The Devil's Wire (6 page)

11

"What are you doing?"

She sees Hank there, in the doorway, expression unreadable.

"Answer me, Jen."

"Don't pretend," she says.

"What's that supposed to mean."

She feels like she might be sick. "Oh, God."

Jennifer steps backward until she hits the wall. She wants to howl but she can't seem to make a single noise. He moves closer.

"Come downstairs."

"Don't make me say it," she says.

He locks eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The neighbor saw."

"I wouldn't believe anything that bitch says."

"She saw what you did to McKenzie."

Jennifer feels a crack across her cheek. "Wash out your God damn mouth," he says, showing teeth.

He stomps to the door then turns and thrusts a finger in her face. "You're out of your fucking mind."

"Say it, Hank."

"Screws loose in the head," he says, knocking her forehead. "Is it time for the doctor again?"

"How long?"

He looks at her as if he's found something disgusting on his shoe.

"Stop talking," he says. "Just stop talking now."

He begins pacing.

"This is bullshit. I'm her fucking father."

"
Tell me
," she says.

"Fed her, clothed her, read her stories, saved her from you, her own mother. Who are you to accuse me of something like this?"

"When did it start, Hank?"

"Her own mother and you nearly let her drown in that bath tub. She was just a God damn baby. What kind of mother are you?"

"Tell me."

"I never touched her."

"Since she was a toddler? Before that?"

He rushes for Jennifer and grabs her by the shoulders and shakes hard.

"I would never hurt her," says Hank. "You've got to believe that."

He lets go and starts to cry.

"She can't even sleep in her own bed," says Jennifer.

"Oh, don't," he sputters and covers his face with his hand.

She launches at him.

"Get out!" she screams. "Get out, get out, get out!"

He pushes her off and she falls to the floor. When she looks up to tell him she hates him, he's already gone.

*

She lies there for hours, on the violet eiderdown, the sunlight shifting from wall to wall, caressing the top of her head. Her cell phone rings and rings and she finally picks up and tells Rosemary that she's been sick and must have fallen asleep and yes she was feeling better and no she was not pregnant and yes she would be in tomorrow and no there was nothing she needed and yes her clients would get over it because these things happen. Four times she tries to get to her feet and four times she fails. Her body is stone and it's all she can do to roll over and face the wall. She shuts her eyes, just for a moment, to gather her energy, so she can get to the bathroom to wash her sticky, tear-stained face before McKenzie gets home, but before she can –
"What are you doing?" McKenzie drops her school bag to the floor.

"Sweetheart," says Jennifer.

"Get out of my room."

"It's over McKenzie. He's gone."

"What?"

Jennifer reaches for her.

"Sit down."

McKenzie pulls away. "No."

"I know he hurt you," says Jennifer.

"That's crazy."

Jennifer can't hold back the tears. "Oh God, I'm so sorry, hon."

"This is stupid. You're being stupid. Please get out of my room."

"If I'd known I would have done something, truly I would have."

"I'm not talking about this, I have homework to do," McKenzie unzips her school bag and starts digging through it, "an assignment on the big melt in Antarctica."

"Hon, please."

McKenzie ignores her and continues to hunt, pulling out a book, her tablet, pens. "Polar bears are starving because there's nothing to eat," she thrusts her arm inside her bag and feels around as if she's missing something, "because people use too much electricity." She tips the contents out on her bed and fans through the debris, "because of stupid, shitty, greedy people like us the polar bears are dying." She can't find what's she's looking for and shakes the bag. Out fall crumbs, candy wrappers, a blackened banana. "They never hurt anyone. They just want to get on with their lives."

"Please. Stop this."

McKenzie swings around to face Jennifer. "You don't understand – they're dying!"

"Let me help you," says Jennifer, choking on sobs.

"Leave."

Jennifer doesn't move. McKenzie picks up the tablet and throws it against the wall.

"I said leave me alone!"

"Alright," Jennifer says finally. "You know where I am when you're ready to talk."

12

Lenise drops back into third gear and pulls out into the slow morning traffic. She's going to be late for her meeting with holier-than-thou office manager, Camille de Silva, but Lenise doesn't care – Camille and her trivial sales targets can take a flying leap because nothing can shake the feeling of accomplishment Lenise is basking in right now. Even the bread truck in front of her belching clouds from its filthy exhaust can't dampen her mood.

That's because she's thinking of yesterday and how that no good poor excuse for a father had rushed from the house and lurched down the driveway in that stupid truck of his. The look on his face said it all. Bleached white and wide-eyed, as if he'd witnessed a fatal accident. Of course, he would only be feeling sorry for himself, thinking of his own losses, not the pain and suffering he'd caused others. But the fact that he'd been exposed was a triumph.

