Where the Truth Lies

by Anna Bailey

  The whole house feels like a slab of old butter that has formed a rind around its edges. A staleness in the air tells her that, since she left yesterday afternoon, nothing has been washed, including the people. She leaves her suitcase in the hall, moving carefully as though she is visiting a crime scene. On the couch in the living room there is an empty pizza box, darkened by patches of grease, and there are several crushed beer cans on the floor. A stain on the carpet in the corner smells faintly of urine.

  “Samuel?” She stands on the stairs and listens. “Noah?”

  The smell persists into her son’s room, and when she calls again, she hears a muffled thump from inside the closet.

  “Oh God, Noah.”

  Someone has put a chair against the door so that it cannot be opened from the inside. When she pulls it back, Dolly sees that her son’s little hands are red and swollen. She does not want to imagine how long he must have hammered on that door. Her chest hurts, as if she is somehow trying to absorb his pain, and she surprises herself with a sudden desire to put her arms around him. But he reeks of urine—his own, she will discover—so she turns the comfort of her body away. Noah, only four, just stands there, wearing the same clothes she dressed him in the day before.

  “What happened?” Dolly kneels down in front of him. “Where’s Daddy?”

  Noah stares intently at his red hands and starts sucking on his lower lip.

  “Hey, look at me. Did Daddy put you in there?”

  “I was crying too loud.”

  “And where is he now?”

  Noah sighs, as if this is obvious. “Daddy’s gone. Like you.”

  Dolly has felt guilty ever since she woke up on those dime-store cotton bedsheets this morning. Felt guilty the whole hour she drove home through the trees in silence, and by now it has become a dull ache in the back of her head. But blaming yourself is one thing, she thinks. The realization that her son blames her, too, the confirmation that this really is all her fault, makes her feel like an eggshell, suddenly stamped on. And, as is so often the case, she cannot confront that thought.

  She stands up, looking down at her little son in his soiled clothes with his trembling hands, and all she can say is, “Come on, then, we’d better clean you up. You smell disgusting.”

  NOW

  Noah waits in the truck with the engine silent, the lights off, and avoids catching his own eye in the rearview mirror. He doesn’t want to see what he looks like. If it’s anywhere near as bad as he feels, then it will only make things worse.

  The trailer park is a loose patchwork of orange and yellow squares—late-night lights against the black backdrop of the mountainside. Noah watches an elderly woman in the nearest window wrap her drawstring lips around a cigarette, her shoulders sagging on the exhale. He wonders if she is alone here, if she has always been alone. Are there children somewhere, and do they miss her? Does she miss them? Would she have stood by and watched their father push their faces into the dirt?

  The snarl of Rat’s motorcycle makes Noah sit up straight. He wipes his eyes and nose on his sleeve before slipping quietly out of the truck and padding across the grass to the RV. The wind brushes against him and he stumbles. He could cry at how fragile he feels, and when Rat gathers him into his arms and closes the door behind him, he thinks he might cave in under the contact, like a rotten peach.

  “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “Dragul meu,” Rat whispers against his neck, rubbing circles between his shoulder blades. Noah doesn’t want to ask him what that means. Something about the way he says it, so tenderly—he doesn’t think he could bear it.

  For a little while Noah just lets Rat hold him. Rat is shorter than him by a good few inches, and Noah has to curl his neck and shoulders down, but it’s worth the ache just to press his face into Rat’s hair, to breathe in the smell that reminds him of summer, of smoke rings, tightly coiled ferns, and kisses in places he never knew people kissed one another.

  Rat sits him down on his pile of quilts and washes the cuts on his face with warm water and neat vodka. It makes Noah wince, but it’s the good sort of pain: a little exorcism. Sometimes Rat speaks in English, other times in his mother tongue. Sometimes he doesn’t speak at all, but his hands are always gentle, the metal of his rings cool against Noah’s skin where it feels hot and swollen. It’s the gentleness of it that makes him start crying, as if, until now, he’d forgotten what it was like to be touched without violence.

