Lost At Sea

by Erica Boyce

  Maureen was bound to notice soon, and Lacey didn’t know what she’d tell her. She was so tired of lying, but she couldn’t possibly say she’d sold it. That it was now hanging around that librarian’s neck. It would shatter both of them.

  She gritted her teeth and pushed the photos aside. There, in a ragged plastic baggie, was what she’d bought with the money.

  Matt had warned her that it might be too much for her. “Fentanyl is on a whole other level from Oxy or Percs. It’ll knock you straight on your ass.” She’d reached for the baggie mutely, but he’d held it out of reach and grabbed her wrist with his other hand, ducking his head to meet her eye. “I’m serious, Lace. Be careful with this, okay?”

  “I will,” she had said, palm still outstretched. He’d laid the baggie in it, folded her fingers around it, and kissed the knuckles swiftly.

  She kept it separate from the rest, hidden away to be used only when she really needed it. Her room was so neat when she got back from rehab, folds crisp and corners tucked, that she knew her mom had torn it apart and found her kit. But she hadn’t pulled the bureau back from the wall.

  She held the baggie up to the overhead light. The pills were starting to break down into dust, as if they were shedding their skin, waiting for her. Her arm trembled slightly. She clamped her fingers around her wrist.

  The beetle unfurled its wings and started to dance. “Everyone saw you at the library,” it whispered gleefully. “They saw you for what you are. Worthless addict. Ella hates you now. This whole town hates you.”

  “No,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut. She had never told her caseworker, Ms. Bray, about the beetle. She knew it wasn’t real, that it was some freakish fold in her brain, some character flaw. In Ms. Bray’s bland office with the plastic-fronded fern, she was too embarrassed to mention it. Now, she almost reached for her phone to call Ms. Bray. She’d given Lacey her card with her cell phone number on it and looked straight into Lacey’s eyes, so intensely it made Lacey squirm a little, and told her to call her whenever she needed someone to talk to. But Lacey knew Ms. Bray would probably just hum thoughtfully and recommend some deep-breathing exercises to manage it.

  Lacey knew the truth, though. There was only one thing that had ever worked to shut the beetle up. She shook the baggie, and the pills shifted to the other corner.

  “Good idea,” the beetle said. “Prove them right.”

  “No,” she said again, even quieter this time. She was stronger than that. That was why she couldn’t throw them out. She needed to keep them, these pills that only she knew about, that she would never take. She needed to keep them, untouched, so that she could remind herself that she was strong. She slipped the baggie back behind the photos and slapped the book shut.

  “You still in there?” Maureen’s voice passed, muffled, through the bathroom door.

  “Almost finished,” Lacey yelled. She hid the diary in the vanity, tucked behind the sink piping. She flushed the toilet and turned on the faucet, wetting her fingers for good measure and wiping them on her jeans. Maureen always teased her for doing that when there was a perfectly good hand towel hanging right there.

  Her mom was waiting for her in the bathroom doorway. “That was a quick trip,” she said. “What happened? Are you okay?” She grasped Lacey’s chin. “You look a little pale.”

  “I’m fine, Mom.” Lacey held herself very, very still.

  “Are you sure?” Maureen tilted Lacey’s face toward the light. Her jaw tightened, ratcheting a single degree. “You weren’t with Matt, were you?”

  “No.” Lacey wrenched away. “I was with Ella, like I said. I started to feel a little sick is all,” she said, knowing if she mentioned the symptoms, Maureen would tuck her into bed and pretend this was something familiar that she could fix with clear fluids and canned chicken soup. Lacey wished so badly that it were.

  Something like fear flashed behind Maureen’s eyes. “Ella? Are you sure that’s such a good idea? Is she… Did you take her home afterward? Did Diane see you?”

  “Rebecca said she would take her. The librarian.” She chewed at her bottom lip.

  “Okay. Okay, good.” Maureen rested her hand at the base of her rib cage and breathed deep. “You have to be careful with her, you know? She’s just a kid. I don’t want Diane to think…”

  “Yeah, I’m aware.” Lacey crossed her arms, holding back all the meaner, angrier words she could say. As much as Lacey cared about what Mrs. Staybrook thought, her mom cared even more. Her mom was always worrying about Mrs. Staybrook’s opinion.

