by Edie Claire
It had all happened so very long ago… and she had tried so hard, for so long, to forget it! But the scratchy, slurred voice was still etched in her memory. The hurtful words had practically carved themselves on her soul.
Your momma ain’t nothing but a two-bit whore, I tell you what! She packed him off to the Army so’s she could run around on him, she did, cheatin’ on him! You better believe ain’t nobody know who that baby’s daddy was—
Laney stopped the internal recording abruptly. There was no need to recall the rest of it. Jimbo’s mother had been a sick woman, and she was dead now anyway. Her hateful words meant nothing and deserved to be forgotten.
She inhaled deeply of the cold air, then stopped for a moment and looked around. She’d paid no attention to where she was going; in Peck it wasn’t possible to get lost. But somehow or other, her feet had brought her here. To the end of the street, at the east edge of town. Her eyes rested on a well-kept modular home with a small plastic wishing well and a flock of metal flamingos in its yard. The house had not always been here. Twenty-six years ago, a rental trailer had stood in its place.
The wind picked up again, and Laney pulled her hood over her tingling ears. This is where it had happened. Where she had — presumably — opened the door to let her little dog out, then followed him. Where the tornado had picked her up and carried her away, tipping the trailer and knocking her mother unconscious. No one had ever figured out where the dog went. Had he turned around and scuttled back underneath the trailer, finding shelter there? Or had he also been lifted up and spirited away, only to find his own way back by instinct?
Laney remained motionless, still staring. She could remember none of it. Never had, and never would.
“Laney, love! Is that you, darlin’?”
She swung round to see a familiar face. It was Nan Kennedy, her third grade teacher. Nan had lived in the little bungalow from which she now emerged longer than Laney had been alive. “It is me,” Laney replied cheerfully, grateful for the interruption. “How are you doing, Mrs. Kennedy?”
“Call me Nan, honey. You’re a big girl now!” the woman replied, meeting Laney on the sidewalk and enfolding her in a motherly hug. Nan Kennedy was a fixture of the town: honest, hard-working, and good-hearted. She was a widow now, long since retired and getting frail, but one of her grown sons had recently moved back in with her, and everyone said she seemed content. “I’m all right now, honey, but I just feel terrible about missing your momma’s service. Darn flu had me flat on my back for nearly two weeks. I’m so sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Laney said quickly. “I know you would have made it if you could. I’m glad you’re better now.”
Nan’s warm eyes swam with compassion. “And how are you doing? That’s the question. I heard about your Gran moving to the home in Sikeston. I know it’s hard, but I think the same as everyone else — in a situation like this, it’s for the best.”
Laney nodded gratefully. She had worried that the family’s decision to move May out of Peck would be criticized. But it was clear that Gran’s friends were aware of how dangerous her wandering had become. “It is for the best,” Laney agreed.
“You thinking about the tornado?” Nan asked matter-of-factly.
Laney was taken aback. But her thoughts must be obvious, given what she’d been staring at. “Yes, I suppose I was.”
Nan smiled and patted her arm. “Only natural. You’ll always be our little miracle baby, you know.”
A hopeful thought arose in Laney’s mind. Hadn’t Nan lived next door at the time? “Do you remember when my mom and I moved into the trailer?” she asked. “We weren’t here very long before the tornado, right?”
“Oh, no. You’d only just moved in.”
“A couple weeks?”
“Oh, I’d say days, more like.”
Laney pressed on. “But you were here when we moved in? You saw me, and the dog, and… everything?”
Nan cocked her head quizzically. “Well, I can’t say I remember your moving in. I was teaching then, you know, so I wasn’t home during the day. I do remember baking your momma one of my strawberry rhubarb pies as a welcome to the neighborhood, and I felt bad I never got it to her. It was still sitting in my kitchen after the tornado, and I remember just looking at it and worrying so much about you both.”
Ask her. “But you did see me… I mean, you visited with me and my mom at some point before the tornado hit, right?”