  “Hey now,” Rat says softly, “it’s okay.”

  “It’s just… my mom, man, it’s not even my dad.” He wipes his eyes furiously with the heel of his hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I mean, what is it? It’s like she blames me for something, so she just lets Dad do whatever he wants. But then it’s like she hates me for making her feel guilty about it, so she… she just… Fuck.”

  He glances at Rat, his breath coming in short gasps as if he’s trying to suck in all the air in the room.

  “And you know the worst thing? I don’t even hate her. That would be so much easier, if I could just hate her like I hate my dad, but… God, it’s like, despite everything, there’s still this young, hopeful, stupid part of me that keeps reaching out for my mom, hoping she’ll be there, and she never is, man. She never is. Sometimes I want to feel like I can ask her to just put her arms around me, or something. I want that to be okay. For me to ask. But I look at her, and it’s like sitting outside a house with all the lights on when you know you don’t live there anymore.”

  He takes another deep, shaky breath. His throat still throbs as if he’s been retching, but the feeling of Rat’s hand on his back steadies him.

  “You know it’s all bullshit, right?” Rat says. “The stuff your dad said.”

  Noah sniffs. It’s not like he lives in a vacuum. He has the internet; he knows how the world’s shaping up these days. It’s not as though he even wants to believe in God anymore. But sometimes he thinks he catches a glimpse of Him, some elongated silhouette, creeping from tree to tree, or standing in the bedroom doorway at the edge of his vision. And if He’s there, if Noah can’t stop believing in Him, then doesn’t he have to believe in the rest of what the preacher says too?

  He blinks hard, trying not to let his eyes well up again. “Sorry.” It comes out as a whisper, but he feels too exhausted to try for anything louder. “I don’t even know what I’m saying. I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear about all this, you’re not… I’m just some guy you—”

  Rat leans over and kisses him, and their noses are at the wrong angle, and Noah’s mouth is swollen and salty, and their teeth bump against each other, drawing just a little blood from the softness of their lips so that everything tastes like rust, but the fragility of the moment seems to demand the certainty of iron, of hard contact, and so, Noah thinks, it’s the best kiss he’s ever had.

  * * *

  The heat of so many grown men in one room has left a slight layer of condensation on the windows and the Formica desks of the Sunday school. Pastor Lewis shuffles the papers in front of him, then leans back in his seat at the head of the table, massaging the bridge of his nose.

  “Last order of business, then. A few of the ladies feel there ought to be some sort of curfew for the kids until this unpleasant business with the missing Blake girl has been cleared up.”

  Jerry Maddox, seated at the pastor’s right hand, watches the rest of the guys fidget in their plastic chairs. The room feels too warm and sleepy, and the Whistling Ridge Men’s Church Committee seems to be operating on a lag, as always, unsure of what they want until Jerry or the pastor gives it to them.

  “I think that’s a fine idea, Ed,” he says. “Nobody under eighteen out after dark. How’s that sound? We can tell Gains.”

  One-eyed Bill Tucker nods, and corn-fed Drew Farmer snorts and rests his jowls on his hands. Mo Dukes, however, with fresh grease stains on his shirt from working the fry station at the Aurora diner all day, puts his fingers together and frowns. “That’s
all right for some, but my Beau sees a tutor every Monday and Wednesday. Is he going to get rounded up by a deputy just for walking home? And what about basketball practice? They’ve got state playoffs to prep for.”

  “The playoffs are important to all of us,” says Jerry. “My son is shooting guard. I know what’s at stake.” He knows, although he sometimes wonders if Hunter has any idea. The boy isn’t exactly what you’d call academically minded. A supposed commitment to varsity sports is going to have to be the selling point of any of his college application letters.

  Jerry turns to Mo again. “Your boy can’t play if he’s dead in a ditch somewhere, can he?”

  It’s the same thing every month, Jerry thinks. What’s this town coming to that even the men need their hands held through the simplest decisions?

