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  “I’m Wanda Stiefel-Le Monte, and I’m here to share with you how being beaten up and then almost killed has impacted me,” Wanda said. She swallowed hard. “I didn’t write a great essay or anything. I just tallied it all up.”

  Wanda shuffled. Her father’s arm went around her shoulders.

  “Surgeries,” Wanda said. “I’ve had three surgeries to my knee. It was intentionally destroyed by those boys you pumped up on drugs and were going to assault Noelle.”

  Wanda’s voice cracked when she said Noelle’s name. She felt out-of-control emotions rise inside her. She couldn’t believe it. How could she have these feelings? She hadn’t raped like Tink. She hadn’t hanged herself, like that other girl. She hadn’t even been shot like Sissy!

  Incredibly, the feelings continued to rise. She’d never felt such a wave of feelings before. Suddenly, she was terrified that she would unleash them upon the court. She hesitated to speak because the emotions might come out. Her struggle played out on her face.

  “Take your time,” the judge said.

  Wanda’s eyes flicked to him.

  “My dad had a surgery for when he was stabbed by the guy you sent to kill us,” Wanda said. “But, the thing . . . um . . .”

  To her amazement, her eyes welled with tears, and all of those overwhelming feelings came to the surface.

  “The thing that I resent the most was losing my pink sparkly pen,” Wanda said as tears streamed down her face. “I jammed it into the killer’s eye before he tried to choke me to death.”

  Wanda took a breath, and she broke down. Emotions she would have never believed that she was capable of feeling were now flowing out of her eyes and mouth. She sobbed into her father’s chest. Erik took the piece of paper.

  “I’ll just finish this,” Erik said. “Wanda would be mad if she didn’t finish.”

  Erik looked at the judge, who nodded.

  “I can’t say that I forgive you,” Erik read Wanda’s statement. “I don’t think I will ever forget how you tried to kill my dad and me. My dad’s been off work while he heals. My mom’s been having to take care of both of us, which is too much for anyone.”

  Erik read ahead. He swallowed hard and glanced down at the top of Wanda’s head.

  “The thing that you took that I miss the most is my anonymity,” Erik read Wanda’s statement. “Now everybody knows who I am — what I am. I’ve had to change schools because all the kids at the old school looked at me funny. No one would dare say anything because of Charlie being so popular and being my friend. But everyone used to step aside when I came down the hall. Kids whispered to each other when they saw me. Even at the new school, everybody knows that I used to be Wade and I’m now Wanda and that you broke my knee and my leg and that I lost my pink sparkly pen in the murderer’s eye and . . .”

  Erik had to swallow back his own emotions.

  “I don’t forgive you,” Erik read. “I hope that everywhere you go from now on everyone knows you’re a rapist and provide drugs for boys and, in general, are a poor excuse for a human being.”

  Erik nodded.

  “That’s it,” Erik said. “We’re going to leave now.”

  He nodded. He held Wanda against him as he moved out of the courtroom. He found a bench near the door. Sitting down, he pulled Wanda onto his lap. He rocked her until her sobs slowed. She stared ahead in numb silence.

  “You want to go back inside?” Erik asked.

  Wanda’s eyes flicked to him for a moment. Their eyes held for a moment before she nodded.

  “You don’t have to,” Erik said.

  “I won’t let him beat me,” Wanda said. “What will my little brother or sister think of me if I just give up?”

  Erik blushed, and Wanda chuckled.

  “How’d you know?” Erik asked.

  “I just figured,” Wanda said.

  “What do you think if we do have another child or two?” Erik asked.

  “Or two?” Wanda asked. “She’s having twins?”

  Erik nodded.

  “Then I’d better get my ass back in there,” Wanda said. “Work on my stamina.”

  Erik laughed at her joke.

  “You should wash up a bit,” Erik said.

  “Snot everywhere?” Wanda asked.

  “Everywhere,” Erik said.

  He picked a crusted piece from Wanda’s hair. Wanda nodded and went into the bathroom. She came out a few minutes later. Erik looked at his brave daughter for a long moment.

