Author's Note: Hmm… did I scare y'all away with chapter 6? I hope not. 'Cause that would suck. Anyway, here's 7. Enjoy.

SECRETS AND LIES

Joan barely spoke during dinner. News of her absence from school had already been delivered to Helen via Price when, right in the middle of an art class, the principal had sauntered in to gloat about the younger Ms. Girardi's relapse into truancy. The grades were bound to backslide next, he wagered. Helen had been snippy with him, defending her daughter, but the minute she returned home, it was straight to Joan's room for a stern mother-daughter lecture. Or so Helen had thought. She had ended up backing into the hall and easing the door shut after Joan looked up from her wet pillow and confessed readily, said there had been something important she needed to do but to please not ask what, and finished with a plea for privacy. Helen didn't like the sound of that, but she respected her daughter's wishes. For the time being.

Now it was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and creamed corn in the dining room, and everyone was digging in with gusto, except for Joan. She lifted a forkful of Helen's famous lump-free, light-as-a-feather mashed potatoes and let it go splat against the white mush on her plate.

"Maybe we should feed her bread and water," Luke said.

"Shut up, dork," Joan muttered, but her heart wasn't in it. She tore a bite out of her dinner roll and stuck it in her mouth. It felt like sawdust going down.

"See?" Luke said.

Will eyed his daughter and Helen, who shrugged and looked worried. "Rough day, honey?" he said to Joan. He had noticed her watching him off and on this evening. When she was four years old and had stolen a piece of candy from the drugstore, only to come bawling to him and begging for forgiveness, the wrapped Tootsie Roll clutched in her tiny palm, she had spent an hour beforehand watching him with that same expression. Whatever was bothering her now, it couldn't be much harder for him to fix than a shoplifted Tootsie Roll.

Joan swirled her fork in the runny corn. The concern in her father's dark eyes made her want to weep, so she didn't chance meeting his gaze. Her thoughts were consumed by Ruthie and June and Charlie. She imagined them sitting at their dinner table. With Donovan. "I just feel kind of crappy," she said, picking an answer she figured Helen wouldn't read too much into.

"Hope you're not catching that bug that's going around," Will said. "A few of the guys at work have it."

"Yeah, I heard." Joan stabbed her meatloaf.

"How's that?" Will said, but didn't get an answer.

Joan laid her fork down and leaned forward, dropping her hands into her lap. "Daddy," she said. Her forehead was crinkled when she turned to him. She kept hearing Ruthie beseeching her not to tell. She thought of the furious red splotches on that gentle, pretty face. Promise you won't, Joan. Promise.

"Yes?"

"What do you think of Ruthie?"

Donovan was a psycho, the horrible things he had said twisted, bald-faced lies. But on behalf of Ruthie, Joan needed to ask and hear the answer from her father himself.

"Don's wife?"

Unfortunately. "Mm-hmm."

"I don't know her that well. From what I've seen, she's nice though. Cute." Will added the last part as if he was referring to one of Joan's friends that she would have brought home for a sleepover in fifth grade. "And you and your mom seem to think highly of her."

He didn't mention Donovan, Joan noticed. She looked across the table at Kevin. "What about you?"

"Uhhh. Who are we talking about?" Kevin said.

"Never mind." Joan smiled wanly.

"Aren't you going to ask me what I think of her?" Luke said after there was a pause.

"She watches The West Wing, and she said your project for the next Science Fair sounded 'nifty.' You think she walks on water," Joan answered for him.

"Well, that's overstating it a little, but-"

Helen interjected with, "Joan, what's goin' on?" It was a broad inquiry, meant to cover not just Joan's sudden curiosity about the family's opinion of Ruthie, but also the strange behavior she had been displaying all evening. And missing school.

Joan gazed at Helen longingly. Oh, how she wanted to tell. Her mother and Ruthie had become good friends since the Snows' arrival in Arcadia. They palled around on the high school campus whenever possible. At first it had been embarrassing to share a friend with her mom, but Joan had gotten over it. Ruthie made it easy to. And maybe it was a blessing now. Maybe Joan could tell Helen everything and Ruthie wouldn't mind. Or maybe not.

"Nothing, Mom."

