Destruction: The December People, Book One (3 page)

Crystal disappeared when she was pregnant with Evangeline, and Xavier had been just a toddler. David searched for them long after their disappearance became a cold case. He hired private investigators, even hackers. Based on what he found, Crystal never again paid taxes, had a job or paid bills of any kind. She didn’t give birth to Evangeline in a hospital, her children never went to school, and they had no medical records that could be found. And, if they had all died, he found no record of that either. They just didn’t exist anymore, as if his “other” family had been nothing but a figment of his imagination. The only thing that proved they ever existed at all was his grief, and even that had to be kept hidden.

avid arrived at the children’s shelter right on time the next morning. A ballerina-like young woman opened the door. and David couldn’t tell right away if she lived in the shelter or worked there. While barely out of college, she managed to have the inviting quality of a grandmother. She wiped her fingers on a dishtowel she had tucked into her pants pocket and held out her hand to shake.

“Mr. Vandergraff?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m Shawna, associate shelter director. I’ll need to see some ID before I let you in. Standard procedure.”

David showed her his driver’s license, and she inspected it carefully.

“Come on in.”

The house smelled of bacon, and someone had turned the heater on too high. Halloween decorations filled the house, and children’s artwork lined the hallway. He felt bad taking them away. He’d known Shawna for about one minute, but this barely-out-of-college stranger already seemed more qualified to raise his kids.

She took him into an office with a fat orange cat sleeping on the desk. The room had an overpowering pumpkin pie-scented candle smell.

“We’ll have to work around Pablo. He never moves unless he wants to.”

She pulled out a thick stack of paperwork and asked for a second form of ID. He gave her his passport. She went over what the forms meant and pointed out the places he should sign. This reminded him of signing a mortgage.

“I’ll be sad to see them go,” she said. “They’re good kids. Haven’t caused any trouble.”

“What are they like?”

“Quiet. Sweet.”

“Can you give me any more to go on?”

She smiled. “Evangeline is a little more expressive. She has a lot of imagination, and she will talk to me a little bit. She doesn’t talk much to the other kids, but she does like to watch them play and talk to each other. She likes to draw and paint. But she doesn’t like to show me her artwork. She also draws elaborate designs on her skin with a ballpoint pen. Some of the other workers want her to stop, but I don’t see the harm. Xavier hasn’t said more than two or three words to me or the other children. Mostly, ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘okay’. I see him talking to his sister sometimes, but he mostly keeps to himself. He watches movies a lot, but it doesn’t seem like he cares about them too much. My guess is that he just likes the excuse to sit quietly and not be disturbed.”

“The officer told me that their mother died.” Hearing those words out of his own mouth was like hearing a balloon pop right next to his ear. He had chosen not to think about it much. “How did she die?”

Shawna suddenly showed her age, like the confidence from all her schooling and training melted away and only the young woman remained, unsure and naïve.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, and her eyes brimmed with more sympathy than David could ever have mustered for a stranger, but then she averted her eyes. She pulled out some more papers, one of which was a thin pamphlet that read,
A Guide for The Foster or Adoptive Parents of Sexually Abused Children
.

The span of missing years suddenly felt as vast, dark, and cold, as deep space. So happy they were alive, he hadn’t spared much thought for what that life had been like. He had just assumed they had lived with their mother, off the grid but okay. Happy. Safe. He should have put the pieces together based on what he had been told so far. Surely, this hadn’t been the first clue, but his brain had refused to see it. The information had to seep in painfully slow, as the drip… drip… drip of water slowly carving a gash into rock.

“In your packet, there is the card for the caseworker you’ve been assigned in Houston,” Shawna said. “She’ll help you arrange care for your children. And she can answer all your questions.”

David stared at her, aware that his glare probably looked threatening. Part of him wanted to shake her until she gave away all the information she feared giving him. And another part just wanted to pocket the pamphlet and the business card and nod politely, maintaining his ignorance as long as he could.

“What happened to my children?” he asked. He had to work hard to speak each word, and his voice sounded breathy and hoarse.

She took a deep breath and looked at her papers as if she had her script written there. “Crystal re-married, a man named Whitman Colter.”

“We were never married.”

“Right. Well, she was married. She and the kids lived with him, Colter, completely separate from society. We didn’t even know they existed. I’ve never seen anything like it. If you told me they had been invisible up until the day we found them, I might believe it. I’m not sure how they managed it, really.”

David felt impatient with her explanation, but she seemed to warm up as she spoke, re-gaining her confidence.

“The police found the kids on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It took them a long time to find where they had come from. When they finally found the house, the police swear they had already looked at those coordinates several times, as if the house suddenly popped into existence. Even after they had found it once, they had trouble finding it again.

“Anyway, when they found the house, they found Crystal’s body. Her husband had killed her. The ground is hard here… so it’s tricky to bury someone. He… he burned her body atop a pile of sticks. And the kids saw everything.”

