Tethered

by Amy MacKinnon

  After she closed shop at five, I would stay on an extra hour to clean and ready the store for the next day. Often I stayed later, learning the names of the flowers, their textures and scents. Once my chores were done, it would soothe me to wander the stockroom, where buckets were filled with all manner of flowers. It was my haven to be surrounded by buttery roses, sharp lilies, demure orchids.

  And I was earning money, saving it from week to week. In the town library, I scanned the Boston Globe classifieds, seeking an apartment and a job that could earn enough to support the two of us. I found everything I needed: a summer rental, cheap until the fall, when college students returned and rents were raised; plentiful jobs, the kind I could do, anyway; and advertisements offering cash for diamonds, no questions asked. At night, my grandmother kept the ring in a box on her chest of drawers. It had been her mother’s.

  I knew the bus schedule and planned to leave within weeks, when concealing my condition, by then nearing my eighth month, would be difficult, especially when spring cardigans were exchanged for summer shifts.

  But it’s the curse of the young to be hopeful.

  The cramps started sometime in the night. I woke in my bed, under the crucifix my grandmother had nailed above my headboard, waiting for them to pass. The pain twisted in my belly, gripping my insides, wringing them around and then round again.

  When it stopped, I slipped from between the sheets, pressing myself against the wall to avoid the swollen floorboards that ran along the middle of the hall. Though my grandmother was well into her sixties, her hearing was still sharp. It took several minutes of careful toeing before I reached the staircase. As I started down, another spasm caught me. I pushed the meaty part of my palm into my mouth, biting down hard enough to leave teeth marks for days to come. But I didn’t scream.

  I recall this being the first time I was relieved that the lone bathroom was on the first floor. After all those years of dreading the middle-of-the-night trek in the creaky old farmhouse, now I was grateful. More than that. I closed the bathroom door just as I was caught in another grinding contraction. When it passed, I climbed into the ancient claw-foot bathtub and lay there, a towel bunched under me, another stuffed in my mouth. It all happened so quickly.

  My legs were spread wide, feet pressed against the bead-board wall, my back against the unforgiving porcelain. She was born minutes later in a spasm of fluid and blood and desperation. When I looked between my thighs, my breath came in quick, heaving bursts, but hers did not.

  She was the length of my forearm and just as thin. Exquisitely tiny veins were visible through her transparent skin, and her eyes were closed. Her hair was thick and brown, plastered to her head, blood smearing the crown. She was beautiful.

  Carefully, I lifted her to me; she was weightless in my arms. I took the towel from my mouth and swaddled her with it, instinctively pressing her to me for warmth. I wiped at her face with the corner of the fabric, and then with my own cheek. It never occurred to me that she should have been crying.

  I peeked at her beneath her makeshift blanket. Her chest rose and then collapsed in quick, raspy succession—once, twice, three times—and then stopped. I waited for her to move again. Of course she didn’t.

  “Breathe!” I begged. The single word shattered the night.

  I don’t remember walking outside, the mile along Preston Road leading to the main square, carrying my daughter in the chilly night air. When I came to the florist shop, I must have reached into the mailbox to retrieve the key, unlock the door. I must have, but I don’t remember.

  Her casket was an elegant ivory box reserved for long-stemmed roses and baby’s breath, for happier times in a person’s life. I washed her in the back room with soap and a soft cloth, stroking the length of her little body, feeling her skin beneath my fingertips. When I was done, I kissed her mouth and laid her naked on a bed of daisies, purely white.

  It was a simple ceremony in the village graveyard, free of words and promises. She’s buried along the tree line near my mother, between two grand evergreens. Her only marker is a shower of pine needles. I know she’s there.

  I do remember returning to my grandmother’s house and making my way back to the first-floor bathroom. The sound of the pipes rattling when I ran a bath must have woken her at that early hour. She didn’t knock, just walked in; locks were forbidden. The sight of her thin housecoat and worn slippers, the front of her legs a fireworks display of exploding spider veins, made the moment somehow sadder. Her face was soft with sleep, though her mouth retained its hard edge. She carried her boar’s-hair brush in one hand, expecting the worst of me.

