Free Someone Like Her by Janice Kay Johnson Page B

grow up at that.
    “Were you frightened of him?” Adrian asked, his voice low in case someone walked into the room behind the concealing curtain. “Did you have any idea what he was thinking of doing to you? When I left that day, did you have any clue what was happening?”
    Thinking back, he knew she’d been odd that morning; even odder than usual. A dervish of activity, anxious he hadn’t forgotten anything, checking, rechecking, hovering with the quivering intensity of a hummingbird. And yet he’d seen the sheen of tears in her eyes, which had upset him and made him exclaim, “I shouldn’t go! Why do I have to go without you? I want you to come, Mom! Why can’t you?”
    She didn’t quite answer. His father, who had already loaded his stuff in the car, came back brimming with impatience and tore him away.
    “Mom, can’t you come to the airport?” Adrian had begged, but she had shaken her head frantically, tearssliding down her cheeks, as she stood on the front porch and watched his father drag him to the car and bundle him in.
    “For God’s sake!” his father snapped, backing out of the driveway as Adrian pressed his hands and face to the window and breathed in ragged gasps.
    He shuddered now at the memory and thought, You did know. Not everything, but something.
    Enough to fear she might never see him again.
    “Did he promise you’d get better and be able to come home if you went?” Adrian asked the silent, unresponsive woman in the bed. “Did he use me somehow?”
    Again her eyelids quivered. Was he upsetting her? He couldn’t imagine she understood anything he was saying. Perhaps his voice, rough with long-suppressed anger, alarmed her.
    He pushed back the chair and stood. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company tonight, am I, Mom? I should have brought something to read. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go back to the library.” No, he realized, tomorrow was Sunday. He’d noticed it wasn’t open on Sundays. Probably nothing in town would be but the churches.
    “I’ll just, ah, let you sleep.” If that’s what she was doing. He hesitated, feeling awkward. He hadn’t touched her yet. He couldn’t imagine kissing her cheek. Adrian wasn’t much for touching, although he had liked the feel of Lucy’s back. For a ridiculous instant, he’d even imagined letting his hand slide lower.
    He said goodnight and left, realizing he hadn’t seen Slater today. Had he been by? Did it matter? All they could do was wait, he’d said.
    Adrian wasn’t a patient man.
     

    A DRIAN ALSO WASN’T a churchgoer. As he’d told Lucy, his mother had taken him to Sunday school and then services when he was really young. But either his father must have forbidden it at some point or his mother had become too uncomfortable around so many people, because they’d quit going by the time Adrian was seven years old or so.
    He had no trouble finding Lucy’s house, which appeared to date from the 1930s, as much of the town did. Wood-frame, modest porch, it lacked any distinguishing architectural features but had a plain, farmhouse-style charm. The lot was good-size, and most of the houses on the block were identical. Put up by the logging company that had probably once employed nearly every man in Middleton? All had large lawns that ran together with no fences in front. Hers boasted a big fruit tree in the front that was in bloom right now.
    After some hesitation that morning, Adrian had worn a suit, and was glad when Lucy came out the moment his car stopped at the curb. She wore a pretty, flowery dress and pearls in her earlobes, which he could see because she’d taken a wing of hair from each side of her face and clipped it in back. When she hopped in on the passenger side and smiled at him, his body tightened. She was pretty this morning, with high cheekbones and a pixie shape to her face, a wide mouth that smiled more naturally than it pursed when she was irritated, and creamy skin that had to feel like satin to the touch.