A Robin Redbreast in a Cage Read online

Her last day at home was a hot and humid Saturday afternoon in August. The birds were quiet and nothing moved. Heat waves shimmered. Skin felt like something fresh from the oven. Charlie Harris, with her friends Jan Parker and Caroline LaRocque, was sitting in the shade on the front steps of Jan’s building, which was not much different from the one Charlie lived in down the street or the one Caroline lived in across the street: three stories with a worn front porch, old asbestos shingles from the sixties, pale green above on the third story, gray below, six mailboxes for the six families, two to a floor, all of them working class and tottering on the edge of poverty. The peeling and worn paint on the deck, trim and railings previewed the shabbiness of the apartments within. Even the single-family homes interspersed among the tenement buildings like flowers in a weed patch were shabby and run down. Landlord or owner, all did the minimum amount of maintenance and spent what money was available for things a lot more fun than a new faucet or repaired ceiling. In Charlie’s apartment it was a running toilet and old windows that either didn’t open or had to be held up with a piece of wood. Caroline’s apartment had worn and chipped woodwork from where furniture being moved had damaged it and peeling calcimine in the kitchen after her father had actually tried to improve the place by painting the ceiling, and now the gunk kept falling all the time. Jan’s apartment, where they hung out much of the time they were inside, was nicest of the three, but it had a very worn linoleum on the floor and a sagging living room ceiling that could come crashing down the minute someone sneezed too hard.

  Charlie didn’t used to notice such things, taking them when younger as a natural part of her world in the same way a groundhog would regard a rock or a bramble patch. But the three girls were older now. They were all fourteen and about to enter Courtney Academy as freshmen in two weeks. They were awakening to a new world. For Charlie, becoming aware of the dinginess and despair of her neighborhood was only part of it; what went on inside where she talked to herself and gathered strength to face the world was beginning to reflect that dinginess. She was vaguely aware of this new development and confused. She was beginning to see more clearly a feeling that had been growing for the past few years that she was different, something she had always known to a certain extent because she was the daughter of a single woman and without a father. Today had been another lesson.

  They had spent the day doing girlie things. They went to the drugstore where Jan shoplifted some lipstick. They played video games. They hung around and talked. This was the time all the kids were getting new clothes for school, and at one point Jan suggested they get their clothes and try them on for each other. Caroline’s mother had bought her two new outfits consisting of a skirt and matching yellow blouse and a pair of fake designer jeans with two v-necked sweaters as well as a new pair of shoes. Jan’s mother had sacrificed from the household budget for months in order to buy her several new sweaters, tank tops in red, blue and lavender, short skirts in tan and black, slacks and real designer jeans. But Charlie’s mother spent all her extra money on booze and had bought her no new clothes. Not only did she feel left out; she got the distinct impression while the other two were excitedly modeling their clothes that instead of feeling bad for her they felt superior.

  Especially Jan. She was so beautiful her mother had entered her in a beauty contest for junior misses last winter where she had been the runner-up. That was the event that spoiled her. Ever since then she had been putting on airs. She had dark eyes and shiny black hair, milky white skin without any blemishes, a perfect nose and full lips that Charlie heard her mother call sexy. She was also fully developed already. When she was trying on her clothes and in her underwear, it was obvious she was very proud of her big breasts and drew attention to them every chance she could. When Caroline was modeling she would stay in bra and panties and even adjust the bra a few times to further draw attention to its contents. Of course there was much squealing with delight and excited giggling between the two, and instead of expressing sympathy for Charlie, they treated her like a servant. “Charlie, hand me the black skirt, would you.” “Charlie, draw the shade. I want to see how this lavender tank top looks in indoors light.”

  Poor Charlie, without new clothes and as flat as a pancake, was also made to feel weird when the two started talking about menstruation. They pretended that it was very unpleasant and a terrible burden, but what they were really saying was that they were women now and she wasn’t.

  So as they sat on the front steps, with Caroline and Jan still talking and giggling about clothes and boys, Charlie was leaning forward with her chin in her hands and feeling glum. Until quite recently she was the leader of the threesome. If she wanted to play soccer or go to the store or watch TV, that’s what they did. But now with her friends only interested in boys, she was beginning to understand that she was being left behind. And for what? Clothes were stupid. Boys were stupid. Putting on airs was stupid.