  “I had cramps,” I said. My grandmother’s eyes lingered over the bloody water and then back to my face. “It’s that time.”

  She stood there watching me, both of us dangerously still. Then, without speaking, she closed the door and returned to bed, leaving me alone with the blood and ache and loss.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mounds of cigarette butts grow in the abandoned flower beds, their expanse broken only by perennial clusters of trash. Standing at the entrance of the Vanity Faire apartment building, caught in a wind tunnel, my core is overwhelmed by the bitter cold. A middle-aged man exits the foyer, a watch cap pulled snug around his head, the fingers of his gloves cut away. He holds open the door for me, a cigarette dangling from his lips, but I pretend not to notice him. He appears annoyed and whips the cigarette atop the others, shaking his head as he walks away. The odor of Eileen Craig still lingers.

  I can’t stay much longer. I need to make final preparations for Miss Craig’s service. It will be the briefest of ceremonies, led by Linus, without benefit of clergy. She’s bound in a simple cotton sheet with scarlet geraniums (consolation in despair) by her side. She was discovered too late for clothing. It will be a closed casket. Only her mother and sister are expected, and then she’ll be cremated. It seems money is an issue. I expect Linus will absorb his fee. Though it’s well known he doesn’t charge for children, I’ve learned he extends this consideration to some adults as well. He’s never told me he does this, but family members have often returned in the days following their loved one’s service, arms bursting with rich fruit pies, a father’s pocket watch, and once, a pair of lobsters struggling to free themselves from the confines of a paper bag, struggling to live. All told me of his largesse. They spoke Linus’s name as if he were their savior, and I suppose in some way he was. With Miss Craig, he even went so far as to order a funeral bouquet, an arrangement I’m supposed to be picking up now for this afternoon’s service. But I’m here instead.

  It’s time to walk into the apartment building, but I know once I do, I’ll be walking away from my careful life and entering Mike’s world again. The doors open easily.

  Nothing has changed since the day before last, other than the odor, which is less intense. I take the stairs up to the third floor and pause on the landing. I scan the mouse hole and wait for it to scurry out, but it doesn’t. I don’t know what I’ll do once I’m outside the apartment door. Knock? Ask for the little girl who so resembles Trecie? Ask for Trecie herself?

  Hurrying down the hall, I turn my face away as I pass the pregnant woman’s apartment. There’s the little girl’s door. Careful to avoid the peephole, I press my ear beneath it and hear the murmur of a television. My heart lurches at the sound of children arguing, their many voices low. Without thinking, I knock.

  There’s an explosion of yapping and silence beyond that. Then the door cracks open. The girl is standing there, the little dog cuddled in her arms. He’s shivering, his eyes frenzied, ears cocked. The child appears unafraid, though her expression is nearly worn through.

  “Hello,” I say.

  She simply stares back. The dog wriggles in her arms, a familiar bone-pendant hanging from his collar. She’s wearing faded blue sweatpants and a T-shirt that looks to belong to an adult, Cape Cod in once green letters scripted across the front. A sour odor wafts from inside.

  “I saw you
the other day, with the dog”—I nod in his direction—“and was wondering where you got him. He looks just like the one I lost.”

  She continues her silence. Then I remember she had been speaking Portuguese. Shame overwhelms me. How absurd to think I could do this on my own. I should have called Kate, allowed her to handle it. Better yet, I could send her an anonymous message. There’s still time.

  I bow my head and turn to leave when the girl calls out, “What’s your dog’s name?”

  My breath catches. I think back to when I was at Mr. Kelly’s house. How long ago was it? “Peanut.”

  “Oh.” She looks down at the dog now whimpering against her chest. She rubs her cheek along the top of his head. “That’s his name too.”

  I try to see around her, into the apartment, but she’s standing in the narrow space of the cracked door. “Maybe I should talk to your parents.”

  “Mama’s not home.”

  “What about your father?”

