Antonia's Choice (31 page)

“Wyndham is the one who's lying, Toni.”

Bobbi's voice was now flat, toneless. It was more disturbing than her former histrionics.

“Give me a break,” I said.

“She made this whole thing up. I don't doubt that she planted that stuff in Sid's studio, too.”

I wanted to laugh again, although I knew if I did I would carry myself off the proverbial deep end. “And she would do this why?” I said.

“Because she's a rebellious teenager.”

I closed my eyes. “You haven't got a clue about your own daughter. In the first place, she has given up absolutely everything she has ever known to come forward with this. She's in a residential treatment facility where she has no freedom because she's suicidal.”

“Is she giving you that story, too?”

“Complete with illustrations, carved on her arms and legs.”

“Where is she, Toni? I want to talk to her.”

“Over my dead body.”

“You can't keep me from my child!”

“Is the FBI keeping you from the twins?”

“Yes—”

“Then don't even try to go there with me.” I got up and paced, my bare feet slapping Ethel's linoleum. “Stop trying to put this on everybody else, and start looking at yourself. Don't you think you've turned your head long enough? It happened, right under your nose, and your kids are suffering for it, and so is mine. That's what you need to be looking at right now.”

There was a venomous silence.

“I hate you,” she said finally. “And I am never going to forgive you for tearing my family apart.”

The phone went dead in my hand.

“Dear God,” I whispered. “Oh, dear God.”

I didn't go back to sleep. It was all I could do to wait until 7 A.M. to call Hale and Yancy and Reggie. I didn't ask any of them to come
over, but they all showed up within fifteen minutes of each other. Reggie had a hash brown casserole with her. One look at me and she grabbed a fork and started hand-feeding it to me.

“The only bad thing about you leaving Faustman is there's nobody around you to make you eat,” she said. “Look at your cheekbones stickin' out. That is just tragic.”

Yancy's husband, Scott, came with her and brought Troy. They rousted Ben out of bed and hauled him off to McDonald's for breakfast. Ben was a little torn because Saturday morning was the only time I let him have Fruit Loops instead of something healthy, and because his Reggie was there. But she promised him she'd take him to the zoo later, so he finally trailed off after Troy.

I could let down my guard then and start pacing again. Hale, Reggie, and Yancy watched me from the couch, Reggie reaching out with a forkful of hash browns every time I passed her.

“I'm supposed to use my words,” I said. “That's what Doc Opie tells Ben when he gets ready to pitch a fit—use your words.” I glanced at the three Christians on the sidelines. “If I use the words I want to use, you'll all get up and leave.”

“You want to pitch a fit, go ahead,” Reggie said. “Just eat something first.”

“And let me clear away the breakables,” Yancy said. “We've about bought everything useable from the Goodwill.”

I shook my head. “I just don't know what to do. She can't take Wyndham, can she?”

“Only way to know is to go to the source,” Hale said. “You want me to call the FBI? Or better yet, what about Faith Anne Newlin?”

“Who's Faith Anne Newlin?” Yancy said.

“My lawyer,” I said. “It sounds like Mama is going to try to get guardianship of Wyndham back and haul her out of Trinity.” I had a chilling thought. “She only gave me six weeks…”

“Let me try to get Faith on the phone,” Hale said.

“At 8 A.M. on a Saturday? That's going to cost me.” Then I shook my head again. “Doesn't matter. Go for it.”

“Toni, honey, sit down,” Yancy said as Hale went into the bedroom in search of the telephone. “You're making me seasick.”

“I'm just sick, period,” Reggie said. “Does that woman care at all about her kids, or is she just into herself?”

“She's into Sid,” I said. “He's always been totally controlling—just like my father, only to the hundredth power. I think she married him because she could never get my father to love her. They say people do that. She doesn't believe she can exist without Sid. Their pictures are next to the term
codependent
the psychological dictionary.”

“I get it,” Yancy said. “If she believes
he's
a twisted monster, she has to believe
she
is, too.”

