Anna Quinn - The Night Child

“And now?”

“And now we can’t help Fiona!”

“Fiona? Why does Fiona need help?”

“Oh, this is bad!” she says beginning to rock, the blankets quivering. “So bad. It’s almost Valentine’s Day, oh no, oh no, this is so bad, sobadsobadsobad.”

“Margaret, what is too late? Please, please tell me.”

“Paul was telling Fiona the princess words,” she whispers. Her heart is going very fast now. “He keeps saying, ‘My little princess, my little princess,’ and it’s almost Valentine’s Day and we have to help Fiona!”

“Margaret. It will be okay. I will help Fiona, okay? I promise, but you have to help me.”

“How?”

“Can you tell me if Fiona’s daddy has hurt her before?”

She will try very hard now. She brings her head above the covers, nervously glances at the door, and then looks right at him, blinking rapidly.

“I don’t know, but he says the princess words and she has tummy aches and when daddies say the princess words, next come the candy hearts that say ‘ Kiss me ’ and the big hand and ‘kiss me, kiss me’ and the hurting and ‘You are my princess’ and then a new pink bike with rainbow streamers and a Barbie and a doll house and more ‘ kiss me, kiss me ’ and Nora isn’t there to watch out and oh no, oh no, oh no …”

Margaret’s insides are fluttering, and there is a glump, glump, glumping in her ears. David is not acting like this is an emergency. She needs to get to Fiona. Even though Nora has teached and teached Fiona to say “NO!” to bad touching, daddies can be very, very tricky and bad. She tries to throw the blankets off her body, but the ribs hurt her too hard—

“Margaret!”

She stops frozen because David is standing up and moving to her— Oh, no. Oh, no. I am a stupid, stupid girl . She makes herself very small and very still, very still, very still. Please don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.

He stops moving. “Margaret. Please. You are safe. But if you try to get out of that bed again, you will hurt yourself more, and it will take longer to see Fiona.”

She looks at him. He has stopped. He is not going to hurt her. She will listen. Even if he is tricking her, he is right. She will be quiet with her body. She will use only her mouth. “You need to help Fiona right now!”

“Okay, Margaret. I will. He walks to the coat rack and plucks his raincoat from the hook. “I would like to say goodbye to Nora first. Will you help me with that?”

Margaret is sitting straight up now, eyes wide. “Yes, but the biggest thing is to remind Fiona of how to dial the 911 and to bring the phone close to her and there is one on the dresser and it has a long cord you can stretch and stretch all the way to her bed. Nora showed her how to use it. And … and … tell her for sure to call it when she’s scared and tell her about all the bad touching things again.” She begins rocking, rocking, saying, “You will do that right?”

“Yes. I will absolutely do that. I will go as soon as I talk to Nora. And Margaret?”

“What?”

“You are so very brave and I am really sorry your daddy hurt you. What he did was horribly wrong. He had no right to do that to you. He was very sick.”

She doesn’t stop rocking, whispers, “Will you please go now to check on Fiona?”

“I will call Nora’s doctor and leave a note for you as soon as I know about Fiona, okay?”

“Okay,” and she closes her eyes so he will leave faster.

Nora is pulled from the deep gray silence and opens her eyes and struggles to know where she is and if she’s in a dream or not. She sees David and smells the room and remembers. Worry slides across his face, and her stomach tightens with what he might say.

He tells her Margaret spoke to him, “Which means,” he says, carefully, “that your not being able to speak is psychological.”

But all she wants to know is: What did she say?

He stares at the note for a few moments and says slowly, “She thinks … she thinks Paul may be abusing Fiona.”

Her eyes shout “What!” His words turning the room red. She needs to get out of this damn bed and go home. She struggles with the covers, her movements still limited because of the bruised ribs, and realizes suddenly she is wearing only a hospital gown. Her arms cross over her chest.

Without hesitating, David goes to the closet and comes back with her robe. “Paul brought it yesterday,” he says. “Your brother was with him; Fiona was in school. They brought a whole suitcase of clothes for you.”

Paul and James were here? She wraps the white robe around her tightly, reaches for the belt, but it’s not there.

“Belts aren’t allowed, Nora. Sorry.”

Out the window, feathery snowflakes fall so thick and heavy, all she can see is white. Fiona’s words burst into her mind: “The angels are sifting flour from heaven! It’s like we’re in a snow globe, Mommy!”

If the window weren’t locked, if it didn’t have this wire mesh, she might jump. She might. She could jump into the thick, slow silence and kill her body, kill her madness.

She begins shaking her head, no, no, no, slowly at first, then faster and faster until David is there, hands on her shoulders, shuffling her toward a chair, asking her to please sit down, please breathe in, breathe out.

She tries to speak, but there is only a small frightening sound, her mouth stiff and useless. She shakes her head again, no, no, no. Paul would never hurt his daughter. Never. His life, fast and aggressive to her, every moment an opportunity to make money, climb a ladder, strike a deal over cognac. He’s been hungrier for power, more ravenous for status than she’d expected. And she’s turned her back on his world, made him angry. But NO, he would never hurt Fiona.

“Nora, there really is nothing you’ve told me to suggest Paul would hurt Fiona in this way. Have you ever seen him display affection that is inappropriate?”

She shakes her head no.

But she thinks now about how insistent she’d been with Paul, that it was her, not him, who would give Fiona baths. Paul had thought this unreasonable, but as with most of their parenting decisions, had shrugged it off as her decision. She’d not understood her own insistence or the vague anxiety that wound around it. Had she sensed something unconsciously?

“And there are signs, you know?” he says. “Like sexual preoccupation in her play or language or drawings, inserting toys into—”

She holds up a hand to stop him from going on. I know the signs! Have you forgotten I’m a teacher? Nora’s eyes welling. Her head shaking an emphatic “No!” but her mind panicking. God, had she been paying enough attention?

“So let’s just stay calm about this,” David says. “I’ll meet with Paul and Fiona, make sure she’s safe.”

Yes, she nods, taking deep breaths to slow the fast blinking of her eyes.

“I want to honor Margaret’s fears, but I also know—Nora, are you with me?”

She nods.

“Children and adults who have been sexually abused trust very few people, and it takes a long time for them to regain trust—so let’s take this a step at a time, okay?”

Her mind is a blur. She needs to get to Fiona. She paces, frantic short breaths jarring the quiet room, playing and replaying conversations with Fiona: good touching, bad touching, good secrets, and bad secrets. Was it enough? Is that why Paul asked for more time alone with Fiona, took so long to tuck her in at night, was he really only reading her stories? Her ribs stabbing now. Oh, God, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, now arms around her, it is David, laying her down on the bed.