“There, it’s all
over now,” Marisela said with a warm smile as she patted his back that was now
covered by the white t-shirt an officer had gone and bought for him. Todd grinned back at her. They had walked about a foot away from the
room when a detective touched Marisela’s shoulder. He asked to have a word with her. Reluctantly, Marisela nodded. She took Todd into the waiting room and told
him to sit and wait for her to return.
Todd held her hand tightly in his, not wanting to let her go. “I’ll be right back, I promise. Wait for me, ok?” Todd looked back and forth between the
detective and Marisela a few times before looking down. He nodded slowly. “Good.”
Marisela waited for him to release her hand before reaching up and
pushing his hair away from his forehead.
She kissed it lightly and left with the detective. Lifting his head quickly, Todd touched the
place on his forehead the kind girl had just kissed. The spot felt warm. He held his hand there for a while, anxiously
awaiting her return.
“Miss, we’d like
to thank you for everything you’ve done today.
We’re going to take Todd into our custody now.”
Marisela looked
at him incredulously. “Did you not hear
about what happened when they tried to dress his wounds?”
The detective
chuckled. “I’m sure it was a one time
thing. Must have been because he’s not
accustomed to being around people.”
Marisela crossed
her arms over her chest. “Todd has been
treated like some sort of animal for twelve years. Do you know that, more often than not, when
an abused animal finds someone to trust, that animal will snap at anything that
isn’t that person?”
The detective’s
expression turned cold. “Look. He will be just fine in our care. The officer that will look after him is on
his way over now. We appreciate all your
help, but we don’t need you.”
Marisela glared
at him before sighing in exasperation.
“Fine! But when you screw this
up, you’d better be prepared to beg me for forgiveness.”
Rolling his
eyes, the detective headed back to the waiting room with her. When they got there, the officer the
detective had mentioned had already arrived and was crouched in front of Todd,
staring at him. The detective cleared
his throat to get the officer’s attention.
The officer quickly got to his feet and nodded at the detective and
Marisela. Marisela inspected the officer
quickly. Something about his demeanor
rubbed her the wrong way. She looked at
Todd. His expression reminded her of a
bull dog one of her old neighbors owned.
He would scrunch his face up angrily before barking and biting at people
he didn’t like. This connection made
Marisela want to laugh, but she knew the situation would not accept something
like that so she had to stifle a giggle.
Todd turned to face her when he heard the muffled sound. A wide grin spread across his face to see she
was back. “I’ll fill Officer Rauttain in
on the recent events. You can,” he waved
his hand somewhat dismissively, “say goodbye or whatever.” He pulled Officer Rauttain aside.
Todd had
completely ignored the detective. He was
too preoccupied with the relief that Marisela had kept her promise. Marisela looked at him sadly. “You’re going to be staying with that officer
from now on.” Although Todd didn’t quite
understand what he was being told, the look on her face was enough to make him
feel uncomfortable. He shifted a little
in the chair and scooted forward to get closer to her. “The detective says you’ll be fine,
but…” Marisela looked over to the
reception desk and held up her forefinger to Todd. “One second.”
She walked over to the desk and borrowed a pen and a slip of paper. When she got back, she held to slip of paper
out to Todd. “That’s my cell
number. If you need me, you can contact
me that way.” Just then, the detective
and officer returned.
“Once again,
thank you, Miss,” the detective said before nodding to everyone and leaving.
Officer Rauttain
smiled at Marisela. “You’ve done a lot
today, Miss…”
Todd picked up
on the feeling of disgust Marisela had adopted when she realized the officer
wanted her name and gritted his teeth.
Marisela swallowed the feeling and gave her name. “Marisela.”
“Marisela,” the
officer repeated, smiling wider. “That’s
a very pretty name. Almost as pretty as
those green eyes.”
Marisela
desperately tried to mask her revulsion.
“Thanks. You’ll look after him
properly, right?” she asked, motioning toward Todd.
“Of course,
Beautiful.”
Marisela turned
to Todd, placing a hand on either side of his shoulders. “Everything will be ok. Be a good boy, ok?” Still not looking away from the officer, Todd
nodded. Marisela pushed his hair away
and kissed his forehead again. “It’s
late. Goodnight, Todd.”
At the sound of
his name, Todd froze. He was suddenly
transported back to the day he was kidnapped, the last time he had actually
been addressed by his name. His mother
dropped him off at school. She kissed
his cheek and told him that they would have a special dinner full of his
favorite foods when he got home since he was turning seven that day. The memory of his mother made his heart
squeeze painfully. Was she still alive? Had she tried to look for him? Where was she now? Todd looked up at Marisela. The abandoned look in his eyes hurt her, but
there was nothing she could do about it.
She watched as Officer Rauttain took Todd away.
Marisela fell
onto her bed, exhausted. Folding her
arms behind her head and kicking off her shoes, she sighed heavily. It was unbelievable. How could a parent cause his child so much
terrible pain? Utterly
inconceivable. She rolled onto her side
and stared at the red glow of the alarm clock on her bedside table. 12:54. Where
did the time go? Soon, she was
thinking about her own childhood. Her
parents had been the overly-doting type.
They bought her everything she wanted to have. Took her everywhere she wanted to go. She knew not all parents were like that, but
she never would have thought a parent could inflict that kind of suffering on a
child. Suddenly, a horrible feeling in
the pit of her stomach caused her sit up.
