A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [53]
I remember going limp, almost falling down. They weren’t going to ask me about Lizzy because I hadn’t meant to let her out the door. They knew she had run down the lane while I was upstairs for hardly any time to speak of. Robbie Mackessy was in trouble, that was all. “Uhhh,” I said, gently banging my head against the locker.
“Not pleasant memories, I take it?” she said.
“I’ve tried to forget,” I said sarcastically, as if it was funny.
“You had difficulties with him?”
I looked up at the ceiling tiles that were decorated with straight rows of black dots. I’d known him too long already. I used to crawl home from school after a hard morning to the dream world of the farm, to the back-breaking work that seemed to me as old as time itself. I’d pull up carrots and it could have been someone’s hair I was yanking on. There was comfort in knowing absolutely what needed to be done.
“Difficulties,” I said. “You could say that.” She was so pretty and petite, and she had a locket around her neck. And my head hurt and the dark was coming on and I wanted to go home more than anything and go to sleep and sleep off days and days and sleep off life.
“How long have you known him?”
I had to think. He had been in the county pre-kindergarten program when he was five, and in kindergarten when he was six. “It must be two years,” I said.
“Uh huh.” She nodded into her pad of paper. The other officers down at headquarters probably called her Grogan with a measured amount of tenderness, and she probably liked that, made her feel at once like one of the men and at the same time like the only girl in the family. They couldn’t abuse her because she was delicate, yes, but strong enough to demand careful handling. “You probably developed quite a relationship with him then?”
I laughed, at the idea of a relationship.
“No?” She put her long red fingernail into her mouth and tilted her head from left to right.
I was about to say that he was afraid of me, but that wasn’t true. Robbie Mackessy had never seemed to be afraid of anyone. I couldn’t very well say that we had never gotten along, that he was a disturbed boy, cruel, hard, who enraged me every time I saw him. Officer Grogan had a Pre-Raphaelite beauty but I conceded that if she was going to be a cop then the name Grogan suited her. “I guess kids are usually afraid of the school nurse,” I said.
“Afraid?”
“I’m a tall person with the reputation for having a needle in hand. The youngest ones are nervous because they believe I’m going to give them a shot, even though of course I don’t do that at school. Some of them know me because I’m one of the shot ladies at the free clinic.”
“That’s quite a label to live with.”
I wanted to go to sleep against the locker. The officers would never know the half of it. Robbie had the unbounded energy of someone who is chronically angry. He used to come in my office, stand at my desk, and stare at me. Maybe there doesn’t seem much harm in being stared at, but I could have told the officer about how I never knew what he was thinking, or what would come next. It unnerved me so much I often had to leave the room and dance, a few tight little steps, outside of the office. It was what he wanted, for me to come undone. If I asked him what was troubling him he’d stare at me. If I asked him to let me take a look at his throat or his ears he’d stare, and if I said, “Well then, go back to your room,” he would stand and stare. If I ignored him and went about my duties he might still stand and stare, derision in the affected blankness of his face, and then he often made an inaudible but clearly derogatory comment about my movements or clothing or style. If I suggested that we take the short walk down to