Just Once

by Lori Handeland

  ‘His cell phone!’ Frankie pulled out hers and hit Charley’s number.

  His phone immediately began to ring from where it had either been left or fallen under the coffee table.

  ‘Shit!’ Frankie punched the off button. If the phone was here, they couldn’t even track the thing and find him that way.

  ‘You did not see him at the church?’ Ursula asked.

  ‘No.’ But she’d left the church, wandered the neighborhood. ‘I’ll go back.’

  ‘We’ll drive around,’ Andalaro said. ‘And put the word out to the other officers both here and near the Greek Orthodox church.’

  ‘Thank you. What happens if we don’t …’ Frankie’s throat suddenly closed, and she had to swallow, then clear her throat before she could continue. ‘If we don’t find him soon?’

  ‘We’ll check the hospitals and the mo—’ Randolph paused when Andalaro cut him a glare.

  ‘The morgue,’ Frankie finished.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

  ‘No. We have to make sure.’

  The officers left. The house seemed so quiet once they’d gone.

  ‘Would you like me to stay in case he returns?’ Ursula held herself stiff, as if she expected a blow – or a firing.

  ‘Please.’ Frankie set her hand on the woman’s arm. ‘It’s not your fault. He’s …’ Frankie’s voice drifted off. She didn’t know what Charley was, beyond gone.

  As the shadows lengthened and night fell, Frankie drove to the Greek Orthodox church. The floodlights went on as she approached, reflecting in the pool of water out front, turning the bright white walls a soothing shade of peach. Frankie was anything but soothed.

  The church was empty except for a custodian. He had not seen a man fitting Charley’s description.

  She drove around the area, observed a police car doing the same. She saw no sign of Charley. Was he lost and wandering?

  After a half-hour of wandering herself, Frankie returned home and told Ursula to do the same. ‘I’ll let you know when I find him.’ Frankie opened the door.

  ‘And if you want me to come back.’

  ‘Yes,’ Frankie agreed, though that would be up to Hannah.

  Hannah. Hell. Probably should have called her before now.

  Prior to making that call, Frankie poured herself a huge glass of Cabernet.

  ‘I thought you were going to text me,’ Hannah answered in lieu of ‘hello’.

  ‘This isn’t a text conversation.’

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How can you not know?’ Hannah demanded. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Also don’t know.’

  ‘You lost him? Already?’

  ‘Not lost.’ Frankie gulped wine. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What, exactly?’

  ‘He ran off on the nurse.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘After his radiation. Maybe three o’clock.’

  ‘And you’re just telling me now?’

  ‘We were busy trying to find him, and besides, what were you going to do?’

  ‘Good point.’

  Frankie blinked. Had Hannah agreed with her? There was a first.

  ‘I’ll assume, since you’re not a moron, that you’ve contacted the police, hospitals and morgues.’

  ‘Since I’m not a moron,’ Frankie agreed dryly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What next?’

  ‘We keep searching. Any ideas where he might be?’

  ‘In Milwaukee? Not.’

  ‘Where would he go if he were in DC?’ Perhaps he’d head to the same type of place here.

  Silence spread over the line.

  ‘Hannah?’ Frankie said after a minute.

  ‘Sorry, I … uh …’ Silence again.

  What was her problem? Besides the dying husband who’d forgotten her existence.

  ‘Sometimes when he needs to think, he visits Heath.’

  ‘Heath,’ Frankie repeated. ‘Your dead brother?’

  ‘Who else?’

  Frankie could think of a lot of people to visit who weren’t dead, but she decided to zip it.

  ‘I doubt he’d hop a plane to DC to visit the grave of someone he no longer remembers.’

  Hannah drew in a sharp breath.

  ‘What?’ Frankie asked. ‘You think of something?’

  ‘No.’ Hannah’s voice sounded shaky, watery.

  ‘Are you crying?’

  ‘No.’

  Except she still sounded like she was.

  ‘What is it?’ Frankie asked.

