I found Mark sitting on the porch steps, huddled against the rain, when I got back to Steven Teague’s office. He looked like a cold, miserable puppy in the fine mist.
I walked up to him and he looked up at me with darkly haunted eyes. “I’m ready to go now, Uncle Jordy. Can we just go home?”
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
He clomped through a muddy puddle with total disregard. I caught up with him as he jumped in on the passenger side.
“What the hell has spooked you?” I demanded, pulling his door open again.
“You’re getting me wet,” he said. “I just want to go home, okay?”
I shut his door and went around to the driver’s side. I forced my sour mood out of my face and my voice. Mark was burdened enough right now, and Ivalou Purcell’s snide attack on me wasn’t going to color the way I dealt with him.
“How did your session go?” I asked, hoping he’d feel comfortable enough to talk about it. Lord only knew what I was going to do, though, if he wanted to have a real discussion about his therapy. I lived in mortal fear of sticking my foot in my mouth around him.
He gave a tortured sigh. “Okay. But I don’t have to keep going to see Steven for very long if I don’t want to, do I?”
“Mark, what you’ve been through-I think you have to give it some time, to see if you start feeling better. It’s like if you broke a leg and had to go through physical therapy. You wouldn’t quit that before it was done, because you wouldn’t be able to use your leg as well.” My metaphor sounded sorely strained, but I didn’t know what else to say. What was I suggesting, that he had a sprained heart and soul? “We can’t exactly pretend that you and I didn’t see your daddy die.”
“You’re not going to therapy,” Mark said. I hate it when a teenager’s right.
“No, I’m not. Not yet. Candace and your mother would no doubt maintain there’s not enough therapy in the world to make me normal.” I paused as I turned back onto our street. “Do you want me to go to your sessions with you?”
“Nooooo,” he said, his tone uncertain. He abruptly changed subjects. “Davis was at Steven’s, too. After you left.”
That was a surprise. But it was important, I considered, to make Mark feel that consulting Steven didn’t automatically qualify one for the Big Scarlet C. “Well, then, that’s good that Davis is getting help.”
“Bradley was with him.”
“Oh, how’s Bradley?” I asked.
Mark didn’t answer right away. I pulled into the driveway and switched off the engine. As I reached for the door handle Mark’s fingers touched my arm.
“I think his daddy beats him.”
I froze. “What?”
“I went to the bathroom after my session. I heard Davis come in the office. He was talking real loud at Steven. Saying that Steven had to help him, he couldn’t go on with how stuff was.”
Mark shifted in his seat, avoiding my astonished gaze. “Steven tried to calm him, but Davis sounded really upset. His voice was all squeaky like. I waited till I heard Steven’s door shut, and then I opened the bathroom door. Bradley was sitting in the waiting room. He’d been crying, his eyes were all bloodshot. He was making this freaky groany noise and he looked at me like he didn’t know me.
“Mark. You better not be joking. Why do you think Davis is beating him?” My throat felt scratchy with tightness.
“I saw… the marks on his arms. Like someone had grabbed him really, really hard and squeezed. Thin bruises. And his face was red, like he’d been slapped. I tried to get him to come outside with me, but he just started moaning sort of and didn’t want to leave the couch.”
“Did you ask him specifically if his daddy had hit him?”
“No, but I did ask him who’d done this. I told him I’d kick whoever’s butt it was for him, and he just started kind of whining and getting upset. He was having trouble not slobbering, and that always means he’s upset.” Mark ran a finger under his nose, looking miserable.
My God. Davis upset, seeking a counselor, with a bruised Bradley in tow. I tried to picture Davis beating his son and the image came easily; Davis losing patience with his son that could never realize his dreams, striking Bradley perhaps even before he knew it.
Bradley had let out a scream to chill blood at Trey’s burial. No, I amended, not at the burial, not at any given moment-but right after Nola Kinnard had double-slapped me. I felt a quiver in my stomach, wondering if Bradley’s cry was because he’d seen or felt slapping lately.
“What are we gonna do?” Mark asked, clearing his throat.
“I don’t know. We don’t know for sure that Davis is beating Bradley. I can’t imagine that Cayla would put up with it-unless he’s abusing her, too.” The rain pattered on the car roof while I gathered my thoughts. The air felt clammy and Mark’s suspicions made my stomach do clumsy somersaults. “I don’t know what we can do. Let’s say Davis is beating them. He’s asking for help by going to Steven.”
“But what if it don’t work?” Mark demanded. “We got to get them out of there, Uncle Jordy.”
“It’s not that simple, Mark.” I felt like a cornered lion tamer, sans chair and whip. I had enough of my own troubles to contend with, and selfishly, I didn’t want to tackle the problems of the Foradorys. “I don’t know what we can do without some proof. And if Davis tells Steven he’s beaten Bradley or Cayla, then Steven can contact the proper authorities.”
“But what if he don’t?” Mark pressed. “We can’t leave him there, just for his daddy to whomp on him! It’s not right.”
This couldn’t be happening, I thought. I’d cast my childhood friends into certain statues and now cracks crept up from their bases. Harmless, fun-loving Clevey as a vengeful, guilt-ridden manipulator who was never at peace. The unredeemable Trey as a man who’d perhaps been forced into a hellish choice. And now our rock of propriety, Davis, suggested as a man who couldn’t keep his fists off his own child. The thought of domestic violence happening with people I’d known for years was eerie and-
Domestic violence. Suddenly I saw Peggy Godkin’s face, bleary in the cafeteria light on the morning Junebug had been shot, telling me about Clevey’s reporting assignments on the paper: He was working on his usual assignments – the city council, the book-review section. And he was researching a feature on domestic violence.
And at Junebug’s, Davis hoisting a toast to our dead friend: Clevey, our friend and fine reporter. He’ll dig up all the secrets, even if it sends him to hell.
No, it couldn’t be. If Clevey, in researching his story, uncovered battery right in the home of one of Mirabeau’s most prominent lawyers, he’d do something to help Cayla and Bradley, right?
Ed’s voice whispered in my ear: Clevey was going to buy an interest in KBAV. Said he’d gotten the money from a Louisiana inheritance…
“Uncle Jordy?” Mark’s voice sounded distant, as though I was fathoms away under the sea, drowning while staring up at the far glimmer of the sun.
I found my voice. “We’ll call Cayla. See if everything is okay. You can call Bradley and see if he’s all right. But I don’t think we can do much else.”
“Why not?” Mark insisted.
Maybe because Davis’d kill us. Did he kill Clevey? My musings made my temper short. “Because you just can’t, Mark! Not without proof! You only have conjecture right now.”
“Con-what?”
“Conjecture. We don’t have any proof.”
“His arms were bruised.”
“That could have been an accident. Or another kid picking on him. I’ve known Davis my whole life and I’m not about to think he’s a batterer on the most circumstantial evidence.” I remembered when I’d called him about Clevey’s death-his voice was dulled, nearly stuporous. Why? Shock over what he’d done? Brains rattling due to firing a gun in an enclosed space? Seeing a boyhood friend’s lifeblood seep out?