The Girl at the Border

by Leslie Archer

  But then Bella had gone missing, her mother had committed suicide, and forty-eight hours later Richard had been killed in a hit-and-run. In scanning the news on the new iPhone Gael had gifted her with, she’d found nothing to indicate Bella had been found or that the authorities had made any progress at all in finding her. Laurel didn’t have to have seen a bunch of TV shows to know that the first twenty-four hours following an abduction were the most critical. After that, the chances of the abductee being found alive plummeted like a lemming off a cliff. Had the incident even been classified as an abduction? The Dearborn press was silent on that point as well. And yet she clung to her dream, clung to the belief that Bella was still alive. The most likely explanation, then, for Bella’s disappearance was that she had run away from an awful homelife. She wouldn’t be the first, and she surely wouldn’t be the last.

  Laurel fell back into a restless sleep, into a shadowland of her own design. She was heading down a winding road, like Dorothy in Oz. Rising at intervals on either side of the road were totems of her mother, her father, Orfeo, Richard, Dey—dead, and yet somehow, in the peculiar symbology of dreams, alive again—and at the far end, toward which she was heading, Bella. Not a totem, a flesh-and-blood person. As was the nature of dreams, she knew it was Bella, though it looked nothing like the real Bella she’d seen on Richard’s cell phone. And as darkness began to gather at her back, she broke into a run, flying at Bella, who, no matter how fast Laurel sprinted, never seemed to come any closer.

  She woke to the smell of a pastrami sandwich and sour pickles.

  “Are you all right?”

  She turned to see the heavyset man looking at her. His tray table was down, and he had a pastrami sandwich and several pickles set out on deli paper.

  “Your hands were twitching.”

  “What?”

  “Just before you woke up,” the heavyset man said. “Your hands were twitching.”

  “I’m a restless sleeper.”

  “Uh-huh.” He took a bite of his sandwich, half of which he held in his left hand.

  “I haven’t smelled pastrami or sour pickles in a long time,” she said.

  “Here.” He lifted the other half of his sandwich in its paper.

  “Thanks, but I couldn’t.”

  He frowned. “Vegan?”

  She laughed. “No, just—”

  “Then come on.” Reaching across the aisle, he held it out, smiling. “I hate eating alone.”

  She ducked her head, returned his smile. “Thanks.” She took the sandwich, which felt as heavy as an Etruscan idol. “I appreciate it.”

  “Don’t I know it. The food on this train sucks.”

  “You ride it a lot?”

  “Shuttle back and forth three times a week, believe it or not. In that same vein, I’m a Fuller Brush salesman.”

  “Really?” Laurel was salivating even before she took the first taste. But as she ran her tongue around the prosthetic giving her a false overbite, she wondered whether chewing would dislodge it. “I thought they were extinct.”

  He laughed. “Everyone does.” He chomped on a pickle. “But look at me: one foot’s already in the tar pits.”

  She laughed too.

  “My name’s Jimmy,” he said. “I’d shake hands, but, you know, the grease.”

  “S’okay. I’m Jennifer. Jenn.”

  “Right, Jennifer-Jenn. Take a bite of your pastrami on rye. You look famished.”

  She laughed again. “You have a good sense of humor for a salesman.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “I don’t know whether to be pleased or pissed.”

  “Oh, pleased, I hope.”

  He nodded. “Pleased it is, then. Can’t say no to a pretty girl.” He frowned. “Or is that sexual harassment or something? I can never tell these days.”

  Laurel giggled. “I’ll let it go this time.”

  “Much obliged, ma’am,” he said in a mock cowboy accent that made her stomach lurch, the little girl in her crying out silently.

  She lapsed into silence, and Jimmy followed her lead. She chewed slowly and carefully, savoring the flavors, but all the while she could not dislodge the image of Bella—a lost little girl, just like she herself had been—from her mind. There’d been no one to help her when she’d been Bella’s age, unless you counted Orfeo, and she didn’t. Couldn’t forget. Couldn’t forgive. Who did Bella have? Both her father and mother dead. Who would stand for Bella Mathis?

