Helpless

Chapter 5

Tom leaned up against the doorjamb to Jill’s bedroom and watched his daughter sift through a large box of photographs. In Tom’s mind, he saw it as the room of a six-year-old girl. That was the last time he’d been inside the house. It was nighttime, but Tom could see the pink painted walls were now faded. The framed picture of colorful fish and the one of a lush green field with a smiling sun and rainbow on the horizon were replaced with posters of the U.S. women’s national soccer team and half-dressed pop stars. The dollhouse he’d bought for Jill’s fifth birthday was still in the same corner of the room, but now it was buried beneath an avalanche of her clothes.

Tall and long limbed, Jill looked like any teenager might, dressed in dark jeans, a low-cut white T-shirt underneath a partially zipped gray Abercrombie and Fitch hooded sweatshirt. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, flattering her slender neck and showing off ears that were both studded with two sets of sparkling earrings. Tom figured the boys would call her cute, when what they really meant (but were not yet mature enough to say) was beautiful.

Jill closed one box of photographs and opened another. Jill’s eyes were red from crying, and Tom’s stomach was in knots. She needed a picture to display on a table beside her mother’s casket at the funeral and was having a hard time deciding.

Tom had taken care of most of the funeral arrangements himself. Kelly’s parents were dead. Her friends, he knew, were bar rats and riffraff who might or might not bother to show and pay their respects.

“What about this one?” Jill held up the picture, which Tom took to be her way of inviting him into the room.

Tom sat on the edge of the bed. Jill handed Tom a picture of Kelly sitting on the living room couch. Sun pouring through the window behind lit Kelly’s hair in an angelic way.

“When was that taken?” Tom asked, handing the picture back to Jill.

“A couple years ago at Easter,” Jill said. “Mom liked the way she looked in that dress.”

“Yeah, she looks great,” Tom agreed. “The older you get, the more of her I see in you. You’ve got her eyes.”

Jill gave him a pained expression and began to cry.

Every fiber of Tom’s being wanted to hug his daughter. Pull her into his arms and hold her tight. But he was afraid of how she’d react. Instead, he bent down, reached into the box, and pulled out Jill’s kindergarten class picture.

“Hey, I remember this,” he said. “You lost your first tooth the morning this was taken.”

“You remember that?”

“Of course I do,” Tom said. “I even remember the tooth fairy gave you five dollars for that tooth.”

Jill looked up at her father through reddened eyes. “You always get more for the first one,” she said, quoting to him the same explanation he had given her for that windfall payment. Jill’s lower lip quivered the way it always did whenever she fought back tears, but this was a battle she wasn’t about to win.

“Do you think she’s here?” Jill asked, looking about the room. “Watching us?”

Tom nodded and looked to an empty spot in the room where her spirit could be. “Yeah. I think she’s watching us.”

“I can’t stop thinking about what happened,” Jill said. “How scared she must have been.”

Tom had anticipated it would be difficult for Jill to return home. She had been grieving for only thirty-six hours, a blink of time’s eye. He had tried to undo any signs of struggle, clean up the disarray left in the wake of the police investigation. He put books back in their bookcase. Moved furniture that seemed out of place. Even fixed the screen door that Kelly had broken in her haste to get away. But he could feel Jill’s panic as she entered. She moved from room to room, making several cautious glances over her shoulder, as though afraid whoever had attacked her mother was still lurking somewhere in the house.

“What do you think happened?” Jill asked.

Reflexively, Tom gripped the edge of the bed, bracing himself. “I think your mom walked in on a robbery,” he said, hoping he sounded reassuring. “I think there was a struggle. Your mom managed to get away. She ran. What happened to her after that was a horrible accident. But I don’t think she was targeted. I don’t think whoever did this is coming back, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, honey. I’m sure.” Tom paused. He’d been curious about something from the moment he’d set foot in the house. “I noticed there’s some guy’s stuff around,” Tom said. “Clothes and such. Was your mother living with somebody?”

Jill shook her head. “No. Not really. But this guy Alfonso from the bar was basically using our home like his personal storage unit.”

“Did your mom and Alfonso ever fight?” Tom asked. That was another way of asking whether Alfonso could be a suspect.

Again, Jill shook her head. “No. But I do know that Alfonso couldn’t have been the one who broke in.”

“Why?”

“Alfonso’s in jail. He got busted for his third DWI, like, a month ago.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But we thought he was sober. He was going to AA and everything. He even got into mountain biking. His relapse really shook Mom up.”

“I didn’t know,” Tom said.

A long silence followed. Then Jill said, “Do you think they’ll catch whoever did this?”

“I hope so,” Tom replied. “And I’ll do everything I can to make sure they do.”

Tom could see that his daughter was dwelling on the terrifying possibility that the crime would go unsolved. He searched his mind and found a change of subject. “I took care of ordering the flowers,” he said. “Purple lilacs. Her favorite.”

Jill looked surprised. “You know Mom’s favorite flower?” she asked.

“There was a time,” Tom said, “even though we were divorced, that I loved your mother very much. Honey, I wish I could bring her back for you. I really do. It hurts me more than I can say to see you in so much pain.”