  Hannah took several seconds to answer. ‘It hadn’t occurred to me that Charley wouldn’t remember Heath. Stupid. I know.’

  ‘You seem more upset about his not remembering your brother than you were about his not remembering you.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ she said, as if just realizing it herself. ‘Hardly anyone remembers Heath these days except Charley and me.’ She sniffed. ‘And now it’s just me.’

  ‘I’m sure more people remember him than you. What about your parents?’

  ‘They’ve chosen to pretend he never existed. They don’t speak of him. If I do, they change the subject or leave the room.’

  Frankie heard echoes of herself. She did not speak of Lisa to anyone. It hurt too much.

  ‘The only one who talked about him with me, who remembered him out loud, was Charley.’

  She was speaking about Charley as if he were dead too, and perhaps to her he was.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Frankie said. Hannah had obviously adored her brother; she mourned him still. She’d never get over his loss.

  They had more in common than a husband.

  ‘The pictures Charley took for the AIDS essay will keep your brother’s memory alive forever.’

  And why was she trying to make Hannah feel better? It was that essay that had brought Charley and Hannah together, bonded them over their losses, made them closer than Frankie and Charley could ever be again. Or so she had thought.

  ‘You’re right.’ Hannah was all business once more. ‘Thanks.’

  The word was grudging, but Frankie understood. They were doing their best to get along. What choice did they have? But neither one of them had to like it.

  ‘Speaking of pictures, did you get what I sent?’ Hannah asked.

  Frankie had forgotten Hannah was sending the photo of Lisa. She spied a FedEx envelope on the hall table.

  ‘I did.’ She picked it up, looked inside, placed the photo safely in a drawer to be stared at later.

  ‘Good. You’ll let me know as soon as you find him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Have you gone to … uh … where Lisa is?’

  ‘Heaven?’ Frankie asked sarcastically.

  An exasperated huff traveled across the miles. ‘Maybe Charley went to talk to her the way he talks to Heath.’

  ‘He doesn’t remember Lisa’s dead.’

  ‘Right. But maybe …’

  ‘No.’ Frankie’s gaze went to the lilac-shaded urn on the middle shelf of her glass curio cabinet in the hall.

  ‘OK. Just thought I’d—’

  Frankie hung up.

  She crossed the room, opened the cabinet, reached in and touched the smooth, cool side of the urn. ‘Hi, sweetie. Seen Daddy?’

  As expected, no answer was forthcoming.

  Frankie’s phone chimed with a text. She dived for the device, which she’d left next to the FedEx envelope. She didn’t realize that she’d been hoping the text was from Charley until disappointment flooded her when she saw it was from Hannah.

  His phone is here. How could he text you? Frankie thought.

  Would he text her even if he had his phone? Texting was so post-1989.

  Frankie opened Hannah’s text.

  I checked his credit card. He rented a car. I called the place and, according to them, he didn’t say where he was going.

  She’d also texted the license plate number, make and model of the car he’d rented.

&n
bsp; Frankie was a little impressed with Hannah’s detective skills. She informed the police of the new development.

  ‘Excellent, ma’am.’ Randolph sounded pretty excited. ‘We’ll be able to trace that car.’

  ‘Really?’

  Considering the thousands of cars on the road, the hundreds of directions he could have gone, she had her doubts.

  ‘You’d be surprised what we can do. We’ll let you know as soon as we have any news.’

  It wasn’t until she hung up that it occurred to Frankie that they should probably be informing Hannah.

  She didn’t sleep well, hoping for a phone call, listening for the knock on the front door that never came. Her bed smelled like Charley – basil and a bright blue sky. She took the pillow he’d slept on and threw it across the room.

  Finally, in the darkest hour she slept, only to come awake with a gasp, pulling herself out of a dream that seemed very real.

  Charley at the cottage in Door County, sitting on the dock, staring into the water that reflected a shimmering, silver full moon.