“As far as I'm concerned, she is,” Reggie said.

“I don't know what she is,” I said. “And at this point, I don't think it matters. What's important is whether she can get her hands on Wyndham and turn that poor girl inside out.”

Hale came in and set the phone on the coffee table, his square jaw set.

“What?” I said. “Bad news? Come on, spit it out. I have to know everything.”

“Faith's going to get back to you. She says she can make a few calls and hopefully get at least an extension on your guardianship, given the fact that Bobbi's been released. A judge isn't going to be blind to the fact that more than likely your mother will drag Wyndham right back to Bobbi, court order or no court order.”

“That sounds like good news to me,” Reggie said. She was nodding so hard at me her ponytail was bobbing. “Don't you think so, honey?”

But I was watching Hale's eyes. “What are you holding back?” I said to him.

He pressed his lips together before he spoke. “There is one way you can make sure Bobbi goes back to jail—or at least can't get to Wyndham. Faith Anne's idea.”

I shoved several magazines off the coffee table onto the floor with one arm and sat down so I could face him dead on.

“What?” I said. “What's the deal?”

Hale still seemed to be having trouble looking at me.

“You're scarin' me here,” I said.

“She asked me if Ben himself had disclosed anything yet. I told her I didn't think so.”

I shook my head. “Where's this going?”

“If Ben could corroborate Wyndham's story—”

“You mean testify to the F.B.I.?”

“Yeah. That's what I mean.”

I got up and resumed the pacing at a stiff march. “No. There is no way I'm putting my baby through that.”

“They're not going to put him under a naked light bulb, Toni,” Hale said. “They have people who know how to handle children.”

“Would I be able to be there?”

“Probably not.”

“Then forget it.”

No one said anything. I stopped in front of the window, nausea rising up in my throat. Below, Ethel's hydrangeas were blooming in blossoms bigger than my head. Somewhere in the yard, squirrels were putting up an obnoxious chatter. I wanted to scream at the world to stop pretending to be normal when it wasn't—when nothing was normal anymore.

“This has to be hard,” Hale said. “It's like having to choose between Wyndham and Ben.”

“Ugh,” Reggie said. “I can't—I'm gonna go make some coffee.”

“Make it strong.” Yancy patted the couch next to her, and I fell into it. She covered my lap with a throw we'd picked up on sale at Target. I was still running around in my two shirts, legs exposed.

“This is not just ‘take it or leave it,'” I said. “I don't know what to do.” I looked at Hale, whose eyes were closed. “You're praying, aren't you?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Then why the Sam Hill aren't you doing it out loud? Let's go—I'm drowning here.”

Hale managed to grin and stuck out both boxy hands to Yancy and me. Yancy put her diamond-decked fingers into one of them, and Reggie appeared from the kitchen to tuck hers into the other—nails the color of an abalone shell brushing his palm. I put my own
clammy paws into those of my two girlfriends and felt myself moving toward tears. And Hale hadn't even started yet.

He prayed as he always did, as if we'd all just happened in on a conversation he was already having with God. The Presence was real—but the answer still wasn't clear. I only knew one thing when I raised my head.

“I have to call Doc Opie,” I said. “I think it's a God-thing.”

I was able to chat with him that afternoon on the phone, while Ben was off watching
Milo and Otis
in Reggie's living room and probably stuffing himself with Reggie's homemade caramel corn. The very thought made me nauseous, but then, just about everything was making me nauseous.

“I know I don't want to push him,” Doc Opie said when I'd explained the latest developments. “That would set us back immeasurably.”

“I don't want that,” I said.

“But I can tell you I think we may be getting closer to some kind of disclosure. In fact, I wanted to ask you at our next meeting, were there other people involved in this pornography ring?”

“What do you mean?” I put my hand up to my throat to keep from gagging.

“You've only mentioned your brother-in-law actually taking the pictures. Could there have been anyone else on the immediate scene?”

“I don't think so. Wyndham hasn't mentioned that. You're not thinking my sister was actually in on the picture-taking? Wyndham hasn't ever said that.”