  She shakes her head as she squats, laying the dog across her lap. He rolls onto his back, exposing a round belly, his eyes seeking her face. But she is watching me. I hear a whisper from inside and a younger girl tries to squirm through the narrow opening of the door. I catch a flash of her and nothing more before her older sister whips her head to warn her, “Shh!” Turning back, she continues stroking the dog in short, reflexive sweeps.

  “You must have a lot of brothers and sisters in there.” She says nothing. The only sound between us is the dog’s panting.

  I don’t know where to go from here. My mind flips through questions, but I’m afraid of scaring her off the way I did Trecie. There’s an urgency pressing into me, constricting my lungs and my legs, forcing me to make my last, best effort. She speaks first.

  “Are you going to take Peanut?” Her head is bowed now, her body curled around the dog. She appears utterly defeated. It feels hopelessly cruel, but I must press on.

  “Where did you get him?”

  “From Victor.”

  Victor. Yes, Victor. Not Vincent or Vito or Rick. Victor. I bend and reach to pet the dog. I notice how badly my hand shakes and move faster so the girl won’t see too, though she’s focused on him, her mouth pressed close to his ear, perhaps whispering her farewell. Within inches now, he turns and bites my finger. Peanut leaps from her lap and races around her legs, back into the apartment.

  We both stand, and before I can say a word, the girl (yes, she’s definitely older than Trecie, by a year, two?) whirls to face me. “I don’t think he likes you.”

  She slams the door and I hear a bolt slip into place. My finger begins to throb and there’s blood seeping from just above the middle knuckle. Standing there, blood coursing down my finger, I wait to see if she’ll come out again. She won’t, I know she won’t. I walk back down the hallway. My finger’s burning and my head aches. Victor.

  I’m nearing the stairwell when the pregnant woman flings wide her door. It crashes against the wall and I find myself in a familiar stance, cowering and paralyzed.

  “Don’t you come to my building to buy your drugs, bitch!”

  She’s holding a bag of cheese curls, her mouth and fingertips an unnatural orange. In spite of the comeliness of her full womb, her expression is menacing. My eyes flash past her; the apartment is bigger than Eileen Craig’s and far cleaner, though there is the faint odor of tobacco. A scented candle—apples and cinnamon—flickers atop the kitchen counter. Her little boy is watching a large-screen television, sitting cross-legged on a plush rug, his face so close to the dancing puppets it’s as if he were a part of the program too. He doesn’t start at the commotion.

  “I was looking for my dog.”

  Something inside of her clicks and she relaxes against the doorjamb, thrusting her belly forward as she does. Her fingers find their way back to the bag and she pops several cheese curls into her mouth as she speaks. “You were here the other day. You took that nasty dead woman. How long is it going to smell? I got kids to worry about.”

  It’s hard to focus on her words, between the pain in my finger and the terrible uncertainty of not knowing if I’m moving toward Trecie. With my good hand, I reach into my pocket and pull out a stack of business cards. There are some for local florists, livery services, and two toxic cleaning companies who specialize in sanitizing after the dead. I give her the latter. “Your landlord should call this company.”

  “Look at you,” the woman says, gesturing to my finger with her own orange tips. She doesn’t move to take the card. “Did that yappy little dog bite you?”

  I nod. It’s time to move on, pick up Miss Craig’s flower arrangement. And I need a quiet space to think.

  “You got AIDS?” she asks, eyeing my hand. Before I can answer, she sucks on her teeth and then shakes her head. “Come on, you gotta stick a Band-Aid on that or something before you drip it all up and down the hall.”

  Though I shake my head, she persists. “Come on in. Knowing them”—she nods in the direction of the girl’s apartment—“the dog probably has rabies. You’d think they’d have themselves a Rottweiler or pit bull. Some kind of guard dog. That’s what most drug dealers around here have.”

  “Drug dealers?” The little boy glances at us as his mother closes the door; we’re already in her kitchenette. In the far window sits a small potted Christmas tree strung with lights now turned off. It’s sprinkled with red and green balls, a plastic angel prays on top, and the base is wrapped in gold foil. The woman gestures for me to put my hand under the kitchen faucet, and then she wipes her face and hands with a wet paper towel.