  She declined Jimmy’s offer of a pickle. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said genially. They finished their food. Laurel thought that she had never had anything as good in her life.

  Within the hour, they pulled into Chicago’s Union Station, where she was to change to the Dearborn train. Jimmy helped her down with her suitcase.

  “Well, I’m off to Dearborn,” he said cheerfully. “Is this you here?”

  “No, I’m going to Dearborn myself.”

  “Look at that,” he said. “What are the odds.” And laughed.

  Together, they stepped out onto the platform with the other transferring passengers. They spent the next few hours at a restaurant that had passable food. A half hour later, she couldn’t have told you what she’d eaten. The 352 Wolverine to Dearborn was late, not due to arrive for another six minutes. The passengers milled around, sat on benches or on their hard-shelled suitcases. Somewhere music was playing, possibly from a radio, John Coltrane, playing “Naima,” adding to a sense of quiet desolation at this lunch hour when everyone should have been brown-bagging at their desk or sitting down at a restaurant, but some instead were traveling across the country, heading home or to a new place to play music, find a job, settle down. The long cross-country journey was very much in force.

  A disturbance caused heads to turn: a high-pitched scream, followed by the sound of running feet as a twiggy teenager, gripping a woman’s snatched handbag as a receiver clutches a football, burst through the ragged ranks of people who were half-asleep and too dazed to react. But Jimmy did. He whirled in the kid’s direction and, at the last possible instant, stiff-armed him. The kid slammed to the platform, and Jimmy trod on his belly, knocking all the wind out of him. As delicately as a surgeon reaching into a newly opened cavity, he relieved the kid of the purse and handed it back to the winded woman, who thanked him profusely.

  Applause all around as the passengers finally realized what had happened. At that moment, the train to Dearborn pulled into the station, and everyone gathered their belongings. No one paid any attention to either the woman or the kid, flat on his back. The show was over; time to get a move on.

  The train rolled to a stop, the doors sighed open, and the passengers climbed aboard. Jimmy took a step toward the open door before he realized Helene Messer hadn’t moved, hadn’t even picked up her suitcase. He bent, did it for her, said, “Come on. You don’t want to miss your train.”

  Laurel snatched her suitcase out of his hand. “I think I do,” she said.

  He regarded her quizzically, then followed the direction of her gaze. As he’d spun to stop the young thief, the right flap of his trench coat had caught on the butt of his holstered .38.

  “Ah,” he said.

  Laurel moved away, but with lightning speed he grabbed her wrist, drew her back to him. “We’re going to Dearborn together.”

  “You’re not a Fuller Brush salesman.”

  “That would be self-evident.”

  “Who are you?” Starting to shake. What would Richard do in this situation?

  Jimmy Self sighed. “Unlike you, Helene, I didn’t lie about my name.”

  She started; dear God, her worst nightmare had come to life. She stood, paralyzed, staring at him.

  The whistle blew, and he pulled her onto the train. He was not only quicker than he looked—he was stronger. “My name is Jimmy. Jimmy Self.” The doors closed behind them. “Whoever you used did a bang-up job.” They remained alone in the entrance well as the train rolled, began to pick up speed. “But I know pretty m
uch all the tricks of the trade.” He laughed. “How’d you like chewing with that thing in your mouth?” Abashed, Laurel removed the prosthesis. “That’s better.” He nodded. They braced themselves in a wide-legged stance. “Four years ago Byron Dey hired me to find you.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “And now, finally, I have.”

  Her worst nightmare made real. Laurel closed her eyes, her lower lip trembling. Here it is, she thought. The end come so soon.

  Then she vomited all over Jimmy Self’s shoes.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Richard, returning from overseas, used his layover in New York to buy Maggie a diamond necklace from Tiffany’s. Today was two days from her due date. Armed with the long pale-blue box with its blue satin ribbon, he boarded his flight and, four hours later, was pulling up outside his house. Twilight had settled over the city. The streetlights shone, small beacons among the indigo. Far away to the west thunder rumbled, sounding like a giant clearing his throat.

