Page 90 of Fracture

“Hello, Molly,” I say quietly, and she jumps, spilling dark red drops of wine at her feet.

“Jesus, Dylan!” She brushes her hair from her face, eyes wide. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“You remembered my name, Molly. Good for you.”

She narrows her eyes, and takes a steadying gulp of wine. “I’m not completely useless, you know.” She tilts her head, gaze straying to the house before returning to me. “What the hell are you doing out here? What do you want?”

“You know, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted when I came up here,” I reply, tucking my hands into my pockets. “But now, I think I know that what I really wanted was to have a little talk with you.”

“A talk?” Molly raises an eyebrow. “Sure you don’t want to drag me off into the woods and take off my head? Hiding out here in the dark like a serial killer?”

I laugh softly, shaking my head. “I don’t have any interest in killing an old drunk like you, Molly.” She winces slightly at my words, but I ignore it. I’m not here to make her feel better. I’m not going to assuage her guilt. “But I do want some answers.”

“Answers?” She laughs into her wine glass, before draining the last of its contents. “Answers about what?”

“Did you know?”

Her eyes flash to mine, her mouth pulling into a firm line. She exhales heavily through her nose, and turns away from me to gaze up at the last of the sunset. Crickets sing in the woods around us, and she brushes a bare foot along the grass. It’s an inappropriately idyllic scene for Molly Hartmann to admit to knowing her daughter was being abused. But admit it she will.

“You know, I always wanted to be a mother,” she says softly, eyes fixed on the green ground beneath her. “You probablydon’t believe me, but I did. I’d play dollies all damn day as a girl, I carried my babies around with me everywhere. I’d cry if someone dropped them, if they weren’t dressed for the weather, because they’d be cold.” A small laugh bubbles from her lips, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth with a gasp. “Crazy, right? To want to be something so badly, and then completely fail at it.”

“I’m not going to feel sorry for you, if that’s what you want.” I lean against the tree behind me, regarding the woman before me coolly. “Your failure to be a good mother was a choice.”

She shakes her head, still looking at the ground. “You’re right, and I don’t expect you to pity me, Dylan. I don’t deserve that.” She nudges a twig with her toe, the wine glass clasped in her fingers. “I’d love to tell you I didn’t know. That it blindsided me as much as it blindsided you.” She lifts her eyes to mine, and gives me a weak smile. “But that would be a lie.”

I grunt out a harsh laugh, and run a hand over my mouth. “Jesus Christ, Molly. How could you?”

“I didn’tknow.” She emphasizes the last word with an outstretched hand, but that determination quickly drops from her face. “But there were signs. So many signs, and I ignored them all.”

“Why?”

She shrugs, lifting the wine glass to her mouth, and quickly remembering it’s empty. Without her emotional support wine in hand, she eyes me helplessly, and shrugs again.

“It all started innocently enough. You marry a man with hopes of being the president, you know he’s going to use everything he can to make himself look good. I was considered a trophy wife once, can you imagine?” The laugh she lets out almost makes me feel sorry for her. “And then I gave him a picture perfect baby, I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of her. She was beautiful. And her eyes, that orange color, like anexotic cat.” She sighs, her hand brushing over her stomach for a brief second, as though remembering a time when she could shield Stella from all the evils of the world. “Stella has been turning heads since she was born.”

The words twist my stomach, just as much as Molly’s tone. Her meaning is more than obvious.

“So, what was this innocent start?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling a chill despite the warm evening.

Molly reaches out to stroke her fingers down the trunk of a tree, smiling softly. “Baby pictures make great Christmas cards, that’s what Harold said. So we had a photographer take pictures of Stella in her red and white Christmas outfit, and sent those out. And Harold’s office was flooded with thank you cards.” Another sad sigh. “And then it was every holiday, pictures of Stella waving a flag for Fourth of July, dressed in a little camo dress for Memorial Day. Her chubby little hand held up in a salute.” Molly runs a hand over her face, pushing a stray whisp of dark blonde hair back over her head. “I could never have guessed…” She trails off, looking at me with big, sad eyes.

“When did you start to suspect something was wrong?”

Her eyes become a little unfocused, and I’m unsure if I’m about to lose her. She sways on her feet, gazing up into the trees.

“Just after her third birthday.”

The words threaten to knock me off my feet, and send a searing rage through my veins that’s so violent, I have to hold my arms against my body to stop myself laying into the fucking tree behind me.Her third birthday.

“When she was still a little baby?” My tone threatens to reveal the maelstrom of emotions within me, but Molly doesn’t seem to notice, still swaying and gazing up at the evening breeze snatching at the bright green leaves waving overhead.

“I asked him, isn’t it weird to send out pictures of a little girl in her swimsuit? In her little star-spangled banner gym suit? Ididn’t like it, but he told me it was normal. That these men had kids themselves, and wouldn’t think anything of it.”

“Easy to objectify another man’s kid, I guess.”

Molly laughs bitterly, flexing her toes into the ground. “I was so stupid, Dylan. I was so, so stupid.” She sighs, her gaze dropping back to the gardens around us. “That was about the time things went south between me and Harold, and the divorce happened pretty quick after that. I told him I wanted Stella, but he said I wasn’t fit to be a mother. Which, well…” She trails off, leaning her shoulder against the tree next to me. “I failed her, Dylan, and nothing I say will make that right.”

“No I guess not.” I push away from the tree, the smell of alcohol rolling off her making my already churning stomach threaten to empty its contents all over the damn ground. “You know it didn’t stop at pictures, right?”

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