The Good Daughter (39 page)

“You think I want this?” he roared, throwing Missy backward, sending her crashing into the wall. “You think I want to be chased out of my home? My shit-house home that still costs a half-million dollars?” His hands squeezed into fists as he grabbed for her again. “You think I like leaving my job and our house and our lives? But I’m not going to deal with any police or answer any questions. So you go pack and put the shit in car while I have a word with Dee.”

Delilah saw him shove her mother away from him and spin to face her, and her legs nearly went out beneath her.

“Leave her alone, Howard!”

Delilah couldn’t look away from the frost in his eyes. They were so cold they glittered. He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her finally…

“Howard, you promised!” Mama was screaming, her voice high and piercing. “You promised me, you swore to me you’d never lay a hand on her.”

Howie didn’t answer. He couldn’t because he was coming for her, Delilah, and coming fast.

Delilah wished the ground would just open up and take her, swallow her, and be done with her once and forever. She was so tired of the fear and the sadness. If she was going to die, let her just die now, let her die fast—

“Go, Dee! Run!” Mama screamed at her. “Run, baby, run.” And then Mama was grabbing at Howie, throwing herself before him, tangling up his arms and legs, trying to trip him. “Go, Dee, go, baby, go as fast as you can!”

Delilah saw Howie slam his fist into Mama’s face, toppling her to the floor, and watching Mama crumple and fall brought her to life.

She ran to the door, flung it open, and ran as fast as she could down the steps, out into the street, past Jude’s dark house, past more houses and barking dogs and TVs blaring from inside small houses. She ran and ran and ran, not knowing where to go, only that she had to go. But even as she ran, arms pumping, legs flying, she found herself wondering what would happen when she finally stopped running.

What would happen when she wanted to go home?

D
elilah wasn’t at school Friday morning.

Kit didn’t even wait until third period to find out. She called the office, asked Mrs. Dellinger if Delilah Hartnel had been marked absent from her first-period class, and Mrs. Dellinger said she had.

“Did anyone call?” Kit asked, her voice shaking. “Her mom or dad, to say why she was absent?”

But no one had called. And Delilah wasn’t in second, or third, or any period that day at school.

Kit locked the door to her classroom at noon, sat in the dark, and fought panicked tears. What had she done? Why did she go to the Dempseys’ last night? Why had she told Howard she knew
anything? And most important, where was Delilah today? And was Delilah okay?

Kit sent Jude a text. She didn’t know if he’d get it. Didn’t know if he could respond to her, but at least he’d know sooner rather than later what was going on.
Did something stupid. Confronted Howard last night about what I knew. Delilah’s not at school today. Panicking.

Switching to her directory of contacts, she called her uncle Jack, the retired police detective. Thank goodness he answered.

“Uncle Jack, I didn’t know if you could help me with something. I’m worried about one of my students. There’s abuse going on at her home. I tried to speak with the stepfather yesterday and it got ugly and now the little girl isn’t at school today.”

“Where do they live?”

“In San Leandro. Not far from where I teach.” She gulped a breath, trying to stay calm. “Do you know anyone that works on this side? Anyone who could drive over to the house and check on them?”

“You think this fellow, the stepfather, he’s dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll make some calls. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Thank you, Uncle Jack. I owe you.”

Uncle Jack didn’t get back to her until after school was over. “No one was there,” her uncle told Kit over the phone as she was pulling out of the school parking lot. “The house was quiet. Dark. No car. The back door was wide open, so they went in. The house was full of furniture—couches, tables, chairs, beds—but the beds were stripped bare and there were no clothes in closets or the dressers.”

“No bedding or clothes?”

“No. Looked like they’d cleared out.”

Kit’s heart fell. “What about pictures, knickknacks, stuff like that?”

“Gone. House is empty except for the big stuff.”

For a second she couldn’t breathe. Oh no. No, no, no. What had she done?

“Kit?” he sounded concerned “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else I can do?”

“No. That was really helpful. Thank you.”

D
elilah spent the first night she’d run away from her house sleeping on pieces of tree bark beneath the toddler play structure in a church playground. She slept there because the space was small and narrow and she felt safe. She couldn’t imagine any other homeless person but her wanting to sleep there.

