Nobody

“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.