Secret Informer

Jess came home to a quiet house. It was late and she assumed everyone must have gone to bed, although the lights were still on.

"Is anybody up?" she said. There was silence. In her room she found Madison on the floor by the nightstand, wide awake, but dead silent. "Honey, what are you doing up so late? Where's Daddy?"

Madison shrugged.

"Where are your brothers and Zachary?"

"Sleeping."

xxxxx

After finding all the children asleep in their upstairs playroom and searching the house for any adults—and finding none, Jess decided to try to get some answers from Madison, but soon realized this would be a fruitless endeavor, so she put her daughter to bed and then tried to get in touch with her husband, Nicole, or Antonio on their cells. No luck. Nathan and Nicole had both left their phones at home and Antonio's went straight to voice mail. With nothing else to do, she decided to get the rest of the kids in their beds and try to get some sleep

xxxxx

Jess tucked her four-year-old into bed and said goodnight. But before she could leave the room, Toby told her something even he didn't know he was about to say.

"Mommy,"

"Yes, my love."

" Daddy and Antonio took Joe to see Chloe's mommy's class and I stayed in my classroom."

"What do you mean, when they picked up Joe?"

"No. Before we went to daycare."

"Oh, you mean when you met Deborah and Roger?"

"Yeah."

"Did something happen when Daddy was gone?"

"Yeah…" he trailed off.

She knew what this was. Following Monica's advice, she remained calm. Her son had no idea her heart was pounding in her chest.

"Did Roger hurt you?"

"It didn't hurt."

"What didn't hurt?"

"Roger did like Monica asked me. He touched my..." He couldn't bring himself to say it. He showed her by pulling back the covers and pointing. "Here."

"Roger touched you there?"

"Yes," the confirmation was barely auditable. "Are you mad?"

"No. You didn't do anything bad. Roger was bad, not you. Promise me you'll never forget that."

"I promise."

xxxxx

Nathan was well passed intoxicated as he downed his umpteenth shot. He couldn't bare the thoughts in his head. No way could he accept his sons were molested. This didn't happen to his boys. It did, however, happen to his daughter. And the thought disgusted him beyond anything he had ever known.

His daughter was violated. Sexually contacted repeatedly. Somehow she didn't seem like his anymore. She was damaged. He didn't know this child. Roger Hall killed his daughter and left this girl in her place. And yet he was angrier with his child than he was with her perpetrator. Part of him felt guilty for choosing that daycare center. Part of him felt guilty for the feelings of anger he had towards Madison. Part of him felt his feelings were justified. It all mixed together to form a father who wouldn't be able look his child in the eye.

xxxxx

When Nathan finally did come home, Jess was ready to steamroll him. Maybe it was that he left the children home alone, putting them in yet even more danger. Or the duress she was feeling over Toby's disclosure. She had still been half in the denial stage with Madison. After all, Monica could have planted those thoughts. Monica could even have lied. Jess never actually heard Madison make those allegations. But after hearing little Nathan tell her on his own volition that these things happened, she had to believe it. It happened—to him, to Madison, and probably to Joe.

The wine glass she was holding smashed on the counter. She met him in the foyer ready to rumble, only to find he was totally blitzed off his ass.

"Tell me you didn't drive home like this."

He staggered over to her. "Did you know," he slurred, "that Roger never threatened those girls?"

"Did you know you left the kids alone? And where the hell are Nicole and Antonio?"

"He never forced them. He never threatened them. She just let him touch her, over and over and over." His face mirrored disgust. "It makes me wanna puke just thinking about it."

"Right now, that's probably the alcohol. We're the ones who should have protected them. It's our fault, Nathan, not theirs."

"What do you mean 'theirs'? This didn't happen to Nathan and Joe."

"Yes…wait a minute, did you talk to Madison about this? What did you tell her?"

"Not much. I had to get out of here before I lost it."

"What did you say? Tell me!"

"I asked how she could do something like that."

