Local Woman Missing

by Mary Kubica

  “Mommy has to work,” I say soothingly. I peel his arms from my leg and gently shove him into Charlotte’s open arms. It feels awful to do this, to push my crying child away. In Charlotte’s arms, his crying intensifies. My heart aches. Leo tries squirming away, coming back to me. There’s a hitch to my voice. I choke back my own tears as I say, “You’ll have fun. You’ll play with the other kids. Before you know it, Daddy will be here to pick you up, and then you’ll be having so much fun you won’t want to come home.”

  It’s only lately that Leo has had stranger anxiety. Of course Charlotte is not a stranger. He’s known her for months. She’s far from a stranger. But these days Leo only wants to be with Josh or me. We talked to the pediatrician about it. She said to give it time, that, like most things in our kids’ lives, it’s a passing phase.

  “He’ll be fine,” Charlotte says. “He always is after you leave.”

  It’s the same thing that the pediatrician said. Saying goodbye is the hardest part. I take comfort in that as I stand alone on her front porch, watching as Charlotte carries my crying child away and closes the door. From the other side, I hear him wail.

  Delilah and Leo have been coming to Charlotte’s house since Delilah started kindergarten this year. Before that, they attended a different day care. I didn’t love it. It had a clinical feel, nothing homey like this. Things got complicated, too, when Delilah started school. Then I needed a sitter who could pick her up at the end of the day, who could keep an eye on her until Josh came home. The school didn’t provide a bus. Charlotte was that sitter, parading there with all the kids to pick them up, pulling the little ones in the red wagon. Until recently, the kids have been happy with her. I think of what the pediatrician said: a passing phase. This, too, shall pass.

  I turn my back to Charlotte’s house. My next stop is Shelby’s. I need to see with my own eyes if she’s okay after her texts last night.

  I drive to Shelby’s home. I leave my car on the street, behind a red sedan that’s parked on the curb. I step out. I make my way to the front door and quietly knock.

  Shelby peels the door slowly back. She’s still in her pajamas, from what I can tell, though the door blocks most of her body. I examine her face for signs of bruising. There are none. That said, she looks washed-out. She wears no makeup. In the coffee shop, she had makeup. Today she looks like she just rolled out of bed. I’m grateful to see her alive and seemingly unharmed. I breathe a sigh of relief. I never would have forgiven myself if something bad had happened.

  “What are you doing here?” Shelby asks. She’s unable to hide the surprise. I’m the last person in the world she expected to see. Her voice is quiet. It’s little more than a whisper.

  I’m relieved that there are no visible bruises. But I’ve heard that abusive spouses can be masters at hiding their handiwork. There may be bruises that I can’t see or, if her husband is abusing her, it could be emotional rather than physical.

  I’m not only worried for Shelby’s sake. I’m worried for her unborn baby. A kick or a punch to her gut could easily end its life. I looked up photos of Mr. Tebow online. He’s a large man. He looks mean.

  I say, “You didn’t text back last night, Shelby. I was worried.”

  Shelby looks vacant. Either she doesn’t know what to say, or she doesn’t know what I mean. Her hair is mussed up, thrown into a sloppy ponytail. Her roots are shades darker than the rest of her hair.

  She says nothing apropos of what I’ve said.

  Instead, “How did you know where I live?” It’s accusatory, almost. As if she thinks I’ve crossed a line. As if she thinks I’m stalking her.

  “It’s on the contract, Shelby,” I say. I can hear the patience in my voice start to wane. “You wrote your address on the contract.”

  “I did?” she asks.

  “You did.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Right. I did. I just didn’t think that you’d show up at my door.”

  I tell her, “I don’t usually show up at my clients’ homes. This is a first for me. But I was worried,” I say again. “After your texts last night, I came to make sure everything was fine.”

  I hear a man’s voice in the background. It startles me. My insides tighten. I see the shadow of him loom at the top of the stairs. I swallow against a bulge in my throat. That must be him, her husband, Jason. I hadn’t expected him to be home.