  Pastor Lewis sighs, but if he’s tired, it’s probably the weariness of having to deal with these people for the past hour. “We can ask at the school about moving practice to lunch period,” he says. “As for your son, Mo, perhaps you should consider tutoring him at home from now on.”

  “Better to be safe than sorry, Mo,” Jerry adds, and Pastor Lewis nods approvingly. Mo Dukes narrows his eyes at both of them and does not stay to shake hands afterward.

  “Speaking of that whole bad business,” says Bill Tucker, stretching his shoulders back. “They any closer to finding out what happened to the Blake girl?”

  It’s only Bill Tucker, Drew Farmer, and him left now, the rest having filed out hastily into the cool of the night. Drew and Bill, they’re good old boys, Jerry thinks, the kind of backbone this town needs in today’s confused world.

  “You know, I wouldn’t blame the girl if she just plain ran out on that family. Pretty little thing like her could probably find work anywhere, if you know what I mean.”

  Bill Tucker shakes his head, but he grins wide enough for Jerry to see his dark metal fillings. Drew Farmer’s jowls wobble as he laughs. “You want to watch yourself, Jer. Next they’ll be saying you’re not politically correct.”

  “All I’m saying is these girls today, they sure look eighteen. I bet she’s probably greasing a pole somewhere down in Denver by now.”

  They wave goodbye in the church parking lot. Somewhere in the distance, music is playing on a car stereo, fading as the car moves further away, but the beat makes Jerry pause on the way to his truck.

  There had been music in the air that night. A soft June night, a gentle darkness relieved by the fairy lights strung between the trailers, and Abigail Blake had turned and looked at him. Not so far away, the Romanian boy was strumming his guitar, but she had turned her face up toward Jerry and he could see the freckles patterned on her nose. She smelled of strawberries and cheap liquor, and quietly she said, “Thank you.”

  17

  She didn’t say no. She doesn’t see how she could have. Night has its own sort of terrain, where the rules of the day don’t always apply, and Emma has read enough news headlines, heard enough horror stories to know what happens to girls alone at night when they turn down boys like Hunter Maddox. So when he asks, she gets into his car.

  They drive without speaking for a little while, as if they have an understanding, and Hunter hums quietly. She never thought of him as the sort of person who would hum while driving.

  At last he says, “You got any plans for college?”

  Emma stares at her dark reflection and runs a hand through her hair, wondering when she last took a proper shower. She’s been relying heavily on deodorant because she can spray it on to mask the smell of whiskey, but suddenly it feels as if she’s been running her body on fumes. Maybe he won’t be interested if I’m greasy and stink of Rat’s cigarettes, she thinks.

  “My parents are really hung up on me going somewhere out of state.” Hunter glances at her. “I said sure, California or something, you know? But they don’t want me going anywhere they’ve got legalized weed. Said it’ll mess me up. Like this town doesn’t do a good enough job of that already.”

  Emma watches the point in the road where the headlights fade out and imagines that they’re driving into some huge black throat.

  Hunter drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “So what are you doing hanging out with Rat Lăcustă?”

  “What do you care?”

  “Oh, she speaks!” He grins at her. “I don’t know, you just seem like a nice girl. Too nice for a weasel like that.”

  “Rat’s not a weasel, he’s my friend.”

  “Right.” He laughs. “I can promise you he’s not.”

  Nobody like Hunter Maddox has ever called her a nice girl. She can’t figure him out. She accepted the ride because she had no other option, but there is something about him—perhaps it’s the way he talks about his parents, or his dreams of going away—that reminds her a little of Abigail. Which in turn reminds her of why she’d wanted to talk to him in the first place. Abi needs her, and if Rat won’t help her, she’ll just have to do this on her own.

  Emma glances at him, fiddling with the zipper on her jacket. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Oh, well—you want to swing by my place? It’s two minutes away.”

  “Sure, if you’re offering.” She tries not to sound too eager. Whatever happened between them, something of Abi is still clinging to him, and Emma wants it back.