Nan’s brow furrowed.
Laney fumbled on. “I was just wondering about… how my mom handled the move and everything. So soon after my father died.”
Nan shook her head sadly. “Oh, we all felt just awful for her, losing her husband like that, so young. It was a pity his funeral was so far away. I would have liked to have gone, just to support your momma. She was one of my very first students, you know.”
Laney nodded, her mind racing. Her father’s funeral wasn’t here? People hadn’t seen her then, either? She had visited the cemetery in Dade County where her father was buried alongside his grandparents, but with her Grandpa Auggie being in the business, she’d always assumed her father’s funeral had been in Peck. Of course it wouldn’t have been. He and Christi had met at Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff; they’d never lived here. His funeral must have been held either at Fort Leonard Wood, where they were living at the time, or back in Dade County, where his own friends and family could attend.
Did anyone in Peck ever even see me before the tornado?
“So, um… when we moved to Peck, you hadn’t seen either one of us for a while?” Laney asked.
Nan waved a hand. “Oh, I can’t recall, honey. It’s all been so long ago. But the day of the tornado… now, that’s a day none of us will ever forget.”
Laney wanted to let it go. Desperately. But she couldn’t. “I’d love to hear what you remember,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “About that day. About what happened when I was missing, and… how my mom got me back.”
Nan smiled at the invitation. She had always loved telling stories. “Well now, that’s a sad tale with a happy ending, for sure. I was up at the school; we were just getting ready to go to lunch when the siren sounded. As often as that happened, the kids weren’t too scared usually. But that day was different. You could feel a kind of tension outside. One little boy looked out the window and said to me, ‘Mrs. Kennedy, the sky’s colored wrong!’ and I knew just what he meant.”
A troubled look passed over her face. “I hustled the kids out of there, and we hunkered down in the hallway. I started them singing to take the edge off, but soon enough the wind got so loud I couldn’t hear myself. It sounded like a jet engine taking off, right over our heads.” She paused in thought. “I’ve had tornados pass nearby before… but I’ve never heard anything like that. You could feel it, a pressure like, straight down to your bones. Thank God the school was sound. We lost a couple windows, but nobody got hurt. Soon as it was over, parents started trickling in. So many worried hugs! They all wanted to take their kids home right then. It was a while before we heard about you being missing, but once we did, that’s all anyone could talk about. We couldn’t hardly believe it — it just seemed too cruel.”
She turned to Laney. “I was so upset for your momma. I remember someone telling me that they’d checked my house and I only had some shingles missing… and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that’s right! I’m next door!’ Honest to God, honey, I forgot all about my own place. All I could think about was how horrible it would be if your momma lost you so soon after losing your daddy.”
Laney put an arm around the older woman’s shoulders, though she felt less than steady herself. “Did you join the search?”
Nan nodded. “It was hours before I could leave the school, but after all the kids had been picked up, I walked back home and took a look. It was a horrible sight. That trailer on its side, all banged up and falling apart, with toys and clothes scattered everywhere… it was awful. Made you si
ck inside. People were roaming around the whole town like ants, calling your name, looking under anything bigger than a breadbox. I didn’t know where to look either, but I put on my boots and headed out that way.” She waved an arm.
Laney looked. The fields bordering the edge of town, long since harvested of their corn, stretched before her eyes monotonous and uniformly brown. Unlike some other parts of town, this particular scene had changed little in twenty-five years.
“The corn was about knee-high, then,” Nan continued. “You’d think you could see a good ways, but those green stalks could fool you. I remember—” She broke off thoughtfully. “You know, it must have been a while since I’d seen you, come to think of it, because I remember not being sure how big you were. I was worried you could be curled up somewhere and I’d look right past you. We were all scared to death; by then we’d heard about the two people found dead by the highway. It was so awful.”