  It was even more stupid that if she said these things to them, they would only laugh at her. She sighed in frustration and clucked her tongue.

  Caroline looked at her and was about to say something, but just then Billy Swift turned down their street on his bike. He was a big boy with a mop of sandy hair and bright blue eyes, as handsome as Jan was beautiful. He had a baseball glove hooked over the handlebar and was carrying a big thermos. At first he was pedaling furiously and looking straight ahead, but when he caught a glimpse of Jan, who had stood as soon as she saw him, he braked. Still sitting on his bike, he said, “What are you guys doing?”

  Jan shrugged casually, playing hard-to-get. “Just hanging. What about you?”

  “We’re playing baseball in the park. I went home to get some lemonade.”

  “Isn’t it too hot to be playing baseball?”

  “Not if you want to make the team for C.A.”

  Charlie noticed that he hardly looked at her or Caroline.

  “You play football too, don’t you?” Jan asked as she put her hands on the arch of her back and stretched so that her breasts stuck out. Billy ogled them with a strange look in his eyes.

  “Yeah, but baseball’s my best sport. I hope so, at least.” He spoke with the false modesty that was really boasting, but it went right over Jan’s head. Charlie could see that he thought he was hot stuff, but boy-crazy Jan just saw how cute he was. She remembered a few years ago playing ball with him and some other boys. He couldn’t handle a hot smash off her bat. Some baseball player.

  “You’ll make the team, I bet,” Jan said breathlessly. “To play on such a hot day takes dedication.”

  “Yeah, I hope so. But I gotta go. The guys are waiting. If you’re just hanging, come on over and watch.”

  “Okay. Maybe we will. See ya.”

  “He’s so cute,” Jan said as she watched him pedaling away. “Let’s go watch ’em play.”

  “No, let’s not,” Charlie said sharply. “We were talking about playing the new video game at Caroline’s.”

  Jan smiled at her, putting on airs again and treating her like a little girl. “Boys are better than video games,” she said with the air of uttering a great truth.

  “Boys, especially Billy, are fools.”

  “Well, you’re entitled to your opinion. I’m going to watch the baseball game. You coming, Caroline?”

  It was only then that Charlie saw that Jan didn’t want her to come. She was stunned, and a feeling of dread and loneliness swept over her. “Caroline, come on,” she pleaded, “let’s play video games. Let Jan do what she wants.”

  Caroline looked at Charlie, then back at Jan. She shook her head. “No, I’m going to the park.” She wasn’t as pretty as Jan and her breasts were small, but she obviously thought she was pretty enough to catch some other boy’s eye.

  So Charlie was left alone, standing on the sidewalk and watching them until at the end of the street they turned the corner. Then she slowly made her way home feeling the sting of tears rimming her eyes at this betrayal. Since they were four, Caroline and she had been bes
t friends.

  But she quickly hid any signs of her wounded feelings when she realized she was being watched. Mrs. Fecteau, her neighbor who lived in the flat directly under her mother’s and her apartment on the second story, was standing in her window. When Charlie looked up, she waved and pointed before quickly leaving the window.

  Inside in the hall she was waiting at her door. “I tried to catch you this morning, Charlie, but you slipped out before I could. And then I was at the Senior Center all morning and went shopping after that.” She stopped and looked sharply at Charlie. “Your mother didn’t come home last night, did she?”

  “Oh, but she…” She stopped when Mrs. Fecteau cocked her head.

  “Now Charlene Harris, you know you can’t sneak a lie past me. Tris didn’t come home last night, did she?”

  Charlie shook her head while keeping her eyes directed to the floor.

  “Well, you know my opinion. It’s shameful, her irresponsibility. She’s out of control with her drinking. She’s a disgraceful excuse for a mother. Child, what have you had to eat today?”

  She looked up at Mrs. Fecteau, remembering what she said about not being able to sneak a lie by her, and then stared back at the floor. “A peanut butter sandwich,” she said almost in a whisper.

