I did not want them getting distracted by talking to Hunter. I didn’t want them to get distracted by anything. And I did not want them digging into the things that happened in this house.
Another curious look came across her face. “So, Witt punched Hunter and Hunter slashed his tires, right?”
“Yes. And after all that, I asked to live with our father. I thought that maybe that would finally be enough.”
“No one said anything about that—and I didn’t see any court filings. I went through the entire case history. Did your father ever file a motion for custody?”
I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe they didn’t know. And now I would have to tell them and they would have to believe me.
“My father called the lawyer he had used in the divorce and she sent a letter to my mother’s lawyer threatening to file a motion to change the custody arrangements if she didn’t agree to it. My mother went crazy. I guess she started calling my father and making all kinds of threats, things she would tell the court about him that weren’t true. But he said he didn’t care. At least, that’s what he told me he said.
“We had been at his house for the weekend, me and Emma and Witt. We were all talking about it. I was relieved. Witt was sort of calm about it, like of course this was what had to be done. Emma seemed excited but in a nervous way. Like she knew it was going to incite our mother and she wanted it to but was also a little scared.”
“You weren’t nervous?” Dr. Winter asked. Her mind seemed busy. Thinking.
“Of course. But I thought that I had our father behind us that time.”
“So what happened?”
“We got back to our mother’s house. She was pleasant but also cold as ice. She made us a nice dinner and we all sat in silence. Hunter was gone, back to school, and Mr. Martin was in the city for some event. So the three of us just sat there, staring at our food, eating and not talking.
“I went to bed around eleven. I woke up at two thirty to the sound of Emma screaming. I ran into her room.” I stopped there. It was hard to tell this part. To remember it.
“What happened, Cass? What happened to Emma that night?”
“She was there. Mrs. Martin. She was in Emma’s bed, straddling her. She had a pair of scissors in her hand … she had cut off her hair … her beautiful dark hair that fell almost to her waist. Oh God.…”
I was shaking my head and staring at my folded hands, which were squeezed together so hard, my knuckles were turning white.
“Emma woke up after the first cut, but it didn’t matter. Mrs. Martin had managed to take off almost an entire side, right above Emma’s ear.
“I screamed, ‘Stop! It wasn’t her, it was me! I asked to leave, not Emma!’ But she didn’t stop. Emma was trapped under the blankets and Mrs. Martin’s legs, so she punched at her. She gave her a black eye. Mrs. Martin threw the scissors on the floor and got off the bed. When she was leaving, she looked at me and said, ‘That’s what you get for betraying me again!’
“Emma cried all night, cutting off the rest of her hair herself to make it even. I stayed with her but she wouldn’t even look at me. ‘This is all your fault!’ she kept saying. The next day, she pretended to go to school but walked into town and sat outside a hair salon until they opened. They tried to fix her hair the best they could. I didn’t go to school either. I went to see my father and I told him not to file the papers. I told him I’d made a big mistake and begged him to stop.”
Dr. Winter did not know what to say. If they had known this story, if anyone had known, maybe they would have looked harder for us, and in the right places. They had never seen or heard about Emma’s short hair. I knew then that this album had not been among the stack three years ago when they came to this house to look for us. It had already been buried in the trunk upstairs where I had found it the first night I returned, under piles of neatly folded blankets. I thought it should be here, with the other nice photos from our childhood, so I brought it down.
“Did you tell anyone? How did your father not figure this out?”
“Our father sees what he wants to see. We gave him an out and he took it. He’s not a fighter. He loves us, and he tries. But he’s not a fighter.”
Dr. Winter looked at me closely. “So who knew? Did you or Emma tell anyone, try to get help?”
I shook my head. “My mother told Mr. Martin because he heard the screaming and came out of their room. I don’t think any of us told anyone else.”
“Cass,” Dr. Winter said. She took my hand again. “I’m very sorry this happened.”
I wanted to squeeze it. I wanted to fall right into her and let go of everything I had been holding. But I would not be weak.
“That was the last time I asked to leave.”
“And how were things the next day? When Emma came home with her new haircut and the custody challenge had stopped?”
“We came home at the time school got out. Our mother was in the kitchen. She’d made us brownies. We all sat down together, ate the brownies, and she said something like, ‘Nothing will ever tear us apart. Do you understand?’ Emma and I nodded. And that was that.”
I must have been very bad at hiding my feelings because she asked me then, “Why did you come here, Cass?”
“This is my home,” I answered. But that was a lie. I came here because it was my only hope of finding Emma.
“You could have gone to your father. You could have gone to Witt. Don’t you see that I can help you, we can all help you if you let us? Don’t you want to find Emma?”
That was the moment I felt strong again. I looked at her calmly. “I am,” I said. “I am finding Emma.”
And then I said what I had been waiting to say with my mother gone from the room.
“Has anyone spoken to Lisa Jennings?”
“The school counselor? Yes. We interviewed her extensively three years ago. She didn’t have much to say that was helpful, though she felt she knew you girls somewhat. Why?”
“She talked to Emma a lot that fall. I had a class across the hall from her office, and three times I saw Emma come out of there. I bet there were a lot more times. Maybe she was helping Emma. Maybe she’s the one who found the Pratts.”
Dr. Winter was very surprised. “Why wouldn’t she tell us if she knew something that important?”
I thought it was obvious, but I spelled it out anyway. “Well, if she put Emma in touch with the Pratts, she could get in trouble, couldn’t she?”
It was then that Mrs. Martin came back in the room. She was suspicious because her back was very straight and her eyes very narrow.
“Did you find anything useful?” she asked.
Dr. Winter closed the photo album with the pictures of Emma’s short hair.
I looked at my mother and smiled, because she was about to find out that she was not the smartest woman in the world. And I had just raised the stakes in a game she didn’t even know she was playing.
TWELVE
Dr. Winter