~She walks to school with the lunch she packed
Nobody knows what she's holdin' back
Wearin' the same dress she wore yesterday
She hides the bruises with linen and lace~
~The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask
It's hard to see the pain behind the mask
Bearing the burden of a secret storm
Sometimes she wishes she was never born~

March 31st, 1999 CCGH Outside Room 413

“Excuse me, I’m here to get an update on Hailey Garcia’s condition,” Kerry stopped a nurse several doors down from the girl’s room. “May I ask who the man in the room is?”

“Doctor Weaver,” the nurse acknowledged, nodding with pursed lips. She leaned forward, and with strict disapproval muttered, “It’s her father.”

“Her father?” Kerry asked, more of herself than the nurse. She nodded back to the woman, who continued toward the nurse’s station. “Dammit, dammit, dammit! Why didn’t she talk to Adelle?”

She walked purposefully, stabbing her crutch angrily into the linoleum, down the hall and knocked briskly on the door before entering. “Excuse me, I’m here to do a quick examination on the patient,” she pulled the chart from the foot of the bed, “if you’ll…” she gestured professionally toward the door, yet still not attempting to disguise her distaste for the man.

The girl stared up at her with wide-eyes, uncomprehending but unafraid. She averted her gaze from her father valiantly, focusing on the redhead who’d tried to assist her before. She wasn’t strong enough, good enough, brave enough, and she was terrified she’d ruined everything, her father, herself, the doctor before her. She couldn’t speak, then, couldn’t tell the ‘nice lady’ what had happened, because of these fears, these worries. She simply couldn’t breathe.

Meanwhile, the man bristled somewhat angrily at Doctor Weaver’s mannerisms, and she could feel the tension in the air as it grew almost tangible. “I’m her father,” he attempted to argue, but she narrowed her eyes and pointed to the door, explaining that it was policy and that he would have to wait outside of the room or leave, whether willingly or by force.

So, with a huff of outrage and an angry glare with narrowed eyes, he disappeared, muttering something about returning to work, where ‘he’d rather be anyway’.

And then, Kerry replaced the chart, waiting for the door to click shut behind the man. She sat on the edge of the bed, clasping her hands together, studiously observing the small child. Perhaps the most frightening element of the case was that she understood, that she connected, and she knew how it felt to not tell, because unlike little Hailey, she’d never worked up the courage to tell anyone, and it had been nearly three decades for her, only three days for the child.

“You didn’t talk to Adelle,” she stated, her eyes sympathetic and her smile relaxed and understanding. She’d do what she had to do to get the child to continue, to get enough information, enough strength, enough evidence. The state would file charges against the father if she could just get the child to say the words, but she had yet to accomplish that. And if the state filed charges, Hailey could be taken somewhere safe, a place where she’d never be hurt, a sanctuary that was real and concrete, tangible rather than ghostly and fantastic. She had the Social Worker’s oath that she knew the woman would not break, a vow that the child would be protected, would not suffer at the hands of another malicious parent, teacher, authoritarian. Never again.

Hailey shook her head after a few moments, tears clouding her vision, and Kerry reached a hand up slowly, her motion advising the child that she was going to touch her, and wiped a tear from her cheek, still kindly smiling at her. “It’s okay,” her eyes seemed to say, but her lips formed no words. Instead, she waited.

“I was scared,” she finally whispered, “I didn’t want to tell, I don’t want to go back but I don’t want to go away either. What if nobody wants me and nobody cares? What if nobody sees me at all? At least Daddy knows I’m there and he feeds me and lets me sleep at night and most times I get to stay inside, too. I was scared nobody would do that and that it would be even worse, ‘cause I’ve seen things like that before, on television and stuff. What if nobody cares and I just die? He wouldn’t let me die,” the girl’s words were rambled but thought-provoking, and Kerry could feel her heart tug, tear, and bleed. What if nobody sees me? What if I’m just invisible?

Would that be so bad?