  “Come on, Dad,” Wanda said.

  He opened the door, and they went back to their seats.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Friday afternoon — 4:45 p.m.

  “My name is Anna Marie McDonald,” Ivy said. “Everyone calls me ‘Ivy.’”

  Ivy looked up at the judge, who nodded to her. She glanced at the defendant before looking down to read her statement. Delphie’s arm went around Ivy’s thin shoulders.

  “I was eight years old when you and your friends decided to rape me,” Ivy said. Intimidated by the silence that came back at her, she took a breath and continued on, “You carved your initials into my perineum. As you already know, there’s no way to take them off. I will have your initials on my body for the rest of my life.”

  “I lost my mom almost right when I was born,” Ivy said. “My dad died in Iraq. My grandmother died just a few days before you gang-raped me.”

  Ivy let the silence linger.

  “I lost my mom,” Ivy said. “I lost my dad. I lost my grandmother. And, at eight years old, I lost my body because of you.”

  “You can say, ‘Well, you’re young, you’ll heal,’” Ivy said. “I will never, ever, ever be able to remove your initials from my body. I will wear them on my most private place for the rest of my life.”

  Ivy flipped her hair over her shoulder.

  “When my aunt told me that your skin was burning up, I thought, ‘Good,’” Ivy said with a nod. “You can be disfigured like I am. You can be scarred. You can know the pain. You can feel what I feel every single day.”

  Ivy sniffed.

  “The problem is that I don’t feel that way every single day,” Ivy said. “I feel pretty good every day. Most days, I don’t remember you at all.”

  There was a general rustling in the crowd. They all longed for a way past these events. They all craved a chance to start anew. The idea that Ivy might be past it encouraged them. A few of the girls sat up a little straighter in their seats.

  “You see, the difference between what’s happening to you and what you did to me is that your skin now shows the truth about you,” Ivy said. “And my life shows the truth about me. I’m happy most days. I go long stretches of time and don’t think about you at all. I have lots of friends. I live in this magical house with the best people, where even when people fight, they still love each other. I’m learning to cook. Just yesterday, I went shopping and bought all new clothes.”

  “You wanna know why?” Ivy asked. “I’ll tell you.”

  Ivy looked up at the defendant.

  “I’m over you,” Ivy said with a smile. “You get to live with your burning skin and your scars. You get to live with the truth that you intentionally hurt a lot of kids — not just the girls and guys you gang raped but also the boys you drugged and manipulated into raping kids so that you could make money selling their videos. You get to live with what you are until the end of your days.

  “And I get to live with what I am,” Ivy said.

  There was another positive rustling in the crowd.

  “You know what I am?” Ivy asked. “I’m a survivor.”

  She took a moment to look at the defendant.

  “That probably doesn’t mean anything to you,” Ivy said. “That’s okay.”

  She looked up at Delphie and nodded. Delphie gave her a photograph, which Ivy held up.

  “I was the youngest person you attacked,” Ivy said. She held up the picture. “I was the one who had the most injuries to my vagina and anus and insides.”
/>   Ivy said the words clearly and succinctly.

  “I’m one of the girls who will bear your initials for the rest of my life.”

  Ivy nodded to the defendant.

  “I can honestly say that after today, I will probably never think of you again,” Ivy said. “When I fall in love and I meet someone really great, someone like my dad, he might ask me about your initials. My guess is that I won’t even remember your name.”

  Ivy nodded.

  “So goodbye, evil man,” Ivy said. “I’m off to have a great life.”

  Ivy turned in place and walked to the back of the room, where Tink and Wanda were waiting. In a matter of moments, the judge adjourned the trial. He gave the jury instructions so they could come up with an appropriate sentence for the defendant. A minute later, the whole thing was over.

  The girls ran out of the courtroom. They made a pit stop at the bathroom before heading outside to wait for their parents and Delphie.

  “What do you think will happen to . . .?” Tink said the defendant’s name.

  “Who?” Ivy asked.

  Wanda howled with laughter. Tink raised her eyebrows in a “really?” gesture. Ivy nodded firmly.

