She's Not There

by Joy Fielding

  He waited, said nothing.

  “I’m not sure I know where to start.”

  Again he waited, his silence urging her to continue.

  “My last name isn’t Tillman,” she admitted. “It’s Shipley.”

  “Caroline Shipley,” he said, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Should I know that name? Are you famous?”

  “More like infamous.”

  “Caroline Shipley,” he repeated, eyes narrowing, then opening wide with recognition. “Oh, my God. The woman whose daughter disappeared…”

  “Yes—‘oh, my God’—that’s my middle name.” She waited for him to pull away in horror, but instead he gathered her even closer into his comforting embrace.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, clinging to him.

  “For what?”

  “For not being repulsed by me.”

  “Why on earth would I be repulsed? I lost a child of my own, remember? I can only imagine what you went through. What you’re going through…”

  She was crying in earnest now. “It’ll be ten years next week. I can’t believe it. Ten years.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head, not because she didn’t want to talk about it but because she was afraid that if she started talking, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  “I remember how guilty I felt after Jenny and Lara died,” he was saying, speaking more to himself than to her. “Survivor’s guilt, I think they call it. I kept thinking that if only I’d been there, if I’d driven Lara to school that day, if I’d been walking beside them, I could have saved them. Or maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. They’d still be alive.”

  “Or you might have been killed, too.”

  “I didn’t care. I wanted to die. I’m sure you felt the same. You blame yourself, you think it was your fault…”

  “It was my fault,” Caroline said, encouraged by his openness, his understanding of her pain. “Everything, my fault.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “I left my children alone in a hotel room. So I could have dinner with friends.” The words began spilling from her mouth, as she’d known they would, a decade’s worth of suppressed guilt and rage. She told him everything, embellishing facts already known, sharing the feelings of shame and despair she’d kept bottled up inside for ten years. She talked about her treatment by the Mexican police, their suspicions that she and Hunter were responsible for whatever had happened to Samantha. She took the blame for the deterioration of her marriage, for her strained relationship with Michelle. “They tell you it gets easier with time,” she said. “But it doesn’t. If anything, the opposite is true. It gets worse. Life just keeps piling on more and more for you to feel guilty about.”

  “Like what?”

  That was when she told him about Errol, the boy in her class who’d committed suicide, and how her school principal had subsequently asked her to resign.

  “He had no right to do that.”

  “I knew something was wrong, you know. With Errol. I could see it in his eyes. I tried to talk to him, get him to open up. I think he was on the verge, but then I looked up at the clock. Michelle had a dentist appointment and I knew how upset she’d be if I was late. And he noticed. He was such a sensitive boy. He clammed right up, insisted he was fine, told me he’d see me the next day. So I let him go. I went to pick up Michelle. And he went home and hanged himself.”

  “You had no way of knowing what he’d do.”

  “I knew he was vulnerable. Errol’s dead because of me, because I wasn’t there for him. Just like Samantha is gone because I wasn’t there for her. I’m the common denominator in this equation. It’s all my fault. Everything, my fault.”

  He shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what? You have nothing to be sorry about. Not where I’m concerned anyway.”

  He kissed the top of her head, burying his face in her hair. Neither of them said another word until Caroline reluctantly announced it was time for her to go home. Michelle would be waiting and there was school the next morning.

  “Will I hear from you again?” she asked as she was leaving his apartment.

  “Count on it,” he said.

  —

  “I’m such an idiot,” she said to Peggy, her fingernails scratching at Arthur’s byline. Except his name wasn’t Arthur. It was Aidan. A much trendier name. She almost laughed.

  They were sitting at the kitchen table. Peggy had made a pot of coffee and taken the phone off the hook.

  “You couldn’t know.”

  “I should have been suspicious. It’s so obvious, thinking back.”

  “How is it obvious?”

  “The way we met, for starters. One of those ‘meet cute’ situations you only see in the movies. He probably engineered the whole thing, counted on his charm to win me over.”

  “He couldn’t have known it would work.”

  “Why not? It’s probably worked before. I’m sure I wasn’t his first target.” Caroline shook her head, remembering. “If it hadn’t, I’m sure he would have tried something else later. Lucky for him, I was so easy. I should have known,” she said again. “The way he quoted Keats. What banking consultant does that? What banking consultant says things like ‘Mexico on my doorstep’ and ‘a temperature that rarely strays ten degrees from moderate’? He probably got that out of some travel brochure. And what the hell’s a banking consultant anyway? Does such a job even exist?” She jumped to her feet. “He said he had a wife and daughter who’d been killed by a drunk driver. Did he make that up? Did he actually invent a dead child in order to worm his way into my confidence? Was it all a ploy to get me to confide in him by pretending to confide in me?”

  Peggy shook her head. “I guess we’ll never know.”

  “He played me. Oh, how he played me. Played on my emotions, my sympathy. Not to mention he flattered me, told me I was mysterious, that I had deep thoughts.”

  “You are mysterious. You do have deep thoughts.”

  “Are you planning to write a story about me, too?” Caroline asked.

  “And a sense of humor,” Peggy added, reaching for her friend’s hand.