  Frankie got out of bed, pulled back the bedroom curtains and stared at the exact same moon. Would he go to Door County? Why? Neither one of them had been there since …

  In the divorce, she’d gotten the house; he’d gotten the cottage. She’d wanted nothing to do with the place ever again. He hadn’t either but someone had to take the thing. Did he still own that cursed bit of real estate? She had no idea.

  What did it matter? Charley would think that he did.

  She began to pull on her clothes, pack a bag. The more she thought about it the more convinced she became that he was there. Wouldn’t hurt to take a drive. It wasn’t like she was going back to sleep. Frankie got in the car and headed north.

  She wasn’t one to believe in premonitions or prophesies. She had no use for mediums or tarot or psychics. If there were ghosts, wouldn’t Lisa be one? And if she were, wouldn’t she have appeared to Frankie by now? She hadn’t, so it followed that there were no ghosts. First you were and then you were not. End of story.

  Frankie shivered and turned on the heat.

  Three hours later as the sun peeked over the horizon, Frankie rolled into Fish Creek. The place was deserted. Of course, who would be walking the streets of downtown Fish Creek at sunrise? Maybe a senior citizen. Like her.

  She was close enough to Social Security to smell it. Weird how she still felt like she was thirty-ish. Or maybe not so weird. The last time she’d felt alive had been when her daughter was. When Charley had still been Her Charley and Lisa’s Charley too.

  She left the sleepy morning town behind, speeding down the two-lane road. Her sense of urgency she attributed to the fact that if Charley weren’t here, she’d only have to turn right around and head home. But really, it was something more.

  She had refused to come to Fish Creek then, refused to see the place where her baby had died. The sight of it would have ended her, and she’d been on the edge of that already. But suddenly she wanted to see; she needed to.

  If she hadn’t remembered that the turn lay across from a mile marker, she would have missed it. The path was overgrown, the battered sign to Watchery Road long gone.

  The gravel churned up enough dust to coat the front of her car, the grinding sound loud in the pink-gray light of dawn.

  Charley’s rent-a-Chrysler sat in front of the house.

  Frankie set her hand on her chest. She hadn’t realized until just that minute how her heart had been pounding so hard it hurt.

  She picked up her phone, planning to call the police, then Hannah, but she set it back down. Maybe she’d better lay eyes on him first.

  She approached the house, which had once resembled a place Hansel and Gretel might bake a witch and now resembled a faded, overgrown place Hansel and Gretel might bake a witch, and tapped on the front door.

  No one answered. He was probably asleep.

  She put her hand on the knob, gave it a twist. The door opened, so she walked right in.

  The decor hadn’t changed in over twenty years. What had been cute but a bit tacky then appeared overtired now, the white walls yellowing, the blue sofa fraying, the red bordered wallpaper peeling.

  Charley’s camera bag sat on the kitchen table. He was definitely here, or had been, though she’d never known him to leave those cameras behind. However, when she walked through the place, he wasn’t there.

  Neither was Lisa’s mermaid room. Someone had stripped it, changed everything to orange and white. The clash with how it had been was startling. Frankie wasn’t sure if that made her sad or glad. Right now she couldn’t really think past the panic of being here, of finding Charley.

  Frankie’s heart started to hurt again.

  Slowly she walked to the patio door and stepped outside. The scent of fish and fresh water, the never-ending lap of the waves sent her back so fast she swayed.

  Mommy, watch me!

  Splash!

  I’m a fish! I’m a dogfish! See me paddle?

  ‘God,’ Frankie muttered, an expletive and a prayer.

  The sun hadn’t risen past the towering pines; the bay still lay in shadow. There was just enough light for Frankie to distinguish the outline of a man sitting on the dock.

  She wanted to leave; she wanted to run. Instead, she descended the rickety wooden steps to bay level, then walked across an equally rickety dock and sat at Charley’s side.

  ‘Hi.’ His gaze didn’t stray from the cool blue water.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Where’s Lisa?’ he asked.

  Charley

  Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Late August, 1991

  Charley was still performing CPR three hours later when they found him. The paramedics had to drag him off the still, pale, cold body of his daughter.

