"What are you talking about?" Charmian's headache pounded, and all she felt was irritation at the nanny's irrational outburst.
"He rape her! He chase her and rape her and scare her half to death and now you got to do somethin'!" Josephine threw the laundry at her feet, and Charmian saw the sheets, the blood on them. "You look here and see what he done!" There too were Lila's pajamas and underpants, ripped, spotted with blood.
Charmian's world rocked in something like an earthquake; the room seemed literally to tilt and shake as shock after shock hit her. First and foremost, concern for Lila – an agony of sympathy and fear for her future. But immediately after came fear and pity for Bradford, her beloved, charming, ne'er-do-well baby brother who had now truly become a lost soul. And then a thousand other shocks: a shrieking sense of failure, for having failed to protect her daughter. For having failed to help Brad become something better. For not having seen how far Brad had fallen. For having failed to protect her family, now gouged with a deep wound that could never knit. And then the shame of it! And the shame of knowing this servant knew of it. And fear of Richard, what he'd do when he found out, and
And in that moment she knew that she had to take control. It was up to her to repair this, to manage it. Josephine was never again going to act as Lila's mother, that had gone on long enough. She, Charmian, and she alone, was going to do that now. And she'd never fail again.
Charmian groaned out loud, causing Pierre Lapin to turn his buglike sunglassed gaze to her. Charmian inched away from him, up against the door, turning her head to look out at the disgusting commercial strip that had sprung up along Highway 23 in the last twenty years.
Another wave of pain came, but this time she weathered it silently: yes, she'd vowed never to fail Lila again. But only five minutes later, she had done so, maybe the worst way.
She found Lila in her room, sitting on the floor, cocooned in private misery, her body rocking slightly. One look told Charmian that, yes, her light had changed; that was the most awful thing, worse by far than the bruises on her face. She didn't return Charmian's hugs and caresses, but sat with arms at her sides, closing herself in hard. Charmian saw herself in the reaction: the strength of it, the determination. The anger and shame that fired her resolve to yield nothing to no one, to trust no one. And clearly, Lila blamed her mother for some share of her pain. She was right to. Charmian damned herself to the lowest level of hell.
Charmian knelt two paces away, as close as Lila would allow her. "Lila, tell me what happened."
Delayed response, an accusatory look: "You already know. Josephine told you."
"I want to hear it from you."
Delayed answer, eyes not looking at Charmian, or anything. "He chased me. I wasn't sure at first."
Charmian waited. "Sure o f -?"
"Sure what he wanted! I thought he was playing! The way we used to. But then he really hurt me and wouldn't stop when I told him to." Lila's lower lip was trembling so that it shook her whole, soft, child-round face. Her rocking intensified, growing desperate as determination warred with defeat in her features. When Charmian came to her again, Lila pushed her away. It was a short, hard push, the small hand flat on Charmian's chest. It left a brand she felt there for months.
Lila began to sob and moan but would not let Charmian touch her. So Charmian decided the only course was to provide an example of mastering bad things. She had to tell her daughter, show her that her pride could endure, her sense of self could endure. That if she sought it and asserted it hard enough, she'd still have some control.
"Lila, listen to me. There are times when you have to be strong. At some point, every woman has to deal with something that hurts her, very badly, very deeply. Every woman! Sometimes the only way through is to act like nothing happened! If you act it hard enough, it will become true, because you'll show yourself it can be done."
Crying, crying, crying, and still not letting Charmian near her. Crying, crying, crying, as her mother spouted more useless homilies on strength and self-control and stiff upper lip and time healing all wounds, crying and crying until Charmian grew too frustrated, too frustrated with herself for having let her relationship with her daughter turn into this, where in the poor girl's moment of greatest need she couldn't turn to her own mother. Frustrated with Lila for keeping her away. Crying, crying, until Charmian hissed at her, "Lila! Stop crying. Right this minute! You have to stop crying. If you can do it now, you'll prove to yourself you can do it anytime you choose to. Show yourself that. This is not the end of the world! Show some spine! You are a Beauforte! You can be strong. No one can take away the strength inside you unless you let them!"
She must have groaned again, because Pierre Lapin turned to her once more, throwing his left wrist over the wheel as he used his right hand to take off his sunglasses. He peered at her with small, bloodshot eyes. "You sick or somet'ing? Don't go t'rowing up in my car, just had the interior done."
"I'll bear that in mind, thank you," Charmian told him witheringly. "Frankly, it would help if you didn't smoke so much."
He put the glasses back on and kept driving. After a moment, he used his free hand to tap another cigarette out of its pack, then flicked it expertly so that it spun up and into his lips. He made sure she'd caught the move before he lit it with the dashboard lighter. Charmian bristled at his impudence but admired his reflexes. Small, but wiry and quick, that was good.
They were past the strips now and into the open country, the downriver land of po' white trash and po' black trash and nouveau riche trash in their taseteless, ostentatious houses. The flat, scrubby fields drifted endlessly past, dusted with pollution from chemical plant chimneys. This area had always been Charmian's idea of hell.
"Can't you drive any faster?" Charmian complained. "At this rate, it'll take us two hours."
The sunglasses only half turned. "Tell you what. I don't tell you how to be a rich bitch, you don't tell me how to do my job."
And she realized he was right. You drive the speed limit or under so that you never, ever, elicit the notice of the police. It was another slight demonstration of professionalism that reassured her. But, still, it wouldn't pay to let the help get uppity. It was time to take control of Mr. Lapin.
She didn't raise her voice, but she put an edge into her tone that would etch glass. "Don't you ever talk to me that way again." He swiveled his head to look at her and would have come up with some other insolent wisecrack, but she cut him off: "You don't know who you're dealing with," she hissed. "You see an old lady with a limp. But this old lady has more money than you could imagine. This old lady has more resources, more friends in high places, more clout than trash like you ever dreamed about. And Pierre Lapin is cute, but I really much prefer Loup Garou, your nickname at the Bayou Cane bars you frequent. I know which trailer you live in. You think I'd get in a car with garbage like you if I didn't know I could bag you up and discard you anytime I choose?" That begat some resistance, so she opened her purse to show him the glint of stainless steel there. She put her hand on it and through her teeth continued, "I am also an old lady with a Smith amp; Wesson CS9 automatic in my purse and I will kill you with it. Act right, and you end your day with more money than you usually make in a year. Talk to me like that again, or do anything other than exactly as I tell you, you are dead. Your place in the scheme of things is four classes lower than my yard boy. Know your place, Loup."
He had sobered up when she mentioned his local nickname, Werewolf, and the other information she'd paid her Crescent City Confidential man to obtain. Now he didn't answer, just turned his attention back to the highway. It took a while for his grin to sneak back. It looked a little forced, she thought, but not entirely: There was some grudging admiration there.