Now You See Her

by Joy Fielding

  “They were in the phone book. It was easy.”

  You’re not making this very easy for me.

  “What did you say to them?”

  What are you trying to say?

  “Well, it was Shannon who answered the phone.”

  I’m in love with someone else.

  “Which was perfect, because it was Shannon I wanted to speak to anyway.”

  You’re in love with another woman? Who, for God’s sake?

  Sarah.

  Sarah? Our golf instructor?

  You say that like it’s a dirty word.

  How long has this been going on?

  Not long. A few months …

  We’ve been married almost twenty-five years. We’re going to Ireland for our twenty-fifth anniversary.

  I was married to my first wife for almost thirty-three years, Vic interjected, reasserting his presence in her head.

  “I explained who I was,” Liam said, “and assured her I wasn’t trying to get her in any trouble but that it was very important she listen to me.”

  “What did she say?”

  One day Kathy said she was feeling kind of funny.

  “She didn’t say anything. She just listened.”

  Three months later, she was dead.

  Sit down, girls, the school principal told Marcy and her sister, ushering them inside his brightly lit office. I’m afraid I have some very bad news.

  “And what did you say?”

  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea …

  “That I knew she’d been out with Jax on Friday night and that he’d given her a pair of earrings, earrings he’d stolen from your hotel room.…”

  By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown …

  “She got all flustered, said she knew nothing about it, that she’d had no idea the earrings had been stolen. She begged me not to tell the O’Connors or go to the gardai.”

  Marcy, the police are here.

  “I told her that I had good reason to suspect that Jax and Audrey were using her to get to the O’Connor baby.…”

  We’ve found an overturned canoe.…

  “My God, how did she react to that?”

  “Well, naturally, she got very upset.…”

  Has your daughter been depressed lately?

  “What did she say?”

  No, you’re wrong. There has to be some mistake.…

  “That she was sure I was mistaken, that it wasn’t possible …”

  Till human voices wake us …

  “Somehow I managed to convince her. Or maybe she was just afraid of getting into trouble and losing her job.”

  Our daughter is dead, Marcy.

  Devon is dead, Marcy.

  “At any rate, she agreed to help us.”

  “What?”

  “Shannon has agreed to help us find your daughter,” Liam said, temporarily silencing the other voices in Marcy’s head.

  “How?”

  “By talking to Audrey, setting up a meeting …”

  Marcy held her breath, waiting for the rest of the sentence.

  “Except it won’t be Shannon who goes to meet her.…” Liam said.

  “It’ll be me,” Marcy whispered now, as she had the day before.

  “It’ll be you,” he repeated.

  “Do you really think Shannon will go through with it?”

  “I think she’s too scared not to. Afraid we’ll go to the gardai about the earrings, or worse, blab to the O’Connors about Jax, and she’ll be out of a job. Nah, Shannon will come through for us, you’ll see.”

  Marcy pushed herself out of bed and walked to the window, stared beyond the rain-soaked garden into the blank screen of the early morning horizon, watching it fill with images of yesterday. The garden became the hotel lobby, its shrubs morphing into sofas, a series of trees at the garden’s periphery melding into the mahogany staircase, the wet grass weaving into an elegant area rug.

  “How soon do you think this meeting will take place?” Marcy recalled asking Liam.

  “Could be as early as tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Today, Marcy realized, shivering despite her warm pajamas.

  “Shannon said she was gonna call Audrey as soon as the O’Connors went to bed, try to set somethin’ up.”

  “Do you think Audrey will get suspicious?”

  “Nah. Why would she? They’re friends, aren’t they? Friends arrange get-togethers.”

  “I guess.”

  “What’s the matter?” Liam asked. “Not getting cold feet, are you?”

  Was she? “It’s just that after everything that’s happened, it seems almost too easy.…”

  “It’s not a question of being easy,” he told her. “It’s a question of greed.”

  “Greed?”

  “If our boy Jax hadn’t gotten greedy, if he hadn’t seen your earrings when he went to trash your hotel room and decided to pinch them, we wouldn’t have had any leverage. Shannon would probably have told me to sod off the minute I told her why I was calling. It was them earrings that made her stop and think twice.” He laughed. “I told you that things have a way of working out in the end.”

  And if they don’t …, Marcy thought now.

  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea/By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown.…

  “It’s not the end,” she said out loud.

  Till human voices wake us …

  “It’s not the end.”

  And we drown.

  “It’s not the end.”

  Our daughter is dead, Marcy.

  Devon hadn’t drowned.

  “It’s not the end.”

  So this is it? Marcy asked her husband of almost twenty-five years, noticing his image lingering by the garden gate. You’re really leaving?

  It’s better this way, Marcy. You know it is. We’ll just end up hating each other if I stay.

  Too late, she told him. I already hate you.

  That’s too bad. I was really hoping we could be friends. We still have a son together.

  I don’t need to be reminded I have a son.

  Are you sure of that?

  Damn you, Peter, Marcy thought, watching his image evaporate and the garden return to normal. Damn you for saying that.

  Damn you even more for being right.