  As he was lifting his bags out of the back seat, he spied Elin heading his way. It was two years to the day before 9/11. Elin was eleven years old, and she looked very pretty in her jeans, long-sleeve shirt, and neat hijab. She was carrying a rectangular Pyrex dish covered with aluminum foil.

  “Hi, Dr. Mathis!” she called cheerfully.

  “Hello, Elin.” He swung his bags onto the sidewalk. “How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you.” Always so polite, always smiling, always friendly, just like the rest of her family.

  “How are the boys?”

  “Growing.”

  “Aren’t we all?” he said with a grimace. “Except I’m growing older.”

  She laughed, accompanied him up the steps to the front door. He noticed the lawn needed weeding. “What have you got there?” he asked, happy to set his bag down at home base. He’d been away a long time. He had the dust of history under his fingernails and in every crevice of his body. It would take three or four good scrubbings to come fully clean.

  Balancing the dish on one spread-fingered hand, Elin peeled back a corner of the foil. “Baklava, Dr. Mathis. Umm made it especially for Mrs. Mathis.”

  “Wasn’t that thoughtful of her,” Richard said. “Please thank her for both of us.” He took possession of the baklava and eyed her. “And you know, Elin, you’re always welcome in this house.”

  Elin’s cheeks went pink. “Thank you, Dr. Mathis.”

  “I wish you’d call me Richard.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t think Umm would like that.”

  He bent over and, with a conspiratorial wink, said, “It’ll be our little secret then.” He smiled, saw that Elin was eyeing the baklava. “Go on. Take a piece.” He winked again. “If Maggie asks, I’ll tell her I couldn’t resist a square on my way in.”

  Elin reached out—clearly wanting a piece, it seemed to him—but then something changed her mind, and her hand retreated. “No,” she said. “It’s yours, not mine.” Then without another word, she whirled. “Wish Mrs. Mathis an easy birth from me, from the whole family.”

  “I will. Bye.”

  “Bye.” She went down the steps, turned, and headed home.

  Richard slipped his key into the lock. He had seen Maggie’s car outside, so he knew she was home. Stowing his luggage in the hallway, he called out as he went through the ground floor. He expected her to be in the kitchen, sipping a cup of her favorite chamomile tea, but it was deserted. All the ground floor rooms stood silent and empty.

  Setting the baklava on the kitchen counter, he went back into the hallway, called her name again as he climbed the stairs to the second floor, clutching the Tiffany box. Upon reaching the landing, he heard a muffled rhythmic sound and wondered if one of his neighbors were using an air compressor.

  In the bedroom, the sound was louder, sharper, and he grew alarmed.

  “Maggie?”

  He found her in the bathroom, sitting on the porcelain lip of the tub. She was hitting her head against the wall.

  He rushed to her. “My God!” Pulled her into his arms. “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t take it!” she cried, so thoroughly distraught she didn’t in any way acknowledge his presence. “Twins, Richard. It’s too much!” The last word was a kind of cry that pierced to the core of him. She looked up at him, her eyes enlarged by tears.

  “Maggie, this was the greatest news! I thought you agreed.”

  She gave him a look so venomous he recoiled.

  “You didn’t?”

  Maggie shook her head; bitter tears flung from her eyes. “Richard, you bastard, you talked me into this. I didn’t want to have one child, let alone two!”

  “But that’s a good thing—a great thing.” Stroking her damp, matted hair. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t understand.” She was near hysteria now. “You aren’t listening to me—you never have. Why? Are you deaf when it comes to me? I didn’t want one—now I’m going to have two!”

  Richard smiled encouragingly. She was right. Caught up in the excitement of imminent immortality, he hadn’t heard her, and now he reacted to her hysteria as if she were a child afraid of the dark. “It’s going to be all right, Maggie. Better than all right—it’s going to be fantastic! A whole new chapter of your life is about to unfold.”

  He kept stroking her hair, keeping it away from the egg-shaped bruise in the middle of her forehead, like a closed third eye. “It’s a new adventure, one we’ve been looking forward to for nine months!”

  She stared at him as if she had never seen him before. “How can you say that?”

  “Because, my darling, it’s the truth. You’ll see it soon enough.”

  Maggie threw her head back and began to howl. And at that precise moment, her water broke.