  Maureen nodded briskly. “Well. Don’t forget we’re working the benefit tonight. We need to leave here in an hour.”

  “Fine.” Lacey turned her back and fiddled with the dusty pile of books on her bureau until she heard her mother’s steps on the staircase.

  “She doesn’t love you anymore,” the beetle whispered. “You are losing her.”

  She picked up the stack of books and slammed them down on the bureau’s surface. The mirror above it rattled so that she barely recognized herself in it.

  Chapter Five

  Maureen and Lacey were both silent in the van as they drove to the benefit. Maureen tried, with every minute that passed, to come up with a story or joke that would pull and tease her daughter back out of herself. But each minute, as in all the minutes since Lacey had returned home, her mind was empty save for this: Why?

  And she knew, from all the books and articles she’d read, all the meetings she’d attended where the grief loomed so huge and black it was hard to breathe, that she could not ask this. The addict, so they said, would feel out the grain of blame at the center of that pearl and would shut down. A piece of Maureen wondered, every time she’d heard this: if Lacey wasn’t to blame for her surrender to the pills, then who was?

  She could never ask. So they spent the twenty-minute drive with nothing but the clanking of the industrial-sized pots and chafing dishes in the back of the van. Every time Maureen glanced over, Lacey was curling the edge of her seat belt. When she was a toddler, she used to squirm at the restraint and the rubbing at her neck.

  It was a relief when they got to the town hall. Lacey sprung her door open as soon as Maureen put the van in park and grabbed a stack of pans. She paused next to Jude, their server, who was smoking a cigarette under the blue-and-gold banner that yelled, “Welcome to the 2017 Friends of the Devil’s Purse Library Dinner!” Lacey laughed into the crook of her arm at something Jude said before continuing on into the building.

  No sooner was Lacey out of sight than Ophelia Walsh appeared at Maureen’s elbow, dressed in an impeccable sheath dress with a thin silver chain around her neck. “Oh, good, you’re here,” Ophelia said. “I was beginning to worry.”

  Maureen glanced at her watch and willed her left eyebrow not to raise. She was precisely three minutes late. “Yup. Here I am,” she said, hoisting a case of chardonnay (New Zealand, not California, per Ophelia’s instructions) onto her hip.

  “And everything’s in order? Remember, you can only use the kitchen for an hour before the cleaners I hired have to come in and tidy up.” Ophelia followed her into the building empty-handed and watched as Maureen found a folding table not cluttered with brochures and silent auction items, put the wine on the table, and began to drag it toward the side of the room. Every year, she told Ophelia the bar should be there so the line wouldn’t block the entrance. Every year, Ophelia apparently forgot.

  “Yes, everything’s good.” Maureen stood straight, brushing the dust from the underside of the table off onto her slacks. Ophelia eyed the gray streaks it left behind on the black fabric. “Shrimp cocktail and tuna tartare are ready to go. I just have to sear the crab cakes and bake the vegetable flatbreads.”

  As if on cue, Lacey and Jude pushed through the doors carrying plastic fillet tubs glowing pinkly with cooked, peeled, tail-on jumbo shrimp. She’d gently suggeste
d to Ophelia that since she was raising money to support a coastal community, perhaps she should consider serving seafood that could actually be caught off the shores of Devil’s Purse. She’d allowed herself to get carried away and drew up a mock menu of spiny dogfish croquettes, skate wing sliders, and razor clam ceviche. Ophelia had held the menu up a moment before looking at Maureen. “But,” she had said, “our donors really love your shrimp cocktail sauce. They rave about it every year.”

  “Okay, that’s fine. We can stick with the standards.” She’d tucked the menu back into her bag, and Ophelia’s slightly wrinkled forehead had smoothed out again. Nate at the fish market had smirked when she asked him for yet another order of frozen shellfish.

  “Excellent,” Ophelia said now, fluffing up her hair. “Oh, dear, I specifically asked Margaret to put the massage gift certificates on the same table as the Nantucket gift basket. Excuse me, Maureen.” She flitted off.