  “Oh, Charlie, you come in here right now. I’ve got some tuna casserole and some sliced tomatoes and cucumbers from the farmer’s market.”

  When she hesitated, Mrs. Fecteau said, “Now listen. I could use some company. And remember, we’ve been friends for a long time.”

  That was true. And it wouldn’t be the first time she’d eaten with Mrs. Fecteau either—even though it always embarrassed her and made her feel she was betraying her mother. But she was dreadfully hungry, and by now Mrs. Fecteau had her bony arm around Charlie’s shoulder and was leading her into the apartment so that she didn’t even have to say yes.

  Once inside, Charlie as always liked to be there. The place was so cheerful, especially compared to her apartment. There were a lot of plants, and two cats, Tubby and Sly, were more often than not sleeping on the couch or one of the chairs. There were pictures of her grandchildren at different ages in framed pictures on the walls, on some of the shelves and even in a photo album that was always on the coffee table. The walls were painted a pale yellow and the trim a shiny white, a job her two sons did for her a few years ago. They both lived out-of-town, but visited her at least once a month. The new television and the nice rusty-red rug on the floor were two of their most recent gifts for their mom. She was poor, living only on the social security check from her dead husband, but her life was rich. She was very thin and very energetic. She walked faster than most kids Charlie knew even though she was close to eighty. She wore her white hair in a permanent she got once a month, and though her face was very wrinkled Charlie thought that her kindness gave her a kind of shining presence that made her beautiful. Her own grandchildren were young adults now, and Charlie knew that Mrs. Fecteau regarded her as a kind of honorary granddaughter. Like a grandmother she sometimes helped Charlie with her homework when she had a problem she couldn’t figure out herself—though that was not too often since Charlie was a very intelligent student even if her grades didn’t always reflect it. Her teachers told her that she always scored extremely high on all the achievement and intelligence tests.

  It was Mrs. Fecteau whom she proudly informed of her teacher’s assessment.

  Her mother didn’t care.

  It was Mrs. Fecteau who gave her a hug and a dollar to buy a treat and told her she was very proud of the smartest little girl in Waska.

  Her mother didn’t care for book learning.

  That was what made her accomplishments so interesting, it turned out. Her teachers assumed she got a lot of intellectual stimulation at home, but she didn’t. She wondered a lot, that’s all. She wondered why she was different, why she had a mother who was drunk all the time and could fake being a real mother so well when social workers came snooping around. She wondered why she didn’t have a father like other kids. She wondered why some kids spent more money on one dress than she had in an entire year. So she had curiosity, which Mrs. Simpson, the teacher she had last year in eighth grade, said was the most important thing in the world. She said Charlie was lucky.

  Funny, she didn’t feel lucky.

  She sat on the couch and patted Sly, the gray tiger cat, while Mrs. Fecteau scooped out a portion of tuna casserole and put it in the microwave. Slicing the cucumbers and tomatoes, she talked about her son’s upcoming visit next week and told Charlie some interesting news. “Donny’s daughter has some clothes hardly worn that I’m quite sure will fit you. I told him to bring them along.”

  Mrs. Fecteau knew all about Charlie’s lack of new school clothes and had told her she was going to do something about it. Charlie was pretty sure that she had asked her son about those clothes. She even wondered if Mrs. Fecteau was telling a little white lie, because all of Don’s kids were in their twenties.

  “My mother might not like that,” she said timidly.

  “If she objects, then she would have to put her money where her mouth is and buy you some new clothes. So let her object. I hope she does, in fact.”

  Not knowing how to answer this new tone of anger and resolution, Charlie patted Sly’s belly and listened to the cat purr contentedly.

  Mrs. Fecteau, seeing Charlie’s mind at work, wisely changed the subject. “Mayonnaise or vinegar? she asked.

  “Vinegar, if you please.”

  “Vinegar it is.” While she was sprinkling some on the cucumbers and tomatoes, the microwave buzzed. Mrs. Fecteau brought the vegetables to the table, got the hot plate from the microwave, and poured a glass of milk, then sat and watched with evident satisfaction as Charlie hungrily attacked the meal.

