Chapter 37 Sloane
Sloane
Lacey’s story makes me sick to my stomach.
I plan to leave Pippa and the other woman alone so they can have their session together, but when I try to give them some space, Lacey grabs my hand with frightening strength and refuses to let go.
It seems that she doesn’t like strangers, and out of Pip and me, I’m the familiar face.
I plant myself on the other end of the couch, determined to remain impervious to whatever I hear, but that becomes increasingly difficult as Pippa asks Lacey her litany of questions and the girl provides her emotionless answers.
“You were raised by the state. What happened to your parents?”
“They died before I was born.”
“But… how could your mom have died before you were born?”
“She was in a coma. Technically, she was dead for the last three weeks of the pregnancy. As soon as her body gave birth to me, they let her go.”
“And after that?”
“Foster homes.”
“How many?”
“Seventeen. I think, anyway. Some I stayed in a couple of months. Some just days. I stayed in the last one a year.”
“Why so long in the last one?”
“Mr. Mallory, Greg, he liked to have me around. I was… useful to him.”
“In what way?”
“Cooking and cleaning. Sex whenever he wanted it.”
“So you were in a consensual relationship with this man?”
“Not really.”
“Not really?”
“No. It wasn’t consensual.”
“He raped you?”
Silence.
Sometimes, a mind cannot bend around a word. That word is like a paralytic to Lacey’s system. She shuts down, staring out of the window, blinking slowly.
“Was he the first?” Pippa asks.
Lacey’s blond hair brushes her shoulders as she shakes her head.
No, Greg had not been the first.
After that, Pippa backs off, sensing that she’s on the brink of the girl withdrawing too far.
She asks other questions: Why is she afraid to be alone?
Can she share why she is so attached to Zeth?
But Lacey only shrugs and tells her she doesn’t know why.
After a torturous forty-minute session, Pippa nods and rises from her armchair.
“All right, ladies. I think we should call it a day, don’t you? I’m exhausted.”
Lacey’s eyes flicker back to life, flitting to glance at Pippa. “What, that’s it? You don’t want me to tell you anything else?”
Pip gives her a friendly smile. “Not if you don’t want to. You can tell me anything you like, though.”
“No, that’s—that’s fine.” Lacey loosens her grip on the edge of the throw she still has over her legs. “I think I’d like to go now.”
“No problem.” Pippa holds her hand out to Lacey, offering it to her to shake.
Lacey looks at it, full of suspicion. The custom of shaking hands came about thousands of years ago.
People did it to prove they weren’t carrying any weapons.
The same trick works here between Lacey and Pippa—I mean you no harm.
Lacey accepts the patiently waiting hand.
When she does, a dam seems to break in her, and tears spring to her eyes.
Silently, she gets up, tidily folds the blanket away, and exits the apartment, standing on the other side of the open door, presumably waiting for me.
“She’s got a long road ahead of her,” Pippa murmurs. “She has a lot to work through. I get the impression that she’s blocking most of it out.”
“What? So the rape isn’t the worst of it?”
A sad, pained look develops on Pip’s face. “Probably not. Make sure you keep an eye on her, okay? Ideally, she’d be placed on suicide watch for at least a month.”
I’m already shaking my head, no. “He won’t—”
“I know he won’t,” she interrupts. “But this isn’t about him.
It’s about her, and what she needs. Right now, she’s managed to bond herself to this guy, which is probably the unhealthiest thing she could have done.
This time with him away is a good opportunity to try and break that connection.
” She gives me a hesitant look. “And also a good opportunity for you to do the same.”
I gape at her. “I’m not bonded to him!”
Her lips pull into a tight line: worry. “Not right now, maybe. But it could happen, babe. Way easier than you think. Don’t forget,” she says, pausing, “I have met this man.”