  “Oh, you’re right,” Tink said with a shake of her head. “I don’t care what happens to him, anyway.”

  “Tell us about what Charlie said at lunch!” Wanda said.

  “He was really great!” Tink said with a smile.

  Tink dove into her conversation with Charlie at lunch. Frankie came up and hugged Wanda. He asked about court but learned right away that these girls were over it. He laughed. By the time the parents arrived, they were happily talking about school and the rest of their lives.

  “The rest of our life,” Tink said to Heather in the car on the ride home. Blane sat in the back seat so they could talk.

  “We still have to go to the sentencing,” Heather said.

  “I know,” Tink said. “I don’t have to testify or anything, right?”

  “Exactly,” Heather said.

  “Then I’m done,” Tink said.

  “How does that feel?” Heather asked.

  “Like a breath of fresh air,” Tink said. “I have a whole new, awesome life ahead of me.”

  “Yes, you do,” Heather said.

  Smiling, Tink leaned back against the seat to watch the city go by.

  “You asleep?” Heather asked in a low tone after a few blocks.

  “Just happy,” Tink said.

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence.

  Chapter Four Hundred

  Five Days Later

  Five days later

  Wednesday morning — 8:12 a.m.

  Humming to herself, Ivy came around the corner from the stairs and into the kitchen. Jacob was sitting at the kitchen table. She stopped short when Jacob looked up at her.

  “Oh, sorry,” Ivy said.

  “Sorry?” Jacob asked with a smile.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Ivy said. “I thought you were upstairs.”

  “I thought I was the only one here,” Jacob said.

  Ivy giggled uncomfortably.

  “Can I get you some breakfast?” Jacob asked.

  Ivy looked at the table and was surprised not to see the remnants of many bowls of Capt’n Crunch with Crunchberries. Noticing her eyes, Jacob shrugged.

  “I haven’t gotten there yet,” Jacob said. “Can I make you some eggs? Cereal?”

  He gave her a long look.

  “I have no idea what you eat for breakfast,” Jacob said.

  “You’re usually at work by the time I get up,” Ivy said.

  Jacob nodded.

  “How come you’re not at work?” Ivy asked.

  “Why am I not at work?”

  Jacob gave a mild correction. Ivy nodded. She’d asked everyone to help her “stop sounding like a hick.”

  “Why aren’t you at work?” Ivy asked with a smile and a nod.

  “I kind of got the sack,” Jacob said.

  “Oh,” Ivy said.

  She looked at the ground for a moment before looking back at him. She tried to scan him for his meaning.

  “Don’t scan me,” Jacob said, irritably. “Use your language.”

  “What if you get mad?” Ivy asked in a whisper. “I mean, most adults don’t like nosey kids.”

  “I have a particular fondness for nosey kids,” Jacob said with a smile.

  “Oh,” Ivy said. “What’s ‘get the sack’ mean?”

  “Technically, it means that I was fired,” Jacob said.

  “Were you fired?” Ivy asked with a gasp.

  “Not really,” Jacob said.

  “Then, why are you home?” Ivy asked more insistently.

  “There are a lot of answers to that question,” Jacob said. He got up from the table and went into the kitchen. He started taking things out of the refrigerator. “I’m at home because, at this moment, I don’t have anything else to do. Delphie asked if I could take you to your appointment, and I agreed.”

  “But you always have lots to do,” Ivy said.

  She went into the kitchen to watch him cook. He turned on the burner under a small cast-iron pan before giving her two eggs, a small bowl, and a fork. She proceeded to crack the eggs and scramble them. He chopped some green onions, broccoli, and spinach. When she set the eggs down, he saw her honest curiosity.

  “I have a kind of break in the action,” Jacob said. “I was living this one life, and it just came to an end. Nothing bad. No one’s mad, and certainly, I can continue doing what I was doing. It’s just that it’s time to move on.”

  Jacob nodded. He put the eggs in the warm cast-iron pan.

  “Would you like some cheese?” Jacob asked.

