by S. F. Kosa
Or maybe I’m an oblivious idiot.
Wikipedia tells me that once a fugue is over, it doesn’t necessarily require treatment. The person might feel depressed or anxious in the aftermath, or even angry. But once it happens, it’s not likely to happen again. Though there’s always that possibility.
In the manuscript, Mina’s character ends up pregnant.
In our life, she disappeared after I pressed her on when she might get pregnant.
Now that the link is forged in my brain, it’s almost impossible to break.
I do more research, read some case studies that scare the shit out of me, and know I have to talk to her parents. I have to go back there and find out all the things they’re not telling me about their daughter. It’s obvious to me that Rose has a whole story to tell. But now that I’ve read about Ivy, I have to wonder if I’m walking into some sort of psychological tinderbox. If what Mina wrote veers close to her actual past, then Rose might have every motivation to hide what she knows, and she might even be part of why Mina’s gone. Mina went to her parents’ for dinner last Monday, and as far as I know, they’re the last people who saw her. Did they trigger her somehow? I’m fully aware this might be my fault, but Rose might bear some responsibility as well.
After another glass of single malt, I head up to our bed as the time creeps past five, manuscript in hand, planning on reading another few chapters and digging deeper into the mystery. But I’m asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, sinking into an oppressive dream in which I find Mina, but she looks nothing like herself. She’s not herself. She knows me, but I don’t know her, and as she reaches for me, I run. Behind me, I hear her chasing, hear her breathing, but the sound is animal and terrifying. I want to stop running, but I can’t.
I wake up in a panic, my heart hammering, head feeling as if someone’s using the inside of my skull as a bass drum. I’m still in my clothes, and I reek of sweat and fear. Hard beams of sunlight bisect the room. The pages of the manuscript lie scattered across the floor. Cursing, I drop to my knees and crawl around, trying to get them in the right order, not sure I want to read what lies ahead.
One of the editor’s comments, in the margin of page 156, just says I’m so sorry, honey.
With a churning stomach, I take a shower, shave, run my fingers through my hair, avoid looking in the mirror. I can’t bear to see my own face right now.
It’s already past noon. I should check in with Drew and with my mom. I should watch the news or call Correia. Instead, I drive toward Truro, ready to clarify the line between truth and fiction. When I pull into the Richardses’ driveway, psyched up for a difficult talk or even a confrontation, the space is jammed with vehicles. As soon as I open the car door, the scent of barbecue hits me.
Mina is missing, and her parents appear to be having a party. On a Thursday afternoon. And my first thought hits me with an icy chill: that’s just what Ivy would do.
As I stand in the drive and listen to the faint lilt of country music filtering through the open windows, a black pickup truck pulls in behind my Lexus. The driver, barrel-chested, square-jawed, grizzled with white stubble, slides out of his ride. A woman with short, graying blond hair gets out the other side. She’s holding a plastic cake carrier, one that looks cheap and sad compared to the antique tin carrier—pale blue with a floral pattern—that Mina used to transport a coconut cream cake when we went over to have dinner with a group of local artists in April.
The man gives me a wary look. “Here to read the meter?” His lip curls. “Or are you another damn reporter?”
The woman clucks her tongue at him. “That’s her husband, Winn. His picture’s on the mantel!”
Instantly, the man’s face changes, morphing from cautious and vaguely hostile to friendly and vaguely distressed. “No offense,” he says sheepishly. “Just hadn’t seen you before is all.” He holds out his hand. “Winn Dalrumple.”
I shake. “Alex Zarabian.”
“I’m Michelle,” the woman says, offering a warm smile. “Did Rose and Scott let you know we were doing this?”
“I didn’t mean to crash the party,” I say. “I can come back later.”
“That’s silly,” Michelle says. “They’ll be so happy to see you.” She and Winn march up to the front door, me trailing along in their wake.
I enter the living room and am greeted by the stares of several strangers and one friendly face—Sharon Rawlings. Her silver hair wags around her ears as she comes forward and hugs me. Not grinning this time, not cheerful. “I’m so sorry,” she murmurs. “This must be so stressful.”
I mumble a thank-you as she lets me go and turns to the rest of the people in the room. Her gaze settles on a stringy bald guy with a beard who is sitting near the fireplace, a cane leaning against his chair. “Phillip, this is Alex,” Sharon says.
While the other people in the room make sympathetic welcoming noises at my arrival, the thin man’s eyebrows rise in question, and then he glances back at the photo on the mantelpiece. “You don’t say!” Phillip’s face transforms with a smile as he swivels back in my direction and uses his cane to lever himself up.
I move forward to shake his hand, which trembles as he extends it. “Are you feeling better?”
“I told him you were in the hospital,” Sharon says.
He rolls his eyes. “Did you tell everyone I was in the hospital?” He looks back at me in that fraternal kind of way that says Women, am I right?
“I happened to show up here last Saturday as Sharon was departing with scones for you.”
“I’ve always had an incorrigible sweet tooth.” His cheeks are flushed as if he’s embarrassed. “Rose is very kind.”
Sharon puts her hand on his forearm and squeezes. She stands so close to him, offering him some of her steadiness, and her smile is bright now, as if she can’t suppress it for long. “Isn’t she?”
