‘Yes.’
Meredith rolled dough for two more dough girls, gave half to Penny, then proceeded to quietly make a pink-haired dough girl. Following her lead, Penny made her own face, adding brown hair and black eyes. ‘No earrings,’ she said glumly, glancing at her mother.
‘I was eighteen when I got my ears pierced,’ Meredith confided.
‘See?’ her mother said.
‘Sucks,’ Penny grumbled. ‘Sorry, Mama. I know you don’t like that word.’
Meredith pulled some pink dough from its can and put it through the Fun Factory, arranging the hair on her second dough girl, giving her long locks. ‘What do you think?’
Penny’s mouth tightened. ‘It should be shorter. You’re doing it wrong.’
But you’re talking to me. Meredith gave a subtle shake of the head to Candace Voss when she opened her mouth to reprimand her daughter for rudeness.
‘Okay,’ Meredith said mildly. ‘Can you show me?’
Jaw compressed, Penny chopped at the pink noodles with the plastic knife that came with the kit, making the cuttings into ponytails. Throwing Meredith a glare, she added dark eyes and red dots for earrings. Surveying her work, the child shook her head, removed the red dots and flattened them. When she reapplied them, they were bigger than the ears.
Gauges. And Meredith had seen those. Recently. From her bag, she drew the Facebook photo that Isenberg had given her. No pink hair. But gauges in the ears. Red ones.
Saying nothing, Meredith watched as Penny, biting at her lip, put a small white dot on the dough-girl’s nose. ‘Should be silver,’ Penny muttered.
And one silver nose stud on the Facebook photo. Check.
Still saying nothing, Meredith sat back and observed. Penny took more of the cream-colored dough and rolled two fat cigar shapes and pressed them at angles to the girl’s chin. Arms. So far so good. Then she rolled some white dough in the shape of a cigarette.
Meredith glanced up at Candace, giving her another subtle shake of the head.
Penny continued to work, focused on whatever she was constructing. She rolled a toothpick shape from the white dough, pressed it to the middle of the arm and then pressed the cigarette shape to it.
A needle.
Penny glanced up at Meredith defiantly. ‘She told me not to tell.’
‘I understand,’ Meredith said calmly, but inside fury was roiling. ‘What else did she tell you?’
‘That I was cute.’ Penny looked away. ‘And did I want some?’
Candace sucked in a breath, covering her mouth with her hand.
Penny looked at her mother with a seriousness no child should ever experience. ‘I said no, Mama. Then I ran to my room and locked the door.’
‘What did the pink-haired lady do?’ Meredith asked, fighting like hell to keep her voice level and soothing.
‘She laughed. I could hear her when I ran.’ Penny’s eyes filled with an abrupt, intense fear. ‘She knocked on my door. Laughing. I hid under my bed.’ She looked down at the table. ‘I needed to use the potty, but the lady was still out there. So I . . . I had an accident. On the floor.’ Her little cheeks reddened with shame. ‘I cleaned it. I tried.’
Meredith smoothed a hand over Penny’s hair. ‘It’s all right. You were very brave. Nobody’s angry with you, Penny.’
‘Daddy was,’ she whispered, and the color drained from Candace’s face.
‘What happened, Penny?’ Meredith asked softly.
‘He yelled at the pink-haired lady.’ She took her hand and smashed the face of the figure she’d made, grinding her palm into the dough, ruining it.
‘He did that?’ Meredith asked.
Penny nodded, but then shook her head. ‘Not to this girl. To the other one.’
‘You want us to make her?’
‘No. I—I . . .’
‘All right,’ Meredith said. ‘You don’t have to do anything, sweetheart.’
Penny looked up, panicked. ‘I don’t know how. She was . . . sick. Skinny and sick. I don’t know how to make her.’
Candace was drawing slow steady breaths through her nose. Meredith gave her a smile of encouragement, before turning back to Penny. ‘It’s all right. You’re doing great. You and your mama.’ She smoothed her hand over Penny’s hair again. ‘Did the sick, skinny lady say anything?’
