Emma in the Night

by Wendy Walker

  My mother had been upset when she heard about the necklace being found, so you can imagine her reaction now. She did not want to believe Emma had really been with me on the island. She wanted to believe I was crazy, even though I was the only person in her life who could still tell her she was beautiful and smart and perfect.

  I started to wonder if I was out of my mind. But then, finally, after all these days of waiting, she went out of hers.

  She waited for them to leave, and then she ran upstairs to her bedroom and slammed the door. Mr. Martin told me that she was angry because if this story was true, then Emma was avoiding coming home, and that was very hard for my mother to accept.

  That was all a lie. But I pretended it wasn’t. I pretended to believe him. And I held my breath.

  Dr. Winter

  It was the view from the window that gave Cass away. She had been so careful with her stories, with the details and descriptions. Every emotion, every reaction and interaction that she described was exactly as it would have been if her story had been true.

  But the view from the window—that had been Cass’s only mistake.

  She told them about that first night on the island with precision. The fight over the necklace. Hiding in Emma’s car. The headlights shining on Emma, lighting up her face as she stood in the sand under the moonlight.

  Then the long car ride, the music playing. Parking by a small dock in the woods. Feeling powerful and clean like they could start over. And then Rick, the boatman, and the ride to the island. Lucy being so kind, but keeping her apart from Emma. She said she could see Emma through the window, across the courtyard. The same window Abby had looked out after they’d found the island.

  She described what she saw on Emma’s face: She looked like she knew exactly what she was doing and like she was certain that what she was doing was the best thing anyone could ever do.

  The problem was, Emma’s room was at the end of the second hallway. And all the windows faced east to the ocean. The window that faced the courtyard came from the hallway.

  Cass could not have seen her sister from her bedroom window.

  When Abby told this to Leo, he nodded silently and let her continue.

  “There were other things, little things.” She explained about the counting, how Cass had not been in Emma’s car that night—if she had, she would have counted the time, she would have told them the minutes that passed while she waited. And the same was true of the birth. And the boat ride to meet the truck.

  Then there was the affair between Jonathan Martin and the school counselor. She needed them to help rattle her mother. Because she knew what Abby had realized in that bar as she pictured the layout of the upstairs bedrooms.

  Emma had never been on that island.

  Cass

  Hunter left for Hamilton College in the late summer. He left five weeks before Emma and I disappeared. He’d broken up with that pretty girl and apparently was enjoying his freedom, and the access he now had to women wanting sex. We heard all this through Mr. Martin, who spoke about his son with pride again. This made Mrs. Martin very angry.

  Something had shifted in our mother after the incident in St. Barts with the suntan lotion that one spring over two years before. It wasn’t that she was suddenly attracted to Hunter, but rather that she became attached to the thought of him being attracted to her. This thought must have eased her mind when she felt jealous of Emma for being so beautiful and for just being Emma, the girl every man hungered for. I think her need to think of Hunter this way grew into an unruly monster after Hunter confessed that Mr. Martin had taken those pictures of Emma.

  It was very subtle, but I saw it. I saw everything. When Emma and I came back from Europe that July before we disappeared, me from England and Emma from Paris, Hunter and Mrs. Martin had become very close. They had inside jokes and they watched TV shows together. Mrs. Martin was always waiting on him, getting him food and doing his laundry, and he was thanking her politely and she was saying things like Oh, it’s no trouble! As annoying as this was to watch, and as angry as it made Emma, it was otherwise harmless. It felt like one of those movie relationships where an older grandma blushes when a young man notices her as a sexy woman. People usually think that’s cute, but if the grandmother were Mrs. Martin, they would also find it annoying. Emma talked to me about it one night in my room.

  It’s pathetic, Cass. She can’t even see that he’s just being nice to her to make me angry and to piss off Jonathan. You know she says things to him like “Why can’t you be as nice to me as your own son!” Hunter is an asshole, but he’s a smart asshole. He’s making us hate her and he’s making his father hate her and she can’t even see it! When he leaves and doesn’t give her the time of day anymore, she’ll have nothing.

  Hunter had started college that August, but he came home one weekend in late September. It was starting to get cold; the leaves were beginning to change. I remember it very well because it was the weekend before we disappeared.

  My mother was beside herself to see him, but he was doing what Emma predicted and not giving her any attention. You could see the confusion and disappointment swirling around like a cyclone when it hits the plains and gathers power. Dishes were slammed on the counter. Huffing and puffing came from her mouth. And she sat with her legs crossed and her arms folded so her chin could rest in one palm and she could look away with pouty lips and indifference as he told us all about college.

  On Saturday night, Emma went out in her car to meet her friends at the teen center. Mrs. Martin made her take me with her, which Emma was not happy about. Mr. Martin had gone to play poker at the club. That left Hunter and Mrs. Martin alone downstairs.

  He’d said he had plans to meet friends from high school around ten, so he could stay and help her with the dishes from dinner. Before we left, Hunter whispered to Emma, How many deli managers will you fuck tonight, whore? Emma whispered back, As many as I want, loser. Emma had stopped dating Gil months before, but she would never live it down, how she’d been with the deli manager.