"We could beat it out of her," Luke suggested. He smirked, a chunk of meatloaf dripping with ketchup halfway to his lips. He had heard Kevin use that line before, fulfilling the big brother duty of picking on Joan, and he thought it amusing. Really, he just wanted to get Joan's attention. Snap her out of the funk she was in.

It worked. Every dish, glass, and piece of silverware quaked when she slapped her hands against the surface of the table, palms open. The milk in Luke's glass swelled, dangerously close to flooding his plate.

"SHUT UP!" Joan ordered.

"Hey!" Helen said, aghast. She tossed down her napkin, ready to launch into a serious talking-to, but Joan was already up from the table and taking the stairs two at a time.

Joan didn't sleep that night. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw Ruthie's body slam into the wall and wither on the floor.

The buzz about Ruthie spread like wildfire through Arcadia High. Everyone had a theory as to what was the cause of the music teacher's bloodshot eye. It had surprised Joan that Ruthie was even present the day after such an ordeal. But then, who knew how many times she had shown up to teach after being abused by Donovan. It haunted Joan, thinking of that. How many times did she sit next to Ruthie or goof off with her during choir practice and never notice the bruises hidden behind a lock of hair, a pair of long sleeves, the makeup? How could she not have known?

Wandering the halls between classes, she was on the lookout for Ruthie. And for God. He would most likely be using his Cute Guy disguise, the one she had first met him in. He had told her once that it was easier for her to be mad at him when he looked like that. She was ready to test that out.

But God didn't show. And it wasn't until after lunch when Joan was headed to the music room, Grace traipsing alongside her and demanding to know what was up with the Unibomber-ish behavior, that she finally saw Ruthie. What she had expected of this first encounter was unclear to her, but it wasn't to find Ruthie at her desk chatting and laughing with Dorothy and Jennifer, the only two students whose affection for their teacher seemed to rival Joan's. It was as if nothing had happened at all. Ruthie looked lovely and, aside from the crimson squiggles that marred her right eye, completely normal. A bit of concealer on the skin and a vague story about a faulty contact lens had most people fooled. Joan wanted to scream at them like she had screamed at Luke during dinner. But the longer she held onto Ruthie's secret, the deeper she felt it receding inside her. Like light dying. Slipping away into darkness.

"Dude. I heard the science geeks were experimenting with cloning, but did they really need to waste that kind of technology on Barbie's little sister, Skipper?" Grace said, curling her lip as she regarded Ruthie from the doorway. The comment was directed to Joan. Under different circumstances, she would have had a field day taunting Grace for knowing the name of Barbie's sibling. But it was irksome to hear Ruthie talked about that way.

"Get over yourself, G.I. Jane. You don't even know her," Joan snapped. "Which is pretty sorry, considering she's your neighbor."

"What the hell is with you, Girardi? Are you like her flunky now, or what?"

"No, I'm her friend. And I know she doesn't need anyone else picking on her, so lay off," Joan said in a harsh whisper.

"Whatever," Grace said, backing down the hall and giving Joan a salute that might as well have been the finger. "She can have you."

"Fine," Joan said, loudly this time.

"Fine."

"Good!" Joan whirled around in the doorway and stormed into the classroom. Her outburst turned several heads, including Ruthie's. As their gazes latched onto each other, Joan tried to smile like she always did when she came to class, but it didn't work. Ruthie had the same problem. They looked away and Joan took her usual seat, front row. She wanted to have a talk but not here, not with everyone around and Dorothy and Jennifer flanking Ruthie, asking if there was anything they could do for her.

"You girls take your seats now," Ruthie said after a moment. She cast a look in Joan's direction for the third or fourth time and nodded subtly when Joan mouthed, Are you okay?

If anyone else noticed the uncomfortable atmosphere in class, they didn't show it. But it was all Joan could think about. Ruthie didn't move about the room today. She didn't sidle past, touching Joan on the shoulder. Just as Joan was missing that small sign of affection, someone tapped her on the back and passed her a note while Ruthie wasn't looking.

