Wanda had patted her hand and said, There are wicked people in the world, Becky.
So am I wicked, then? Cain had wanted to know. Like Desiree says?
I’m not talking about you, dear. I’m talking about others.
Cain had remembered asking Wanda for help, to get away, but the woman had just burst into tears and said she couldn’t. Something about her son, not wanting to get Joe in trouble. So she had just let Cain rot there.
She didn’t blame Wanda, not really. She could understand why she did what she did. It was all about survival. What more to life was there, really?
She reached over to the nightstand and snagged her old doll. She pressed the mildewed toy against her chest. “You were my only real friend, Sally. And maybe you still are.”
CHAPTER
23
THE NEXT MORNING CAIN ROSE LATE and showered and took a few moments to look at herself in the mirror. She examined the burns on her left arm, and then the ones on her right. She could recall with absolute precision when each had been done and the means used. The person was always Desiree Atkins. Joe apparently didn’t have the stomach for it. Desiree, on the other hand, apparently had no limits to what she would do.
The woman had often used lighted cigarettes. She seemed to like watching the skin blacken and bubble. Cain could remember looking at the woman even as she was shrieking in pain. The louder she yelled, the more Desiree smiled, the longer the burning went on. It didn’t take Cain long, young though she was, to realize that if she marshaled all her focus and did not scream in pain, then Desiree would soon lose interest and stop, even though Cain’s body would be shaking all over in agony. Desiree apparently liked to hear the terror. And sometimes Desiree would bring out the needles and the knife and carve things into Cain’s skin. But her next favorite torture device had been the belt. When Cain had seen Ken holding his belt to threaten Rosa, all those memories came flooding back. But again, if Cain did not cry out, Desiree would stop enjoying it and leave Cain to quietly sob over her fresh wounds.
There was only one reason that Cain could focus during all that and not cry out. She had one image that she held in the safest, most remote spot in her mind. She hid it away, she told herself as a little girl, because she was afraid Desiree might find it and take it away, and leave Cain with nothing to fight back with.
The image was vague, yet powerful. A little girl was sitting in the dirt, wearing a colorful skirt, her long hair in her face. And she was looking up at something in a tall tree. A woman whom Cain could never really see was calling out to someone in the tall tree.
“You get down here right now, young lady. You have no business up there. You’ll fall and hurt yourself.”
And Cain would hear the little girl wearing the dress reply, “It’s okay, Momma, it’s just Lee being Lee. She’ll find her way down. She always does. Don’t be mad at her, Momma.”
Who Lee was, Cain didn’t know. Why she was up a tree, Cain didn’t know. She suspected the little girl with the long hair and the dress was herself, but she didn’t know that for certain.
She’ll find her way down, Momma, she always does.
For some reason that curious image had fully consumed all of Cain’s attention to such a degree that she could not feel the burns or the blows or the cuts and needle stabs that Desiree was inflicting. It allowed her to survive. Cain had felt a burst of pride for this Lee person. She apparently did what she wanted, took risks, figured things out, and she came out all right in the end.
Just like I needed to do.
But what was Lee? A figment of her imagination? Nothing at all? Or maybe someone important?
Should she be thankful for this Lee, or hate her?
Was Lee really me? I was being tortured every time this image appeared in my head. Was I just reaching for something, anything, to get through it? Because a person would, whether it was real or not.