“I know you were scared, Hailey, and those are very viable…” she paused, rewording her response, “those are very normal things to be afraid of. But I promise you that Adelle,” again she collected her thoughts, “and I won’t let that happen. I already spoke with her, and she said if you’d give her chance, she could help make things better for you and your daddy, that way no one would be hurt again. You could live somewhere you wouldn’t be hurt, or touched in bad ways,” she was sure to add in, for that seemed to be what the child feared most. And really, who could blame her? Kerry reasoned. Sometimes, that seemed to be what she was most frightened of, being touched, being held too close or too tightly by those she would not or could not trust, being forced to feel things she didn’t want to or forced to relate to those that did, as well. Even at her age, so many years between reality and memory. “And you’d have a new mom and a new dad who would do all of those good things for you, but not the bad ones. Does that make sense?”

Hailey nodded, her eyes clouded and her knees drawn up to her chest. She seemed to be weighing her options carefully, afraid saying what she really wanted would scare her new friend, her Doctor Kerry, away. “I don’t want to go back, but I don’t want to leave either,” she waited to see what the older woman’s reaction would be, and when she did not falter, did not waver, she whispered guiltily, “it wasn’t always so bad. Sometimes it didn’t feel bad.” The girl hung her head, sniffling quietly, arms wrapping around her knees as she began to rock back and forth, reminding Kerry of a child she’d once seen that had grown up with detrimental physical and emotional health due to FAS.

“Not everything that is bad, feels bad, Hailey,” Kerry assured her after a few moments of silence, and she laid a hand on the back of the girl’s head carefully. At first she flinched, but then she relaxed, reconciling herself to the comforting gesture. “It’s okay to think that way, you know. A lot of people do, and I understand.” After a few more seconds, she stroked the child’s hair and received no adverse reactions. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to feel bad for, understand? You didn’t do anything to warrant this…” she again attempted to rephrase her word’s to the child’s slightly above-average level, “you didn’t do anything that made you deserve any of this, okay? And it’s going to be okay, because when you’re ready, Adelle, the lady from DCFS, is going to talk to you and she’s going to figure out how to help you.”

Finally raising her head to reveal red-rimmed and withdrawn, hurt-filled eyes, Hailey pondered aloud, “Can she really help? You help, why can’t you help? I don’t mind talking to you, you won’t hurt me. Why can’t you help me?”

Kerry looked away, focusing on the false wood of the door, “I’m a doctor, Hailey, I help people who have been hurt physically heal physically. Adelle works with children who have been hurt physically, emotionally,” she paused for a second, refusing to give in to the inner voice that was struggling with her, saying ‘help her, why don’t you help her? The girl’s right!’, though the voice knew it spoke falsely. “And sexually. She can help fix home situations, find you a new home, and put your daddy in a program that will make him get better.”

“Will he go to jail?” she finally asked, obviously not sure of her own intentions, little less anyone else’s. If she noticed the doctor’s inner battle, she did not acknowledge it.

“Yes. What he did was wrong, Hailey. Against the law. Parents aren’t supposed to hurt their children in any way, especially not the way he hurt you. Understand? What he did was wrong, sweetheart. You did not deserve it.” Kerry removed her hand from the girl’s longer locks, and patted the girl’s fingers, still curled around her knees, though she had long stopped rocking.

The room was quiet for a moment, and Kerry sighed, she’d done what she could, and there was nothing left for her to say or feel or do. She was exhausted, her heart ached, her stomach was unsettled. She needed something to eat, and she rubbed her hand over her seemingly suddenly visibly swollen belly unconsciously, comforting the child within through her motions.

“Do you think you can talk to Adelle, now?” she asked quietly, her hand poised over her stomach as she pushed herself up with the other, limping heavily across the room to slip her arm through the cuff of her crutch.

Uneasily, the child nodded. “Would…?” she began, chewing on the side of her bottom lip, “Would you come back when she wants to talk, so maybe I won’t be so ‘fraid?”

Kerry smiled tiredly at the child, “Yes, I will.”

“Be good to your baby,” the girl said suddenly, “I know you will, but I wanted to say that anyway. Love her forever, and don’t let her daddy treat her bad.”

Doctor Weaver paused at the door, startled, and turned to look at the child with an examining eye. Her gaze paused over the girl, and slowly, her usual expression turned to yet another soft smile, and she dropped the hand that was positioned on the door to her belly yet again. “I will, I love him or her very much,” she spoke, not quite sure why she was telling the youth things she said only to Carter, her John. “And her daddy does too,” for the first time, as she said ‘daddy’ in reference to her own child, her vision neither clouded nor narrowed. For the first time, she’d thought of John rather than Ellis, and it felt right, settled. Peace had settled over her in a calming wave, and she smiled at the girl one last time before exiting the room, her crutch thudding against the slippery tile.