  “How could he betray me like this?”

  “He’s a reporter. It’s what they do.”

  “Do they all sleep with their subjects for a story?”

  “Interesting that he fails to mention that. And at the risk of sounding prurient, was he any good?”

  “He was great,” Caroline confirmed. “More’s the pity.” She poured herself another cup of coffee and returned to her chair. “What’s it saying online?”

  “More of the same. Lots more of the same. Don’t read it.”

  “Why not? Everyone else will.”

  They heard Michelle’s footsteps descending the stairs. In the next second, she was standing in the doorway, still dressed in her flannel pajamas. “I thought I heard voices,” she said, staring at Peggy. “You’re here awfully early. Is something wrong? Why is the phone off the hook?” She replaced the receiver. Immediately, the phone started ringing. “Are you kidding me? What’s going on?” Her eyes landed on the morning paper spread out across the kitchen table. “Is that a picture of you?” she asked her mother, dragging the paper toward her. “Shit. What is this?”

  Caroline walked to the phone and picked it up. It was her mother. “What have you done?” Mary demanded.

  “Are you out of your mind?” her brother shouted over the extension. “You spilled your guts to a reporter?”

  Their call was followed by an even angrier one from Hunter. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  There came in quick succession at least a dozen calls from various magazines and newspapers across the country; a request from the producers of 60 Minutes for a televised interview; an appeal from Howard Stern for her to be on his popular radio show. Both Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer were seeking a one-on-one; Oprah was eager to talk, as was Katie Couric and someone with the unlikely nam
e of Maury Povich. She hung up on all of them. “Who the hell is Maury Povich?” she asked Peggy. Then, to Michelle: “You should get dressed. You don’t want to be late for school.”

  “Yeah, sure. Like I’m going anywhere near school today.”

  “Michelle…”

  “Sorry, Mommy dearest. Am I being ‘difficult’?”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” Caroline said. “I should never have said those things.”

  “Why shouldn’t you? That’s what you believe, isn’t it? That I’m a pain, a blight on your existence…”

  “I never said that.”

  “You might as well have. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter. I love you, sweetheart. You know that.”

  “Yeah, right,” Michelle said. “Anyway, I’m not going to school today. Think I’ll go over to Grandma Mary’s. She’s always happy to see me.”

  “Michelle, please…,” Caroline began as her daughter marched out of the room.

  The phone rang again. This time it was the school where Caroline worked, informing her that they thought it best she take a few days off, that her classes would be handed over to a substitute teacher, and that the principal would like to meet with her sometime later in the week.

  “I’m going to lose my job,” she said, hanging up the phone.

  “They can’t just fire you,” Peggy said.

  “They can. But they won’t have to. I’ll go quietly.”

  “No. You can’t give up without a fight.”

  “I have no fight left,” Caroline said.

  Peggy scrunched the front page of the paper into a tight ball and flung it to the floor. “That bastard. Are you going to sue?”

  “On what grounds? Those are pretty direct quotes. I’m sure he has it all on tape.” She winced at the thought of her every word, every sigh, every groan being secretly recorded.

  “Son of a bitch. Don’t you want to call and confront him?”

  “I think I’ve said quite enough.”

  “At the very least, you could tell him to fuck off.”

  “And read about it in tomorrow morning’s paper?”

  “It might be worth it.”

  The phone rang. Without a word, Caroline reached over and ripped the phone wire from the wall.

  Whatever Caroline had been expecting, it wasn’t this.

  For fifteen years, she’d been fantasizing about what it would be like to see Samantha again, and how their reunion would play out. In the beginning, she’d imagined the two-year-old, all jowly cheeks and jiggling thighs, running toward her with abandon, her arms stretched out in front of her, joyous cries of “Mommy” rushing from her bow-shaped lips as she flung herself into her mother’s desperate embrace. As the years slipped by, the fat cheeks and plump little torso had thinned and elongated, so that by the time she turned ten, the Samantha of Caroline’s imagination had morphed into a living, breathing Disney princess, all blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, but still with the face she’d possessed as a toddler, a face Caroline knew she would recognize instantly. And after shyly assessing each other from a distance, Samantha would smile and throw herself into Caroline’s arms, permitting her mother’s fervent kisses and returning them with her own.

  The teenage years had proved more difficult to imagine. It grew harder to imagine or predict the changes puberty would bring. Would Samantha be short or tall, fat or thin, small-breasted or voluptuous? Would her hair be brown or gold, long or short? There were the sketches in the newspapers, of course, updated approximations from the experts, based on such tangibles as bone structure and shape of the eyes. But what about the intangibles, the things that couldn’t be measured? Caroline had always hated intangibles.

  Look at Michelle. She’d changed so much over the years. The once plump little girl who adored all things sweet had grown into a slender young woman for whom sugar was the dietary equivalent of a four-letter word. There was little to connect the person she was today to yesterday’s child. Only her eyes had remained constant: demanding, angry, needy. Look at me, those eyes shouted across the years. Look at me.

  But one thing Caroline was certain of: no matter what changes time had wrought over the last fifteen years, she would recognize Samantha on sight. And Samantha would know her. Mother and child would collapse, sobbing, into each other’s arms. One look and all the years would instantly melt away.

