Trigger warning available at the bottom of the story.
When Suzanne's was built, the bathroom was just about the last room to be finished. Orange-tiled floor, mirror over the sink, and a sturdy toilet that almost never needed plunging. The diner was built into the hill in '75, so over the commode there was a little strip of window that was roughly eye level with a green stretch of weeds. Nothing much to look at, but a godsend when you needed to air the place out. Suzanne always had to stand on top of the commode to force the window latch open, though.
By the end of the opening week, the tables had a permanent greasy feeling on them and the ash trays were full. By the end of the first year, that bathroom had seen more vomit and diaper changes and breast feeding and teenagers smoking blunts and crying jags than most fathers ever will. So Suzanne's wasn't really the place you'd go on date night, but it was warmly lit and the food was pretty good. It was right by the highway so you could order a basket of freezer-burnt fries and just watch the cars go by.
It felt safe, homey. It had those Applebee's lamps and a trash can that said THANK YOU on the flap. The kind of place that served $2 scrambled eggs at 7 and their last beer at midnight. Only problem was, the lock on the bathroom door had been broke since '79, and Suzanne had walked in on more embarrassed faces and pants around ankles over the last 17 years than she cared to think about. So in '96 she finally decided to fix it. Close-fisted as she was, she decided to spring for something real nice since it'd been such a long time in coming. It was a nice round handle with a golden sheen and a nob for the lock in the middle that made it look like a cat's eye on one side, but on the outside it was just a little black pinhole. At closing time that day, Suzanne had tucked the new key on top of the fire extinguisher's box and allowed herself that rare, quiet glow of pride in a woman who'd done something she'd put off for too long.
And wouldn't you know it, the Seymours' girl ran into that bathroom and locked herself in it the very next day.
At first, they thought maybe she was crying in there. Maybe her little boyfriend broke up with her, or she was just having a bad day. Although it was hard to have that bad a day when it was barely even 9 yet. Maybe she had taken a pregnancy test in there and didn't like the results. Maybe she was fixing her hair and simply couldn't decide how she liked it. Maybe she was stomach-sick and bathroom-bound. At first, it could have been anything.
After about a half hour, the first tentative knocks were laid on the door. Suzanne, who has known this girl's order by heart since she was in a booster seat, called through the door, "Honey, are you alright?"
There was shuffling, a long pause, and then: "No." They couldn't get her to say anything after that.
By noon, all of the full-bladdered people on lunch break had to hop over to the widow's house next door and ask very politely if they could use her restroom please, so sorry for bothering you, thanks again ma'am. By 1, Suzanne was getting worried. It must have occurred to her a hundred times today that, for the life of her, she couldn't remember this girl's name. So she called through the door sweetie and honey and Miss Seymour. It didn't work. As mad as Suzanne was at this toilet-hogging child, she understood. Suzanne wouldn't come out of her hiding place for somebody had known her for all of her 14 years and still hadn't learned her name, either.
By 2, Ernie, one of her best cooks, had shattered a jar of pickles on the kitchen floor and they direly needed their last bottle of FreshPine air freshener, which was always tucked underneath the bathroom sink. She didn't answer their pleas, but they knew she was still breathing because they could hear her pacing in there like a caged animal, her Mary Janes shuffling over tile. By 3, Ernie had stooped to calling the girl's parents and they came hustling through the front door, flushed from the April heat and faces stiff with concern. That’s when Suzanne finally learned her name.
"Lila," Mrs. Seymour called through the bathroom door. "Is everything alright in there?"
There was the conspicuous creak of an ungreased window latch being forced. Suzanne knew better than anyone that all you needed to do to reach that window was climb up on top of the commode. It was a tiny window, sure, but that Seymour girl was as skinny as anything. Mrs. Seymour must have been thinking the same thing because she turned to Suzanne and whispered, "Is she--?"
Through the door, there came the sound of a window slamming carelessly shut. As one, Suzanne and the Seymours made for the front door and ran around the side of the restaurant, up the steep weedy hill. Suzanne hadn't done a lot of running in the last decade, so she lagged behind, but she could still see everything. That wispy blonde child pelting toward the woods while her father gained on her. When he finally got close enough to reach out and grab her shoulder, she whirled around wielding a can of FreshPine. She sprayed it in his eyes and he went down howling, clutching at his streaming eyes but smelling wonderful.
Mrs. Seymour caught up to him, crushing at least dozen dandelions as she knelt over him, as if to protect him from her own child. From where Suzanne was huffing and puffing yards behind, she could see Lila start to turn toward the woods again. It was only the red-blue flash of lights from the parking lot that stopped her. Turns out the Seymours weren't the only ones Ernie called.
Mr. Seymour was still on the ground when the patrolman sauntered up, sweat already darkening his collar in the afternoon heat. "Now," he said, "Why don't one of you nice people tell me what's going on here."
Mrs. Seymour told him.
When she was done, the patrolman turned to Lila. "Miss, why would you do that to your daddy?"
"He touched me."
"Of course he touched you!" Mrs. Seymour bursts out. "He was trying to stop you from running off!"
"No," Lila says, her jaw rigid. "He touched me."
*
After they served that last beer at midnight, Suzanne dropped by the station. Saw that girl sitting in a beat-up chair in the waiting room looking like the last child on planet Earth. Handed her a brown bag stained with grease, telling her: "Grilled cheese with a side of fries. Extra salt." Sat down in the chair next her as the girl's eyes filled with tears and she ripped the bag open, the sound of it tearing almost managing to erase Suzanne saying: "Lila."
Trigger warning: mention of sexual assault and incest.