“I'm not thinking anything. I'm just exploring the possibility, because Ben's view of the world as a dangerous place is indicative of multiple abusers. He's having trouble believing that safe adults do exist. And his latest drawings have shown more than one person with an ugly face.”

I tightened my hold on the phone. “Ugly face?”

“That's how he indicates the bad guys—they all have distorted faces.”

“I know I'm not supposed to ask questions like this, but do I have an ugly face in those drawings?”

“No, Toni. You never do.”

He went on to suggest that we wait until Ben was naturally ready to talk and then decide whether to broach the subject of his chatting with the FBI.

“You know, if you're going to press charges on Ben's behalf, or help put this man behind bars, it's going to be necessary for them to question Ben. That's another decision you'll have to make.”

“I don't like these kinds of decisions,” I said. “Give me one that doesn't really give me a choice.”

There were still plenty of those to make in the weeks that followed, weeks in which Ben continued to make progress in tiny increments but didn't talk to Doc Opie about Sid or what had happened to him. Weeks in which I had to wait in agony while the Virginia court decided whether to give me complete custody of Wyndham until Sid's case was resolved.

Yancy insisted on taking care of Ben when I was at work and refused to take a dime. I, in turn, took Troy with Ben and me when we went on cheap outings to the duck pond at Centennial Park or the reptile department at the Petstop—both treats that seemed to rank right up there with Disneyworld, a luxury that was now out of the question for me.

With Faith Anne Newlin's help, I got out of the lease on the Lexus and used early withdrawal on an IRA to buy a used Jeep Wrangler several years and dents older than Hale's, which Ben actually said was “cool.” I couldn't have looked less like a business executive tooling around in that thing in the summer heat, hair tied up in a bandana, Wal-Mart capris bagging around my legs. But I did try to be a “cool” mom, and some of the time I did it right.

Ben and I ate dinner together every night without the TV on, which meant I had to be ready with things to talk about, like, “Did you see anything purple today?” and “How many pairs of socks do you think you actually have?” I really got into T-ball, more than I had with soccer. I never fully comprehended the rules to soccer, but there was nothing to understand about smacking the ball off the T and running like the dickens to the base while all the moms and dads screamed their faces blue. Doc Opie said the exercise did Ben a
lot of good, because it was helping him reestablish a sense of control over his own body. Dominica said it was good for me, too. I was pitching fewer fits in the healing room as the summer went on.

I wanted the things I
could
decide to be “cool” for Ben—which was fine, Dominica said, as long as I wasn't trying to bargain with God by trying to make up for the abuse. That wasn't it, I assured her. It was because so much of what I couldn't control was not cool—at all.

Sometimes Ben still decided he hated me, though those times were fewer and farther between—and hurt even more each time they happened. He still tended to scream and run when he had to soak off poop in the bathtub or go to bed some nights. I had to help him try to manage that—getting in his face until he talked to me, and then talking to him about it again, later, when he wasn't angry. Most of the time I wound up speaking into Lamb's nostrils, but Doc Opie assured me it was sinking in.

“Are you sure you're not sad or scared instead of mad?” Doc taught me to ask Ben. “It's all okay. God understands all of that. He doesn't want you to
do
anything about it, he just wants you to
feel
it. God'll do the rest.”

Opie kept telling me how important it was for Ben to experience God as loving and nurturing, the way Jesus was in all the Bible stories, which meant he was going to have to hear about Him as much as possible in authentic, loving, positive ways. So when Ben got mad we got out the empty plastic liter Coke bottle and he smacked his pillows with it while he told me how mad he was. After that, he liked me to tell him, sometimes multiple times, about Jesus turning over the tables in the temple. Then we always talked to God about it.

Actually, I talked. I'd say things like, “We trust You, God,” and “We know You're taking care of us,” and “We can't do Your job but we know You can.” Ben watched me from behind Lamb, as if trying to determine whether I really believed what I was saying.