Ask Me Why I Hurt by M.D. Randy Christensen Page A

waved good-bye. The sky outside the dirty office window was dark and threatening with coming monsoon rains.
    “Her father is out of prison.” She said his name as if it were poison, spit out. “I just found out. He was paroled. I had no idea. He’s back. In Phoenix.”
    My heart jerked. I was appalled. He had served only a year in prison? For what he had done to her?
    “I’d got her in counseling.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been doing everything. You
know
what he did to her. He’s not even supposed to have contact with her. He lost his parental rights in prison. I didn’t even know he was out. I came home and Mary was gone. There was a message from him on the phone.”
    “Did she leave a note?”
    “Nothing. I’m so scared he got her. I called the police, but I don’t know if they know where to look or what to do. I thought maybe you knew.”
    I thanked her and hung up. I stared off in space, then got up and told Jan I had to leave. I was barely aware of getting into my truck, and somehow I drove without seeing anything at all.
    I made my way to Moeur Park.
    The sky had been moody all day, in the dark, threatening way that promised severe storms. The weatherman had said the rainstorms would come again that afternoon. They would be real doozies, he said. Stay inside, he said. There was a sour, decaying smell on the wind, and I thought of war-torn countries and whatthe dead smell like. It was the same sour smell the street kids brought with them, enmeshed in their clothes.
    I made my way across the desert by memory. There was a dense, electric feeling in the air. The birds had roosted in the bushes. A few warning calls broke the air. There were broken bottles in the sand and cans with their lids pried off. I crossed the remains of a fire and caught whiffs of urine. A drunken man rolled out of the bushes into my path, mumbling something. I stepped over him as if I had no time. I didn’t.
    The sky was electric by the time I came to Mary’s camp. The bushes seemed to sizzle from wanting rain. The bottom of the wash was hot, claustrophobic, the wind both still and anxious. It was a dangerous time to be out in the open. There would probably be lightning, and once the rains came, a wash like this could turn into a flash flood.
    I stood on the concrete lid of her home. The hole below me was square and dark. Please, I thought. Please let her be here, and not with him. I crouched down. Above me the sky went dark, and there was a smell of ozone. Any minute now, I thought. At any minute the rain will come sheeting down.
    “Mary?” I asked.
    My voice was too soft.
    I made it stronger: “Mary.”
    I knelt closer to the hole, until my face was almost inside.
    It was then that I saw her, in a flash of light from the dark sky above, illuminating her form. She was crouched in the farthest corner, huddled like an animal in her cave. The relief that overcame me was immense. I could see now why this hole in the ground was preferable to other places. I felt a surge of gratitude toward Mary for teaching me this.
    “Mary, it’s me, Dr. Christensen. Please come out.” I had my head in the hole now. “Please.” I paused. “You know I’m too big to fit in this dang hole.”
    I saw a sliver of her face.
    “I might get stuck, you know. OK, you want to know the truth? I’m too scared to crawl down there.”
    I saw a little more of her face.
    “The rain is coming, Mary. You could drown in there.”
    There was a shake of the head.
    The sky cracked above me, and the deluge came pouring down. The concrete pad was immediately a freshet, the wash around me two inches high, rushing in alarming sheets into Mary’s hole. My shirt was drenched to my back, my hair over my face, my glasses blinded with water. When I opened my mouth, the rain poured in. It ran around me and down into the sordid hole. The smell that arose from the hole was indescribable.
    “Please, Mary,” I yelled.
    She moved maybe a fraction of an inch.
    “You