the Red Apple's little parking lot toward the door like a drunk, her one good eye seeming to see nothing; it simply stared.
More frightening than the way she looked was the way she was handling Natalie. She had the squalling, frightened baby slung casually on one hip, carrying her as she might have carried her books to high school ten or twelve years before.
"Oh Jesus she's gonna drop the kid!" Sue screamed, but although she was ten steps closer to the door than he was, she made no move-simply stood where she was with her hands pressed to her mouth and her eyes gobbling up her face.
Ralph didn't feel tired anymore. He sprinted up the aisle, tore open the door, and ran outside. He was just in time to catch Helen by the shoulders as she banged a hip against the ice cabinet-mercifully not the hip with Natalie on it-and went veering off in a new direction.
"Helen!" he yelled. "Jesus, Helen, what happened?"
"Huh?" she asked, her voice duly curious, totally unlike the voice of the lively young woman who sometimes accompanied him to the movies and moaned over Mel Gibson. Her good eye rolled toward him and he saw that same dull curiosity in it, a look that said she didn't know who she was, let alone where she was, Or what had happened, or when.
"Huh? Ralph? Who?"
The baby slipped. Ralph let go of Helen, grabbed for Natalie, and managed to snag one of her jumper straps. Nat screamed, waved her hands, and stared at him with huge dark-blue eyes. got his other hand between Nat's legs an instant before the strap he was holding tore free. For a moment the howling baby balanced on his hand like a gymnast on a balance beam, and Ralph could feel the damp bulge of her diapers through the overall she was wearing. Then he slipped his other hand around her back and hoisted her up against his chest.
His heart was pounding hard, and even with the baby safe in his arms he kept seeing her slip away, kept seeing her head with its cap of fine hair slamming against the butt-littered pavement with a sickening crack.
"Hum? Ar? Ral?" Helen asked. She saw Natalie in Ralph's arnls, and some of the dullness went out (of her good eye. She raised her hands toward the child, and in Ralph's arms, Natalie mimicked the gesture with her own chubby hands. Then Helen staggered, struck the side of the building, and reeled backward a step. One foot tangled in the other (Ralph saw splatters of blood on her small white sneakers, and it was amazing how bright everything was all of a sudden; the color had come back into the world, at least temporarily), and she would have fallen if Sue hadn't picked that moment to finally venture out.
Instead of going down, Helen landed against the opening door and just leaned there, like a drunk against a lamppost.
"Ral?" The expression in her eyes was a little sharper now, and Ralph saw it wasn't so much curiosity as incredulity. She drew in a deep breath and made an effort to force intelligible words past her swelled lips. "Gih. Gih me my bay-ee. Bay-be. Gih me... Natalie."
"Not just yet, Helen," Ralph said. "You're not too steady on your feet right now."
Sue was still on the other side of the door, holding it so Helen wouldn't fall. The girl's cheeks and forehead were ashy-pale, her eyes filled with tears.
"Get out here," Ralph told her. "Hold her up."
"I can't!" she blubbered. "She's all bluh-bluh-bloody!"
"Oh for God's sake, quit it! It's Helen! Helen Deepneau from up the street!"
And although Sue must have known that, actually hearing the name seemed to turn the trick. She slipped around the open door, and when Helen staggered backward again, Sue curled an arm around her shoulders and braced her firmly. That expression of incredulous surprise remained on Helen's face. Ralph found it harder and harder to look at.
It made him feel sick to his stomach.
"Ralph? What happened? Was it an accident?"
He turned his head and saw Bill McGovern standing at the edge of the parking lot. He was wearing one of his natty blue shirts with the iron's creases still in the sleeves and holding (one of his longfingered, oddly delicate hands up to shade his eyes.
He looked strange, somehow naked that way, but Ralph had no time to think about why; too much was happening.
"It was no accident," he said. "She's been beaten up.