I Know You Remember

by Jennifer Donaldson

  “It’s okay,” he whispers. “Ruthie. It’s okay.”

  I close my eyes. It all runs together—all the visions of blood in the dirt, blood on the slide. The memory of my bike snapping under my dad’s tires, of him slamming his fist into my dollhouse so hard the roof caved in. The memory of Bailey, her chip-toothed grin, her knobby knees. The memory of Zahra. The memory of my mom, her eyes flaring wide as the earth slipped out from under her feet.

  He puts his arms around me and I lean into him. We stand that way for a long time. Then he pulls back a little.

  “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We drive for a little while, past the seedy motels along Fifth Avenue, past the currently abandoned tourist traps downtown, past the giant whale mural on the side of the JCPenny building, to the park that looks out over the inlet. I sit in the passenger seat, staring out the window. I focus on breathing slowly and deliberately. On staying calm and present. It’s hard.

  He reaches over and takes my hand. Tears sting my eyes, sudden and sharp. How can his touch do that to me every time? Make me raw, make me real? It takes my breath away. But I know this is it; I know we can’t do this anymore.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t texted more,” he says. “Everything’s been kind of . . .”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I get it.”

  “The cops are still looking at all my stuff, but they’ve let up a little bit. Now that . . . you know, now that Bailey . . .”

  I nod. “They think Bailey and Zahra were taken by the same person.”

  He darts a glance my way. “You don’t?”

  I just shrug. “I still have hope.”

  He nods and looks out the windshield at the level gray water. The tide’s out, and half the inlet is mudflat, wet and shining in the weak sun.

  “I’m not sure I do,” he says. “Have hope, I mean.” He shakes his head.

  Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, he’s beating on the dashboard, his face twisted in an agony of rage. He clutches the edges of the steering wheel and screams.

  “It’s so fucked up,” he snarls. “God, this can’t be real. It can’t be real.”

  I realize then that he hasn’t been able to sit with the idea of her death. He’s been angry—angry at the suspicion on him, angry at her for leaving him like this. Angry, and scared, and trying desperately to solve the problem. As if he could bring her back by knowing her, understanding her, well enough. There hasn’t been time in all that for him to really truly consider the worst.

  But now, two weeks on, now it’s hard not to.

  I put my hand on his arm, and he crumbles. His hands on his face, he leans up against me and sobs. We cling to each other for a long time that way, without talking. And while it’s nothing like before—nothing like the kissing, the touching we did in the cabin, in the supply closet—it still leaves me feeling charged.

  “I just . . . I keep thinking of the things she might have gone through,” he says.

  “Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t think about that. We don’t know. We just don’t know. You can’t torture yourself like that.”

  He takes a ragged breath.

  “Tabitha came to see me last night,” he says. “She’s the one who told me, by the way. About the kiss, between Zahra and that other guy.”

  I nod. “I know.”

  “She’s a mess right now too. She said . . .” He shakes his head. “Well, some of what she said is private, I guess. But she told me the thing with Zahra and that guy wasn’t even a thing. That he kissed her and she put a stop to it.”

  “I know,” I say.

  He gives a harsh chuckle “Tabitha’s blaming herself. She thinks Zahra wouldn’t have freaked out, run off in the woods, if not for that fight. But fuck, I’m the idiot that bought in.”

  “You’re not the first jealous boyfriend to overreact about something like that,” I say softly.

  “I know, I know.” He tilts his head against mine. We’re sitting side by side now, facing the sunset, his arm around my shoulder. “I just mean . . . things were obviously not good between us, if I believed it so easily. And it’s killing me that I can’t figure out why. Because I love her so fucking much, and that should be enough.”

  I think about all of the things I’ve heard about Zahra since moving back. Those mood swings, those anxiety attacks. I think about how hard it has always been for me to connect with people—even with people I like, even with people I love. How hard Ingrid had to work to win me over. How hard it’s been for me to trust.

