Lena thought of Hank, too, sitting on the floor in her bathroom, weeping openly, just as she wept now.
"When he came back into the room with me," Lena began, forcing herself to speak, pushing herself to say his name. "When he came back to me," she repeated, "part of me was relieved." She stopped, knowing that was still not right. She could tell Mark this, because Mark understood. He knew what it was like to be so empty that you took whatever people gave you. She knew the loneliness of being locked in a pitch-black room with nothing to do but wait. She knew that there came a point when your mind told you everything was wrong, but your body betrayed you anyway, reaching out for whatever comfort was offered.
She swallowed, starting again. "When he came back into the room," she began, "part of me was… happy."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sara sat on the floor across from Lacey Patterson in the back room of the children's clinic. Just a few days ago, Lacey had come here seeking help. Now she was back, having gone through unspeakable things, and all Sara could do was wait for the girl to talk.
"Dottie just left you at Wayne 's house?" Sara asked.
"Yeah," Lacey said, looking down at her shoes. She had asked to sit on the floor for some reason, and Sara had obliged, wanting to make the girl as comfortable as possible. She did not want Sara close, and so they had decided Sara would sit a foot away with her back against the closed door. Lacey sat in the middle of the room.
Lacey said, "The pills made me sleepy."
"And you don't remember anything that went on until you woke up in the hospital?"
She nodded, then started to bite her fingernails. Time passed, and the little girl was down to the cuticle on her thumb, and working on her pinky finger when Sara reached out and stopped her.
"You'll hurt yourself," Sara said, then realized from Lacey's expression how silly the warning was.
Lacey chewed at her cuticle, asking, "Is Mark going to be okay?"
"I don't know, sweetie."
Lacey teared up, but she did not cry. "I didn't mean to hurt him," she said.
"How did you hurt him?"
"He was coming after me again, and I just grabbed the knife."
"You're the one who cut him?"
She nodded, chewing another nail. "They were at Dot-tie's, taking things out of the house and painting. I was hiding, but Mark found me. I kicked him in the head with my foot." She took her fingers out of her mouth. "Mark didn't want me to come here to see you. I wanted to say goodbye, and then I was so scared I got sick. I'm sorry."
"That's okay," Sara assured her. "So you came here and then Mark showed up? And then you ran and Dottie picked you up in the black car?"
Lacey nodded, but she still would not say who had been driving the car. She asked, "You don't think that's why he tried to kill himself, do you? Because I hit him?"
"No," Sara assured her. "I think that Mark had a lot of other problems that led him to think that was his only choice."
"Can I see him?" she asked in a small voice.
"If you want to."
"I want to."
Sara sat back, watching the girl chew her fingers. Lacey's hair had been cut almost in a buzz cut. Dottie had probably planned to disguise her as a boy until she could sell her off to the highest bidder.
"Is my daddy coming back soon?" Lacey asked.
"Do you want to see him?"
"He didn't know," she said, as if she could read Sara's mind. "I knew about Mark and Mama, but Daddy didn't know."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded. "If he found out, he would've killed Mark."
"How about you, honey?" Sara asked. "Did Mark ever touch you?"
She looked away.
"Lacey?"
She shook her head vehemently, but Sara did not believe her. She was still torn on the subject of Mark Patterson. On the one hand, he had been a victim, and on the other, he had obviously been an abuser.
Lacey said, "Mark was nice to me."
Sara let this pass. "Did Dottie ever make you sit for pictures?"
"No," she said. "Mark and Jenny did, though. They got their pictures taken, and sometimes they were in movies. I saw them doing it."
"But you never did?"
Lacey put her hand back in her mouth. "Mark said if he ever caught me doing any of that he would tell Daddy."
"Mark didn't want you to do it?"
"I wanted to," she countered, taking on a petulant child's tone. "Jenny was doing it, and she went to a party and did it with lots of boys."
"Do you think Jenny enjoyed doing that?"
"I tried it once, and Mark found out." She dropped her hand into her lap. "That's when he hit me."
Sara let this sink in. She had never even dreamed that Mark was trying to protect his sister.
"This was when Mark got arrested, right?"
Lacey seemed surprised that Sara knew this. "Yeah."
"But, he didn't tell your father?"
"I told him if he did that I would tell about him and Mama."
She said "him and Mama" in a singsong way, as if the phrase had been practiced over and over. Sara imagined that Lacey had used this as a threat on more than one occasion. She was still a child at heart, and most children would do anything they could to get their way.
"I didn't like it anyway," Lacey said. "I told him I wouldn't do it anymore. I didn't like it." She frowned. "Dottie was mean when she was like that. Not like she was when we were playing."
"You played with her?"
"She would baby-sit us sometimes." Lacey smiled. "She had this game we would play, where we would get all dressed up, and she would take us to the movies and let us stay dressed up."
"That sounds nice."
"She wasn't like that all the time, though." Lacey started to pick at a scab on her leg. "She was mean sometimes. I didn't like her then."
"I don't blame you," Sara told her. "Was she the one who talked about purity?"
Lacey jerked her head up. "Where did you hear that?"
Sara decided to lie. "Mark told me."
Lacey shook her head. "He wouldn't have told you about that."
"Are you sure?"
She shrugged, but Sara could see that she wasn't. "Dot-tie got mad at Jenny because she said she was obsessed with it."
"Obsessed with what?"
"What they do to little girls over there," she mumbled. "Jenny had this report in school last year about Africa, and different tribes. She said that the women were lucky because they belonged to people. To their daddies, or then-husbands, and as long as they did right they were safe."
"Do you believe that, Lacey?"
She ignored Sara's question. "Dottie was mad. Jenny wouldn't drop it. Even when Mama came over and told her to stop." She turned her head to the side. "Mama can usually make people do things that maybe they don't want to do. She's good at that."
Sara took a deep breath, trying to get her head around what the child was revealing. She asked, "So your mom and Dottie told Jenny to stop talking about the mutilation?"
"They were worried she'd get in trouble at school. They had to move before because of it. A guidance counselor came to the house. Dottie said he was gonna call the police because of what Jenny said."
"About girls being cut like that?" Sara asked, wondering at a girl obsessed with self-mutilation.
"Jenny said women over there didn't have to worry about stuff…" She paused, then, "Like, sex stuff. And like what Dottie was doing. They don't have that over there, because children are sacred. Girls are protected."
"Why would Dottie cut her, Lacey?"
"She didn't," Lacey said. "After the Christmas trip, Jenny decided to do it to herself."
Sara shook her head, not accepting this. "There's no way she could have done that to herself, sweetie."