“Are you back to normal?” I ask Phillip. “It sounded like you had a pretty nasty bout.”
Phillip puts his shaking hand over Sharon’s. “It’s going to take me a while, but the doctor says I should be fine in the long run. I was lucky.”
Sharon leans her head on his shoulder. “You were.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get sick, too,” I said. “You never figured out what it was?”
Phillip shrugs. “We’d gone out for lunch. Might have been the crab salad.”
Sharon makes a face. “Mayonnaise.”
“God is good,” announces Rose as she bustles into the room, wearing a frilly apron and carrying a tiered tray, tea sandwiches on the bottom, cookies in the middle, chocolates on top. She sets it on the coffee table while several of the ladies flap their hands in dismay.
“Rose,” a petite, bespectacled woman says. “We’re taking care of you this time, remember? When you brought the flowers for Mother, I didn’t go out and pluck my own garden clean in response!”
Rose leans over and envelops the smaller woman in an embrace. “I can’t help myself, Julie. I go into hostess mode! My mother was the same.” As she turns to the room, she finally catches sight of me. “Alex!” She blinks in surprise and looks around. “Where did you come from?”
“You had said—”
“Yes! Yes, I’m so glad to see you!” She rushes over to envelop me. “Do you have news?” she asks quietly in my ear.
The genuine dread and worry in her voice makes me question how much of Ivy is actually real. I’m realizing I have a lot more pages to read when I get home. It’s possible I’ve gotten this wrong, and either way, Mina’s mother deserves the benefit of the doubt. “Not really,” I tell her. “But I’m—”
“You must be starving, in that cottage all alone,” says Rose. She gestures to the people milling around us, helping themselves to the tea sandwiches and bonbons. “Our friends have really come together for us. Everyone brought a dish, and we’re setti
ng up in the backyard! Rob and Coral Blackstone brought us some homemade sausages”—she wriggles her fingers toward a middle-aged couple standing near the front windows—“and Andy brought clams!” She gestures toward the backyard, where I assume Andy is lurking. “He’s the shellfish constable for Truro. And the Tindalls brought burgers. Scott’s by his grill, which means he’s the happiest man alive.”
I shift to one side and peer through the kitchen window, where I see Mina’s father solemnly prodding burgers and sausages as a tall, burly guy with curly hair chats him up. “Yeah,” I say. “He looks absolutely giddy.”
Winn laughs. “He actually does, by Scott standards.”
Sharon gives him a light slap on the arm. “He keeps his feelings close to the vest.” She turns to Rose. “You’ve always been able to draw them out, though, haven’t you?” Then she pokes her elbow at her husband, causing him to sway. “Hasn’t she? Rose has a gift.”
Phillip’s cheeks are red again. “I need to sit down.”
Sharon instantly puts her arm around him. “We shouldn’t have let you get up in the first place.” She guides him back to his chair.
Rose offers the room a closed-mouth smile. Her lips are a bright pink. “I’m going to get myself a drink. Can I offer anyone else a sweet tea?”
A couple of people raise their hands, and a few others—all women—offer to help, but Rose waves them off, clearly more comfortable with being in charge than being served. I follow her as she flits back into the kitchen. “Sorry I didn’t come by earlier this week,” I say. “I was going to, but—”
“Don’t say another word about it,” Rose says as she pulls a pitcher of tawny liquid from the refrigerator.
“I think we should talk, though. Over the phone, you had said—”
“Oh, I’ve been a mess lately. I don’t even know what I said.” Rose breezes past me and sets the pitcher on the counter, then pulls several glasses bedecked with sunflowers from the cabinet. She’s not looking at me. It’s as if she’s talking to herself.
“Rose.” I move closer, standing between her and a plate of lemon wedges on the kitchen island. I wait until she turns to retrieve it. Our eyes meet. “You know something about what might have happened to Mina.” She shakes her head and starts to move past me, but I sidestep and block her path. I decide to take a risk, to jump into that unknown space opened up by the story Mina decided to tell strangers but not her husband. “Mina’s disappeared before, hasn’t she?” I ask quietly.
She pivots and walks around the island, reaching the lemons before I can grab the plate. “Can’t you see I have people here?” she whispers, her gaze sliding toward the living room. Beyond the door, I see curious faces—Michelle, Julie, and Sharon, who gives me a smile when she sees me looking.
“I understand, Rose, but if you know anything—”
“I don’t know anything!” She’s still whispering, but it’s shrill. Almost desperate. “This is not the time.” Another sidelong glance at the little crowd in the living room.
“Your daughter is missing,” I snap. “She’s been gone for a week and a half. She could be anywhere! If you—”
“Stop it!” Rose sets the plate of lemons down so hard that there’s a sudden crack. It’s broken in two. She blinks down at it, looks back at the guests in the living room to see if anyone noticed (Phillip is staring at us, and so is Julie), and immediately gathers the mess and dumps it into the trash before heading for the fruit bowl to pluck two lemons from the pile. She does all this in the space of a second or two while my heart pounds and my brain tries to catch up. She pulls a cutting board from a cupboard and a knife from the block. Standing there, blade in hand, she finally makes eye contact with me again.