  “I don’t like cheese,” Ivy said.

  “Good to know,” Jacob said. He was silent for a moment while he cooked. “So, I went from being super, extra, way too busy to having nothing to do.”

  Jacob nodded to Ivy. He slipped the vegetables into the omelet and put it onto a plate.

  “Can I have toast?” Ivy asked.

  “Sure,” Jacob said. “I thought you were an expert at toast.”

  “I don’t usually get the bread out,” Ivy said.

  “Seize the day!” Jacob said, and Ivy giggled.

  She got the footstool and opened the bread cabinet. They went through so much bread here that it didn’t need to be refrigerated. She took out a bag of sliced sourdough bread.

  “I feel like that,” Ivy said as she put the bread in the toaster.

  “Like what?” Jacob asked.

  He gestured for her to put the bread back. She blushed at his reminder and put the bag of bread back into the cabinet. She put the footstool away for good measure.

  “I had this whole life, you know,” Ivy said. “Mom died, and Dad died. Then me and my grandmother spent all our free time looking for Aunt Delphie. We had a lot of adventures. Then she died, and I was out on the streets. Then everything . . .”

  Ivy got down the butter dish from the counter next to the refrigerator. Sarah, the yellow lab, and Buster, the ugly dog, showed up when the toast began to smell like food. Jacob shooed them out of the way. When the dogs were insistent, he put them out in the backyard.

  “Now it’s just over,” Ivy said. “Over. Bam. It’s like dying.”

  Jacob gave Ivy a long look.

  “I have this new life,” Ivy said as she buttered her toast. “I mean, it’s great, really. I’m not complaining. And if everything hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here. And I belong here. I know I do. And I know this is my life. It’s just that I had all of this big, heavy stuff, and, now, all of a sudden, it’s all gone.”

  Ivy fell silent as she took a bite of toast.

  “You’re in a gap,” Jacob said.

  Ivy nodded.

  “Me, too,” Jacob said. “I can pick up a lot of things — play with the kids, work in my rehabilitation business, hang out with Jill, take a class, travel, play golf, go fishing, reall
y anything . . .”

  “But that’s just filling the gap,” Ivy said. Still holding the butter knife, she made a gesture like she was stuffing a bag full of stuff. “It’s like — ‘I have an empty bag so I should steal some stuff.’”

  “So you don’t have an empty bag,” Jacob said.

  “Uh-huh,” Ivy said. “I could paint, but that’s Noelle’s thing. I could dance, but that’s really Sissy’s thing. I could be an actress like Valerie or an interior designer like Jill or a hair stylist like Sandy or a fortune teller like Delphie or . . . But that’s their thing, you know. I’d just be stealing from them.”

  “Exactly,” Jacob said. “That’s very astute.”

  “‘Astute’?” Ivy said. “What’s that mean?”

  “Perceptive,” Jacob said. “Smart — with an edge of being able to see things other people can’t.”

  “That’s me,” Ivy said with a nod. “I’m ‘astute.’”

  Jacob grinned at her confident nod. He carried her plate to the table. She brought her toast. He poured himself a cup of coffee, doctored it efficiently, and returned to the table with his coffee and a glass of milk for her. They sat in silence for a moment while she ate and he drank his coffee.

  “So what do we do?” Ivy asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Jacob said. “That’s why I was sitting here.”

  Ivy nodded. She finished her breakfast and leaned back.

  “Can I sit here with you?” Ivy asked.

  Jacob turned his head to look at her.

  “We can share the gap,” Ivy said.

  “I’d like that,” Jacob said. “We have to get to your therapy appointment in a few minutes.”

  “I know,” Ivy said. “I was being meta-phor-ical.”

  Jacob’s eyes flicked to her.

  “It’s my word for the day,” Ivy said. “It means: relating to the characteristic of or comprising a metaphor. You know what a metaphor is?”

  Jacob nodded, and she smiled. They sat together for a few minutes — he drinking coffee, she drinking milk. When the time came, they got up. As if to hold their place in the gap, Jacob left his coffee mug and her milk glass on the table.