Little Girls(98)

“What noises?”

“Sounds like someone other than your father in the house.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“I saw her in jail,” Laurie said. “She asked for me and I spoke with her. She apologized for what she’d done. She tried to explain it, though I’ll admit I didn’t understand much of it.”

“She is a troubled young girl,” Dora said, her eyes downcast. It was easy to see she felt protective of Teresa Larosche. Perhaps childless Dora Lorton felt some stewardship over the young woman who was so desperately in need of guidance. My brother became my father, and our fathers are the ones who hold the lamplight so we can find our way in the dark.

“She said my father was afraid someone was trying to get into the house. She said that after a while, she began to believe him. She started to hear someone else in the house, too. She knew there was no one there but became paranoid that my father’s. . . dementia”—she had almost said insanity—“was finding its way into her brain, too. That’s why she felt she had to kill him.”

There had been no one holding the lamplight for Teresa Larosche. This notion caused a pang of sadness to resonate at the center of Laurie’s chest. There had been no one.

“My father called the intruder the Hateful Beast. The Vengeance. I can see how that could frighten someone as fragile as Teresa Larosche. Heck, it frightened me when she told me. Until I realized what he was really talking about.”

Dora Lorton pursed her lips. “Oh? And what was he really talking about?”

“Tanya Albrecht, the girl whose body I found in that factory garage. Other little girls, too. Maybe it was the guilt that had finally caught up with him, but I don’t think that’s true. I think his brain—in the throes of dementia—turned on him, attacked him. Made him believe they were coming back to get him.”

“Yes!” Dora said this with surprising energy. “Yes, he sometimes mentioned a young girl, though he never spoke her name. I assumed it was you, dear. His mind had become very . . .muddy . . . and he would often slip in and out of the past.”

“At first I thought it was a reference to a girl named Sadie Russ. She lived next door when I was a kid and she died when she fell through the roof of my father’s greenhouse. I assumed he carried guilt over that, though my mother and I didn’t stick around long enough to know for sure. But it hadn’t been Sadie at all—it had been Tanya Albrecht and the other little girls.”

Which means I have been losing my mind the past few weeks, accusing an innocent girl, poor Abigail, of being a monster, she thought.

Both women jumped when the telephone rang. Laurie got up, turned off the ringer, then sat back down.

“What will happen to Teresa Larosche?” Laurie asked, gripping the handle of her coffee cup.

“I don’t know, dear.”

“Once I sell the house, I’d like to help her out in some way. I think she needs to be admitted to a hospital, not sit in some jail cell.”

Dora said nothing to this, but Laurie could tell by the look on the older woman’s face that the sentiment pleased her. After she finished her coffee, her big-shouldered coat rose up from the chair.

“It’s time I leave.”

“Thank you for coming by. It means a lot.”

“You take care of yourself,” Dora said. “And that little girl of yours, too.”

Little girls are like clay, Laurie thought, walking Dora to the front door. Little girls, little girls . . .

When she returned to the kitchen, Susan was there rummaging through a box of cereal.

“Let me make you a proper lunch,” she told the girl.

“I’m just in a snacky mood.”

Laurie dumped Dora Lorton’s coffee into the sink, then replenished her own.

“Are we gonna still live with Dad when we go home?” Susan asked suddenly.

“Honey, why would you ask that?”

“I don’t know. Because I heard you guys fighting.”

“Could you sit down for a minute? I want to talk to you.”

Susan dragged one of the kitchen chairs out, then sank down onto it.

Laurie returned to the table with her fresh coffee, and sat opposite her daughter. Dora’s words still echoed in her head. “Your father and I are dealing with some issues right now, but you don’t have to worry about it. I don’t want you worrying about any of it. Your father and I love you very much and we wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Do you understand?”

Susan nodded, but there was a vacant look in her eyes, like she was unwilling to affix herself to any of Laurie’s words.

“Honey,” said Laurie. “I know you sometimes think I’m too strict with you. I see how you are with your dad, and I think that’s wonderful, and I know you and I have . . . well . . . a different relationship. I’m strict because I worry about you. I feel the need to protect you. This world is full of awful things, Susan, and I want to make sure nothing ever happens to you.”

“What would happen to me?”

“Nothing will happen,” said Laurie. “I won’t let it. I love you very much. Do you know that?”

Susan nodded her head. “I love you, too, Mom.”

“Good,” Laurie said, smiling softly.