“I apologize for my outburst,” she says in her usual genteel voice. “That was entirely ungracious.” Her eyes are shiny, but there are no tears there, only a fierce kind of desperation. “All I’m saying is that this isn’t the time to get into it right now, with all these guests here.” She turns her focus to slicing the lemons, wielding the knife with a smooth, practiced expertise.
That benefit of the doubt I was trying to extend? It’s gone. I’m inching closer to believing that Rose, beneath the gracious hostess mask, is exactly the monster that Ivy appears to be, at least according to what I’ve read so far. I peer out the window to see Scott looking back at me. I don’t know how he possibly could have heard what just transpired, as almost nobody in the living room seemed to. Maybe he sensed the waves of distress rolling off his wife. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” I say, hoping to bring her back to a more cooperative frame of mind. “I’m trying to find your daughter.”
“Of course you are,” Rose said. “And so are the police. The detective seemed very determined.”
“Did you talk to her about Mina’s past?”
“Detective Correia was very focused on the present. Besides, my daughter is thirty-two years old. Which part of the past do you think we should be dredging up, exactly?”
“The part where she disappeared,” I say, careful to keep my voice quiet and level. No inflection, no question.
Rose finishes cutting the lemons and goes to the fridge to retrieve the ice basin. “Alex, this isn’t a good time.”
“When is a good time to talk about your missing daughter, whose abandoned car was just found in Beech Forest with her keys and wallet inside?”
She clamps her eyes shut and presses her hand over her mouth for a moment before saying, “The phone has been ringing nonstop. This morning, a reporter showed up at the door. Asking all sorts of questions. I’m just trying to protect her privacy. Can’t you understand that?”
“Not even a little. Unless you know where she is.”
Our eyes meet. “I don’t,” she says. “I have no idea. But it’s the police who are going to find her, not some nosy reporter who’s in it for the ratings and would love to use all the sordid details of my daughter’s life to make a name for himself.”
Of course she’s worried about that. “What are the sordid details, Rose? What happened to Mina?” My jaw clenches, and I lean forward. I can’t keep the derision out of my voice as I snap, “Are you afraid it’ll reflect poorly on you, maybe damage your social standing?”
Rose watches me for a moment, and then she tilts her head. Her eyes narrow. Her voice, when it comes, is sickly sweet. “I’m wondering how comfortable she was with you, Alex. Is it possible my daughter was afraid to talk to you? I tried to raise her to make the right choices, but even good women end up with controlling, violent men.” She pauses, letting her words sink in as I think of Willa Penson, instructing Mina to be brave as she prepared to tell me whatever it was she’d been hiding.
“Well,” Rose continues with a hint of a victorious smile, seeing that her bullet struck home, “I’ve been trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ve asked Scott to do the same. And while I am willing to discuss some details of Mina’s early life with you, I hope you’ll show us some courtesy and allow that conversation to wait until a more mutually convenient time.”
“She’s done this before, hasn’t she?”
Rose once again glances toward the living room. “No one outside the family knows,” she hisses. “And if you press me on this now, you will regret it. The detective was very interested in your relationship with my daughter, Alex, and whether it was troubled. I don’t want to have to call her and confess my newfound fears.”
The threat sails right past me. All I hear is the confirmation—Mina has disappeared before. I don’t know for how long or where or if it was this dissociative fugue thing or something else, but I know what Mina wrote isn’t just a story. She told her editor the truth; the book is based on her past. Now I need to find out what it can tell me about her present.
“We’ll talk later, then,” I say. “When you’re not entertaining.”
I’m not backing down because I’m intimidat
ed by Rose. This is a strategic retreat. Rose gave me something just now, and she’s willing to give me more. But I’m not going to get it now because Rose is playing hostess. It’s so utterly fucked up, but I’m getting the feeling that the fucked-upness is more of a feature than a bug. It makes my chest hurt.
“Thank you for understanding,” she says as she finishes scooping ice into the glasses, which she has placed on a handled tray. She pours tea into each glass and garnishes each with a lemon. “Please stay and have some lunch. There’s plenty of food!”
She picks up the tray and heads for the living room, entering with another pronouncement that God is good.
I suppress the urge to shout WHAT THE FUCK and head out to the backyard. If Rose won’t talk to me, there are other ways I can gather information. I snag a beer from the cooler and introduce myself to a man who turns out to be Andy Poole, the shellfish constable. He looks the part of a guy who has spent most of his adult life at sea, with skin weathered by the elements and eyes a washed-out, watery blue. When he hears who I am, he mutters something sympathetic and asks me how I’m holding up.
I think about that. “Honestly, it’s weird, being in Provincetown. I’ve lived in Massachusetts my whole life, but it feels like her place. I’d never been here until Mina first brought me.” It was in February, of all times, winds howling and sleet pelting the windows of the cottage. We spent most of the weekend in bed, rising only to make eggs and retrieve a bottle of champagne from the fridge. And now I’m there alone.
Andy laughs, raspy and low. “So you’re a tourist.”
“Do I get any credit for marrying a native?”