Joan unfolded the notebook paper quietly and read what appeared to be a poll: How did she really get the eye? A) Contact lens B) Likes It rough C) Hangover D) All of the above E) None of the above (Fill in your answer). It had circulated the room already, the section below the question and answers filled with a row of letters from A through E. Mostly A's, a couple C's, and one extra large B, after which someone whose handwriting looked suspiciously like Friedman's had scrawled "IM me and I'll send photos."

Joan didn't bother reading to see what the comments were after the E choices. Shaking with rage, she stood and faced the rest of the class as she wadded the paper into a tight ball. She made a racket opening one of the windows, chucking the paper as far into the schoolyard as it would go. It vanished among the fallen November leaves. Pausing only to give Ruthie an apologetic look, Joan marched back to her desk and flumped down in her chair. After that, Ruthie's lesson was flustered, but Joan heard very little of it anyway.

Helen swept the last bits of powdery white grit into the dustpan, and sneezed. Asking the students to make a mold of something they admired had seemed like a grand idea. But she hadn't counted on Sally Upland to plaster of Paris her own head, let alone bring the bust to class and accidentally smash it post-lecture. Too preoccupied with blubbering sobs to help, Sally had dashed off to cry in the girls' room, leaving Helen to clean up the mess.

Fragments deposited in the trash, she was propping the broom and dustpan in the corner when she saw Ruthie pass by the art room. It was unlike the sprightly blonde not to pop in and say hello when the door was hanging wide open. Helen swiped her hands against her pants, coughed at the cloud of dust that arose, and hurried out into the hall. A group of rowdy boys scattered to avoid trampling her and hollered over their shoulders, "Sorry, Mrs. G."

Ruthie was a few paces ahead, weaving in and out of the onslaught of teenagers with impressive ease, reminding Helen of a guppy in a stream of bigger, less agile fish. When Helen called her friend's name, there was a hesitation in Ruthie's step, a reluctance to turn. Probably in a hurry, Helen decided.

"Hi," Ruthie said when Helen caught up. They walked. "I would've stopped in to see you, but I was looking for someone. Your daughter, actually."

"She isn't giving you problems, is she?"

"Joan? Not at all. We just didn't have a chance to talk about something after choir."

The disbelief in Ruthie's voice when she said Joan's name, as if Joan was incapable of any wrongdoing, made Helen smile. "That's funny, 'cause she's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" Ruthie gazed straight at Helen.

"Whoa. What on earth happened to your eye?" Helen said, stopping and catching Ruthie lightly by the elbow. The long bangs that Ruthie usually had pinned back with a hair barrette were loose today, mingling with her eyelashes. Helen smoothed them back, inspecting. It was a motherly thing to do, she realized, but she couldn't resist it. Maybe it was the fact that, at thirty-one, Ruthie was nearly twenty years her junior, or maybe it was Ruthie's size, her childlike qualities. In either case, Helen felt protective and nurturing when Ruthie was around. And that eye deserved attention.

"I was goofing off with my kids. I bumped it. Had some issues with my contact." Ruthie waved her hand: no big deal. "What about Joan?"

"Dude, get a load of your mom and Ruthie," Friedman said, almost getting his head smashed in by Joan's locker when she opened it, unaware he was approaching her. Swerving in the nick of time, he clipped his elbow instead. He massaged it as he rounded Joan, appearing on her other side. "That is so hot."

Joan looked up, annoyed at the sound of him. "What are you yammering about?"

"Girl on girl action, three o'clock," Friedman said. He inclined his head in a twitchy way that could have passed for a nervous tic.

Turning, Joan caught sight of her mother and Ruthie standing a dozen lockers down from hers, Helen with a hand on Ruthie's elbow, the other near Ruthie's hair. Joan froze, watching them, trying to decipher what was being said. She slammed her locker and walked towards them, leaving Friedman behind. Helen could be downright relentless when she knew something was out of sorts. And she always knew. Ruthie didn't need that kind of pressure.

"Bitchy move tossing the poll, by the way. I wanted to see how many people went with 'Likes It rough,'" Friedman said, still hovering like a gnat. He nudged Joan suggestively. "You're awful chummy with the choir mistress. Do you know how she likes it?"

Without thinking, without contemplating what she was about to do and in front of whom, Joan snarled, "Shut it, ass," and planted her hand over Friedman's face. She shoved and sent him reeling into a locker door not far from Ruthie.

