When We Were Friends by Elizabeth Arnold

isn’t even the worst of it, Lainey. I can deal with being hit, I lived with it for years, but the thing is …” She pressed her fingers against her eyelids, held them there. “The thing is, I think he abuses her. There’ve been marks on her body.”
    My mouth dropped back open.
    “Burn marks,” she said, “cigarette burns, I think. Little red spots on her back.”
    I thought of Jacqueline’s sweet round face, clammy fingers clutching my stomach. “Sydney. You have to tell somebody, call the cops. Or Child Protective Services, get a restraining order.”
    “You’d think that might work, wouldn’t you. That’s what I thought after he broke my arm, that I could go to the cops.”
    “He broke your arm?”
    “But the McGraths have friends in all the right places. His parents saw us fight, what it used to turn into, but they still managed to twist it around and blame it all on me, and I know that’s what would happen here too.” She looked up at me, her eyes pleading. “If I’d noticed the burns the day I picked her up from David, I could’ve gone straight to the cops. But I was too busy to give her a bath that night, and by the time I saw them I realized how it was going to look. I’d gone a full night without telling anybody? Who’d believe I wasn’t the one who hurt her? Cigarettes when I’m the only one of us who ever smoked, it’s brilliant.”
    “This is crazy.” My voice was an awed whisper, not an appropriate tone but it was all I could muster.
    Her face went suddenly pink. “Look, maybe I shouldn’t have come to you. I couldn’t stand being alone with it anymore and I thought maybe you could help me figure out what to do, but you’re probably looking at this as some kind of twisted payback.”
    “Of course I’m not! I’m just in shock I guess. I’ll help you, I want to help, just tell me what you’re thinking.”
    “I’m not thinking anything, it’s impossible to think, I’m all adrenaline and the only thing I want to do is run. But run where? And what if I get caught? If I’m arrested, who’s going to believe my reasons for running? They’d give the baby back to him.”
    With her red eyes, cheeks bruised and damp from the sweating spinach block, Sydney’s face looked raw and diseased. I listened to Jacqueline’s squeals from upstairs and Star’s lilting voice, then said, “When’re you supposed to leave her with David again?”
    “He gets her every weekend, so I have to drop her off this afternoon.”
    I remembered the weight of the baby against my shoulder, the crinkle of her fatly-diapered bottom and the sweet and eggy scent of her head, and I suddenly felt like crying. I glanced at Sydney, met her eyes for a brief, bewildered second, then raised my chin. In that one second I had made up my mind, and the next words I heard, words that seemed to be coming from my own mouth, were, “What if you left her with me instead?”
    Sydney widened her eyes, sat perfectly still a moment and then said, “What would I tell David?”
    “Tell him you know what he did to Jacqueline, and that you’re not leaving her alone with him again.”
    “No, no Lainey, he’d kill me if I accuse him of anything! Why do you think I haven’t already?”
    “Okay, then don’t outright accuse him. Tell him you don’t want her exposed to all the fighting, and that she’s staying with a friend till the custody battle’s over. But you can say it in such a way that he knows what you’re really talking about.”
    Her eyes filled again and I reached for her hand. “And don’t actually go inside his house, okay? Talk to him outside, just in case. And if you think you’re in any kind of danger then come here, you can stay with us.”
    Her shoulders stiffened and she pulled her hand away from mine. Refusing, I thought, but then she said, “But what would happen after? How long would you take her?”
    “I’ll keep her until we figure out what to do next. We have to find some way to prove he’s