  She returned to the bed and picked up the phone, quickly punching in the number for Darren’s cell. It was picked up after three rings, although there was no voice on the other end, only muffled sounds and heavy breathing. “Hello?” Marcy said. “Hello, Darren? Darren, are you there?”

  “Mom?” a sleepy voice whispered.

  “Oh, my God,” Marcy said, realizing she’d forgotten about the time difference. “I’m so sorry. Did I wake you?”

  She pictured her son huddled beneath the covers of his narrow bed in the old log cabin he shared with the eight ten-year-old boys in his charge and understood he was keeping his voice purposely low so as not to wake them. The curly brown hair he’d inherited from her was no doubt coiled into a comical assortment of hirsute twists and turns, and the serious hazel eyes he’d inherited from his father would be struggling to stay open.

  “It’s okay,” he told her. Then, with growing panic, “Is something wrong? Did something happen to Dad? Did he have an accident on his way home?” The questions spilled out one on top of the other, each one more urgent than the last.

  “There was no accident,” Marcy assured her son, feeling a pang of jealousy at his concern.

  “He didn’t have a heart attack or anything, did he? He seemed okay this afternoon.”

  “Your father is fine,” Marcy told him.

  “I don’t understand,” Darren said, the last remnants of sleep falling from his voice. “Why are you calling?”

  “I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “At one in the morning?”

  “I’m really sorry about that. I forgot about the time difference.”

  “Time difference
? What are you talking about?” Darren asked.

  “Didn’t Dad tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I’m in Ireland.”

  “You’re in Ireland?” her son asked incredulously.

  Marcy heard the silent Are you crazy? that followed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there today,” she told him.

  “Why? You never come to visitors’ day.”

  “That’s not true.” Marcy started to protest, stopping when she realized that it was true. She had always found some excuse not to make the trip to Maine: Devon wasn’t feeling well; Devon didn’t want to go and Marcy didn’t think it was a good idea to leave her alone; Devon had been acting out again, refusing to take her meds. And then after Devon’s overturned canoe was found floating in the middle of Georgian Bay, Marcy had been too consumed with grief to go anywhere. It was all she could do to get out of bed. “How’s the weather up there?” she asked.

  “You’re asking me about the weather?”

  “It rains here almost every day.”

  “What the hell are you doing there?” Darren asked.

  “I don’t know,” Marcy admitted.

  “Weren’t you supposed to go there with Dad, like a second honeymoon kind of thing?”

  “Yeah, well, that didn’t exactly work out as planned, did it?”

  “Is Aunt Judith with you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re alone?”

  “Yeah. It’s kind of nice, actually. I’ve never really spent any time alone before.”

  “What’s going on, Mom?”

  “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Are you having a nervous breakdown?”

  “What? No, of course not.”

  “You’re in Ireland,” her son told her. “You’re calling me at camp at one o’clock in the morning.”

  “I’m not having a nervous breakdown.”

  “You’re not thinking of doing anything crazy, are you?” He immediately qualified his statement. “Crazier than what you’ve been doing, I mean.”

  “I’m not thinking of killing myself, Darren.”

  “Are you sure? Because it kind of runs in the family.”

  “Your sister didn’t kill herself.”

  “Dad says she did.”

  “Your father is wrong.”

  “Mom …”

  “Look, I really should get going, let you get back to sleep.”

  There was a second’s silence, then, “Sure,” Darren said. “Whatever.”

  “I love you,” Marcy said.

  “Yeah. Good night, Mom.”

  Marcy hung up the phone. So, she thought. Her son couldn’t say “I love you,” even when he feared she was on the verge of suicide. Could she blame him? She hadn’t been an active presence in his life in years. Devon had sucked up all her energy, drained her motherly juices dry. And even then, Marcy had managed to fail her. I’m an awful mother, she thought.

  Oh, please, Judith said impatiently, appearing without warning. Enough with the self-flagellation. You weren’t an awful mother. Do I really have to remind you what a truly awful mother looks like?

  She tried her best, Marcy argued silently.

  So did you.

  My son hates me. My daughter is …

  Is what? her sister asked, as clearly as if she were standing right beside her. Your daughter is what, Marcy?

  What have I done? Marcy wondered. What am I doing?

  Slowly, as if her feet were encased in cement, Marcy walked to the desk across from the bed and retrieved her purse. Then she sank to the carpet and opened it, pulling out the by-now-tattered envelope inside and placing the pictures of Devon in a semicircle around the lone picture of her mother, running her fingers lovingly across their cheeks.

  Then she withdrew the second envelope, unfolded the letter inside it, and began to read.

  My beautiful Mommy, she began, then stopped. Could she really do this? Did she have any choice?

  Marcy began again, hearing Devon’s voice filtering through each word. My beautiful Mommy, I don’t expect you to understand what I’m about to do. Please don’t be mad, and understand that this is not a decision I’ve made lightly. I know how much pain I’ve caused you. Believe me when I say I have no desire to cause you any more.

  Marcy pictured herself racing down the hall to Devon’s bedroom right after the police had left, finding the letter addressed to her that her daughter had placed carefully on her pillow, and quickly pocketing it before Peter could arrive and demand to see what it was. “No note?” he’d asked, standing ashen-faced in the doorway moments later.