  “Where are your friends?” she asked as Charlie was scraping the plate.

  “They went to the park to watch some boys play baseball. They’re boy-crazy now.”

  Mrs. Fecteau smiled at Charlie’s disdainful tone at the same time she seemed to understand what was bothering her. “You’re going to be a beautiful girl soon. Some girls develop more slowly, that’s all. There’ll be a day when you’re boy-crazy too.”

  In answer Charlie crinkled her nose, which cause Mrs. Fecteau to laugh.

  “You’re already a sweet and pretty girl, you know.”

  She smiled at the compliment but didn’t really believe it. But it did make her think. It kept hovering in her mind while she helped Mrs. Fecteau first wash the dishes and then vacuum the rug, and when she went upstairs to her own apartment the first thing she did was go into the bathroom and stare at herself in the mirror looking for any sign that her face was or would be pretty. The first thing she examined was her nose. Once a kid at school had called it a nigger nose. The nostrils flared and the bridge was flat. She had freckles, and her reddish-brown hair was naturally curly and didn’t obey any brush she’d ever used. Her brown eyes were small, so small, she thought, that they didn’t seem to fit her face, which was way too wide. Her lips were thin, her chin weak, and her neck too long and skinny. There was nothing by itself that was ugly that she could see, but nothing pretty either. She thought of Jan’s full lips and how they looked when she pouted. The thought made her frown. No boy had ever looked at her the way Billy Swift was looking at the beauty queen earlier.

  She went into the living room, still thinking of Billy Swift’s eyes and Mrs. Fecteau’s prediction that she would soon be boy-crazy. Before any boy would ever look at her in a special way, she knew she would also have to understand clearly what she now understood only vaguely as a feeling coloring the edge of her mind—that somehow everything before her eyes right now was part of the reason she did not feel pretty inside. She lived in a dump, that much was clear. Jan’s and Caroline’s shabby apartments were closer to hers than the few really nice houses of classmates she had been in, but they were palaces in comparison. Her mother did no housework so that any cleaning and tidying up
that was done fell to Charlie. The furniture was all old and crappy. The newest thing, a grayish brown couch with sagging cushions and worn armrests, was a gift her mother got from someone she worked with last winter. The woman was going to throw it out when her mother said she would take it. Her boyfriend at the time—there had been three or four others since then— hauled it in his truck to their building and then with Charlie’s help had carried it upstairs. Its appeal for her mother was that it was a sleeper. Because their apartment was the cheapest one in the building, it was also the smallest one—the landlord had boarded up the door that led to two more bedrooms, which he used for storage for his furnished apartments. A one bedroom apartment, however, meant that before they got the sleeper-couch Charlie slept on a mattress in her mother’s room, and whenever she had a man over to spend the night Charlie would have to move the mattress-bed to the living room. Now every night she pulled it opened and slept on it; every morning she folded it back up. The other furniture in the room had a similar history—all used stuff, all hauled in with the help of some man. The cheap recliner with fake leather had numerous slits where the worn plastic had failed. The other chair was a massive things covered with a blanket to hide the torn stuffing. The dinner table had wobbly legs and under the plastic tablecloth was covered with scratches and gouges. The television screen periodically turned red until a bang on its top shamed it out of its embarrassment. There was nothing nice in the house unless a decorative flower pot that her mother said had belonged to her grandmother was excepted. It had a deep black glaze with red roses and sat on the mantelpiece above the closed-in fireplace. Sometimes Charlie had an overwhelming urge to smash it. She didn’t know why and the thought always scared her. As a result she didn’t dare touch it, and it was covered with thick dust.

  Perhaps she associated the vase with her mother, who was equally untouchable. And maybe her face, the worn furniture and the general dinginess were all signs and shadows of her mother. It was she who made Charlie feel different. She rarely talked about her past, but Charlie had learned the salient facts. Her mother dropped out of high school when she was pregnant with Charlie at seventeen. Her father, who was a strict man, threw her out of the house and disowned her. Her grandparents now lived in Florida, though it didn’t matter where they lived, for Charlie had never even seen them. She had an uncle who lived in town, her mother’s brother, whom she had likewise never spoken to (though she had seen him at a distance on a few occasions) and who had likewise disowned his sister. He was a fundamentalist Christian and thought Tris was under Satan’s sway.

