Such a Pretty Girl (6 page)

H
e didn’t see me come in here, I know he didn’t,” I babble. “I didn’t tell him about you guys, I swear. He must be going door to door.”

“I see.” Her face pales, but her composure doesn’t falter. “Well, I’m not as ready for this as I wanted to be, but with any luck he’ll never even know it’s me.” She nods and squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t you worry, honey. I’ll take care of it.”

“Yes. Okay.” I can’t stop shivering even though her bulky body and unflappable attitude comforts me in a way I’m just beginning to understand.

Andy and his mother are not “that fat slob Jesus freak and her crippled kid,” as my mother so ignorantly calls them whenever she’s forced to acknowledge their existence. One of the many things my mother doesn’t realize is that Ms. Paula Mues is actually Mrs. Paula Beecher, the same widow my father cheated on her with so many years ago. She doesn’t realize it because Paula Beecher was a slim, doe-eyed brunette in blue jeans and T-shirts, a technical engineer who’d done a stint in the army and backpacked the Appalachian Trail.

I’ve seen Ms. Mues’s old pictures, so I know how completely the extra weight, gray-streaked hair, and black-framed magnifying glasses have altered her appearance. Ever since learning about Andy’s molestation at my father’s hands, Ms. Mues has devoted her life to atoning for the tragedy and somehow smiting her enemy, which is why she changed her looks, went back to her maiden name, and followed us to Cambridge Oaks.

When it comes to my father, Paula Mues and forgiveness have completely parted company.

The knocking continues.

“You go on into Andy’s room and don’t come out no matter what you hear,” she says. “And don’t let him come out, either.”

“What’re you gonna do?” I ask, pawing her arm.

She chooses the largest ceramic Jesus hanging on the wall and reverently removes it. “I’ve been waiting a long time for Him to reveal His plan to me and now I’ll go forth to do His will. I am a soldier in my Lord’s Army.”

“Wait! What if he recognizes you?” I say in a hoarse whisper.

“He won’t,” she says, glancing down at herself with a faintly bitter smile. “I’m as good as invisible to him. The bigger I am the more he won’t see me, honey. You know how your father is.”

Yes I do, which is why I didn’t brush my hair or shower for his homecoming. Physical imperfections have always offended him, but apparently my bad hygiene wasn’t repellent enough. Perhaps Ms. Mues’s full-blown adulthood will be.

Be careful, I want to say, but she’s already shuffling back into the kitchen, Jesus cradled in the crook of her arm and a litany of prayer pouring from her lips.

“I’m coming,” she calls serenely as the pounding intensifies.

“Mer?” Andy says. “Is that you?”

Oh God. “Shhh!” I whip into his bedroom doorway, collide with his wheelchair, and sink to the floor in a silent howl, rocking and clutching the fast-rising knot on my shin. A half-second later I press a finger to my lips and mouth,
My father!

Andy pales. He grips his wheels as if to roll forward, but retreats instead.

“Good morning.” Ms. Mues’s voice goes southern and singsongs back from the kitchen. “How can I help another child of God?”

“Huh? Oh, well, uh, I’m looking for my daughter and I thought maybe you might have seen her,” my father says, and stiff distaste flavors his words. “She pitched a fit and took off on me. She’s, uh, fifteen, long brown hair, stands about so high…?” Pause. “She lives in the end unit right over there.”

At the first sound of my father’s voice, Andy jerks as if he’s been slapped. Sweat blooms on his forehead. “He used to call me Buddy,” he whispers. “Oh, fuck me, I think I’m gonna puke.”

I thrust the wastebasket up into his arms and turn away as he heaves into it.

Andy was five when his father died, seven when my father stepped up to the plate and became the new man in his life. For close to a year Andy had an almost-dad to lean against and look up to. But during the last month of my father and Ms. Mues’s relationship, Andy began fighting in school, getting in trouble, and wetting his bed. His moods swung from anxious and clingy to sullen and raging, and—

“That little lost lamb of God?” Ms. Mues carols. “Of course I’ve seen her.”

I stiffen and back slowly away from the bedroom doorway.

“I see her on her way to school every morning at seven-thirty when I open my curtains and praise Jesus for giving me another glorious day to sing His praises.”

“No, that’s not what I—” my father says.

“Poor sweet baby, she trudges along like she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders and I just
know
if she gave herself to Jesus her pain would be lifted. I’ve offered to save her, but—”

“Okay no, well, I mean, uh, thanks anyway,” my father interrupts.

“Wait, don’t leave. No one is lost who seeketh the Lord! Tell me, brother, have you been saved?” Ms. Mues’s voice rises. “Would you like to pray with me?”

Silence.

Finally, the door closes and the lock snaps shut.

“Works every time,” Ms. Mues says, but her voice trembles beneath the triumph. “Thank you, Jesus, for giving me the strength to face my enemy. In your name, amen.” She lurches into sight at the head of the hallway, a tactically superior nuclear submarine disguised as a lumbering tugboat. “It’s all right now, honey. He’s checking next door, but the Eisners are in Bermuda. I think half the building is away on vacation. Come have coffee. I’ll close the blinds. We won’t have an audience.”

I glance at Andy, who sits slumped with the soiled wastebasket cradled in his arms. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing his forehead and avoiding my eyes. “I just…I….” He looks smaller, weaker. Fragile. “How can you take it?”

I shake my head.

We sit at the table and I recount the events of the past twenty-four hours.