  “Sometimes it’s not enough,” I say. “Sometimes . . . people are broken, Ben. That’s not on you.”

  “Yeah, but you know what is? Not realizing it. Not understanding it, until it’s too late,” he says.

  I shake my head, but I don’t argue. Sometimes you can’t argue. Sometimes people just have to hurt until they’re done hurting.

  He plays with a lock of my hair idly, then suddenly jerks his hand away. I close my eyes. I know what’s coming, but knowing it doesn’t make it less painful.

  “I’m sorry, if I took advantage of you,” he says.

  I give a little laugh. “Took advantage?”

  “You know what I mean. At the lake.”

  “No. You didn’t,” I say.

  I hesitate for a moment before going on.

  “I know it can’t go anywhere, Ben. I know . . . I know it was wrong. But I don’t regret it.”

  “Neither do I,” he whispers.

  He kisses me on the temple, one last time.

  Then we watch in silence as the tide starts to come in.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON INGRID AND I get permission from our parents to go to the Gaineses’. Charity and Ron have invited a handful of Zahra’s friends over to eat dinner and strategize our next steps.

  When Ingrid and I get there the street is lined with cars. Yukon and Deshka are in the yard, barking wildly, tripping over each other as they run up to the gate to meet us. I scratch Yukon’s ears, Deshka’s nose. Even after so long, I remember their preferences.

  There are already about fifteen people crowded into the trailer. Soo-Jin and Margo sit on the sofa, leafing through picture albums, pulling out photos they think they could use for flyers. In the kitchen, a couple of cross-country kids stand by the counter, drinking soda and talking. Ben’s not here yet—it’s his grandma’s birthday, so he’ll be arriving late—but Jeremy and Marcus both sit at the oversize table, working on the Find Zahra website. Ron’s at the counter, ladling chili from a gigantic crock pot.

  “Hey there, Ruthie-girl.” He gives me a little squeeze around the shoulders when he sees me. “How you holding up?”

  “Doing okay. This is my stepsister, Ingrid. I hope it’s okay that I brought her,” I say.

  “More the merrier.” He looks around the room with an odd little smile on his face. “Half the reason we’re having everyone over is to get some noise in this damn place. It’s been too quiet.”

  “I can only imagine.” I look around. “This would be a good party if we weren’t missing the guest of honor.”

  “You know it.” He gestures toward the crockpot. “You girls hungry? There’s cornbread on the counter, soda in the fridge. Help yourselves.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Maybe in a bit.” I look around, frowning. “Where’s Charity?”

  “Lying down.” He looks like he’s about to say something else, but a couple of kids step up to get some food, and he’s distracted.

  I look around the room again. Strange how normal this is becoming for all of us. At the table, Marcus laughs at something Jeremy says. I overhear some snatches of conversation from around the room—someone’s talking about Cardi B, someone else wants to know if they should get bangs. It’s surreal. I get it—I of all people get it, the way you sometimes have to compartmentalize, to di
stract yourself, so you can keep going. But a part of me feels very lonely. Very cut off. Am I the only one that really, truly needs Zahra?

  My eyes fall on the kitchen doorway, and I give a little start. Tabitha’s just arrived. And Ingrid, instead of making a face or muttering under her breath, gives a little wave and trots over to her.

  Did I miss a memo? I know they made peace to search for me and Ben the night we were stuck at the lake, but I’d thought . . . well, I’d thought that was all about me. Now I feel like an idiot. Or a narcissist. They’re friends. Somehow, they’ve become friends. I hang back for a moment, watching them talk. Ingrid puts a hand on Tabitha’s shoulder, as if she’s comforting her.

  I look around the room again. Something about it feels different, suddenly. That loneliness of a moment ago, the tug in my heart, has calmed. I look at Ron, in his REAL MEN COOK apron; at the kids crowded around their stacks of photos, cooing over pictures of baby Zahra; at Tabitha and Ingrid; at all these people that love Zahra, and for the first time I don’t feel like it’s some kind of competition, like more love for them means less for me. For the first time I just think . . . thank you, Zahra. Thank you for creating something like this.

