“This is a traumatic experience for the girls to go through at such a tender age.”
“They’ve learned a valuable lesson,” Kim said. “The police have looked into it and we’re not responsible. It was really unfortunate, but it’s time we all moved forward.”
“Kim . . .” Emily said, then paused, flustered. “I’m sorry, but I’m surprised you’re taking this so lightly.”
She sounded like the schoolteacher she was, a schoolteacher expressing her disappointment in the fifth grader who colored both Utah and Arizona orange when shading her map of America.
“I’m not taking it lightly.” Kim’s voice was controlled, but she was clearly affronted. “Jeff and I are very upset. We’re disappointed by Hannah’s behavior and we’re dealing with it. Lisa knows we’re here for her. Frankly, there’s not much more we can do.”
Emily’s cheeks flushed. “Oh God . . . You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
The schoolteacher took a breath, then rested her hand on Kim’s forearm. “Ronni lost her eye last night.”
lisa
FIVE DAYS AFTER
Lisa hadn’t had a cigarette in sixteen years. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d quit smoking when she found out she was pregnant with Ronni and abstained throughout Ronni’s infancy. But when her daughter was a toddler there had been the occasional butt (never in the house, never around the baby). Lisa had allowed herself to slip back into her partying ways for a few months then: some drinking, a little weed, nothing hard. . . . That was when Curtis was still in the picture. She had thought she had some support. She had thought she deserved to have a little fun.
Lisa took another deep drag on the cigarette. She wasn’t even sure she was enjoying it, but the nicotine coursing through her system was calming her, or at least numbing her slightly to the trauma of Ronni’s surgery. Standing there, in the hospital’s designated smoking area, her mind drifted back to Curtis Rey. If only Lisa hadn’t let herself get knocked up by such a huge loser, Ronni’s dad would be here right now. Not as Lisa’s partner—she had Allan, and in no universe could she envision herself married for the past seventeen years—but as Ronni’s father. The girl could have used the support; and Lisa would have appreciated some relief.
Their relationship had fallen apart mere moments after Ronni was born. Curtis had a temper when he drank, which was pretty regularly. Had she been drinking less herself, she would have been more vigilant on the birth control front. The guy had some good qualities of course, primarily his chiseled abs, caramel-colored skin, and drone-like ability to find her clitoris. But she couldn’t have a sporadically employed, angry drunk around her baby, no matter how good the sex was. She had kicked him out promptly.
Still, Lisa had envisioned Curtis playing a small supporting role in their child’s life. And at first, he’d seemed perfectly capable of looking after his daughter once every couple of weeks. If he couldn’t support them financially, at least he could babysit once in a while so Lisa could have some semblance of a social life. If she was honest with herself, those nights out were as much about punishing Curtis as they were about her own enjoyment. It took two people to make a baby. Why was she the only one making sacrifices to raise her?
She’d left Ronni in her father’s care on a handful of occasions without incident. When she arrived to pick her daughter up, Curtis would hand over his charge, her hair uncombed, last night’s pajamas covered in strained peaches or gooey cookie dried to cement-hardness. Ronni was a mess, but she was fine. Until she wasn’t. . . .
It wasn’t quite a migraine but a persistent headache that had sent Lisa home early that night. In retrospect, it must have been her maternal instinct, an instinct that had deserted her the night of Hannah’s party. But fourteen years ago, a persistent dull ache behind her eyes had kept Lisa from enjoying the nightclub, drinking and flirting alongside her childless friends. She recalled a visiting football team—the Denver Broncos or someone—the place full of rich, good-looking guys with money to spend on drinks and Baggies of cocaine in their pockets. It had the potential to be an amazing night, but somehow, Lisa had known that her daughter needed her. With her friends lined up to do shots with the athletes, Lisa had slipped out to her car.
She could have gone home and had a good night’s sleep, but something—mother’s intuition—had urged her toward Curtis’s. There was an emptiness in her chest (she eventually learned to associate this with the nightclub scene and casual hookups), and she needed to hold her daughter. She needed to take Ronni home, to hear her soft breath as she lay in the crib that was squeezed into the corner of Lisa’s single bedroom, to wake up to her baby’s cheerful gurgle. She smoked a cigarette as she drove, the window rolled down, cold night air blasting her face. It was the last cigarette she would have, until today.
Lisa looked around at her fellow smokers. Most of them were patients, identifiable by the hideous blue gowns. A few had IVs attached to their arms, one was in a wheelchair. . . . They were probably suffering from emphysema or lung cancer or some other cigarette-related malady, but still, they stood in the chill March air, their bare legs covered in goose bumps, and smoked. She stubbed the cigarette out in a tall, overflowing ashtray and headed inside.
As she traversed the shiny, squeaky hospital hallway, she remembered pulling into Curtis’s driveway that night. Her dashboard clock read 1:23 A.M., she remembered the figure so clearly—1, 2, 3. A lamp was burning in the bungalow’s living room, the faint glow visible through the bent and tattered blinds. Curtis was undoubtedly lounging on the sofa, playing some violent video game and sucking on a beer. He was harmless when he drank beer; only hard liquor brought out his ugly side. He was a child, really. Lisa had been an idiot to ever get involved with him.
The first sign of trouble was the pounding music she heard as she approached the door. How was Ronni supposed to sleep through that? She knocked, but there was no response. Of course, Curtis couldn’t hear her over the thudding bass. She turned the handle and found the door unlocked. She shoved it open and stepped inside.
Curtis was not on the sofa as expected. Instead, a girl, about Lisa’s age, with greasy blond hair and blank eyes leaned against the bony shoulder of a guy with a shaved head and a Mot?rhead T-shirt.
“Where’s Curtis?” Lisa screamed over the music. “Where’s my baby?”