“I miss her.”

Jill’s tears came after that, whole body-shaking convulsions. It became hard for her to breathe.

Tom didn’t hesitate. He got down on her bedroom floor and held her, and she let him. They embraced, kneeling on the blue carpet that he had laid down himself so many years ago.

The moment passed. Tom got a box of Kleenex from the bathroom. Jill’s tears went from a river to a trickle. They returned their attention to the pictures. For a while, neither spoke. Jill left the room briefly and returned, carrying with her the laptop computer from the kitchen. She had some pictures in iPhoto to go through.

Odd the computer wasn’t taken in the robbery, thought Tom.

“Any of these?” Tom asked as Jill switched from picture to picture, as if changing channels on the TV. There were pictures of Jill and Kelly on a hike, apple picking in the fall, skating in winter, swimming in summer. None of the pictures included Tom. It was like watching vignettes from a life that he could have lived.

“Some of them are okay,” said Jill. “But if she doesn’t have a cigarette in her hand, she’s got a drink, or she’s wearing something that isn’t really appropriate.” She grimaced and covered her mouth with her hands. “I can’t believe I just said something bad about Mom.”

Tom rested a hand on his daughter’s shoulder and felt a lump in his throat. He fought back his own tears so that he could stay strong for her. “Honey, it’s all right to say whatever you feel. Your mom wasn’t perfect, but none of us are. Sure, I wish she didn’t smoke, but I’m glad you don’t. And I wish she didn’t drink as much as she did, either, but never for a moment, not a single moment, did I think she wasn’t taking good care of you. And as for her clothes, well, I think the picture on the couch looks great, if you like it, too.”

Jill nodded. “That’s the picture we’ll use,” she said. She got quiet, and Tom gave her the time she needed to speak again. “Did you know that Mom and I got into a huge fight last year, when I told her I was going to try out for the soccer team?”

Tom shook his head. “No. But I can imagine why.”

“She didn’t want me to have anything to do with you. She really hated you. I mean, I don’t think I ever heard her say one nice thing about you. Not ever.”

“So why did you try out?”

“I’ll show you.” Jill got up and went over to her closet. She came back holding a stack of colorful cards and letters. Of course, Tom recognized them; he had written them all. Jill dropped the stack on the floor, next to where Tom was kneeling.

“This is why,” she said. “All these letters and cards you sent me. And I knew that everybody on the soccer team loved you. The players loved you. The parents loved you. I guess I finally got curious. It didn’t make sense to me that the person who wrote these letters was the same person my mom couldn’t stand.”

Tom swallowed hard as his throat closed.

She had read them. He had reached her.

“And how do you feel about me now? We’ve got one season under our belts. Are you ready to trust me?”

Jill fixed her father with a cold stare. “You’ve really been there for me since… all this. I just don’t get it. Why did Mom hate you so much?” she asked.

There it was again, the question Tom could never answer. “Sometimes people just turn against each other,” he said. “I wish I could give you a better reason, but I can’t.”

“Did you hate her?”

Tom took in a sharp breath. “No.”

“Would you ever hurt her?”

“No,” Tom said again. He scooped up the stack of letters and cards and held them up for Jill to see. “Look, I know we haven’t been close. I know your mom has said a lot of bad things about me over the years. But you’ve got to believe one thing. I would never—ever—hurt your mother. Ever.”

Jill thought. Then she just nodded. Even though she didn’t say anything, Tom could tell that she believed him. If anything, all those cards and letters had made her believe.

Tom glanced at the montage of digital pictures still showing on Jill’s laptop. It was time, he decided, to become part of the photographs of her life. He could no longer wait for their relationship to heal itself. It was time to stop believing that being her coach was the closest he’d ever get to being her father.

They didn’t speak for a long moment. All was quiet except for a dog’s loud barking. The barking seemed to be coming from the neighbor’s yard. Jill looked puzzled as she stood up, went to the bedroom window, and peered into the backyard.

“That’s Rusty,” she said, craning her neck sideways to get a better look outside.

“Haven’t had the pleasure to meet him yet,” said Tom.

“Rusty’s about the quietest dog you could even imagine. Mr. McCaskey’s always joking that he wanted a guard dog and got himself a big pussy cat instead.”

Tom’s body tensed, but thanks to his navy training, Jill couldn’t possibly have noticed. “Bet it’s a coyote or fox,” he said, hoping he sounded certain. “We’ve had plenty of those animals around here lately.”

“You think?”

Tom got quiet. He went over to her bedroom window, pushed the curtain aside, and peered out into the darkness.

A Navy SEAL was taught how to tune his night vision the way a bodybuilder learned how to put on muscle. Tom knew better than to discount the something he thought he saw out back as nothing. He saw movement in the woods.

“Yeah,” said Tom. “I’m sure it’s nothing. But I’ll go check, anyway. Okay?” It was probably nothing, he reassured himself.

“Okay,” Jill said, sounding tentative.

“Just stay here in your bedroom. I’ll be right back.” He didn’t bother to tell Jill to lock the doors. Rather than frighten her for no good reason, Tom locked the back door himself. He checked the front door after closing it behind him. It was locked, too.