White spots appeared in David’s vision. He could see her body, with dark hair that always smelled of sandalwood, lying on a pile of sticks. He could see her toes, probably painted green or purple, and the tattoo of angel wings on her back, blistering as the fire covered her.

David’s thoughts must have shown through his eyelids, because Shawna’s eyes became watery. She picked up the papers on her desk and straightened them, even though they already seemed straight.

David couldn’t find the words to ask his next question aloud, so he picked up the pamphlet,
A Guide for The Foster or Adoptive Parents of Sexually Abused Children
, and pushed it across the desk toward her.

She nodded solemnly and continued, once again regaining some of the strength in her voice. “When they were examined, the doctor found a series of small cuts about a half inch long in a neat row on their backs, starting with old scars and gradually progressing to cuts that were still healing. They are like tick marks. Colter added a tick mark every time he completed his “ritual”, as Evangeline calls it… when he raped them.”

“Both of them?”

“It’s not about sexuality… it’s about domination. Evangeline has fifty-two tick marks. Xavier has seventy-seven.”

David didn’t say anything. He couldn’t imagine what he should say. That the most horrible thing he had ever heard of happening to anyone, had happened to his own children? And since he chose Amanda instead of Crystal, it was his fault? He made note of the nearest trashcan, just in case he threw up.

“What should I do?” His voice now sounded like a croak.

“The caseworker will help you. For now, just be cautious. Respect their personal space and privacy. Don’t ask too many questions. Keep things calm. And be very careful about touching them; even a pat on the back might be inappropriate.”

The advice sounded reasonable, but this would be a hard way to live. How long would this mandate stay in effect? Could he shake Xavier’s hand when he graduated high school? Dance with Evangeline on her wedding day?

“And make sure your family knows too. They also need to keep things calm and respect their privacy.”

The image of his kids flashed into his mind. Emmy—―the loud, touchy-feely quizmaster who entered every room like she twirled a flaming baton. Jude—―who thought punching people was the supreme form of affection. Patrick—―whose sense of humor bordered between hilarious and verbal abuse. Amanda—―control-freak who had to be involved in everything and always had an opinion. His family felt like an atomic bomb.

“I read in your file that your children with your wife are similar ages,” she said hesitantly.

“Yes. Jude is seventeen, Patrick is fifteen, Emmy is thirteen, almost fourteen. And I know Xavier is fifteen and Evangeline is twelve.”

Shawna crinkled her nose slightly, and David assumed she had done the math and came to the obvious conclusion.

“So you know what you’re doing then,” she concluded. She must have majored in looking on the bright side. “Kids who have been abused are still just kids. Just be kind to them and show them you’re safe. It will all come together eventually. They are actually very well developed, considering their situation. I’ve seen much worse. They’re resilient.”

“That’s good advice,” David said. “Thank you.”

She looked like she might cry again, perhaps with relief that she had said the right thing. “One other important thing,” she continued. “Evangeline has created a magical narrative to help her cope. She needs to believe it for now. One day, it will fall apart and she’ll have to face what has happened to her, but you shouldn’t rush her.”

“A magical narrative?”

“She thinks her stepfather was a wizard. I know, it’s strange. But, in my opinion, good imagination is one thing that keeps kids resilient. Just go with it for now.”

“What about Xavier?”

“He has more of a grasp on reality. He understands they have been abused. At least, he must understand, because he chose to run. Shortly after his mother’s death, he took his sister in the middle of the night, and they walked ten miles to the road, then three miles along it, before they were found and someone called the police.”

He couldn’t help but feel… pride. Xavier saved his sister. He ran. They walked thirteen miles and never gave up.

“I’ve been keeping something for them,” Shawna said. “I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea to give it to them. I didn’t know if they’d be ready. But it’s theirs. It should go with them.”

She opened a drawer, pulled out a wooden box, then placed it on the desk next to Pablo. David reached to open the box, but Shawna put her hand on top of his.

“It’s their mother’s remains.”

His breath caught in his throat. He had his hand on
her
. Shawna must have noticed the look on his face because she squeezed his hand before she let go.

“Will you take them?”

“Yes, of course.”

“There is this too.”

She handed him a Ziploc bag containing a platinum ring set with an opal, accented by small diamonds. David’s eyes burned with tears he didn’t want to shed in front of Shawna. Seeing the ring made it completely real. It really had been Crystal’s body that burned atop a pile of sticks.
His
Crystal. Many years ago, he had given Crystal this ring. She had said it looked like an engagement ring and wouldn’t take it at first, but he convinced her he just thought she would like the ring, that he didn’t mean anything by it. In truth, he did mean it as a wedding ring. He wanted a symbol. Something to mean that even though he wasn’t married to her, he loved her… she was his. He thought she had tossed it over a bridge when they broke up.