  He calls for her, asks her to grab him a drink on her way up. The gap in the door gets smaller. Shelby is inching the door closed, inadvertent or not.

  His tone is brusque, but not necessarily mean. Hey, Shel? Bring me something to drink, would you?

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” she calls up the stairs. She looks to me, says anxiously, “I have to go.” She fully intends to close the door in my face. Before she can, my foot inches forward. It happens unintentionally, before I can think it through. My foot fills the door’s narrowing crack so that she can’t close it when she tries.

  “What are you doing?” Shelby asks, surprised. She looks down at my wedged foot. Her voice stays quiet, words hissed. She doesn’t want him to know that I am here.

  I say flatly, “You didn’t tell me if you’re all right.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asks, her tone immature. Shelby is in her early twenties. I thought I’d reached adulthood when I was that age. Now, over a decade later, I realize that at twenty-three or twenty-four, I didn’t know much of anything. I still had so much growing up to do, so much to figure out about how the world worked.

  “Because of your text messages, Shelby. You told me you were scared of your husband.”

  “Oh. That,” she says. “I shouldn’t have sent that.” She runs her hands through her hair, pulls the rubber band out. Her hair falls around her shoulders. She shakes it out. “We had a stupid fight, that’s all. I fired off some stupid text. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Then why did you say it?” I ask, not sure if I believe her.

  “I was mad,” she says.

  “You said you were scared.”

  “He was yelling at me.”

  “About what?” I ask, not sure that she’ll tell me.

  “It was stupid,” she says. I say nothing. I wait, seeing if she’ll continue, and she does. “I spend too much money. He said I have crap for brains because I went and bought some new maternity shirts and got one of those prenatal massages. He says we’re broke and I can’t be wasting money like that, but he has no idea what it’s like to be carrying around a baby all the time. He doesn’t give a shit that I’ve outgrown my clothes.”

  “Did he hurt you, Shelby?” I ask.

  “He was really pissed off,” she says.

  I ask again. “Did he hurt you?”

  “Do I look hurt to you?”

  She doesn’t. I don’t know what to think. Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t.

  “You coming, Shel?” he calls again, more brusquely this time, losing patience. “I haven’t got all day to wait.”

  “It’s really nice of you to come check on me, Meredith,” she says. The rest of her words come quickly out, tumbling like a waterfall. “No one does kind things like this for me.”

  I lean in and whisper, talking fast, “Did he hurt you? You can tell me if he did. I can help.” I don’t know what I’d do to help other than go to the police. But I’d do that for her. She doesn’t answer. “You can talk to me.” I breathe the words through the doorway, withdrawing my foot to reach in and set my hand on hers. Her hand is cold. “I’m here for you,” I say.

  The grin on her face is very Stepford wives. “You’re sweet, Meredith. Really sweet. I’m glad I found you,” she says. She drops my hand. She goes again to close the door. She still hasn’t told me if she’s all right.

  I try to stop her. Before I can, the door is shut.

  LEO

  NOW

  Dad takes you to a sh
rink. The shrink came recommended by the lady cop, because she’s worked with trauma victims before.

  I go because Dad needs my help getting you to the car. The reporters are hungry, and the walk to our garage, where the car is parked, is long.

  We leave out the back door. We make a run for it, but the reporters are ready and waiting. They’re like vultures. They close in on us the second we’re out the door. They call out questions. Dad tells them, “Your first amendment rights don’t give you permission to trample our lawn.”

  He’s cheesed off, but trying not to fly off the handle because the reporters would only get that on video and show it on TV.

  Still, Dad threatens to press trespassing charges. It takes a while for the two fat cops to get out of their car, shut down the reporters’ inquisition and get them off our lawn.

  Between Dad and me, you shake. You’re not used to the pandemonium, to the sunlight, to the noise. Dad’s got his hooded parka on you, and you hide beneath the hood like Little Red Riding Hood, looking scared as hell ’cause the wolf is about to eat you alive. You’ve got my blanket with you, which makes me feel all sorts of things I’ve never felt inside. But I don’t point it out because I don’t want you to feel weirded out. And besides, externalizing feelings isn’t my thing. So instead I pretend that I don’t see the blanket.

