Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,72

both sobbing.

Would hitting him again be any more traumatic for them? I thought not and raised my foot.

But Chandler McAdoo said, "No."

All the fight went out of me in a gust. I let the red-and-white-striped plastic fall from my fingers to the carpet, told myself I should comfort the children. But I realized in a dim way that I was not at all comforting right now.

"Eve and Jane are behind the chair in the bedroom across the hall," I said. I sounded exhausted, even to myself.

"I know," Chandler said. "Eve called nine-one-one."

"Miss Lily?" called a tiny, shaky voice.

I made myself plod into the master bedroom. Eve's head popped up from behind the chair. I sat on the end of the bed.

"You can bring Jane out now," I said. "Thank you for calling the police. That was so smart, so brave." Eve pushed the chair out and picked up the infant seat, though now it was almost too heavy for her thin arms.

Chandler shut the door.

It promptly came open again and Jack came in.

He paused and looked me over. "Anything broken?" he asked.

"No." I shook my head and wondered for a second if I would be able to stop. It felt like pendulum set in motion. I rubbed my throat absently.

"Bruise," said Jack. I watched him try to decide how to approach me and Eve.

With great effort, I lifted my hand and patted Eve on the head. Then I folded her in my arms as she began to cry.

I sat with Eve in my lap that night as she told the police what had been happening in the yellow house on Fulbright Street. Chandler was there, and Jack - and Lou O'Shea, since Jess had passionately wanted to be there as Eve's pastor, but Eve had shown a definite preference for Lou.

Daddy, it seemed, had started getting funny when it became apparent that the bills from Meredith's pregnancy and delivery were going to be substantial. He began to enjoy playing with his eight-year-old daughter.

"He always liked me to wear lipstick and makeup," Eve said. "He liked me to play dress up all the time."

"What did your mom have to say about that, Eve?" Chandler asked in a neutral voice.

"She thought it was funny, at first."

"When did things change?"

"About Thanksgiving, I guess."

It was just after Thanksgiving that the article about unsolved crimes had appeared in the Little Rock paper. With the picture of the baby in the giraffe sleeper. The same baby sleeper that Meredith had kept all these years in a box on the closet shelf, as a memento of her baby's first days.

"Mama wasn't happy. She'd walk around the house and cry. She had a hard time taking care of Jane. She ..." Eve's voice dropped almost to a whisper. "She asked me funny questions."

"About... ?" Chandler again.

"About did Daddy touch me funny."

"Oh. What did you tell her?" Chandler sounded quiet and respectful of Eve, as if this was a very ordinary conversation. I had not known my old friend could be this way.

"No, he never touched me ... there. But he liked to play Come Here Little Girl."

My stomach heaved.

I won't go through it all, but the gist of it was that Emory liked to deck Eve in lipstick and rouge and call her over to him as if they were strangers and induce her to touch him through his pants.

"So what else happened?" Chandler asked after a moment.

"He and Mama had a fight. Mama said they had to talk about when I was born, and Daddy said he wouldn't, and Mama said ... oh, I don't remember."

Had Meredith asked him if Eve was their baby? Had she asked him if he was molesting the child?

"Then Mama or Daddy got my memory book and took a page out of it. I didn't see them do it, but when I got home one day, the page was missing, my favorite picture of me and Anna and Krista. It had been cut out real neat, so I think Mama did it. So the next time I spent the night with Anna, I took it over there with me, so Mama couldn't cut out any more pages."

Jack and I met each other's eyes.

"Then Mama said I needed a blood test. So I went to Dr. LeMay, and he and Miss Binnie took some blood and said they were going to test it, and I had sure been a good girl, and he gave me a piece of candy.

"Mama told me not to