ve gone to the cottage to stay with Bree for a while and try to get a fresh perspective. I’m glad you told me about your brother.
