Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

Sarah smiled at the nervous woman. "That's okay."

Don't worry. Witch Watson just wants to get in, leave me, and get out.

"Any last questions for me, Desiree?"

"No, Ms. Watson. I don't think so."

The social worker nodded, and stood up. "Then I'll be going. I'll check in on you in a month." She turned to Sarah. "Be good, Sarah. Do what Mrs. Smith tells you."

"Yes, Ms. Watson," Sarah replied, demure again.

Go away, Witch, she thought.

Sarah waited on the couch while Desiree led Karen to the door and said her good-byes. The door closed, and Desiree came back over and flopped down on the couch.

"Whew! I'm glad that's over with! I was so nervous."

Sarah gave her a curious look.

"Why?"

"We've never taken in a child before, Sarah, and we really wanted to. Ms. Watson bringing you over and taking a look around was the last hurdle."

"Why is it so important to you?"

"Well, honey, sometimes Ned is gone a lot. He's here a lot too, but sometimes on a long-haul he'll be gone for two weeks. I do some work from home as a travel agent, but it gets lonely. We both like children, and it just seemed to make sense, you know?"

Sarah nodded. She pointed toward one of the photographs on the wall. "Is that Ned?"

Desiree smiled. "That's him. You'll like him, Sarah, I promise. He's a beautiful man. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body."

So you say.

She pointed to a photo she'd noticed earlier of Ned and Desiree with a baby. "Who's that?"

Desiree's smile changed. It became a sad smile that spoke of a hurt that was ever-present but no longer crippling. Some event had colored her soul without breaking her.

"That was our daughter, Diana. She died five years ago, when she was just a year old."

"How did she die?"

"She was born with a bad heart."

Sarah studied the photograph, thinking.

Can you trust this one? She seems nice. She seems really nice. But maybe it's a trick.

Sarah was only eight, but her experience at the Parkers', followed by two years in the group home, had taught her an important lesson: Trust no one. She liked to think of herself as hard, cold, a prisoner with a sneer on her face.

The truth was that she was only eight, and what she really wanted was for the warmth in this woman to be real. She wanted it with a deep-down desperation that made her heart tremble.

"Do you miss her?" Sarah asked.

Desiree nodded. "Every day. Every minute."

Sarah watched the woman's eyes as she said these things, looking for lies. All she saw was a river of sorrow, tempered by acceptance of the possibility of hope.

"My parents died," she blurted out without meaning to. The river of sorrow turned into compassion. "I know, honey. And I know about what happened at the Parkers' too." Desiree looked down, seemed to be searching for the words she wanted. "I want you to know something, Sarah. It'll seem sometimes to you like I don't understand the bad things that can happen in this world. Even with everything I've experienced, like losing Diana, I'm an optimist. I try to find the good side of things. But that doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I know evil exists. I know you've seen too much of it. I guess what I'm saying is that I've got your back."

Hope welled up in Sarah's heart. It was crushed by a wave of cynicism.

"Prove it," she said.

Desiree's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, well . . ." She nodded. "Fair enough." She smiled. "How about this? I know that Karen Watson isn't a very nice person."

It was Sarah's turn to be surprised. "You do?"

"Yep. She puts on an act, but I was watching. I saw the way she looked at you. She doesn't really care about you, does she?"

Sarah scowled. "She doesn't care about anyone but herself. You know what I call her?"

"What?"

"Witch Watson."

Desiree's mouth twitched and then she laughed. "Witch Watson. I like that."

Sarah smiled back. She couldn't help herself.

"So," Desiree said. "Okay?"

"Okay," Sarah replied.

Maybe, she thought.

"Good. Now that that's settled, I want to introduce you to someone. I kept him in the backyard while Ms.--sorry-- Witch Watson was here, but now I want you to meet him. I think you'll like him."

Sarah was puzzled. Was Desiree crazy after all? It sounded like she was talking about keeping someone in the backyard.

"Uh, okay."

"His name's Pumpkin. Don't be afraid of him--he's friendly."

Desiree walked over to the sliding glass door that led into the backyard and opened it up. She whistled.

"Come on, Pumpkin. You can come inside now."

There was a ferocious-sounding "woof."

A dog!

Happiness shot through Sarah's soul like an arrow. Pumpkin appeared at the door, and Sarah understood the reason for the name immediately. The dog's head was huge. Crazy-huge--like a pumpkin.

He was a coffee-colored pit bull, and he looked both ridiculous and terrifying, with his jowls flopping and his tongue lolling and his oversized skull. He raced up to Desiree, looked up at her and spoke: "Woof !"

Desiree smiled and leaned over to pet the pit bull. "Hey, Pumpkin. We have a visitor. A girl. She's going to be staying with us, and her name's Sarah."

The dog cocked its head, aware that its owner was talking to him, but unable to understand any of it.

Sarah got up off the couch. Pumpkin turned at the sound.

"Woof !"

The dog came bounding over. Sarah would have been terrified if not for the fact that Pumpkin was wagging his tail in the universal sign of dog happiness. He bumped into her with his massive head and proceeded to lick her offered hand, coating it with slobber. Sarah grinned. "Yuck!" She petted the pit bull, who sat back on his haunches and grinned. "You sure are a goofy-looking dog, Pumpkin."

"I rescued him from a bar eight years ago," Desiree said. She smiled. "It was in my younger days, and I wasn't always that smart. I noticed a group of bikers over by a pool table laughing and making noise, and when I went over to see what they were doing, there was Pumpkin. He was just a puppy, but they had him up on the pool table, and they were shooting pool balls at him. He was scared, and whining."

"How mean!"

"Yeah, I thought so too. I yelled at them all, and I might have tried to start a fight--which would have been really stupid on my part--but my girlfriend grabbed my arm and dragged me away. I was still very upset about it, so I kept drinking and--I don't remember how it happened--when I woke up the next morning Pumpkin was lying next to me in my bed."

Sarah continued to pet the dog, bemused by this strange woman and her tale of drunken dog-rescuing. Something hitched in her chest. She was mortified to find that tears were running down her face.

"What's the matter, Sarah?"

Desiree was empathetic. She didn't move closer or try to hug Sarah.

Sarah wiped her face with a small, angry hand.

"Just . . . we had dogs, and my mom would have liked the story about Pumpkin, and--" She sat back down on the couch, miserable.

"Sorry. I'm not a crybaby."

Pumpkin put his head in her lap and looked up at her, as if to say: I'm sorry you feel bad, but can you keep doing the petting thing?

"There's nothing wrong with crying when you're sad, Sarah."

Sarah looked up at Desiree. "What if you're always sad? You'd never stop crying."

She thought for a moment that she'd said something wrong because of the pain that twisted Desiree's face. Then, understanding: She's feeling that way for me.

No matter how precocious, no matter how hardened, an eightyear-old only has so much complexity to draw on. Sarah's interior walls had developed cracks, which had become fissures, and while the dam had not burst, the tears wouldn't stop. She put her hands to her face and cried.