The instant she did, her phone began ringing. She picked it up with great haste. “Yes?!”
The detective
from earlier spoke, a touch of shame in his voice. “Miss, we…uh…we need you to come to Officer
Rauttain’s residence.”
She ran fingers
through her hair. “I hate saying ‘I told
you so.’ I’ll be right there.” Marisela wrote down the address the detective
gave her and hung up as she pulled her shoes back on before rushing out the
door.
She ran up the
steps to Officer Rauttain’s apartment.
The detective was waiting outside the door. He ran to meet her. “Miss, it seems Todd has attacked Officer
Rauttain.”
“What’d he do?”
“He broke
Rauttain’s nose and I’m pretty sure a couple of ri-”
“No,” Marisela
interrupted as she turned into the apartment.
“What did Rauttain do? Todd
wouldn’t attack him for nothing.”
The detective
looked offended. “He threw a fit at
those nurses for nothing.”
“No. He reacted that way to the pain of the
alcohol swab.” She made eye contact with
the detective and practically stared him down.
“Your officer did something to Todd.”
Then she turned away quickly and entered the room guarded by three
police officers. Over by a corner, Todd
sat with his back against the wall, head bowed.
Beside him lay Officer Rauttain’s unconscious body. Blood covered his swollen face. “Todd…”
He looked up and scrambled to his feet.
With a smile on his face, he ran to her.
The officers raised their guns at him in fear. “Put those down!” Marisela shouted at
them. They lowered their weapons slowly,
looking at the detective. Todd wrapped
his arms around Marisela. She patted his
back gently. “Todd, what happened?” Pulling away, she pointed to Rauttain. His eyes followed to where she was
pointing. He grimaced when he realized
she was talking about the man whose face he’d beaten to a bloody pulp. “Todd?”
He didn’t look back at her, but continued to scowl in Rauttain’s
direction. A small boy tugged on
Marisela’s pant leg. The detective
smacked an officer on the back of the head and scolded him for not keeping
Rauttain’s son away. Marisela knelt
down. “Yeah?”
“I know why,”
the boy squeaked.
“Can you tell
me?”
Fidgeting, he
said, “Well, Dad was talking to him and then a piece of paper fell out of his
pocket. Dad picked it up and
smiled. He tried to grab it back from
Dad, but Dad just laughed at him. He
said he was surprised ‘that little cutie’ gave him something like that. Then he
said…He said…” He looked around
furtively and motioned for her to get closer.
Cupping his hands around her ear, he whispered what he had heard his
father say to Todd.
A flash of anger
danced across Marisela’s eye before she ruffled the boy’s hair and stood
up. “Todd,” she touched his arm gentle
to get his attention. Then she turned to
the detective. “I’ll take Todd home with
me.” She grabbed Todd’s hand and led him
out of the room. As they passed the
detective she said, “You can grovel later.”
Back at her
apartment, Marisela washed the blood off of Todd’s knuckles. “I know why you did it, but you can’t just
attack someone when you’re upset. Do you
understand?” Todd just stared at
her. She sighed and dried his
hands. “You’ll only end up getting yourself
into irreversible trouble if you keep this up.
What he said was disgusting, but you overreacted.” He grabbed her arms and looked into her eyes
seriously, lingering anger in his intense gaze.
Marisela looked away. “I-I’m not
saying it was ok for him to say it, but going that far was-” Using his left hand, he lifted her chin and
forced her to look at him. The fire in
his eyes made her face feel hot. He
shook his head. Nothing she said would
make him regret what he did. No one,
absolutely no one, was allowed to disrespect her. Finally, Marisela was able to pull away from
him. “I’ll pull out some blankets and
you can sleep on the couch.”
Todd watched her
walk away and wandered into the living room.
He looked around in wonder. He
made his way over to the couch and flopped down on it. Stretching, he dangled his feet over one arm
of the couch while resting his head on the other. Marisela quickly returned with two blankets
and a pillow. “I’m not sure how warm it
is out here in the night so I brought two just in case,” she said, holding the
blankets and pillow out to him. His
heart felt warm as he took them from her.
“So, my bedroom is at the end of that hall. The door’ll be closed, but if you need me,
just knock. Um, the kitchen is right
there in case you get thirsty. And you
know where the bathroom is. I guess
that’s it.” Todd sat up and pulled his
shirt off, then he began to unbutton his jeans.
Marisela looked away quickly, putting her hands up. “Whoa there!
I-I’ll go get you some sleep pants so keep those on for now!” She ran to her bedroom. Blinking, Todd sat back against the couch and
waited for her to get back. Out of
nowhere, a pair of pants came sailing through the air and fell on his
head. “Ok, now you can change!” he heard
Marisela shout. “Goodnight!” As he pulled the pants off of his head, he
could hear the sound of her door clicking shut.
Looking down at the pants, he laughed then looked to the hallway that
lead to Marisela’s room. A smile grew as
he thought about how kind she was. He
couldn’t remember the last time anyone had been so kind to him. She was special. Nobody like her. He picked up the pillow and hugged it,
smelling the faint scent of her perfume.
“…Mari…” his low voice was a bit hoarse from lack of use, but it was
full of a tenderness he’d never felt before.
