Despite the chill in the air, the sun was shining brightly and the breeze had a belated hint of spring in it on Friday afternoon. Angel was down for her nap, so Heather pulled a chair onto the sunny landing outside the upstairs apartment and settled down with a bottle of nail polish and an old issue of People.
She’d just finished putting the first coat of bright pink polish on her nails when she realized she wasn’t alone. She turned her head to find Sissy Perkins standing halfway up the steps and watching her solemnly.
It seemed to Heather that Sissy was way too serious for a ten-year-old. Although she was a beautiful girl, with her red hair, flawless skin and delicate features, she rarely smiled and she never laughed. In fact, she was just about the quietest, politest and most sedate child Heather had ever seen. When Heather asked Henrietta about it, the older woman said only that Sissy had been through a lot in the past year.
Henrietta had adopted Sissy and her younger brother, Will, but that was about as much as Heather had learned. She figured Henrietta would reveal the rest when she was good and ready. She already knew that was Henrietta’s way, operating on a need-to-know basis, whether it had to do with customer idiosyncrasies or the location of extra creamers. She was talkative enough when she chose to be, but those times could be few and far between.
“Hi, Sissy. Is school out?”
The girl nodded and crept up another step. “Am I bothering you? Henrietta said not to bother you.”
Heather smiled. “Nope. I’m just doing my nails.” She glanced at Sissy’s nails, which had been chewed off practically to the quick. “Want me to do yours?”
Sissy hid her hands behind her back in obvious embarrassment. “No, thanks. I bite mine.”
“Maybe if they were a pretty color, you wouldn’t want to bite them,” Heather countered.
Sissy considered that, then sighed. “It probably wouldn’t matter. It’s a nervous habit, that’s what the shrink says, anyway. He says I’ll stop when I’m ready.”
Heather was startled by the casual reference to a shrink, but she didn’t pursue it. If this child needed a psychiatrist at her age, it was none of Heather’s business. That didn’t mean she couldn’t try to be Sissy’s friend.
“So, what are your plans for the weekend?”
Sissy shrugged. “Nothing special.”
“You’re not going to see any of your friends?”
“No. I guess I’ll help Henrietta around the house. And I’ll baby-sit Will.” Her expression brightened a little. “I could baby-sit Angel, too, if you want. I’m real responsible.”
“I’m sure you are, but you should be doing something fun. What’s your favorite thing to do?”
“Reading, I guess. You can go anywhere in the whole world you want to go in a book.”
Heather heard a wistful note in the girl’s voice, as if she longed to be someplace else. It was a longing no ten-year-old should be feeling. She should be living in the here and now, surrounded by friends and family and laughter.
“What about outdoors?” Heather asked. “Do you like any sports?”
Sissy shrugged again. “I guess so, but I’m not very good. Nobody ever chooses me for their team.”
“Then how about something you can do on your own? Cycling, maybe.” She was struck by a sudden inspiration, something she could share with this obviously lonely child. “How about in-line skating?”
Sissy looked intrigued, but she shook her head. “I don’t know how. Besides, I don’t have any skates.”
“I could show you,” Heather offered. “And I’ll bet my skates would fit you. We might have to stuff some paper in the toes, but they’d work. If you like it, we can talk to Henrietta about getting you your own skates.”
“Really?” the girl said, a spark of excitement in her eyes.
Heather seized the moment to try to do something to wipe that sad expression from Sissy’s face. “I don’t see why not. Let’s give it a try right now.”
She went inside and grabbed some tissues, which she wadded up, and the in-line skates she’d brought from New York because they were her favorite form of exercise. She’d already discovered that the sidewalk along Main Street was nice and level and mostly deserted, perfect for blading. She’d been out at dawn several times this week already, drawing stares at first, but friendly waves of greeting ever since.
Outside on the landing, she handed the skates to Sissy. “Let’s go downstairs and you can try them on.”
“What if Angel wakes up?”
“The door’s open. I’ll hear her. Angel makes a lot of racket when she’s ready to get up. She’s always afraid she might be missing something.”
Sissy nodded. “Will was like that, too, when he was little,” she said, then fell silent. Her lips quivered and she added in a low voice, “Till Daddy would get mad.”
As she spoke, a tear tracked down her cheek, followed by another and then another. Obviously Sissy had touched on something almost too painful for her to bear. Heather stared at her helplessly, then reached out to gather her close. At her touch Sissy froze for an instant, then released a shuddering sigh. She relaxed in Heather’s arms and gave way to noisy, gut-wrenching sobs. The sound brought Henrietta running.
“Oh, baby,” she murmured, taking over from Heather. “What is it?”
“She said something about her dad, and then she just started crying.” Heather had rarely seen such a heartbreaking display of anguish.
“I’ll explain later,” Henrietta mouthed, then led Sissy away.
Heather stared after them, shaken by the child’s misery. Her own childhood, in upstate New York, had been happy, if a little dull. She had considered her parents too strict from time to time and maybe they hadn’t been as supportive as she’d wanted them to be of her acting career or her decision to raise Angel on her own, but all in all, she’d had no experience with the kind of torment that Sissy was evidently going through. Even the wild mood swings of adolescence hadn’t brought anything like Sissy’s tears.
She recalled the bleakness in Sissy’s eyes when she’d mentioned her father. And those tears, they hadn’t been about sorrow, but something deeper. Suddenly it struck her. There had been anger, maybe even hatred, in that outburst. Could a ten-year-old child experience that kind of rage?
Later, after the diner had closed for the night, Henrietta poured two cups of coffee and beckoned Heather to a booth.
“After what happened earlier, you must have a lot of questions,” she began.
“It’s none of my business, but obviously I did or said something that set her off. Maybe I should know at least enough so that I won’t inadvertently do it again.”
Henrietta nodded. “Here it is in a nutshell. It’s not pretty. Sissy lost both her parents a few months back. The long and short of it is that her daddy had been abusing her mama for years. One night he started after Sissy. Her mama stepped in and shot him. Lyle survived, but at my urging Barbara Sue left him and she and the kids moved in with me. Lyle just couldn’t handle that. She was working for me here. As soon as he could get around, he came over here with a gun. Jake tried to stop him, but Lyle shot Jake in the leg, then killed Barbara Sue. The sheriff shot Lyle. That’s how I wound up with the two kids. I figured I owed it to Barbara Sue, because I was the one who all but forced her to finally take a stand.”
Heather was horrified. No wonder Sissy’s impulsive mention of her father’s anger had brought terrible memories flooding back. How many violent episodes had she witnessed? One would have been too many for a young, impressionable girl. And even at six, Will must be devastated.
As