much he drank when he was with them. There were lots of women willing to go to bed with him, and he took advantage of them as often as he had time to. He never hesitated to seize an opportunity to cheat on her. Why should he?
He flew down the stairs and hailed a cab, and as he got into it, and it drove away, Eloise limped to the window, wearing one shoe, and watched him. There was no sorrow in her eyes, no regret for what she'd said, or what had happened. There was only anger and hatred on her face, and she had bruised her hip in the fall and was furious with him for it. So furious that her anger needed to vent itself, and there was only one place where she could do that. With a look of outrage she took off the other shoe and hurled it across the room, and walked on soundless feet out into the hallway. Everything she felt for him, or didn't, was in her eyes as she hurried down the hall to the familiar door, and all she knew as she walked into the darkened room was that she wanted to hurt him.
With a single gesture, she flipped the light on so she could see what she was doing, and ripped the covers off the small bed. It didn't deter her that there appeared to be no one there. She knew she was always there, hiding, just as evil and wicked and repulsive as her father. She was as disgusting as he was, and Eloise hated her with every ounce of her being as the small pink form was revealed, crouched in a little ball at the bottom of the bed, clutching her doll… the stupid doll his mother had given her and she clung to all the time… Eloise was in a blind rage as she grabbed it, and battered it against the wall, and broke off its head, as Gabriella came awake in a blinding flash and saw what she was doing.
“No, Mommy, no! Not Meredith!… No… Mommy, please…” Gabriella was sobbing as her mother destroyed the doll she had loved for years, and then Eloise turned to her daughter in the same white rage and began to hit her.
“It's just a stupid doll… and you're a wicked little brat… you dragged Marianne up to see you tonight, didn't you? And what did you tell her… did you cry to her… did you tell her about this? Did you tell her you deserve this… that you're a rotten little bitch… that you're a little whore, and Daddy and I hate you because you give us so much trouble?… Did you tell her we have to punish you because you're so bad to us… did you? Did you? DID YOU?” But Gabriella could no longer answer her, her sobs had been drowned by screams as her mother hit her again and again and again, at first with the body of the doll she had called Meredith, and then with her fists, battering her chest and her body and her ribs, pounding at her, ripping at her, grabbing handfuls of her hair and nearly tearing it off her head, and then slapping her until she couldn't catch her breath any longer. The blows were continuous and endless and brutal beyond belief. All her hatred for the child, and for John, the humiliation she had felt that night when he'd gone after the English girl, were visited on the child, who had no idea what she had done to deserve it, except that she knew that in some part of her she was so evil that surely she deserved her mother's hatred.
Gabriella was nearly unconscious when her mother left her that night. There was blood in her bed, and a knife sliced through her each time she tried to breathe. Neither of them knew it, but two of her ribs were cracked. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't move, and she had to pee desperately, and she knew that if she did it in her bed, her mother really would kill her. The remains of her doll had disappeared. Her mother had taken it and thrown it in the trash when she left the room, exhausted, and somewhat sated. Her fury against John had dimmed. She had fed the monster within her. It had eaten Gabriella instead, devoured her, chewed her up and spat out what remained of her. There was blood