Chapter 2 (part 1)

One summer, when Mason was 8 years old, Doc Walker, as everyone called him, and his wife Anne had their 7 year old granddaughter staying the summer with them as she did every summer before.  She was a pretty little girl. Everyone said so. With her long red hair that curled just at the ends. This summer was different and everyone knew it. Her father, a wealthy business man based out of Chicago, and her mother, the doctors daughter, were having "problems" or so everyone said.  "Everyone" was the authority in this town. Rumors started at the drop of a hat. The one consistent though was the rumor of a mistress in the suburbs of Atlanta, where the little girls Father spent most of his time. 

The Doctor and his wife had never cared for their son-in-law. He had whisked their daughter away at the age of 17 with promises of fortune and fame. They had eloped without everyone knowing and called once they were married and moved to Chicago. Mrs. Anne and Doc Walker could have forgiven this, chalking it up to young love, except James, the son-in-law had never treated their daughter as they felt she should be treated. He started cheating on her a year into their marriage. Each time, a diamond necklace or emerald ring and a dozen roses were used to patch things up. James never came home with Lydia to visit, but every summer, like clock work, Lydia with baby in tow came to stay for at least a month. Mr. and Mrs. Walker made there opinion known and left it at that, but Lydia lived in her own world and in her world, without the life she was now accustomed to, she would rather not live at all.  

As their granddaughter got older, Lydia came with her less and less. That summer, she had came alone earlier and was staying longer than any of the years prior.  Mason's parents farm and Doc Walker's bordered each other, so every day she and Mason spent hours hunting craw dads in the creek or climbing in the apple trees. 

July was hot as ever that year. Mason remembered it like it was yesterday. He was sitting with her on the front porch of Doc Walker's house eating ice cream when a Yellow taxi pulled up in the front yard. The door opened  as the dust settled and there stepped out Lydia. Mason remembered thinking even at his age then, that she looked like a women much older than she was. She seemed sad. She smiled gently to them sitting on the porch, but her eyes didn't reflect any sort of joy. Almost as though she was a shell of the beautiful woman she had once been.  

This was the day that everything changed. In the blink of an eye. In the passing of a moment. Lydia went into the house, and when she left, slamming doors and dragging her daughter with her, she never came back again. Her nor her daughter.  From where Mason had been sitting on the front steps, he was close enough to see the bruising behind Lydia's glasses and the lump of a bandage on her forearm. He was quiet enough to hear the tense words. The anger in Doc's voice, the horror and heart break in Mrs. Anne's. The pride and denial in Lydia's.  Mason knew enough to know, something was terribly wrong and the little girl being dragged to the cab didn't understand anything that was happening to her.