Penny nodded. ‘She said no. But . . .’ Her eyes closed. ‘They made her pray.’
Oh God, Meredith thought. Candace made a choked noise, but continued to sit like a statue. ‘They made her pray to God?’ Meredith asked carefully. ‘Like in church?’
‘On her knees. They kept saying that.’
Meredith drew in a breath, held it, then eased it back out. ‘They?’ she asked, with only the mildest of curiosity. Inside she was cursing Broderick Voss to a fiery hell.
‘Men. My daddy’s friends. I didn’t like them. They used mean voices.’
‘You heard them? Did you also see them?’
She wagged her head slowly. ‘No,’ she said earnestly. ‘I was hiding under the bed. I was scared. I didn’t come out until they all went home.’
Meredith smiled, hiding her relief. ‘And then what happened?’
‘I was hungry and Mama was gone. Just for one night,’ she added quickly. ‘Mama didn’t leave me before that. Or after.’
‘I understand,’ Meredith assured her. ‘Your daddy? Did he leave you?’
‘Lots of times,’ Penny said with a shrug that Meredith was sure she intended to be careless. But it wasn’t. ‘He don’t like me.’
Candace’s eyes filled with tears, but she remained silent.
‘Why do you think that, Penny?’ Meredith asked her.
‘I just do. He was busy. Always. He didn’t want to play or even watch TV or DVDs. He told the men that night that they had to be quiet. That I’d tell on him and then they’d never be able to have a party again. That I had a big mouth. He said I was a little . . . a bad name. Like a witch. I’m not allowed to say that name.’ Her chin trembled and her eyes welled, like her mama’s. ‘So I didn’t want to tell. Because then . . .’ She trailed off.
‘Because then it would be true?’ Meredith supplied and Penny nodded miserably. ‘Penny, if I tell you something, will you believe me?’
Penny sniffled. ‘Depends.’
‘See? That means you are smart. And you did everything right. Can I hug you?’
Penny nodded, tears streaking down her cheeks. ‘I want him to like me.’ A sob broke free. ‘Why don’t he like me?’
Meredith hated this part of her job – when babies grew up too damn fast. She wrapped her arms around the sobbing child. ‘I don’t know.’
‘My daddy’s hateful!’ Penny yelled. ‘And I hate him!’
And that was an issue for another day. Meredith pulled Penny to her lap, rocked her through until the sobs became sniffles, then hiccups.
‘I hate him,’ Penny whispered.
‘That’s okay.’
Penny looked up suspiciously. ‘I’m not s’posed to hate. The other lady said that.’
‘The other therapist?’
Penny nodded. ‘She wasn’t nice. She didn’t have Play-Doh, either.’
‘Well, that’s important, having Play-Doh.’ Meredith took tissues from her bag and dried Penny’s cheeks. ‘You can hate, Penny. That’s okay. For a little while. Not forever.’
‘Because it’s not nice,’ Penny said glumly. ‘I know.’
‘Not what I was gonna say,’ Meredith chided gently. ‘I was gonna say that hate uses up part of your soul. That’s the thing that makes you Penny and not somebody else. Your soul is kind of like your stuffed animals. You can only fit so many on your bed, right?’
‘Right,’ Penny said warily.
‘Are you going to waste valuable space on your bed with toys you don’t like?’
Penny considered it. ‘No,’ she decided. ‘That would be dumb. I’d put the ones I don’t like in my closet, like the stuffed bear my daddy got me in Germany. It was hard like a rock. So I put it in the closet. My soul has a closet where I put the hate and mean things?’
Meredith smiled at her, then pulled her tight for a hug. ‘You are so very smart, Penny Voss. That is exactly right.’
‘What happens when the closet fills up?’
‘See, another very smart question. What do you do when your real closet fills up?’