“Does she need to go to the hospital?” I whispered, not trusting myself anymore to make a decision.
Naomi shook her head. “There’s a lot of blood, but the cut isn’t big enough for stitches. I think she’ll heal on her own well enough,” she said. Neither of us said anything about contacting DCFS. I looked at Naomi and I could see the guilt in her eyes. We both should have known better. The abuser isn’t always the obvious choice.
After Kenneth brought the ice, he helped Naomi carry Talitha to one of the couches and she reclined there, very stoically saying she was fine and she just wanted to go get dressed and eat lunch with everyone else. Sarah stayed where she was, sitting like a child on the floor by the door with her legs splayed out in front of her.
Rebecca came back from Carolyn’s house then. I watched her reaction when she saw Talitha’s face. She whitened and looked at Sarah, the weight of guilt on her features familiar to me now.
She’d known, I thought. All this time, she’d known and covered for her sister—no, her daughter whom she did not dare acknowledge as such.
“I fell,” Talitha said in a very practiced tone. Clearly, she knew better than to point a finger at her mother and my heart burst at the thought that she had lived her whole life like this, knowing that even adults who had seen what happened would likely not take her side.
“I see,” Rebecca said. “Is there anything special you need? Some Tylenol? A juice drink so you don’t have to sit up to eat?”
“I just want regular food,” Talitha said. “I’m hungry.”
“Grilled cheese sandwiches?” asked Rebecca, brightening. “With potato chips?”
“And dip,” Talitha said, nodding with a little smile on her face.
I had the sickening sense that this was a routine between them, a favorite treat in exchange for her silence and “good” behavior despite what had been done to her.
No wonder the poor girl had been so attached to her pet cat. No wonder she had wanted so much to believe that Lucy would be in heaven with her. The way that Mormons talked about forever families must be terrifying to a girl like Talitha who was abused and encouraged to be silent by all the adults around her who were supposed to be her eternal family. The cat had been her buffer against all of that.
But did anyone here really want to spend eternity with anyone else? I wasn’t convinced that they did.
“I’ll set the table,” Sarah offered, standing up at last, and straightening her dress. She was strangely and suddenly calm. She went into the kitchen with Rebecca, leaving me alone with Kenneth, Naomi, and Talitha.
I couldn’t help but revise in my head the story of her miserable life here that Sarah had recited for me in her painting shed. Stephen might have had good reason to take away Talitha when she was a baby and give her to the other wives to be looked after—maybe Sarah had been dangerous to her baby. And the minor infractions for which Stephen had meted out his punishments were perhaps not so minor. I had never liked Stephen Carter, but I had to remember that at least Sarah’s view of him was not to be totally relied on.
“Kenneth,” I heard Naomi say, “we have to do something now. Something legally binding, not just taking her in for a few weeks.” She was trying to speak quietly enough that Talitha didn’t pay attention, but I could see Talitha had gone tense with alertness.
“She comes home with us today. Permanently,” Kenneth said firmly. “We can figure out the legalities of the adoption as we go.”
My emotions swelled in that moment. He and Naomi were very young and it would be difficult for them financially to manage a ten-year-old girl while they were still starting out. But Talitha was clearly so emotionally connected to Naomi. It was the right solution for her, and I found I cared much less about what either Sarah or Rebecca thought of it.
“Do you want to come live with us, Talitha?” Naomi asked the little girl, walking over to the couch and gently pulling the ice pack away from her face.
“But you don’t live together, right? You’re not married yet, are you?” Talitha said.
It was quite a practical question.
“We could move up our wedding date, couldn’t we, Kenneth?” Naomi said.
“We’ll get married tomorrow if we need to,” Kenneth said gravely.
I didn’t know if it could happen that quickly in Utah. But they could make a quick trip to Vegas, I supposed. My heart sank at the idea of them getting married without me and Kurt and the rest of our sons to witness the ceremony. But a child’s welfare was at stake here. Besides, we could do a second wedding or a reception later that everyone could publicly cry and laugh at.
“We don’t have any space for her right now,” Naomi pointed out. “I have my one bedroom, and you have a one bedroom. Where would Talitha sleep?”