F Wilson - Deep as the Marrow

Like I was… once.

“Not right here. But he’s close by. You go with your mom and soon you’ll be with your dad too. Okay?

“ ‘Kay.” Poppy put her down and straightened her Jets shirt.

She bit her lip to keep from crying. I gotta get out of here before I start blubbering.

“You be a good girl, now,” she told Katie, crouching before her and smoothing her Chopped hair. “And you have a good life. And maybe you think of me once in a while, okay?”

“ ‘Kay.”

Poppy gathered her in her arms again and held her tight, never wanting to let her go, but knowing if she didn’t get out of here right now she’d explode.

“I love you, little girl.”

“I love you too. Poppy.” She forced herself to release Katie.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m going to miss you.” She wiped her eyes on her flannel sleeve. “But here’s what you do. Wait a second or two while I go outside, then go up to your mother and say, ‘Hi, Mom.’ Can you do that?”

Katie nodded, her blue eyes flicking back and forth between her mother and Poppy. “But where will you be?”

“I’ll be outside.” Not a lie. She would be outside—far outside, and getting farther every second. “Got that? Wait till I’m outside; then go up to her.”

“Kay.” Poppy straightened and took one last look into that little face.

She touched her cheek, then somewhere found the strength to turn and hurry past Katie’s mother—still fixated on the phones outside—and stumble into the afternoon sunlight.

Feeling as if she’d torn out her heart and left it behind, among the souvenirs, she made a sharp right and kept her head down as she forced one foot in front of the other away from the boardwalk.

She made it down the ramp to street level, was vaguely aware of the mass of Rally’s on her right and a vacant lot to her left, but then the building pressure in her chest wouldn’t let her go any farther. She stumbled into the shadow of an empty loading dock, sagged against a wall, and began to sob.

9

“Hi, Mom.” Mamie started and turned. This little boy, this ragamuffin with orange hair was tugging on her skirt and looking up at her. She brushed his hand off.

“Get away,” she said. “I’m not your—” Those eyes… those blue, blue eyes…

She looked closer.

“Oh… my… God!” It was Katie! Feeling faint, she dropped to one knee and grasped both her shoulders.

“What has he done to you? Your hair! Your clothes!”

“Poppy—”

“Is that what he has you calling him now? Poppy? What else does he have you doing?” She wrapped Katie in her arms, but the child didn’t return the embrace. She remained stiff, wooden. Almost as if she were afraid. John’s work—no question about it. Here was proof positive of how he’d been filling the child’s head with terrible lies about her mother.

Suddenly Mamie was furious. John was such an expert at twisting the truth. And now he was twisting Katie—in body as well as soul. Look at her! How could he do this to his own daughter? What sort of perversion was this? Coloring her hair and dressing her like a boy? She sensed sickness here.Deep sickness. Sickness the courts should know about, should see with their own eyes…

A wonderful idea leaped full blown into her mind.

“Katie,” she said. “I’m going to take you home.”

Suddenly Katie seemed to relax. “Goodie! I want to see Daddy!”

Poppy… Daddy… the poor child didn’t know what to call her father.

Mamie glanced out at the boardwalk. John was still by the phones. The negligent bastard! Leaving poor Katie alone in here while he waits for a call. But from whom? Some bimbo? Or worse—someone who liked little girls dressed up to look like boys?

Her stomach turned. It was a sick, sick world out there, and little girls like Katie needed to be protected from exploiters—especially if their father was doing the exploiting.

John was staring out at the ocean. Now seemed like the best time to move. Mamie lifted Katie and carried her from the store, keeping Katie’s face and her own averted from John.

A matter of fifteen seconds and they were down on the street and out of sight of the boardwalk.

Mamie breathed a sigh of relief and set Katie back on the ground. She took a firm grip on her hand and led her toward Bally’s parking garage.

“Where are we going?” Katie said.

“To get the car.”

“And then we’re gonna see Daddy?”

“No. Then we’re going to the airport. We’re flying back home.” I’ve got a lawyer and a judge who’ll be very interested in seeing you just as you are. And then they’ll change their exalted opinion of Dr. John Vanduyne.

Katie pulled her hand free. “No! I want to see Daddy!”

“You will. I promise you.” When he has to appear in court.

“I want to see him now!” Mamie grabbed Katie’s upper arm and yanked her to ward the garage’s glass-enclosed elevator area.

“No arguing now. Come along.”

“No!” Mamie felt her anger rising. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed people standing nearby on the sidewalk. She didn’t want a scene here. As she pulled Katie inside the glass enclosure, she raised her voice, yet kept it cloyingly sweet for the benefit of anyone within earshot.

“Come on, baby,” she said. “You can press the button when we get into the elevator. It’s three. You know three, don’t you?” An elevator stood open and Mamie gave Katie the bum’s rush through the doors.

“No!” Katie cried. “I don’t want to be with you! I want to be with Daddy!”

That did it. Before she knew what she was doing, Mamie jabbed the“3” button herself, then gave Katie a well-deserved slap across her whiny little face. The sound echoing harshly in the tiny elevator cab as the doors slid closed.

“That’s just about enough,” she said. She glanced down at Katie who was holding her face with her free hand and sobbing softly. “One thing you’re going to learn and learn well is to do as you’re told and keep a civil tongue in your head.”

The car stopped on the third level, the door slid open; and Mamie stepped out, pulling the still-sobbing Katie after her. Another glass enclosure. She stepped through the doors into the parking area and looked around. Now where had she left her car?

Suddenly a noise to her left as the exit door slammed open; a slim young woman in jeans and a plaid shirt was moving toward her, breathing hard as if she’d been running.

She had short, jet-black hair, and red-rimmed eyes.

She looked as if she’d been crying. Those eyes blazed as they found Katie. She never stopped moving as she spoke through clenched teeth, bared in a snarl.

“You bitch!” And then Mamie’s face exploded with pain as the woman smashed a fist into her nose.

Mommy dearest staggered back as blood began pouring from her nose. She let go of Katie and raised her hands to her face. She began to scream and so Poppy hit her again, right in the bread basket.

She grunted, doubled over and lurched away, like she was going to run. Poppy started after her, fists raised, itching to hit her again.

Poppy had been crouched in the loading bay, bawling, feeling sorry for herself, when she spotted the mother dragging Katie down the street toward Bally’s garage.

Immediately she’d sensed something wasn’t right. Why hadn’t Katie been reunited with her daddy?

Poppy had followed them into the garage and seen her slap Katie just as the elevator doors shut.

What followed was mostly a blur running up the steps with murder in her heart, pacing the elevator, getting to level three and seeing Katie with tears on her face and a big red slap mark across her cheek.

Something snapped in Poppy then, and Jesus it had felt so good flattening that bitch’s nose. She wanted to keep on pounding her, let her know how it felt.