Free Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek Page A

up. Tess and I did the same.
    Daddy offered his hand again. “We’d better be getting home. Nice seeing you, Mason.”
    Before we left, Mr. Reed touched Daddy’s sleeve. “My girl, she’s working out then, not giving you any trouble?”
    â€œShe’s working out just fine, Mason. There’s no trouble. Tess is a godsend to me.”
    â€œWell, don’t count on keeping her forever, Rupert. I got lots of things at my own house that needs tending. I only let her come to help out while your wife’s laid up, you know.”
    â€œYes, I understand.” Then Daddy’s jaw locked together the way it does when he is angry.
    I held my breath until we were outside again.
    T ESS DIDN’T SAY much during the walk home, and Daddy kept his arm around her shoulder. I didn’t know what was wrong, but figured it had something to do with her father. The few words she did say were bad words that I’m not supposed to say.
    When we got home, I tried to cheer up Tess. I offered to let her feed Jellybean or play Scrabble with me. I suggested we play Avon Lady and I’d be the makeover girl.
    Tess didn’t want Jellybean, Scrabble boards, Avon, or me. She only wanted my father.
    D ADDY TUCKED ME IN bed and sat Jellybean’s box beside me. Then he kissed me good-night. “Kiss Jellybean, too!” I begged.
    He uncovered the chick and kissed his downy head.
    â€œWill Tess be all right, Daddy?” I snuggled under the comforter, suddenly feeling very tired.
    â€œYes, she’s just a little sad. But she’ll be fine.” Daddy patted my head.
    â€œWhy does she have to take care of things at her house? Doesn’t she have a mother?”
    Daddy looked down at the floor then turned back to me. The lines in his forehead seemed deeper in the soft lamp light. “Tess’s mother died when she was little, so her father has raised her alone. She’s had things hard, and needs us to be good to her, understand?”
    I nodded, my chin digging into the thick quilt. “But what will happen when she has to go back home to Mr. Reed?”
    â€œI’m not going to let that happen.” Daddy kissed my forehead once again and left my room.
    Thinking about Tess without a mother made me feel suddenly sad for her. She’d had no one to cut out paper dolls, kiss her skinned knees, or braid her hair. Instead, she’d lived with her father who looked and smelled bad, with no woman at home to make him take a bath. I pictured Tess as a girl my age, standing at the kitchen sink while trying to figure out how much milk to pour into the pancake batter, or how to peel a potato without cutting her thumb. And here I’d been mean to her over something so silly as sewing on buttons.
    I got out of bed; I needed to say I was sorry, to tell Tess she could sew Daddy’s buttons whenever she wanted.
    As I neared the top step, I heard Daddy and Tess downstairs. Tess was crying, and as she spoke, her voice broke. “He’d wait until … my seizure … and then … Oh, Rupert … Awful … It was so awful …”
    I listened from the stairs, hearing her terrible story, how she’d wet herself during her seizures, and afterwards, her father took off her panties and rubbed between her legs. How he scolded her for being a big girl and still wetting herself, and wouldn’t let her have clean underpants unless she let him touch her down there. “He started keeping my panties out in his room, and told me I’d have to earn them. If I didn’t … If I didn’t do what he wanted, he hit me, and held me down.”
    I heard my father’s voice say her name, over and over: “Tess,Tess, Tess. You should have said something … You should have told me!”
    Then, in a deep, fierce voice I didn’t know Daddy had: “I’m going to kill him, Tess. I swear to God, I’m going to see that bastard