Page 1 of Madam, May I

Prologue

1988

“Stay right here. Promise?”

The five-year-old girl looked up at her father with her brown eyes squinting against the sun. “Yes, Daddy,” she said, taking a seat in one of the rocking chairs on the porch as she held her bright red Tickle Me Elmo doll in one arm and stroked the new heart-shaped locket her father had given her just that morning.

Her father patted her shoulder and gave her a smile that wasn’t happy before walking into the house and closing the front door. She swung her feet back and forth as she looked over the edge of the railing at cars riding up and down the street, which was made up of rows of houses with nice front yards with flower beds. Kids rode their bikes or chased each other on the sidewalks. Their laughter and high-pitched squeals of fun were the only noises to break up the quiet.

It wasn’t very different from where she used to live.

She hugged her Elmo close to her chest. It giggled. “That tickles!” the animated voice of the doll said as it vibrated.

“How could you!”

The little girl turned on the seat and looked to the open window at the sound of a woman’s voice raised in anger. She winced at the crash of something made of glass. With eyes wide with fright and curiosity, she hopped down off the chair and walked over to the window to peer inside. Through the sheer curtains, she was just able to see her father holding the wrists of a woman struggling to hit him.

Who is she?

“Zena, stop,” her father implored. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

Sorry for what?

“I can’t let her go into the system, Zena. Her mother didn’t have any other family. She’s my child,” he said.

“And I’m yourwife, Daniel,” she said, her words broken up by her ragged breathing. “You had no right screwing around and then making a baby with your whore.”

Whore? His wife? Daddy has a wife? My mama was a whore?

The little girl winced at the memory of sitting on the front pew of the church next to her daddy as she locked her eyes on the sight of her mother in the casket.Daddy said Mama is in heaven with God.

She released a breath, and her shoulders slumped as she fought not to cry.I miss her. He said if I talk to her she can hear me.

“I miss you, Mama,” she mouthed.

“Zena, I have to do what’s right,” her father said. “Ineedyou to help me do what’s right. Please, Zena.Please.”

The woman—Zena—stopped her fighting, and her body crumbled like her knees had given out beneath her as she began to cry and wail. Her father bent his body and wrapped his arms around her to hold her up from hitting the floor. He pressed a kiss to her face, and she found renewed strength to push both her hands against his chin, knocking his head backward. When he freed her to press his hands to his face, the woman quickly scrambled away from him on her hands and knees.

Why are they fighting?

The little girl’s heart pounded and her arm tightened around her doll. Elmo giggled and vibrated against her chest. “That tickles!”

Both her father and the woman looked at the window.

With a gasp of surprise at being discovered, she dropped the doll and took several steps back before turning and reclaiming her spot on the chair. They had lowered their voices, because she only heard harsh whispers.

I’m so afraid without you, Mama.

The little girl turned her head as the front door opened.

Her father extended his arm and beckoned her with his hand. “Come on,” he said, his voice deep and warm.

She pretended not to see the long, thin scratch in his neck as she walked over to the door and slid her hand in his. The drops of blood from the wound had already stained the collar of his shirt. With one last look at her Elmo lying on the porch beneath the window, she followed her father inside the house.

“Zena, this is my . . . my . . . daughter, Desdemona,” her father said once they reached the living room where his wife awaited them.

The woman’s hair was in disarray and her eyes were rimmed with red from crying as she kept them trained on her husband.

---