A Rage for Revenge

33 The Dark Places

I was watching when Holly fell and skinned her knee. She choked back the tears, trying very hard not to cry. She stood up quickly and pretended that nothing had happened. She hadn't seen me. She wiped at her nose and kept going, limping slightly.

"Hey, Punkin'," I called.

She saw me and looked startled. She hadn't known I was there. "Are you all right?"

"Uh-huh," she said. She brushed the hair back out of her eyes. Her expression was that frozen one that children wear while they're putting up with adults, while they're waiting to be dismissed back to their own pursuits.

"Oh," I said. "'Cause B-Jay said there was some fresh strawberry ice cream left over and I thought you might want to share some with me."

She shook her head. Her eyes were brimming with tears. I had a sense that she wanted to cry, or at least wanted to be hugged, but she was too proud to let anyone know.

I put down the hoe I was working with-loosening the soil around the tomato plants-and hunkered down in front of her. "What's the matter, sweetheart?"

"Nothin'."

"You got a hug for me?" She shook her head again.

"Okay." Sometimes the best thing is to just let it be. "Would you like to help me?"

She sniffled and nodded.

"Good. Okay, go get yourself a hoe, just like this one." I picked up mine again to show her.

"Where is it?"

"In the shed over there."

She turned and looked. "Uh . . . "

"Go on and get it." She hesitated. "Well, go on." She started to say something, then shook her head. "Are you okay?" I asked.

She didn't answer. She began hobbling toward the tool shed, but as she got closer to it she began to slow down. She stopped in front of the open door and stood staring into it. She was trembling visibly.

"What's the matter?"

"It's dark in there!" she said. The way she said it, I knew that it was more than the dark.

I was starting to get annoyed. I almost snapped at her, then caught myself in time; something wasn't right.

"Holly?"

She didn't hear me. She was staring into the shed like a paralyzed bird. What kind of snake did she see?

"Holly?"

She was starting to shake all over.

My army reflexes took over-I dropped to a crouch and came running at a sideways angle, carrying my hoe as a weapon, just in case.

There was nothing in the shed. I didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

I turned to Holly. She was almost catatonic. I threw the hoe aside and dropped to a squat in front of her; I grabbed her by the shoulders-she had gone rigid. "Holly?"

No response. What the . . . ?

I swept her into my arms and held her tight. I picked her up and carried her away from the shed, carried her around the corner of the house so it was completely out of her sight. She still didn't relax.

"Come on, Holly, it's all right now. Jim is here." I sat down on the low brick fence that divided the paved part of the patio from the rest of the yard. I held her on my lap and hugged her close and started talking to her as gently as I could. "It's okay, sweetheart, it's okay. Big Jim is here. Everything is all right."

She sniffled something.

"What was that?"

"I'm sorry," she sniffed. "Please don't hit me."

"Huh? I'm not going to hit you."

"I won't do it again. I promise."

"Hey, baby . . . It's all right. This is Jim, remember?" She was still rigid with fear. I held her out in front of me so she could see my face. "It's Jim, big ugly Jim. Remember me?"

She blinked at me and looked startled. And then she did break down and cry.

She climbed back into my lap and I held her tightly the whole time and stroked her hair and hugged her and told her everything was going to be all right. I hugged her and loved her and let her cry all over me. She sobbed quietly and steadily, only occasionally hiccuping. She didn't try to hold it back. Once-she wiped at her eyes and looked as if she were trying to choke it down, but I hugged her again and told her to let the rest of it out. "Let it all out, sweetheart. It's easier than carrying it around. Come on, Holly, that's my girl."

Gradually her sobs began to lessen and she lay limp in my arms, a tiny rag doll of a person, so thin, so very thin and small.

How fragile she was.

I shifted my position on the fence ever so gently, and her arms tightened around me. "It's all right," I said. "I'm not letting go." We sat there for a long time, me holding her and she hugging me.

Finally, she said, "I was so scared."

"I know," I said. "I saw."

"But I'm not scared any more."

"You're a good girl." I stroked her hair.

"Not while you're with me, I'm not scared."

"Mmm," I said. "Well, you don't have to scared ever again."

She sniffed, wiping her nose against my shirt. "I thought you were going away."

"No, I'm not going away. Not while you need me."

"But I thought . . . "

"Shhh," I said, hugging her. "How could I leave someone as pretty and sweet as you?"