  Now come back, so you can be a part of it.

  I suddenly want to see her room again—to sit in the space she occupied for a minute. I slip down the hall. No one seems to notice me go. The sound fades behind me.

  When I get to the bedroom, though, I’m not alone.

  Charity’s curled up on the bed, on top of the covers. She’s hugging Zahra’s pillow, staring out in space. I stop in the doorway, make to turn and head back, but she sees me before I can.

  “What happened to my baby?” she asks. Her voice is high and soft.

  I hesitate, then come in, shut the door behind me. She sits up and pushes her hair out of her face, setting the pillow to the side.

  She looks like she’s aged about ten years; her roots are gray, and the bags beneath her eyes bring out all the shadows and lines of her face. I see that she’s been looking through Zahra’s things—a portfolio sits open on the desk, a bunch of black-and-white photos spread out across it. Photos of places and people. I recognize a few of the island.

  I sit on the edge of the bed and take Charity’s hand. She squeezes.

  “Nothing’s been right for a long time now,” she whispers. “And I don’t know what happened to change it all. She stopped talking to me. She had secrets.”

  I nod slowly.

  She shakes her head, wipes at her eyes. “This isn’t what I wanted. Everything I’ve ever done has been to make this family . . . different. To make our life different.”

  “From what you grew up with,” I say gently.

  She nods. “I didn’t want her to have to hide things from me, the way I had to from my parents. I didn’t want her to be scared of us.”

  “She wasn’t,” I say. “There’s no way.”

  “Then why don’t I know anything about her?” She gestures to the photos on the desk. “I don’t know most of those kids. I don’t know anything about her. And there are pictures of that fucking church camp in there—Jesus. I never even knew she went out there. But she did—dozens of times. And she never told me.”

  “Maybe she just thought it was beautiful,” I say carefully. “Or . . . maybe she liked it because she went with her friends.”

  Charity blows air through her lips. “It’s a horrible place. If she knew the things I knew . . .”

  I draw in my breath a little. “You were there,” I say softly. “When it was open.”

  She doesn’t answer, but I already know I must be right. I haven’t had a chance to look into the story Ben told me— the dates, the details—but if it closed in the nineties, she’d probably have been a teenager.

  Her eyes have a faraway look, and I think . . . God, another Lost Child. “‘He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes,’” she says. Her voice sounds strange and soft, almost like she’s in a trance. “Dad always believed it was his responsibility to break our spirits.”

  I believe it. I think about the sermons I’ve heard from Pastor Worthen—the emphasis on sin and punishment, blood and pain. The anger emanating from the pulpit. He is a man who enjoys punishment. He is a man who wants to control the people around him.

  “You know about Josh?” she whispers.

  I shake my head. “Who’s . . .”

  “Josh Forster,” she says. “The boy who . . .” She closes her eyes and shudders. “He was my age. Thirteen? Fourteen? It was ninety-four, so I guess fourteen. Just a kid. Funny. Always telling these bad Fozzie Bear–style jokes. But nice, too, a nice kid. He wasn’t even a repeat offender.”

  She’s speaking in wide, elliptical loops, but it’s not hard to follow her—because I have a feeling what’s coming. My stomach tightens as she talks.

  “Nothing like me. I was always in trouble, at home and at camp both. I squirmed through church. I was obsessed with pop music—Madonna, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson. All those fallen women.” She snorts. “I was always asking questions that Dad didn’t like. And he was determined to correct me. Beating me, locking me in a closet to ‘pray on my sins.’ That’s how I know I’m not telekinetic, by the way. Because I would’ve gone Carrie on that house every day of my childhood if I could’ve.”

  She stands up and goes to Zahra’s desk, picks up one of the photos. In it, Zahra’s friends sit along what I recognize now as the dock on the island, dangling their feet in the water.