  The teen center was crowded. I found some friends and pretended to enjoy hanging out, talking about our teachers and movies and boys. But my mind was stuck on Hunter and Mrs. Martin. Hunter and Emma. I felt extremely irritated.

  I walked up to Emma and pulled her away from a boy she was flirting with. I told her she needed to take me home or I would make our mother come, and then she would be in big trouble for causing such an inconvenience. She was furious, but I think she secretly wanted to go home to see Hunter, to see if he really went out to meet friends or if she could engage in more warfare with him, even if it was just pulling his attention further away from Mrs. Martin.

  We did not go inside the house. We were done screaming at each other and we both needed to calm down. Emma said she was going to the basement from the back door because that was where we hid our vodka and cigarettes. Emma was hoping Hunter had also left some pot there. The light was on in the kitchen, so we stopped before we got to the window. Emma peeked her head around just enough to see. I did the same from beneath her. If Mrs. Martin was in there, we would crawl past the window.

  Dr. Winter

  They left the Martins in a state of disbelief. Judy had come to trust Abby, which had been Abby’s plan. She had been kind to her, flattering to her. It was not hard to earn her trust this way. Abby knew what to do and what to say. And so Judy believed her. She had no reason not to.

  She had tried to feign elation that her daughter had been found, but she was not able to pull it off with conviction. They could hear the commotion from outside the house as they walked to Abby’s car. Judy yelling at her husband. A door slamming.

  They stood by the car, looking up at the master bedroom. The shades were drawn.

  “Here we go,” Leo said.

  Abby was light-headed. Her breaths were quick and short. She leaned against the door and hung her head.

  “Hey”—Leo’s voice was concerned now—“it’s going to be okay.”

/>   Abby looked up again, exhaling slowly as the wave of panic subsided. “What if I’m wrong?” she asked.

  Leo shrugged; then he smiled. “What if you’re not?”

  Cass

  Emma and I looked in that kitchen window at the same time. And we saw the things we saw at the same time. Mrs. Martin leaned over the counter, her pants around her ankles. Hunter having sex with her from behind, his hands on her bare hips. It was indescribable, the horror we both felt, and yet we could not stop watching. Our mother was holding on to the edge of the counter with both hands. Her mouth was making a narrow, closed smile like a Cheshire cat as her body thrust back and forth into Hunter. Her eyes were wide open and staring right at us, though seeing only the darkness of night reflected from the window. As for our stepbrother, his eyes were closed. His mouth was gaping wide. He looked satisfied with himself, and I understood why he’d come home. Why he’d been treating our mother with the one thing she couldn’t stand. Indifference. He knew she would do whatever was necessary to get back the attention she had become so addicted to over the summer.

  And once she did what was necessary, he would have something that would kill my sister inside—he would have Emma’s kryptonite in his arsenal.

  We sat on the ground when we couldn’t watch anymore. I stared at Emma’s face, not sure what she was going to do. Cry, laugh, scream. She just sat there staring into the darkness and shaking her head. Then she took my hand and pulled me toward the basement door so we could drink and smoke and try to erase what we had just seen.

  Dr. Winter

  They waited in Abby’s car down the street from the top of the driveway, toward the end of the cul-de-sac, which had no outlet. A row of wild shrubs protruding from the woods hid the car from view.

  They had supplies—sandwiches, chips, coffee. They were prepared to wait out the night, and the next night and the next.

  Talk of the investigation got them through the first few hours. The blood found on the dock and the bow of the boat matched that of Richard Foley. Agents were interviewing employees at the major train and bus stations, and a plea had been made to the public to help find the missing couple, Emma Tanner and her daughter.

  After that, the silence set in. There were many things Abby wanted to say, things about the past, her rush to judgment, how she’d shut out Leo and his family, who had been so good to her. It made sense in her heart, but when the words began to form in her head—words that could explain what she had felt when he hadn’t backed her up before, and what she felt now as he put his own career on the line for this crazy hunch—they sounded absurd and she could not bring herself to say them.

  And so they sat in the darkness. Watching. Waiting.

  Cass

  On the night they told us Emma had been found, my mother finally lost control of herself. It had been building the whole time I had been home.

  Emma would have been proud of me.

  When Emma came to me in the night, she would tell me about the future. One day when we’re older, we will tell her the truth. We will tell her that she’s not that pretty and that she’s not that smart, and that she is not a good mother. We will tell her that she’s old and ugly and stupid and horrible and mean. And she will not believe us at first, but our words will eat at her like acid until there is nothing left.

  When she said these things, I could feel her heart pounding so fast against me and I could feel the heat of her breath like it was coming from a fire. I could feel her scream in the night when she came to my room. And then I would feel my own heart break because nothing I could do or say could ever make it better.

