“Evidence?”
“Torn shirts. We can’t just dump them somewhere.”
He found it oddly endearing when she actually buttoned—two buttons—what was left of hers.
“Summerset will find them, so they must be destroyed.”
He held out her second boot before he picked up his clothes. “I can promise he won’t scold us, as he’ll never mention it.”
“He’ll know.”
Adoring her, he scooped her up and started to the elevator.
“You’re still naked. Doesn’t it bother you to just wander around naked?”
“I’m not wandering, I’m going to bed with my wife.”
“After we destroy the evidence.”
* * *
The child without a name had to kneel on the chair to reach all the pretty colors the mother used to get pretty. She wanted to get pretty, too, because she was scrawny and stupid and ugly. If she could be pretty, the mother would be nice to her.
She poked the brush into some of the pink powder, and dabbed and swiped it on her cheeks. It made her laugh.
Pretty!
She played with some of the glittery stuff and tried smearing it on her eyelids. Delighted, and she had few delights, she tried more colors. She wasn’t sure of all their names, but she knew things had names.
She didn’t.
She didn’t know how old she was, had no concept of years or age. She knew the concept of pain because it hurt when the mother or the father smacked her. And the concept of hunger when they forgot to feed her, or didn’t feed her because she’d been bad.
She didn’t understand bad except that she was, a lot.
She knew the concept of fear because she lived in it.
But sometimes the father tickled her to make her laugh. And sometimes his tickles hurt or made her feel scared and sick.
If she could be pretty, it would be good. It was good when she wasn’t hungry and when they didn’t lock her in the dark, when they didn’t give her something that made her wake up feeling funny and wrong and in another place.
When you were pretty, people were nice to you. Like when the mother got all pretty, the father smiled and said things like: Stella, you’re a knockout!
She could be a knockout with all the pretty colors.
For a while, she played with the tube of lipstick when she figured out how to wind it up, wind it down. She didn’t know toys, but she embraced the game before she smeared the gooey stick over her lips.
Red! She knew that color. Red, red, red!
It tasted funny, but she didn’t mind, because pretty!
Then the mother came in, and proud, she beamed in the mirror. And the fear came fast. It wasn’t nice she saw in the mother’s eyes.
She screamed the words that meant bad. Brat, bitch, goddamn fucker. The cracking slap against her thin, pink cheek snapped her head back. The pain burned, and the second slap knocked her off the chair. Her head smacked the floor so now the pain screamed like the mother screamed.
She didn’t know the concept of hate, but she saw it in the mother’s eyes when hands gripped her, nails dug into her arms.
Shaking her, shaking her, then it felt like she flew. When she landed, hard, crying because crying was all she had, she was somewhere else.
Outside. But she wasn’t allowed to go outside, not by herself, and hardly ever. She knew outside because it was out the windows. She sat on something with colors, and it wasn’t hard like the floor.
She didn’t know the names for them, but she saw swings and slides and springs with funny animals, climbing bars and carousels. Fascinated, she forgot the pain, the fear even as a line of blood dribbled from the corner of her red-slicked mouth.
Getting up, she bounced on the springy safety surface on her way to the swings. She pushed at one, watched it rock back and forth.
She saw the ladder to the slide, though she didn’t know the words for them. Walking to it, she climbed up and stood for a minute, not sure what came next. Curious, she sat, and as she shifted, she started to slide. A quick snap of fear, and then the thrill. She landed on her butt on the springy surface, then scrambled up to do it again.
When she landed again, a woman stood there. She cringed, but never thought to run. They always caught you if you ran, and smacked and smacked.
But the woman crouched down.
“Figured it out, right? I guess you would have.”
She didn’t see mean in the eyes. She saw sad. And her own. Her eyes.
“You’re going to have to go back, and I’m sorry about that. I can’t stop it,” Eve told her, told herself. “Not yet anyway.”