She left the next morning when she heard the first car pull up. She wasn’t sure where she was. She’d run such a long way last night that she had to get directions twice to get home, and even then, it took hours.

It was almost ten when she reached her house. Howie’s car
was gone. The lights were off. The blinds were all down.

Delilah went in through the front door. It was open. The house was quiet. “Mama?” she called.

No one answered.

She walked back to her mama’s bedroom, pushed open the door. The big bed was just a bare mattress. The dresser had nothing on it. Delilah moved to the closet, looked inside. Nothing. No clothes, no shoes, no jackets. She opened the dresser drawers, one after the other. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Delilah backed out, went to her room, pushed the door open. Empty.

She walked through the rest of the house, and the TV in the living room was gone. The pictures of Mama and Howie’s wedding were gone. The picture of Mama and Delilah and Grandpa was gone. Even the little ceramic salt and pepper Dutch shoes in the kitchen were gone.

Because Mama and Howie were gone.

They’d left. Left her.

Delilah sat down on the living room couch, chewed on her lip, trying to figure out what to do.

What to feel now. And suddenly Miss Brennan’s journal “quick writes” came to mind:

I want…

I need…

I love…

I hate…

Tears filled her eyes, fell onto her fists.
I want Mama. I need Mama. I love Mama. I hate Howie.

And Miss Brennan.
I hate Miss Brennan for doing this to me.

After crying until she couldn’t stand herself crying another minute, Delilah got up, washed her face at the kitchen sink, dried it with the sleeve of her blouse, then left her house and walked to Jude’s.

She knocked on the door, but didn’t expect him to answer. His motorcycle was gone. Had been gone all week.

She knocked again, just to be polite, and then knowing he never locked his doors since there was no point locking them, as he owned nothing nice, she opened his front door and went in to see if he had anything to eat and a working TV that might get some good channels.

K
it would never think of a St. Patrick’s Day party quite the same way. Everyone was packed into her three-story childhood home on Fifth in Sunset—a very thin, jet-lagged Brianna, Sarah and the kids, Meg and Jack and their three, Tommy and Cass, Cass’s mom, Uncle Pat and Uncle Joe and Uncle Jack and their wives and their adult children.

And if that and green beer weren’t bad enough, Dad had Irish music blaring out of the speakers, one folk song after another. Someone had loaded an iPod with the complete collection of Gaelic tearjerkers.

The old stuff, the new stuff, even the classic stuff Kit had once listened to, like the Chieftans, the Waterboys, Enya, and Sinéad O’Connor.

Kit wandered around the house, her sole purpose to escape whoever intended to corner her next because she’d had it with making cheerful, polite conversation. She didn’t want to do cheerful and polite. She was too upset. Too heartsick.

Delilah was gone. Jude had never called her or checked in.
Brianna looked as if she was still at death’s door. Tommy and Cass weren’t speaking because Cass still wanted a baby and he wouldn’t even discuss it. Meg and Jack were standing together, smiling like they had it all, but something about it didn’t feel quite right to Kit. And then, to top it all off, Mom was not supposed to make it to next weekend.

Was there anything good in the world?

To avoid further conversation with Sarah, who seemed determined to cry all night long about Mom, Kit refilled a platter of vegetables and dip and put it back on the dining room table. Refilled a bowl of chips. Added ice to the sodas in the bucket. Then dashed up the back stairs to get some exercise.

Climbing up the stairs, she saw her aunt Linda coming down. Kit smiled, waved, and passed her quickly, trying to look like she was on a pressing errand, when in truth, she just wanted to find some peace and quiet.

Kit found it in the small bedroom off the old playroom on the third floor. It’d once been Tommy’s room and it was a small room built under the eaves but it had a great big picture window, and best of all, it was dark, empty, and still.

She flung herself on Tommy’s twin boyhood bed and tried not to think about Delilah, or what horrible thing was happening to her and her mom right now. She tried not to think about how she’d maybe ruined Delilah’s life and that there was probably a right way to handle things, but of course Kit played the hero card and it backfired because Howard was out there being crazy when he should be locked up behind bars.