SLAP. Jess cracked his cheek and that was the end of her composure. The scream-fest began and Jess was first up. "You bastard!"

xxxxx

Nicole was flown by helicopter from the hospital in Levi to a hospital several miles south of San Francisco. They were told this hospital had better resources for their soon to be very premature daughter. Still the doctors warned the couple that their baby was in grave condition

The doctor talked in circles, not really saying anything. Finally, Nicole could stand no more.

"Just tell us! What's going to happen?"

"A baby born at five months gestation has a very low chance of surviving."

"How low?" Antonio asked.

"Seventeen percent."

Nicole and Antonio began to cry. The doctor tried to console them with the standard "we'll do everything we can" speech, but Nicole didn't want his speech. She wanted answers.

Was there anything they could do to prevent the baby from coming now? What would happen if the baby did survive? And why did this happen?

The answers brought no comfort. The baby had to be born today, there was no way around that. If the child did survive, it had a fifty percent chance of having some permanent disability.

"As for why this happened," he went on, "I can only say, based on what you told the doctors in Levi, that it was what you suspected—the stress of finding out what happened to your son."

Alone in the hospital room, Antonio asked a question he really didn't think he could stand to hear the answer to. "I didn't hear you tell the doctors in Levi anything about Zachary. What did you say?"

"When we got there and you went to park the car, I told them…" This was the worst time for her to tell him this, but she knew he wouldn't let it go. "...Right before I went into labor I was on the phone with that social worker, Monica Caufeild. She told me one of the boys said that he had seen Roger abuse Zachary."

Nicole was calm. From the time she went into labor until she told Antonio the truth about Zachary she had been in tears. Then a calm came over her. It was a calm she remembered from childhood. Early in life she learned how to buffer her feelings and disguise them as serenity.

Antonio didn't have those abilities. Grief overtook him. He was about to meet child that he might not get to see grow up and now he just found out that his son was probably molested. He talked past the lump in his throat, "I have to get some air. I'll be back soon."

xxxxx

Zachary kept his eyes closed with the hope of falling back to sleep. He didn't dare get out of bed to find out what was going on.

Joe was mainly confused. He racked his mind. Why are they fighting? As far as he knew they didn't know anything they should be upset about. In the bunk below, little Nathan was having a very different experience as was Madison, who was down the hall. Both children were cloaked under their sheets, blankets, shame, guilt, and fear. Their parents' blowout was because of them, all because of what they had done and what they had said.

Forty-five minutes into the fight, Nathan made his next blow. "If it weren't for you, we never would have come here!"

"Me? You chose this place! You chose that daycare!"

"You chose California! You chose D.C. and the damned F.B.I.! Why couldn't you have just stayed in Indiana and enjoyed the life your family built for you?"

"Okay so let me make sure I'm clear on this. Our kids were molested because I joined the F.B.I."

"No, no, no, no. Madison was. My boys never screwed that freak."

"Maybe he didn't rape them, but he did touch them. Toby told me."

"What did you do! What did you do!" Nathan headed to the hall screaming his son's name.

Jess stopped him. "No! I'm not gonna let you do to him what you did to Madison."

Nathan was aware that he was no match for his wife. Despite his drunken stupor, he found a way to outsmart her. "Let's go to bed."

Jess, albeit surprised as he stumbled down the hall, was relieved. As soon as his wife was asleep Nathan got up.

xxxxx

"Get up guys," he whispered. Nathan carried both boys from their room to the garage and placed them in the front seat of his car. Neither child said a word until they were backing out of the driveway.

"Where are we going," Toby's voice cracked before the tears fell.

"Somewhere…somewhere safe," their father slurred.

"Where's Mommy?" "Why aren't we safe?" "Is Miss Deborah gonna kill us?" Both boys cried a loud, firing a million questions at a father who was too drunk to answer.

xxxxx

Antonio and Nicole's daughter was born. She was immediately intubated and put in an incubator. She was wheeled to her mother and father for just a few seconds before they whisked her off to the N.I.C.U.

