Little Girls(97)

“Please. I was just making some toast. Can I get you something?”

“Some coffee would be nice.”

“Have a seat and I’ll put some on.”

“Nonsense. You finish your business and I’ll put some on. I still know my way around the place, assuming you haven’t moved anything.”

“It’s all where you left it.”

They passed through the parlor and Dora paused to survey the missing liquor cabinet.

“We’ve had some interest in my father’s stuff,” Laurie said, and immediately winced inwardly at the apologetic tone she heard in her voice.

In the kitchen, Laurie sat at the table and ate her toast while Dora—still in her square-shouldered coat—put on a pot of coffee. Susan had retreated to her bedroom to read, perhaps unnerved by the older woman’s presence. Gemlike specks of rain appeared on the bay windows.

“I saw the news this morning,” Dora said. “There was no mention of your name, but I recognized the Sparrows Point facility from that old picture he used to have hanging on the wall. Before he smashed the glass and tore it out of the frame, that is. I’d spoken to Teresa Larosche, too, and she told me what you told her—about keeping an eye on the news. I was able to make the connection.”

“I found her,” Laurie said. “The little girl. Tanya Albrecht.” She explained about the keys in the well and how one of them matched the lock on garage 58. “I went there Wednesday night and found her body.”

Since the newspapers and TV news had left out her name, she assumed this was new information to Dora. Yet the old woman’s expression didn’t change.

“There’s more,” she went on, almost breathlessly now. It was as if she needed to get it off her chest. “I’m not supposed to talk about it yet, but you’re going to hear about other girls. My father. . .” Her voice trailed off.

“I feel I owe you an apology,” Dora said. She retrieved two mugs from the cupboard and set them down on the counter. “More than one, perhaps.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Please, Mrs. Genarro.” Her thick-soled shoes made hard, flat sounds on the tile as she tottered over to the refrigerator for the milk. “It took some courage for me to even come here today, so let me go on with it.”

Laurie nodded. Finished eating, she now broke apart the remaining bits of crust in her plate.

“I was hard on you when you came here. My reproachful behavior toward you when we first met was misdirected. It was not my place to judge the relationship you had with your father. I am sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“My sister lives in Boca Raton.” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial murmur and added, “That’s in Florida. She’s got four children, all grown now, of course. I was never able to have children. It was the reason I never married. That’s difficult enough, but I carry Felix’s weight in that regard, too.”

“I don’t understand. Your brother Felix?”

“He’s never said as much, but I know him well enough to know that because I never married, he never married. We grew up in a different time, Mrs. Genarro, and ours was a close family. Our parents were very poor and our father died of emphysema when I was still very young. A girl needs a father, Mrs. Genarro. Little girls are like clay waiting to be molded. The father reserves the right to mold it—reserves it solely, Mrs. Genarro—and she is happy to let him. But if he is not around, strange hands are eager to come into the mix and lay their own impressions in the clay.”

The coffee began to percolate on the stove. Brown water spit up into the glass bulb in the lid of the coffeepot.

“I speak metaphorically because we both understand what I mean, correct?”

“Yes.”

“After our father died, Felix became very protective of me. He has always been a good brother, and I am very grateful for that, but I am also sad for him, too. Perhaps had I married, he would have let go and lived his own life. But I never married, Mrs. Genarro, and Felix never did, either. It was as though we’d become husband and wife by proxy.”

“He must care for you very much.”

“And I for him,” Dora said. “See, in a way, my brother became my father, and our fathers are the ones who hold the lamplight so we can find our way in the dark. Teresa Larosche is a perfect example.”

“How do you mean?”

Dora poured two cups of coffee, which she carried over to the table. She expelled a great huff of air as she settled herself in the chair opposite Laurie.

“That girl had problems her whole life. Her father was abusive. Not just to her, either, but to her mother as well. She told me that right here in this house, on nights when she’d arrive early for her shift just to talk. It was toward the end, when she began to grow scared about being in this house alone at night with your father. It wasn’t some confession or some great revelation, like Saint Paul seeing Jesus on Damascus Road. It was just talk and, some nights, we found ourselves going down that old road. She never seemed bitter about it, or even bothered by it at all.”

“She told you she was afraid to be in the house?”

Dora got up, brought the milk and a tea spoon over to the table, and sat back down. She poured a healthy stream into her coffee, then stirred it.

“She asked if I heard noises during the day, noises like she heard at night.”