If only she’d waited for Jude to return. If only she’d asked Jude to help her handle it properly, maybe then Howard would have gotten the punishment he deserved—

Kit broke off her train of thought and sat up, hearing a deep vibration from down the street. It was a very distinctive vibration, and the throbbing hum of a very familiar motorcycle engine.

Jude.

Leaving the bed, she went to the upstairs window and looked out. Jude was nosing his bike to the curb, squeezing the big burnt-orange motorcycle between cars.

He was here.

For a moment all she could do was watch him. And she stared down at him, fascinated, as fascinated as she’d been the very first time she saw him. She watched him pull off his helmet, saw his long black hair spill to his shoulders, followed him as he climbed off his bike and casually walked to the front door.

Kit tore down the three flights of stairs, skipping around the corners, jumping onto the landings, feeling as breathless as the girl who’d once raced Brianna to the door every time the doorbell rang.

She’d heard the doorbell, knew it was Jude, and wanted to be the one to get there first. But it was Tommy who reached it first. Tommy with the short hair and no-nonsense attitude. Tommy who used to punch out the guys who didn’t respect his sisters.

“Is Kit here?” she heard Jude ask.

“I’m not sure,” Tommy answered. “What did you say your name was?”

“Jude.”

“Jude who?”

“Just Jude.”

“To be perfectly honest, Jude, we’re in the middle of a private party—”

“Jude!” Kit cried, jumping down the last two stairs and pushing under Tommy’s arm to wrap her arms around her man. She smiled cheerfully, brazenly, diving right into the introductions. “Tommy, this is my…boyfriend…Jude Knight. Jude, this is my brother, Tommy Brennan Jr.”

“I go by Tom,” Tommy corrected. “Welcome,” he said flatly, before walking away.

Kit watched him go, nose wrinkling. “I think he’s probably getting my dad.”

Jude reached for her, pulled her into his arms. “Then let me kiss you before my ass gets thrown out.”

“You’re not mad at me?” she whispered as he lowered his head to kiss her.

“Furious.”

“So why are you kissing me?”

“Because I still love you.”

She let him kiss her because she needed the kiss and needed him, but then she remembered Delilah.

“Delilah,” she whispered. “She’s gone.”

“She’s not gone.”

“Yes, she is. Her parents left. They took her. I lost her.”

“You didn’t lose her. I have her.” He stroked her cheek. “I came home this morning and found her sleeping at my house.”

“But Howard and Missy…they’re gone. I called the police. They checked. They said they’d cleared out.”

“And they did. But they left Delilah behind.”

“What?”

He nodded. “They packed up and left her behind.”

“They abandoned her?”

“She’s taking it hard, but that’s to be expected.”

“I want to see her. Where is she now?”

“She’s with my mom, and she’ll stay there while we try to figure out what to do next. Delilah says she wants to go home, back to Texas. Apparently there’s someone named Shey who has offered to take her. But we’ve got to check it out. Go through the proper channels.”

“But can’t Delilah come stay with me? I have room…and she knows me. I’d love to have her with me—”

“Don’t think that’d work, Kit. She’s pretty mad at you. Doesn’t want to have anything to do with you right now.”

Oh, of course. Kit nodded, stung, surprised, but not surprised. From Delilah’s perspective, Kit understood. She’d betrayed Delilah’s trust and there were so few people Delilah had trusted. “I just wanted to help her. I wanted to do something without having to report her.”

“And you did help.”

Kit pulled away from Jude. “No. Not if her own mother has left her—”

“I think for the first time in a long time, Missy tried to do the right thing.”

“How can leaving Delilah be the right thing?”

“Missy might not be able to escape from Howard, but she wanted something else for Delilah. She wanted something better. This was her way of setting her free.”

“That sounds like a nice story.”

“I think it’s the right story.”

“What makes you think so?”

“She left Delilah a letter. She put it under my door.”

Kit’s eyes burned and she stood, arms across her chest, trying not to wonder where God was in all of this. She’d always had such strong faith. Had always been so sure that all things worked together for good…