  * * *

  There are lights on in the downstairs windows, but Emma doesn’t see anyone as Hunter ushers her quietly through his parents’ hallway.

  “You’ll have to use the upstairs bathroom,” he says, pointing to the stairs. “Mom’s having the downstairs one converted into some kind of tiny art studio.” Emma wrinkles her nose and Hunter nods. “Yeah, I don’t know. It’s the second door on the right when you get up there.”

  In the bathroom, Emma makes a show of closing the door loudly and turning on the faucet. Then slowly, so as not to agitate the hinges, she unlatches the door, and creeps out onto the landing. If Hunter is keeping anything that could lead her to Abigail, his bedroom seems like the best place to look. She opens an office, an airing closet, and an unsettled guest room with a cold smell before she finds what she’s looking for.

  Hunter’s room smells faintly of matches and the floorboards are littered with cigarette papers and filters, among stiff socks, basketball uniform, and various USB cables. Emma doesn’t dare use the overhead light, but switches on the flashlight on her phone, and that’s when she sees the Polaroids. The walls, bare wood in the traditional cabin style, are plastered with little faces. She recognizes some of them from school—Bryce Long and Beau Dukes from the basketball team with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, trailer-park beauty queen Shana Tyson shaking out her big Afro hair, Beth Farmer grinning next to her on the hood of some car, the gangly Weaver brothers with bloody knuckles. Her breath hitches when she sees Rat. The flat Polaroid doesn’t do justice to his bone structure, but it’s him all right. Photographed from the side, flowers in his hair, blowing hazy smoke rings into the night—a handgun resting in his lap.

  A noise from downstairs makes her jump, and she takes a moment to steady her breathing again. The photo of Rat doesn’t matter, she tells herself. Rat doesn’t matter, not right now. It’s not his secrets she came for.

  She runs her eyes over the rest of the photos, scanning them for any trace of Abigail, thinking, I would know her shoulder, her hand, the edge of her jaw. But she can’t find even a scrap, and another sound from the floor below makes her heart rate pick up, until she is sure she can feel the throbbing right down in the ends of her fingers. She checks her phone: six minutes she’s been up here. Excusable, but then that can seem like longer when you’re waiting for someone. Hunter might decide any minute to come looking for her. Taking one deep breath and then another, she squeezes her wrist, as if she can stop her heart racing just by holding her pulse.

  She turns away from the Polaroids, shining her light over the spilling closet, the cluttered desk, the duvet bunched up like some big animal asleep on the bed—not su
re what she’s looking for exactly, but clinging to the hope that she will know it when she sees it. The moon casts strange shadows through the blinds, painting the room in bands of black and blue, and leading her eye across the floor to the little table beside the bed.

  It is here, down on her knees among the tissues and tobacco crumbs, that she opens the single drawer and sees Abigail’s Polaroid face smiling back.

  * * *

  Emma is just coming back down the stairs when Hunter’s parents walk in. His mother says, “You didn’t tell us you were bringing a girlfriend over,” but his father points shamelessly at Emma, and his mom quiets.

  “What are you doing here, young lady?” He juts his big chin in Emma’s direction, and Hunter thinks, God, no, don’t do this here, not now, not to her.

  “She was just using the bathroom,” says Hunter. “I said she could.”

  “I’d have thought better of you, Hunter, letting some stranger into our house.” Andie Maddox looks Emma up and down, taking in the shade of lipstick that doesn’t quite match her skin tone, how she seems too small in the man’s jacket she’s wearing. “You have to be so careful who you let into your home.”

  “Mom.”

  Emma is staring very hard at the empty patch of floor between Hunter and his parents.

  Sarcastically, Jerry says, “Does she even speak English?”

  “Yeah,” Emma replies, and Hunter can hear the tremor in her voice as she turns to him. “Thanks for letting me piss in your house.” Then she walks quickly down the last few stairs, across the hallway and out of the front door without another word.

  His mother presses a hand to her forehead at the sound of the door closing and lets out a loud sigh. “Hunter, honey, please don’t look at me like that.”