  He was hoarse from shouting, ‘Help! Help us!’ in between the breaths through tiny blue lips.

  It was a gorgeous day in the neighborhood and all the neighbors were gone. A perfect time for tooling around town – if your daughter hadn’t drowned.

  Charley hadn’t done CPR since Vietnam but the procedure came back to him – how many breaths, how many compressions.

  CPR didn’t work any better now than it had then.

  ‘She’s too cold,’ he whispered.

  ‘Sir?’ asked the young police officer assigned to keep him out of everyone’s way.

  The paramedics had resumed CPR. All for show, he knew. His daughter hadn’t breathed in hours. She wasn’t going to start.

  ‘She needs a blanket.’

  Inane. She needed nothing any more. One part of him knew this. Another part was desperate that Lisa be kept warm.

  As if he’d heard Charley’s words, his thoughts, one of the paramedics pulled a blanket from his bag. He draped it over Lisa – head to toe.

  ‘She can’t breathe,’ Charley said.

  His babysitter, whose red hair glinted orange in the midday sun, patted Charley’s shoulder. ‘Is there someone I should call?’

  Charley’s lips formed the word Fancy but nothing came out.

  ‘Your wife? Your family? A friend.’

  ‘No,’ Charley managed. If anyone called Fancy, it would be him.

  The neighbors hung about in their backyards staring. Where had they been when he needed them?

  Suddenly he couldn’t stand on that dock another second. He walked over to the Lisa-shaped blanket.

  The paramedics glanced up, their surprise replaced by unease. How many people lost their shit right about now?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the female paramedic said. ‘We did everything we could.’

  Charley nodded, then bent and lifted Lisa into his arms.

  ‘Sir, you can’t …’ The male paramedic tried to take her back.

  Charley gave him a look that had the man retreating a step. Charley turned.

  The red-headed cop stood in his way. ‘Sir, you can’t.’

  ‘I shouldn’t leave her alone.’

  All three of them exchanged glances.
He could read their minds.

  Leaving her alone was where this all began.

  ‘Let me take her.’ The woman touched his arm. ‘I promise I won’t leave her alone.’

  ‘I …’ Charley began, then he lost his thought. He’d been about to do something. What was it?

  In his arms, Lisa was so much heavier than he could ever remember her being. Still damp from the water, cold and—

  ‘Floppy,’ he said.

  The three exchanged glances again as a phone began to ring inside the cottage.

  ‘That keeps ringing,’ the officer said. ‘Someone should probably answer.’

  Everyone stared at Charley. Apparently that someone was him.

  The female paramedic stepped forward and took Lisa from him. He could have held on, but he didn’t. The bundle in his arms didn’t feel like his daughter. Maybe it wasn’t.

  Hope fluttered and he pulled the blanket away from the face.

  From the neighborly onlookers came a gasp, a cry.

  He dropped the blanket back where it had been. The face, both still and slack, had resembled Lisa enough to give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

  Charley ran up the steps and into the house. Then he stood in the living room. What was he supposed to do?

  The phone started ringing again.

  Right. The phone.

  He picked it up, put it to his ear. Listened.

  ‘Hello? Who’s there? Is someone there?’

  ‘Fancy,’ Charley said.

  ‘Charley, thank God. Why are you still at the cottage?’

  ‘Lisa …’ he began, and then he couldn’t go on.

  ‘You two were supposed to pick me up at the airport. What happened?’

  ‘She went swimming.’

  Frankie went silent but not for long. ‘You let me sit at the airport, terrified you’d had a car accident and died, because Lisa wanted to go swimming?’ Her voice rose in both volume and pitch. ‘I’ve told you before, you can’t let her do anything she wants. You’re the adult. She’s the child.’

  ‘She’ll always be a child,’ Charley whispered.

  ‘What is wrong with you? Put the kid in the car and come home.’

  ‘Fancy, please. I – I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They took her.’

  ‘Charley,’ Frankie said. ‘You’re scaring me.’