  “You have a healthy baby girl,” the doctor said, straight out of the wide doors that led to the surgical wing.

  “Then why did you have to take my wife into surgery?” Richard had been pacing back and forth the last seventy minutes, since a pair of nurses had rushed Maggie past him on a gurney. “Is she okay?”

  “Maggie’s fine,” the doctor assured him. He was an older man, an Indian, with very dark skin and a lilt to his English, as if he were singing rather than speaking. “She’s sedated at the moment. She—and we—had some difficult moments. She lost a lot of blood. But not to worry.”

  “Wait. You said a healthy baby girl. We’re having twins.” A coating of frost was forming in his lower belly, contracting everything around it, as if trying to protect him. “What about the second baby?”

  “Ah, that is where the difficulties arose.” The doctor gestured. “Why don’t we sit down?”

  “I don’t want to sit down.” Richard’s nerves had been frayed far enough. His heart beat like a trip-hammer; there was a reddish pulsing behind his eyes. He could scarcely draw breath. “What’s happened? Please tell me, Doctor.”

  “It’s like this. There were two fetuses, as the ultrasound showed.” Richard had been away for that; Maggie hadn’t told him then. “The child that was born, she was turned so that her elbow pressed against her twin’s chest. We tried to save the twin. Her heart beat for perhaps ninety seconds or so. Then she expired. We did everything we could.” The doctor’s eyes were dark and liquefied. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Dr. Mathis.” He waited a beat. “Some parents feel . . .” He cleared his throat. “Would you care to see the body?”

  There she lay, in an antiseptic room, wrapped in a bloody towel, tiny, bluish white, nameless. Blameless. A life lived in not quite ninety seconds. Had she even taken a single breath while her damaged heart fell off the cliff? He had forgotten to ask the doctor, and now, for some strange reason, it seemed important to know. He desperately wanted this child—his daughter—to have taken at least one breath, to have come fully into his world before she had been snatched away. Delivered into the hands of God, some would say. Richard didn’t believe that. No God could be so cruel as to end an innocent baby’s lif
e in ninety seconds. It was unthinkable.

  And yet here she lay. Nameless. Dead. Forever beyond his reach. He felt as if he had been struck by a train, thrown onto the tracks, crumpled, dying, while his heart broke. “She was turned so that her elbow pressed against her twin’s chest,” the doctor had said. Arbitrary, unjust, inexplicable. The world slid away, failing to make sense, as if gravity itself had ceased to exist, as if he were choking on the air he breathed. He saw nothing but chaos ahead.

  With trembling hands he took her up, held her to his chest, close to his heart, as if with proximity and force of will he could transfer some of the beats of his heart to hers. She did not stir. She was cold and waxen. And yet he could not have loved her more.

  Nameless. He could not abide her going to her grave without a name, and so he named her Alice, after his mother. Alice Mathis.

  “Hello, Alice,” he whispered into her ear. “I love you.” His vision grew blurred, and his voice broke on the last word. “Goodbye.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When she was seventeen and a half, Orfeo taught her how to play “Malagueña” on the guitar. Three weeks later he took her to the famed shop on Bleecker Street where all the great musicians bought their instruments. Gibson or Martin: that was the question. Laurel quailed at the prices. “Both are too expensive,” she said. “I can’t afford either.”

  “Nevertheless,” Orfeo said, “pick the one you like best.”

  She let him buy it for her and wasn’t sorry when she brought it back to Orfeo’s apartment, and they spent the next hour playing duets to the delight of the family. Applause all around. And then a feast of a dinner from Nonna. She felt as if she were on top of the world, as if the atmosphere she was breathing was heady with brilliant possibilities.

  The following week, Orfeo embarked on his grand project with her: Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. At Orfeo’s she had heard Miles Davis’s truncated version and had fallen instantly in love. Now Orfeo was teaching her to play the entire concerto with him, bouncing the melody between them, working the trills and the complicated Moorish arabesques of the composition. Six months later, they were ready. Nonna arranged for them to give the concert at their church. The entire neighborhood came out, filling the pews to capacity and beyond: standing room only.