And even as I said it, I knew I was lying.

How could I promise to stay with this child when I hadn't kept every other promise I'd ever made?

I was a deserter from the army. I'd betrayed Jason and his Tribe: Not a good track record. I would probably betray these people too, before I was through. And I'd have a good reason for it too.

Holly rested her head against my chest then and held one of my hands in both of hers. She believed in me. The poor dumb kid, she believed in me more than I believed in my own self.

Oh, hell.

I stroked her hair and remembered how much we'd loved the children in Jason's Tribe. Or had we really? Hadn't we just used them as little slaves? We'd had them serve the meals and clear the tables and wash the dishes and do the laundry and sweep the floors; and we'd justified it all by calling it "teaching them responsibility."

I couldn't deny that they were happy children. They laughed and sang and played so joyously, it almost made me forget that humanity was an endangered species.

There was no doubt that those children were loved, but-

-that was the problem.

Some of the ways they were loved.

I guess I was guilty of that too.

I hadn't wanted to, I really hadn't, not at first, but they were so insistent, all of them, even the children said they liked it, there wasn't any shame in it, you had to let go of stupid things like shame before you could play together in bed, and after a while, it just became the easy thing to do, to be one of the Tribe.

And after a while, it didn't feel wrong at all.

But what if they were wrong? And if they were, what did that make me'? A deserter. A renegade. And a child molester.

It made me uncomfortable to sit and hold Holly so close. I wanted to hug her because children need hugging; but I was afraid to hug her because . . .

. . . because Jason and his Tribe believed that it was all right for children and teenagers to have sex with each other and with adults if they wanted, and I was afraid that I might forget where I was and who I was with. I was afraid that I would hurt one of these children, and they'd already all been hurt enough.

It was this simple. I was the wrong person to be entrusted with the care of these children, no matter how much I loved them. And I couldn't tell Betty-John, because they needed me here more than they needed to know the terrible truth about me.

Neither Holly nor I had said anything for a long time. I had just sat there, thinking and stroking her hair and making cooing noises and occasionally kissing the top of her head.

I guess I knew it already. I was going to have to leave here. It would be best for everybody.

"Jim?"

"Yeah, Punkin'?"

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"I'm sorry about the . . . the tool shed. I got scared."

"That's all right, honey. I get scared too sometimes. There're some pretty ugly tools in that shed."

"Uh-uh." She didn't amplify what she meant.

For some reason, I thought of Dr. Davidson and his calm, patient voice. He could ask you anything and you wouldn't be afraid to answer him. You wanted him to know everything. You wanted him to understand.

I wished I could talk to him again.

I wished Holly could talk to him. Hell, I wished Holly could talk to me. I put on my best Dr. Davidson voice.

"Who hit you?" I said.

"Mommy did," she whispered quietly.

"Mommy hit you?" I sounded surprised. "Why did Mommy hit you?"

"Because I wouldn't stay in the closet. Mommy told me to hide in the closet and be real quiet and I did-for a little while; but then I got all scared and . . . " She stopped to wipe her nose on my shirt again. She sniffled hard, and for a moment I thought she was going to start crying again, but she didn't. She blurted quickly, "I opened the door and started to ask Mommy if it was all right to come out, if the game was over yet, and she slapped me hard and pushed me back into the closet as hard as she could and told me to shut up and then she slammed the door and locked it or pushed something in front of the door, because I couldn't open it to get out, and I tried, real hard, I screamed loud as I could too, but nobody heard me or came-and then . . . ," Holly gulped, hard, ". . . and then I heard Mommy screaming. Real bad, mister. Mommy was screaming like she was being hurt real bad. And it went on for a long time. And the other thing was screaming too, the big red thing-and I pounded on the doors and hollered to let me out so I could help my mommy, but nobody did. And I couldn't get out of the closet. It was all broken anyway. I was in the closet for so long-I think two or three months, I don't know for sure. It was so dark in there, mister. Please, is my mommy all right? Can I see her now?"

"Shh, sweetheart. Shh." I held her and stroked her hair and rocked her in my lap and said, "Shh, Jim is here now. Jim is here."

So that explained Holly and why she was afraid of the tool shed, and the closets in the house, and all of the other dark enclosed places in the world.

Abruptly, she looked up at me. "You're not going away?"

"I love you, sweetheart." And it was true. I did.

And even if I didn't, how could I leave her now?