  None of which happened.

  “There’s someone named Lili here to see you,” her brother said. “She says you’ve been expecting her.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Michelle exclaimed as Caroline ran from the room.

  And now here they stood, staring at each other from opposite sides of the front door, and there were no lightning bolts of recognition, no cries of “Mommy!”, no joyous embrace. Just two strangers sizing each other up, trying to find hints of themselves in each other, to uncover lost or forgotten memories. But instead of answers and certainty, there were only questions and more uncertainty.

  “Caroline?” the girl asked.

  Caroline nodded, feeling the others crowd in behind her, four pairs of eyes bearing down on one young girl, trying to determine if she was one of their own.

  The girl was tall and slim, although it was hard to tell how slim because of the oversized winter coat she was wearing. Her hair was dark blond, its ends dyed the same shade of navy blue as her eyes, its loose curls stopping just short of her shoulders. She wore no makeup and her skin was as pale and opaque as the sky of a Calgary winter. A pretty girl on the verge of being beautiful, as Caroline had been at that age. And she had Hunter’s jaw, as the sketches in the papers and on the Internet had suggested. In fact, she looked more like the artists’ renderings than she did either Hunter or Caroline. And she didn’t resemble Michelle at all. There was nothing about either girl’s face that suggested they were even vaguely related, let alone sisters.

  “You’re Lili,” Caroline stated, her voice stronger than she’d anticipated.

  “I probably should have called first.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “I was afraid to, in case I chickened out again.”

  “You’re here. That’s what’s important. Come in.” Caroline backed up to allow Lili entry, stepping on Michelle’s toes as she did so, hearing Michelle curse underneath her breath. “Maybe you could give us a few minutes alone,” she suggested to her daughter, mother, and brother.

  “Not a chance,” Michelle said, speaking for the three of them.

  Caroline ushered the girl into her living room, resigned to their presence. Maybe having them around was a good thing. Maybe it would force her to be more objective, less emotional, not allow her desire for a happy ending to overtake her common sense.

  “Let me have your coat,” Steve offered. “Don’t think you’ll be needing that in here.” Lili unbuttoned her coat and slipped it off her shoulders, handing it to Steve. “I’m Caroline’s brother, by the way,” he said, draping the heavy coat over the banister and taking the small overnight bag from her hand before following the rest of the group into the living room. “And this is Caroline’s mother, Mary, and her daughter, Michelle.”

  Lili nodded hello to each of them as they arranged themselves in a loose pentagon around the coffee table, Mary and Steve occupying the two chairs, Lili and Caroline sitting side by side on the sofa, Michelle standing off to one side, leaning against a wall, hands across her chest, studying Lili as if she were an alien being.

  Caroline was also staring at Lili, trying to uncover the one genetic detail that might prove whether or not this was her child. But there was nothing she could point to conclusively. She looked for a gesture, a nervous tic, a common family mannerism, but there was nothing. Just a pretty girl with Hunter’s jaw. Was that enough?

  “Did you have a good flight?” Caroline asked her.

  “It was okay. A little turbulent.” Her voice was deeper than it had been over the phone, closer in tone to her own. Did that mean anythin
g?

  “Are you hungry? Can I get you something to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry. Thank you.”

  For several seconds, nobody spoke.

  “So,” Steve said, breaking the silence, “you really think you’re Caroline’s long-lost child?”

  Caroline held her breath, waiting for Lili’s answer.

  “I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think there was a chance.”

  “And now that you are here?” he pressed. “Do you like what you see?” He motioned around the well-appointed room.

  “Steve, please…”

  “I don’t want your things,” Lili said.

  “She hasn’t asked for anything,” Caroline told her brother.

  “Not yet,” Steve said.

  “How did you pay for your plane ticket?” Michelle asked. “I thought you didn’t have any money.”

  Lili glanced down at her lap. “I charged it to my mother’s credit card.”

  “Lucky girl, having so many mothers to choose from,” Michelle said.

  “Does she know you’re here?” Caroline asked.

  “I left her a note saying I’d be gone for a few days, telling her not to worry.”

  “She’ll be going out of her mind,” Caroline told her, reliving her own panic when she realized her daughter was missing. “You should call her.”

  “I will. Later. After we know for sure.”

  “And when will that be?” Steve asked.

  “When they get the results back from the DNA test they’re planning to take,” Michelle said, pushing herself away from the wall and heading for the hallway. “If you’ll excuse me a minute.”

  “Where are you going?” Caroline asked, but Michelle didn’t answer.

  “How do you go about taking a DNA test?”

  “I’m not sure,” Caroline said. “I’ll ask Peggy. She’ll know.”

  “Peggy?” Lili asked.

  “Friend of Caroline’s,” Steve answered. “She was there the night my niece disappeared. Tell me. Do you remember anything about that night at all?”

  Lili shook her head.

  “She was two years old,” Caroline reminded him.

  “I wish I could remember something,” Lili said. “I’ve tried. But I can’t. The first thing I remember is playing with one of my dolls and one of its legs breaking off. I was probably three or four.”