As Nicole and Antonio watched their near lifeless child being taken away, their hearts that had been shattered bled out for their two children whose lives had been imperiled right under their noses. They were both broken, though not as badly as their children—and that made it hurt more.

xxxxx

Zachary's cries woke the only two people in the house—Jess and her three-year-old daughter.

She followed the sound of the cry to the living room where she knelt in front of Zachary. "What's wrong, angel?"

"Mommy, Mommy!" was all he could say.

Jess picked him up. Before she headed towards his parents' room, she noticed Madison not far behind her. "Go to bed, Madison." Instead the little girl ran to her mother and grabbed her robe. The three of them made their way to Nicole and Antonio's room. Jess wondered how they had not heard their son cry. Could they still be out? No. Surly they must be home by now.

"Nicole. Antonio." She pushed the bedroom door open. No one. She checked Zachary's room. No one.

Madison and Zachary, both comforted by the other's presence, the fell asleep in Madison's bed. Jess checked on Nathan and Joe. Their beds were empty as well.

Jess tried not to panic, but it was hard. Nathan, who was drunk, had evidently taken the boys in his car and Nicole and Antonio couldn't be reached and, it seemed, never came home. She considered calling Brooke. But there was nothing her boss could do, except put Nathan at risk for being arrested. Jess would have to wait this out.

xxxxx

Nathan parked his car on top of a canyon at Glen Canyon Park.

"Look at those stars." He said to no one in particular.

"Daddy, are we camping," Joe wondered.

"I gotta sleep." Nathan laid on the ground and passed out.

"What are we doing here?" Toby hoped his brother would know. But Joe didn't know.

xxxx

Jess's pacing was interrupted by the sound of the front door.

It was Antonio. His eyes were still red from crying.

"What happened? Where were you?" she asked anxiously.

He looked confused. "At the hospital. Didn't Nathan tell you? Nicole had the baby."

She placed her hand over her mouth as she gasped. "No…He…Why? What happened?"

"Stress." He walked to his room to pack some things since he and Nicole would be living out of the hospital for a while.

Jess followed him. She didn't want to ask, but eventually, as he was packing, she did. "Is the baby alive?"

"Yes. It's a girl. It doesn't look good though. Doctors said she has less than a twenty percent chance of survival."

"Nicole must be a mess. Antonio, I am so sorry."

He wanted to change the subject, to get that look of sympathy for him off her face. "Why are you up so late?"

"It's nothing," she lied. "Nathan took Toby and Joe out for a drive to help them sleep."

"I thought you do that with babies, not four- and five-year-olds."

"Yeah, well, he was desperate. And all little kids sleep well in the car."

Antonio finished packing.

At the foyer, before he left, Jess stopped him.

She hated the idea of asking him this now, but she had to know. It was eating her alive.

"Yeah?" he asked, waiting.

"I'm sorry to have to ask this of you now. Forgive me, but I need you to tell me what happened—everything that happened—when you and Nathan took the kids to meet the Halls."

"Uh…We went to their room first, exchanged pleasantries and introductions, and Roger and Deborah told us about the program, their curriculum, goals for the children, that kinda thing. Then they let the kids participate in some art project the whole class was working on."

"And then you left?"

"No. Then Nathan and I brought Joe to see Mrs. Pierson's room. But we were only gone about fifteen minutes…Oh."

"What?"

"When we left Mrs. Pierson's room, Toby was coming out of the bathroom with Roger. My God, Jess, I had forgotten all about that."

"That's when it happened. He told me tonight."

"He was pretty mellow the rest of that day. Wow." The remorse on his face was substantial.

"You couldn't have known. Nicole is probably waiting for you. You should get back. Let me know if anything changes with…"

"We haven't picked a name yet."

"I'll be praying for her."

"Thanks. I'll do the same for Nathan, Joe, and Madison. Bye."

"Bye."

xxxxx

The next morning, the hot California sun bearing down on him woke Nathan up. Wondering where he was, he quickly got up and noticed his two boys huddled together asleep next to him.

What the hell did I do?

He searched his car for his phone, but it was nowhere to be found. Knowing Jess must be worried sick he woke up Nathan and Joe.

