Casper raised one of his bony hands and touched his cheek. "I keep wondering what it's going to be like, not being sick anymore."
"It's going to be a whole new life, believe me. Look, Daisy's brought you a present."
Daisy reached into her shopping bag and took out a scale-model Ferrari in a box. Casper looked at it and smiled. Then he handed it back.
"Go on, open it," said Daisy. "It's yours."
Casper looked up at Holly, and Holly suddenly realized that he had never been given any toys before-or if he had, he hadn't been allowed to keep them. He struggled to open the cellophane and in the end Daisy did it for him. He lifted up the car and peered into the windows. "It even has a steering wheel and a gearshift."
Holly said, "The doors open too."
They drew up chairs beside his bed and watched him as he steered the Ferrari over his bony knees.
After a while Holly said, "There's something I have to tell you, Casper: When you're better, you won't be going back home to live with your mother."
Casper frowned at her. "Why? Why not?"
"Because it was your mother who made you sick."
"I know. I know she did. But she always looked after me."
"Actually, she didn't. She deliberately starved you and she gave you medicine to make you vomit so that everybody would think you had cancer. She nearly killed you."
"Where am I going to go, then?"
"I expect that the Children's Welfare Department will find you some people to look after you. Foster parents. I don't work for them anymore, but I know for sure that they'll fix you up with some real nice people."
"But can't I go home?"
"I'm sorry. You won't be able to. But I wanted you to know that if you needed anybody to talk to well, we'll always be here. Daisy and me."
Casper didn't say anything, but Holly could tell that he was upset. It happened so often when children were abused: No matter how badly they had been treated- even if they had been beaten or starved or sexually molested-they always wanted to go back to their parents. Children worked harder at keeping their family together than anybody did, and they always blamed themselves if the family fell apart.
"Casper your mother isn't well. She wouldn't have treated you like that, otherwise."
"She always took care of me."
Holly didn't know what to say. She stood up and kissed Casper on his white, dry-skinned forehead. "Don't worry things will work out. All you need to worry about is feeding yourself up. I want to see you eating cheeseburgers by the end of next week."
Casper's voice was suddenly different: throaty and almost threatening. "My momma she won't like it if you take me away."
"I know she won't, Casper. But it's all for the best."
"Something bad will happen to you if you take me away. Something really, really bad."
"Why don't you get some rest? We'll come see you again in a couple of days."
Casper kept on staring at her, as if he were trying to remember every detail of what she looked like. As if he never expected to see her again.
They walked along the corridor to the elevator. Daisy said, "He'screepy."
"He's very sick, that's all."
"No," said Daisy, emphatically shaking her head. "He'screepy."
They crossed the hospital parking lot to Holly's car. As they did so, Holly saw Doug's green Pajero pull up outside the main entrance. Doug climbed out, although he didn't see Holly. He walked around and opened the passenger door. He helped out a woman in a brown suede coat.
Holly hesitated, holding her car keys in her hand. The woman turned around and she saw that it was Mrs. Beale.
Mrs. Beale hesitated, too, and looked around, as if she could sense that Holly wasn't far away. Just as Doug laid a hand on her shoulder to guide her inside, she caught sight of Holly and stared at her. As she did so, five or six black birds suddenly fluttered off the roof of the hospital and circled around, their feathers ruffled by the wind.
"Mommy?" asked Daisy.
"It's nothing," said Holly. "I thought I saw somebody I used to know, that's all."
In the Japanese Garden
Friday afternoon was sharp and sunny, so Holly drove up to the West Hills and went for a walk in the Japanese Garden, which had always been one of her favorite places to relax: five and a half intricate acres of pathways and bridges and stepping-stones that led between ponds and iris beds and formal gravel gardens. And Mount Hood, in the distant background, like Mount Fuji.
There was hardly anybody else around, and the fall sunshine glittered on the weeping willows. The chilly air was filled with the earthy smells of a gradually dying year. She walked through the five-tier stone lantern that led to the Strolling Pond Garden, and crossed the Moon Bridge over the upper pond. Farther down the garden, by the Zig Zag Bridge, she could see two Japanese men standing by the railings, talking, while a young Japanese girl of about fifteen was kneeling on one of the stepping-stones in the lower pond, wiggling her fingers in the dark green water to attract the koi carp.
Holly made her way down the mossy steps to the opposite side of the lower pond. Under the water the carp flickered like animated slices of orange peel. The girl looked up at her and smiled shyly. She wore a fleece-lined denim jacket and embroidered jeans and her hair was tied up in Pokémon-style bunches. Holly smiled back and gave her a little finger wave.
She sat down on a carved stone bench. She had needed an hour of reflection like this, a time to heal her hurt and her disappointment. She also felt that she had to make some decisions about herself. Was she really going to quit the Children's Welfare Department forever? How was she going to feel about all of those children out there who still needed her help? And what was she going to do about Mickey? Was she going to allow him to get closer? Did she trust him? Did she trust herself? She was always pleased when she saw him, and there was no question that she found him attractive, even though he wasn't handsome and even though she had witnessed how violent he could be.
She thought to herself:You're afraid, aren't you? Why don't you stop being afraid? Next time you meet Mickey, show him that you're interested. See where it goes from there.
A few curled leaves dropped from the trees onto the surface of the pond, circling around and around, and the carp came up to nibble at them. One of the Japanese men took off his white fedora and leaned forward on the railings, looking intently at the young girl.
"You don't think she'd give me any trouble?"
"Of course not. Her father brought her up to be obedient."
"Well, I could offer you a lot of money, depending on what she does. We have a new studio now, and a much more professional cameraman."
The man with the white fedora was about thirty-five, smartly dressed in a navy-blue blazer. The other man was about ten years older and dressed in a green weatherproof jacket. He took off his glasses and polished them on a crumpled shred of Kleenex.
"So how much are we talking about?"
"Two thousand. More, if the sales are good. She's pretty, and she's very young, and this time we hope to have more than thirty-five men."
The older man half-turned his back, so that Holly could no longer lip-read him, but she could still see the man with the white fedora. "It's our biggest seller now,bukkake. It outsells everything else we do by ten to one. I've even seen Americanbukkake."