Anna Quinn - The Night Child

Nora takes a seat next to him. Rubs her temples. He leans over and whispers, “Really glad you’re here.” There’s a pitcher of water and paper cups in the center of the table, and she leans in to pour herself a cup and drinks it all down. The counselor and the teachers shuffle papers and make small talk. At the other end of the table, Mr. Guenther, Elizabeth’s father, sits. He is well-dressed in a suit and tie, thinning black hair slicked back. His clammy face makes Nora look away from him to the mother, who smiles uncertainly at her, her face the same pale white as her daughter’s. Elizabeth sits hunched between her parents, looking at her hands on her lap, eyelashes fluttering like trapped moths.

After the counselor, Joyce, makes introductions, she turns to Elizabeth and says, “Elizabeth, we are here today because we’re concerned about you. Concerned because you aren’t doing your homework, because you are lethargic in class, and, well, because frankly, you aren’t really participating anywhere .”

Elizabeth continues to look at her hands. Her body becoming smaller, more rigid by the second. Nora wants to go to her and carry her away.

“Elizabeth,” her father says. “Do you have anything to say to that?”

Elizabeth shrugs.

“How do you feel about school, dear?” Joyce asks. Her tone is syrupy and limp. She is the type of person who brings a big fruit bowl for the faculty room each Monday and drops off little foil-wrapped muffins in staff mailboxes with tags that say, “ Have a good day! You’re making a difference!”

“I hate it,” Elizabeth whispers.

“Elizabeth,” her father says, “please speak up, and look at us when we speak to you.”

She looks up. Looks only at Nora. Her agitated eyes pierce Nora’s heart, but Nora smiles at her reassuringly.

“I want to live full time with Mom,” Elizabeth says suddenly, her eyes never leaving Nora’s.

The room is silent.

“What?” says Mr. Guenther, inflamed. “What the hell are you talking about? How can you say that?”

“Well, Bill,” Mrs. Guenther says, sitting up a little straighter, clearing her throat, “it is difficult for her to keep going back and forth. You know, keeping track of everything. Perhaps—”

“Perhaps nothing!” Mr. Guenther says, marching over his wife’s words like a tiger tramping on violets. He turns to his daughter. “You will NOT live with your mother full time! If anything, your mother is a huge part of the problem. Are there even any rules at her house? Do you ever do your homework over there? Ever?”

“Dad,” Elizabeth whispers, looking down. “Please. It would be easier, that’s all.”

“Easier? Easier?” He is becoming louder. “Isn’t that the whole problem? That you want everything easier? Do you even know what hard work is? Do you?”

When Elizabeth says nothing, he shouts at her, “Look at me, damn it!”

“Mr. Guenther, please,” Joyce whines nervously and looks at John to do something.

“Bill,” John says, clenching his pen tightly. “Let’s calm down here. Our goal here is to help Elizabeth. Losing tempers won’t help anyone.”

Nora wants to reach over and unfold his fist and leave her hand in his. But she keeps her hands folded together and her eyes on Elizabeth.

Elizabeth looks at Nora then, and her eyes fill with tears. This girl is not the rebel who talks tough in class and smokes behind the school. Nora thinks about the poems, all the stories she’s read of Elizabeth’s. The freewrites thrown in the garbage. And suddenly, she knows the reason for Elizabeth’s self-loathing. She knows. Fury begins to burn inside her, fury at the people around this table, fury at this man, this pathetic fuck of a father. How she wants to lunge at him, wave Elizabeth’s writing in his face, scream, “You fucking asshole!” But she is frozen there, torn between betraying Elizabeth and getting her the hell away from this man.

“Fine,” her father says with feigned calmness. “If she doesn’t do her homework, there should be consequences, that’s all. Obviously her mother just lets her run wild, and you people have no idea how to get her to complete her work. If anything, Elizabeth should live with me full time.”

Elizabeth looks up then, with such shock on her face, such despair in her eyes, pinpricks of adrenaline shoot through Nora’s body, and when Elizabeth whispers, “NO, NO, NO,” and the shrunken mother sits there, tight-lipped, doing nothing, and the father says, “No?” and becomes more red-faced, more belligerent and says, “We’re done here! I’m taking her out of this wasteland, this pitiful excuse of a school, this”—it is then Nora stands up and goes to Elizabeth, kneels down, and wraps her arms around her.

“Move away from her!” Elizabeth’s father says. He stands up, toppling his chair. “I said …” He glowers at Nora, everything about him clenched.

“Mr. Guenther!” shouts John, already next to Nora and Elizabeth. “Please. Sit down.”

“Elizabeth isn’t going anywhere,” Nora says evenly. She keeps her arms around Elizabeth. “You will not—” but before she can finish, Elizabeth’s father grabs Nora’s wrist and jerks her up from her knees.

“Daddy, stop!” Elizabeth cries, jumping up, pushing her father back.

John is already there, pulling him from behind. “Mr. Guenther, enough!” he shouts. “Stop this second or I’ll call security!”

Nora wrenches her hand from Mr. Guenther’s and backs away, keeps her eyes on him, the ugly impotence of his being nauseating her.

“Get your things, Elizabeth,” he says quietly.

Nora’s heart beats violently, the fury within her burning out of control. She pushes between Elizabeth and Mr. Guenther. She looks him in the eyes. She cannot stop herself. “You asshole. You fucking asshole,” she says, and punches him in the stomach. She hears him gasp and then his hand is flying hard across her face and now people are shouting and someone is lifting her off the floor—carrying her out of the room, laying her down somewhere soft.

“Are you okay?” It’s John. He’s pulled up a chair next to her. Brown eyes stunned, worried, nervous. He has an ice pack, and holds it lightly to her cheek.

She winces, resurfaces. Lies motionless for a moment. She is in the faculty room on a couch. She sits up abruptly; the ice pack flies out of John’s hand.

“Elizabeth! Where’s Elizabeth?” she asks, panicked.

“I’m not sure,” John says, his voice stressed. He reaches down and picks up the ice pack from the floor, sets it on the end table. “I was too busy getting you off Mr. Guenther. God, Nora, what the hell happened? You’re lucky you weren’t hurt any worse.”

“We can’t let Elizabeth go with him. He’s molesting her, John. We have to find her.”

John drew a deep breath, then released it as he said, “Nora, do you have evidence? Because if you believe he’s molesting her, shit.” He stood up, began pacing. “If we’re going to help her, we have to think this through. Call CPS before he hurts her again. We have to think through this carefully . We don’t want to make things any worse for her.”

Something hard and hot seethes in Nora again. She doesn’t have any evidence. It’s all in Elizabeth’s notebooks—if it exists anymore at all. “I need to talk to her. Now,” Nora says, and stands. “Don’t you understand? She’s already abandoned herself. I can’t abandon her. I won’t. I can’t. I need to find her.” But as she moves to leave, John reaches for her hand, holds it gently.

“Nora. Please. Ok. Let me figure something out. But Nora—we need to talk about what happened in there—at the meeting. We need to talk about what’s happening right now.” His voice is thick with emotion but he continues. “Nora, over the years, you and I have seen lots of kids like Elizabeth. We’ve helped them, or at least most of them. We’ve tried. We’ve had condescending asshole parents in that conference room, and you’ve worked through it with them. You made a difference by being rational and firm. You’ve never raised your voice. Even when you were outraged. Let alone raised your fist. But Nora, you punched a parent today. God knows he deserved it, but still. And right now—this is more than what’s going on with Elizabeth. What is it? Please. Can you tell me?” Her hand falls from his like a leaf.