  With these people her only blood relatives, the only family Charlie had had was the string of boyfriends her mother collected. Relying on her good looks, she could hook any man she set out to get. Because she had always been a drinker, and an irascible one at that when she was drunk, none of these relationships ever lasted much more than a few months. Most of the men who took up temporary residence in their apartment were indifferent to Charlie, but a few had, like substitute teachers, fulfilled the role of a father for the little girl who had no permanent teacher-father. One taught her to play chess. Another was interested in American history when sober and had got her library books on early New England, the Revolutionary War and the conquest of the west to read. Others were simply nice and would play games with her or take her outside to kick a soccer ball or throw a football around.

  But good, bad, or indifferent, they all left or were driven away, and she remained a pupil without a teacher. And things were getting worse, not better. It had been over a year since a good boyfriend had come. Her mother, now thirty-two, had been living such a hard life and drinking so heavily that she was on the verge of losing her good looks. As a result the more recent boyfriends had begun to look more and more seedy. And that reminded Charlie of another fear. She was afraid that if her mother got any worse she might lose her job. Despite working many a day with a hangover, she had managed to hang on to her job in the dispatcher’s office of a local trucking company, where she had worked since she was twenty. Their apartment might be a dump, but it was better than living on the streets.

  Thinking of her mother and her boyfriends and the booze they drank made Charlie feel even more glum. New school clothes seemed trivial when she followed in her mind the path her mother was leading to its end.

  An unpleasant smell diverted her attention. She turned towards the kitchen, following her nose. It was sour milk from the dregs of the container thrown away yesterday. She gathered up some pizza boxes and other debris and brought them with the wastebasket down the backstairs to the rubbish bins. It was still very hot and the metal top of one of the rubbish bins felt like an oven door as she lifted it. Across two backyards she saw movement on the back porch of Jan’s building, and for a moment she stared after letting the cover of the bin drop with a loud crash. But it was only Mrs. Donahue, Jan’s neighbor across the hall, similarly emptying her trash.

  Back upstairs she sat in the recliner and in the declining light of the evening read the latest novel in a series about a boy wizard. Everyone else had already read it, but she had had to wait to get the book from the library. After about an hour the light grew too dim, and she put the novel aside and turned on the television, watching some situation comedies where there were a lot of jokes about sex. They weren’t funny to her, for she had heard her mother making love many times and had come to see sex as a gross agony of ecstasy that was totally self-absorbed and left her out and made her feel strange. She never said anything when the kids talked about it. In her mind it was all mixed up with booze and her mother’s neglect. It wasn’t beautiful. It had nothing to do with love. It was only a need so strong that everything else was forgotten. It just made her feel lonely and unwanted. So after a couple of these uncomic comedies, she switched to public television and watched a nature show about the life of orangutans. Then at ten o’clock, with her mother still not home, she gave up hope and unfolded the sleeper-couch into her bed. She got a blanket from the closet, knowing that later in the night it would be cool, and removing her shorts but keeping her T-shirt on, she curled up on the bed.

  But she didn’t go to sleep. She was used to being alone and was not scared; even so she felt uncomfortable and started every time she heard a noise. To keep fearful thoughts at a distance, she busied her mind thinking about Jan and Caroline, wondering if they would cut her completely. She knew some other kids, including a girl she’d talked to a few times about the boy wizard novels. She too was plain and like Charlie was still flat. Maybe they could become best friends. Then she spent a long time thinking about the novel trying to guess how it would come out. The clothes Mrs. Fecteau promised her didn’t excite much curiosity, but she did think of them just to keep her mind busy.

  About an hour later she heard her mother’s voice downstairs and a voice of the man she was with. She raised her head and looked at the kitchen clock, seeing that she was right about the time—it was ten minutes past eleven. She could see the clock because she kept the light above the kitchen sink on. Once when her mother came home drunk (and alone that time), she’d tripped over something by the door and was very angry with Charlie. She’d even slapped her face so hard it left a welt. Ever since then the light stayed on.

