“Tiffani called him an instrument of Satan.”
“I told her that,” she said defiantly. “You see something wrong with that?”
“Not at all.”
“It’s my faith-it props me up. And he is one.”
“How’d Ruthanne meet him?”
Her shoulders dropped. “She was waitressin’ at a place out in Tujungaokay, it was a bar. He and his bunch hung out there. She went out with him for months before tellin’ me. Then she brought him home and the first look I got I said no, no, no-my experiences, I can spot a bad apple like that.” Snap of fingers. “I warned her, but that didn’t do no good. Maybe I gave up too easy, I don’t know. I was havin’ problems of my own, and Ruthie didn’t think I had a single intelligent thing to say to her.”
She lit another cigarette and took several hard, fast drags. “She was stubborn. That was her only real sin.”
I drank more coffee.
“Nothing to say anymore, doc? Or am I boring you?” She flicked ashes onto the dirt.
“I’d rather listen.”
“And they pay you all that money for that? Good racket you got there.”
“Beats honest labor,” I said.
She smiled. First friendly one I’d seen.
“Stubborn,” she said. She smoked and sighed and called out, “Five more minutes, then into the house for homework, both a you!”
The girls ignored her. She kept looking at them. Drifted off, as if she’d forgotten I was there. But then she turned and looked at me.
“So, Mr. Easy Listener, what do you want from me and my little girls?”
Same question she’d asked me the first time she met me. I said, “Enough time to find out exactly how they’ve been affected by their mom’s death.”
“How do you think they’ve been affected? They loved their mama.
They’re crushed to dirt.”
“I need to get specific for the court.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to list symptoms that prove they’re suffering psychologically.”
“You gonna say they’re crazy?”
“No, nothing like that. I’ll talk about symptoms of anxietylike the sleep problems, changes in appetite, things that make them vulnerable to seeing him.
Otherwise they’re going to get swept up in the system. Some of it you can tell me, but I’ll also need to hear things directly from them.”
“Won’t that mess them up more, talking about it?”
“No,” I said. “Just the opposite-keeping things inside is more likely to create problems.”
She gave a skeptical look. “I don’t see them talkin’ to you much, so far.”
“I need time with them-need to build up their trust.”
She thought about that. “So what do we do, just sit here jawing?”
“We could start with a history-you telling me as much as you remember about what they were like as babies. Anything else you think might be important.”
“A history, huh?” She took a deep drag, as if trying to suck maximum poison out of the cigarette. “So now we’ve got a history. ..yeah, I’ve got plenty to tell you. Why don’t you get out a pencil and start writing?”
She talked as the sky darkened further, letting the girls play on as she recounted nightmares and weeping spells, the terrors of orphanhood.
At five-thirty Bonnie came out and switched on floodlights that turned the yard sallow. It stilled her mother’s voice, and Evelyn stood and told the girls, “Go in the house, you.”
Right after they did, a man came out, rubbing his hands together and sniffing the air. Five three or so, in his late fifties or early sixties, low waisted, dark skinned and weak chinned, with long, tattooed arms.
Bowlegs gave him a tottering walk.
His eyes were shadowed by thick, gray thatches, and a drooping, ironcolored Zapata mustache obscured his mouth.
His bushy gray hair was slicked straight back. He wore a khaki workshirt and blue jeans with hand rolled cuffs. His hands were caked with plaster and he rubbed them more vigorously as he approached.
Evelyn saluted him.
He returned the gesture and looked at me, stretching to stand taller.
“This here’s that doctor,” she said. “We been having a nice talk.”
He nodded. The shirt was embroidered with a white oval tag that said “Roddy” in red script. Up close I saw that his face was severely pockmarked. A couple of crescent-shaped scars ran down his chin.