Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian Page A

polish that picked up the sun when she held her hands the right way. “That poor child,” she said softly. “That poor, poor child.”
    “Young woman,” I corrected her. “She’s fifteen.”
    “Do you know her well?”
    “I do. She’s smart. Funny. She’s going places. She’s not really active in the Youth Group anymore. I wish she were. But she’s a good kid, a good student. She’s usually in the school dramas and musicals. Right now her major form of adolescent defiance is a small stud in her right nostril.”
    “Her father let her do that?”
    “It was a surprise to both parents. Her father did not take it well,” I said, though I knew he had punished only Alice.
    “I remember when I first pierced my ears.”
    “Rebellion?”
    “Emancipation.”
    “Katie will do okay. She’ll get through this.”
    “Yes, she will. But I still hate to see in my mind the things she’s probably witnessed in that home over the years. Has she been back to the house yet?”
    “No. Some of us—her friend Tina’s mom, Ginny, me—packed the clothes that seemed most useful. Shoes. Sneakers. A nightgown. Cosmetics, some jewelry. But I have no idea if we brought the items that really mattered to her. The right hoodie, for instance. The right jeans. The right teddy bear. Think back to your adolescence and what yourroom was like when you were fifteen—how many outfits you probably tried on before you found what you really wanted to wear. The piles of stuff on the floor were just unbelievable. The mounds of clothes. The piles of DVDs and CDs and books. The cords for iPods and cell phones and her laptop, as well as her laptop itself. I had no idea which music mattered to her and which didn’t—what she had already put on her iPod and what she was planning to download when she had some time to kill. She actually had a bureau drawer filled with nothing but trolls and tins of jewelry and rub-on tattoos. Maybe she hadn’t touched it since she was seven. But maybe it was the most important thing in the room to her. I just had no idea. None of us did. So at some point Katie probably will go back to the house. She won’t ever live there again, because she’s only fifteen. But she will have to go back inside.”
    “Oh, I disagree. She may want to go back. But anyone in the world would understand if she didn’t—if she refused to go back in there. I’m sure you or her friends or other parents would be more than willing to pack everything up for her.”
    “I guess you’re right.”
    “Where will she live?” She seemed to ask the question with great care, perhaps because she was afraid I had been offended when she’d corrected me. Actually, I hadn’t been bothered at all. She had made sense.
    “There are options,” I answered. “Her grandparents in Nashua are one possibility. But maybe she’ll live here in Haverill with the Cousinos—with her friend’s family. She might want to finish high school in Vermont and be with the kids she’s known since she was six.”
    “And this Cousino family is okay with that?”
    “So I gather.”
    “Have you talked with Katie?”
    “Yes.” This time I did find myself slightly affronted. As her pastor I had visited with Katie both yesterday and today, and so my answermay have sounded a little curt. Afterward I hoped I had sounded only surprised.
    “How would you say she was doing?”
    “She’s devastated, of course. In shock. But she’s doing what she needs to do,” I answered. It was the first thought that came into my mind. “She’s endured the questions the state police had about her parents, as well as the questions of a social worker and a therapist, and she’s volunteered all the information they could possibly want.”
    “Is she incredibly angry with her father?”
    “Wouldn’t you be?”
    She nodded. “But I’m sure she also feels some anger toward her mother.”
    “For not getting out?”
    “For allowing it to happen. For being a victim.”
    “I imagine