  Her mother had made it upstairs now and was fumbling at the door and muttering to herself—signs she was drunk. The man said, “Want me to try?” He sounded more sober.

  Just then her mother managed to find the keyhole, and the door opened. Charlie considered pretending to be asleep, but she wanted to see the man, so she didn’t. Instead she raised herself on one elbow.

  The guy was scary. He had mean light eyes and a permanent sneer on his face. He had a two or three day growth of stubble, and when he turned she could see an ugly scar that began a little below his eye and curved down towards the jaw. He wore a chambray shirt and dungarees with paint all over them.

  “Hey,” he said when he spied Charlie. “You didn’t tell me there was a kid here.”

&nb
sp; “She won’t be no problem. She’ll keep out of the way.” Her mother teetered as she spoke, and an arm flew out to catch the armrest of the sleeper. “You go back to sleep” was her only greeting.

  The man did one worse. He just looked at her without saying anything. But it was scary. He looked at her in the same way Billy Swift had looked at Jan’s breasts.

  They closed the bedroom door, but that didn’t stop the sounds of their loud lovemaking from wafting out. When she heard her mother start barking in rhythmic, increasingly desperate grunts, Charlie knew it would soon be over.

  It was, and there seemed to be no pillow talk. Within ten minutes she could hear the loud snoring of the scary man, and soon enough even with the light still on she too drifted off into sleep’s darkness.

  She was awakened by a sound, a low animal moan. Looking through narrowed eyes she saw the man was right beside the bed looking at her. He was naked and his thing was pointing up. When he bent down to her, murmuring “Sweet baby girl,” she screamed, kicked him with all her might, and sprang up on the other side of the bed while the man collapsed, groaning in agony. She screamed again and ran towards the door. Just as she was about to open it and run downstairs to Mrs. Fecteau’s apartment, her mother’s voice stopped her.

  “Jesus fucking Christ! What’s going on?” She had thrown on her bathrobe but hadn’t tied it.

  “He tried to hurt me,” Charlie said, pointing to the writhing figure on the floor. Only then did she realize she was screaming, not speaking. “He wanted to do something to me.”

  “You little whore,” said her drunken mother. “I’ll deal with you later.” She went over to the man, who was still holding his crotch in agony. “You fucking cheating swine,” she screamed and started smacking him.

  He forgot the pain after the fourth or fifth blow. His face now contorted with a combination of agony and rage, he turned and his hand shot out and smacked her. The blow sent her reeling. “No woman lays a hand on me and gets away with it,” he snarled. “You stupid bitch. I was just taking a leak and checked to see if the girl was okay.”

  Her mother, still in a jealous rage, answered with her fist. He grabbed at her, and when she tried to elude him her bathrobe was ripped off; then they were rolling on the floor, punching, gouging, biting, all the while screaming. After a few minutes that seemed like an hour, they both stopped simultaneously and began panting in exhaustion.

  Charlie didn’t know what to do. She didn’t dare go near them. She didn’t dare to speak and draw attention to herself. She wanted to go to Mrs. Fecteau, but she didn’t dare to move either. Then over the sound of their heavy breathing she heard a distant siren coming closer. Standing stock still and hardly breathing, she listened to the sound stop outside, followed by a bustle of doors opening and running feet and voices, one male and one Mrs. Fecteau’s. Then heavy feet thundered up the stairs.

  Charlie opened the door.

  Only then did the two combatants understand what was happening. They both sprang up. Her mother grabbed her bathrobe and the man the blanket from Charlie’s bed and wrapped it around himself.

  A stocky, short officer with a crewcut and dark eyes, square-jawed and clean-shaven, stepped into the room, followed by the scent of cologne. Charlie noticed that his uniform was crisply ironed and fit perfectly. Momentarily he looked at her to see if she was all right. Behind him a tall, slender officer, whose uniform, in contrast, hung on his skinny body, followed. Charlie saw him catch sight of her mother, still in the process of covering her nakedness with the bathrobe, and saw the same lewd and sticky-fingered look of sexual interest on the cop’s homely face she’d seen twice before today.