God knows it had taken long enough. Lenise had been worried Jennifer would not have the guts to confront him. At the very least, she would have expected Jennifer to move out of the house with McKenzie and when that didn't occur Lenise began to have doubts that Jennifer would do anything at all. In fact, Lenise had made up her mind that if nothing had happened by the end of the week, she would put in an anonymous call to Child Protective Services. Then, finally, yesterday, there he was, careening from the house like a man on fire.

It was true that Lenise felt just a tiny bit of satisfaction at his undoing, knowing she was the one who had uncovered it – the good, if not reluctant, Samaritan. She'd half expected a knock on the door from Jennifer, some show of gratitude. After all, it wasn't easy to tell a mother her child was being molested. A lesser person would have walked away. Whatever way you looked at it Lenise had done the woman a favor, and a thank you or some small form of acknowledgement wouldn't have gone astray. But what Lenise got instead was a frosty silence as if the entire matter had somehow been all her fault.

By the time Lenise arrives at the office, her mood has soured. Camille – she of the Mikimoto pearls and substantial referral list – is on the phone and gestures in an off-hand way for Lenise to take a seat on the Laura Ashley wing chair. Ten minutes later Camille finally rings off and turns her attention to Lenise.

"We're going to have to let you go."

It's a punch to the heart.

"You're joking."

"There's been a complaint of misconduct."

"Misconduct?"

"Theft."

"But I haven't stolen anything."

"A very valuable time piece was misappropriated from a client's house. The Roxburgh Street property. You're familiar with the residence?"

"I've done a viewing there, but I don't know anything about any clock."

Camille places the small lead crystal clock on the desk.

"I've never seen that before," says Lenise.

"It was found yesterday morning, in your drawer. This is very bad for the agency. I won't involve the police if you leave today."

"This was Radley, wasn't it?

"That's irrelevant."

Lenise bites her lip and tastes pepper.

"He's had it out for me since day one. You know I saw him in a client's bed with a prostitute, don't you?"

"That will be all," says Camille.

"I'm telling you, he's the one who should be fired."

"Would you please leave now, Lenise."

Lenise gets to her feet. "This isn't over."

She fights the urge to do an arm-swipe across that impossibly orderly desk and slams the door on the way out instead. She takes a moment to catch her breath then launches herself into the agents' room. A startled Radley looks up from his paperwork.

"You snake – you think you can set me up!"

Lenise picks up his laptop and slams it down on his desk. Keys fly like woodchips. The letter P lands on Radley's thigh and he glances from that to the screen hanging from its split hinge.

"You're out of your mind," he says. "That's a thousand dollar computer."

She feels an arm hook around her chest.

"Don't worry, I'm going," she tells the security guard.

When she looks back, Radley is on his knees, plucking the alphabet from the carpet.

*

The lights of the slot machine flash. A soundtrack reminiscent of a big top circus hones down from an undisclosed speaker somewhere above Lenise's head. Over to the left, near the entrance to the slots alcove, a large electronic banner displays the rising jackpot, like a clock calculating the debt of some third world economy.

Hours ago she'd handed over her last two hundred bills to the cashier for coins. When she did this part of her screamed –
Wait! What the hell are you doing!
But it was as if she was on autopilot, and when she saw just how many cardboard cylinders of quarters made up two hundred dollars, for a second there she had felt quite rich.

But she knew full well she would lose, that the machine would eat her last dollar and she would go home broke. She did it anyway. It was almost like admitting defeat – here you go world, have it all. You would've taken it anyway.

So when she puts the final coin into the silver slot, she gets exactly what she expects. Nothing. She stares at the two cherries and the lemon and wonders how in the hell Cody could be duped like this so many times.

"You finished?" a black lady stares at her, holding a full cup of quarters.

"Go for your life," she says.

Lenise steps outside and blinks into the daylight. Morning has happened. Somewhere along the line she has lost an entire night.

There's no hurry, she has no job, no-one to return home to. She thinks of Cody working on some farm in Minnesota. It wouldn't kill him to give her a call sometime. Oh, he would be back, that was more certain than taxes. But still, a simple phone call just to check in and see how she was getting on wasn't too much to ask.

She wonders how her life has come to this. Unemployed, house she owes three weeks rent on, her dead dog's ashes in an old Famous Dave's pickle jar in the bottom drawer of the bathroom cupboard.

She looks at her watch. A quarter after two.

She walks the short distance to the Go Figure Finance office, which is hard to miss given the human-sized placard outside. It's the same sports guy on the ads, stupid grin planted on his dial, making the okay sign with his forefinger and thumb. Inside, mothers hold crying babies and grey-skinned addicts bite off the last of their fingernails. Lenise takes a number and a seat. An hour later she's called by an older woman with a Justin Bieber haircut and too much blue eye shadow and in less than five minutes Lenise has a new credit card.

"First payment due in 14 days," says the Bieber woman.

"Understood," says Lenise.

