Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

Will was quiet on the ride home. Tyla was waiting for them in the courtyard when the gate opened. She wrapped her arms around Will the moment she saw him, and they both cried, and so did Charles and Meredith watching them. Then they walked into the house together. They went down to the kitchen to get something to eat, but Will wasn’t too hungry. He was mostly cold, and Tyla took him upstairs so he could have a hot bath, as Charles and Meredith sat at the kitchen table, drained by the experience. It was a first for both of them. None of their children had ever run away. But they hadn’t been through the traumatic experiences Will had either, with one parent trying to kill the other.

“I kept thinking about everything that could happen to him,” Meredith said to Charles, looking like she’d been hit by a bus, now that the tension had eased.

“So did I,” Charles admitted. “Some very nasty stuff could have happened out there. Thank God, it didn’t.”

“You were right. He knew Tyla was going to meet Andrew, and he couldn’t handle what he thought would happen to her.”

They turned off the lights in the kitchen and went upstairs. Meredith wanted to take a bath, but she was too tired. She changed into her nightgown, and collapsed onto her bed. Charles took a shower, and Meredith was already half asleep by the time he slid into bed beside her.

“God, what a day,” he said. An incident with Andrew, and his arrest. Will running away, and looking for him all night, terrified of what could happen to him. “How’s your head, by the way?” he asked. They had both forgotten about it in their worry over Will.

“It’s fine,” she said sleepily. “It hurts, but I’m just happy Will is okay and we found him.” She put her arms around Charles and rested her head on his shoulder, and two minutes later, she was sound asleep. Will too was sound asleep next to his mother in the big, warm, comfortable bed. As he drifted off, he thought of the people he had met on the street and knew he would never forget them.

Chapter 13

When Daphne came bounding into the kitchen the next morning, she was beaming.

“I knew you were a good witch! You found him!” she said to Meredith, and she laughed.

“Charles helped too, and the police.”

Neither of the children were going to school. A member of Child Protective Services was coming to see all of them, Daphne too.

Tyla confided to Meredith that she was nervous about it. What if they declared her an unfit mother and took them away?

“They’re not going to do that,” Meredith reassured her. “And Charles and I can tell them you’re a wonderful mother.”

“I let them live in an abusive household all their lives,” she said remorsefully. Will had told her the night before when he came home that he never wanted to see his father again, and he hoped he would go to prison forever. “And Daphne is afraid of him. We all are.”

“He’s in custody now, so it’s not an issue,” Meredith said quietly, but it would be again someday. Meredith was doubtful that Andrew would ever change. He was too sick. Tyla had finally come to that conclusion too. And understood now it wasn’t her fault.

“When things calm down, I want to go back to nursing school. I need a refresher course to bring me back up to speed, and then I want to become a nurse practitioner, not just an O.R. nurse like I was before.” It was how she had met Andrew. “I should have left him years ago,” she said mournfully. “I don’t know how I could let it go on for so long. I kept thinking it would get better, and he kept promising. I believed him. I don’t want to see him again either.”

Charles had gone to his office before breakfast, to catch up, and he came back when he knew the CPS officer would be there, to speak to him.

They sent Jane Applegate, a young African American woman who was quick and intelligent and had a warm way with the children. She was more direct with the adults, and Tyla liked her. She told her honestly what they had lived through, and what she believed the children had seen. She had tried to shield them. She didn’t seem shocked that Tyla had stayed in the marriage for so long, and had even gone to meet him the day before to give him one last chance to speak and be civil, and he couldn’t handle it.

“Abuse is the hardest thing in the world to get away from. Worse than drugs. You keep staying to convince them that you’re not a bad person.” Tyla looked relieved when she said it. It was exactly what she had done. “You can’t reason with an abuser. You just have to cut your losses and run, and not look back. In the end, it’s better for the kids, for you and everyone.” Jane had gone to UCLA, and had worked at CPS for fifteen years since she graduated as a social worker. She had seen it all. “I checked with the court this morning, and he’s still in custody. The judge doesn’t want to set bail for the moment, and he may keep him in custody until a trial. But I’m sure a smart lawyer can change that. But at least for now, we don’t need to worry about visitation.”

“He has never hurt the children,” Tyla said in Andrew’s defense.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t start,” Jane said bluntly. “If he becomes eligible for visitation, it would have to be with a court-appointed observer present to satisfy us.” Tyla looked relieved at that too.

“My son says he doesn’t want to see him again, ever.”

“I’ll see what he says when I talk to him.” She didn’t commit either way. She was there to protect the children’s interests, not the parents’. She asked why they were living at someone else’s house, although she commented that it was certainly a magnificent house.

“Ours is being repaired after the earthquake. We were living there, but it’s a mess, and now it has bad memories for all of us. The children miss it. I want to sell it when we file for divorce. I could never live there again. And Meredith was kind enough to let us stay here and take care of me after…when Andrew…”

“After the assault,” the social worker said.

“Yes. She’s been very good to us. She loves the children, and we like being here.”

“I have no problem with it,” Jane said matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t mind staying here myself,” she said with a grin. “Who else lives here?” There was room for an army, many bedrooms.

“No one. She does. She lives alone. She has a boyfriend who stays here sometimes. They were the ones who found Will last night. He owns a high-end security service to protect important people and celebrities. And Meredith has a housekeeping couple.”

“No children of her own?”

“A daughter in New York who’s about my age,” Tyla said, while Jane thought about how lonely it must be to live all alone in a huge mansion. But it was clearly a lucky situation for Tyla and her children.

Tyla told her about her plan to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner and Jane jotted it down.

She spoke to Will after that, and he told her what he had told his mother, that he never wanted to see his father again, and hated him for what he had done to their mother.

“He always hurt her. They thought we didn’t know, but we could hear them.”

“Did you ever see him hit her?”

“Yes, sometimes. She always tried not to make him mad around us.”

“That must have been stressful,” Jane said sympathetically, wondering if he’d say more, but he didn’t. He didn’t know her well enough yet. “Did he hit you?”

“A few times. Mostly he hit my mom. He’s a doctor, he’s not supposed to do that.”

“No one is supposed to hit other people, doctor or not. How do you feel about living here, with Ms. White?”

“I like it.” He smiled at her. “I like it better than our house. I don’t want to go back. My dad would find us there and beat her up again.”