"I'm concerned about her," Helen said. "She skipped school yesterday, something she hasn't done in a long time. And she was very... touchy last night and this morning. She won't talk to me. And I know you've been off for a few days, but you two are so close. I thought maybe you'd know what's botherin' her?"

Ruthie took a deep, stuttering breath, like her lungs were having difficulty filling. She averted her eyes. It was an unsettling impression that came over Helen, one that her friend was about to lie to her. A lie was one thing, but a lie about her daughter, especially when Joan was acting so strangely, was quite another.

"Ruthie?"

Whatever had been about to come out got wedged in Ruthie's throat when Friedman sideswiped the lockers with a clang that reverberated to the staircase at the end of the hall.

It was too late for Joan to take it back. But God, she wanted to. Especially when Ruthie started and gripped Helen's hand. Both of them looked at Joan then, Ruthie with alarm, Helen with incredulity, which morphed into anger incredibly fast. Scary how she could do that. Joan had trouble deciding where to focus, her eyes flitting to and fro, but she finally chose Ruthie and said a thin, broken, "I'm sorry."

"You're apologizing to her?" Friedman coughed and held his stomach, though it was his shoulder that had taken the impact.

"All right, young lady," Helen said fiercely, "I don't know what is going on with you, but there is no call for that kind of behavior. I want to see you in my room right now." Emphasis on "right" and "now," that accent put to good use. She turned, expecting Joan to follow, a flock of onlookers parting like the Red Sea to let her pass.

"I'm sorry, Mom," Joan said, eyes swimming with tears. She looked at Ruthie. "I'm really sorry." She held tight to the strap of her book bag and ran in the opposite direction, away from her mother, Ruthie, Friedman, and the crowd of people who thought she was a freak and were probably right. It seemed like she was forever apologizing, forever running. So it felt natural to find herself in the lavatory, basically the same place that had started this whole dilemma.

Ruthie watched Joan flee. "Helen, may I?" she said, gesturing in that direction before Helen followed. "I've a feeling I know what the problem is."

Helen balked, still questioning that brief, uneasy moment when Ruthie had failed to look her in the eye.

"A conversation of ours upset her, I think. I'd just like the chance to explain. Please?"

Ruthie's sincerity put Helen at ease. "Sure," she relented, figuring she had misinterpreted some signals before. Nothing was getting through to Joan so far, maybe a talk with Ruthie would help. "Go ahead."

While Ruthie went in search of Joan, Helen tended to Friedman.

Joan had checked under every stall in the bathroom to make sure it was empty, so it surprised her when a door squeaked open. Even more of a surprise was the boy who emerged from the stall. Overcome by panic that she was in the wrong bathroom, it took a second for her to register his face. The thatch of thick brown hair. His tan corduroy coat.

"Defying gender barriers now, are we?" she said to Cute Guy God, her nose stuffy and red, eyelashes moist, clumped together with flecks of paper towel stuck in them. She was past being vain in front of him. No more crush.

"This is how you wanted to see me," God said, and he stood there patiently.

Joan skipped the intro, the part where she synopsized for God, building up to the main point. He didn't need it. He would know this was about Ruthie. "I thought you said you loved her."

"I do."

"You've got a mad bizarre way of showing it. How could you let that" - Joan jabbed her finger at the air, searching for the right word, but there wasn't one strong enough - "that thing treat her like that? And send me over there to make it worse? Yeah, I know you didn't make me go, and you probably didn't want me to skip school, but that's beside the point. You knew I'd do it. And you knew what he'd do to her because of it." She checked her crumbling emotions, fighting them, keeping her voice steady. "You know she was worried about you the night we went trick-or-treating? When you were 'Amanda.' I had to talk her out of walking you home because it was almost dark. She wanted to protect you."

"Ruthie's a kind person."

Joan's laugh was mirthless, sharp. "Duh!" She glared at him, waiting for the rest.

Cute Guy God's expression remained neutral as he dug in his pocket, retrieving a ball of some sort. No, not a ball. A wad of paper. When he had unfurled it, smoothing it against his jeans, he held it out to Joan and said, "This is what happens when people don't see the truth. When they're too naive or too afraid to look deeply enough for it."

