@defactomatriarch asked: 📼
(this is blatantly not early childhood but it came to mind and i went with it)
The first thing Terry noticed about his wife was her face. Normally when Betty came home, she was tired but happy – she liked working at the diner six blocks down, especially now that the kids were out of the house. This time, though, she looked more like she’d seen a ghost.
“Betty? Baby, what’s wrong?” Terry got to his feet and put his near-empty beer bottle aside to help his wife out of her coat. She didn’t answer him for a long second. “Are you okay? Did somebody follow you? I told you I should pick you up, Bet, after what happened with Dolores -- …”
“No, no, I’m fine, it’s just… god. This…” She trailed off, shaking her head in distress. Without being asked, he led her to the big comfy recliner and had her sit down, offering her the bottle he had out waiting for her arrival. Diligently, he sat on the ottoman in front of her.
“Talk to me. What’s going on?”
Betty took a deep breath, letting her husband lift her feet onto his lap. “This… this little girl came in a few hours before I got off. I mean, Terry, I thought she was sixteen at the most. She said she was eighteen, and I guess she had to be with all those tattoos, but… and she was shaking life a leaf. This little thing, all alone at night. I didn’t know what to do but sit by her, you know?”
He listened, concerned but quiet. It was best to let her get it all out. Betty continued, opening the beer bottle but not drinking it.
“So I ask her, are you lost? Are you from around here? And she says yeah, I live in the city. And I say do you want me to call your parents, you know, because she’s a baby, and she tells me her parents kicked her out.” She exhaled, as if she was aghast all over again. “Who kicks out their daughter at eighteen, huh? Can you imagine Nicole out there on her own? I mean, she still comes home to do her laundry and she’s almost out of college!”
“I know, I hear you, but that’s how some families are, honey.”
“It’s disgusting! I just couldn’t believe it. So I ask her if she has anywhere to go and she says no, of course. Then I just so happen to notice a hospital band on her wrist! This girl was just in the ER, Ter. I start really looking at her and she’s just a bruised-up mess, I mean, her lip was busted and… So I ask her what happened.”
She had to pause to take a drink, and Terry could see tears welling in her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was cracking.
“And she can barely speak. I start getting really anxious because I’m scared she’s gonna tell me something bad, and I don’t know how I’m going to react. She finally tells me and…” Betty took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “She tells me she ‘got in the wrong car’, Terry. There was blood in this girl’s hair. And I’m thinking, is this the same guy who messed with Delores? I mean, she looks real similar, you know? Blonde hair, young, all of that. She says she went to the cops and they didn’t give a fuck.”
“God damn, Delores said the same thing. What’s this country come to, huh?”
“I tell this girl to just wait a little bit until my shift’s over and she can come home here. We just fixed up that guest room, who else is using it? I go back to work and then I come back out of the kitchen, and this girl is gone. She’s just gone. Left money for the bill and – she tipped me too, which… I don’t even know how she has money.”
Betty sat back, eyes dry but tired. Terry reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“Did you get her name, baby? You know, we can keep an eye out for her, or try to contact somebody…” he suggested, voice gentle.
She had to really think about it. The girl never said, but she had that hospital bracelet…
“Clementine.” It came to her suddenly. “Her name was Clementine. I saw it.”
