“Just for a little while,” Edo said. “Go with Esperanza and pick out the best of your drawings. We can do an art show later.”
Esperanza had appeared on cue. “Up you go,” she said. Sasha grabbed two cookies and hopped from her chair.
“I hope you’ll stay the night,” Edo said.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
He frowned. “You should get to know her. She’s a wonderful person.”
“How impaired is she, Edo?”
“The speech issue? We’re working on it. You have to believe me, we’ve consulted all the top specialists.”
“That’s what Eduard said. Great doctors. The best money could buy.”
“It’s true. But she is also fine.” He leaned forward. “She’s so smart, and funny, and gifted.”
“She’s not speaking, Edo. Do these specialists know why that is?”
He shook his head. “Her vocal cords work—I’ve heard her make sounds in her sleep. And it’s obviously not comprehension—look at how she writes! But the MRIs show that her visual centers are hyperactive, firing all the time, as if she’s constantly being bombarded with images.”
“So something deep in the wiring,” I said. “Something Numinous did to her.”
Edo shook his head again. “You don’t know that.”
“Oh come on, Edo. Do you think that stuff is harmless?”
“I’m not saying that, but there may be … other reasons.”
“Like what?” I said testily.
“I think there was a trauma at the foster home, before we adopted her.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. “What happened at the foster home, Edo?” My voice was flat.
“There was an accident,” he said. “A houseparent fell down the stairs, ended up with a fractured disk. He blamed Sasha.”
“A six-year-old girl,” I said.
“She tripped him, he said.”
“What did he do to her?”
He seemed not to understand me.
“She must have had a reason. Did he abuse her?”
His eyes widened. “No one suggested anything like that.”
“It’s a pretty common profile. A man—and they’re almost all men—gets himself access to vulnerable children. Grooms them with gifts. Makes them dependent on him. He may even adopt them.”
Edo looked at Rovil, then back to me, blinking hard. “That’s not—you can’t think—”
“What the fuck are you doing with my daughter, Edo?”
His eyes filled with tears. “No,” I said. “No fucking tears.”
Dr. Gloria said, “Keep your voice down.”
I leaned across the table. “Why did you take her? What the fuck are you up to?”
Oh the tears, the tears, they were a-rolling down the motherfucker’s face.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “I thought she was safe, Lyda! The foster home was one of the best, very high-rated.” He wiped tears from his cheeks. “Sasha had not yet been adopted, but that wasn’t their fault. I swear that I thought she was in the best possible place.”
“Except you were wrong.”
“After the accident with that volunteer I realized that it would be better to get her out of there,” Edo said. “I didn’t think I would be approved as a parent, so…”
“You got Eduard and his wife to sign the papers.”
“I was very insistent. I told him I would go to the press, even wreck the company if he didn’t do this for me. I had to help her. He knew I was serious in this.”
“So you hid her out here, away from the world, away from any other kids.”
“That’s because I live here, not because I’m hiding her. I told you, I made sure that she saw specialists—”
“She told me she has ‘friends,’ Edo.”
He blinked. “Oh.” He nodded. “You noticed the pictures in her room.”
“Those are her gods?”
“Many of them,” he said. “She has a whole pantheon.”
“How many?” Rovil asked.
“We don’t know,” Edo said. “About a dozen. But she’s stopped talking about them with the therapists.”
“She’s practically Hindu,” Rovil said.
I silenced him with a look, then turned back to Edo. “Tell me what you did to her.”
“I haven’t done anything!” he cried.
“Lyda,” Dr. Gloria said. “Not now.”
I became aware of Sasha’s quick footsteps, coming toward us. The girl popped into the room, a worried look on her face. She looked at me, then at Edo. She saw my anger, Edo’s tears. Then she walked to Edo and leaned against him.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “You know how I get.”
And I thought, She chose him.
* * *
Sasha pleaded with “Grandpop” to let us stay for supper, and if we were staying for supper, then to stay overnight. I was tempted to leave and come back in the morning, but I wasn’t done with Edo yet. I didn’t want to return to find the gate code changed and a cop waiting to hand me a restraining order.
We retrieved our bags from the car, and the maid led Dr. Gloria and me to a room done up in Mandatory Southwestern: wall-mounted cow skull, turquoise lamps, Navajo blankets. The doctor fell back onto the queen-size bed. “Authentic’s the wrong word,” she said. “Authentish?”
“Authentique,” I said.
“Made in China,” she said in a TV voice. “But with real American smallpox.”
I unzipped my bag, looking for clothes fresh enough to change into. The doctor raised her head and said, “Ahem.”
I turned. The maid still stood in the doorway. “I would like to know your intentions,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Mr. Vik is a good man,” she said. Her voice was clipped. “He loves the girl and has never done any harm to her. I am sure of it.”
“Esperanza, don’t get me wrong, but—”
She bristled. “I’ve taken care of Sasha since she entered this house. If you try to take her from here, you will destroy her.”
“Notice she said ‘from here’ instead of ‘from him,’” Dr. Gloria said.
“Okay then,” I said to the maid. “I will be sure to keep that in mind.”
Esperanza stood in the frame of the door, studying me coldly. Finally she turned and left.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Woof.”
“She doesn’t just take care of Sasha,” Dr. Gloria said. “She cares for her.”
“I know, I know,” I said.
Dr. Gloria exhaled sleepily. After a while she said, “She’s so pretty.”
“I know.”
I could see so much Mikala in her. Those cheekbones, those long limbs.
“But she has your nose,” Dr. G said. “Your way of laughing.”
“She doesn’t make a noise,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” the angel said. “The way you throw your head back.”
“I do no such thing.” I looked around at the walls. Aloud, I said, “So where are the paintings?”
“Hmmm?” Dr. Gloria’s eyes were closed.
“The paintings from Gil. Big paintings with bright orange colors, the ones that looked like plants. And machines. Ollie said they’d be in the house. We’ve been in all the public rooms, but we haven’t seen them.”
Dr. Gloria sat up on her elbows. “What are you doing? Why are you talking to me like that?”
“Just wondering aloud,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Who owns a house? The banks have one answer, the mortgage payers another. It’s the houses, though, who decide who they’re loyal to. Sometimes it’s the carpenter who hoisted the walls and laid the beams, forever marking the house as his no matter who moves in after. Sometimes the house pledges fealty to the cleaning lady who each week carefully mops the floors and wipes the banisters. Some houses realize, not unhappily, that they belong to the termites who burrow into the walls and carry out their enthusiastic renovations. A house, after all, wants nothing more than to be lived in.