Jeffrey looked back at the car. “We’re just gonna let him stew there for a while.”
“Y’all are just making it worse.” She spoke carefully, obviously trying not to crack the lip back open. Lena knew the trick just as she knew it was hell on your throat, making you strain your voice just so your words could be understood. “He never hit me like this before. Not in the face.” Her voice wavered. She was trapped, overwhelmed. “My kids’ve gotta see this.”
“Terri…” Jeffrey began, but obviously didn’t know how to finish it.
“He’ll kill me if I leave him.” Her drawl was exaggerated by her swollen lip.
“Terri-”
“I’m not gonna press charges.”
“We’re not asking you to.”
She faltered, as if that hadn’t been the response she was expecting.
Jeffrey said, “We need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
He pulled an old cop’s trick. “You know about what.”
She looked at her husband, who was sitting in the back of Brad’s cruiser.
“He’s not going to hurt you.”
She gave him a wary look, as if he’d told a really bad joke.
Jeffrey said, “We’re not going anywhere until we talk to you.”
“I guess come on in,” she finally relented, stepping back from the open door. “Tim, Mama needs to talk to these people.” She took the boy’s hand, leading him into a den that had a large TV as the focal point. Lena and Jeffrey waited in the large entrance foyer at the base of the stairs while she put a DVD into the player.
Lena looked up at the high ceiling, which opened onto the upstairs hall. Where a chandelier should be hanging there were only a few stray wires jutting out of the Sheetrock. There were scuff marks on the walls by the stairs, and someone had kicked a small hole at the top. The spindles holding up the railing on the other side looked almost bent, several cracked or broken toward the landing at the top. Terri, she bet, picturing Dale dragging the woman up the stairs, her legs kicking wildly behind her. There were twelve steps in all, twice as many spindles to grab on to as she tried to stop the inevitable.
The shrill voice of SpongeBob SquarePants echoed off the cold tiles in the foyer, and Terri came out, still holding her youngest son on her hip.
Jeffrey asked her, “Where can we talk?”
“Let me put him down,” she said, meaning the baby. “The kitchen’s through the back.” She started up the stairs and Jeffrey motioned for Lena to follow her.
The house was larger than it looked from the outside, the landing at the top of the stairs leading to a long hallway and what looked like three bedrooms and a bath. Terri stopped at the first room and Lena paused, not following her in. Instead, she stood at the door to the nursery, watching Terri lay the sleeping baby in the crib. The room was brightly decorated, clouds on the ceiling, a pastoral scene on the walls showing happy sheep and cows. Over the crib was a mobile with more sheep. Lena couldn’t see the kid while his mother stroked his head, but his little legs stretched out when Terri took off the crocheted booties. Lena hadn’t realized that babies’ feet were so small, their toes little nubs, their arches curling like banana peels as they pulled their knees to their chests.
Terri was staring intently at Lena over her shoulder. “You got kids?” She made a hoarse noise that Lena took as an attempt at a laugh. “I mean, other than the one you left in Atlanta.”
Lena knew she was trying to threaten her, using her words to remind Lena that they had both been in that clinic for the same thing, but Terri Stanley wasn’t the type of woman who could carry this off. When the mother turned around, all Lena could do was feel sorry for her. The light was bright in the room, sunlight illuminating the bruise along Terri’s jaw as if it were in Technicolor. Her lip had cracked, a sliver of blood seeping out onto her chin. Lena realized that six months ago she could have been looking at a mirror.
“You’d do anything for them,” Terri said with a tone of sadness. “You’d put up with anything.”
“Anything?”
Terri swallowed, wincing from the pain. Dale had obviously choked her. The bruises weren’t out yet, but they would come soon enough, looking like a dark necklace around her throat. Heavy concealer would take care of it, but she would feel stiff all week, turning her head carefully, trying not to wince when she swallowed, biding her time as she waited for the muscles to relax, the pain to go away.
She said, “I can’t explain-”
Lena was in no position to lecture her. “You know you don’t have to.”
“Yeah,” Terri agreed, turning back around, pulling a light blue blanket up around the baby’s chin. Lena stared at her back, wondering if Terri was capable of murder. She would be the type to poison if she did anything. There was no way Terri could see someone face-to-face and kill them. Of course, she had obviously gotten her own back with Dale. He didn’t get the bruise on his eye from shaving.
“Looks like you got him one good,” Lena said.
Terri turned around, confused. “What?”
“Dale,” she said, indicating her own eye.
Terri smiled a genuine smile, and her whole face changed. Lena got a glimpse of the woman she had been before all this happened, before Dale started beating her, before life became something to endure instead of enjoy. She was beautiful.
“I paid for it,” Terri said, “but it felt so good.”
Lena smiled, too, knowing how good it felt to fight back. You paid for it in the end, but it was so fucking fantastic when you were doing it. It was almost like a high.
Terri took a deep breath and let it go. “Let’s get this over with.”
Lena followed her back down the stairs, their footsteps echoing on the wooden boards. There were no rugs on the main floor and the noise sounded like a horse clattering around. Dale had probably done this on purpose, making sure he knew exactly where his wife was at all times.
They walked into the kitchen where Jeffrey was looking at the photographs and children’s colorings on the refrigerator. On the drawings, Lena could see where Terri had written the names of the animals they were supposed to represent. Lion, Tiger, Bear. She dotted her i’s with an open circle the way girls did in high school.
“Have a seat,” Terri said, taking a chair at the table. Jeffrey remained standing, but Lena sat opposite Terri. The kitchen was neat for this time of morning. Plates and silverware from breakfast were drying in the rack and the counters were wiped clean. Lena wondered if Terri was naturally fastidious or if Dale had beat it into her.
Terri stared at her hands, which were clasped in front of her on the table. She was a small woman, but the way she held herself made her seem even smaller. Sadness radiated off her like an aura. Lena couldn’t imagine how Dale managed to hit her without breaking her in two.
Terri offered, “Y’all want something to drink?”
Lena and Jeffrey answered no at the same time. After what happened with Cole Connolly, Lena doubted she’d ever take anything from anyone again.
Terri sat back in her chair, and Lena looked at her closely. She realized that they were about the same height, the same build. Terri was about ten pounds lighter, maybe an inch or two shorter, but there wasn’t that much different about them.
Terri asked, “Y’all aren’t here to talk about Dale?”
“No.”
She picked at the cuticle on her thumb. Dried blood showed where she had done this before. “I guess I should’ve known you guys would come eventually.”
“Why’s that?” Jeffrey asked.
“The note I sent to Dr. Linton,” she told him. “I guess I wasn’t real smart about it.”
Again, Jeffrey showed no reaction. “Why is that?”
“Well, I know y’all can get all kinds of evidence from it.”
Lena nodded like this was true, thinking the girl had watched too many crime shows on TV, where lab techs ran around in Armani suits and high heels, plucking a minuscule piece of somebody’s cuticle from a rose thorn, then trotting back to their labs where through the miracle of science they discovered that the attacker was a right-handed albino who collected stamps and lived with his mother. Setting aside the fact that no crime lab in the world could afford the zillions of dollars’ worth of equipment they showed, the fact was that DNA broke down. Outside factors could compromise the strand, or sometimes there wasn’t enough for a sample. Fingerprints were subject to interpretation and it was very rare there were enough points for comparison to hold up in court.