  When we get to the shrink’s office, Dad and I stay in the waiting room, much to his chagrin. He planned to go in with you. But the shrink says no, that it would be better if Dad stays put. We never know what you talk about or don’t talk about with her. She’s got a white noise machine on the floor, so Dad and I can’t hear what you say. I see Dad looking at it. I read his mind. He’s thinking about pulling the plug, but he never does.

  This is what you told the police: you were kept in a locked basement by a man and a woman, who the cops now need to find. You don’t know how you got there. You don’t know much about your life before. You’ve blocked most of it out, though you have hazy memories of our house, Dad’s face, the fact that Mom is dead. Dad’s hoping the shrink can squeeze the rest of it out of you, especially your last minutes with Mom. He needs to know once and for all what happened. Dad’s willing to try just about anything to make it so: medicine, hypnosis.

  We go back to the police after seeing the shrink. The lady cop is waiting for us when we get there. “Can I talk to you, Josh?” she asks, and they disappear. I’m left with you. Someone else might try and make small talk with you. But I just stand there like some dope, not sure what to say. I should say something to make you feel better, but I can’t find the words. Anything I might say would sound stupid. So I say nothing. Dad and the lady cop stand in the far corner of the room. She holds a file folder in her hands, but she never opens it. She does all of the talking. Dad’s head nods.

  “What was that all about?” I ask when Dad comes back.

  “The DNA results.”

  “What about them?”

  “It’s her. She’s your sister.”

  I thought we already knew that.

  Today, when talking with the lady cop, you remember that the man’s and the woman’s names are Eddie and Martha. They’re the ones who kept you. The lady cop asks if you can describe them, and you do, but it’s fuzzy at best, things like brown hair and a fat face. She gets a sketch artist to sit with you. Then she talks to Dad. She asks whether Mom knew anyone named Eddie or Martha. Mom didn’t, as far as Dad knows. The lady cop thinks maybe this had something to do with money. Maybe Mom owed money to someone and so they took you as payment. She asks Dad if Mom was in debt to anyone, if Mom had gotten in over her head. Did she have a history of gambling, a drug addiction? Was she selling? There’s a thing with some suburban moms: selling prescription drugs like Vicodin and their kids’ Adderall to make ends meet. It’s been on the news.

  Dad has doubts. Even after all that’s happened, he still hero-worships Mom. Sure she took you, she ended her own life. I kinda hate her for it. But he idolizes her.

  “Meredith wouldn’t have done that.”

  “I know that’s what you want to believe, Josh. But we have to consider the possibilities.”

  Mom hadn’t been herself before it happened. Something went down that made her want to kill herself. We don’t know what.

  Dad wonders aloud about a middleman. What if Mom put you somewhere safe, and then that person gave you away? That’s the only way he can think that you would’ve ended up with Eddie and Martha.

  In an instant Dad becomes obsessed with this idea of a middleman.

  There never was much of an investigation into what happened to Mom. When she was thought to be missing, there were a few suspects, like Dad. But as soon as it became apparent she offed herself, they were all suddenly innocent. Only Mom was to blame, even though there were things found during the investigation that the cops swept under the rug. After the coroner said suicide, the focus shifted to finding you. Except that Mom’s note—You’ll never find her. Don’t even try.—made the cops think Mom had given you to someone she knew. Someone she trusted.

  The cops spoke to everyone Mom ever knew. There were never any leads.

  Back then, there was never any question of if someone stole you. Dad took comfort in that, even though he wanted you back. He stuck with that story my whole life, telling me and anyone who would listen how my big sister, Delilah, was in safe hands because Mom never would have let anything bad happen to you. It’s the only way he could sleep at night.

  I’m starting to think that’s not the way it went down.

  MEREDITH

  11 YEARS BEFORE

  March

  Dinner is in the oven. With classes to teach in the afternoon, I got a late start. Josh comes home from work with Delilah and Leo in tow, having picked them up from Charlotte’s on the way home.

