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

won’t ever have to go back to him, I promise,” I shouted through the rain.
    Her face turned. Her face was distrustful. She crawled over. Her pale face turned up at the hole, her dark hair against her cheek. The rain above fell onto her skin. It poured off the curving pale form of her ear. She didn’t say anything. Her eyes were pleading. I reached a hand down to her. Nothing felt more important in the moment than my desire that Mary take my hand.
    “Mary. Please. I promise.”
    Mary was taken back to her aunt’s house in Chandler. Everyone reassured her that no matter what happened, she would never again live with her father. He was arrested for parole violation for trying to contact her. The police said he would probably be out of jail the next day. They were right. Mary’s aunt created a safety plan. Every day she took Mary to school; every day she picked her up. She decided to move across town to a new apartment and change her phone number. “I wish I could just move out of state or something,” she said on the phone. “But I’ve got my job here, and I can’t afford to move. What do you think?”
    “I think you need to do what works for you. The safety plan sounds like a good idea. Can you ask the school for help?”
    I was filled with outrage. This man had hurt his daughter in the worst way possible and had served only a year in prison. Now hewas stalking her, and again nothing would happen. Never before had I understood how lightly abusive parents got treated. For the rest of her life Mary would have to deal with the knowledge that her father could be around the corner. The thought made me angry and sick. No wonder so many kids are homeless, I thought, if this is all that happens to their abusers.
    I went home that night and found Amy sitting on the living room couch folding laundry. I was trying to find a way to bring up Mary’s father and what had happened. It seemed like such a terrible thing to discuss, yet I wanted my wife’s opinions and support. Amy looked up and smiled at me. I looked at the framed photograph on the mantel over her head. It was a picture of her mother, Jane, during the last months of the breast cancer that killed her when Amy was just fifteen. Her head was covered with a blue kerchief and a straw hat, but the woman’s warmth and kindness shone on her freckled face. They were the same qualities I loved in Amy. I remember Amy’s telling me how her mother used to sing to the homeless at their Quaker meeting in Whittier, California. Sometimes when I told Amy a little about the kids on the van, she told me about her childhood and how she wished all children could experience the comfort and faith her mother had given her: the stories every night at bedtime, the family dinners at the table, the homemade bunk beds her mother had made, how she had taught Amy how to sew when she was little. When Amy shared these memories with me, it was as if she were passing secret messages over a high wall.
    When she was a mother, Amy said, she would do the same things her mother had done. Once again Amy would be part of a sacred loop of family. She had missed it for so long. I thought maybe I would tell her later about Mary. It is too much right now, and I don’t want to burden her with my sorrows. I wanted her to be happy in her pregnancy. It should be a time of joy, I thought, not a time to talk about the evils people are capable of doing to children. Amy saw me watching and folded one of my shirts. She was smiling. “I scheduled an extra-early ultrasound,” she said.
    “Really?” I sat down next to her, picked up a pair of my shorts, and made a clumsy effort to fold them. “When is it?”
    “In a few weeks, on Friday.” She smiled.
    I gave her a kiss. “Can I get you anything?” I asked, standing up to unload my pockets.
    “I’m craving ice cream,” she said.
    “You craved ice cream before you got pregnant too,” I said, teasing her. As I went into the kitchen, I thought it was best I