At last Step was around behind the car and there was Betsy, holding hands with Glass. Her diaper was still on and she was waving a dandelion fuzzball, trying to get the last of the seeds to fall off. Step finally had breath to speak. "DeAnne said you could take her on a walk, not fiddle with her diaper, Glass."
"Well, I didn't think you'd want your daughter walking around getting diaper rash," said Glass.
Step scooped Betsy up into his arms and stood there looking Glass in the eye. "I don't know how to put this delicately, Glass, so I won't try. I like you, as a programmer, as a friend. But don't you ever, ever touch any of my children as long as you live. Because if I ever catch you alone with one of my kids again, then that will be as long as you live."
Glass looked him right in the eye, and for a moment it seemed that he was going to answer-angrily? With a joke? Step could not begin to guess. Finally Glass just shut his mouth tight and turned his head to look out toward the entrance to the park.
OK, so I've made an enemy, thought Step as he carried Betsy back down toward DeAnne. But I'm not making this up. Glass had Betsy for no more than a couple of minutes before he had her off behind a car, where nobody could see, and if I hadn't come up there he would have added her to his list of treasured stories of times he has cleaned the private parts of little girls. Until now Step had begun to think that Glass had never actually molested a child, that perhaps what he had said to Step in the hotel room in San Francisco had been nothing worse than a weird fantasy of his, an obsession that was still only in his imagination. Now Step knew better.
Call it "checking her diaper" or "helping her wash," it was still sexual molestation and he had come this close to doing it to Betsy.
When Step got back to DeAnne, Mrs. Keene was still there--and she was frankly curious. "What was all that about?" she said.
"Just time for us to go home, I think," said Step.
"You certainly seemed upset when you heard that Bubba McIntyre was taking her for a walk. I can assure you, Bubba's the sweetest boy and he's very good with children."
Step remembered Allison Keene and had to ask. "Did Bubba ever babysit for you, Mrs. Keene?"
"He used to, back when Allison was just a toddler. He used to come around and ask if he could babysit, he was such a dear. That's how he got started programming on our old Commodore Pet-that's where he first wrote Scribe, you know-only when he started really working for Ray, Ray told me never to ask Bubba to babysit for us again. It wouldn't be right to have his best programmer also tending his children, I suppose!" But there was still a quizzical expression on her face.
"Is Betsy all right?" asked DeAnne.
"He was about to check her diaper," said Step. "To see if it was wet."
"Of course it isn't," said DeAnne. "I just changed her. I told him so."
"You told him?"
"He asked if she needed changing, and I told him I'd just changed her."
Mrs. Keene was not stupid. "Good God," she said. "You're not saying that Bubba-but that's-"
"No, I'm not saying anything about Bubba," said Step. "Except that if I ever catch him alone with my little girl again, a jury will be deciding between life imprisonment and capital punishment for me."
Mrs. Keene looked sick. "But he tended Allison all the time when she was your little Betsy's age."
"At least he doesn't tend her anymore," said Step.
"No, because Ray ..." Mrs. Keene's expression darkened. "I knew he was a son-of-a-bitch, but even he wouldn't hire a ... a ... person that he knew was ..." She shook her head firmly. "I'm not going to believe malicious gossip." She turned her back and stalked away.
"Oh, Step," said DeAnne, her face stricken. "Why didn't you tell me about that boy?"
"I forgot," said Step.
"You forgot!"
"No, I mean I forgot that when we brought the kids to the picnic, Glass would be here. He's been asking to babysit for us from the first moment I met him. But after San Francisco, when I realized what direction his fantasies go, I've been making sure he never gets a chance to meet the kids. And nothing happened today, not really. It was my fault things came so close, not yours, and now let's please get the hell away from this place."
DeAnne did not demur. In a couple of minutes they were back in the car, pulling out of the lot and heading home. Step was very calm all the way, and because Robbie and Stevie were in the car they hardly said anything-nothing at all pertaining to what happened with Betsy and Glass.
At home, DeAnne wasted not a moment before she had Betsy undressed and in the bathtub. Step stood at the door and thought of all the times he had changed Betsy and bathed her and never once had he thought of anything except to talk to her and smile at her and be close to her, just as such times had always been close, affectionate times with his sons. But now the idea of watching DeAnne bathe Betsy made him feel guilty, as if the mere fact of knowing how Glass had looked at her made it so that any man's eyes that looked at her were vile, even Step's own.
The rage and shame he felt were too strong for him. He fled into the bedroom and threw himself on the bed and buried his face in the pillow and roared, a wordless animal shout that he couldn't contain a moment longer.
Again. Again.
Panting, exhausted, he rolled over onto his back.
Gradually he became aware that he was not alone. He turned his head and saw Stevie in the doorway. "Hi, Stevedore," he said.
"Did that man hurt Betsy?" asked Stevie.
"No," said Step. Of course, he thought. Stevie isn't as young as Robbie. He isn't as oblivious. He watches more. He understood some of what had gone on at the picnic. "No, Betsy's fine."
"Then why were you yelling like that? You sounded really mad."
How much to say? The truth, as much as it was fair to tell someone as young and innocent as Stevie. "I was mad, but mostly at myself, because I didn't protect Betsy well enough. And also I was afraid, because we came so close to something bad happening."
"What?" asked Stevie. "What bad thing?"
"There are people in the world who do bad things to children," said Step. "People like that are the worst people in the world. Jesus said that if any man harmed a child, it would be better for him if he tied a millstone around his neck and threw himself in the sea. And if you think somebody like that might hurt your child, well, it makes you really angry and afraid."
Stevie nodded. "Yeah," he said.
"But nothing bad happened, OK? I was just upset because I thought maybe we came close to having something bad happen, that's all."
"Sometimes the bad things really do happen," said Stevie.
"Yes, I guess they do," said Step. "But if I can help it, it'll never happen to any child of mine."
"I know," said Stevie. "You and Mom are really good." He turned and went back to his room.
This was the most Stevie had said to him about anything since the y moved to Steuben. He couldn't wait for DeAnne to get through bathing Betsy so he could tell her.
But when DeAnne came into the room Step had fallen asleep. He didn't get to tell her what Stevie had said until late that night, when they were in bed together, and when he told her what Stevie said at the end she nestled closer to Step and said, "Maybe we are pretty good parents, Junk Man. At least we're not Ray Keene or his wife."
That was why Step got back to thinking about Ray Keene, and realizing that Ray almost certainly knew about Glass's predilections, and yet he kept him around Eight Bits Inc., and hired other people to work with him, people for whom Glass would certainly offer to babysit, and Ray said not one word to help other people protect their children. Now, maybe Ray didn't really know, maybe it was just coincidence that he didn't let his wife hire Glass to babysit Allison anymore. But maybe Ray did know, and just didn't tell anybody because he needed Glass too much, needed Scribe 64 too much to risk losing the strange sick boy- man who had created it for him.