Marshall’s fingers tentatively grazed the edge of Allison’s belly. “Alive and kicking?”
Dr. Dubruski nodded. “Alive and kicking.” She lifted the monitor. “You probably won’t be able to feel it yourself for another six weeks or so.”
Allison looked down at her still flat stomach. There was something inside of her that was moving around on its own, that had its own heart-beat. It was real. The baby was really real. Tears pricked her eyes.
As she pulled on her stockings after the visit, Allison said to Marshall, “It’s hard to believe there’s a baby inside me. I mean, I know this happens to women every minute of every day, but it feels like such a miracle.”
“I can hardly believe it’s happening myself.” He leaned forward in his chair, put his hands on her hips, and gently kissed her belly.
For the rest of the day, Allison kept a smile tucked away inside. It wasn’t appropriate to smile, not now, not when they were trying to figure out how a girl had died.
In the midst of death, we are in life.
In the lobby of her office, Allison introduced herself to Starshine and to Jennifer Tate, the Children’s Services worker, a plump woman in her midtwenties. Both of them shook her hand, although the girl didn’t meet Allison’s eyes. While Allison would do the questioning, Jennifer would be on hand to serve as a second witness to Starshine’s words.
Thin as a stick, the girl wore her blonde hair in two crooked braids. She was dressed in brown polyester pants, blue sneakers, and a gray sweatshirt layered over a green turtleneck. Nothing brand name, nothing new—but no holes, either. And no obvious dirt.
Allison rejected the idea of taking the girl into one of the conference rooms. Her office was homier, less impersonal and imposing. She led them down the hall, and the three of them sat down around the small round table where Allison sometimes held meetings. She saw Starshine taking in Marshall’s framed black-and-white photos and the plaque on the wall that a group of FBI agents had given her at the conclusion of a particularly difficult case. It read CAN’T SEW, CAN’T COOK, SURE CAN LITIGATE.
Allison decided to approach this obliquely. “How long have you and your dad been living in the woods, Starshine? Do you know?”
Starshine spoke to her hands, folded neatly on the table. “Since my mother took sick. I couldn’t live with her anymore, so my father took me.”
The girl had a formal, old-fashioned way of speaking. What was it like, Allison wondered, living in the woods like some pioneer child, with no running water, no heat, no electric lights? Had she ever played Nintendo, gone to a movie, listened to an iPod? Did she care that her life was so different from that of other kids?
“How long ago was that? When you started living with your father?”
“I’m not certain. Perhaps three years ago.”
“And what’s it like living outside?” Allison asked. “Do you like it?”
Starshine looked up for just a moment. A flash of blue eyes as bright as a summer sky. “But we don’t live outside. We have a house.”
Nicole had described it as a jury-rigged lean-to, but Allison decided not to argue. “Don’t you get cold?”
A shrug. “You wear layers. And no cotton. Father says cotton kills. Once it gets wet, you never get warm.”
“Where do you go to school, Starshine?”
“My father teaches me. And we get books from Goodwill that I read.”
“Could you read something for me?”
“Yes.”
Before Allison could find her a magazine, Starshine turned and plucked a heavy law book from the shelves, opened a page at random, and began to read in a steady voice.
“Causation. Establishing that the defendant’s conduct caused the proscribed result ordinarily is not difficult. If a professional killer shoots the victim in the head and the victim dies, a pathologist can conduct an autopsy and then testify at trial that the bullet fired by the defendant brought about the victim’s death by producing massive injury to the victim’s brain.”
“That’s enough,” Allison said hastily. She and Jennifer exchanged a quick glance.
Starshine replaced the book, lining it up neatly with the others on the shelf. If she realized that the topic of the paragraph in question might possibly apply to her father, not a flicker of emotion betrayed her. She folded her hands again.
“How often do you see people around where you live?”
“Once every couple of months.” Starshine was still not meeting her eyes. “Maybe less. People hiking or running. Less often now, because it’s colder. If we don’t come out, they don’t see us. Even if we are outside, we know how to blend in and stay very still. No one knows we’re there. Father says that no one can know.”
One quick glance up. Her teeth pressed against her lower lip. “He says if anyone were to find out we lived in the woods, I would be taken away. I guess he was right.”