She looks at me as if she's afraid to answer. Then she points to a bin. She fills it out for me, as I feed her the answers in a voice that I can't place.
Judge Bartlett receives me in chambers. "Nina." He knows me, they all do. "What can I do for you?"
I hold the form out for him and lift my chin. Breathe, speak, focus. "I am filing this on behalf of my son, Your Honor. I'd prefer not to do it in open court."
The judge's eyes hold mine for a long second, then he takes the paper from my hands. "Tell me," he says gently.
"There is physical evidence of sexual abuse." I am careful not to say Nathaniel's name. That, I cannot bear yet. "And today, he identified the abuser as his father." His father, not my husband.
"And you?" Judge Bartlett asks. "Are you all right?"
I shake my head, my lips pressed tight together. I grasp my hands so tightly that I lose feeling in the fingers. But I don't say a word.
"If there's anything I can do," the judge murmurs. But there is nothing he can do, or anyone else, no matter how many times the offer is extended. Everything has already been done. And that is the problem.
The judge scrawls the craggy landscape of his signature across the bottom of the form. "You know this is only temporary. We'll have to have a hearing in twenty days."
"That's twenty days I have to figure this out."
He nods. "I'm sorry, Nina."71
So am I. For not seeing what was under my nose. For not knowing how to protect a child in the world, but only in the legal system. For every choice I've made that has brought me to this moment. And, yes, for the restraining order that burns a hole in my pocket the entire drive back to my son.
These are the rules at home:
Make your bed in the morning. Brush your teeth twice a day. Don't pull the dog's ears. Finish your vegetables, even if they're not as good as the spaghetti.
These are the rules at school:
Don't climb up the outside of the slide. Don't walk in front of the swings while a friend is swinging.
Raise your hand in Circle if you have something to say. Everybody gets to play a game, if they want to.
Put on a smock if you're going to paint.
I know other rules, too: Buckle your seat belt. Never speak to a stranger. Don't tell, or you'll burn in Hell.
THREE
Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just because you have come face-to-face with a catastrophe. The garbage cans still overflow, the bills arrive in the mail, telemarketers interrupt dinner.
Nathaniel comes into the bathroom just as I put the cap back on the tube of Preparation H. I read once that rubbing it into the skin around the eyes makes the swelling go down, the red fade. I turn to him with a smile so bright he backs away. "Hey, sweetie. Did you brush your teeth?" He nods, and I take his hand. "Let's read a book, then."
Nathaniel scrambles onto his bed like any other five-year-old-it is a jungle, and he is a monkey. Dr.
Robichaud has said that the children bounce back fast, faster even than their parents do. I hold onto this excuse as I open the book-one about a pirate blind in one eye who cannot see that the parrot on his shoulder is actually a poodle. I make it through the first three pages, and then Nathaniel stops me, his hand splayed across the bright painted pictures. His index finger waggles, and then he holds that hand up to his forehead again, making a sign I wish I could never see again.
Where's Daddy?
I take the book and set it on the nightstand. "Nathaniel, he's not coming home tonight." He's not coming home any night, I think.
He frowns at me. He doesn't know how to ask why yet, but that is what's caught in his head. Is he thinking that he's responsible for Caleb's exile? Has he been told there will be some kind of retribution, for confessing?
Holding his hands between mine-to keep him from interrupting- I try to make this as easy as I can.
"Right now, Daddy can't be here."
Nathaniel tugs his arms free, curls his fingers up and in. I want.