She immediately walks to the cash machine around the corner and withdraws $500. She stares at the money. Maybe she should just take off, leave this shit hole behind, cross the border into Canada to become a waitress in a good time bar. But she slips the money into her pocket. That wasn't for her. She was tired of moving, of fresh starts that turned out to be a step backwards not forwards. She would work this out. She was a smart, resourceful woman. She had done it before and would do it again.

When Lenise turns the corner, she's surprised to see Jennifer. She's up ahead by the deli dressed as usual in smart business attire, burnt orange leather bag hooked over her elegant shoulder, texting on her late model phone. Lenise imagines the girls' lunches, the shopping for designer clothes, the adoring daughter, the sense of accomplishment that comes with being an educated woman.

But when Jennifer looks up, Lenise glimpses the ashen skin and the nights without sleep and doesn't feel quite so envious anymore.

"Hello Jenny," she says.

13

Jennifer lifts her head. Lenise is standing in front of her, patting down her crinkled skirt, wild mane bushed out all over the place. Jennifer's first instinct is to turn around and walk the other way.

"You've seen better days," says Lenise.

"I suppose I have."

"He admitted it then," says Lenise.

Jennifer can't look Lenise in the eye so fixes her gaze on the hydrant just left of Lenise's shoulder.

"It's been hell."

"Well, it would be."

Jennifer looks down at her hands. "I knew nothing about it."

"I know that."

Jennifer feels a sudden rush of gratitude. It's overwhelming and unexpected and she begins to cry.

"I can't believe I didn't know. I feel so stupid."

She blinks through her tears. People stare and Lenise scowls. "Mind your own fucking business."

She takes Jennifer's arm. "Come on," she says, steering her into a nearby café. "Wait here."

Lenise walks to the counter and Jennifer takes a seat in the corner and bats away the tears. She tells herself to get a grip. She hates all this – making a scene – like she's some sort of fragile little girl. There's a painting of a buffalo on the wall above the counter so she focuses on that, tries to think of a happy time. Lenise returns with two walnut brownies and a passionfruit cupcake.

"Eat something."

Jennifer's gut flips. "I'm not doing food right now."

"Suit yourself."

Lenise slips into the chair opposite and places the Go Figure finance envelope down by her ankle.

"I was fired," says Lenise. "Unfair dismal. I'm going to take them to court."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, well, life's a bitch and then you die."

The pot of tea arrives. Lenise looks inside and shuts the lid in disgust.

"
Tea bags
. This country's a basket case." Lenise rotates the pot exactly three times, pours two cups and pushes one across the table. "Go on. It will make you feel better."

Jennifer feels the steam on her chin. She takes a sip. It's hot enough to blister her lips.

"I keep waiting to wake up. It's worse than a nightmare. McKenzie won't talk to me." Then before Jennifer knows it, she's crying again and the paper napkin is sodden and disintegrating in her hands. "I just wish I could've done something. I feel so incredibly useless, like the worst mother in the world. All I can think about is what he must have done to her and for how long."

"You want to know what I saw," states Lenise.

Jennifer looks up. "No." Then, "Yes."

"It won't help."

"I want to understand what she's been through."

"You already do."

Jennifer stares into her tea. Milk has formed a film on the surface and breaks away like an island from the mainland.

"What will you do?" says Lenise.

Jennifer runs a hand over her face. "I'm on my way to police."

"Police?"

"Of course."

"There's bound to be uncomfortable questions."

"What are you getting at, Lenise?"

"Why you didn't know."

Jennifer sits back in her chair. "What a cruel thing to say."

Lenise dismisses her with a hand.

"Jenny, I believe you but that doesn't mean they will."

"What else do you expect me to do? He's got to pay for he's done."

Lenise watches Jennifer over the rim of her tea cup. "I might know someone."

Jennifer looks at her. "What are you talking about?"

"To send a message, a clear message, to let him know that what he's done is unacceptable."

"A thug? You're kidding?"

"I wouldn't joke about a thing like that."

"We don't do things that way in this country. We have the rule of law."

Lenise barks out a laugh. "Have you watched
Dateline
, lately?"

"I'm a mother, Lenise, not a vigilante and I'm hardly going to risk jail and leave McKenzie to fend for herself."

Lenise throws up her hands. "Just trying to help."

"It's a ridiculous suggestion and I don't need your help. This is a private family matter."

Jennifer gets to her feet.

"I see," says Lenise.

"Which has, quite frankly, got nothing to do with you."

"You would still be in the dark if it wasn't for me."

"Listen to me – you have no idea what I'm going through or how difficult this is. It's easy for you to sit on the sidelines like you're watching some episode of
Beverly Hills Housewives
but this is my awful, shitty life. Do you get that? My life is ruined and so is my daughter's so why don't you just worry about your own problems – it certainly looks like you've got enough of them."

Lenise smiles.

"So you do have a back bone."

Jennifer stares at her.

"You're a real piece of work," she says, grabbing her bag. "Goodbye."

"Don't coming running to me when this all goes pear-shaped," calls Lenise.

As if she would, thinks Jennifer.