The Patron Saint of Butterflies(20)
“Well, there’s no paperwork that says otherwise.” A panic is starting to rise within me. “My mother just left me here. With him. And he’s the one in charge. He’s the only one who gets to say what happens to me. If they take him away, that means I’ll have to go, too. And they’ll just put me away somewhere until they get it all straightened out, until everything is legal. Which means that I’ll probably never see any of you again.” I grab on to the sleeve of Nana Pete’s blouse. “Please don’t call the police, Nana Pete. Please. I just … I won’t be able to… I mean, without Agnes, I don’t know if … ” My throat is getting smaller and smaller, until it is a little pinpoint of pain.
“Honey.” Nana Pete’s voice is firm and calm. “Calm down. No one is going to put you in any sort of orphanage or take you away from Agnes. I promise. But I have to do something. There’s no way I’m going back to Texas now that I know all of this.”
“Then take us with you!” I blurt out.
“What?”
“Just take us! Take us! We’ll sneak away at night when everyone is at evening prayers or something and just leave!”
“Oh, Honey.” Nana Pete’s voice is faint. “I can’t do that, darlin’. That’s kidnapping. I would get arrested, maybe even sent to jail.”
“But it’s not kidnapping if we want to go with you,” I plead. “Or if you’re taking us out of here because we’re being hurt. Please, Nana Pete, it’s the only way! Just take us and leave. Then we can all be together, at least until everything gets straightened out.”
“But what about Leonard and Samantha?” she asks. It takes me a minute to realize she is talking about Agnes’s parents. “They would never come with us. And I don’t want to be responsible for breaking up the family … ”
“The family, Nana Pete, is not what it is supposed to be. Emmanuel is the real father here. And Veronica is the mother. Agnes and her parents are complete strangers to one another.”
“But they’re her parents!” Nana Pete says. “Emmanuel isn’t … ”
“Yes, he is.” I finish the statement for her. “After all these years of coming to visit us, how can you not see it, Nana Pete? Why do you think all the kids live in the nursery for the first seven years instead of with their real parents?” I breathe in deeply through my nose. “It’s so that whole … parent-kid thing … that bond … can be broken. He wants it attached to him. Not them.”
Nana Pete is looking at me incredulously. I know what she is thinking. Like Agnes, Mount Blessing is all I have ever known. How is it that I have managed not only to remain unaffected by Emmanuel’s ways, but to figure out how deeply everyone else has been? I look out the window again at Benny. He is still crouched down on the edge of the pond, scanning the smooth surface for frog eyes. He looks so small. “I watch TV, okay?” I say suddenly, knowing she is waiting for some sort of explanation. “I know what it’s supposed to be like out in the real world.”
“TV? But I thought you weren’t allowed … ”
I shrug. “Winky has one. It’s real tiny and it doesn’t work very well. It only has three channels. But I’ve seen enough things on it to know that this place is a freak show. I know most people don’t live like this.”
Nana Pete stares at something above my head and shakes her head slowly. “Why haven’t you said anything to me before about the Regulation Room, darlin’?”
Her question stops me cold. I’m not sure if I even know the answer. The easy explanation is that it has never come up. There have never been any Regulation Room visits in August, when Nana Pete usually comes to visit. Is that a coincidence? Has it really taken something as simple as Nana Pete dropping in unexpectedly for Emmanuel’s ugly secret to be unearthed? Or is it something more complex? Have I been afraid all these years of exposing him? Does Emmanuel really have that kind of power over me? The thought makes me angry.
“I don’t know,” I answer, kicking the bottom of the dashboard in frustration.
“Hey,” Nana Pete says gently. “It’s okay. I’m not blaming you, Honey. Don’t get angry.”
But I am angry. I’m livid. And not just at Emmanuel. I’m aware suddenly of a horrible, frightening fury against my mother, who left me here with this monster. When I think about the disgusting word in red marker on my back, the fury transforms into a heavy, choking thing, like a giant sea monster sitting in my belly, reaching up the back of my throat with its long tentacles. Before I can stop myself, my arms and legs begin flailing, kicking, and pounding the inside of the car, the dashboard, the front seat, the floor, the door.
“I hate him!” I scream. “I hate him! I want to kill him! And her, too! I want to scratch her eyes out!” I pound the soft leather and kick the underbelly of the car until, exhausted, I sit limp and dazed, staring at the swollen ridge along the tops of my knuckles. Nana Pete is frozen next to me, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth. But then she opens her arms and pulls me inside them. She is warm and soft and she smells like nail polish and peppermint gum. I cry so hard and for so long that when I am done I feel sick. My nose is running in one big snotty ribbon down the front of Nana Pete’s shirt and when I sniff, it makes a gurgling sound. Without a word, Nana Pete reaches over me, extracts one of her handkerchiefs from inside her purse, and presses it against my cheek. I blow hard and then sit up. My ears are ringing.