Joan scanned the paper, her gaze hardening. It was that hateful poll about Ruthie. She crumpled it for the second time, slapping it from palm to palm. "So... what? I had to see Don hit her, otherwise I would be too stupid to figure it out on my own? Okay, fine. But that doughnut trick was really heartless, if you ask me."

"It wasn't about the doughnuts, Joan. And it wasn't about you being there, so you can stop feeling responsible," God said. "Donovan doesn't need an excuse to abuse Ruthie. It's what he does. And Ruthie is adept at hiding it."

"But she's so little," Joan said, eyes glazed over as she looked in the mirror, remembering. "I don't understand how he could hurt her. She can't even fight back. Not against him."

"Donovan's personality feeds on that. It's the darkest kind of anger, what he feels. And the whole point of darkness is to blot out the light." Cute Guy God removed the paper from Joan's hand, squeezing it in his own. "You were right to throw this out," he said. "But there's better ways to deal with this situation than yelling and shoving. Ruthie's got enough of that at home."

Joan watched her feet. "I know."

As Cute Guy God departed, he chucked the balled up paper into the toilet of an open stall. The bowl flushed by itself. "I do care what happens to her, Joan," he said, giving his two finger wave. "That's why I brought her to you."

"Wait. Am I supposed to tell?" Joan said, the door clicking shut on her words, trapping them inside the room for only herself to hear. She listened for the answer, hoping it would come in the form of some knowing, some epiphany that God had left in his wake. That wasn't how these worked, her and God's exchanges, but she was afraid to be wrong. Being wrong put Ruthie at risk. And that was not an option.

When Joan hurried to the door and poked her head into the hall, knowing she wouldn't catch him but needing to at least try, it was Ruthie she saw approaching. God was gone.

"There you are," Ruthie said, throwing her hands up as if she had lighted upon the remote control that had been hidden between the couch cushions for weeks. She trotted towards Joan, smiling. "I thought I'd lost you. I've been this way twice already."

There was a joke in there somewhere, a good-natured ribbing about Ruthie's sense of direction, but Joan let it pass. "I expected my mom to find me," she said, propping the door open so Ruthie could enter.

"I asked her if it'd be all right for me to talk to you first."

"Oh."

Ruthie's attempts at cheeriness dwindled. She looked uncomfortable with her surroundings, all of it—the sickly gray-green paint and battered stalls, bland lighting that flickered and droned overhead like an angry hornet, the faux marble floor, too cold and detached. Not like her bathroom at home with its cordial yellows and greens, scented candles, and cushy bath towels hanging from the shower handle. She put her back to the sink, fingers grasping the ledge of the basin, and began as if she was sifting through a million thoughts, trying to piece together just the right sentence. "Honey, what happened yesterday, what you saw-"

"Don't," Joan said gently, sensing that Ruthie was about to downplay Donovan's behavior, or worse, apologize for it. "You can't make it okay. He hit you."

Water drip-dropped into the sink for several seconds.

"I was going to leave Don once," Ruthie finally said, pronouncing each word softly, carefully, like she wasn't accustomed to speaking them. Like they had long ago been buried, therefore took time to resurface. "It was before the kids were born. God, I must've been about twenty-five." She sighed, letting the years settle in. "That was back when he still asked forgiveness for the things he did."

They had been standing apart. Joan edged closer to Ruthie, ready to comfort. Or perhaps to be comforted. "What happened?" she said.

"Nothing." Ruthie gave a halfhearted shrug. "I lost my nerve. I'd put some things in a suitcase and stashed it under the bed, that way I could grab it easily when I got the chance to leave. But one day I came home and the suitcase was on the bed. It wasn't opened or anything. It was just sitting there. I was afraid of what he'd do, but he never said a word about it." She tried a quick, tactful swipe at her nose with the heel of her palm, then gave in and reached for a paper towel. "He knew he'd won," she said.

"But if that's all he did, why stay?"

"The suitcase was a warning. And a dare. He likes to do that sometimes. Dare me to give him a reason," Ruthie explained patiently, as she would have if she were describing to June and Charlie the inner workings of a fascinating toy. "And I guess the fear of what might happen if I left was worse than the physical abuse itself. Is that stupid?"

