Part 14 (2/2)
”It hurts!” he said.
... as though he couldn't bear to put his full weight down and ...
She felt the room begin to reel and she knelt in front of him, her hands fluttering out to him, to his arms, to his legs, like the wings of strange trapped birds-she didn't know where to touch him.
... and it was impossible for him in that position. She saw the s.h.i.+t slide down his poor little skinny thighs and drop to the floor and it was bad-smelling, dark, abnormal, as though there were something foul inside him, something evil there.
She grabbed some toilet paper off the roll and began to wipe him down, his legs and thighs, and he was crying harder now, so shamed by what he'd done, standing in front of her with his legs spread and shaking with tears and she was saying it's all right, don't worry, it doesn't matter honey, let's just clean you up, taking a wet facecloth off the sink and wiping him, rinsing it, wiping him some more, the cheeks of his b.u.t.t, turning him around, the cheeks red, smelling his s.h.i.+t all the while and thinking that she had never smelled s.h.i.+t like this, it was as though someone had poisoned him.
When she touched him between the b.u.t.tocks he screamed.
He jumped away, batting at her hand holding the facecloth. He turned and ran for his bedroom. She heard him fall to the bed and heard him sobbing in his pillow.
She knelt there, so stunned that she had to grab the edge of the sink to keep from falling to the tile floor.
The room had come unglued from the universe.
She felt suddenly adrift in an awful ice-cold storm made of sudden insight and a terrible knowledge. Knowledge like a cancer inside her.
It was as though somebody had poisoned him.
Yes. It was.
And she knew.
In a single moment it all made sense to her. She saw into the pattern. She saw deceit. She saw evil. She saw a sickness that was almost beyond her imagining.
The nervousness, the stuttering.
His soiling the bed.
The nightmares. Of course there were nightmares.
He was living one.
Her baby.
Even the G.o.dd.a.m.n crazy knee-chest thing made sense now. He was telling her something. He'd been telling her something all along.
How could she have been so stupid and blind as to miss it? As to not hear him asking for her help over and over, night after night, in the silent language of his body?
But no. It had been unthinkable until now. Unthinkable that Arthur would do this. Now-anything was possible.
b.u.t.t in the air. Head to the pillow.
She'd been there a lot more times than she cared to remember.
h.e.l.l, it was Arthur's favorite position.
You sick, cowardly, evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d, she thought.
I'll get you for this one.
For this I'm going after you.
I swear to G.o.d I am.
She got up off the floor and heard him crying and found that it was possible to stand up and walk again and went to comfort her son.
He wasn't home and he wasn't at his parents'.
Which left the restaurant.
She could have used the phone but she wanted-no, she needed-to see his face when she told him. She wanted to be looking right at him when he denied it. She wanted to watch him squirm.
The Lincoln was parked out front. For a moment she considered ramming it. Arthur loved that car. Instead she pulled in right beside it.
She'd driven Robert to Cindy's house once he calmed down. It was still early and Cindy's daughter Gail was still awake, and Robert seemed to like the idea of being in the company of another kid right now. Probably he needed to forget it. To forget everything. It was obvious that Cindy wanted to know what was going on but she didn't pry and all Lydia volunteered was that she had to talk to Arthur right away. Explanations-if she chose to make any, even to Cindy-could wait.
It bothered her that he wouldn't come right out and tell her what Arthur had done to him. She supposed he was ashamed. But she knew it would be a whole lot better if he could get it out and talk about it.
”Does Daddy touch you?” she'd said. ”Does he touch you back there?”
He shrugged. ”I dunno.”
”Tell me the truth, honey. Nothing that's happened is your fault and it's nothing for you to be ashamed of. But I think Daddy's doing something he shouldn't be doing and I think you and I should talk about it.”
He just sat on the bed and looked at her. She gave him a moment.
”Do you think you can? Do you want to try to talk about it?”
”Uh-uh.”
”No?”
”Uh-uh.”
”Do you think maybe you'll be able to talk about it later, then?”
She didn't want to press him. Not now.
”I dunno.”
”Will you try?”
”I guess.”
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