  “It was the same at camp,” she says. “Dad made sure of that. The counselors whipped us with PVC pipe, they made us run laps or tread water in the lake, they made us dig latrines. One time they made a girl hold buckets of water out at either side for hours. Hours. If her arms dropped they reset the clock. That was just for using God’s name in vain.” She shrugs. “And one year, the thing they came up with was to make us stand outside all night.”

  I shiver slightly, remembering the conversation I’d had with Ben about it.

  “Josh got in trouble,” she says, closing her eyes. “We both did. We’d gone out after lights-out. We met in the dining hall because it was cold that night, and we wanted to huddle up by the embers in the old wood stove. We talked for hours, and then . . . you know. We kissed. It was innocent. We were just kids.” She takes a deep breath. “It was Dad that caught us. And he . . . he was livid. He made all the other campers get up out of bed to hear him lecture. Stood there in the middle of the cabins, preaching about fornication and the sins of the flesh.”

  She shakes her head. “Poor Josh. He wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to be humiliated and cold. But a storm blew in. Rain and howling wind. I remember lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, sure they’d let him back into his bunk. But they didn’t, and the next morning . . . he was gone. Disappeared. It took two days to find him—I guess when the hypothermia set in for him, he got disoriented and wandered into the woods.”

  She falls silent. I can hear the tick-tick-tick of Zahra’s wall clock, the distant sound of conversation in the kitchen. I can hear the thud of my heart.

  “Didn’t they get in any trouble?” I ask. “I mean . . . did anyone investigate, or . . .”

  “My dad’s good friends with half the politicians in this state,” she says bitterly. “And the cops, and the troopers. They’re not going to mess with him.”

  “What’d they do to you?” I ask suddenly. “When they caught you both. Why weren’t you outside, too?”

  Her eyes go bright with scorn.

  “Me?” she says. “Oh, they beat the shit out of me. Made me take my pants down in front of everyone so they could spank my bottom. Josh had to pay for his sins, sure. But he wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to stand in the cold for a little while praying for his soul. I was the temptress. I was the one who was supposed to suffer.”


  I swallow hard. His sermon from the other day echoes in my ears. It’s worth it, even if you have to beat him again, and again, and again. It is worth it, even if you have to beat him bloody. I think about his ugly sermons, and the fact that he’s done nothing to help look for his granddaughter. I think about the prayer where he asked God to save Zahra’s soul, but not her body. I think about Zahra’s failed experiment living with him. Think about him following her to cross-country meets and . . .

  I’ve been assuming she went to her grandparents because of whatever happened.

  Dale Worthen would rather kill a child than allow him, or her, to sin.

  I stand up.

  “I have to go, Charity,” I say. “I’m sorry. I’ll . . . I’ll be back.”

  Then I get up and hurry for the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  THE WORTHENS’ HOUSE IS enormous, bursting from the midst of a copse of trees like a ship crashing through waves. Its multistory windows reflect the low, woolly clouds as I pull up in front of it. Out past the trees, Cook Inlet stretches flat and gray.

  It was easy to find in Brandy’s address book; I guess she and the Ladies Auxiliary must come here for meetings sometimes. I wonder if this is the house Charity grew up in—if this is what she fled. It’s easy to imagine. The place may be large, but it has the same dour, looming sense as Worthen himself. The siding is the color of slate, and the only adornment on or around the house is a large wrought iron cross hanging near the door.

  For a second I think I see movement from one of the windows. Then I see a bird fly past, and I wonder if it was just a reflection in the glass.

  I take a deep breath; I have to be steady. I can’t jump at the slightest movement.

  I ring the bell.

  Everything is quiet. You can’t even hear traffic, the way you usually can in town. A raven screams from somewhere in the woods. I stand very still on the doormat.

  It’s a few minutes before the door swings open.

  Grace Worthen looks much the same as she did at church—pale blonde hair pulled up, a thick shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her lashes bat in a quick little tic when she sees me there on the doorstep. “Can I help you?”