  But it was a fleeting impression. The stocky officer, the ranking policeman, quickly took command by speaking in an official tone that was still cleverly not antagonistic: “What seems to be the matter here?”

  Her mother, finishing tying her bathrobe up, looked at the cop and said with a sneer, “Nothing. We just had a little spat, that’s all.”

  “Little spat? Ma’am, you’ve woken up the whole building. Disturbing the peace is just the beginning. Assault is a serious matter. So do you care to elaborate on what you mean by ‘little spat’ or shall we talk down at the station?”

  His threat was not accepted with good grace. Sullenly, like a child accused of stealing a cookie, her mother said, “I tell you it was nothing. He pissed me off, that’s all. I hit him. He hit me back. We fought.”

  The cop rubbed his chin. “I’m afraid that won’t do, ma’am. The woman downstairs said you called your daughter a little whore. This old building has thin walls and floors. People heard you say things.”

  Her mother was sobering up quickly, for Charlie saw the same look of cunning come into her mother’s eyes she had whenever she spoke to the child welfare people. “I didn’t say that. That old bitch Mrs. Fecteau lied. She’s been out to get me for a long time.”

  The officer exchanged a glance with his partner. “Ma’am, we’ll talk to her more a bit later. I’d be careful about who you’re accusing of lying, though. But right now I want to know what caused the fracas.”

  Just then her mother’s lover groaned, slumped more than leaned forward, and grabbed at his crotch. Now that the excitement had died down, he was feeling the pain of Charlie’s kick with renewed intensity.

  The officers exchanged another glance. The tall gawky one grinned. “Looks like she hurt you where it really hurts,” he said. The he looked at Charlie’s mother. “And it looks like you’ll be facing assault charges, ma’am.”

  Her mother glared at the cop. “I didn’t kick him in the balls. She did.”

  She pointed to Charlie, causing both cops to turn towards her. The statement had aroused great interest. “Is that true?”

  Charlie nodded. “He wanted to do something to me. I was sleeping on the bed. He was naked.”

  For the third time, the cops exchanged glances. The skinny one raised his eyebrows. The stocky one frowned. “Rape,” he whispered grimly. “I better talk to the neighbor.” He went to the door and called downstairs. “Ma’am, Mrs. Fecteau? Are you there?”

  Charlie, still standing near the door, could hear voices downstairs all the time the cops were doing their questioning. Now she heard Mrs. Fecteau coming up the stairs.

  In the meantime the stocky officer told the other one to run a check on the man. He was speaking low, but he turned and addressed the man in a louder voice. “What’s your name?

  “Jimmy Cronin,” the man said.

  Then the cop said something that filled Charlie with dread. Speaking in the same half whisper, he said, “Before you do that, call Child Welfare. It’s beginning to look like the old lady was right.”

  After hearing that statement, much of what was said in the next half hour was a blur to Charlie. The dread she felt when she heard the ominous phrase “child welfare” grew into terror. She knew Mrs. McCade, the social worker assigned to Charlie, had threatened to take her out of the house several times, and she understood that what happened tonight would be regarded as extremely serious. So while Mrs. Fecteau talked to the officers, Charlie only heard snatches of what was said because she was picturing herself alone and scared living among strangers. Sometimes her attention would be brought back to the room when the cops would interrupt Mrs. Fecteau to ask her a question, so she did know in general what was being said. It was stated that she was thin and small for her age because of malnourishment. The new school clothes business was mentioned. Her mother’s drinking was emphasized. The many nights she did not come home were enumerated. Sometimes her mother would loudly and indignantly deny the charges and would be told to be quiet by the senior officer. All the details of the attempted rape came out, which Charlie couldn’t deny because she knew she couldn’t sneak a lie past Mrs. Fecteau. The most damning point, and one that was questioned very carefully by the police was the fact that her mother was jealous of Charlie instead of protective of her. Again her mother denied everything.