  On this night when my mother broke apart, I heard her and Mr. Martin fighting again. I could not make out their words except for fucking idiot! Mr. Martin yelled that a few times before their voices grew hushed, and then finally stopped. I peeked my head out and saw them as they disappeared into the mudroom, Mr. Martin pulling my mother by the elbow.

  When I heard the garage door open, I ran down to the mudroom and found my mother’s keys hanging on the rack. I waited for Mr. Martin’s car to disappear down the driveway and then I took her car and followed them. I kept the lights off until we were on North Ave. Then I just stayed far enough behind so they wouldn’t notice me, although I don’t think they would have noticed an alien spaceship hovering over them that night. They were lost in their anger. Lost in their fear. Lost in the past.

  Dr. Winter

  “Here we go,” Leo said quietly when they saw the car pull out of the driveway. Abby started the engine and began to pull away from the brush, but then they saw the second car.

  “Cass?” she said.

  Leo was watching the cars begin to disappear down the road in front of them. “Just go.”

  Cass

  They parked at the river gorge and got out of the car. Mr. Martin was carrying a shovel in one hand and dragging my mother by the arm with the other hand. She was screaming, I don’t believe you! You’re lying to me! You’ve been lying all this time! And he was seething with anger. You’ll ruin us both! You fucking idiot!

  I parked down the street and then had to run to catch them. But then when I hit the woods where there was no trail, I had to stop because my feet were making the ground crackle. I walked a few yards, then hid behind a tree, listening for the sound of their voices and my mother sobbing. They were not being careful about the crackling, so it was not hard to follow them.

  The river gorge is a seventy-acre park belonging to the neighboring town. It has a lot of wetlands and walking trails. Our father used to drag us there when we were young because he thought we should be in nature. But we hated the bugs and the soft ground that sucked in our sneakers and covered them in mud. We hadn’t been there since we were little girls.

  When Mr. and Mrs. Martin stopped, I stopped also and crouched behind some prickly bushes. They were whispering now and Mr. Martin was digging with his shovel in the soft ground near the wetlands. Mrs. Martin was crying even harder.

  That’s when I felt the hand cover my mouth and pull me to the ground. I thought then that this was how I would die, that somehow Mrs. Martin was not standing in the distance with Mr. Martin, or maybe Richard Foley wasn’t really dead, and instead he was here and he was going to kill me for doing this. I thought, So … this is how it ends.

  The night Emma and I disappeared was just over one week after Mrs. Martin had sex with Hunter. Hunter had gone back to Hamilton, all puffed up by his victory over all of us, but especially over Emma. He didn’t even know that we knew, but inside he had the kryptonite and I could see that he would get great pleasure plotting out how and when he would use it on my sister.

  Emma came to my room after dinner. She had not been able to calm down since that night. Not the vodka or the cigarettes or even the pot she stole from Hunter’s stash had helped her. She was losing her mind.

  I’m gonna tell her tonight. I’m gonna tell her what we saw.

  I begged her, No! I told her that we could use the information in a better way to get something, like maybe being able to live with our father finally. But Emma didn’t want to live with our father. She had become just as addicted to the war with Hunter and the competition with Mrs. Martin as they were addicted to their wars and their jealousies.

  Tell her something else, Emma. Tell her you’re pregnant! Tell her it’s Hunter’s baby!

  Emma shrieked. You’re a genius, Cass! Oh my God! This will kill her. It will actually make her die inside! She left my room laughing even though she was not happy. I did not follow her. I went to the edge of my room, right by the door. A few moments later, I heard the murmur of talking from down the hall, inside Mrs. Martin’s bedroom. The talking began to escalate until it turned to yelling. It was then I could hear the words.

  You’re going to ruin this family! You stupid whore!

  Me? What about you? You were fucking Jonathan while you were still married to Daddy! You brought them into our house, and now look what they’ve done!

  Look what
you’ve done, Emma! YOU!

  Lights came down the driveway and shone into the window from the upstairs balcony. Mr. Martin was home. The screaming stopped for a second, so I peeked out from behind the door. The light had shone into Mrs. Martin’s room as well—I could see it lighting up Mrs. Martin’s angry face. Emma ran out but Mrs. Martin grabbed her by the hair and she screamed again, first from pain and then from rage.

  Get off me, you bitch! I’m telling him! I’m telling him! I’m telling him what his son did to me, how he raped me and got me pregnant!

  Mrs. Martin pulled harder. Emma swung out her arm like she was about to slap her face, but her hand caught the edge of a framed portrait hanging on the wall and it crashed to the ground. Mrs. Martin grabbed both her arms before she could try again. Emma squirmed and spun her around, and they both fell against the railing of the balcony, Emma’s back to the railing and Mrs. Martin’s body pushing against her from the momentum of their struggle. Emma screamed one last time as she felt herself hovering over the top of the railing. I know what that feels like, when you are about to fall unexpectedly, when your body sends you an alarm to grab hold of something or adjust your feet or brace yourself with an open palm. Her back arched. Her arms reached out for our mother. But Mrs. Martin swatted her away like a pesky fly and then stepped back so she had nothing to hold on to. Nothing to save her.