When I’m done, Ms. Mues sighs and removes her thick glasses. Her eyes shrink back to normal size and bring sad beauty to her face.

“He’s an abomination,” she says, glancing at Andy, who hasn’t spoken yet.

“But a smart one,” I say. “He only messes with me when no one else is around. He hasn’t reformed, he’s just gotten sneakier.” I stop, feeling an absurd pang of conscience at my disloyalty. I have every reason to hate him—his betrayal colors all that I am, have been, and will be—but it’s hard to shake the lessons learned before the souring, not the least of which is “blood is thicker than water.”

Stupid, I know. But there all the same.

“So much for those empathy classes and the psychological evaluation,” Ms. Mues says, rubbing her forehead. “And the parole board’s not winning any prizes, either. This was a terrible, violent crime. They all were.” She glances at Andy, at the bottle wedged between his thighs, and pain sweeps her face. “Why do these people keep getting out? Why aren’t they sentenced to life without parole or put in a mental hospital? I don’t understand this world. What’s the point of obsessing over cholesterol or bike helmets or even cigarettes when the biggest threats to our children are being released back into society every day? Yes, maybe
some
of them have reformed, but what about the ones who haven’t? Doesn’t anyone realize that one
touch,
one
time
will destroy a child’s life ten times faster than a pack-a-day habit?”

It’s not really a question, so I don’t bother to answer.

Instead, I remember my mother’s delight when the call came announcing my father’s release date….

“Why, that’s wonderful!” she says, cradling the phone and beaming at me across the kitchen. Outside the Calvinetti twins argue over an iPod. “I’ll take the day off. Really? Oh, I see.” Her expression clouds, then clears again. “No, I’m sure we can work around it. Anything to make this happen. Thank you for calling!”

I stare at my spoon, watch the tomato soup vibrate off it in spurting splashes. It’s all right, though; I’m no longer hungry.

She hangs up and laughs with delight. “Your father’s coming home early!”

I set the spoon down on my napkin. The puree stains the white tissue. I move the spoon into the bowl and crumple the napkin. It’s hard to breathe.

“That was the attorney. He said the doctors are very pleased with your father’s progress and that his behavior has been exemplary—”

“Well, that’s stupid.” My reaction is rude and raw. “Of course he’s been a model prisoner, Mom. There aren’t any kids to molest in prison.”

“There’s so much to do to get ready,” she says, as if I haven’t spoken. “He’ll need new clothes and a job, a place to live—”

I straighten. “Not here?”

“Well, no, the attorney says that’s one of the rules of his release,” she says, avoiding my gaze. “He can’t live with us just yet. He’s on some sort of parole or whatever, with a lot of guidelines. I don’t know what they are yet, except…” Her face darkens. “He has to register down at the police department because of his…situation.”

“Good,” I say and the rest tumbles out fast and faster. “Because that’s exactly what he SHOULD have to do, and you know what? I hope they put his picture online so that everybody will know he’s a child molester because that’s what he is, Mom, just like all those other gross old guys in chat rooms trying to—”

“Stop it!” She turns on me, fierce. “Don’t you ever talk that way about your father! He had a breakdown, do you hear me? He didn’t understand what he was doing. We were stressed, I was going to school and working full-time and you know how affectionate your father is, you know how much he loves being the center of attention. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, he was trying to show you love and maybe get a little in return. He was lonely, Meredith, that’s all. Lonely and needy and he made a mistake.”

“Is that what you really think?” I say, aghast.

“It’s true. It was a mistake.”

“Wrong.” I lunge forward, white-knuckling the edge of the table. “Rape is not a mistake! He did it on purpose, over and over again because he wanted to, because he got off on it—”

“Meredith!” She cuts me off, furious. “Why do you do that? Why do you always have to make things ugly? If I’m willing to forgive and forget, why can’t you? My God, there are thousands of kids out there who’d love to have a father—”

“Well, they can have mine, because I don’t want him and I’m not gonna have anything to do with him no matter WHERE he lives.” I shove my chair from the table. The tomato soup sloshes out of the bowl and drenches the place mat. “I hate him and I hope he dies!”

She snatches the place mat and runs it to the sink. “Don’t ever say that again. He’s paid his dues—”

“Three years?” My panic expands. “Mom, people get more jail time for shoplifting! He was supposed to be locked up for nine years so by the time he got out I would have been legal and gone.”

“Oh, I see,” my mother says with a grim sort of triumph. “You want your father to rot in prison and me to be alone for another six years just so you can have your own way. Well, guess what? The world doesn’t always revolve around you.”

My head is spinning. “He molested five kids and those are only the ones who got up the nerve to tell. Who knows how many others are out there?”

“This conversation is over,” she says, walking away.

I follow her. “How can you even look at him? How can you kiss him? Do you know where his mouth has been?” The nightmares in my brain are roaring.

“Done.” Her features are smoothed and straightened. She’s re-made herself and anything I say will bounce off her now, the way a quarter bounces off a tight sheet. “Your father and I have been together for twenty-seven years—”

“Yeah, I know, since you were twelve and he was sixteen,” I say. “Didn’t you ever think it was weird that a sixteen-year-old guy would want to be with a middle school girl? Doesn’t that seem a little sick to you, Mom?”

Dull red stains her face and she looks like she hates me. “No sicker than you always being Daddy’s little girl and hogging him all for yourself, so you know what, Meredith? Excuse me if I’m not as sympathetic as you think I should be.” Her jaw tightens. “I’ve always wondered why, if what he was doing to you was so horrible, you didn’t tell on him sooner…”