  “Yeah,” she says, reaching for my wrist as she floods my hand with hot water. She’s surprisingly strong. Her hair smells of straightener, and her dark skin, free of makeup, glows under the fluorescent light. “That woman is strung out. Crack, heroin, meth, take your pick. Men used to come by her place at all hours. I called the police once, about four years back, but they didn’t do a damn thing. One cop stopped by, didn’t even call child services. Ran out that boyfriend, though, threw him right down the stairs.”

  I try to keep my voice steady. “How many kids are there?”

  “Am I hurting you?” She’s pouring hydrogen peroxide over the cut now. I’m barely aware of the sting. “Lord knows how many she’s got in there. Five, six? I never see them go to school, that’s for sure.”

  She’s winding the cotton dressing tight around my finger. Within seconds, the tip is chalky and numb. “Have you seen a little girl? She’s about seven, maybe eight, with long dark hair? Her name is Trecie.”

  She puts away the tape and gauze, shaking her head, her mouth a curt frown. “Look, living around here, you learn to keep to your own business. Only reason I called the police that time was because the mother had an evil boyfriend. But whoever came next is worse. When this new one started visiting, I could hear a lot of crying and carrying on, mostly from the children. My own boy was a baby, and I don’t know if you have kids, but once he was asleep, I wanted him to stay that way.” She crosses her arms on top of her belly and glances at her boy. “My advice is go get yourself another dog.”

  I stand there, not more than a second, two at the most, but it feels a lifetime. The bright exuberance of children’s television flooding my ears (it must be the same show down the hall), the constancy of living with fear and danger, the lingering odor of death. This is Trecie’s life.

  “So was that your dog?” The woman extends a can of Diet Coke. I shake my head and she opens it for herself.

  “Pardon?” I need to pay attention.

  “The dog. Was it yours?”

  “No,” I say. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Good.” She reaches for the bag of cheese curls. “ ’Cause you don’t want to take on that boyfriend. He will mess you up, and he’s untouchable.”

  “Victor? Why?” I can feel it again, that push forward, momentum and speed, a lurching toward something.

  The woman’s movements slow and the cellophane bag she’s holding begins
to shake. “You got to go now. Right now. Get.”

  I walk to the door and turn back to apologize, but she remains in the kitchen. As I leave, I catch sight of the little boy. He frowns at me as I pull the door closed.

  When I reach the hearse, I turn the ignition and then feel in my pocket for Mike’s card. I try not to think what it says about me that I carry it still.

  “Mike Sullivan.”

  I pause and he repeats himself before I can will myself to respond. “It’s Clara. Clara Marsh.”

  “Oh.”

  I tuck the cell phone against my shoulder. “I think I have some news. About Trecie.” My nails brush a sore spot at the back of my head and a jolt of pain streaks as far down as my neck.

  There’s a long pause and then Mike exhales. “You should call Kate, she’s the lead investigator on this case.”

  I scrape away the scab, seeking out baby hairs. They’re too soft yet. “I think I know where she lives.”

  Mike’s voice grows sharp. “What do you mean?”

  I allow my hands to drop to my lap. I can feel blood begin to ooze. “I was picking up a body at the Vanity Faire and a girl came out of one of the apartments. She looks just like Trecie, they could be sisters. She has a dog, too, his name is—”

  “Clara, stop.”

  “But—”

  “I know you want to help, really, I do. Jesus Christ.” He sighs. “Look, Clara, we don’t even know if your Trecie is the same girl in the video.”

  “She is, I know,” I whisper. My free hand returns to my head, with intention this time. There’s a patch of wiry curls near the crown.

  “I don’t know,” says Mike, his voice rising. “What are you doing, anyways? First you say you don’t know anything about Precious Doe’s birthmark and then you say some girl is hanging out in your funeral home?”

  A jerk and several strands come free, the roots a pleasing white. The sting transports me if only for a moment. “It’s true.”

  “Really? So how come no one else has seen her?”