"Boys, get up…C'mon. We gotta get home. Get in the car…No the backseat."

"You let us sit in the front yesterday," Nathan complained.

"I did a lot of things I wasn't supposed to do yesterday."

Nathan took the opportunity of the long ride home to tell Toby and Joe what was on his mind.

"I know what you said to Mommy last night wasn't true, Nathan. I want you boys to just forget about Roger and Deborah Hall. Roger is not your teacher anymore and Deborah is dead. You guys know what dead means?"

"She's in heaven with Grandma and Uncle Doug," Joe answered.

Nathan imagined Deborah in hell, but didn't see the need to risk confusing them. They had the gist. "So you boys know that you're never going to see her again." In the rear view mirror he saw them both nod. He turned on the radio to let them know this conversation was over.

Toby knew what he had told his mother was true—well, partly true. He hadn't lied when he said the Roger molested him the first day he met the man, but he had lied when he told her that was the only time. But his father's message was clear: Toby needed to recant his statement and forget this ever happened. And that's exactly what he intended to do.

xxxxx

Jess, who had fallen asleep on the family room sofa, jumped up when she heard her kids come through the door.

"Mommy! We went camping last night!" Toby told her.

"I'm hungry," Joe said.

Jess sent her sons upstairs with pop tarts. She wanted to slap Nathan after the kids were out of the room, but she knew she wouldn't be able to control herself.

"Look Jess, I'm sorry. I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing."

"You could have killed them."

"I know, if I hadn't been in such a fog-"

"Enough. You were thinking clear enough to wait until I was asleep, so you had to know the risk you were putting them in. Where the hell did you go anyway?"

He told her.

"A canyon. Where you, I'm sure, passed out and left Toby and Joe alone. Where they could have plummeted to their death."

And there she had him. There was no defense he could give. He gave another apology and left for work.

xxxxx

Not long after Nathan left Toby told Jess what he knew his father wanted him to say.

"Roger never did bad stuff to me."

"Honey, I know he did because you told me he did. Did Daddy tell you to say you made it up?"

"No. I did make it up, Mommy. Roger was nice. He was always nice and Miss Deb was always nice too." When he saw his mother wasn't buying it, he decided to throw his brother under the bus. "I didn't do it, Joe did."

"You saw Roger hurt your brother?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In the bathroom."

"What happened?"

"Roger pulled down Joe's pants and his underwear too."

"Where were you?"

"In the bathroom. But I didn't do anything."

"Who else was there?"

"All the boys and Roger, except Jordie."

"What were all the boys doing?"

"Nothing. Waiting. Roger did that to all the boys waiting." Then Toby caught himself and quickly threw in, "but it didn't happen to me!"

"Did what stuff?"

"The stuff Monica asked me. All the boys but me. I wouldn't let him."

Jess let it go. She knew why he recanted, but for now she had to let it be. She wasn't going to force him to stick to his original story, even if it was the truth. She knew her son had done something helpful. He had played secret informer and now she knew exactly what happened to him and his brother when Roger took the little boys to the bathroom.

When Jess tried to talk to Joe about what happened, he wasn't nearly as helpful. He denied being abused or seeing abuse.

"Can you tell me what happened when you had to go to the bathroom, without telling me about the bad things?"

But Joe was a wise five-year-old. He knew responding to that question was implying that there was in fact bad stuff to tell. And implying is almost like saying. Either way Deborah would see to it that he paid.

"No, Mommy, there was no bad stuff. The other kids lied. Roger never did those yucky things."

Now Jess just wanted corroboration. "Okay, so nothing bad happened. What did happen when you went to the bathroom?"

"Everybody waits in line. You go to the bathroom and then you wash your hands and then you wait by the door until everyone has done it. And we go back to the class."

That was all she needed to hear. Joe said exactly what his brother and sister said, except he left out what happened to the kids who were waiting for the toilet to become available.

"I love you. You know that, right?"

"Yes."

After hugging him she let him go back to playing.