  Maureen took bar duty that night, leaving Lacey to pass the apps and Jude to plate. She hated working the bar and would’ve preferred to stay in the kitchen out of sight and plating crab cakes, dusty pants and all, but she needed to keep an eye on Lacey, and she wasn’t sure what her daughter would do behind the bar, surrounded by sweating bottles of alcohol. Besides, Lacey was oddly suited for the role of server, with her calm smile and one hand at the small of her back while she waited for guests to finish sucking the meat off toothpicks. When they tucked their dirty napkins onto her tray, she slipped them into her pocket before moving on to the next group. She even knew how to skirt past the cluster of women who gathered near the kitchen doors to descend on each tray as it emerged.

  Maureen scanned the room again. She didn’t recognize anyone. They were all from neighboring beach towns. None of them would’ve heard about Lacey. There would be no roundabout questions about how she was doing or backs turned at the last minute when Lacey approached with her tray.

  When Lacey came home from rehab and Maureen told her she would be working as a server for the foreseeable future, all Maureen had been thinking was that she had to keep Lacey safe and in sight, and she could not afford to give up her business. She hadn’t considered she’d be throwing Lacey to the gossip wolves every time they worked a community event. Lacey always handled the jobs well, making little jokes with the guests and spinning on her toes to serve the next one. The few times Maureen brought it up, Lacey either brushed off her halting apologies or said, “I don’t want to talk about it.” But Maureen could tell it wore on her. There was a new flush in her cheeks tonight when she leaned in, smiling, to tell Jude something on her way out of the kitchen. She was alive among strangers. Among people who knew no better.

  The only person who did seem to know something was Rebecca, one of the librarians who got trotted around to these events as the face of the library. She set her hands on the tabletop while Maureen poured her a glass of sparkling water and asked, “Is Lacey okay?”

  Maureen overpoured the cup, and the seltzer fizzled across her hand. She wiped her palm on a corner of the tablecloth and passed the drink to Rebecca. “Sure,” she said. “She’s fine.”

  Rebecca looked like she was about to say more when Ophelia appeared and grasped her elbow. “Rebecca, dear, a new potential donor just arrived, and I’d love to introduce you to him.”

  Rebecca glanced at Maureen and pulled at the collar of her turtleneck, revealing a flash of gold, the chain of a necklace tastefully concealed beneath its fabric.

  Maureen smiled quickly, releasing Rebecca from their conversation before it could get any more awkward, and turned to the man standing in line behind her.

  “Just a splash of the cab,” he said, winking. He tugged at the knot in his tie as she poured. When she handed it back to him, he said, “You can fill it more than that, honey.”

  She took the half-full glass from him, murmuring an apology, and tipped the bottle back into it.

  Chapter Six

  When Jess Connelly appeared on Diane and John’s front porch that evening, her eyes fixed on the welcome mat and her feet in a puddle, Diane knew just what she was going to say.

  “I’m not sure what happened,” Jess said. “To tell the truth, he took another boat out tonight and had me running his. One minute, he was there on the radio, talking to me, and the next—” She scrubbed at her forehead to hide her tears from her captain’s wife. Later, the men who had been at the docks that night would say when she returned on the Diane & Ella alone and white-faced, they’d never seen her look so shaken.

  Diane, for her part, leaned heavily against the doorway, fingers to her mouth. She heard Jess apologizing in one choked tangle. “It’s all right,” Diane said, though of course it wasn’t. She wanted so desperately for this part to be over. She touched Jess’s trembling shoulder, which seemed to break the spell. Jess met her eyes, nodded once, and left, her boots leaving wet footprints on the stairs that vanished within minutes.

  Diane closed the door. She walked, unseeing, toward their well-worn couch. She pushed aside a pile of Ella’s paperback fantasies and sat. Rested her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees. She would wait until morning to tell Ella, she decided. Let her daughter sleep these last few hours in peace, her yellow hair flung across the pillow, her mouth wide open, her breath milky.