Nan’s gray eyes misted over, but then she smiled. “Finally I heard some yelling, and it was Mr. Barwick coming through to tell everybody that you’d been found, and that you were all right.” She patted Laney’s hand on her arm. “I do believe those were the most amazing words I ever heard. We were all hoping for the best, but I don’t think a one of us expected it.”
Laney released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “What did the Turners do when they found me, do you know? Did they call the police?”
Nan seemed surprised by the question. “Oh, I wouldn’t know about that. I expect they were focused on getting you back to your momma. Terri said she brought you inside and covered you with a blanket and just sat there and held you until your momma arrived. I remember her saying you didn’t cry. You just seemed shell-shocked. Pale as a ghost and shivering something awful. The wind took off most of your clothes, you know.”
Nan’s voice turned cheery. “I do wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that reunion! Terri said your momma was nearly as pale and shocky as you were when she walked in… I don’t think your momma believed it was true until she saw you there with her own two eyes. Terri said she just swept you up in her arms saying ‘my baby, my baby!’ and that she wouldn’t let you go, not for anything. Your grandpa wanted to take you both to the hospital right away and Terri said they couldn’t hardly get your momma to let go of you long enough to strap you in the car seat! Of course, nobody blamed her a bit.”
Laney’s arm dropped back to her side.
“Are you okay, honey?” Nan asked with concern. “You don’t look so good. You don’t remember any of this, do you?”
Laney ordered herself to breathe. She’d heard the reunion story a million times before. Was Nan telling it differently, or was she only hearing it that way? “No,” she answered hoarsely. “I don’t remember any of it.” She collected herself and steadied her voice. “I was just wondering… do you know how I reacted? Was I as excited to see my mom as she was to see me?”
“Well, I wasn’t there, of course,” Nan answered. “But I expect you were in shock, still. You had a pretty bad time afterwards, you know. Your momma took you to back to her folks’ house, and Mary Agnes next door said you cried and cried. For days. She thought you were never going to stop crying. It was so pitiful, honey. We all just felt terrible for you both.”
Laney drew in a ragged breath, willing the excruciating drip, drip of inconsequential pieces of circumstantial evidence to cease.
“But the crying stopped eventually, and before long, you were happy as a clam, running around and talking up a storm!” Nan continued with chuckle. “So, no lasting effects, thank the Lord. We were all so happy to see you out and about after. You were such a cute little thing. Looked just like your momma. Everybody said so.”
Laney’s hands had begun to tremble. She shoved them deep in her pockets.
“Bright, too,” Nan praised. Her gray eyes twinkled as she leaned closer. “Just between you, me, and the fencepost, I’d say you were my brightest student ever.”
Laney tried hard to smile. “Thank you. And you were my favorite teacher.” It was a lie, but a well-intentioned one. Nan was trying her best to be helpful; she could have no idea how her honest recollections had just chilled her audience to the bone.
“Aw, thanks honey. You want to come in for a cup of hot coffee? It’s too cold to stand out here talking all day.”
Laney felt horribly guilty as she noticed the bright red flush on Nan’s aged nose and ears. Her frequent failure to dress appropriately for the weather was an endless source of amusement to her fellow meteorologists. But it wasn’t funny to Laney when her obliviousness affected other people. “Thank you, but no, I’ve got some more walking to do. I’ve been trapped indoors for so long; it’ll do me good. You go on inside, though, please. I don’t want you relapsing.”
The women exchanged another hug and a round of goodbyes, and Laney set off. But as soon as Nan disappeared into her house, Laney cut between two yards and headed off into the fields.
She had no specific plan. All she could think to do was to keep moving, to push herself physically until the disturbing doubts were purged from her mind. Her ankles twisted as she plowed through the rows of cut, dried husks, her sneakers less than ideal for traversing the uneven, frozen ground. She could hear the traffic from Highway 60 in the distance. The highway where the Macdonald family died.
She kept walking. She was vaguely aware that both her hands and feet were numb, but she couldn’t rally herself to care. She needed to prove… something.