  “How’d everything go with the kids?” I ask. What I really mean is how did everything go with Leo. Delilah would have been fine, because she’s always fine when she’s away from us. She’s playful and unreserved, always able to find a friend. But I want to know how Leo was when Josh picked him up. Had he stopped crying after I left? Of course he had. Charlotte would have called and told me if he hadn’t, wouldn’t she? I would have canceled my classes, gone back and picked him up. It would have broken my heart for him to cry at Charlotte’s all day.

  “Everything was fine,” Josh says. He’s nonchalant about it. I have the disadvantage of dropping Leo off. Of seeing him cry. Of having to push him into another woman’s arms for comfort. Josh gets to be the one to pick him up and bring him home.

  “What were they doing when you got there?” I ask.

  “Playing outside,” he says. This week is springlike: sunny, warm. Winter has left us, though maybe not for good.

  “How long until dinner will be ready?” he asks.

  “About thirty minutes,” I tell him, asking how the pitch went today. It went well, Josh says, grinning from ear to ear. They landed the client.

  “I meant to call,” he says, “but the afternoon got away from me. There was a lot of celebrating.” I imagine they cracked open a bottle of champagne after the deal was finalized. I can see how thrilled Josh is, and I’m thrilled for him as a result.

  “It’s fine,” I say. I go to him, feeling terrible that I didn’t think to do something more special for him tonight, knowing when he left this morning that this deal was nearly a sure thing. I should have made his favorite dinner. I should have called the sitter and made reservations for Josh and me at the steakhouse in town. Instead, I’m making a rather prosaic baked chicken recipe that feels suddenly inadequate for Josh’s good news. “I’m just so happy for you,” I say.

  “Happy for us,” says Josh, still grinning.

  “We’ll have some champagne with dinner,” I say.

  “Sounds perfect.”

  He excuses himself to go upstairs and change.

  While
waiting for the chicken to bake, I run a bath. Delilah goes first. She’s in a mood. “Stupid Lily Morris,” she says, pouting. “I hate her.” Delilah plops herself down into the warm water. She does it with such ferocity the water splashes outside the tub.

  “What did she do?” I ask.

  “She’s trying to steal my friend. She’s a thief, Mommy. A friend thief.”

  “Oh, honey,” I say, my heart breaking for her. I wish I could tell her that in five, in ten years from now, none of this will matter. That when she’s sixteen, she won’t even remember this little disappointment. But I don’t want to trivialize her pain. Words like that are of little comfort to a sad six-year-old. “I’m sorry she upset you. Friendships can be hard.” I ask, “Do you think you could all be friends?”

  “Lily Morris doesn’t like me,” she complains.

  “She doesn’t know you, that’s all. She’d love you if she got to know you. How could she not?” I ask, smiling at her. “Maybe we could invite both Piper and Lily over for a playdate,” I say. I tell her that we could make cookies, do a craft. I don’t know when we’d find the time to do that. But Delilah likes that idea. It settles her. It gives her something to look forward to. We’ll find the time. We’ll make the time.

  Leo is up next. With Leo naked in the tub, I see the bruise on his bottom. It’s about the size of a baseball.

  “What happened?” I gasp. I run a finger over it and he winces. It hurts to touch. The bruise is red. It’s fresh. The area around it is swollen. It hasn’t had a chance to turn purple. This bruise happened today.

  “Did you bump into something?” I ask Leo. He stares in reply. He says nothing. Either he doesn’t know, or he won’t say. “Do you remember, Leo, how this happened?” I ask again. This time he shakes his head.

  Leo asks for his bath toys. I get them for him. But this time when he lines his whale and fish up on the edge of the tub, they don’t gracefully swan dive into the water as they usually do. Instead, they kick one another into the tub. It’s aggressive. Mean. The much bigger whale uses its big blue fin to firmly kick the tiny, unsuspecting red fish into the water. The fish falls, becomes submerged. But only for a moment. It floats back to the surface.