Joan shook her head and said, "No," but it was soundless, as if she had been muted. "No," she said again, clearing her throat. So much self-doubt in that question. That Ruthie even asked it bothered Joan, made her want to clobber Donovan for every unkind thing he had ever uttered to his wife.

"Anyway. I stayed. And I'm glad I did." Ruthie was prepared for Joan's confusion, and went on. "I have a daughter and a son. If Don gives me nothing else worthwhile in this life, he at least gave me them." She blew her nose in one short exhale and, eyes brimming with tears, looked up at Joan, whose arm was pressed against hers. "It's funny, really. As hurtful as he is and as miserable as he tries to make me, I have all the joy I need in those two little people that he helped create."

Then, hand over face and composure gone, Ruthie wept. Free of Donovan's disapproving eye and her children's acute hearing, she didn't censor herself. She turned in on Joan, who had offered a soothing embrace, and wetted the younger girl's blouse front, shaking them both with vehement sobs. Joan did what her mother would have done, closing an arm around Ruthie, stroking the long, silken hair that fell, heavy and sweet-smelling, down her back.

"It's okay," Joan said, though it definitely wasn't. Whoever invented sayings for times of grief needed to think up a better phrase than that.

"No, its not," Ruthie said, voice muffled by the gauzy fabric at Joan's chest. "I'm only making things worse dumping my problems on you. I was supposed to be the adult here."

"I could cry too, if you want."

Ruthie laughed and cried, the two so similar it was hard to tell them apart. "Nah. We've both done enough of that lately," she said.

Joan rubbed Ruthie's back in a circular motion, gathering the courage to broach a topic that probably wouldn't be received well. But it was vital. "I don't blame you for being scared, Ruthie," she said, cautious at first, her passion rising with each new word that spilled out, "but you gotta get away from him. You can tell someone how mean he is and he'll go to jail. We should tell my mom, she'd know what to do. And my dad, he'll arrest Don and then you'll be safe. We could do it today. Bring June and Charlie to my house after school, and we'll do it then."

Ruthie had calmed, her breathing level and soft, almost sleepy. She raised her head and looked at Joan, asking, "Sweetie, you love your dad a lot, right?"

"Well, yeah," Joan said, confused. "Of course."

"The same goes for June and Charlie. No matter what Don does to me, he's still their father and they love him. I can't just leave. What I do affects them too."

"But his beating you affects them."

"They don't know he -- they don't know. He doesn't do it in front of them."

"He doesn't have to. Kids know what's going on in their own house, even if their parents hide it, trust me. Maybe Charlie doesn't understand, but I think June does. You saw what it did to her yesterday."

"Stop."

"And they have to see that you're hurt all the time," Joan continued, desperate to get her say in. "When my mom's hurt, that affects me."

Ruthie broke Joan's hold on her and took a step backward. "Stop. I don't want to talk about this. My kids are fine," she said, but it was forced. Her voice cracked on the last syllable. "I appreciate how much you want to help. I really do. But the best thing you can do for me is drop it. I've been with Don for eleven years, I can handle it."

Eleven years. To Joan, that seemed an enormous amount of time. She calculated in her head, subtracting to find her age eleven years ago. Six years old, just a year older than June, just starting first grade. And Ruthie would have been nineteen or twenty, only slightly older than Joan's current age. Picturing Ruthie at nineteen wasn't difficult. She couldn't have changed much, maybe filled out a bit, if her present build could be termed as "filled out." But Joan wondered. What had Ruthie been like before falling into Donovan's hands? And what had she been through in those long, long eleven years that had passed?

"Okay." It came automatically, without Joan even realizing she had opened her mouth.

"Thank you," Ruthie said, hugging herself as if she missed the comfort of Joan's arms. "Now, no more shoving people into lockers, young lady. That clear?"

Joan tried to smile at the playfully gruff reprimand, which was an accurate imitation of Helen, but she felt a pang of sadness when Ruthie's mood changed. "Yeah."

They did a quick makeup check, Ruthie grousing about the lousy quality of the girls' bathroom mirror, and moments later they were in the halls of Arcadia High, mingling with everyone else, putting on a good show. Like nothing had happened, nothing at all.