What had she been thinking? What did she know about where Zoe would go? Alice would finish chemo in just over an hour, and Kate’s hopes that she would never have to know what had happened had long since diminished. Alice would certainly need to know that her daughter had urinated all over the floor at school. And the next thing she’d need to know was why Kate had come barreling down here without telling her what was going on first. The funny thing was, Kate didn’t have a good answer.
Why had she done it?
She knew she should head back to the hospital now, but instead she continued crawling the streets in her car, looking for a teenage girl whose life was in tatters. She had just headed down a street that she had traveled down twice already when her phone rang.
She snatched it up. “This is Kate.”
“What happened to you?”
It was David. She tried not to sound disappointed. “Sorry?”
“Our lunch date?”
It came back to her then. “Oh no! David, I forgot.”
Silence.
“Why didn’t you call me from the restaurant?” she asked, turning down a side street. There was a person walking along the side of the road and she craned her neck. A middle-aged woman.
“I assumed you’d been held up at the hospital,” David said. “Then an hour went by, and I had to go.”
She thought of him sitting alone at the table, waiting for her to turn up. “Oh gosh. Honey, I’m so sorry. I was on my way there, and then…” Kate noticed a girl sloping along the side of the road, a blue sweater around her waist. She drove up beside her. “David … I’m sorry, can I call you back?”
More silence.
“David? Are you—?”
But he was already gone.
Kate hung up the phone and put down her window. “Zoe?”
The girl glanced over at the car. It was Zoe, all right. Her face was red and tearstained.
“It is you.” Kate released the breath she must have been holding for the past hour. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
Zoe looked bewildered. “You have?”
“Yes!” Kate pulled to the side of the road and jumped out of the car. She gave Zoe a quick hug, which she neither engaged in nor threw off. “The school called your mother while she was in chemo and I took the call. They told me what happened. Are you … okay?”
Zoe started to nod, even as she dissolved into fresh tears. “It was just … it was my turn to speak and I … froze. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My hands were sweating and my heart was racing. And I … I was concentrating on breathing and I didn’t even feel it happen. It used to happen when I was a little kid, but not in years. The entire class saw me pee my pants.”
Kate nodded, registering that this was, perhaps, the longest sentence she’d heard Zoe say. “What did you do?”
“I bolted.”
“And you’ve just been wandering the streets since then?”
She nodded. “I wanted to go home but … Mom’s just had chemo and I couldn’t go home to her like this, not today. My best friend hates me, so I couldn’t go to her place. And I don’t have anyone else, so I really don’t have anywhere to go.” She looked at Kate and her face crumpled again. “What am I going to do?”
Kate looked at her small, tearstained face, and her heart broke a little. I don’t have anyone else. The words were as wretched as they were factual.
“You’re coming home with me,” Kate said, tucking the girl tightly under her arm as if her sheer proximity could erase that one, tragic truth.
*
Kate called the school principal to let her know she’d found Zoe, and now Zoe was tucked up on a chair in the sunroom wearing a pair of Kate’s sweatpants.
“Your mom should be finished with her chemo by now,” Kate said. “Why don’t I take you to the hospital? I’m sure once you speak to her—”
“I can’t tell her this.”
“Zoe—”
“She shouldn’t have stress, right, when she’s having treatment? I read that on the Internet. It’s bad for the cancer.”
Sometimes Kate hated the damn Internet.
“Your principal said you should have a few days at home,” Kate said. “So your mom is going to know something is up. I really think you should tell her what’s going on.”
“No,” she repeated.
Kate didn’t think she’d heard Zoe sound so firm. She had a sudden flash of Alice saying the same thing about Zoe when she was diagnosed with cancer.
“You need to talk to someone, Zoe,” she said. “Before you go back to school—”
“I’m not ever going back there. Ever.”
“Well, I agree you shouldn’t go for a few days,” Kate said carefully. “As for ‘ever,’ you don’t need to make a decision about that right now.”
Zoe lifted her head suddenly and Kate saw that her eyes were filled with tears. “I really wanted to be a good speaker,” she said. “And now I never will be.”
Kate moved closer and let Zoe fall against her. She wanted to tell her something positive—like if you wanted something badly enough, it was bound to happen. Problem was, in her heart of hearts, Kate didn’t know if that was true.
42
Sonja lay on the couch in her pajama pants and socks and a big comfy sweater. Her feet were in George’s lap and the television was on. This was her happy place.
“Should we start the next season of Dexter?” she asked, sitting up and reaching for the remote. She’d been dreaming of this all day as she rushed around at work. Escapism.
George gave her a sidelong look that sent a chill through her.
“I thought we could do something else.”
Sonja’s stomach clenched. Surely not? She was still tender from the evening before. In the past, after a night like that, she’d be safe for a few days at least. These days it felt as though she was never safe.
“George,” she started in a wobbly, unconvincing voice. “I’m not really in the mood.”
But George was already rising up over her, pushing her onto her back. At least it was the couch, she thought. No sharp angles or surfaces. But even as she had the thought, his hand tangled in her hair, and she realized what was coming.
Suddenly Dagmar’s words came back to her. When things start to get ugly—make sure you speak up. Tell him you don’t like what he’s doing and if he continues, you will leave.
“George,” Sonja said. “Please don’t.”
Too late. He yanked—sending a blinding pain into her scalp, so strong that she involuntarily bucked him off. He rolled onto the floor. His shock was so complete that she was able to slide out of his grasp and off the sofa, just out of his reach.
“I asked you not to do that,” Sonja said. “I don’t feel like it, and you were hurting me.”
George’s eyes widened slightly. It had just rushed out of her, but now that she’d said it, she wanted to choke it back in. It had sounded so prim. She watched him take it in for a moment before cocking his head.
“Are you serious?” he said.
Sonja hesitated, then nodded.
His lip curled slightly at one side and Sonja’s heart started to thud. In his lap, she noticed his hands were curled into fists. George had never hit her—at least not in anger. There had been the odd slap, or spanking, during sex. He’d held her down too roughly. But he’d never outright hit her.
He stood.
“What is going on with you, Sonja?” he asked quietly.