The tearing of my heart is killing me, but I know Dad is right. I have to let go. I know leaving the country is the only chance I have to start fresh and make sure John, and anyone connected with him, will never track me down. I look down at Thor’s little face, with those pleading eyes, and rub his ears and neck. As I squeeze him tight, he shivers. He can sense when something scary is about to happen. John taught him that. Memories flood my mind of how brave and loyal he has been to me in the most terrible times. My friend, my angel to the very end. He deserves better. He deserves to not be scared all the time too. I beat myself up inside for not being able to take him with me.
Big Rosie… Her face appears clearly in my mind’s view. Her parents… I wrap Thor’s soft, familiar frame in a vision of a warm bed near a fire and see him happy and content.
“I know somebody.” I weep. “They’ll be good to him. Won’t they, boy?” I look into his graying reddish eyes. And for a moment, he stops his shivering and sweetly blinks. He knows! I think.
“I’ll ask a lady, a friend—Big Rosie—if her parents would like to adopt him. She loves him, and they’ll take good care of him.” I kiss his head and cry some more, rocking him in my arms, knowing this will be one of our last days together. It will have to be.
And it is.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
War and Peace
Sitting in the booth of Clancy’s Clam Broiler in Glendale, I am filled with nostalgia mixed with nervous anticipation as I keep a watchful eye on the lobster tank near the entrance. Fidgeting with my napkin and place setting, I wait for Sharon to meet me for lunch. It is April of 1988, almost seven years since we last spoke—that day in the Safeway parking lot. When we said good-bye. When I thought somehow she would meet up with John and me.
The stained-glass door swings open, and a small, neat frame steps inside. I recognize her right away. In her impeccably tailored navy blue gabardine suit and matching navy shoes, she instantly scans the dining room. She turns in my direction, and we lock eyes. I draw a deep breath and stand to greet her.
“Sharon? Hi. It’s me… Dawn.” I tentatively hold my arms out for a hug.
Swiftly she inspects me up and down, gives a short nod as if to acknowledge that I am really Dawn, and steps toward my outstretched arms. “Hi!” she gushes clumsily, and then reaches in for a steel-like embrace.
We stand awkwardly for several moments, holding one another, absorbing the reality of being in each other’s presence again. Sharon’s strong nurse’s fingers hold my shoulders in a viselike grip, and I feel her take in a deep breath—a sigh maybe, or a silent cry. “I knew you’d return,” she says, gaining her composure and stepping back to look me over again.
“Your hair!” I comment, fumbling for something to say. Sharon’s hair no longer hangs down her back; it is cut short—very short—and is nearly solid white.
“Like it?” She smiles. “I love it. Cut it off as soon as the divorce was final. In celebration! Freedom!” She runs her fingers through it, fluffing the white strands in different directions. “Wash and wear too!”
“Yeah. It looks good. I’m just not used to seeing you like this is all.” I am instantly conscious of the extremely long mane of golden brown hair that flows down my back past my hips. “Hey! In Asia, this is still the style,” I dismiss jokingly, flipping at the tendrils behind me.
“That’s fine. It’s not for everybody. This is something I had to do. You know?”
I nod somberly. I know. “Let’s sit down.” I motion in the direction of my table, realizing we are still blocking the door. “Here. I have a booth.”
We settle in uneasily. My heart races in my chest; my palms sweat. I resume folding my already well-creased napkin and rummage through my brain for the next “right” thing to say. I have no idea if she will stay friendly or get distant and cold, and I realize I am still afraid of what she thinks of me.
So… I think. I knew she and John got divorced because of the articles I read in the Los Angeles Times, but how? When? I can only guess, and I guess the worst. My stomach does a summersault. But she’s sitting here. We’re sitting here. And we’re okay! And John… well, John is gone now.
“How long have you been in town? You mentioned something about Asia.” Sharon breaks the ice.
A waitress appears, interrupting us, and we each order an iced tea to be polite.
I have no appetite and take the moment to pull in a deep breath and gather my thoughts. “Southeast Asia. Thailand mostly… with my father.” The words seem to come out on their own. I don’t want to give much detail. “He opened a hotel on an island in the south—Phuket Island—back in early 1982. But that was after, well, John was arrested in Miami.”
I lower my head. “So he’s dead? AIDS?” I let the reality of the words linger in the air. The Los Angeles Times splashed the news on the front page less than two weeks after they reported his admittance into the VA hospital with the disease. “Just doesn’t seem real…”
“Yup. Died fittingly on the thirteenth, if you ask me,” Sharon replies, her words cutting swiftly.
I lift my head to check her face, to detect any sign of concern or grief, but there isn’t any. “Yeah. Strange how thirteen was his lucky number too…” The hair on my arms rises in gooseflesh. Then, shaking it off, I let out a short laugh at the irony and think very hard about how to stay delicate with what I want to say next.
“He beat me, Sharon.” I decide to come right to the point. Breaking the terrible wall of silence between us about the abuse is something I’ve been waiting years to do. “He sold me on the streets… sold me to… you know…to people… Eddie Nash… for drugs. Then he beat me afterward. He was ruthless and cruel… beat my face… gave me more black eyes than I can count… broke my ribs.”
My throat constricts and, although I feel my soul erupting, I can barely choke out the words. “I came back to LA to work, but mostly to find him. To tell him I made it… in spite of him. And show him… to his face… how much better I became. Better than he ever said I would be! Better than he ever treated me… especially in the end.”
I stop myself, realizing I am sinking too deep into my emotions, and try again to shake off the pain. I feel the crushing anguish of John and the memories of the risks I took believing I was nothing, not worth living… lost, self-destructive, drinking myself into oblivion… alone in Southeast Asia… so alone.
The list of John’s offenses goes on and I know I’m not through it all, but finally I am ready to face him, the angry beast who left me with such terrible scars. After these many years, I’ve come back to confront him… but it seems, it wasn’t meant to be.
As Sharon listens to my story, her eyes grow large, then soften. She nods. “Yes, I kinda figured as much.” Her head lowers, and she stares hard into her lap. “I went to see him in jail… after he was extradited.” Her expression hardens, and she looks up, staring somewhere beyond me. “Another bit of poetic justice,” she continues smugly. “John was jailed between the Hillside Stranglers, the Trash Bag Murderer, and the Skid Row Slasher. Right where he belonged, if you ask me.”
I gape at her, disbelieving. How bizarre, I think, flashing back on my bike ride past the Hillside Strangler victim’s house, not knowing that Angelo Buono, one of the stranglers, was living on the street. “Did he ask you about me?”
She snaps to. “I asked him where you were. What happened to you? All he told me was not to talk to you, that you had taken off with some people you met in the hotel in Miami and turned state’s evidence.”