  At
some point the tall gawky cop got the report from the police station on Jimmy Cronin’s criminal record. It was extensive. Besides many minor infractions like public drunkenness, he’d been arrested for driving under the influence twice, for assault three times and once for resisting arrest. He’d been to the county jail twice serving ninety-day sentences. There was a restraining order taken out by his wife against him. For the cops the most interesting charge was one that was dropped for lack of evidence (his wife didn’t dare testify)—he’d been arrested for child molestation. After that they arrested the man. The gawky cop went into the bedroom with him to allow him to get his clothes on, and then took him to the station. The senior cop stayed behind to wait for the woman from Child Welfare.

  When Mrs. McCade came, she didn’t look too happy to have been dragged out of bed. She looked very tired, and for some reason the light made her eyes blink constantly. She was middle-aged with deep lines running from the corners of her mouth up to the nose and crow’s feet at the edge of each eye. She wore large, even huge, glasses, each lens seemingly as large as a diving mask. One thing was different. Tonight her hair was in a ponytail instead of the usual perm. Maybe it was her summer look, maybe the result of having to dress quickly. She certainly wasn’t her usual, neat self. She wore baggy slacks and a gray jersey.

  She came up to Charlie as soon as she entered the room. “Are you okay?” she asked with more than usual sincerity.

  Charlie just nodded. She was no friend. In fact she was more like an enemy, and, besides, the man’s visit to her bed was less traumatizing to her than the thought of leaving home.

  Charlie sat on the edge of the bed and listened to Mrs. McCade talk to the policeman. “I’ve been at this job too long,” she sighed. “Just when you think you seen it all, something like this happens. I’ve been here many times, you know.” Her voice dropped down to a whisper. “She lies to my face every time. I know it, but can never prove it. Tonight is different.”

  The cop nodded. In a louder voice he went over the facts of what happened as far as they could be ascertained (that was the word he used—Charlie had just seen it for the first time in the boy-wizard novel and had looked it up in the paperback dictionary one of her teachers gave her).

  Then Mrs. McCade began questioning her mother, who had sullenly been sitting in the recliner for some time and occasionally blinking as if to keep herself awake. Once the questions started coming, though, she was alert enough. Instead of the usual lies and half-truths and phony tears, she was confrontational because she knew the facts could not be easily disputed. Her first move was to call Mrs. Fecteau an old dried-up biddy, a busybody who wouldn’t know reality if it kicked her in the ass.

  “Do you deny that you weren’t home last night?”

  She couldn’t, but she explained it away. “She’s not a child. She can take care of herself.”

  Do you deny that you haven’t got school clothes for Charlie?”

  Her only answer was to glare at Mrs. McCade.

  “And you can’t deny the facts of what that despicable man did and your insane and unmotherly jealousy.”

  Her mother did deny it all, but strangely without conviction. Suddenly she looked tired and defeated.

  Mrs. McCade turned to Charlie. “You understand that your mother, despite repeated warnings, has continued to act irresponsibly and that she is an unfit mother?”

  “It’s the drink that does it,” Charlie said, begging with her eyes. “I remember many times we’d do things like go get an ice-cream cone together, and we’d be like best friends. We’d have fun.”

  “But that was when you were much younger, wasn’t it?”

  “But if she stopped drinking we could be like that again.” She turned to her mother. “We could, couldn’t we, mommy.”

  Her mother frowned.

  Mrs. McCade started to say something, but Charlie interrupted. “I want to stay with my mother. Please, please…” She started crying, afraid that she was never going to feel safe again, never have the comfort of familiarity again, always and forever to be alone and alien. She didn’t remember that only an hour ago she had wanted to flee the apartment for the safety of Mrs. Fecteau’s.

  “You need to be somewhere where you’ll be protected and nurtured, Charlie,” Mrs. McCade said. “I’m sorry, but I’m taking you with me right now. You can stay at my house tonight.”

  Like her mother, Charlie knew she was defeated. The tears kept rolling down her cheeks while she and Mrs. McCade gathered up some clothes and things, including her childhood teddy bear and the library book about the boy wizard.

  But what she remembered most about the end of her last day at home was that when she was at the door and said, “Good-bye, Mom,” her mother didn’t answer. She just sat there with a blank look in her eyes.

  She Becomes a Christian