Her steps slowed only when she approached what used to be the Turners’ farm. Terri and Dick had passed away years ago, and their fields had been annexed to an adjacent farm. Laney didn’t know who lived in the house now, and she was in no mood to meet them. She remained at the edge of the yard, standing and staring.
Just past the now-unused and crumbling barn on the other side of the house lay the field where she had been discovered. Laney had heard the story from several different sources, including Terri Turner herself. As a child, she hadn’t liked hearing the part about her bleeding cuts and state of semi-nudity, focusing instead on the fanciful idea that she had been making her own way home when intercepted. Wanting to make herself the hero of her own story, she’d insisted that she hadn’t needed “rescuing” at all.
She grinned weakly at the memory. Such an egotistical little twerp!
The highway was close enough now that she could see the traffic zipping by. She imagined the path of the storm, which she had researched before. The funnel cloud had brushed the east side of town, ripping off roofs, lifting cars, and toppling the trailer. The place she stood now was northwest of where the tornado had hit the nearby highway. The bodies of Elizabeth and Carl, and their damaged car, had been found in fields between the two points. The tornado had tracked north along the highway until it passed the Turner farm, then veered off to the northeast.
Laney bit her lip. Everyone had always assumed that she had been lifted from her own yard, spun aloft, and held in the air until she was inexplicably deposited onto some relatively soft landing place on the Turners’ property. It was fantastic, but it was plausible. When the tornado changed direction, shifts in its currents could very well have ejected her from the funnel. “Soft landings” had been reported before.
And Jessica? Everyone assumed that the lightweight “baby” must have been lifted higher and carried farther. The tornado’s path to the northeast was sparsely populated and included stands of trees and a river. No one was shocked when the little body couldn’t be found.
Laney felt a sharp pain in her lip, accompanied by the tang of blood. She turned with a huff and started back home again. She had learned nothing. It could all have happened exactly as everyone thought it had.
She walked faster, slamming her sneakers on the ground until a painful tingling indicated a return of blood flow.
It could have happened the other way, too, the scientist in her admitted. The difference in weight was negligible. Either toddler could have la
nded at the Turners’ farm. An argument could be made that Jessica’s shorter path and lesser time aloft would be more consistent with survival.
Laney stomped harder.
Don’t be stupid, she chastised herself. Possible isn’t probable.
Her mind was chasing shadows, and she knew it.
Still, she couldn’t stop.
Chapter 12
Tofino, British Columbia, Present Day
Jason smiled at Natalie, who had unfortunately been assigned to wait their table, and tried hard to be polite as he parried her inane questions about the group of semi-pro Brazilian surfers who were currently staying at his lodge. He was never rude to a woman he’d been involved with, but there had been nothing between them for years now, she had a boyfriend, and she was acting flirtier than normal for no apparent reason. He would gladly give her twice her normal tip, in advance, if only she would leave him alone.
Another burst of merry laughter from Laney made his jaws clench. Ben had only arrived ten minutes ago, and already the two were acting like old friends. Jason cast a glance across the booth — where they sat side by side — and saw Laney’s ordinarily pale cheeks flushed with rose. She looked so relaxed, so comfortable. Why the hell did she act so easygoing with Ben, when around him she was so tense?
“I said, did you want a refill on your drink?”
As Natalie’s voice broke through the clamor in his brain, he realized he must have tuned the waitress out entirely. He looked down to find his glass barely touched. “No thanks,” he replied, attempting to smile at her again. Natalie was a beautiful woman: tall and willowy with long dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, near-perfect bone structure, and an expertly augmented set of curves. But she was also a drama queen with a well-deserved reputation for trash talk, and he avoided her when he could.
After another painful moment of chit-chat, Natalie at last departed the table. Jason returned his attention to Laney, only to hear his damn phone ringing again. He shut off the ringer and tossed it onto the bench beside him out of sight. But not before Laney’s eyes flickered conspicuously in the ringing phone’s direction.