  “No note,” she’d lied, waiting until later when she was alone to open it again. Those first awful lines, lines that seemed to suggest …

  “No,” Marcy told herself now, as she’d told herself then, returning the letter to its envelope, then pulling it out again with her next breath, forcing herself to continue.

  These last few years have been a mix of heartache, pain, and despair. I wish with all my heart it was otherwise. I know how hard it’s been for you. I hope you know how hard it’s been for me, too. Sometimes it has taken every ounce of strength I have just to put one foot in front of the other, to make it through each endless day. It’s gotten to the point where even saying good morning hurts because I see the hope in your eyes that simple greeting elicits. Then I have to watch that hope die as the day drags on and on and on. One day bleeds its poison into the next. Each day is worse than the day before. Nights are the worst time of all.

  I feel as if I’ve descended into a bottomless pit of sadness, and there’s no way I can climb out, no matter how far down your hands reach, no matter how desperately they try to pull me up. The well is too deep, the water too cold. I feel myself sinking farther and farther below the surface. I now realize that giving in is the only way out.

  I can honestly say I feel better, lighter, more energized, than I have in years. I’m actually happy, strange as that must sound. Knowing what I have to do has freed me to remember all the good times we shared: the mornings we spent drawing at the kitchen table, the nights you spent patiently sitting beside my bed, waiting until I fell asleep, the afternoons we spent curled up together on the sofa watching Sesame Street, and then later, The Young and the Restless. How grown-up that made me feel! I remember the time you took me to the ballet when I was barely four years old and let me dance in the aisle as the Sugar Plum Fairy danced on the stage, and how you clapped so proudly when I was done. I remember shopping for shoes when I was fifteen and you bought me a pair of boots that were more expensive than the ones you bought for yourself because you saw how much I loved them. I remember you sitting in the audience of every painful high school play I was in, cheering me on at each and every swim competition, the pride I saw in your face whether I won or placed a distant fourth.

  Most of all, I remember our wonderful summers at the cottage, the days spent canoeing and lying in the sun, the long walks through the woods, the barbecues at sunset, the mother-daughter confidences we shared before the darkness in my soul made such confidences impossible. You were always so wise, so patient, so loving. How I wished I could be just like you.

  Please forgive the awful things I said to you. I know there was nothing you could have done to save your mother. Just as there’s nothing you can do for me now. You did everything you could. This isn’t your fault.

  Please know how much I love you, how much I’ve always loved you, and how much I always will.

  And know that I’m finally at peace.

  Devon.

  “Oh, God,” Marcy whispered, tears pouring from her eyes and streaming down her face. What did it mean? That her daughter had indeed paddled her canoe into the middle of Georgian Bay that cold October morning almost two years ago and purposely disappeared beneath its frigid surface? That no matter how hard she’d tried to convince herself otherwise, nothing could distill the terrible clarity of Devon’s words? Was that why she’d stubbornly refused to show the letter to a
nyone else? Because then she’d have been forced to acknowledge that Peter and Judith were right, that Devon had taken her own life?

  I now realize that giving in is the only way out.

  “Oh, God,” she said again as the phone beside her bed began to ring. She stared at it without moving. Her daughter was dead. Marcy couldn’t deny it any longer.

  In truth, she’d known it all along.

  The ringing stopped in the middle of the fifth ring, only to start up again seconds later, as if whoever was calling knew she was there.

  Exhausted by the sound, Marcy crawled toward the phone and picked it up. “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello, Mommy,” the voice announced curtly. “I understand you’ve been looking for me.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  IT WAS ALMOST NOON when Marcy left Hayfield Manor and headed toward the grounds of St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral, located in the city’s South Bank. She’d spent the morning in a state of restless anticipation, unable to eat or sleep, pacing back and forth for a full half hour only to sit resolutely still for the next, afraid to leave her room until the appointed hour, jumping each time the phone rang, going over the conversation with her daughter again and again and again, hanging on her every word.

  “These instructions must be followed to the letter,” Devon had told her in an angry whisper. “One slip, one misstep, and I swear you’ll never see me again.”

  “There won’t be any missteps. I promise,” Marcy had said.

  Devon continued. “You don’t go anywhere; you don’t talk to anyone; you don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Don’t even think of calling the police.”

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t—”

  “And not a word to that sexy young boyfriend of yours.”

  “What? No. He’s not my … Devon, please …”

  “Be in front of St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral at one o’clock.”

  “St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral,” Marcy repeated, trying to place its exact location in her mind. “One o’clock.”

  “And remember—we’re watching you.”

  And then nothing.

  “Devon? Devon, hello? Are you still there? Wait. Don’t go. Devon? Devon?” Marcy sat on her bed, staring blankly out the window toward the garden, knowing their connection had been severed but waiting nonetheless, the phone poised at her ear for the next twenty minutes on the off chance there was something wrong with the line and her daughter was also waiting patiently on the other end. She’d remained in this posture—waiting, hoping, praying for the sound of her daughter’s voice.