Heroes Are My Weakness(74)

Jaycie turned on the water in the sink and gave Livia a drink. “Jessie Childers. We haven’t had medical help on the island since Jenny Schaeffer moved.”

“That’s what I heard.”

Annie went off to Elliott’s office to check her e-mail. She received an invitation to an old roommate’s baby shower, a message from another friend, and a one-line response from Jeff Koons’s dealer.


This is not his piece.

She wanted to cry. She’d told herself not to get her hopes up, but she had been certain the mermaid chair was a Koons. Instead, she’d hit another dead end.

A thud came from the kitchen, and she made herself get up to investigate. She found Jaycie trying to right one of the straight-backed chairs. “No more running, Livie. You’re going to break something.”

Livia kicked the corner of the chair with her sneaker. Jaycie leaned against the table with a defeated sigh. “It’s not her fault. She has no place to work off her energy.”

“I’ll take her out,” Annie said. “How ’bout it, Liv? Want to go for a walk?”

Livia nodded so vigorously that her lavender plastic headband slipped over her eyes.

Annie decided to take her down to the beach. The sun had emerged and the tide was out. Livia was an island kid. She needed to be near the water.

Annie held tightly to her hand as they descended the stone steps. Livia tried to pull away, anxious to get to the bottom, but Annie held on to her. As they cleared the last step, however, Livia stalled, taking it all in, almost as if she couldn’t believe she had so much space to run free.

Annie pointed down the beach. “See if you can catch those gulls.”

Livia didn’t need encouragement. She started to run, her short legs churning, hair flying from beneath her pink pom-pom hat. She darted through the rocks toward the sand, but stayed away from the breaking waves.

Annie found a flat-top boulder far from the old cave entrance. Dropping her backpack, she watched Livia climb rocks, chase the shorebirds, and dig in the sand. When the four-year-old finally got tired, she came to sit next to Annie and her backpack. Annie smiled, removed Scamp, and slipped the puppet onto her arm.

Scamp wasted no time. “Free secret?”

Livia nodded.

“I’m scared.” And then, more dramatically, “Terrified.”

Livia’s forehead knit.

“The ocean is so big,” Scamp whispered, “and I can’t swim. That’s scary.”

Livia shook her head.

“You don’t think the water is scary?” Scamp said.

Livia didn’t.

“I s’pose different things are scary to different people.” Scamp tapped her cheek. “Like some things are good to be scared of—going in the ocean if there aren’t any grown-ups around. And some things aren’t good to be scared of because they’re not real, like monsters.”

Livia seemed to agree.

As Annie had watched Livia play, she’d thought over what she now knew about Livia’s trauma. She wasn’t sure whether this was a good idea or not, but she was going to try. “Like watching your dad try to hurt your mom,” Scamp said. “That was really, really scary.”

Livia poked her finger into a tiny hole in her jeans.

Annie wasn’t a child psychologist, and the only thing she knew about treating childhood trauma was what she’d picked up on the Internet. This situation was too complicated, and she needed to stop right here. But . . .

Jaycie couldn’t talk to Livia about what had happened. Maybe Scamp could make the topic less forbidden. “A lot scarier than the ocean,” Scamp said. “If I saw my mommy have to shoot my dad with a gun, I would be so scared I might not want to talk either.”

Eyes wide, Livia abandoned the hole in her jeans and turned all her attention to the puppet.

Annie backed off and let Scamp speak in her most cheerful voice. “But then, after a while, I’d get bored not talking. Especially if I had something important to say. Or if I wanted to sing. Did I ever tell you that I’m a magnificent singer?”

Livia nodded vigorously.

A wild idea occurred to Annie. An idea she had no business pursuing. But, what if . . .

Scamp began to sing, bobbing her curly yarn hair to the rhythm of the makeshift tune Annie improvised on the spot.


“A scary, scary thing happened to me.

A thing I want to forget.

Times are good and times are bad,

And that was the baddest yet!

Oh . . . That was the baddest yet!”

Livia remained attentive, not seeming upset, so Annie plunged on with her ridiculous, improvised lyrics.


“Some daddies are good and some are bad

You’re stuck with what you get.

Liv’s dad was bad, the very, very worst

But . . . she didn’t want to see him die, oh!

She didn’t want to see him die.”

Ohmygod! The reality of what she’d just done sent her stomach plummeting. It was like a bad Saturday Night Live skit! The happy little tune, the gruesome lyrics . . . She’d just treated Livia’s trauma as if it were a stand-up comedy routine.

Livia seemed to be waiting to hear more, but Annie was appalled, and she lost her courage. However good her intentions might be, she could be doing serious psychological damage to this precious little girl. Scamp hung her head. “I guess I shouldn’t sing a song about something so terrible.”