Kisscut

A smile broke out on his lips, and he stared at her, his piercing blue eyes sparkling with humor. "Yeah."

"Here? In this house?"

Mark gave a light chuckle. "Right down the hall."

"With your mama in the house?"

He stopped, seeming more afraid than angry. "Don't bring my mama into this."

Lena smiled. "We have to, Mark, because that's where you've tripped yourself up. You wouldn't do that kind of thing in your mother's house."

He twisted his lips to the side, obviously thinking this through. "Maybe we did it in her house. Maybe we did it in the car."

"So, you went out with Je

"Shit no," he countered. "I took her places with my sister." He shrugged, and thankfully his hand stopped. "The mall, the movies. Different places."

"This is when you let her do you? On these trips?"

He shrugged, meaning yes.

"And your sister was where? In the front seat?"

He paled slightly. Mark seemed to transition back and forth from a child to a teenager to a man. If someone had asked her how old Mark Patterson was, she would have guessed anywhere between ten and twenty.

Lena cleared her throat, then asked, "Where was Lacey when you were letting Je

Mark stared at the flower arrangement on the coffee table. He was very quiet for what seemed like a long time. Finally, he told them, "We met at the church, alright?" He said alright the same way his father did, ru

"You were having sex with her in church," Lena said, not a question.

"The basement," he told them. "They don't check the windows. We sneaked out, okay?"

"That sounds pretty elaborate," Lena said.

"What does that mean?"

Lena thought about how to phrase her answer. "It's not opportune, Mark. You know what that means?"

"I'm not stupid."

"Taking her to the mall, maybe ru

"Right," he said. "That's how it was."

"But the church," Lena countered. "The church seems more deliberate. These were not sudden opportunities. These were pla

Mark nodded, then stopped himself. He said, "So?"

"So," Lena picked up again, "if your relationship was casual, why were you arranging these late night meetings?"

Mark turned his head slightly, looking out the window. He was obviously trying to come up with an answer to the question, but unable to.

Lena said, "She's dead, Mark."

"I know that," he whispered, his eyes flickering toward Jeffrey, then back to the floor. "I saw it happen."

"Is this how you want to talk about her, like she was a whore?" Lena asked him. "Do you really want to tear her down like that?"

Mark's throat bobbed as he swallowed. After a couple of minutes, he mumbled something she could not understand.

"What?" Lena asked.

"She wasn't bad," he said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. A tear slid down his cheek, and he turned his gaze back toward the window. "Okay?"

Lena nodded. "Okay."

"She listened to me," he began, his voice so low she had to strain to hear him. "She was smart, you know? She read and things, and she helped me with school, some."

Lena sat back on the couch, waiting for him to continue.

"People think things about me," he said, his tone more childish. "They think I'm a certain way, but maybe I'm not. Maybe there's more to me than that. Maybe I'm a human being."

"Of course you are," Lena told him, thinking that she probably understood Mark more than he thought. Every time she walked out in public, Lena felt like the person she really was had been erased. All she was now was the girl who had been raped. Sometimes, Lena wondered if she would not have been better off if she had died. At least then people would see her as tragic rather than as some kind of victim.

Mark rubbed his fingers along his goatee, pulling Lena back into the interview. He said, "There's things I did, okay? That maybe I didn't want to do and maybe she didn't want to do…" He shook his head, his eyes closed tightly. "Things she did…" His voice trailed off. "I know she was fat, okay? But she was more than that."

"What was she, Mark?"

He tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. When he spoke, he seemed more sure of himself, back under control. "She listened to me. You know, about my mom." He gave a humorless laugh. "Like when my mom told us she didn't want fucking chemo this time, that she was just go

Lena let herself look at Jeffrey. He was sitting back on the couch, too. Both of them stared at Mark, waiting for him to finish.

"She tutored me in school, some," he said, twisting his ring. "She was younger than me, but she knew how to do things. She liked to read." He smiled, as if a distant memory had come back. He used the back of his hand to wipe under his nose. "She started hanging out with Lacey. I guess they had a lot in common. She was so nice to me." He shook his head, as if to clear it. "I just liked her because she was nice to me." His lips trembled. "When Mama got sick…" he started. Again he was quiet. "We thought she'd beat it, you know? And then it was back, and she was in and out of the hospital, and sick all the time. So sick she couldn't even walk sometimes. So sick Daddy had to help her stand up to take a shower, even." He paused, then, "And then she said she wasn't go

Mark put his hands over his eyes. "Je

Lena became conscious of the clock on the wall. Its tick was loud, popping in her ears. Jeffrey was completely still beside her. He had a way of making himself seem part of the scenery, letting her take the lead in things. This was the old Lena and Jeffrey. This was Lena who knew how to do her job, Lena who was in charge of things. She took a deep breath, pulling her shoulders up, letting the air fill her lungs. In this moment, in this room right now, she was herself again. For the first time in months, she was Lena again.

She let a full minute pass before asking Mark, "Tell me what happened."

He shook his head. "It's so wrong," he said. "It all just went so wrong." He leaned forward, his chest almost to his knees, his face contorted in pain as if someone had kicked him. He covered his face with his hands and started to sob again.

Before she knew what she was doing, Lena was down on her knees beside the boy, holding one of his hands. She put her hand on his back, trying to comfort him. "It's okay," she told him, hushing him.

"I love her," he whispered. "Even after what she did, I still love her."

"I know you do," Lena told him, rubbing his back.

"She was so mad at me," Mark said, still sobbing. Lena pulled a Kleenex out of the box and gave it to him. He blew his nose, then whispered, "I told her we had to stop."

"Why did you have to stop?" Lena whispered back.

"I never thought she needed me, you know? I thought she was stronger than me. Stronger than everybody." His voice caught. "And she wasn't."