Her shift had yet to begin.

---

~Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she's loved
Concrete angel~

Several Hours Later CCGH

“We’ve almost completed the investigation against Mr. Garcia, actually, and with the evidence from the rape exam you performed and other physical evidence, as well as testimony from two teachers, a fellow student, and two neighbors, the deal’s pretty much sealed. All we have to do is talk to Hailey and get her to say to me what she’s already said to you. That’ll close the investigation fairly quickly, and we should have charges filed by morning if all goes well,” Adelle explained, walking slower than she ordinarily would to accommodate Kerry’s unusual – even for her – encumbered pace. “Of course, it will help if you’re willing to discuss your findings from the rape kit and physical examination on the stand.”

“Of course,” Kerry nodded, as they arrived at the elevator. Her mind was elsewhere, Adelle knew, and coaxing her back seemed to be next to impossible.

“Are you okay, Doctor Weaver?”

“Yes,” her lips were pursed, “Just tired, very tired.” She hated admitting weakness, as everyone knew, but sometimes things one would ordinarily deny either just slipped out, or somehow seemed appropriate. Her hip throbbed, her knee ached, she felt nauseous, and a headache was slowly building behind her eyes. It would no doubt reach migraine status before the end of the afternoon, and she had a feeling that a trip to the ladies’ room would soon be necessary, as her stomach was rebelling quite actively against her lunch. Being tired was the least of her worries.

Adelle hit the button for the fourth floor, and the elevator quickly ascended, the doors opening with a ‘ping’. In moments, they were at the nurse’s station.

“Is Hailey Garcia awake? Room 413,” Kerry queried one of the nurses.

“The little blond girl? Her father checked her out about half an hour ago, I believe,” the petite nurse replied, sliding her chair over to the computer where she brought up the record of check-outs for the day. “Yeah, it was about thirty-five minutes ago.”

“What?” Kerry asked, astounded.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Kerry stabbed her crutch into the floor and shoved off, heading towards 413, where she found an orderly fitting the bed with clean sheets for an incoming patient.

“Goddammit!” she let loose, Adelle on her heels as she marched back to the admit desk. “Why did you let him check her out?”

“He was listed as her father, he provided identification, filled out all of the paperwork…” the nurse explained, cautiously, worry beginning to build in her eyes as Kerry’s temper escalated.

“Jesus Christ! He’s a fucking child molester!” she growled, anger melding with all else as her stomach begin to lurch more violently and her head began to throb, beads of sweat forming along her hairline.

“Dammit,” Adelle swore behind her, “Dammit, dammit, dammit.” After a second, she pulled Kerry away from the nurse, “He doesn’t know we’ve begun an investigation in case any of our informants have spoken to him, and the general procedure is that any investigating agents ask that no one speak to the accused,” she spoke quietly, “We know where he lives, we can go pick him up and take her to DCFS headquarters and talk to the girl, okay? Don’t kill the nurse, she didn’t know. This was kept very quiet, remember?” Adelle attempted to calm. “May I see the phone?” she asked of the nurse, while Kerry furrowed her eyebrows and swallowed the bile rising in the back of the throat.

She walked around to the edge of the desk, and leaned against it, thumping the crutch against the ground as she listened to the Social Worker explain the situation to her superiors, then hold down the receiver before beginning another call.

“I’m calling the Garcia house, see if he’s there yet. They only live about ten minutes from the hospital, assuming he didn’t take her elsewhere or stop.” A few seconds later, she swore again as she hung up the phone. “The phone number’s out of order, shit! It was working last night, he must’ve canceled it. Shit.”

Kerry watched her from where she stood, a mask of horror painted across her features. The phone line was disconnected, the father took off from work to discharge the child, the girl had just begun to talk, enough evidence had been gathered, he’d be charged by morning, he’d go to jail, she’d be safe…

He had known all along that they’d be coming for him.

Kerry doubled at the waist, the anxiety too much as she began to heave and vomit on the floor.

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