  She went to the microwave and heated up a mug of tea, watching the numbers tick down. When it beeped, it took her a minute to remember to open the door and retrieve her cup. The sides scalded her hands. She sat at the counter. She allowed herself exactly one hour to stare into the cup while its heat dulled to room temperature. And then, she hurled the cup against the wall. She wasn’t strong enough—only the handle broke off. She could see the tea dripping down the wall in a sad, pathetic trickle through the scrim of her tears. How could he be gone? How could he possibly be gone? Her eyes and throat burned.

  She forced herself to think. She wondered if she could crawl into bed with Ella unnoticed. The girl had developed a habit recently of pushing Diane away—sometimes physically—embarrassed of her mother. She was far too young for that, Diane thought. She was only nine. She was far too young for any of this.

  She wondered if this was finally her chance to escape Devil’s Purse and get out of this town that had claimed her husband so fully, right up to the very end. God knew, she did not want their daughter falling in love with a fisherman—or worse, becoming one herself.

  And she wondered, in a small, sure voice that slithered up her spine in the dark house, if Jess was lying. Jess, tagging along with John all those years. Maybe she knew he’d written her into his will. Maybe she knew what would happen if John disappeared. There was an irrational bitterness to this thought, Diane realized. But how else to explain it all? John never would’ve left them like this.

  “Never,” she whispered to herself and knelt to the floor to collect the mug and its handle.

  * * *

  Something was wrong with Lacey. It was the end of the night. The guests had picked up the auction items they’d won and left empty glasses and plastic plates in their places, crowing at each other on their way out the door. Ophelia, having waved off the last of them, sat in the corner in a folding chair and pecked at her phone. Normally, Lacey would be scooting around collecting napkins and wiping tables by now.

  Instead, she stood in the kitchen doorway, bowing her head toward Jude. He held her elbow and whispered something in her ear. Her hand swept up to cover her mouth, then her eyes. Even from the other side of the room, Maureen could tell she was close to tears.

  A dark and vicious part of Maureen that she preferred not to look at head-on hoped it was about Matt. He was just a kid, though, she reminded herself as she crossed the room. A kid whose parents would now be told the worst imaginable news.

  “Lacey,” she said, touching her daughter’s hair when she didn’t look up. “Honey, what is it?”

  Jude slipped away to pack up more pots. He pick
ed up a pair of their big metal tongs and stood still, staring at it with more concentration than was strictly necessary.

  Lacey scrubbed at her eyes and wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. “It’s John Staybrook,” she said. “Ella’s dad.”

  Maureen’s muscles went rigid.

  “Jude just got a text from his cousin. He’s lost at sea.”

  “No,” Maureen said. She braced herself against the doorway. “Oh, shit.”

  * * *

  Their silence on the way home was a different one, more echoey and watery. Maureen drove more deliberately than usual, her foot pressing the brake a full half block before the red lights. Lacey’s hands were still. Maureen wondered if she, too, was remembering the last time she’d talked to John.

  Maureen had been drawing herself a bath to reward her aching muscles for pulling off another wedding season. She only allowed herself these moments when Lacey wasn’t home. She worried a little about what Lacey would say if she found out her mother took bubble baths, like the overworked mom in a scented candle commercial. How odd that she worried about what her daughter thought. After all, she’d cradled Lacey’s tiny, naked body in the kitchen sink in the weeks after she was born and had coached Lacey through her first tampon from the other side of the bathroom door. In less than a week’s time, Lacey would be off to college, and Maureen would be able to sit in the bath until all her fingers pruned. Maureen tried to look forward to it.

  The phone rang. Maureen left the water running to pick it up.

  “Hey, Maureen. It’s John. John Staybrook.”

  “Oh, hi, John! How’s it going?” She perched on the edge of the closed toilet seat and studied her cuticles. She hadn’t seen John in months, not since the last time she picked Lacey up on her way to somewhere else. He was probably calling to ask about Maureen’s plans with Diane. They were meeting up that night to watch a movie.

  “It’s good, it’s good.” He paused. “Um, listen,” he said. “I was just walking across the parking lot at Dunkie’s, and I saw Lacey. She didn’t look so good.”