Public Secrets Part 97

With a little squeal, Thresa sprang up. She didn't want to spoil her

perfect record with a demerit. "Come over at ten, and I'll give you the

notes. Then you can do it."

"Fine."

Teresa put her hands on her earlobes. "I can't wait."

"Neither can I." She waited until the door closed. "Little s.h.i.+t," she

muttered, then moved over to drape an arm around Emma's shoulders. "You

okay?"

"It never goes away." She stared at the picture. It was a good one, she

thought dispa.s.sionately, well focused, well lit. The faces weren't

blurred, the expressions quite clear. It was easy, all too easy to see

the hate in her mother's eyes. "Do you think I could be like her?"

"Like who?"

"My mother."

"Come on, Emma. You haven't even seen her since you were a baby."

"There's genes, heredity and all that."

"AJI that's bull."

"Sometimes I'm mean. Sometimes I want to be mean, the way she was."

"So what?" She rose to take Springsteen off. Sister Immaculata

might come along any minute and confiscate it. "Everybody's mean

sometimes. That's because our flesh is weak and we're loaded with sin."

"I hate her." It was a relief to say it, a terrible, terrible relief. "I

hate her. And I hate Bev for not wanting me, and Dad for putting me

here. I hate the men who killed Daffen. I hate them all. She hates

everyone, too. You can see it in her eyes."

"It's okay. Sometimes I hate everyone. And I don't even know your

mother."

That made her laugh. She couldn't say why, but it made her laugh.

"Neither do I, I guess." She sniffled, sighed. "I hardly remember her."

"There, you see." Satisfied, Marianne plopped down again. "If you don't

remember her, you can't be like her."

It sounded logical, and she needed to believe it. "I don't look like

her."

Wanting to judge fairly, Marianne took up the article and studied the

pictures. "Not a bit. You've got your father's bone structure and

coloring. Like it from an artist."

Emma lifted a hand to her tender lobes. "Are you really going to pierce

Teresa's ears?"

"You bet-with the dullest needle I can find. Want to do one?"

Emma grinned.

STEVIE Had NEVER been so scared. There were bars all around and the

steady drip, drip, drip, of a faucet somewhere down the hall. Voices

were raised occasionally and echoed. There was the shuffling of feet,

then the G.o.dawful silence.

He needed a fix. His body was trembling, sweating. His stomach was

knotted, refusing to let him release the nausea in the scarred porcelain

john in the corner. His nose and eyes were running. It was the flu, he

told himself He had the freaking flu and they'd locked him up. He

needed a b.l.o.o.d.y doctor, and they'd shut him up and left him to rot.

Sitting on the cot, he brought his knees up to his chest, pus.h.i.+ng his