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“Would you like some fish sticks?”
“Fish sticks?” I replied.
“We have plenty,” Mrs. Do
I declined the fish sticks.
“That woman in the paper, are they going to make her pay for hurting my little girl?” Mrs. Do
“I don’t know. There’s not much physical evidence,” I answered.
“It ain’t fair,” she insisted.
I agreed with her.
Mrs. Do
“Very peculiar child,” Mrs. Do
“How so?”
“Well, she wasn’t like the other children.”
“How so?” I repeated.
“For one thing, she was always reading,” Mrs. Do
“Nothing wrong with that,” I suggested. “I did much the same thing when I was a kid.”
“War and Peace?” Mrs. Do
Imagine, indeed.
“And she would never answer when I spoke to her,” the woman added from across the kitchen table. “I would chant her name: Alison, Alison, Alison. Nothing. At first I thought she was deaf or something. Then I thought it was because Alison hadn’t been named until after she was three months old because of a family disagreement.… His mother,” she mouthed silently, gesturing toward the living room. “I thought maybe she didn’t realize that Alison was her name. Of course, I now know that she was just ignoring me, like her father. Isn’t that right, dear?” she asked the man in the living room. When he didn’t reply, she shook her head. “See?”
“Maybe he didn’t hear you.”
“Oh, he heard me fine; he just doesn’t want to say anything.” Mrs. Do
I didn’t say anything, either. After a moment, Mrs. Do
“It must have been difficult raising a girl who was so intelligent,” I said.
“Very difficult. And a little bit”—Mrs. Do
Mrs. Do
I was amazed by the statement and flashed again on the photograph in my car. In the end, Alison couldn’t even depend on her mother.
“She used to say she was blessed,” Mrs. Do
“Really? I would have thought you would’ve been proud.”
Mrs. Do
“Sometimes I don’t know what to think, either,” I agreed.
“And of course, she didn’t have any time for boys,” Mrs. Do
“What about Stephen Emerton?”
“That was the one time I put my foot down,” she answered proudly. “Stephen was such a good-looking boy and smart, too. But the way Alison treated him … Well, I practically forced her down the aisle.”
“Alison didn’t want to get married?”
“Oh, of course not. That’s what normal people did. But I knew marriage was the best thing for her. And so …”
“Was she happy do you think?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Was she happily married?”
Mrs. Do
“I heard that she might have been seeing someone else,” I added.
“Committing adultery!” Mrs. Do
“I heard—”
“No daughter of mine ever committed adultery. I don’t know where you got your information, young man, but you better go back and get some more, yes sir. We are Catholics in this house. Roman Catholics. We don’t break commandments.”
I was actually relieved to hear her denial. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Offend me? Why should I be offended because a man comes into my home and calls my little girl a trollop!”
“Mrs. Do
“The courts,” she repeated and looked around, like she was searching for a place to spit. No one likes the courts. That’s why it’s easy to blame them when you get into a jam.
I tried again. “This rumor says that Alison was involved with a doctor while she worked—”
“No. No. No. My daughter would never get involved with … A doctor, you say? No. I don’t want to hear any more. I think it’s time you left.”
I rose from my chair.
“My daughter is no adulteress.”
I was happy to believe her.
“Thank you, Mrs. Do
She eyed me suspiciously. “My child never cheated on her husband, I don’t care what that … that brute Raymond Fleck told the newspapers,” she added slowly and carefully in case I was leaving with the wrong impression.
“I never thought she did,” I agreed.
Mrs. Do
The word hung in the air like an unpleasant odor.
“No,” Mrs. Do
“What was that, Mr. Do
“Dr. Robert Holyfield,” he said, without taking his eyes from the TV screen.
“What? What? What are you saying?” Mrs. Do